Date: 03 Aug 2013 22:31 Title: Chapter 1
Well that was a enjoyable novel, your conversation lead style worked, as did using bold for mirror universe events, and italics for the shared dream state.
The aliens plan and the slight difference from grabbing a different person were well done, as was the two Polemina attempt to capture Doug dream state and use him to give them power over the quadrant.
you deliver the chapter cliffhangers well and I stay hook till from start to the end.
Author's Response:
Oh, thank you so much! You're very kind. This was my first real big serious novel. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
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Date: 16 Jan 2012 01:21 Title: Chapter 27
You know why do I get the feeling that something is going to go tragically wrong? Why do I get the feeling that Doug is going to die, or that it is not happily ever after for Lili and Doug? I sense something really ominous, and this is a sign of an excellant story, because I've never had such a feeling when reading fan fic on this site until now. You're story is emotionally teasing me and I like it!
Author's Response:
Ha, thanks!
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Date: 16 Jan 2012 00:21 Title: Chapter 19
Hell yeah, this story is coming together, and it took a while but your really stringing the pieces together now. Things have got a faster pace and I definitely like where this is going. Even more so giving the time you've spent on these characters (especially the secondary ones like Lili and Hayes [though to you they could be primary ones, I don't know]). These are characters I actually care about, so you've done a good job of sucking me in. Nice little explanation about those Denobulan coins!
Author's Response:
Oh yay!
Lili and Doug are my main original characters for this series. I'm glad they are people who are meaningful to you.
And the coins - slowly, slowly, the loaded guns that were tossed on the table at the start of the story are beginning to fire.
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Date: 15 Jan 2012 00:17 Title: Chapter 16
Finally the mystery is revealed, and hell it is a juicy one after all, and well worth the wait. These aliens (I keep forgetting their names) are horrible, and if I didn't know better I'd say there plan is going to somehow fail miserably...
Author's Response:
Bad, bad things are afoot - but as you go along, you'll see divergences between the silver folk (on our side) and the copper ones (MU Calafans)....
PS Did you look at the weekly challenge I posted today? It's a sequel to Reversal. Might not to be too clear right now; it'll probably be clarified when you've finished reading Reversal.
And, as always, thank you for reading.
Date: 14 Jan 2012 04:29 Title: Chapter 13
Alright a bit of action, so those silvery aliens are up to something and you made a passing reference to the story title. Nice! I have to admit things are becoming more interesting, and you have a knack for stringing out these stories and steadily sucking the reader in.
Author's Response:
Titles always have multiple meanings - so the restaurant is only one piece of it (it's also to play on the French word reve, for dream).
And yes - the Calafans are up to something, on both sides of the pond.
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Date: 10 Jan 2012 13:39 Title: Chapter 8
I've been reading this story and at first it did not grab me but I persisted and was rewarded. I like your style of writing; very dialogue heavy and you keep descriptive stuff and exposition to a minimum. Sometimes that make things a bit confusing but I think you did that intentionally as you teased everything out with purely dialogue.
I've only seen the first two seasons (and a bit of the third season) of Enterprise, but despite that I have a good idea of what is going on, which can only be attributed to your writing skills. Another thing I've noticed is that you use sex a lot as a means to drive the plot, but sort of implicitly refer to it to keep the rating at M. I snickered quite a bit every time you used the word 'climaxed'.
This is a good story, and it is rather fast paced due to heavy bias to dialogue. Your style is similar to Enterprise1981 but your stories are bigger and (not digging at Enterprise1981) more complex and subtle.
I'm also starting to realise just how big this stories plot is, because if you had added more exposition and descriptive scenes you could have easily had a story 100000 words and more.
All in all I'm hooked to this story, so nice one!
Author's Response:
Oh! You're so kind!
I loved writing it and initially it was written with almost no planning at all. I just kind of dived off a cliff every morning. A very odd experience with such a sprawling novel, and I probably won't repeat it, seeing as now I have too much of a universe. Too much planning/interweaving/making sure plots stay consistent! But you know how it is - you've got a big universe of stories, too.
I kept the language light because this was originally posted on Trekunited.com and they have a rather strict profanity filter. There's one point where I wanted to write - "the bed is hard on the left" and the damned thing wouldn't take it! I ended up writing something like "the harder side of the bed is on the left". Pretty funny since I wasn't even writing about anything racy! So, yeah, words like climax, pulse, arousal, etc., those were all to keep in line there.
I definitely use sex as a plot driver, perhaps more than I should, but Doug is absolutely driven by sex (as is the whole MU, far as I'm concerned), so he's going to mainly communicate that way, as do the other MU people. I love to write dialogue and use it for exposition - I dunno if you recall, but when Robert Scorpio interviewed me, he asked who I would want to direct my stuff, and I said Robert Altman. That's all due to his use of layered conversations, where people talk over each other and at cross-purposes sometimes.
