Sarah B

Looks like I'm up first! First of all, this version reads much easier. I appriciate all the effort you've gone to to restrain the character intros and world building into bite sized pieces :-) A few small things: "The floor was strewn with..." I am not the grammer guru by any stretch, but I don't think you need the comma in this sentence. The word 'surge' is repeated in close proximity in the beginning. The section 3 time skip is a little confusing. It feels like significant time has passed because they are having 'boring meetings' about the tech they used, but some of the dialogue indicates that this is just a few hours later. The foreshadowing in this version is great, I love the way you placed hints to make the reader curious without making it seem like we've just missed something. Nice work!

Some really peasant reading in here, as expected. The first line read a bit tangled. Overall, this chapter felt like a little of everything. Some of the musicians being buddy buddy, some BK machinations, some food and some family drama. I liked all the parts, but it felt like sections of different chapters sandwiched together. As always, looking forward to more :-)

I thought the first chapter was a solid start. Plenty of action, and I understand why it matters as I'm reading. I'm get a strong StarWars/space empire vibe. The second chapter felt slow to me, with a lot of world elements and characters explained in a very dense area of text. Not bad, just hard to track and harder to recall for later. The MC's voice was a little confused, ranging from silly sounding cursing to very high handed and philosophical. The second reads more beleivably for someone who would be chosen as a figure head, unless you are purposefully bucking expectations. A few lines struck me as references to other works, which I am all for, but the tone doesn't seem to suport the parody vibe. The two that jumped out the most: "Everything I do, I do for a reason." Oden "Narfing" Pinky and the Brain I am always up for a scifi parody, if this is where the story is going. It feels a little thrown in at this point though. Thanks for sharing! May the Force (or the Swartz) be with you :-)

The voice is definetly strong and developed. It feels like maybe they get to carry on too long in their self loathing spiral though. The cuts to hair descriptions get a little confusing in the 1st person, but otherwise it read very solidly to me. Would it be possible to accelerate the narrative by having this conversation while J brings A to see the stowaway? Or is otherwise active in hijinks? For the level of swearing, it seems like it will depend on the audience and the publication. I can't recall reading a YA story with two F's in the first chapter, but I've never read specifically checking for that either. Does the publication/contest have previous issues you could check against? I'm sure you've already thought of this. Thanks for sharing!

Nope! I'm not cool enough yet :-)

Well, I forgot I was supposed to be looking for problems because I wanted to know what happened :-) that seems like a good sign So, after going back and reading it again... Is Ir back home now? It seems like a linking line or two about returning is missing, or else is this her temoroary home at their current stop? "Because I'm the kind of idiot who goes working" goes to work Overall, not much to say beyond that it felt breif. I would have liked a little more reaction time for Ir to process what was happening because this feels like a big turning point. A pleasure to read, as usual

As a new reader, I'm getting traction, but still lost. This was an easier entry point than the prologue for sure with a clear through line to the exposition. If I had given in to the impulse to start to skim the prologue, I think I would have missed the connection between the prologue and chapter 1. There is so much world building! It seems very interesting but I am still struggling to piece together what I need from the background info. One line was challenging, "You four are scheduled for next weeks..." given how variable life is in this story, I had to go back and reread to see if "you four" was G4 as a group entity or the new aliens. By the end, I am more interested in the planet that I am starting to wrap my head around than seeing the MC leave it. I might be misunderstanding the situation, but it seems like G4 is being way too insistent that they leave now when there is no real deadline, except for the message that A doesn't seem to think is important. I do want to say that everything reads well, it feels like developed world. As an new reader, I am craving something straight forward to grab onto and lead me through the rest. The characters seem likable and interesting, but so far both MC's have spent most of their viewpoint thinking about facts and other people's motivations so I don't feel like I really know them or their voices yet. It might also just be me. I am not at 100% so that could also be the problem :-) (Nothing to worry about, just tired and life stuff)

I didn't get that far in the sub, but the original chapter three (ish) started to dig into the Sab trying to step into the power vacuum and using the Al survivors as something between hostages and trophies to show their authority. Is this the kind of thing you had in mind? Do you think the problem was taking too long to get there? Thank you!

