Reading Excuses - Oct 10 - Recovering Cynic - Chapter 4

[recovering_cynic]

Again, just looking for major critiques since there will be a lot of re-writing.

Chapter 1

Jimbo Casey is an ex-convict going in for drug testing, he fails the test and begins fleeing from the police. Kyle Endrasko is the sheriff and Jimbo's cousin. He pursues Jimbo who has driven into the back roads in rural Oklahoma. Akari is not human, but she works for an organization on earth that protects earth from outsiders. Akari and her squad of soldiers, who are human "replicants", detect an outsider about to break through from another realm. They get on a jet to intercept the breakthrough, but don't get there in time. Jimbo and Kyle's chase ends up at the breakthrough site. The monster that has broken through is killed by Akari and Co., but not before it tosses Jimbo through the breach into the realm it came from. Kyle confronts Akari and accidentally touches her unearthly sword, which renders him unconscious.

Chapter 2

Jimbo falls into a strange world and is captured and thrown into a giant prison wagon that is pulled by monstrous creatures and driven by human. The cage is full of human-sized moths.

Chapter 3

Kyle is recruited into a powerful secret organization run by a woman named Seiku that regulates interdimensional traffic on Earth. They are organizing a rescue mission to find his cousin Jimbo. Kyle volunteers to go after Jimbo and he is given an injection that allows him to understand Outsider languages. He then gets into an elevator on the way to go Outside

Chapter 4

What you are reading now.

[RedBeardRaven]

I was able to sneak a few minutes away during lunch to read this chapter. I really liked this chapter with one exception. This felt like an introduction to the main crew/group that we will probably follow for the rest of the story. The main thing that kept me reading (without much effort on my part) was learning more about the replicants and the crew that joins Akari and Kyle. I thinking adding a little conversation between her and Kyle or the crew about their mission would would make this chapter have more depth for the story. Though, I would understand if you were wanting to keep that secret until a later chapter though.

I like how the chapter ends. Nice and witty.

Still, nice work.

[akoebel]

Yes, very nice work, especially the last sentence.

A couple of things jumped to my face as I read:

* "she pressed a red button" : This is from Akari's POV. She's done this thing lots of times before, so she knows what the button is for. It shouldn't be "a red button" to her. At least, it should be "the red button", but more probably, she would refer to it by its function ("extraction button" or whatever).

* "as she stepped into the elevator, a frown creased her forehead" : this comes from nowhere. One moment, she's thinking about her money, and the next, she's thinking about Kyle and how frustrated she is to have to take him with her. If he's bothering her that much, she should think about this constantly from the beginning of the scene.

Aside from that, I worry a little that the part about money is a big info dump, and one I'm not sure we need.

[cjhuitt]

The money part seemed odd to me. I think that it was because I wasn't given enough information to understand parts of it, or even make many guesses. Possibly, it was just all the different terms flying at once. In that section you introduce cruzeros (I can guess money from the context), rad count (a different money?), faischa (another term for cash?), the idea of Amnesty for a family, and "buying" perfection for a replicant. This was all in the first four paragraphs of the chapter proper.

In addition, the concept of these people being worshiped was added (but that is common enough I can comprehend it without much effort).

When Akari starts killing the replicants, I kept wondering what happened to the canister that was sticking out the end of the sword.

I thought the scene with Akari and Kyle could use a bit more conflict. Also, the descriptions of the ship didn't do much for me. I was assuming, based on how things had been presented so far, that Akari knew enough about ships to be more detailed. If that's not the case, then it's probably about right for description.

When Kyle objects to Akari dispatching the replicants, I thought it should have taken her by surprise. This is because I doubt she's dispatched many in front of humans before, and also she's just doing a routine. Her mind would probably be elsewhere. At least, that's what I thought, and I was expecting more of a fight, or at least more reaction. I was also expecting more reaction from Kyle to what happened.

When the other crewbeings arrive, I got the impression Akari knew them from before. I would have liked a bit more description/reminisce/personality reflection on them. It also appeared that Akari just accepted them, and was glad to see them, when I would have liked to see at least one that she didn't get along with, since she apparently wasn't choosing the crew.