Paul SB

Hello again, In our next exciting episode, our heroes arrive in the territory of their friendly aliens, who immediately take the cataleptic communication nexus under observation. At the same time, A & R ask about the new colony and get disappointing news. It's my hope that the current situation, much of which is hindered by cross-species communication failures, feels both believable and sufficiently alien to make sense. They have a very frustrating conversation with the command nexus in charge who threatens to shut the colony down if there isn't sufficient progress, so the stakes are high both for them and the future for a splinter of humanity. I hope you all enjoy the show.

I guess ... If I don't maybe no one will, and Reading Excuses will be effectively kaput.

Another Monday cometh. No one seems to be home, though.

Back for more. This submission has two entries. The first is just a connecting flight -- the protagonists move from one ship to another so they can go back to the galaxy while V can stay home with the baby. I'm not certain this scene is even needed, especially given the high word count (currently 113 Kilowords). It also reintroduces a minor character from the first book who will have a role to play later in this one. The second entry follows a character that was pretty background in the first volume. Here Morgan's assistant pulls a Henry V, pretending to be a common employee and goes to the cafeteria to get an idea of what the plebes are thinking. This scene might also not be strictly necessary, but this character will have an increasing role to play over this and the next book, so I wanted to do something to make her more than a cardboard cutout. Thanks for taking a peek.

I have checked my spam folder and that doesn't seem to be the issue. Connor has said the same thing to me, and he has had to ask me to resend much more often than I have asked him. That might be a platform issue, assuming he uses a PC, since I use Mac. I hope this clue helps. Happy bug hunting!

… I hear them saying (tomorrow's just another day) I hear them saying (and it gets better every day) I hear them saying (tomorrow's just another day) Tomorrow's just another day A little Madness for you. Tomorrow's another Monday, and another submission, I presume?

Chapter 11 Overall it’s going well, but you are still not providing the reader with anything like a richness of descriptive detail, and both your protagonist and S have a tendency to be too tight-lipped for their own good. Especially after succeeding with the first years, A should be gaining some confidence in terms of using his words. I kind of suspect that might be an element of the upcoming midpoint. I would like to post a couple passages from a book I just finished a couple days ago that incorporated description into the narrative very well. It’s Robin Duncan’s “The Mandroid Murders.” Since he’s one of the elder statesmen here I want to ask permission first. However, he noted that he would be gone for a couple weeks. “And then it succeeded in what it was always going to, what an institution built only to destroy knows how to do best.” — I’m not sure if these tidbits are titillating or traumatizing. Not everyone is going to have the patience to read this and wonder if they are only going to understand it when they get to the end. Some readers like it, others are repelled by it. Have you ever read Anne Leckie’s “Ancillary Justice?” It isn’t until the climax that you understand why the protagonist is doing any of the things it’s doing. Not too many books win the Hugo, Nebula, and the Arthur C. Clarke awards, so it’s not schlock fiction, but a lot of people give up long before the end. “This isn’t fair to Shrike. I should be heaping praise and thanks onto them for their support back in the game council. Because they deserve it, and because I need them loyal to me. But I live in a world where the only face that shows no fear around me is the reflection in psyglass. Sparrow being scared of hurting me is at times worse than the way everyone else dreads what I can do to them. So here and now, the emptiness is safer.” — This is gold. Keep it going. “I mean, what you did sounds about right for your level of maturity. …” — Perhaps if A said “…our level of maturity” it would have come off as, well, more mature. ““It’s okay. Nobody should want this.” — I feel like this is such an important part of A that he should elaborate on this a little. After all, if they are all Touched, they can all touch each other and no one has to be afraid. Then, of course, there’s the fear of the unknown, which A might alleviate a little by explaining it better. “That makes them tense.” — At this moment I would expect A to think for a second about why, and which is the bigger factor between the fear of A and the fear for A. “ … the most enchanting boy I’ve seen.” — If this is being caused by some sort of augmentation, you would think a lot more people would have it, and there would be one for the opposite sex as well. “Then it won’t ever be fair to ask you to change for me.” — This points to one edge of the sword. S might have no problem getting people into bed with him, but he will never know if any of them love him or are just attracted to his augmentation like the rats of Hamelin. All the silence is very typically male, but wouldn’t A take a moment to think of what it means for him and say something? “Recovered what? Before I can linger on that, Sparrow closes his eyes and they glow purple. Even before the effect walks (wears?) off, he’s already running towards the door. No hesitation, yet another confirmation that whatever unfortunate reality he saw is not a surprise. I barely manage to keep up as he bolts out of the building and heads across the school grounds. Not enough breath to ask questions.” — If his eyes were glowing purple but they were closed, how would anyone know? Also, it seems like you could add another sentence after the second to spice up the tension. It could be an observation, a WTF string of expletives, a look on S’s face, anything that would enhance the sense of urgency. “Sparrow is off after her while I stand paralyzed wondering what I should have told her instead.” — Now that is one self-absorbed adolescent! Not, hoping he’ll stop her from throwing her life away. At this suicide rate there won’t be anyone left for A to save before too long. S has got to be feeling pretty guilty now that two are directly related to him.