I like a sprawling plot, kind of Dickensian in terms of having so many characters. In that topic about OCs, you can see I forget to mention all sorts of people, like Jennifer Crossman (who is obviously both here and in the MU). I also subscribe to the idea of - if you leave a loaded gun on a table in Act One, you'd better fire it in Act Two. Right now, you're at the point in the story where I'm piling up a bunch of guns on the table.
Thank you, thank you, I had had an awful day and your review completely and thoroughly turned my mood around! Hugs across the miles! :)
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Date: 07 Dec 2011 14:43 Title: Chapter 35
They have plans, they are happy, they are in love.
This was an interesting story. The plot was absorbing, a lot of mysteries on the way to seek solutions and to keep me reading.
The Calafans are quite intriguing with their physiology and differences between regular universe and MU. It's interesting how their plot finally interlaced with Lili's plot to finally become an integral whole.
There was too much sex for my taste, though. It's not what I'm looking for in a Star Trek story.
Quite a good idea with adding some photos. A chance to see the "the world" through Lili's eyes ;)
Summing up--I liked it :)
Author's Response:
Thank you so much for reading and reviewing!
What I wanted for the characters is that this is a second chance for both of them. They reverse themselves and become new people, and love is what brings them there. The photos were to show what Lili sees, and also to show Doug (mostly) out of uniform, how he is changing and softening as a person. The scales fall from the reader's eyes as well.
I do make an effort to not be gratuitious with the sex scenes (I realize that part is not for everyone). I definitely don't want it to seem like PWP - what they are doing, how they are behaving and how they are reacting to each other is a part of them growing as individuals and as a couple. It's also meant to be a progression, from an anonymous coupling in the dark to them being solicitous of each other, and even a little scared.
Date: 07 Dec 2011 14:01 Title: Chapter 34
So, neither Polloria escaped justice. And seems like Treve was pardoned, if he was in the audience and not awaiting his own sentence. That's good.
The two rabbits have problems with staying away from each other? They behave like hormone-buzzed teenagers, in spite of all that talk how "old" they are. Old my arse :P LOL
Author's Response:
They are - both of them - renewed by being together. Lili had more or less resigned herself to dried-up spinsterhood, and Doug was written off as the Old Man for a reason; he was getting curmudgeonly and set in his ways. Not any more.
The story is very much a meditation on aging (which is why the Calafans show our signs of aging in reverse). I wrote this a year ago, and I was Lili's age and the actor who is Doug was Doug's age. Now we are both a year older. :)
Date: 07 Dec 2011 13:29 Title: Chapter 32
Wow, Polluted Malaria--both of them--have a nasty plan! And it got really messy!
Author's Response:
Ah, yes, the nasty, messy plan. They definitely set their sights ambitiously. Calafans can do bad things if pushed - or if they have no moral compass. It's the flip side of a shared dream, if someone leads you down the road to ruin.
When I first wrote the story, this chapter was my least favorite; I still don't know how well it worked.
Date: 07 Dec 2011 13:17 Title: Chapter 31
Polloria's name sounds to me like a combination of 'pollution' and 'malaria' LOL
Author's Response:
Ha! I never thought of that. I just liked how it scanned and sounded. The name breaks down (their names all have meanings - it was grand fun to write their language) to Pol (delicate) Lo (the chief goddess) Ria (serving girl), so the name means Delicate Serving Girl of (or dedicated to) Lo.
Date: 07 Dec 2011 13:16 Title: Chapter 30
I totally, wholeheartedly would like to declare that what Lili wanted to do was totally, utterly stupid. Seriously? To deform and "rebuild" her own body to just have some sex? Seriously? And Phlox--a physician--agreeing to do such a thing?
A relationship is so much more than just sex and intimacy is so much more than an intercourse. Blind desire makes her (and him) risk her health, because I don't believe that such drastic surgery wouldn't have any repercussions. This is SO unnecessary.
Author's Response:
Part of what's going on is that the whole thing is so new. If they had already been together for years, she probably wouldn't be entertaining it, or at least would have thought it over a lot more. But it is also - if not her, someone else will need this. And she is also mindful of the fact that, to be with Doug, it wouldn't be easy for either of them if the physical aspect of their relationship was just, suddenly, switched off for good.
For Doug, it also gives him a chance to offer up himself, a thing he never would have done in the MU.
Date: 07 Dec 2011 08:12 Title: Chapter 29
Oh, drat! That's worse than I thought. I still wonder if Calafans didn't have anything to do with that. They are so...different and they know a lot of things. For them those things are natural, but for us--completely unknown and a mystery.
At first I thought Reed was very protective of Lili like an older brother, but it turns out that it's not exactly that kind of feeling.
But Treve's proposition? Oh, my...
But her reply isn't surprising at all.
