A retort to a New York snob critic...

So...I asked for it...and I got it in 'full measure'.

I could not lay down and just take this. But, please...to compare me to Schwarzeneggan 'I'll be back!'??? Please. I can just see this critic...ensconced in the comfort of a Starbucks fluffy chair, sipping his poof latte, dreaming he'll 'make it big' as a pithy word warrior. What a fag.

So-- here is my response to the editor:

Perhaps you could assign a critic whose antisemitism was not so pronounced?

I’m sure my latte drinking, New York snob critic was seeking crackling dialogue, but I can assure you having spent 30 years amongst the special operations community, conversational speech in the book is exactly reflective of how operatives speak.

Our heroic critic levels the following quip:  the content is ‘Derivative’?  He exercised his initiative to elaborate snide and pithy commentary, but in his fervor to flex his intellectual muscle, perhaps he missed:

‘…derived the correlation between ultrasonic coda wave relative velocity changes and reinforcement strains, covering 90% of the complex load-bearing behavior in reinforced concrete members, and demonstrated a feasible method for evaluating structural state objectives using ultrasonic coda wave characteristic parameters…’

Or:

‘What he found out was the originating source of the water springs was extremely high in arsenic and unpotable without significant purification.  The process to do this was called coagulation-flocculation: adding chemicals that cause small particles, including arsenic, to clump together, making them easier to remove through sedimentation or filtration.  By inducing an imbalance in ferric hydroxides that caused the arsenic to gather conveniently for the next step of filtration, he could render that purification ineffective…’ 

Full of easy cliches:

‘…the steppes of the Arizona upland with its occasional columnar cacti-- the towering saguaro, its thorny branches sporadically poking in random geometries reaching mostly skyward in graceful arcs.  ‘The landscape was not completely desolate: they saw some white bursage; the sporadic sprout of a random tuft of faded sagebrush; the fragrant creosote bushes whose musk was powered by the recent monsoon rain.’

Or:

patrols winding through the glades of wetlands normal people avoid, the sodden but significant ecosystems yielding vast areas of sawgrass marshes, tree islands and deeper sloughs. Garnished with bald cypress and water tupelo, the swamps skirted the Yellow River or transitioned to tangled mangrove warrens with their daunting and maddeningly entangling root systems cleansing Choctawhatchee Bay.’  

Or:

‘He could see it was akin to a boreal forest ecosystem which was known for its coniferous trees like black spruce, jack pine, and balsam fir.  In much less dense occasion, it was interspersed with deciduous species such as white birch and trembling aspen.  The patches of ground on which trees did not flourish, parts of the Spanish River or smaller tributaries and lakes were glistening in the sunlight.’

Or:

‘…the elimination of a diminutive, toad-like man hampered by a prosthetic leg, his face chronically pinched by pain, a wide valley of scar burrowing his jaw and cheek, its passage a chalky white ravine barely obscured by a thick, black beard; the twisted gorge in his flesh fueling the hatred under which he continuously labored.’

Or:

‘Those far more impressive mountains to his west loomed ominously.  The highest peaks rose to heights nearing 2000 meters, and even from here he noted crags and Couliers offering sharp relief, the ravines thrusting downward dotted with grizzled pines withered by the glaring assault of a vengeful sun.  Still, compared to the ground on which he stood, those peaks were pocked by a smattering of green, the blessing of rain far more profitable than the stingy offerings to the bazaar of the valley floor.

Contemplatively, he turned to the north.  Not nearly as impressive in stature in the big scheme of all things with a vertical inclination, a mote, really, yet the lesser foothills loomed.  As he scanned this sad, lumpy outbreak of acne blemishing the surface of the earth, he caught a glint of light.’

‘this laziness runs throughout the book’:

‘Beneath the stoic facade of the dam, a sinister dance of destruction unfolds. The once-imperceptible fractures, mere whispers in the concrete, now yawn openly not with a promise of impending sleep, but with a gaping maw of churlish repose no longer burdened by a dream of containment. Jagged veins in the smooth surface splinter and stretch, their edges grind against one another in a slow, torturous waltz. The dam groans under the strain: a low, mournful dirge echo through its bones as the cracks widen, relentless and unforgiving.  

Water, that patient predator, seeps into the breaches, its icy fingers prying apart the fissures with insidious intent. Each split multiplies, a web of chaos etched deeper into the structure.  And then, the surface trembles, betraying the turmoil below.  Through each breach a column of pressure-driven water surges, unleashed from imprisonment, now free to roam pastures downstream, a raging bull charging the red cape unfurled…’ 

Regarding character development, Druze is the 8^th book in a series.  Characters like the Warlock (the main protagonist and antihero), Obl*sk, ‘Cuda, Emersyn are fully enumerated throughout, and I would encourage our fearless critic to explore that landscape.  He did not find time to skewer what my readers might find repetitive perhaps because he did not read beyond page 45.

Again, I would implore you to assign a reader who is less antisemitic and professionally unbiased.