Great advice, thank you!

I appreciate your misplaced faith in my abilities :-) Yeah, that's a tough one. I love the concept of a plague ship in context of a vessel that won't be allowed to find a port and so has to keep traveling, like the ships and boats forced to fly a special flag to show they had cholera on board. And the reversal of the plague essentially being everywhere except the ship. That may be a darling I need to kill though. Thank you for the advice and input!

It's refreshing to read something not sf/f, I'm glad you decided to sub this. The tone and language read consistently for me. I got a strong Renaissance vibe from the language and architecture, but I am not a history buff. The title of emporor is throwing me off of most locations that leap to mind, but perhaps this is set in the Ottoman empire? Just a wild guess there, my ignorance of world history has come back to haunt me I'm afraid :-) As I read: "While the body burned" up until this line, I thought the King was being executed here. Not sure why. Caravan: I had to do a little research on this one. In historical fiction, I would read this word as a group of people traveling together, rather than a vehicle of any kind. After a little digging though I came across caravan as a horse drawn vehicle starting in the 19th century. So, depending on your time frame this may be fine. Also, is this an alternate history, or our history? I don't recognize the names, but that means very little given my allergy to history books. "Rather anxiety inducing" a little wordy "Hoping he would keep me in service as long as he wished." I had a couple issues with this line. It seems like an odd thing to hope for; why would the POV not be in the emporor's service as long as the emporor wished? Or is the POV the 'he'? The tone put me off of the POV for being so incredibly subservient to someone they have apparently only recently met. Maybe there's a good reason they feel that way, but it sounds a bit fawning for someone's personal thoughts. There's some interesting things happening in the narration. By giving the POV virtually no self descriptions, it feels like you're pulling the reader into their shoes. It's a fun effect, similar to the short stories I've read in second person. The moment where the POV gets a name is a little jarring only because it's the first concrete fact we get about them, except for being a foreign servant to the emperor. I liked the atmosphere you set here and the amount of background you managed to sneak in without feeling like an info dump. Thanks for sharing!

About 6 months in my origional timeline. The time frame for draft 1-2 is pretty short, a little over 2 weeks, so comparatively it would be very long. I think I really only need four for five days of that six months to tell the important parts. So it would be 2 days (skip three months) 1 day (skip a month) and so on. Yup! Just bringing in that Steven King money :-) Valid point. The main purpose of the title was as a 'fair warning' about the subject matter and to focus in on the people in the eye of the storm, rather than the storm. I guess I can't have it both ways eh? :-) I realized from critiques that I was promising a book about plague and the struggle to find a cure. Both of those elements are there, but the vaccine happens fairly early on and is more important as a conflict point due to unforeseen effects and how it shifts the dynamic again between the Al and the Sab. (Wait... you mean you're not all dying?) I'm intrigued, but I'm having a hard time picturing how it would work. Do you think a reader would tolerate that much skipping in a first chapter? Would that require full narration mode for clarity? Or do you mean establish the first chapter, then surge forward al a Pixar's Up? Thanks again!

@Mandamon @Silk @ginger_reckoning @Robinski @kais @Snakenaps Hello again! I hope it's not rude to tag everyone to ask a question about an old sub... well, one way to find out I guess :-) After simmering on several of the issues and symptoms this story is having, I had an idea I wanted to run by the people who were kind enough to read and critique it. What do you think of the story picking up earlier? I'm thinking of rewinding back to the initial outbreak, where D and Ar are on Sab training (or at least suposed to be in D's case) students and then seeing what's happening across the Alliance. This would take a lot of the backstory I was trying to cover and bring it into the present. I could then space out major characters to be introduced as they arrive rather than all at once. It also gives me a chance to show D in direct interaction with the two main antagonists. The draw back is that this will require some major time skips to prevent this new time frame from becoming it's own book. It also delays reaching the crisis point of the escape from the Sab space station and stealing the titular Plague Ship. I'm also worried that this will make the book read as a story about a plague, rather than a story about the aftermath of the Al being removed as a power and what that does to them and the kinds in their now collapsing Alliance. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks again!

