Hatrack River Writers Workshop: The Anthari project

This is topic The Anthari project in forum Fragments and Feedback for Short Works at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Zandor6017 (Member # 3371) on :

This isn't actually a story, but it's a little thing I wrote after watching a documentary on the manhatten project.

As the zero hour for the test drew close I realized that none of us even thought about helping people anymore. The only thing in our minds was the idea that if we pulled this off, we would be gods. That we would have struck down angels, and who can do that but a god? If we could do it just once, we said. Well playing god is worse than playing with fire, especially when you screw it up.

I was leaning against the wall with the company of my cigarette. Most of the scientists were talking with each other. They brought me in as a consultant for the core shield release system. I hadn’t been there when the most brilliant and possibly abstract minds fleshed out the ethereal physics which powered the device, so they thought of me as a tagalong. The

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited May 02, 2006).]

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Interesting voice, very engaging. But the narrative itself doesn't have a solid logical flow. That could make reading it very difficult over the course of even a couple of pages.

Posted by mommiller (Member # 3285) on :

Your introductory line was all that I needed to follow along easily. I thought it was a cleanly written introduction to a much more involved story that I wouldn't mind seeing more of.

Well done, and here's to hoping you continue this classically feeling piece.

Thanks for sharing.

Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :

so, what exactly is your purpose with this piece? It's easier to critique if we know your intent. If it's not a story, what is it supposed to be?

Posted by Ray (Member # 2415) on :

I'd be a little more engaged if you mentioned who they were first before you get into the "becoming gods" spiel.

Posted by Novice (Member # 3379) on :

I really like this. It's an engaging opening for a story I'd read more of.

You might want to elaborate on the kind of test straight away, maybe just a single adjective there. I jumped straight to nuclear, but without your intro I would have been a little confused.

A few minor things caught my attention:

The opening sentence would read smoother, for me, if you used a comma after "close."

Do you need to say "the zero hour"? Can't it just be "zero hour"?

There are four repetitions of "that" in the first paragraph, and they disrupt the rhythm once you start seeing them. You could drop the first one entirely without changing how the sentence reads. There are a number of ways to pare down the rest, or they may not be bothersome enough to other readers to worry about it.

The beginning of the second paragraph tangled me, in that the MC is smoking, the scientists talking, and then "They brought me in..." On the first reading, I thought someone had called the MC over, but that didn't make sense with the rest of the paragraph. It's a problem of tense, but I don't really know how to fix it, if it even is problematic enough to need fixing.

I just love your last sentence. What a fantastic characterization.

A question for you and the audience at large...when a writer references "playing god" as in this piece, how do you decide whether or not to capitalize "god"?

Posted by Novice (Member # 3379) on :

Good grief. I internalized Ray's "engaged" there. Sorry about that.

Posted by Novice (Member # 3379) on :

aak. Survivor's, too!

Posted by Zandor6017 (Member # 3371) on :

I don't really know what the purpose of it was myself. I just had the idea and wrote it down. As for the becoming gods part, the scientists are testing an ethereal weapon that is, for all intents and purposes, a nuke that effects things on another plane of the universe.

The Angels (Anthari) are a species that have for whatever reason (I didn't get that far) becomes embroiled in a conflict with humans. The humans have their last ditch effort to fight back, blah blah, but it's not until after they set off the bomb that they realize something very big has happened.

As it turns out, this alien species lives in the ether, the non-material plane of the universe, and has evolved to where their society as been peacefully stable for eons. When the nuke goes off, it wrecks the entire balance with a shock the ether hasn't felt in a very long time.

Because the scientist hadn't really had any practical experience with ether devices, they accidentally kill every member of the species in the galaxy.

And if those that could live without sin were angels, then those who could bring about the destruction of that purity would most certainly be gods, or demons. It's only after all the choices had been made that anyone found out which they had become.

So I guess it's about bad situations that have worse alternatives.

Edit:

I usually write "G" if there is only one in question, or if the "G" I'm referring to at the moment is the "real one." I put "g" if it's not actually a god, or if there is a pantheon for whatever reason. So I guess, "G" implies monotheism, and "g" implies pantheism and/or "playing god," when I write.

Thanks for the feedback.

[This message has been edited by Zandor6017 (edited May 01, 2006).]

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Huh.

Well, your opening so far doesn't pursue the concepts you outlined in your last post.