Are these better? “Newman, I want you to return to Dirt forthwith, and continue your observations. An ershad will accompany you and make a separate report.” “Y-yes, Your Grace. And thank you! You have made my task much easier. I only hope that I have not missed anything of importance in my time there. I understand how critical this mission is to our future. Indeed, the future of the whole Human flock!” His head bobbled. I dismissed the fool with a wave. Sending one of the morality police with him might be enough to overcome his natural frivolity, I hoped. Why Beatty chose Newman as his assistant was positively unfathomable. Hopefully Beatty won’t shice a cinder block, since it will be clear enough the ershad is there to watch him. “Yes, yes, of course.” I cleared my throat and turned my attentions back to the dozen other gentlemen of the Abbreviated Council. “It is not that I doubt the worthiness of Archbishop Beatty. He is as capable as my predecessor supposed. I have been pleased with reports thus far.” ... Condon grumbled, “And why is it we have to do these things if God is Almighty? Would an almighty deity need help from us?” That blasphemy brought a stunned silence to the meeting hall. My eyes narrowed on him. Either his mind was sinking under a century of luxurious sloth, or he was playing some sort of game. Perhaps he wanted to question my effectiveness, or else his laggard existence has led him into despair. The Lord knows he drinks enough. “We serve the Lord, Condon,” I replied in my most menacing from-the-crypt tone. “It is my hope that your faith is not wavering.” The hour-long meeting continued for two more hours, on details of various operations. The double operations Eden and Constantine were of utmost, sacred gravity. I told myself I had faith in the Lord that I would be able to trust in my men to see the job through. I certainly hoped I could trust in my men. The fate of all Humanity rode on our success, and I sure as hell did not want to go down in history as the man who failed the Lord on so grand a scale.

In case you're curious, this is what I did in place of the cardboard cutout: That blasphemy brought a stunned silence to the meeting hall. My eyes narrowed on him. Either his mind was sinking under a century of luxurious sloth, or he was playing some sort of game. “We serve the Lord, Condon,” I replied in my most menacing from-the-crypt tone. “It is my hope that your faith is not wavering.”