Author's Response:
When I read your story, Three or Four, I thought of these scenes. After all, there's no reason to believe that different species' proportions will be at all compatible. For Doug, there's the testosterone spike, but there's also how things are in the MU - the women are actively choosing these men (with the Y Chromosome Skew) as mates. Both genders are driving evolution and are pushing the skew, which is why it is found in such a large % of their population, and so quickly (it's a random genetic mutation from the time of the Roman Republic - about 400 BC or so).
For Malcolm, he is beginning to see that vulnerability is not just something to protect, but also how you let your guard down. In canon, he's had hookups (both on and off screen, and both before and during the time frame covered by the series), but has never really gotten close to anyone. And he's learning that getting close isn't so terrifying after all, and that it's something that he wants. But doesn't know quite how, yet.
As for Treve, well, he's just doing what they all do. They are psionically gifted and they have active noctural lives.
Date: 06 Dec 2011 13:34 Title: Chapter 28
Uh-oh. Is she going to bleed everywhere where he touches her? Or is it some kind of delayed reaction to what Calafans had done to her. Either way, it's not good, not good at all.
Author's Response:
Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but this garden is chockful of snakes.
Date: 06 Dec 2011 13:24 Title: Chapter 27
Why was Lili bleeding? Strange...I smell trouble.
Everything else seems so...normal. A calm before the storm?
Calafans still have some unfinished business. I wonder, why one side Calafans are silver and the other side ruddy?
Author's Response:
The blood is definitely a bad omen.
The little discussion, too, about their childhoods - Doug is explaining how much the MU is like Sparta, where parents gave their children over to be cannon fodder for the state.
Calafans - silver for our side, ruddy/copper for the MU - but they didn't start off that way (their evolutionary divergence is explained in the Temper story).
Date: 06 Dec 2011 13:17 Title: Chapter 26
Hmm, Phlox has a point. Who knows, maybe all other cases of crossing over to MU and back were possible because they just opened the can of worms here.
The most risky part done and he's on the "right" side now. Let's see how it goes from now.
Author's Response:
Phlox is more precient than it might appear on the surface ....
Date: 05 Dec 2011 11:25 Title: Chapter 25
The plan has been presented. Now they just have to put it in motion.
Author's Response:
Yes - the plan awaits its execution.
One thing to point out - the barrier - which exists because of how the amplifying dishes are configured - it's supposed to be somewhat similar to the Berlin Wall or the two Koreas. Related people exist on both sides, and want to communicate, but they can't, not really.
Date: 05 Dec 2011 11:18 Title: Chapter 24
Did touching the sleeping person require the touch to be so personal? O_O Like laying together in bed? Seems not, since MU Tripp just grabbed Doug.
Author's Response:
On Lili's side of things, they don't really know how intimate it's all got to be. Plus they're a little unclear on how it's all being accomplished. They know about the Calafan coin, and they suspect it means something, but they don't really know what it does mean. They've also figured out that Lili is sensitive to the contact. After that, they're unsure.
Date: 05 Dec 2011 11:07 Title: Chapter 23
So, there is hope and a chance that Doug can move into the other universe.
It's interesting that when Doug and Lili both sleep, they meet in some "other" place and have full power over their surroundings. But when one of them sleeps and the other not, the sleeper enters the other one's reality. It's like they either meet between the worlds, half-way between the universes, or travel to the end of the line to end up in the parallel universe.
Author's Response:
The shared dream state works imperfectly in humans because we really aren't wired for it, unlike the Calafans. So, yes, when they both hit REM sleep (and they lay on top of a bit of amplifying material, which is what the coin represents), they join together synchronously and have full control and full knowledge. But when one is in REM and the other is not, they can witness the other's doings but not influence them or communicate. They are just silent, invisible observers.
Date: 05 Dec 2011 10:41 Title: Chapter 21
Ha! So MU Polloria and Baden planned it. They had been planning this for eight years! And now they tried to trap Chawev into it and to force him to do what they wanted and even tried to trap Treve by wanting him to kill MU Jenn. But Treve was smarter than that and his father also started to think rationally.
Our universe scheming Calafans don't seem to be much better than their MU counterparts. Only their victim isn't as sex obsessed as MU Jenn.
But MU Jenn seems changed. Is it the bond with Treve that made her too soft for her own universe now?
I hope the Calafans can find a way to bring Doug to the other side of the pond, because he's going to be dead otherwise :(
Author's Response:
Oh, the MU people are nasty, eh? For the family, the key is Treve - because Yipran took forever and stubbornly didn't die. Chawev has few qualms (in either universe) when it comes to cheating on and poisoningg his wife and leaving her to her fate, but he chickens out when it comes time to dispatch her. He cannot deliver or order the coup de grace. And so Tree grows up and it presents a moral dilemma for him - and he comes down on the side of doing the right thing.
