(May Challenge) CORN MONSTERS FROM OUTER-SPACE (3878 words)
Joel Crum
It is 378 words too long. I've cut it down by 2000 words already, and
I've reached the point where I'd like some feedback as I remove more.
How do you feel about these sections:
1) Ivan's salute.
2) The narrator's sunrise. (Did the levity there make sense?)
3) The way I've introduced the crew.
4) My explanation of the planet's function.
5) Did I really have to tell why they couldn't repair the ship in
space? (It's not really reasonable to think they might but the
folks on Star Trek always do.)
6) Did anything after touchdown drag for you?
My requirements: phobia, cornfield, aliens.
-------------------
Joel Crum
Untitled
May 23, 2003
-------------------
I woke up and was across the room with my hand on the lights before I
even knew my eyes were open. My lungs jerked as they caught up against
my too tight chest, my heart pounded like a dozen over used metaphors.
The chronometer read 0330. I got four hours, not bad. From unpleasant
experience, I knew I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep.
I stood with my hands on the bulkhead assuring myself the walls weren't
closing in then I decided to check the bridge. If I was going to be
awake, I might as well spot Ivan. His shift wasn't over, but he might
want to go to the head. I told myself it was the sensible thing to do. I
wasn't just looking for an excuse to run the bridge sensors.
"Mornin' Cap." Ivan tossed off a jaunty salute when I entered the bridge.
I let it pass unacknowledged. I don't know if Ivan salutes because he's
making fun of me, or because he's a stickler for procedure. Maybe he
just enjoys saluting. I think tossing around salutes is impossibly
silly. We're set up with a three man crew. Everyone is checked out on
all the instruments. In system we do 8 hour shifts as pilot. Ivan is the
mechanic. Allen is our medic. I'm the big dog - captain.
I glanced down at the nav panel. "Computer, main view screen on.
Display mid-base camera port side lifter, focus directly in-system." The
front wall of the bridge flickered away to be replaced with an image of a
few dozen odd meters of ceramic wing silhouetted against the upper third
of the system's sun. "You're right! Look at that sunrise."
"If you'd fancy, I could roll to port." Ivan grinned.
"I was awake so I thought I'd see if you needed a spot at the helm." Ivan
gave me a long look, "Just woke up and thought I might want to take a
leak, huh? That's - thoughtful." He looked at me again then gave me an
easy smile. "You know there's a warning light I'd like to look at on one
of our secondary systems."
Every wall of the bridge is a view screen. As soon as Ivan left I
activated them all. Suddenly, I seemed to be sitting in open space. Our
destination, Amgen grain world 27, dominated the forward screen. When
people think of an inhabited planet they imagine the big city worlds with
buildings covering 90% of the surface. They never consider the foods
those people eat. It's all imported. Amgen owns 34 worlds completely
devoted to growing food grains.
Amgen 27 is corn. From space it looks like a perfect green sphere. It's
covered in corn from pole to pole. The corn is harvested, prepared, and
even shipped robotically. There are 100 people on the surface to repair
the machines, but their tiny outpost is invisible from space. From space
the planet looks like what it is: one massive cornfield.
As our ship approached it the pressure in my chest finally lifted and I
started to relax. Maybe I just needed a window in my cabin. When Allen
walked through the door behind me I nearly jumped out of my seat.
"I didn't mean to startle you."
I smiled somewhat weakly, "I was absorbed in my work. What's up? It
isn't your shift already!"
"No, it's barely yours. I just wondered how you were doing."
"I'm fine."
I've served with Allen long enough to have his measure. Even though he
tried to look casual his voice betrayed worry, "Ivan says you replaced
him at 4 AM. Tom, are you having trouble sleeping?"
"I had a bad dream." The truth. "I sleep just fine." A lie.
Allen raised his eyebrows.
"It was just a dream. Anyway, we don't have time for you to toss me into
a straight jacket; we're coming into orbit." I tapped the intercom button
on my chair and spoke on a ship-wide channel, "Ivan, please report to the
bridge. We're coming in for a landing."
As I finished speaking I heard Ivan come through the bridge airlock. He
looked a little worried but took his station without saying anything. I
toggled the comm. channel to address the planet, "Whiskey Golf Zulu 1274
United Freight, request permission to land."
No response. There wasn't even static, the computer tuned it out.
"Repeat, whisky golf zulu 1274 United Freight, request permission to
land? Does Amgen grain control receive?"
The silence worried me. Of course, sometimes the only operator at some
backwater world's port will decide to go to the john. Hell, once I'd had
one clear me while he was in the john! But corporate worlds follow the
international trade laws to the letter. They're fined for breaches.
