Chapter? Where's the next chapter? Oh, ARGH, you're busy, aren't you?

In any case, I simply adored the first chapter. Lovely metaphors, lovely mood, lovely style. The gray/grey thing was especially nice.

The second bit bugged me a bit. I'm not any better, but the politics... it struck me as off, somehow. I'm not sure what to do about to say about it short of a huge essay/rant/uneducated ramble on why it doesn't add up for me. If you really want it, I canm but I don't think it'd be that useful. It's largely The Meager Opinion of a Delusional Seventh Grader.

Well, the hollow, floaty style was very prettyful. Me likey. Good work, again.

Oh! You've updated! Sorry I didn't notice earlier - I've been a bit busy with RL. Good thing HSF is already written, or you'd be waiting forever for new chapters...

I really like your paragraphing in this chapter - I feel led through everything you're saying at a much better pace, and there's also good pausing between discussions of separate concepts and for dramatic effect. Well done. :)

I love the idea of the cold war building up and international tension reaching breaking point - then no one even knowing who started the war. And the war factories carrying the influenza... *shudder* It all seems very real.

I only had one problem. Unfortunately, I think it's a big one, because it's a conceptual one. "Eventually, wars were made illegal worldwide by the United Nations." And? They don't condone terrorism, but it still happens... I think you need to go into this more - you need a really good reason why countries actually started obeying this rule. (Actually, you've got me interested in this now, I've looked up the UN charter and everything, which currently says that no nation is allowed to use force on another, except in self-defence or protecting international peace.) So, I'm assuming your contention is that the last two statements were removed - and everyone was suddenly compliant with the rules. I'm afraid I'm not convinced. I'm sure you'll have your own ideas, but I'll lay out mine so that there's actually suggestions how to improve it here rather than simply pointing out a problem:
1) Have some sort of non-war retaliation ready for those who break the law: complete trade sanctions and blockades, leaders must consent to the implantation of a remotely activated cyanide capsule, some kind of technology disabler which plunges a region into the dark ages (which eventually can't be used because *everyone's* breaking the law, or falls into the wrong hands and is used as an offensive weapon rather than a protective measure), or... er, I'm out of ideas. It's a tough one.
2) Mention that it didn't stop terrorism - and all the nations had to keep turning the other cheek, which added to international tension.
3) Give it an explicit longer timescale for the tensions to build up; the world can quite happily go a decade or so without any war absent particular provocation. It's when it gets longer than that that I might start to worry if the underlying tension has not been resolved.

As I said, I'm sure you've got your own ideas, and I don't know how the rest of the story will fit in, but I suspect you might be already aware of this issue, so I thought I'd try to give you some starting points.

Oh, one other thing: "in those times there was hardly any travel to ensure a lack of espionage." This is a bit unclear; who was ensuring the lack of espionage? Was it everyone who didn't travel, or just the ordinary people? It might also be helped by moving it from passive to active voice. This is a very cool idea, I wouldn't mind hearing more about it. (And what about TV/Radio/Internet/other communications? You could put in some dark comments about control of the media, censorship, and propoganda and everyone becoming more tense becuase they couldn't believe anything they were being told, too...)

The rest of it is really well defended and paced to lead the reader through at a believable rate. I really felt the building tension throughout the world, the division of Britain illustrated the point very well, and I'm utterly intrigued as to how all this is going to lead to Artemis' imprisonment and what the fairies are going to do about it all...

Keep going! I want to hear more!

Oh, the bad-in-good/good-in-bad fic!

I've been looking forward to this one since I lurked past (your?) idea on Crim. I love grey. It's always been my colour (and my philosophy). :)

It's a killer opening paragraph. And a killer ending paragraph. I can tell I'm going to enjoy this one.

Constructive crit: I'd paragraph it a bit more if I were you, it seems to be running on a bit when I'd think you'd want to be reigning back the pace a bit by making people pause. And the sentence that starts with "He had been aging very fast" is glued together by three 'and's in a row - you might want to think about restructuring that. Just my opinions though, of course!

All in all - very nice. Looking forward to part II!

(O/T: I hear I'm meant to apply to you to help judge the Orions? Come and talk to me on the Orions forum, oh great and powerful Mod, or it'll get lonely with just me and Gus.)