Yup! Pull a Startrek and call it a 'hypo' or an auto-injector or anything but a syringe and 'nurse brain' shuts off and reads on. :-)

Nice to be back to this POV, my favorite character by far. A large number of passive voice sentences, especially in the beginning. "The sky weighing on her everywhere she looked." Confusing "He was surprised she listened" feels like a momentary break in POV. Not really needed after the raised eyebrow. A bunch of "they" "group" "some" and other vague terms makes this chapter read very nebulous to me. "An Image moving on the table and even some popping out of it." Some of the image? Some of the dialogue feels like over-explaining between people who would already know. Injection: There is scifi at play here so there's some flexibility. But for an injection to work as fast as it seems to it would need to be injected into a vein (IV), which is a much more involved process than intra muscular (IM). IM all you need is a muscle of decent size and to stab somewhere between the skin and the bone without hitting a vein. Someone can do that with little help or knowlege but the drug would take longer to take effect. An IV injection takes some finess; to find and hit a vein and also usually a tourniquet. It is double tough to hit a vein in someone who is young and dehydrated as Tr seems to be. In either case, especially on someone who is in need of a shower, you need to clean the injection site first. "She" and Se gets confusing, especially since the word she refers back to the most recently named female, which is Se. "W noticed she was awake and said, 'Great, you're awake...'" repetition "She wore the clothes" more repetition The Galaxies dead or galaxy's dead? Wouldn't live stock be cheaper easier that hauling bodies? Cheaper yet would be plants or compact food like meal replacement powder or bars. I had assumed they were just eating slaves that had died while already there. Tr is a character I am rooting for. I like her for her initiative to escape and her drive to survive. I am worried that she will quickly power up into being untouchable like Q and V though. Thanks for sharing

C definetly reads as a complicated and potentially very interesting VPC! For mental health, I didn't get OCD at all. I'm not a mental health expert of any kind, but I haven't heard of or encountered OCD associated with violence directed outward like that. I got more of an autism with depression vibe, particularly from the mention of 'bad days". I agree with previous comments that some sort of frustration or violation of a ritual would bring home the violent impulses and make them seem less sociopathic. Fantasy religion: definetly strong Chistianity references, but the incarnations reminded me of elements of Buddhism, and the paint seemed more reminiscent of henna. Unless its relevant to the plot, you could dial back the explaination of doctrine if you're trying to lean away from tagging any one religion. Female POV: C focusing in on certain parts of female anatomy and only describing males in general terms did catch my attention. If it's not deliberate, it could be balanced by C also noting the males to the same level of anatomic detail maybe? In case it's helpful, For describing a person who is anorexic (anorexia nervous, not just doesn't like to eat), you could focus on how they hold themselves. Does they look tired? Weak? Are they hiding their body? Anorexia comes with body image issues, and can include seeing themselves as large even while being painfully thin. Anorexia is often also about control. Again, not an expert but the mental aspects may help make it clearer that this is not someone who is just very thin. It seems like you've taken on a challenge! May the writing XP points be bountiful :-)

I'll count myself as a new reader, I don't think I was here for any other parts of this story. If I was, I am very sorry but I forgot. The ship's name thrown in with all the other proper names was pretty confusing. At first read, I feel like I'm getting maybe 10% of these names and facts from not being able to link the others to anything. Blowing up a planet on the first page is very Hitchhiker's guide :-) That line is what's pulling me through. "Like her and Nic." I had to re read this part to sort out which was her sort of boyfriend and which was the relatively new person....maybe? "She, like her genetic cousin E..." sentences like these are leaving me in the dust as a new reader. I'm trying to grab the facts that seem the most important because there is a lot to process. And whispering trees has me hooked again. The long blocks of history and names were tough to get through but the parts where things are happening were a pleasure to read. By the end, I want to read more. By the end I am also hoping that some of that is going to be repeated, or I didn't need to know it because there is no way I've retained it all.

