My original review of Im(mortal) was posted on 13 September 2016. Fareh Iqbal produced her first semi-edited edition on 25 September of that year–a mere twelve days later. The following is a report on her second editing job, from an edition dated 4 May 2018. Changes to the text are marked in red. She left only one mistaken word in the revised text. As I have stated in my past LiveJournal posts, once Iqbal has edited her novels I promise to remove my reviews from all on-line fora and upload reviews that reflect the state of the current corrected editions. My own personal web pages will remain as is, however. That said, I am not bothered by one sole mistaken choice of words to preclude me from keeping my promise: Iqbal has mostly fixed Im(mortal) and I will reward it an extra star to four.

Here are my notes about the second edited edition:

“No casualities for as long as I’ve been ’round.” (p. 53)

–now casualties.

Two errors befouled page 197: the misspelling moxy and the incorrect homophone in the line “Georgina attacked her poached egg severely yoke spilling onto her plate, a golden massacre.” 

–now moxie. The sentence still read with yoke instead of yolk, yet it had been rewritten as “Georgina attacked her poached egg severely. She watched as yoke spilt onto Georgina’s plate like a golden massacre.” 

I would have changed Georgina’s to her.

A reference to The Little Mermaid by [Hans Christian] Anderson (p. 246)

–now a reference to the full name, Hans Christian Andersen.

“…Sophie replied reigning in the anger from her tone.” (p. 259)

–now reining.

One characteristic that continues in Iqbal’s writing is the run-on sentence or the overall absence or misuse of commas. I cite numerous examples where I had to reread the sentence and parse it myself in order to understand it:

“He held the menu out to her his black eyes glowing, ‘Have another look.'” (p. 50)

–unchanged

“Turning to Stefen, her arms spread wide she twirled around the furniture until she was at the foot of the bookshelf.” (p. 66)

–now “Turning to Stefen her arms spread wide, she twirled around the furniture until she was at the foot of the bookshelf.” It’s not any better with the comma placement.

“We felt as though we finally had a purpose instead of wasting away we were finally useful.” (p. 93)

–now “We felt as though we finally had a purpose, instead of wasting away we were finally useful.” This sentence still needs another comma to separate the final clause we were finally useful.

“Though Safe House was quite magnificent Sophie felt better breathing in the fresh air, it seemed her whole world was confined to the interior of Safe House and though it had only been a day she felt that she had aged many years.” (p. 214)

–unchanged

“Considering their recent truce, Sophie resisted the urge to tell Georgina she had no right to ask such a personal question, she bit down on her tongue, the words she wanted to say dying on her lips.” (p. 223)

–now “Considering their recent truce, Sophie resisted the urge to tell Georgina she had no right to ask such a personal question. She bit down on her tongue, the words she wanted to say dying on her lips.” Properly rewritten.

“‘Did ye really drink it?’ Mickey asked his small black eyes widened beneath thick eyebrows, ‘Really?'” (p. 271)

–now “‘Did ye really drink it?’ Mickey asked, his small black eyes widened beneath thick eyebrows. ‘Really?'” All it took was the addition of a comma and a period to make this passage right.

And finally, I had to note the redundancies in the following passage:

“Her eyes raised skyward and took in the thirty foot ceiling above her head.” (p. 81)

One can convey everything about where her eyes were directed just by referring to a “thirty-foot ceiling”.

–now rewritten as “Her eyes raised skyward and took in the thirty foot ceiling.” Yes. Perfect.