IPSTWD--the day on which it is the custom of my people to offer up free fiction on the internet

[truepenny]

It is, in no particular order:

1. Shakespeare's birthday (observed).
2. International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Wretch Day
3. The day before Odyssey Con.

In celebration of 1 and 2, and to provide you all something to do while I am largely afk due to 3, I am posting the three scenes from Corambis that I most regret having to cut. None of them furthers the plot in any way. One, which you've seen before if you've been reading the Q&As, is a conversation between Felix and Mildmay about philosophers and bravery; one is possibly my favorite piece of world-building out of the entire book; the last is notable for being one of the few angst-free sex scenes I have ever written.

Also, a question came into today which will not make any sense on any other day, so I'm gonna stick it here. Call it Q&A Eighteen-and-a-Half:

Q: As a fellow Shadow Unit author, will you be providing backup vocals for Emma Bull at her Odd Con performance tomorrow night? :)

A: No, smartass. Not unless she asks me to, which I can't imagine why she would.

---

For the sake of corralling all these scenes in one place so that they can be easily found, I shall start by reposting the conversation about Chattan d'Islay (which belongs around pages 220-221, at the beginning of Chapter 10) that I put up in answer to a question in Q&A 11:


Felix had told me about the guy who wrote the book because he said it was important, that you didn't want to go letting people persuade you of things when you didn't know who they were. The philosopher's name was Chattan d'Islay. Midlander name, but he'd grown up in St. Millefleur and gone to Vusantine to study. And stayed there, writing his books in a cubby in the Library of Arx and getting paid by the High King to do it.

"Boy," I'd said. "Nice work if you can get it."

"Exactly," said Felix. "His family was poor--refugees, if I'm remembering right--but he got noticed young. D'Islay was never wealthy, but he had a steady income for most of his life."

Considering how unsteady our income was currently . . . well, yeah, I saw what Felix meant and said so.

"Don't hate him for the things he doesn't know," Felix had said, handing me the book. "Wait and let him explain the things he does."

Of course, at the rate I was reading, we were never going to get to what Chattan d'Islay did know. Powers and saints, I was slow. And stupid with it. Seemed like I got fucking lost in any word that had more than five letters.

Felix was really good about it though. He'd promised he wouldn't make fun of me, and he didn't. He didn't even seem to mind. He just waited and let me wallow through it like a short-legged dog in a mud puddle, and then if he needed to he'd tell me how to say it. And if he needed to, he'd tell me what it meant. And he didn't make fun of me about that, either. He had me stop at the end of every paragraph--and, you know, it's dumb, but I really did like knowing what a paragraph was and what it meant. So we'd stop and we'd talk about what the paragraph said, and sometimes he made me read it again. He wasn't in no kind of hurry, and I was starting to get what he meant about that, too.

I'd been worried at first that A Treatise upon Spirit would turn out to be more hocus-stuff, the stuff that Felix talked about all the time--dreams and ghosts and noirant this and clairant that. But it wasn't. It was about bravery.

But first off, what it was about was about what bravery wasn't, and it was a good thing Felix had warned me, because Mr. d'Islay had some pretty funny ideas about what he was and wasn't going to let in the door. He'd started by saying animals couldn't be brave, that that was only for people, because only people could imagine their deaths, and then he'd gone on to say that women couldn't be brave because they were slaves to their animal minds and acted only out of instinct, and I'd put the book down and asked Felix, "Is he kidding?"

"No," Felix had said, grinning, "he's perfectly serious."

"Powers. What were the women in Vusantine like?"

"Women aren't allowed in the Library of Arx."

"For real?"

"For true," he'd said, the way kids said in the Lower City.

"Because they'll, what? Touch the books or something?"

"I don't know. They probably wouldn't let either of us in, as far as that goes."

"I wouldn't let us in," I'd said, and that'd made him laugh.

So no animals, no women, and we were in the part where he was explaining how peasants couldn't be brave either.

"Peasants?" I said, after Felix had got me not to pronounce it pee-ah-sants, the way it was spelled. "What does he mean?"

"Poor people," Felix said.

"You said his parents were refugees."

