The first paragraph.
Powerful. I'll have to make a note of it in my list of great beginnings, =D
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But it is not a city. It is a smear, a stain, a clot, an open, festering wound. It breathes smoke and fog and drug-fumes into the sky, where there are vile gases in the stead of clouds.
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I love how you employ words in this passage, how you sum up the city-that-is-not-a-city in a few choice nouns, with a litany that delivers the nature of Veretchin as succinctly as a blow. And I like that you do not continue with the detail after the line, "They pretend they are safe"; you allow the portrait you have painted to sink in, and let the individuals with which you later populate that portrait to offer further detail.
My next favourite line of your prologue describes that "one machine in particular"": "Nowadays it sat, or stood, or ‘was’ in the middle of the room..." I love the choice of the word 'was', flanked by apostrophes - it not only indicates the "mere existence" of the machine, but of the world above it, the people pretending that they are happy, pretending that they are fine, pretending that they are safe. A mere existence soon to be shattered, I suspect.
You do a lovely job of establishing your world in this prologue, not only through description of the actual location, but through word choice as well. Yes, I know, I'm belabouring the subject of language, but what else can a logomaniac be expected to do? =P You use one-liners well, and balance them with the variety of your sentence structure - all in all, nice prologue from the language side of things.
But to continue my flogging of the subject, into Sermons One and Two...
The first thing that caught my eye in Sermon the First was the overabundance of adjectives, as well as adverbs, to a lesser extent. In a word, a glut of descriptive words smote my concentration.
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"Scattered rays lanced randomly through bullet-holes in the smog above the city and on the horizon. Birds sung their hollow chords through fretful beaks*. Empty feelings came to them. Crawling bugs died of fright in tiny catacombs that to them were massive. Weavers stabbed their left hands with shaking needles, creating symphonious screams; they died in a way that to them was an art, and their cries were music**. The Grim Angels hunched on shattered arches*** that danced through the air to make unimportant connections between breaking shells.****
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* I can understand the bird themselves being fretful, but their beaks?
** I must say, the sentence after the semicolon is art unto itself... but what is your intent, at this point? It's a lovely line, but its relevancy is unclear.
*** Such action seems difficult to imagine, let alone perform... if the arches are shattered, wouldn't they collapse under the Grim Angels hunched upon them? (If they're even still, improbably, standing?) This was the first thought that came into my head when I read this, as I am not yet familiar with the physics behind the Grim Angels... not that I ever want anything to do with physics, but I hope you understand my drift - until I am acquainted with the Grim Angels, I'm going to find it difficult to suspend disbelief.
**** And in itself, this last line, "The Grim Angels hunched on shattered arches that danced through the air to make unimportant connections between breaking shells" makes no sense. Angels hunched on dancing arches, and the arches making "unimportant connections between breaking shells"?
There are far more adjectives than necessary sprinkled throughout the beginnings of Sermons One and Two. Such excess distracts the reader and dilutes the power of your description. I found myself yearning for the noun, a verb, anything to break the stream of adjectives. Such profusion has a habit of numbing the reader - he forgets the first adjective, along with the first image he began to form in his mind, and ends up skimming, missing words and the ultimate image these words were supposed to convey.
And just as a plethora of adjectives is distracting, so too are the abstractions you fall in to: the descriptions of... well... I can't honestly say what. I can't grasp your meaning; there's nothing palpable for me to clasp, to understand. Take paragraph three in the First Sermon, for instance:
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Rivulets of impure water coursed along shabby brickwork before they evaporated in futile moments of half-life. Ink drabbed across fine parchment smeared as dying arms went lax. Blood congealed with alchemical concoctions and breathed life into bare granite. Cracks were placed in crumbling skulls that sat, rotting, in the forgotten cells of ungodly prisons.
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Now that I reread it, with the prior knowledge of the torture chamber, the Saint, and the Devil instilled in my mind, I begin to catch sight of a... building? catacombs? being described. But when I first read this paragraph, I had no prior knowledge of the situation; thus, paragraph three seemed made up of words without any discernible purpose. Perhaps the description would make more sense if you had prefaced the paragraph with some mention of what you were about to describe (because currently, dialogue prefaces this paragraph; I expected some mention of the individual who said, "Why do you weep, little one?" or the little one addressed) of dispatched with the fancier phrases ("in futile moments of half-life"), the abstractions.
I've noticed that when you describe tangible things, tangible creatures - actual individuals with whom a reader can identify or recoil from - every word you use falls into place, is relevant - there is no longer any excess or confusion. Words seems to flow more naturally in these descriptions. This paragraph:
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Veretchin is a massive squat of buildings and spires, trenches and streets, prisons and whorehouses. But it is not a city. It is a smear, a stain, a clot, an open, festering wound. It breathes smoke and fog and drug-fumes into the sky, where there are vile gases in the stead of clouds. Machines toil in the hell-bowels of it, building, crushing, remaking, sitting, rusting.
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or this line:
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Thomas Crown’s younger and more successful brother, Joseph Crown, was there when the House of Parliament was attacked by the demon-thing.
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to these paragraphs:
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Weavers stabbed their left hands with shaking needles, creating symphonious screams; they died in a way that to them was an art, and their cries were music. The Grim Angels hunched on shattered arches that danced through the air to make unimportant connections between breaking shells.
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Rivulets of impure water coursed along shabby brickwork before they evaporated in futile moments of half-life. Ink drabbed across fine parchment smeared as dying arms went lax. Blood congealed with alchemical concoctions and breathed life into bare granite. Cracks were placed in crumbling skulls that sat, rotting, in the forgotten cells of ungodly prisons.
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The first two descriptions/introductions are as sweet and refreshing as deep breathing, but the second two are difficult to read and make sense of.
And now that I've finished obsessing over the almost spiritual beauty of comma placement and the article "an", allow me to draw back my focus and comment on the story.
I enjoyed the dialogue between Samuel and Jayme Frither in the prologue. You have a nice handle on dialogue. Their secrecy ("The other Priests do not know, Samuel. Our little secret, aye?") inspires my curiosity – is this the face, the voice of villainy, "strong and confident, seemingly joyful" – a man who laughs? I'm really looking forward to seeing more of this laughing brother.
Your choice of details, throughout prologue and sermons, is most interesting: a suit the colour of dried blood, the orgy of the Dreamtime Corpses, the Devil—particularly the Devil, fantastic in a grisly, nauseating way.
I'm curious as to how you'll tie everything together – the Devil and Saint, the Corpses, the newly animated machine and the men who animated it, Joseph Crown. Carle gave me quite a start, however – it seems events are coming together already. But how? I can only look forward to another chapter.
Much luck in your writing! I look forward to the Third Sermon, and the no doubt fascinating title you'll devise for it, =D
Until next time,
Selah