I kept the ship, with our hail automatically repeating, in orbit above
Amgen's only outpost for five hours of eerie silence. Our cameras
showed a seemingly static image of buildings. Nothing moved around them.
Infrared cameras were unable to find the heat which should have come from
warm bodies. The EM band remained dead; there wasn't even haze from an
operational generator. By the end of my shift as pilot, I was ready to
give up.
"I'm going to turn us around and make for home at our best speed.
Something's wrong down there. We need to report it."
Ivan cleared his throat, "With respect, Captain, that wouldn't be a good
idea."
"We don't have another option. Regulations say, 'In the event control
cannot be contacted, when attempting to land, the landing craft must seek
another port.'"
"Sir, there's a problem with our reserve fuel tanks. As far as I've been
able to determine, something in the pump system is shot. We've only got
enough primary fuel left to land."
Allen asked what I was already wondering, "Why didn't you say something
earlier?"
"It wasn't important before. I fix the problem and make a note of it in
my log. Ordinarily, there's no reason for you to even know."
"That's wonderful! Just great! Are there any other minor problems I
shouldn't trouble myself with? Perhaps a small oxygen leak, or. . ."
"Gentlemen!" I interrupted Allen's tirade and forestalled Ivan's, no
doubt, equally heated reply. "Is there any chance you can fix the problem
without landing?"
Ivan shook his head adamantly, "No. I don't know the pump is bad. Its
diagnostics say it's fine, but when I turn it on the engine doesn't get
fuel. Assuming it is the pump I'd have to take apart the fuel intake to
get to it. We'd be without life support while I worked on it. Since the
diagnostics aren't working the problem might in the computer circuitry.
I don't have replacements for those parts."
"Could you jury-rig something?"
"The tolerances are too tight. If I duct tape a soda straw in the whole
thing will blow when we try to use it."
"So we set down."
Allen sat bolt upright. "But captain! What if whatever disabled that
outpost is still down there? What if it's a virus? We'd all be toast
before we even knew what was wrong."
"We'll take every precaution; it doesn't seem there's any choice."
* * *
I told the computer to set us down then let the ship descend under its
own guidance. The computer doesn't need me to help it land. Pilots are
only a crummy back up system these days.
The scene outside the ship was eerie. Not, mind you, because something
was wrong. In fact everything seemed to be fine. The buildings around
us were neat, unimaginative, cinder block structures. The corn was a
pleasant green sea surrounding the small island of buildings. The sky
glowed a wholesome blue. High wispy clouds that suggested today would be
a good day for a picnic.
We must have set in the control room for 30 minutes staring out at the
empty farm surrounded by 10's of billions of hectares of unbroken
cornfield. I expected some jump suited techno-farmer to step out, spot
the ship, say something folksy then wave us out to have a glass of sun
tea. As that didn't happen for longer and longer my mind started to
paint visions of what could wait behind the closed doors of the complex.
Perhaps they were filled with bloated or bleeding corpses. Maybe the
inhabitants had been brutally murdered. Or they were raving mad, crouched
in locked rooms, covered in dirty sweat, and waiting to kill the next
person they saw.
Ivan broke the silence. "I'd best get out there and take a look at the
pump." He tried sound resigned to a hard task, but his voice had a tight
brittle edge.
Allen's eyes never wavered from the primary view screen, "First we check
out those buildings. Full EVA gear and side arms."
I wracked my brain for the regulations. Allen was right. He was also in
command. The planet represented a possible large scale medical
situation. It was his responsibility to assure we didn't transport any
pathogens to more populous words. "Right," I answered at length.
The guns were locked in one of the ships out-of-the-way cargo holds
against theft, mutiny, or stupidity. It took me a dozen tries to
remember the password I had chosen years before when I became captain.
Fortunately, the system had the good sense not to lock me out. After a
lot of typing and a little swearing we were rewarded with an assortment
of weapons. "Non-lethal rounds. We don't want to kill somebody because
they're delirious."
He hesitated for a moment, then nodded and picked out a tranquilizer gun.
I grabbed one as well and Ivan shouldered a huge weapon designed to
immobilize with a pile of gluey goop. The EVA suits were easier. The
ship carries several extra vehicular activity suits each one ideal for a
different purpose. Without discussing it we clambered into our
construction suits. That model is armored against heat or impact. The
idea is to keep its user alive if they swing a blowtorch across their arm
or put their thumb between a nail gun and its intended target. I'd never
considered it, but they're a lot like a suit of armor. Dressed in that
and holding a gun I felt more comfortable descending from the ship.
