Paul SB

Okay, I went back and made some changes. Most of them were pretty simple and only required a few sentences. It helps to have other people who can spot things I've missed. I think that your impression of immigration in the EU might come from relatively recent phenomena. My mom's from Holland, a country that is well known for accepting all sorts of people, and pretty much since the end of WW2 most European countries have been very open to immigrants. Since the war in Syria, however, and the huge boost Bush gave to ISIS, right-wing, anti-immigrant factions have gained a lot more followers than they had since the days of Adolf the Mustached Maniac. It's not commonly taught in America that immigration played a big role in the rise of fascism. A lot of people were getting out of Russia during Stalin's purges, flooding into Western Europe. This compounded the crisis of the Great Depression. It's ironic that Mussolini, Franco, and Hitler all claimed that these swarms of refugees were communists. Hitler is most known for his hatred of Jewish people, but to justify it to the German people he constantly claimed that they were all Marxists and in league with the Soviets to destroy Western Civilization and Christianity. After the War the idea of barring and blaming immigrants was seen by many Europeans as a feature of fascism, so they have had pretty lax immigration standards, at least until recently. I had a physics partner in 11th grade who complained about all the Turks in Germany, who he said were too obsessed with their "manliness" so they were constantly picking fights with people. That was back in the early '80s.

Go ahead and send it over. Do you have a sort of deadline? Like I said, my reading pace compares well with glaciers, so I can't promise anything quick.

Hello everybody, Here's your next installment in this particular adventure. I hope you're enjoying the tale. Entry 13 has A arriving on Mars and getting a sort of job. My hope is that it doesn't come across as too easy, though you can expect the EU would keep an eye on her and not make it obvious. In Entry 14 C & B leave with some EU observers, A gets an AI-equipped folio to work with, and they identify a possible location to set up A's new workplace. I'm not sure if the pacing is a bit slow, but I do want readers to get a feel for this future. Enjoy!

I'm trying to find my way between Hemingway and Dickens.

Minor autocorrect mistake: the Hebrew word for tent is ahel, not ahem. Tomorrow (2/02/26)?

Thanks again. I can see what you mean about needing more background about the relationship between these two species. I created both of them ages ago, so it's easy for me to not provide enough info since they seem really clear to me. As far as why A chose this particular moment to leave, I thought it was clear enough, but I'll go back and try to make it better. When life gives me lemons, I make merengue. Not good for my waistline, though.

Danke schön! I took a couple semesters of German when I was an undergrad, and when the professor wasn't listening we liked to say donkey shorts and answer it with bitter shoes. Believe it or not, that's an actual method used to help beginners learn foreign vocabulary. The guy who created it taught the Hebrew word for tent (ahem) with, "Ah hell, there's a skunk in my tent!" American military in Japan are taught to say already got toes for arigato, and don't touch my mustache for do etashi mashte. I used it to help kids with vocab in biology and anatomy, since it's like a foreign language. We used to have contests to see who could come up with the best one, which usually meant the funniest.

Hello yet again. Next installment, of course. Thanks for sticking with my hero so far. Entry 11 sees D wake up from the illness only to find that the house is under attack by slavers. Mostly I'm hoping that you get the name change at the end and it doesn't come across as hokey. Entry 12 is a funeral. I'm sure someone will tell me that it isn't plot relevant, but meeting an alien culture isn't good for much if you don't ever see their culture. Where's the fun in that? It also adds thematic weight, and helps propel the protagonist to a very important decision.

Am Morgen, bitte? 1/26/2026

How many words? I would be up for it, though I read at a glacial pace, and I have a lot of distractions. Still, I like beta reading. Maybe I'll eventually get good at it.