Per request from one of the elder statesmen of this site, I'm going to paste the plot synopsis I wrote for the first book so people who want to read this one but didn't read the first one will have some background to work from. I wrote this synopsis a couple years ago when I foolishly thought that a mere mortal such as myself could get it published. I'm sure it was deleted, unread, by at least sixty publishing agents, only about a third of whom even bothered to send a form rejection. Not encouraging. I think this second book is the biggest mess of them all. I drafted the first book during my Christmas break at the end of 1999 when I was a semester from graduating. The second book started life the following summer when I had my master's in my hot little hands and a boring entry-level job that normally goes to undergrads (the economy wasn't exactly fantastic back then). The draft was half way done when the file got corrupted and I had to start over, then after 9/11 everyone got laid off, right when my wife was demanding baby #2. I had to change careers, and ended up in a field that demands 27 hours a day, nine days a week time commitment and both reading and writing went out the window for the next 14 years. Now i have a disability that ended that career, so i don't have a penny to my name but I have time to get back to my old pursuits. That makes The Backbone of Night a weird hybrid of who I was 25 years ago and who I became about two years ago when i got back to it. The next three books in the trilogy are recent, so they are much more consistent and compact. Okay, enough babble, here's the synopsis: Plot Synopsis for Twilight’s Rift Born a free Citizen, Amal Hardesty is now a slave working on an interstellar cruise ship. She shares a sleeping cubby with five other women, one of whom has a strange catalepsy that renders her unable to talk and emotionally dead. One night, instead of going silently to bed, the cataleptic walks down into the deepest bowels of the liner. Amal and the others follow, and she leads them to a mysterious alien vessel that has secretly docked with their ship. That vessel brought a mercenary troop to steal an alien artifact from a passenger, but the mercenaries never come back. Amal and her assigned family sneak aboard the ship, and the ship’s computer accepts their commands. Naturally, they command the ship to fly away, escaping their servitude contracts. After a celebratory shore leave that goes horribly wrong, Amal discovers that her best friend of the past fifteen years, who suffers from clinical depression, is in love with her, but kept it secret because homosexuality is punishable by death in the Meritocracy. This revelation causes some serious friction among them. Amal also finds the journal of the ship’s previous owner, and decides to try to steal the same artifact he was after. She intends to sell it and use the money to hire mercenaries for a daring attack on the Meritocracy’s biggest labor production facility, with the intention of freeing as many products (slaves) as possible. She fails to get the artifact on their first attempt, and seeks out a friend of the ship’s former owner who is sympathetic to their cause. He sets them up with a group of professional thieves, and on the third try they succeed. However, Amal is nearly killed by the telepath who was protecting the alien artifact. They discover that it is actually an alien, not an artifact. It uses its psionic abilities to heal Amal. At the same time, her friend and now lover finds out that the ship itself is a living thing. Both are items of living technology created by a long-extinct species that once roamed the galaxy. Amal and her friends return the “artifact” to the crystalline Telmari, who did not expect Humans to return their citizen to them freely, and are grateful. They return their living ship to Twilight’s Rift, the place its race hides, expecting to live out their lives in hiding themselves. But once the living ships regain what they had lost centuries before, internal companions, they agree to take Amal up on the raid she had planned. They meet up with the Telmari again. Amal convinces them to allow colonies of escaped slaves to take up residence in their territory. The Telmari are only willing to do this, however, if the Humans allow them to modify their brains. Amal and her friends undergo this conversion themselves, which helps them understand the Telmari and imparts psionic abilities to them. Amal takes a large school of ships to attack the labor production facility, stealing thousands of young people from the Meritocracy. As they escape, though, an accident rips away much of the planet’s ozonesphere, dooming the world to slow death by radiation. Amal and the school of ships return to Twilight’s Rift with thousands of freed slaves. Twilight’s Rift and its sequels explore cultural evolution as a primary theme, which is why it is framed as a historical document in some future galactic civilization. Sub-themes include the ill effects of too much emphasis on competition in a society, the importance of diversity for long-term survival, and the randomness of reality.

Hello people, This week I am starting up the first sequel to Twilight's Rift, so not to the one we just finished. So far I've only written that one chapter from last week. Twilight's Rift was the story about six slaves on a cruise ship who stumble on an advanced alien spaceship and steal it, then decide to use it to help liberate more slaves. In the process they discover that their ship is actually a living being, form an alliance with a mysterious alien species to take in freed human slaves, and cause one of the most powerful corporations to declare itself a free "country" which in turn sets off a huge civil war. If anyone needs a plot synopsis let me know and I'll post one. The first entry is a little weird because it begins with an assault, but while that is happening the perp is using telepathy to rummage through the memories of the victim. I hope this is clear enough and doesn't completely throw off people trying to read it. The second entry introduces the leadership of the only church allowed in human space. In the first book the Church is mentioned a few times, and one of the escaped slaves was owned by the Church. In this story they are going to take a much more active role.

Me too, if it’s okay with you. I will be starting on the sequel to Twilight’s Rift, which is probably the one most desperately in need of help.