For MU Jenn, her brain-wiping was perhaps a bit less carefully performed than Lili's - so it's affected her personality. She's (Jenn) seeing that life on the Defiant is a dead end.
Doug - well, yes, he is sealing his own fate. And this is a truly generous act he is performing for Jenn. He could very easily kill her or take her back, and would probably be rewarded somehow for doing either. By letting her go, as when he tells Lili that he loves her, he's learning to act outside himself. Other people are becoming important to him.
But as you correctly pointed out, such sacrifices are painting a rather large target on his back.
Date: 05 Dec 2011 10:03 Title: Chapter 20
So, he said the Big Words and it wasn't as hard as he thought it would be.
Did Lili just start some kind of small revolution? And I suspect the homewrecker of poisoning the wife; not surprising at all.
Author's Response:
Doug is desperate, which kind of forces his hand. He has never, ever told anyone that before, not since he said such things to his parents when he was a very small child. But he's never said them romantically.
He definitely feels it. It's that, for nearly five and a half decades, he's been conditioned to believe that sort of confession is a sign of weakness. And he's survived for as long as he has by suppressing all signs of weakness, including the vulnerability that you need to show in order to truly become close to someone.
The proposal that Lili has made turns the Calafan society a little on its head. On our side of things, the High Priestess is more of a figurehead, and doesn't hold legislative power (think of the Queen of England). Whereas, in the MU, that same role is of sole real authority, a kind of last word after anything that the First Minister or the remainder of that government might wish to do.
Date: 05 Dec 2011 09:44 Title: Chapter 19
I wonder if the away team is going to crash the big Calafan party. And totally ruin it. Not that I would pity the Calafans and their mean plans of using a innocent person for their political gains.
Author's Response:
We have two very different away teams (three, really, because there are two separate teams in the Prime Universe), all converging on the ceremony and, perhaps, somewhere else ....
Date: 05 Dec 2011 09:22 Title: Chapter 18
Lili can read Calafan numbers or they somehow use very similar writing system?
Seems like Lili found the wife. And fading scrollwork on her arms tells everything about her condition.
That's interesting that Doug seemed to visit Lili when she was not asleep. He was like a ghost to her. Like his thoughts were there, projecting his body for him, but he did not exist for her senses to see or hear him.
Author's Response:
Yipran is definitely in bad shape. I figure Lili is partly drawn to her and partly that the numbers are a bit like just tick marks.
Things are unraveling, e. g. turning asynchronous.
Date: 05 Dec 2011 09:06 Title: Chapter 17
What? Aliens are not sentient? They talk, converse and all that stuff, but they are not really sentient and more like slaughter animals?
On one hand I appreciate not approving of sex without consent, on the other hand using rape as a weapon makes me sick. So in the end Calafans make me sick.
Jenn isn't much better, though. Do those people in MU think about anything else than copulation? They are preoccupied with it and it's surprising they get anything done.
Reading about Doug made this chapter much easier to digest :) He cares, he really really cares and wants to help her.
Author's Response:
Yes - Doug begins to step up here.
As for the Calafans, they have a system of government that's been selling them a bill of goods - that everyone who isn't a Calafan is inferior to them. They bring a specimen in, study that person this way, and then congratulate themselves on how superior they are.
Oh, and Doug's name is important, too - in Anglo-Saxon, the name (which was total serendipity) means "dark stranger".
Date: 04 Dec 2011 10:14 Title: Chapter 16
Oh, ok, now I see what I misunderstood about the "mother" thing. But I was right that it was Lili who they kept in that room (and Mirror Jenn in Mirror Universe?). Inferior my arse. Treve seems to have doubts about their practices, though. He doesn't believe in the end justifies the means thinking. I guess if Lily has any chances of surviving, he is one of the most important factors in helping her.
Who's that Polloria anyway. A homewrecker? Or is it just about having power?
Author's Response:
Polloria is a bad gal, definitely both a homewrecker/power-hungry.
And yes, it's Mirror Jenn in the MU. And Treve is key on both sides of things.
BTW just to quickly point out, dunno if you've picked up on this, but the names are all important. There is a reason she is named Lili O'Day.
Date: 04 Dec 2011 09:45 Title: Chapter 14
That's an interesting way of aging, those Calafans.
Now I wonder if there's something about Lili's bed, because it seems like people who sleep on it get into those...not dreams, I wouldn't call it simply dreams anymore...those alternate realities. Well, at least two our of two people.
It's interesting how they can communicate and have that PADD transfered between reality and that "alternate state" of...something. I wonder if it's the Calafans (who's the mother? I have a ridiculous thought that it's Lili), or maybe their unique system wity many suns...
Author's Response:
Yep, the bed is important (no spoilers). And it's the same bed for both of them, because the old equipment was repurposed into the Defiant years later.
And the Calafan mother ... well ....