Dmitri had been lost for almost two hours before the officer approached him. He was surprised local authorities hadn’t spoken to him sooner, but this was the biggest city on the planet, no, on the nearest five planets, so it made sense that they were busy. Still, a little help would have sped things up a while ago, especially since winters on Warsawa II were among the bitterest in the inhabited galaxy. Surely someone could spare a minute for a man getting on in his years.
“Need help, sir?” asked the cop. His face remained concealed by the protective holoplate that provided him with a constant feed of information. Even as he spoke, the translucent orange plate was flashing data before the policeman’s eyes. City cops always had better equipment than those in backwater settlements

[This message has been edited by EP Kaplan (edited May 13, 2008).]

- too much "talking to himself" in that first paragraph. That's the general observation - specifically you might want to look for ways to reduce the number of commas (which often ofset parenthetical references like this one, LOL) or otherwise simplify.
- in a 7k story you have some leeway with the hook (which I know is the subject of much debate) but you might want to consider some care and feeding of your hook here. Old man lost in a large galactic city... hmm...
- The cop's constant feed of information is cool, but it was a little jarring, maybe a semi-point-of-view violation (I think point of view is a little flexible so I don't want to say straight out its a problem, but it might be...) to have the MC know what the cop was seeing inside the protective holoplate. You could couch it in "Dmitri imagined that protective holoplate was scrolling through all known information about him for the cop as he stood on the cold street corner..."
- The last line is intriguing. Is Dmitri (i keep tripping on the name, isn't there supposed to be another i? Dimitri? Maybe not.) from one of those backwater settlements?

So...I think there's some potential (but then again, I'm a sci-fi fan, particularly when nifty technology is featured) but I suggest you think a little more about how to introduce this scene/setting of old man lost on galactic empire city in a way that is more compelling.

I'm wondering why he doesn't just approach the cops himself. While you don't need to put that in the first thirteen, I'd be looking for an explanation pretty soon. I need to know the logic of the writer before I'm willing to continue.

I think the problem is saying that the cop's face is concealed, because if the holoplate is translucent the face is dimly perceivable. Maybe something like, "his face was faintly visible through the holoplate's neon scramble of information feeds."

Interesting start, although as Annepin says, MC sounds a bit passive for my taste.

quote:

---

Dmitri had been lost for almost two hours before the officer approached him. He was surprised local authorities (1) hadn’t spoken to him sooner, but this was the biggest city on the planet, no, on the nearest five planets (2), so it made sense that they were busy. Still, a little help would have sped things up a while ago, especially since winters on Warsawa II were among the bitterest in the inhabited galaxy. (3) Surely someone could spare a minute for a man getting on in his years.
“Need help, sir?” asked the cop. His face remained concealed by the protective holoplate that provided him with a constant feed of information. Even as he spoke, the translucent orange plate was flashing data before the policeman’s eyes. City cops always had better equipment than those in backwater settlements

---

1. I think that saying the local authorities would work better here.

2. So far as local police go, it wouldn't matter that this is the largest city in a five planet radius. Police in LA don't have much if anything to do with police in San Diego, so why would they have anything to do with the police in a large city on the third planet of Alpha Centauri? They're called local for a reason. Maybe find another way to introduce this information, or think about how important it is to your story. Just because it sounds interesting in your initial plans doesn't make it an important detail to be included.

3. I believe that there are winter storms on Jupiter's moon Europa that would put most of the worst winters on earth to shame. Of course, you mention inhabited galaxy. Does this strictly mean planets that are inhabited? Or just sections of space that have a habitable planet in them? A colonized planet in them? Using more concrete details about the winter (if it even plays a role) would be more effective - temperatures measured in degrees kelvin, perhaps, people needing to wear environment suits when heading out of doors to protect them from the killing cold. You'd also need to answer the question as to why humans would choose to colonize a planet with temperatures even more extreme than those encountered here on Earth, which already push the limits of our technology.

All of that being said (and it was a lot, sorry about that) I'd probably still read for a page or two. There's nothing offensively bad here, and I'm generally patient enough to read on and discover what the hook is. Of course - no point in making me wait too long. My patience isn't infinite.

Jayson Merryfield