"You can't imagine I'm the first person ever to learn how to pretend to be something I'm not." Which was a roundabout way of saying Malkar had taught him to pass for flash, but it was closer than he usually got to talking about that part of his life.

"So he's not writing what he thinks? He's lying?"

"Nothing that simple," Felix said, and made a face. "He's writing what he believes. But he's also lying."

"You lost me."

"Not deliberately lying, any more than he was deliberately lying about women lacking the capacity for bravery."

"He's lying to himself."

"In a way. He's--" He made a frustrated gesture. "He's writing what he's been told instead of going out and talking to a woman, or to a 'peasant.'"

"Oh," I said. "That's, um, not very brave."

The look he gave me just about deboned me. "That's what Gideon said."

We just sat there for a moment, while he decided what he was going to do about it. Finish flaying me or leave or cry or tell me to keep reading. I was kind of holding my breath. I for sure wasn't saying nothing. Because I'd learned the hard way, a septad times, that there wasn't a single thing in the world I could say that wouldn't be the wrong fucking thing.

Finally Felix let out a breath, a little shaky, not quite a sigh. "Keep reading. Watch out for the peasants."

"Fuck you," I said, no heat because there hadn't been heat in what he said. It was a shared joke, not just him laughing at me, and I knew it because of the funny little quirk in his eyebrows when he looked at me, like he wasn't sure it was okay to make jokes with me. Like he wasn't sure it was safe.

So I kept reading. Got through that paragraph, even, and when Felix said, "Well?" I said, "He's full of shit, right?"

"How do you mean?"

"All this stuff about how there's no true bravery in people who, what is it, 'labor for wages.' I mean, c'mon. Does he really think they ain't thinking about it?"

"Aren't thinking about what?"

"What would happen if they got fired," I said. "What would happen if they cut and run. Or if they went and talked to their cousin's husband's friend who works for a spider and maybe knows where there's some extra muscle needed. D'you think the women in Lornless's don't know they're dying?"

"This isn't about what I think."

"Well, I can't fucking ask Chattan d'Islay, now can I?"

Felix blinked at me. I realized the light was almost gone. "Are you asking what I think? Or what I think he thought?"

"I dunno. Both."

"I think that what Chattan d'Islay knew about the world, he learned from books. And his books told him that only the gently born could be courageous. Likewise that only the gently born could have honor. And I think that he hated his own origins, that he spent his entire life trying to become that which he pretended he was." He sighed, ran his hands through his hair. "Or maybe that's me."

"But you don't agree with him."

"No." He shook his head, sharp and firm and meaning it. "I don't agree with him."

"Okay, then."

His head tilted, like a cat realizing something is prey. "What if I did?"

"Sorry?"

"What if I did agree with him?"

I wasn't sure what he wanted. "Well, you don't."

"But what would you have done? If I'd said he was right?"

Now I knew what he wanted. "I'd tell you what I'm telling you right now. Stop yanking my leash."

He didn't flinch, exactly. But his hands came up, fingers spread, and I saw the way his head jerked back, like I was the cat, and I'd taken a swipe at him.

"I told you I wasn't gonna put up with it," I said mildly.

He'd folded in on himself, and with his hands in his hair, his forearms were mostly blocking his face. "Right," he said, kind of muffled. He didn't say sorry, because he never did, but that was okay, because I wasn't mad.

"C'mon," I said. "Let's go have dinner."

And it was all worth it just for the way he stared at me, eyes big as bell-wheels, like nobody'd ever let him off the hook before in his life.

---

Next, the sheer self-indulgent world-building, this scene would start on page 270 of Corambis--you'll be able to see instantly where I stitched the draft together:


As it turned out, Julian was as methodical as the intended, and both of them were far more patient than I. They insisted on allowing me to pace the dimensions of the entryway, to touch the cubbies that ran at waist-height around the three walls. Julian guided me back and forth through the pool at several different spots along its length--and it was much longer than any sacred pool I had ever known, though no wider. The intended told me about the current; unlike Caloxan pools, which had to be drained weekly and filled by hand, Our Lady of Mirrors' pool had water piped to it from the Water Utility. The pool still required cleaning, but the water was always moving and thus always fresh. And the current, said Intended Godolphin, ran east to west.

