Jan21 -Trizee- Facial Paradoxes

[Trizee]

Here's a science fiction short story I've written. Tell me what you think!

[Syme]

I have one major complaint about this story: the main character is a complete idiot. To me, the final revelation was painfully obvious quite early on in the story. I first suspected it when the woman and girl ran away at the start and from there it quickly turned into certainty. Now I did have some help from the story's title, but then again Jack presumably should be quite knowledgeable about dealing with alien species, whereas all I know about that is based on pure conjecture.

Throughout the story, Jack continues to make unfounded and unreasonable assumptions about the aliens that would be understandable mistakes for the average person today to make, but are completely unreasonable to see in an astronaut who lives in a world where contact with aliens is nothing new at all. Those unfounded assumptions include assigning sex and age to the aliens based on the way humans of different ages and sexes look, assuming shared body langague (the big one here is of course the smiling and laughing for anger and fear and frowning and crying for joy, but there is for instance also the assumption that nodding indicates assent and head shaking indicates dissent, which isn't even true in all human cultures), and assuming that their food is edible and non-poisonous to humans and doesn't contain any deadly germs.

Frankly, at the end of the piece I was glad that the blundering idiot got killed for his stupidity.

Another thing you might want to look at is the beginning. Having a story start with the protagonist waking up and having to figure out where he is and what happened is somewhat of a cliché and may turn off more experienced readers who've read similar scenes many times before Wditors, agents and judges of writing contests are among the most experienced readers you will find, so having a clichéd beginning decreases the chances that they'll get past the first page.

The story is otherwise solid. The prose is good, I didn't notice any grammar or spelling mistakes and the pacing is fine as well. But unfortunately, in my mind, none of that makes up for its big central flaw. The idea of having an alien race with "reverse" facial expression is solid, but unfortunately the execution is not.

[little wilson]

I agree with Syme, for the most part.

I really like the premise of it. A backwards species from humans. I think it's cleverly done, at least the building of the species, because it's more than just facial. Or at least that's how I interpreted it. It seemed to me that everything is backwards. For example, when Tahiri berates Quitzil, Quitzil walks away with a dignified stride. I loved that.

I also really liked some of the little details you threw in there, like the disinfectant motto. It had me chuckling. Those kinds of clever world-building techniques is something I have a really hard time coming with in my own writing, but I think it's really cool. So good job on that.

Now, about Jack. First, I like that he's so caught up in the idea of the glory and fame he'll get by finding this species. My biggest issue with him is his intelligence and perception. Now, some of this can be explained by the fact that this is his first encounter with an alien species, and he's at a severe disadvantage, because this is a brand-new species. I'd consider this kind of like an anthropologist on their first field assignment, with a culture VERY different from their own. It doesn't matter how many classes they have taken, and how many times they've been told not be ethnocentric. That first time, they are going to judge that culture based on what they know. At least for a short time.

So based on that, I think it's definitely unlikely for Jack to have put the differences together by the time the females run away from him at the beginning. But I know for a fact I would've had it put together by at least the meal, when everyone is so sad, at a time when they're expected to be merry. And if Jack is even half-way intelligent, he should've had it put together by the end of that meal. But instead, he makes the assumption that they must be pathologically sad. This is so close-minded of him, and if this is true to his personality, I find it extremely hard to believe that whoever Jack works for would allow someone of his mind-set and intelligence level to go out in space where it is very likely he could encounter alien species. I would think they would be more concerned with the relations humans have with those alien species.

Of course, I don't know how you'd be able to change that and make him more perceptive, and still have him die at the end. Because obviously, he wouldn't have done what he did with the little girl (if she is indeed a little girl) if he'd known that she was already happy when she was messing around with him, before he decided to 'play' with her and therefore terrify her. Which brought about his death. I guess if you still wanted to end with his death, he could make some other horrible mistake about the people, unrelated to their body language differences. Maybe a cultural blunder, because it's certain they're going to have a different culture than any of the ones Jack would be aware of.

So, yeah. Other than that part about Jack, I really liked the story. I didn't even care that it was a clichéd beginning. It was enjoyable, and that's all that matters to me.

[Mandamon]

Yep, have to agree with the others. I spent the whole story, after the first encounter, mentally shouting at the main character to figure it out. Obviously I have some extra clues, like the title and the story plot, but really, he should have figured it out sooner.

Also, if you've crash landed on a planet, you check the atmosphere before you step out of the ship, rather than waiting for you air to run out. First, you don't want to waste your resources, like bottled air, and second, you don't want to get killed by a stupid mistake. It's sort of like scuba diving. If you're at all trained, you do a check on every piece of equipment before you enter the water, and you know what the water environment is like.

I think for this to work as a short story, it needs a second objective. The fact that the alien's expressions/body language is opposite from ours can be used as a tool in the first contact, but there has to be something else to hold the interest. The Writing Excuses guys often mention to think through the first few twists or endings, then discard those and think past it to give a real surprise for the reader. You could use the opposite facial expressions as the first revelation, but then add a second one for the zinger at the end. Maybe the aliens genuinely don't like having fun, and that's why the little girl was scared, something like that.

Good prose and writing, keep at it!

[cnr87]

I agree with the others. I really like the title, but it made me figure out what was going on really quickly. I also felt like Jack should have figured it out sooner.

I agree with Mandamon on the fact that the gauges should have been checked before he left the ship. Or if the ship was too broken to check the atmosphere, surely he has a hand held gauge just for precaution.

You may want to give a description as to what Jack's space suit looks like as well. When the aliens hit him, all I could think about was how big and bulky modern space suits are, and I wondered how his face could be hit at all, and whether the punches would actually hurt.

I like the idea very much. I also love the final name he decides on for the new species. It's fantastic.

[Asmodemon]

There isn’t much more that I can say that the others haven’t already mentioned. They reversal of expressions with the aliens is an interesting thing and I really like how Jack names them mockers at the end, but aside from the confusion Jack feels at the aliens there isn’t much more to the story – the ‘mystery’ isn’t a mystery to the reader either, I figured out what was going on with them by the time the first aliens ran away from him, laughing. Especially in combination with the title.

I would have liked to have some more description about Jack, his space suit and the ship itself.

I didn’t really like the beginning of the story, with the ‘sound effects’. Other than that I don’t really have anything to say about the prose per se, the writing itself was very good.