“Are we really so scared that we can’t even try?” — Have you heard of male-pattern alexithymia? What Worked: I would say that the opening paragraph sucks the reader in beautifully (if the reader is at all interested in a family drama). “A proper woman was neither attracted nor unattracted to men. Her sexuality was not “straight,” but rather “dutiful.” — This explanation is pretty spot on for pretty much the entire West from about the 17th to the mid-20th Centuries, and it’s nicely succinct. “Now that jar is shattered, the ink spilling across the page I had been using to try and write a more controlled story into my soul for Kate to enjoy. I can wipe up the spill, but what’s left on the page will be a smear where neat blocky letters used to be.” — Nicely done metaphor. “I know there must be blood, but all I can see is the pretty little lake waiting for me back home, where painted fall treetops get smeared into something hazy and lifeless the further down I look.” — Ooo, this is good! Overall, this was a very interesting look at the intersection between gender and social status. The attitudes of the humans are very much like the attitudes of people who marry “beneath” them in terms of social class, or marry a member of a colonized people. It gives the reader a lot to think about. As far as constructive criticism, I don’t have a whole lot. I would like to have seen more about how Western gender norms for males make it very difficult for many of them to have healthy relationships with women, give them very little but stereotypes to fall back on both for introspection and understanding others, and, of course, how those expectations mould other people’s responses to them (which easily becomes self-fulfilling). The other thought I had is that none of the humans ever go beyond stereotypes, which gives an impression that there can be no common ground between the species. I’m not sure how you can fix that without introducing more characters, to show an interracial couple that live happily and respectfully together to their dying days (like the old Solon of Athens quote “Call no one happy until they are happily in the grave).

Hello again. I hope you are all enjoying the story so far. Our hero is still taking refuge on the alien planet, doing the compare/contrast like humans always do when they encounter unfamiliar people. I'm an anthropologist by training, so I find this stuff fascinating, though I know it won't be very appealing to fans of John Wick, since I don't depict people getting shot on every page. Hopefully you will enjoy it. Some action is coming in the next chapter. Here our hero has an encounter with the local equivalent of government, which might seem too utopian to some readers. Keep in mind that these people are not human, so what works for them isn't necessarily what will work for humans in their current state. I explore this theme in much more detail in the third and fourth books of my trilogy. We also find that there are more than one species living on this planet, and get some hints about trouble to come. Enjoy! Summaries by Entry: Incompatible with Love Entry 1 — Daisy Viramontes, who has stowed away on an autonomous cargo ship heading for Mars, becomes alarmed when she realizes that the ship is still going after it should have landed. When she goes up to the bridge to see if she can find out what is happening, she discovers that there is another stowaway. He is a spy for the European Union, and tells her that the ship is going to to the dwarf planet Ceres and he is there to find out why. Entry 2 — The ship reaches Ceres and Daisy and the spy try to hide from the cargo handlers. Guards see them and chase them through a secret base. The chase ends when they crash into a lounge full of aliens. Entry 3 — Our intrepid hero is captured and imprisoned after her spy buddy is shot. Entry 4 — The aliens contact our intrepid hero and ask questions about the social systems of humans, after revealing that they have suspicions about the particular humans they are working with. Entry 5 — The aliens break our intrepid hero out of captivity and sabotage the experimental ship they were helping the corporation build. Entry 6 — Our intrepid hero is cramped into a tiny spaceship with one of the aliens for days, and learns a little bit about her liberators. Entry 7 — They reach C’s home world where D meets C’s Left Mother, who had been missing for many years after being enslaved by another species. Entry 8 — This entry is a day in the life on an alien world, with some comparative culture. Bon apétit!

And you lived to tell the tale. I was just thinking that since Portland had its frogs, Minneapolis could use some polar bears, or maybe penguins. I would like to add a chapter tomorrow, if popsicle.

The polar bear plunge instigation sounds like it could become a fun scene in a story.

Okay, some ideas I can work with here. Thanks a bunch!

D is a bit overwhelmed here. She was just abducted by aliens! Sure, a character that is too passive is boring, but a wait-and-see approach is a strategy, and often the best option, like when you're crammed into a tiny lifeboat or something similar. She knows she doesn't have much information, and as an escaped slave she doesn't have a lot of options. She's also torn between two goals: reuniting with her gf and finding her mother and little sister. Still, she could certainly ask more questions about what is going to happen to her and draw some conclusions from there.

I'm not sure I understand your last two sentences. The protagonist is kind of stuck with C and doesn't have her own FTL-equipped space ship, so she really doesn't have a whole lot of choice. And what the AR are up to requires that you learn a little about there culture, which will happen over the next few chapters.

First day on an alien world. Enjoy!