New settings! I liked the consideration you put into how the different kinds of people would travel. A few nit picky things: "Her bleary eyes were echoed (mirrored?) In her brothers in the darkness." How does she see them in the dark? "The valley didn't appear right.." this sentence seemed a bit tangled. "Her feet ached" until this point, I assumed she had been riding. Not a problem but it took some mental readjusting. Jerky: not sure how far you want to go with this, but the term 'Jerky' for dried meat is derived from an Incan (Quchewa) term, adopted in 1850 into English (so says google). I think from what you said about timeline the year isn't a problem, but the geography might be. "His black coat was covered in lightly with dust." Small problem here. "Children ran between the wagons." I suppose its different with sentient animals, but people were maimed and killed by wagons pretty regularly back in the day. Reading this made me think of someone getting trampled, butnmaybe they were moving slowly enough that it was fine? "How much she had ben (been) missing, cooped up inside a single city." While describing the messenger birds, the POV feels like it wavers away from IR. TBK vs Az: either works for me, although only calling him TBK for most of the book does draw more attention to your title and Ir's ability in my opinion. Really interested to see how everything comes together! Thanks for sharing

I'm pretty late to the party, so most of the line by line stuff I caught has already been mentioned. A few notes I made while reading: Chapter 9 The first few paragraphs have a repetitive sentence length and structure. It smooths out later on. "But BoLe isn't as replaceable" is BoLe supposed to be plural here? It seems like it should from context. V's voice seems to shift around from formal to informal mid conversation with the same person. Chapter 8 "She quickly wore her mask." Put on? As a reader I'm a bit turned around about the terms for people's abilities. It seems like "The Pow" is a source of these abilities and also a sort of diety/Force like entity. At the same time the SH from chapter one seem to use 'space' as the implied source of their abilities, as does E and his SpaPow. So far, I'm assuming that the words Spa or Pow both stand in for the same source of abilities. Chapter 9 V's ability seems to have intermittent capitalization. Sometimes both words are, sometimes none and sometimes mixed. General: I have to agree that I feel no concern for V's well being. While she is a more complicated character, she feels a bit like Superman. If she can endlessly heal and have powers so long as she can pull the souls out of enemies, the only real threat I could see her having would be forces of nature and machines. Even then, it seems like she has an internal soul bank of sorts to pull from. She has the attributes of a sympathetic villian that it will take all the heroes to defeat (Thanos, Dark Seid, Magnito). As a protagonist though, I'm 99% sure she's going to be fine. The effort and planning you've put into your world building really shows. I would love to see more of the brass tacks of how everything works.

I'm going to chip in on this as I have some first hand experience as a nurse. I have experienced the "my body thinks this is food," response to the smell cauterizing skin and muscle before. It's disturbing and entirely involuntary. Even when your brain says, "no, gross, that's a person," there's a pavlovian response to cooking meat smells if your hungry enough. Given that you mention that he had been fasting, this struck me as very accurate. The after effect, if this is useful, was that I avoided several foods that triggered the same smell memory for over a year as the memory turned my stomach at the thought of eating anything that smelled like that. Specifically ham lunch meat (still can't eat) and corned beef were the worst.

