Savage red pen

I am not re-writing The Fox Knows Many Things. I am just editing a little.

I smacked over a hundred words out of the first two chapters alone. Entire dialogue exchanges went bye-bye without a moment of regret.

Some of it was trimming the extraneous. Some way mainstreaming so she makes less pop culture and gaming references and more history references. Some of it was dumbing down.

Really. If my dad, who actually studied Latin, and grew up at a time when the Classics were still taught -- if the man who introduced me to alea iacta est was getting lost, then I needed to take some stuff out and explain better what I left in.

Right from the first sentence. No more kernmantle; she's rappelling from a "climbing rope" instead.

So the Oblivion Horse Armor is gone. Master Chief only barely squeaked by, as did Rudger Haur. The entire American Highway system got replaced by a budget airline.

I also put in extra words explaining things like the Minotaur (although why anyone would need clarification...) Hey, in my fanfic I called it by it's proper name, the Asterion, and even name-dropped Taurapsichoreans for that Minoan connection. Of course in the fanfic Atlantis is real. All of them.

Even her swears got a little less dogmatically pantheistic. For that matter, Asatru are no longer mentioned. I'm still on the fence about the veiled John Norman reference one of Vash's online buddies makes, though. Actually, I take it back. Mock medieval is better anyhow. Struck!

The later chapters need a lot less. I was finding my voice and, as far as dumbing things down goes, if they made it that far....