Sounds chilly to me. I grew up in Colorado, so I've had my share of cold, blizzard-filled winters. But with Gestapo thugs shooting random people here, I'd be willing to put up with the cold ...

Monday is coming. Under most circumstances that is much worse than Winter is Coming, but here it's a good thing. We good for 1/12/26?

Hello readers my old friends ... This one is one longer than average chapter. Our intrepid hero arrives on an alien world, meets the family, and gets to know the locals. It's necessary to contrast these people and their society with human people and their society. I just hope it's interesting and didn't go on too long.

We have encountered another Sunday, which means that unless something weird happens with the local space/time continuum, there will be another Monday soon -- specifically 01/05/26. Are we good for a continuation at said time?

Okay, to answer your questions (in no particular order), the guns the aliens used were explained in the previous book, and I didn't see a real need to explain them here. If you have ever had the unpleasant experience of hyperventilating, one of the weirder effects is the excess oxygen in your bloodstream starts to bond to the calcium in your bones. When this happens the joints become extremely stiff, to the point that you can barely move, if at all. I have no idea if there will ever be a technology that could cause this bonding effect, but if it's possible then you have a physiologically plausible way to make a stun gun. As far as the FTL system goes, I didn't put a huge amount of thought into it. FTL is such an old trope in sci-fi that it's kind of boring, and most readers aren't anywhere near as interested in it as they were back in the '60s. Science fiction without some kind of scientific speculation isn't really science fiction, but physics isn't the only kind of science. I have a Master's in Anthropology, the science go humans, and that's what I'm generally playing around with when I write. That's not exactly unprecedented. Ursula K. LeGuin was the daughter of California's most famous anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber, and if you read The Left Hand of Darkness or The Lathe of Heaven it's pretty clear she wasn't writing physics fiction. Most people assume that these books are psychological, but if you know the anthro you see that she was working with concepts like The Law of Segmentary Opposition (Lathe of Heaven) and the arbitrary nature of gender (Left Hand of Darkness). I'm sure I could have done more research on FTL.

What Worked: A’s musings as he passes through the streets definitely gives a strong sense of character, and especially of adolescence. Not So Much: Apart from the very distracting punctuation and grammar errors, by far the biggest issue with this chapter is that it is entirely in the protagonist’s head. Go back and look at all the places where you could have shown what people are doing instead of just telling, and use A’s thoughts to reveal more of the background. “He wanted to see if he could help find a way around his grandfather’s wishes to avoid participating in the war. He hoped that with his uncle’s help he could find some way around his grandfather’s will.” — Very clear case of telling when you could easily show this through dialogue. Feeding the reader like this can feel like being talked down to. “… working in construction or engineering.” — Would engineering be a word they would use in this setting? The paragraph that starts with, “He saw some binders on their way home from work.” is a very good example of a place where you told the reader when you could have easily shown the reader what was happening. “They walked through the crowds like heroes in their dark clothes open at the chest to show the seals …” — There’s an obvious question here: are they all men? If not, then the bare chest thing might need either modifying or some recognition of a different cultural norm.

And now for our third installment. In Entry 5 we have a prison break, and my main concern there is that it might come across as too easy. Entry 6 is more world building and character dev, with our intrepid hero stuck inside a cramped little spaceship with the alien who spoke to her in Entry 4. It's early enough in the story that the world building is necessary, as long as it doesn't come across as too data dumpy. Thanks for taking a look, and feel free to share any thoughts. Summaries by Entry: Incompatible with Love Entry 1 — Daisy Viramontes, who has stowed away on an autonomous cargo ship heading for Mars, becomes alarmed when she realizes that the ship is still going after it should have landed. When she goes up to the bridge to see if she can find out what is happening, she discovers that there is another stowaway. He is a spy for the European Union, and tells her that the ship is going to to the dwarf planet Ceres and he is there to find out why. Entry 2 - The ship reaches Ceres and Daisy and the spy try to hide from the cargo handlers. Guards see them and chase them through a secret base. The chase ends when they crash into a lounge full of aliens. Entry 3 - Our intrepid hero is captured and imprisoned after her spy buddy is shot. Entry 4 - The aliens contact our intrepid hero and ask questions about the social systems of humans, after revealing that they have suspicions about the particular humans they are working with. Bon apétit!