Is this worth continuing?

[Mare of Earth]

I have finally managed to write something I rather like, and really need other opinions. Is this worth continuing with, or would it just never sell?

Working title: Hoof and Horn

Prologue

Dear Readers:

This book is not a tale of political intrigue. THIS BOOK CONTAINS: no elves, no magicians, no serial killers. Most of you will not make it past the first 20 pages. The few people who read the entire book will probably deem it unrealistic, amateurish, and will slaughter this book in your reviews.
It is thus a very good thing that the author could care less about you.
This book is written for those who enjoy it. The rest of you can go ^%$#*.....

Signed,
The Author


Chapter 1

This story starts off with a horse. A mare to be exact. Chestnut, fourteen hands high, black points with nicely delicate hooves. The mare in question is very proud of those hooves - no chips, nice and sharp on the edges for emergencies - the perfect hooves for the mare on the go.

The very nicely proportioned mare was quietly cropping grass in a field across from a small brick house. Why a small brick house? I, the mare in question, do not know why a small brick home next to a pasture was selected - you would need to ask the author about that.

(The author in question would like to take this moment do deny all knowledge as to why a small brick house was selected - it was selected by a committee.)

As I "peacefully cropped grass" (any real grazing animals could have pointed out I was faking - give me a nice mocha soy latte and a croissant over grass any day) there was a distinct lack of anything happening at the small brick house. From the look of the overgrown lawn and the distinct lack of anything resembling activity, the house in question was really very deserted looking.

Suddenly my earpiece squealed it's way painfully to the staticy hell it considers life.

".......ally wh..... You?"

I rolled my eyes as much as non-binocular vision would allow, and wondered when whoever that was would repeat whatever it was they said.

The earpiece let out an ear numbing whine, and settled at a subsonic, teeth aching whine, which was it’s usual operational tone.

"Hey, Sally, where are you?"

I snort in response to the stupid question coming through my headset, the urge to bite my partner rising.

"Oh, right - yes or no questions only." A certain amount of grumbling in the background.

"Standard once for yes and twice for no, right?"

I snort into my chest in disgust.

On a side note, have you ever considered how fiendishly difficult it is to wire a horse? I thought not. Allow me to explain.

Horses are not physically equiped to speak human. Initially, sound technicians had considered using a pressure pad on the bottom of one hoof, and using old style Morse Code. Horse brains are not equipped to process complicated code, and the attempting therof drove the test horses to run off, causing massive damage to delicate prototype systems.

Due to the depleted budget, the developers (being the lowest bidding government contractor anyway) declared that the most cost effective method to wire up a horse was to use a human wire embedded in a farthingale. The only quiet, deliberate sound a horse can make and aim toward the mike is the ubequitous snort, thus, snort-code.

Of course, explaining why a “grazing” horse was wearing a farthingale was a whole other bucket of grain.

Anyway….

Back to current events with my less-than-genius partner.

"Ok..... Are you at the target house?"

*snort* :Yes, I am at the really boring house.:

"Are you to the north of the target?"

*snort snort* :No, you fool. At least look at the map – the road is to the west of the house!:

"Are you to the west of the target?"

*Snort* :Since that is the only direction that could conceivable have a horse – yes you moron, that is exactly where I am!:

"Ok.... Do you see any activity?"

*snort snort* :I have seen more action in an empty strip club on Sunday morning.:

"Ok... No activity...Can you get any closer?"

*snort* :I suppose..:

I drop my head and nuzzle at the clump of grass in front of me, trying my best to look as if I was interested in eating grass, yet not interested in this particular clump. I lip at the clump for a moment, then snort and meander toward a more “appealing” clump of grass, that happens to be closer to the aforementioned small brick home.

Pretending to nibble on my “new, more appetizing” clump of grass, I eye the house in a surreptious manner.

Still no activity.

I toss my head and shake my mane, then arch my neck to seemingly worry at my farthingale.

*snort snort* :Ok, I am closer now. Still nothing.:

“Ok….. that means you couldn’t get any closer, right?”

*snort snort!* :You are an idiot! Negative! I am now closer!:

“No…. Oh! No – so were you able to get closer?”

*snort* :That’s right you imbecilic hairless monkey.:

“Ok – yes, you were able to get closer. So, see anything?”

*snort snort* :Nun’s get more action than this house has.:

“Still nothing. Hmmmm….. (in an undertone) Hey, boss – what should I ask her now?”

I flick an ear as I hear the muffled sound of the boss calling my partner a moron. Yeah, I told you that last week, after I was stuck working with the idiot for less than an hour. I mean, come on – he stapled his own ear to his desk! His defense was that he thought it was an ear-scratcher!

End

So, opinions?

[Verencat]

That is great! Keep at it and get us the whole story, I like it!

[Madam Broshkina]

From what I have read you can consider me one of the people that you could care less about. I am off to go ^%$#*.....

[wayrad]

I like it very much, and am anxious to know what happens next. But are you sure you don't mean a martingale? A farthingale on a horse, in addition to being conspicuous, would be highly impractical...

[Bilbo1967]

Not really my kind of thing, but if you are having fun writing it, and you like it then surely you should continue if only for your own pleasure

[yvanleterrible]

The concept of transcending to an animal's mind is interesting. You must remember no to give it too much intelligence otherwise it becomes more fictitious than the experiment would allow. I hope you have a lot of knowledge about horses...

Oh, make it a novella, otherwise you will lose the reader's patience with the fact of being locked in the limited view of a horse. I hate eating hay.

[Mare of Earth]

Yes, I meant a martingale - spell checker strikes again!

As for the horse POV - that would only last a few more pages - the character is not actually a horse, just looks like one at present.

I'll continue playing with this, and see what I come up with. Thank you all who replied.

Mare

[dadioflex]

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