"Thank you," I said, stepping out of the pool on what I now knew was its north side. I tried not to sound as fervent as I felt, but suspected I failed.

"Oh, don't thank me yet," he said, almost gaily. "We haven't even begun."

Julian and the intended took me up and down every row of benches in the sacristal, south, west, north, and east, in the order of the censing Intended Godolphin did not do. He would have guessed, of course, that I was Eadian. Then the intended stopped, touched his fingers to my forehead in a blessing, and led me from the eastern aisle up onto the dais.

I balked. "Intended, this is not necessary. I shall have no cause to--"

"The purpose of the altar," said he, "is to show the glory of the Lady to her worshippers. Since you cannot see it, how can you know its message save by touch?"

"But am not--"

"I have blessed thee, Kay Brightmore, and the Lady welcomes thee. In her name, I promise it."

I would never have asked for such kindness, and perhaps that was why I did not know how to refuse it. Almost numbly, I let him place my hands on the curved iron rim of the altar. He said, "This altar is the oldest in Esmer. It has been repaired seven times, and it is the task of every class of dedicates to keep it polished. It is the mirror of the Lady's brightness." And gently, but quite firmly, he lifted my right hand and placed it on the curving surface of the altar.

I knew, of course, about the altar of Our Lady of Mirrors. Every child of eight had to memorize a list of the great altars of Caloxa and Corambis, to be recited at his or her dedication, and the Altar of Mirrors was always the first on the list. The mirror was placed directly beneath the eye of the dome; it acted as a cup to collect rain or snow, but its truest purpose was to collect sunlight, which it reflected back to the sky, as her dedicates were supposed to reflect the Lady's love.

"It used to be made of bronze," Intended Godolphin said, "but it was Intended Youngmay's mission to raise the funds to have it replaced with glass."

"In this dominion, that can't have taken long," I said.

Intended Godolphin said, gently reproving, "Intended Youngmay served all his life in the Hollyred Dominion of Copperton."

Copperton, in the eastern foothills of the Perblanches, was one of the poorest and most crime-ridden cities of Corambis. And the counting rhyme I'd learned as a child jangled horribly through my head: Hollyred, blood red, bleeding red, axe! How many died in Twist's attacks? Serena and Isobel and the girls they played with had chanted it in their endless rounds of skip-rope; I remembered the punctuation of pounding feet and clapping hands, remembered the breathless glee with which they shouted the rhyming words.

"He must have been insane," Julian said--meaning Intended Youngmay, of course, not Twist, and I jerked myself back to the present.

"It was his mission," Intended Godolphin said, as if that answered the question.

From the altar, Intended Godolphin led us back down the south aisle. When he stopped, I realized I could smell the pool, feel the water in the air. He said, "Would you like to start on the wall shrines? I wouldn't blame you if you were ready to stop."

"No, please. I know we can't possibly do the whole circumference today, but--unless I'm keeping you from your duties?" The naked pleading in my voice was acutely embarrassing, but I could not control it.

Intended Godolphin said, "Nothing that can't wait," with the practiced reassurance of a man who spent too much of his professional life offering comfort. And Julian said, "We can come back next week, too. For the rest. And maybe the dome?"

The hopefulness in his voice--as transparent as a much younger child--broke the knot of tension in my chest and made me laugh. "I would like that," I said.

The intended said, rather less unctuously, "I would like that, too. So here, Mr. Brightmore. Turn to your right. We'll go around clockwise again."

In the Eadian churches of Caloxa, wall shrines were niches for statues. Wildar had six of its precious chryselephantine saints remaining, among the few in all Caloxa that had survived the Warlocks' War and the bitter destitution of its aftermath. Most churches had plaster saints now, the figurines churned out in armies by a factory in Bernatha--as everything cheap and shoddy came from Bernatha--painted and dressed and provided with their tokens by their dominioners. When I was a little boy and Serena and Isobel were teenagers, they had spent much of one winter with the Dictionary of Saints propped open on the library table, sewing gowns and making calipers and pincushions and all sorts of other trinkets for the new saints in Our Lady of Crevasses. Isobel had threatened to sew my fingers together, but Serena had taught me sewing with some scraps of leftover cloth, and I had blessed her for it on campaign.

