Diane sounds like a less than ideal candidate for processing but perhaps all that is available. Though the tone remained strong, this installment felt heavy with exposition, some of which maybe could have been covered or hinted at in dialog. The sentence about half of the men and a year and a half read a bit awkwardly as well…I think it was the two halves.

I think THX meant the consecutive occurrence of the word ‘half’ in the sentence; reads a little awkwardly (but I see that this has been amended).

I like this, Epona – it’s an interesting read and you’re balancing exposition and narrative drive a bit more effectively than in the first installment. Good stuff.

Hey Epona, looks good. I think some carriage returns would help make it more readable.

I’m also a big fan of removing unnecessary adjectives. My recommendation would be to go through and delete every adjective from this story. Read it again, and if there’s any part that is crying for an adjective you can add it back in. We instinctively add adjectives and qualifiers that really aren’t necessary.