Ashurbanipal chapter 2 part 1 (written by Amniel)

To those who are wondering:
Me and Amniel are writing this book together (I write a chapter, he writes a chapter...) So I am only posting all of them. The third chapter will be out soon (enough)

Ashurbanipal
Chapter Two

To have each man his own master is ruin; there must be one master, one king.
-Homer

The burning disc of the sun god Shamash ascended from behind the mountains and laid its light upon the countless stone roofs of Babylon. The light divided the great city to two parts, that of sunlight and that of shadows. The division moved forward as the sun rose higher, and it drew ever closer to the palace standing on top of the city. As it reached the magnificent palace, different shades of red and yellow began their dance along the tall marble pillars, the wide golden gates and the long hallways of the building. From on top of the palace roof, a lone man wrapped in brilliant indigo watched a new day dawn for his city.

The ancient city of Babylon was coming to life. The high governor of Babylonia surveyed the buzz of people below him like divine Ashur looks down on the lives of mortal men. He saw merchants rushing to their many attractive shops, bakers preparing their ovens, and soldiers beginning their daily training. All these appeared as only tiny figures to Nabopolassar. Who were they but lowly subjects to rule? Nothing but mere servants who carried out his will.

Insignificant. Dirt. Common men.

Nabopolassar scoffed at the last word appearing in his mind. Like a god he watched over their pitiful lives and gave them meaning and purpose. Like a god...

“Marvelling the beauty of the rising sun, are we now? I never knew you had an eye for the humble beauty of nature,” spoke a familiar voice from behind him. “...my lord,” the voice quickly added. Nabopolassar instantly recognised the sarcastic quality in the voice, and turning around simply confirmed his suspicions.

“Were it indeed so, Assar-Amniel. If I’d the time to do that I probably would. I’m sure as a general, you can appreciate the amount of time wasted governing fools,” answered Nabopolassar coldly, knowing that the general would only be there because something was amiss. Was the damn king finally dead?

“Indeed, but I’d rather stick to governing fools than rational men. Someday they might realise that they can use that little mind of theirs to choose for themselves. We can’t have that happening, can we?” Amniel answered sarcastically and flashed his usual accursed grin.

“As much as I enjoy talking to you, it isn’t worth wasting my valuable time. Get to the point.”

“Ah, still the skillful orator, I see. Very well, I shall do as you ask...for once.” Amniel grinned again. “No, king Pal isn’t dead...yet. Instead, our mighty King Pal has, in his endless wisdom, decided to appoint Ashur-Etil-Ilani as his heir. Of course this isn’t public yet, but it will be soon,” as he spoke, Nabopolassar’s eyes varied from extremely narrow when General Amniel called the king “Pal” to bulging out of their sockets as he reached the name of Ilani.

After a prolonged silence Nabopolassar came to voice again and asked, “Who knows this?”

“Aram, the leader of the King’s ‘secret guard’, as well as Ilani and a certain spy of ours.” Amniel seemed as though he was thinking hard, “Oh and if I’m not completely mistaken the king might know as well.” Another silence. Another grin.

“So the hour draws near. I will need someone close to the king when this plays out,” Nabopolassar said, now lost in thought.

“Let me guess, so you want me to go? Are you sure this is not just a ploy to get rid of me?” Amniel raised his eyebrows in an exaggerated manner.

“No, that is not why.”But it will certainly make the plan all the more sweeter, added Nabopolassar in his mind.

“So you have a reason to send specifically me to Nineveh?” asked Amniel.

“Yes. I want you to quietly smuggle soldiers near the city, so that we can strike quickly when the time arrives.”

“This is not my first time waging a war, Nabopolassar, however shocking it may be to you. I know how to do my job,” answered Amniel, a steel edge now entering his voice.

“That is not what worries me. What does worry me is that you follow my orders in the way you understand them, which often greatly differs from mine.”

“Have I ever done that?” Amniel gave a wide smirk.

Nabopolassar ignored him and continued: “Make your preparations and get going as soon as possible. You may leave my presence.” Amniel took a sharp turn without further ado, his layered bronze armour gleaming in the sunlight as he swiftly left the roof.

Nabopolassar plummeted back fully into his thoughts. Like a god...

Hi, Anssi (and Otto if you're reading this)!

I actually don't have that many nit-picks, but here's a few.

Nabopolassar scoffed at the last word appearing in his mind.

This is a little oddly phrased, to be honest. Could it be something like 'scoffed at the last thought', though it's not the best either?

