Paul SB - Incompatible, sub22 - 4334 words (V)

[Paul SB]

Okay, we are finally at the Finalé! Thanks and I hope you are satisfied with the conclusion and the story overall.

 

In Entry 35 A and her staff check the underground part of the dome and find that there are still a couple goons holed up in the lab with hostages. Someone calls for EU military backup, but A ends the standoff with a (clever?) ruse.

 

Entry 36 is a simple denouement in which A finally meets the mysterious Graham Crackers. I’m curious what people think of that ending.

[Appol PhD they/he]

Congrats on finishing the submissions! It was a fun ride to read through. 

Overall: I think the broad beats here are pretty solid, and my main comment is that the way the hostage situation is resolved doesn’t have a lot of tension because the risk isn’t highlighted. Also, it feels like the SN people make a lot of mistakes that even dumb thugs shouldn’t. The one I keep going back to is watching A kill one of their number with an advanced alien weapon, not doing anything to her, and then having to face her down with those bigger and better weapons she has.

For the whole story, my biggest comment is that the central dynamic of A being pulled between her responsibilities and her personal romantic desires doesn’t show up on the page at all until pretty late in the story. When I had submission after submission of commenting that the scenes don’t feel important to the overall story at the start, that’s why. Once we get to A’s complicated feelings around R and how it intersects with her goals of helping people, it feels like the story gets going.

My other larger comment that I’ve mentioned several times (so I’ll keep it brief) is that I think we need to see A overcome more challenges, especially because she’s being handed the power of an upper-level manager with essentially no screening or oversight as a seventeen-year-old refugee.

As I go:

Pg 1. I know I harped on this last time but with A killing one of them in such a disturbing fashion it’s hard for me to believe that the hunters let them go unless they had some sort of leverage

Pg 4. I think this reads fine so far, though it does feel like a shift in focus from the rest of the novel. I’m more invested in A helping escapees and making hard personal choices than focusing on extended combat tactics sequences.

Pg 5. Case in point, I think the hostage situation is more fitting, and it seems like the SN people should jump to that sooner

Pg 6. I think it’s fine in theory for the goons to come across as stupid but I think it’s harder to make it feel tense. If they’re going to be stupid, I think we need to know more about why so it feels like it’s saying something about this world instead of being there for plot convenience.

Pg 8. This is a fun use for the virus, though it feels a little easy. I think what A does here should have some element of risk to create tension

Pg 11. This is a good way of having them realize why releasing the virus would be bad news without getting too technical about the history/political theory we discussed

Pg 12. Cool that A’s arrived on ace as a label for herself. Also seems like she’s aromantic based on how she’s talking though I don’t know how much you want to match labels one to one with modern day

Pg 15. I like this ending! Start of a new, possibly platonic close relationship to show how she’s moving forward.

Best of luck in revision!  

[Paul SB]

Thanks for sticking with it to the end. I've made some changes Entry 35, though you seem pretty satisfied with the denouement, and since no one else is commenting I'm leaving it as is for the moment. The main change to 35 is that instead of the computer pranking them I made the 50-year old equipment fail and they had to seal the lab, possibly permanently. I should be able to do something with this in the second book, which I haven't started yet. 

I will go back to 33 and change the head shot to a near miss. While at work I thought that it would leave a big hole in the wall, and it would be funny if someone graffitied around it to look like the Bishop of Mars, with the hole being his mouth.