Galictic Border Wars -- Zokkn incident

This is creative stuff. I can see your influences, but man, you got to get this edited and proof read. The grammar need some serious work, specifically with your tenses.' Gem of a story in here though.

Hmm.

Lotsa action here.

There are a lot of mechanical issues getting in my way, though. Several tense changes, misspellings, missing words... it needs a comprehensive edit! I'm rubbish at that sort of thing, so I hired someone. It was a good thing for me.
As for the story, there's plenty of eye candy. War in space types have plenty to feast upon. Here are a couple thoughts:
-This is pretty long for a prologue. Does it need to be a prologue, or could it be Chapter 1?
-The woman's toy analogy didn't work for me. Makes me think of a light buzzing instead of reverberation.
-I'd like this more if I had a frame of reference for all of the action. Right now, there is this desperate battle for survival, yet I don't know who these people are, why they're fighting, what's at stake (other than their lives). In other words, I think your prologue needs a prologue.

I hope that's at least a bit useful. Best with this!

-GM

William,

I feel this has a ton of potential for the SF market. I do feel as other seem to, that it could use a bit of tightening. But you probably alraedy know that. Backing it on the grounds of creativity and promise.

Heidi
Turning Red

I'm not a reader of science fiction, so I'm not quite certain how to take this. It is and interesting read. Good luck.

Cheers!

Jamie

Hi William - I'm not sure what to make of this - the dialogue is bit clichéd, and it all sounds a bit like series 3 Star-Trek TOS. Nothing wrong with TOS – I’m a big Shatner fan myself -but it has been done already (and Lord only knows how they got away with Spooks Brain Is Missing eh?). You know, I suspect there’s a lot of humour bubbling under the surface here. With some re-work to ham it up a bit more, you could easily turn this into a top-rate parody of Star-Wars/Trek type novels. No offence intended – just my feedback.

Cheers
Bill

It's certainly a literally explosive opening. I felt a bit lost with the chaos of action, which is probably intentional, but it's hard to identify with characters when you're thrown into a battle scene from the off. It would be worth introducing them for a scene or two before all hell breaks loose.

This needs a bit of proofing. I can remember "boarder" when "border" was meant. You might also look for your ellipses ... you might be able to cut out one or two ... where they're not strictly needed ...

I wondered why "prazer" when "laser" would have sufficed. I realise it's not hard science fiction, but why not have it plausibly within the reaches of real physics?

Some of the words like "TransWrp" and "Zokkn" might have read better as "TransWarp" and "Zokken", but that's just my preference.

Overall, an entertaining opening, just needs a bit more polish at this stage.

Best wishes with it.

Regards,

TomW

William, you've got a whizz-bang opening to what promises to be an action-packed tale. That's good. It seems to be what the market wants at the moment. But you'll need to do some ground work, I feel, before you convince a publisher. First of all, I would have liked a better idea of what the bridge looks like (believe me, I was told the exact same thing a few years ago for Icarus). Where is the admiral and the captain? Where are the other people? Not screeds of description, just a few words setting place. Think about all of the senses, too. Smells? Molten metal? Blood?

Apart from that, check your ms for spelling and grammar. Look for things like 'then' when you mean 'them', 'personal' when you mean 'personnel'. And things like the word 'storage' repeated a number of times in a short amount of text. As an example, try this sentence. 'They both duck as a piece of overhead flew by nearly taken their heads off'. A number of errors there.

You might try reading your work aloud, or better still, get someone else to read it for you. That trick shows up a multitude of sins.

Above all, keep writing. Best of luck with it.

Hi William,

Great opening. I loved the imagery and the pace… it got my adrenaline pumping.

I noticed a lot of repetition with the words as he.

… said Vates as he grabbed… Perhaps in some places you could stop after the tagline and start a new sentence. E.g. said Vates. He grabbed…

…like a big old train moving towards you. The ‘you’ threw me off for it seemed to have slipped into second person narrative.

The TransWrp engines are what they lined up on… It seems to have switched tenses here with the use of the word ‘are’.

…I will be the greats hero of all time. The greatest hero of all time.

Gerfan’s mind in turmoil, but still in command… This sentence felt awkward. I would rephrase.

They could see in the opened doorway… This also felt awkward. The sentence structure needs work here.

Greenson stood, “Yes(,) Sir – don’t forget to use a comma with direct address.

A purple streak passed by him. Hit the back… Perhaps joining the two sentences will help the flow. A purple streak passed by him, hit the back of the lift, and exploded.

I think a little editing is needed, especially with punctuation, but nothing major. I was pulled in right away and the story kept me glued, which is the important thing. There is great potential here.

I will return to read on.

Shelved!

Shinzy :)