The first thing that Kaisérin Savráske did, after docking her ship in the hangar and warning the attendant to be careful of the possibly radioactive blood staining the sides of the ship, was take the elevator to the seventh floor and proceed to use up half of her entire Wing’s hot water quotient for the week.
By the time Andreas realized that she was the one who had been holding up the bathroom for a little over an hour, the drum of water pouring out of the multi-directional showerheads had long before imprinted itself into Kaisérin’s head. His brisk rap on the door was unheard and unanswered. Andreas tested the doorknob- it was unlocked. He opened the door and poked his head in.
“Are you trying to drown yourself?”
His answer took the form of a bar of soap flying towards his head. Andreas ducked. “Considering that you threw that from behind the shower door, that wasn’t a bad shot.”
“Would you get the hell out of here? I’m trying to take a shower.”
“So I noticed,” Andreas said. “I’ve been noticing it for an hour and a quarter.”
Pause. “What do you want?”
Posted by yanos (Member # 1831) on :
I am having a point of view and sex change problem here. If you want people to read more than 13 lines you have to say so. Just like it is best to say why you are posting when you are posting.
Posted by Netstorm2k (Member # 2279) on :
The first sentence of the second paragraph could be reworded for clarity and conciseness, but the first paragraph, which has some of the same problem in it, is still a good hook. Radioactive blood? That got my attention. I didn't have a problem with the pov shift. I read a lot of Peter F. Hamilton, and he did that masterfully in the Night's Dawn Trilogy. Also, unless you are writing this for an audience familiar with the culture that gives out names like the opening character, and it's absolutely necessary, I would change the name to something understandably pronounceable to the majority of America readers. But your prose is still good, and has energy. I'd look at more, in a few days or so.
[This message has been edited by Netstorm2k (edited January 07, 2005).]
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
I thought the name wasn't too bad, but I'm in full accord with the POV shift being a problem.
I also like the radioactive blood angle, though I didn't like the somewhat redundant use of "ship", nor did I buy the idea that hot water would be that severely rationed in this situation.
Probably the fastest fix on the POV problem is to establish Andreas as the POV of the first paragraph as well. Since I have no idea what he's doing during these events, I'm at a loss to provide specifics on how that should be done, but it shouldn't be too difficult.