Not cool having all those food descriptions when I packed a protein bar for lunch :-) That being said, nice food descriptions! "She was trying not to think too hard about it" nice line Rudimentary math: baking takes a ton of math, especially adjusting recipies for different numbers of people. Maybe she's only good with ratios and fractions? "That would have been as a conquering army." This line feels patched in, I don't think you need it since this point has been covered before. The time skip feels like a new chapter. Exiled: I hope I'm not being too picky, but it seems like S has exiled herself rather than IR. I liked the party scene. It felt like a big pay off for many of the conflicts before this point and maybe some breathing room before the next gauntlet. I agree parts of this scene could be fleshed out to really savor the good parts before the inevitable conflicts to come. Thanks for sharing!

Hello and welcome! I really enjoyed how vividly you write. I live in the NW of the US and so trees are my natural habitat and I loved how you invoked the feelings of the river and trees. A little wordy sometimes, but better too much than too little :-) A few things I noticed as I read: "The weight of the stone..." I don't see the mention of the houses being made of stone before this. To me it was a little confusing if you were referencing the house collapsing or pure metaphor. "Brush of tall oaks." This could be regional, but to me 'brush' is low lying and thick foliage as opposed to tall trees. "Another luxury he was fortunate to have" reading this, it strikes me that either K is hyper educated for his time, or this might be a bit wordy for his personal thoughts. "He saw a sword as a brush." I like this point and the evidence you support it with. It does feel smashed together with other ideas that don't harmonize though. "She sloped to the floor" It seemed like she was already laying on the ground before K killed her. "Quite disillusioned" I wasn't clear on what K meant by that here. I find myself liking K and his palladian/ronin vibe. Like @Robinski, I look forward to seeing what K wants and what challenges he will set himself against.

@aeromancer My favorite super power to see done well are the different forms of kinetic mimicry/ skill absorption. You see this in comic type stories in characters like Task master, tv in Sylar from Heroes, and in manga/anime in characters like Kakashi. Star trek plays with this too in a light form as mind melds and the Krill, depending on the version. There are always drawbacks, what has to be done to acquire new skills and how long they last. I think what appeals to me about it is that the ability doesn't seem to be anything at first, but is crushingly powerful when developed Flight is a close second though :-)

I've read a few books that tie directly to the works of Lovecraft (The Fold and 14 being my favorites), it can be a fun mini trope :-) You might just be cautious of invoking Lovecraft if the tone of your story isn't conpatable with the existential terror/psychological horror that he was known and loved for. Not for any ethical reasons, just to avoid disappointing readers who might get drawn in by the promise of a Lovecraft-like story. That's just my opinion though. It would be sort of like reading a book featuring Sherlock Holmes characters, but with no mystery.

@Turin Turambar I'm far from one of the pros here, but in case it's useful, I'll take a shot at answering too. How rough: I try to keep momentum once I start writting, so I'll use parentheses or 'TK' to fill in things I don't know yet or have forgotten. My first drafts end up looking pretty bare with mostly dialogue and only the broad strokes of the action (my weakest skill). If I know a location or a description I'll stop and write it in but if not I keep going and fill it in later. Now that I'm more focused on editing, I wish I wrote cleaner first drafts. Plotting: I write scifi, so most of my stuff focuses on a core question or concept that I want to explore. That's where I start. Then I add one or more characters that would be involved in that question. From there, I get ideas of things that I want to have happen, cool little moments. Those are my tent poles. If its complicated, I make an index card for each thing that I know has to happen and put them into a big deck. As I finish writing to that point, I will throw the card away. That's where my planning stops. Then I jump in and see where it takes me between index cards, sometimes nowhere near where I thought. Often the cards have to be changed or revised. Per writing excuses advice, I have been trying to apply Dan Wells' 7-point story structure when I get bogged down or lost (usually mid/late second act). This is also helpful for making me realize how many sub-plots I have started without noticing :-) I tried the "story genius" method a bit, but it is way too organized for me. I do like her method of writing three back story scenes first, the end second, and then everything else. I hope to use this going forward to write stronger character arcs. I'm still stumbling my way to a method, but that's what I've got so far :-)