Thanks for taking the time. So far there has only been one person critiquing my work here, which is a little disappointing. Our host jumped in once, and when I first started there was a dwarf who read and critiqued a couple times, but not for long. I guess dwarves aren't exactly in my target audience ... Most of your critique is of the I-haven't-read-the-first-book variety, so I will see how I can make some of these things more clear without killing the tension. Naturally I would be absolutely thrilled if you went back and read the first book, but we're all busy people. The other issues are mostly grammatical, which is a little embarrassing, especially given that I was raised by a Dutch mother who speaks five languages and is absolutely obsessive about grammar. Nonetheless, it's useful, and nice to have another pair of eyes on it. It's very easy for a person to know what they mean and not even consider the possibility that a reader would not immediately see the same thing (like not wanting to open a door for fear of blowing the air out when there are likely people inside). Much appreciated! Since I haven't written any more of this story, I will be starting with a different one next week. It will be the sequel to the first story I brought here, called Twilight's Rift. If you're interested in reading that one I can send it to you. But of course your time is yours. Everyone I have ever met who writes even semi-professionally is always busy.

Overall this is surprisingly interesting for as little as is actually happening. A is an easy character to get invested in, and I like how you are introducing a new character in almost every chapter, almost like they are museum exhibits or different products being advertised. It gives the story a bit of an expansive feeling, like the reader can expect a new gem with each chapter. In the previous chapter you had some of the students playing some sports, which makes sense in a high school. One thing is missing, though. Kids that age are typically more obsessed with music than at any other time in their lives. They talk about it, obsess over it, make fun of others who have different tastes, and most important, they identify with it. Since this is a distant future you can’t use names we know today, but you might think about making a couple music-oriented cliques to add derision and dysfunction to this lot. Chapter 9: “I raise an eyebrow. “Did they design all of this?” — I would expect a smirk or a snicker from S on hearing this. “Do I have to address you as ‘your majesty’?” “Come now, A. Between friends, I’m the humble Lord Pussyeater.” I fail to suppress another snort, and S’s grin widens. “Why is ‘Lord’ part of the name?” I ask. — What’s happening with A’s face here? What are A’s shoulders doing, is the head pulling back? Does A take half a step back? And what gestures does S make? “Aloe, that was a joke. You know, to make you laugh. Or more to make you groan, really.” — This would be a good place to describe tone of voice. “It’s sad watching you be desperate, A.” — Does he tilt his head? Do his eyes do anything? “Why did I even open up to someone like S?” — Given that S knows things about A that A doesn’t remember, A might consider the possibility that someone between their ears their mind knows that S is somebody A once trusted. “The problem is that they’re Sh, and I’m storming me.” — Given the age and nature of the POV character, this massive under confidence is unsurprising, but if it goes on too long it’s going to start wearing on most readers’ patience. Everyone has had times of self-doubt, so that sort of character can activate reader empathy. However, A is going to have to start having some small successes, and noticing them, and allowing them to improve that self-esteem score, before too long. Chapter 10: “ … Maybe I go up to talk with my cohort tomorrow and they all have a story about how I rust my pants.” “If it makes you feel better, I’m positive that you didn’t poop in your pants over the last six months.” — I like how the choice of the swear word v. the kid word in the next sentence shows a difference between these two. I would expect the difference would help to take some of the steam out of A’s frustration, maybe make A think that they’re overreacting a bit. As long as Sh is trying to make A uncomfortable, going into graphic detail about their personal obsession would do the job well, and be more in keeping with the character’s age. For neurological reasons, younger people tend to have stronger emotional reactions than they typically do later in life, which is why it’s so easy for them to blurt out outrageous things that would embarrass the hell out of anyone their parents’ age. “This time I appear in a hallway of concrete like this is a historical fiction holoshow depicting the militaries of antiquity.” — Concrete is pretty generic for A to draw such a specific conclusion. “The aspiring writer Holly, the budding kinetophysicist Dahlia, the fashion enthusiast Petunia, and the runner Azalea …” — This feels a little data-dumpy. If you want the reader to know these characters it would work better to bring out those details one at a time in different contexts. “Igneous consumed itself because it had nothing else left to destroy, …” — This is a very curiosity-inducing thought. I hope you are going to explain it at some point.