In Our Lady of Mirrors, the wall shrines were plaques, marble carved in high relief with metal insets which I presumed to be gold. Each saint's name was carved across the foot of his or her plaque; was easier tracing the letters with my fingers than trying to puzzle out the cunning intricacies of the reliefs. Sixteen saints brought us from the south aisle to the west, and there I was willing to admit my fatigue and allow Julian to escort me back to Carey House.

Soon enough, I would start to slip and think of it as "home."

---

And this (posted out of order to make it easier for people who don't want to read about explicit gay sex to skip this bit), which I suspect will gratify many of my readers, is the rest of the sex scene between Felix and Murtagh. It belongs on page 144 of Corambis:

I might be a pathetic excuse for a martyr, but I knew how to fellate a man. That, I was good at. I was both gratified and relieved to find that Murtagh, again unlike Malkar, was willing to respond, to let me be good at it. And for all that he maintained his hard grip on my hair, he didn't use it to choke me, just to hold me where he wanted me. He was silent throughout, only the tempo of his breathing telling me what he liked. His climax hit him hard and suddenly, and he held me very still, my nose pressed against his groin, until it was over. Then he released me and pushed me back in one motion; I sat back on my haunches in preference to falling over and stayed still, letting him look at me again.

"You are well trained," he said, kneeling down himself, and touched the head of my throbbing sex with one finger, as lightly as he'd touched the scar across my shoulders. My hips jerked up, and I bit my lip too late to stifle a noise that might charitably have been called a moan--less charitably a whimper.

"Would you touch yourself without permission?" Murtagh asked.

"No, sir," I said, and I was surprised at how shocked I sounded, almost prim.

"Spread your knees wider," he said. I did, shifting my hips slightly to display myself better.

"You're very pretty," he said. "And you're close, aren't you?"

I nodded, and when he raised that eyebrow at me again, said, "Yes, sir."

"And there's still the matter of a penalty to be discussed." That tormentingly light touch stroked my testicles. This time it was a whimper; not even charity could disguise it.

"Can I make you spend yourself like this, Felix?" Murtagh said, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Are you so eager? So needy?"

I bit my lip, and he said, "No. None of that. This is your penalty." And his fingers whispered in circles around the root of my sex. I moaned, my hips pushing up, trying to find more pressure, more heat. But Murtagh simply drew back, waiting until I had myself under control again before that feather-light touch resumed.

"Please," I heard myself begging. "Please."

"No," he said. "Like this. Just like this." And his fingers stroked me, so light it almost tickled, so light I almost couldn't feel it. I spread my thighs wider, braced my hands against the floor so that I could arch my back, pleading for more, and Murtagh took advantage of the change in position to make the same barely-there touches along my perineum and around my anus.

My breath was coming in hard sobs, and I couldn't keep my hips still. Murtagh leaned forward and blew cool air across my sex, across the head where it was wet with pre-ejaculate and vulnerable, and I wailed helplessly.

Ghostly touches, and I couldn't even tell the difference between where he was touching me and where my skin was screaming for him to touch me. I was burning, beyond words, every breath coming out as a cry. One finger petted my foreskin, another stroked light as breath over my anus, and again, and again, and I climaxed so hard it felt like white fire pouring out of me, brilliant and endless.

When I could think again, I found I was lying in an awkward and uncomfortable huddle on the floor, and Murtagh was watching me with brightly interested eyes.

"And that," said the Duke of Murtagh, "was only round one."

---

And there you have it. Feel free to point readers of Corambis to this post. Although none of these scenes is in any way necessary to the book, they are all things that I was sad to have to axe.

Comments

[britmandelo.livejournal.com]

You know, I like Murtagh more and more as these posts go on. I liked him in the book but we don't get very close to him as readers; all this extra information definitely helps build his personality in my mind's eye. Cool. (Still love that extra reading scene, too.)

This is the best thing ever. Bonus scenes!

