posted
- This is my first real attempt at a serious sci-fi short story. Any criticism, no matter how harsh, is welcome! Thanks for reading, if anyone did.
Noah's Arcanum - Chapter One
The sleek silver and black transport ship burned through the atmosphere of Prista IV at speeds that would have killed any human pilot, but the Arcanum wasn't being flown by a human.
The pilot was the latest robot model created by Yerechin Kimostre, hailed as one of the greatest roboticists of the 47th century, whom also happened to be the leader of this particular operation. Yerechin was also an avid historian of ancient Terra, and came up with the name of the ship and pilot from an old religious text.
"We are approaching the southern continent father. Arcanum has found a suitable landing area," the pilot reported.
"Very good Noah, perform a wide radial scan and immediately send the data to me when finished." Yerechin said, hardly able to...
[This message has been edited by First Assistant (edited July 13, 2006).]
posted
Is Yerechin your intended POV Character? If so, are you maybe taking too long in mentioning him. What would happen if you described the descent from within Yerechin's POV?
The only other thing that bothers me is the Ark idea. Seemed like at least 1 out of every 20 Twilight Zone’s featured an Ark or Adam and Eve scenario. I’m sure yours is a unique take on it, but maybe don’t mention it right away. It was a bit of a turnoff for me.
posted
What NewsBys said. Beyond that -- I'd read on. I'm interested in why this guy thinks worlds usually have very few species.
Posts: 2830 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
Ah, sorry about that medic. I thought it meant 13 sentences... jeez I'm slow. :|
Thanks FirstAssistant for chopping it.
Newsby - I'm not exactly sure who my POV character is yet. I'm still at the write/rewrite the beginning phase, trying to work out an interesting storyline. Writing from Yerechin's POV would seem kind of dull because all the action will be happening with Noah... so I guess I should just make Noah have the POV.
As for the Ark idea, I don't really like it myself. I'm trying to come up with something original and interesting, and writing these kind of stories to practice until I have the right one.
wbriggs - I got no clue lol. Maybe I subconciously used the idea from the Ender series and how that planet only had a few types of species.
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You lost me here: "...speeds that would have killed any human pilot, but the Arcanum wasn't being flown by a human." I thought friction and heat were the real dangers, and only threated the pilot secondarily by way of destroying the ship? So I would need some sort of explanation of what kinds of materials the ship is made of, that it can be viable at all, irregardless of who is flying it. And then a further explanation of what exact hazard affected the pilot...heart problems? concussion? too much gravitational force? a simple problem of reflexes being too slow?
(Maybe, if I knew more about space travel, I wouldn't be confused anyway. I can't speak for readers with a deeper understanding of the physics involved in atmospheric flight, who might follow your description quite easily.) I didn't read it before it was cut to 13, so I don't know if you have Yerechin on the ship. But I get into a plausability problem, again, if he is on the ship. If speed is the problem for human pilots, wouldn't it also be a problem for any human passenger?
In your second paragraph, it is unclear at the start of the sentence whether "...hailed as one of the..." refers to Yerechin or the pilot. I become partially convinced the clause refers to Yerechin as I read further into the sentence, but I think you could rephrase that part to make it immediately obvious.
I'm not sure if I'd keep reading this or not. I think I'd put it down, more often than not, because it seems to be heading in a direction that is too technical for me. I might stick with it, if I thought the material unique enough...but with this opening, you've not given me anything excitingly unique.
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[Soapbox] Well, if you got no clue -- make one up. It's your world! Make it rich, full, and real, and I'll want to read about it.
I think becoming conscious is maybe the hardest part of writing! In this case, conscious of the details of your world. Borrowing from Ender? Make it new. Lusitania, remember, had a very specific and odd reason that it had very few species. OSC worked it out. If he'd just had that as a characteristic, and it never amounted to anything, I'd be annoyed. If he'd filled a galaxy with it --!
It's work, but I think it's what makes SF beautiful. [/Soapbox]
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Hm, on the species issue, after the dinosaur killer(s) hit, how many species were there on earth at any given time? I suspect (but I don't know and I'm too lazy to google it atm) that there were times when the earth had very few species. So that might be a way to explain it. Big disaster a relatively short time ago.
Posts: 187 | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
Well.. life didn't start on any planets in our galaxy, but was brought over by aliens (from the Andromeda galaxy) who experimented with different species by 'planting' them on planets. I bet this kind of idea was used in dozens of books..
I was thinking of making a story about aliens abducting humanoids from Earth starting with neanderthals to homosapiens but just finished Pohl's 2nd Gateway book.. sigh.
I guess to make something original I'd have to think of something really farfetched.
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