Like a god(comma here) he watched over their pitiful lives and gave them meaning and purpose.

Assar-Amniel

Hahaha! Hahahaha! Okay, I'll stop now. Haha. I love that.

Amniel answered sarcastically and flashed his usual accursed grin.

The word 'sarcastic' have been used just a few lines ago, so 'sarcastically' sounds repetitive. Maybe 'derisively' or 'tauntingly'? Or 'in a mocking tone'? That could fit, too, since it's never very good to use too much adverbs (not claiming you do so, though). Oh, and accursed? I think you have a typo there.

our mighty King Pal

I get that his meaning is to annoy Nabopolassar, but this is repetitive and ends up annoying the reader as well.

“Who knows this?”

A bit awkward again. Better would be, e.g., 'Does anyone know?'

***


Okay! I liked this chapter quite a lot. I like Amniel's character (and without a doubt, we can all guess who he's based on), but you should tell us a little more background. Why doesn't Nabopolassar seem to approve the king? What's Amniel's function in the story? You have to be careful, because this being the third chapter, soon people can't keep on saying, 'This is only the beginning, it's OK to not know anything yet' and so on.

Also, I felt like your different style of writing showed a little too much, especially in the beginning. Otto uses more description than you do, Anssi, which is alright, but I think you should make your writing more similar. Though it could be fun to be able to see who wrote a certain chapter.

This is basically everything I have at this point. Keep writing and have fun!


Demeter
xxx

thank you for the review Demeter. I'll nix those things you mentioned and then tell Anssi to change those parts. We have different characters just so that the writing style differences won't stand out too much. Note that this is Chapter Two Part one, part two changes to the viewpoint of Amniel and explains a few things...but not all
ANSSI PUT THE PART ONE AS PART OF THE TITLE!!!
People otherwise think this is the whole chapter...

yeth mahstha

Hiya there, boys!

Since I've already done my little bit of reviewing, I'll give my overall comments.
1) So far, the 4(?) chapters that you've posted are tackling the story at different points,
so you're actually keeping up the story with quite a fair bit of characters and points of views. I'd advise that you start going back to one of them, instead of introducing more and more characters, so that it'll be clearer for us to identify the main character(s).
2) Again, Otto, I love your descriptions of scenery.
3) Well, it was rather short. I would have liked to read more and learn more.
4) Start developing the plot deeper, answer our questions, satisfy our curiosities. The part where Amniel (Tsk, you egotistical boy.) is ordered to prepare an army, is the sign that some action (yay!) is beginning, so that got my attention.
5) I didn't lose any interest throughout the story, and General Amniel's cocky personality made me laugh.

On the whole, great job! You guys are doing well so far.


~Have an awesome day!
Meep(:

[Oh, and like Demi said, it'd be fun to figure out who wrote the chapter, but it would be kind of obvious ]

Very, very sorry I forgot about this.

The light divided the great city to two parts, that of sunlight and that of shadows. The division moved forward as the sun rose higher,

I'm not sure what you mean by "the division moved forward" here. Since we don't know what's causing the shadow, it's hard to understand. ^_^

“Were it indeed so, Assar-Amniel. If I’d the time to do that I probably would. I’m sure as a general, you can appreciate the amount of time wasted governing fools,”

No matter how many times I read this dialogue, I can't tie it into the question above. Explain please. ^_^

But it will certainly make the plan all the more sweeter,

When you add something on it should be in italics.

Nabopolassar plummeted back fully into his thoughts. Like a god...

I'm note sure what this last line does for the work, although you probably have something planned.

~

Dialogue/Tags: I found some of the dialogue in here hard to understand, and as I pointed out in my nit-picks, sometimes I couldn't understand the dialogue at all. Try to make the wording a bit less formal and a bit more obvious so the dialogue is easier to understand.

The tags here can also be a source of confusion, since they're almost always after the dialogue. However you pull that off rather well, so it's not important.

Characters: Your viewpoint character here is a bit too much of an ego-maniac for me to really empathize with him. So is Amniel, to a point. And a quick warning about using your own name (or username) in a story: They can turn into perfect characters, based on the author's personality, and those characters can be rather boring to read.

Overall: I liked the description at the beginning here (other then my one nit-pick), but I found that things were a bit too stiff to completely understand. I was also having to put a lot of characters in my mind at once, which makes this chapter, again, harder to understand.

Hope this helps, and very sorry for forgetting about this!

Questions? PM me.

~Rosey