[cassandraterra.livejournal.com]

<3 Thank you so much for posting the extra tidbits!

Eep! Edited to use the CORRECT icon. *smacks hand*

[topknot.livejournal.com]

Oh. My. God.

The scene between Murtagh and Felix...

i'm just speechless. And whimpering and squirming. Thank you SOOOOOOOOOOO much for posting it here that it not be lost. That was so delicious and tangible and SOOOO true to life i can't even praise it enough without it sounds like pathetic fanboy flailing.

[shadeofdusk.livejournal.com]

These are awesome, thanks for posting them!

That jump rope rhyme sounds itchingly familiar, but I can't quite place it. Is there a real world equivalent, or am I imagining things?

[214314.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh, Murtagh~~~ XD Love you for letting Felix enjoy.
Enjoy the Odyssey Con.!

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Somewhere back in the archives, there's a post in which several people (including papersky and fidelioscabinet, iirc) helped me work that rhyme out. It isn't based on any specific counting rhyme that I know of, so I'm going to hope that your sense of deja-vu means I did my job right.

[g33kgrrl]

I love self-indulgent world-building! World-building is what I'm in these sorts of genres for, after all.

Thanks so much for posting these. It's great to read them.

[shadeofdusk.livejournal.com]

Hmm, maybe I read it there then. I was so convinced it had to be something that I'd heard IRL I tried googling a couple of variations, but all that came up was this page. So I guess not.

[ejmam.livejournal.com]

I really like the characterization at the end of the first piece. Mildmay decides not to let Felix walk on him in Corambis, and this shows it in action. Since the other main argument scene has Mildmay backsliding a bit (the pocket money bit) this is a good balance.

[midnightsfall.livejournal.com]

... Oh, my good gods. Thank you for posting these. My experience feels so much more complete for having read them. And I'm not the least ashamed to admit that the last one is the one that I am saddest was cut from the book. Not one tiny bit.

[midnightrevelry.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to thank you for posting these extra scenes. I especially loved the first one, with Mildmay and Felix. The two of them together never fail to bring a ridiculous smile to my face (unless of course they're making my heart ache horribly instead). So thank you--it's an incredible privilege, being able to read the words that didn't quite make it into the book.

[yukis-kirausagi.livejournal.com]

Wonderful, wonderful! While I love the last bit I always love Felix and Mildmay's banter.

And I have to say The Duke is one of my favorite characters in Corambis

[oceruleanskies.livejournal.com]

My Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Wretch Day cannot be better!!

Thank for these THREE gorgeous pieces. One we´ve read earlier, but now we have everything together.

I loved the Godolphin-Kay piece, and somehow, when he remembers the rhyme and the way you describe it, the story becomes a different story a thing I can't explain well, but it's haunting.

Yes, Murtagh and Felix! Now his martyrdom becomes something else, I think, a willing relinquishing of ego, and no longer the fear of pain, and a tarquin he may trust.

Ms. Truepenny: THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And, happy con-going!

corambis spoilers within

[scribblemoose]

[corambis spoilers below,for anyone still avoiding]

Thank you so much for posting these. For me a lot of the pleasure of Corambis was wallowing in a world I love, with people I love, while more and more detail unfurled itself around me. To have extra titbits like this just extends the pleasure.

However, I think the sex scene (apart from being incredibly hot) does add something significant. It shows us that for all that being a martyr is associated with Malkar in Felix's head and thus difficult, on this occasion he really does enjoy it for itself, as a relatively positive experience (so rare for Felix!). It also tells us a lot about Murtagh at a time when we're just getting to know him. I can see him visiting the lighthouse on the odd occasion in the future - and that's a nice thought.

Most of all, though, the contrast between this scene and the rape scene is so clear it's actually painful. The detail in this scene isn't just for gratuitious titilation (although it is very hot, in case I hadn't mentioned...) - it shows very clearly that a) prostitution can be a positive thing (a theme that also comes through strongly with Corbie); that b) tarquin/martyr sex can be sensitive and fulfilling and not about violence; and c) that Felix can enjoy sex. The full version does this more effectively because we're left in no doubt as to what the experience was for Felix, or how Murtagh treated him.

To learn all this and then see the flip side, the part of sex that is nothing to do with pleasure and respect and everything to do with abuse and violation makes the rape all the more powerful in the narrative.

Waffling on as usual, but I think sometimes sex scenes are cut because it's assumed that detail is indulgent and titilatory, and here this is far from the case.

Thanks for sharing it with us. :)

[cheloya.livejournal.com]

*g* Would have loved more Murtagh no matter what you did with him, but that was a very nice scene - and not just for the obvious reasons. Loved Felix's "No, sir," in particular. That's a nice bit of characterisation all in itself. ^_^

I wish you'd been able to leave the world-wallowing scene in, though. I'm very glad to see it. Your world - well, worlds, really - just beg to be wallowed in, rolled in. (The first time I read Mélusine, that was exactly how I told friends about it: "I want to put this book over my face and drown in it.")

...hmm. Is Q&A still open after the con? *wonders about the Anchorite's Knitting*

[hippoiathanatoi.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting these scenes. :) Made it both a little easier and a little harder when the mail arrived without Corambis yet again. I am going to spend the weekend clearing out as much work I can in the hopes that it will arrive Monday and allow me to just concentrate on reading.

Indulgent scenes in some respects, perhaps, but definitely not without purpose as far as I can tell without having the full context of the book. It was quite striking how different things are between Felix and Mildmay in that scene compared to earlier, and having just that scene on its own highlighted the changes I think.

The sex scene made me wonder (though perhaps this is something answered in the book) what Felix's natural inclinations in terms of sex are? Is his enjoyment of submission and dominance entirely a product of nurture (or abuse, rather), or was that always in his nature? This scene makes me think the latter.

I am very much looking forward to getting more acquainted with the Duke, I must admit.

[gerbilicous.livejournal.com]

I absolutely loved the extra Felix and Mildmay scene! But it felt so weird reading it on the internet. It was like hearing someone you know and love's voice somewhere you know they can't be. Absolutely wonderful, completely made my morning.

[gadow.livejournal.com]

I disagree strongly that the conversation between Felix and Mildmay do not further the plot. It explains a great deal about how Felix begins to reconcile with his own background.

One of the few issues I had with Corambis was how Felix had changed from the loathsome toad he's been in the previous three books. Yes, Gideon's death and his subsequent exile broke him, but that alone was not enough (in my mind) to explain his transformation from the effects of his hidden scars and Malkar's indoctrination. This conversation shows some of what Felix was going through, how he was like like d'Islay, saying awful things in an effort to hide from what others would call awful in him. You can almost see things clicking in Felix's mind as the conversation progresses.

(Side question: Could d'Islay have been a woman, a Pope Joan or Yentle who disguised himself as a man so he could get the education that otherwise would have been denied her? That might explain his writings about women, just as his peasant background explains his writings about the poor.)

The description of the cathedral: beautiful, and it helps me to understand a bit more about the religion of the Lady.

The third scene... I can see why it was removed. Now if you will excuse me, I need a few minutes alone followed by a cold shower.

[(Anonymous)]

Personally, while I'm delighted to read these scenes, I think the book is better without them--essentially for the same reason in each case. Each one slows the book's pace down without adding important new information. The sex scene is hot, true, but not all that much different from what I guessed happened between the Duke and Felix, and frankly leaving most of the details up to the reader's imagination is often much more effective at creating a particular impression than a blow-by-blow account. One of the things I'd always admired about your explicit sex scenes is that they never appeared gratuitous, or self-indulgent. This one would have been, IMO. The other two scenes are great fun, but they still relax the narrative tension too much. It's certainly interesting to know that A Treatise Upon Spirit is the product of an imperfect man's imperfect reasoning--its importance to Gideon and Felix suggests something less fallible, and the fact that d'Islay reaches his impressively important conclusion despite all these flaws becomes oddly more, rather than less, triumphant as an act of philosophy--but I don't feel it affects anything in the the larger scheme of this book. It might be very relevant if you ever return to Corbie's quest to become a virtuer, OTOH. Thank you so much for posting the scenes--I not only enjoyed them for themselves, but they revealed to me that there are still editors out there trying to get better books out of good ones--something I'd grown to doubt, given the large number of recent books I've read that would have been much more effective if they'd been half as long! Sue Lambiris

[alamaris.livejournal.com]

Wonderful scenes! I can see why it upset you to cut them from the finished product. The sex scene -- woo! *fans self* I think my favorite was seeing Mildmay read. I loved it every time he picked up a book in the published manuscript, so seeing him read and have Felix interact with that reading was just about the best thing ever.

[clhollandwriter]

I'm so tempted to print these out and slip them in my copy of Corambis as errata. :D

Thank you for posting them.

[raeraesama.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for sharing these. I love them all, but particularly the scene with Mildmay and Felix and Felix and Murtagh.

[razziecat.livejournal.com]

I respectfully disagree that these scenes add nothing important to the book. It's not always a bad thing for narrative action to slow down a little bit, not if it adds something to character development or to the readers' understanding of the world and of the story. Each of these scenes gave me even deeper insight into the characters, into the ways they were growing and changing. I understand better now Felix's embarrassment when Murtagh turned up on the train, and Murtagh's impulse to apologize to him at the end of the story. I have a better feel for what Kay was going through, for Mildmay's ability to stand up for himself, and for the way in which Mildmay and Felix worked out the new parameters of their relationship with each other (a work in progress!). What I love about your books is the deep visceral connection I made with each of the characters. In fact, in re-reading parts of Corambis, I was surprised to realize that Murtagh is never written in the first person, yet I feel I know him almost as well as Felix, Mildmay or Kay.

As for explicitness, the full scene with Felix and Murtagh is not much more explicit than the first time Felix slept with Gideon; but it illustrates perfectly the extent of the change in his understanding of himself.

[adelev.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for posting these. While I agree with everyone that the sex scene is incredibly hot and the reading scene is nice, the one I am most grateful to see is the middle one with Kay being shown around the church. That is the one place where when I was reading Corambis I remember feeling like something was missing. I was anticipating feeling Kay become more comfortable in wonderful detail and was quite disappointed when the scene just ended. When I read fiction I fall into the world of the book and do not think for a moment about the book as something created, written and revised, so it never occurred to me that the scene might have been written and cut out. Actually, while I like the first scene I don't think it gives us anything really new about Felix, Mildmay, or their changing relationship and it was pretty clear from what was left in that Felix enjoyed his experience with Murtagh and that Murtagh was a good tarquin for Felix. However, I think the world-building scene does tell us a lot not just about the culture of the society but about Kay's background and, most importantly, it shows us Julian and the Intended surpassing Kay's greatest hopes both in kindness and method of familiarizing him with the place instead of just telling us they were patient. This scene makes Julian more sympathetic quickly and makes the Intended a character instead of just a kind figure. This is the one scene of the three that I wish had been left in the book, and it is so nice to get to read it here! Thanks!

[lferion]

I *did* print them out & put them in my copy!

For me they do in fact add to the story -- the reading scene and the Kay scene in particular. The Murtagh scene did too, but I had pretty much gone there already :-).

[clhollandwriter]

I think they do too, in terms of added characterisation. The book works fine without them though so I can see why they'd be cut it length was an issue.

[(Anonymous)]

(posted out of order to make it easier for people who don't want to read about explicit gay sex to skip this bit)

I do wonder about anyone who'd want to read the extras from Corambis and yet avoid the gay sex. It's not like it's unprecedented in the series. :D

[clhollandwriter]

Oops, that was me. I wonder why it's logged me out.

Re: corambis spoilers within

[topknot.livejournal.com]

See, you expressed it so much better than i could with my goofy fanboy flailing and keyboard mashing. That huge contrast is part of what i really loved and it added SOOOOO much depth to both Felix and Murtagh.

[(Anonymous)]

I just wanted to point out that Amazon emailed me this morning with ten or so popular kindle books I might want

...guess which was number two on the list? :p

[sasha-feather.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you so much for posting these deleted scenes! They are wonderful. What a treat. I finished the book this weekend and just *loved* it.