"Check out the biggest building first?" Ivan's voice was loud, slightly
distorted, and overlaid with the sound of my breathing as it came through
my helmet's speakers.
I shrugged, then realized the gesture was hidden by my suit. "That's a
common area. It would be as good as any to find the inhabitants."
The door squealed when I opened it. My helmet muted the sound, but no
more than a window would have. I took a deep sniff. I have no idea what
I was looking for, perhaps some hint of rot or corruption. All I got was
purified air from my supply. I flipped the light switch but nothing
happened. That made sense; our ship would have been able to detect a
functioning electrical generator. I activated the spotlight embedded in
the shoulder of my suit and gestured for the others to do the same.
"Let's stick together. Keep each other in sight."
We surveyed the building room-by-room. Mostly they were empty but it
didn't seem they had been peacefully deserted. One lounge area showed
the clearest evidence of trouble. A large screen dominating one wall and
low comfortable chairs faced it in a semicircle. The room had been
designed to screen imported entertainment. As I swung my light around I
saw several cups and bags of junk-food set carelessly or spilled as
though they had been hastily thrown down.
I only realized I was blocking the door when Ivan stopped behind me.
"Looks like they left in a big hurry."
Allen stepped past us into the room and picked up a cup of coffee. "I'd
prefer a blood sample but this should be enough to locate any serious
contagion."
Ivan let out a distinctly humorless bark of laughter. "I don't think a
case of chickenpox chased these men out of here."
I was having trouble concentrating. I wished I could take off the EVA
suit. It was as much a desire to get out into the open as clear thought
that motivated me to speak up. "We aren't finding anything here. Let's
see what's happened to the power."
* * *
It had been smashed.
The generator, a bulky but efficient fusion rig, had been destroyed by
brute force. There were dents all over its surface. Most of them were
in unimportant areas like the housing of the Tritium rig but enough blows
had fallen on circuit boards to render the generator inoperable. Unless
the base stocked an incredible number of spare parts, it was beyond
repair.
"Raiders," Ivan pronounced over the wreckage.
"Who would raid a corporate grain planet?" Allen asked. He and Ivan
seemed set on snipping at one another like a pair of five-year-olds.
"Even if there was something worth stealing Amgen would never sit still
for it. This was some sort of virally introduced madness."
I tried to tune them out as I leaned over and examined one of the dents.
A deep impression in the steel doors which had once protected the
generator's serviceable circuitry from the elements had preserved the
features of the device used to batter it open. The shape of the indent
reminded me of something. The object had been two inches wide and
composed of three rounded elements. They were potentially bent as they
displayed a larger, hinge like, dents at one end. Suddenly it hit me.
Fingers. The dents could have been made by fingers balled into a fist.
But who, or what, could possibly swing a three fingered hand with the
force of an industrial hammer?
"Guys I think we'd better get back to the ship."
We made it back to the ship and spent a lot of time asking each other a
lot of questions we couldn't answer about what was going on. Ivan wanted
to hook our ships power systems to the base systems and see if we could
get any information out of their computer. I wouldn't let him because I
didn't want to use up our remaining fuel. Allen started a culture on his
samples. He was confident he'd find some explanation there. That seemed
that seemed farfetched, but I let him work on it to keep him occupied.
It was getting dark; no one mentioned going outside. Instead Ivan, who
had been awake for better then 24 hours, turned in for the night, and
Allen walked back to the med-bay to finish work on his samples. I'd been
awake at least 20 hours by that time, but the ship was feeling pretty
tight, and I was too wired to sleep. Without much direction I wandered
up to the bridge to run some scans across the base. It looked as dead to
the low light cameras and radar as it had during the day, but when I
switched on the infrared I saw something.
Out in the vast field of corn dots moved. I adjusted the instruments to
bring the shapes into focus. There was too much corn in the way. The
things were at least a few hundred meters away. They were big:12 feet
tall and proportionally wide. The blobs looked human shaped, though that
could have been subjective.
I'm not sure how long I watched before it occurred to me to get one of
the others. I didn't waste time doing it. I practically drug Allen out
of the med bay and ran back to the bridge.
"There!"
"There what?"
I followed Allen's blank look. The rough shape of the ground, buildings,
and corn were picked out in cool blue heat signatures. The burning dots
I'd seen earlier were gone.
"Something hot was out there. Body heat from animals - maybe aliens. I
don't know what, but they're behind this!"
"There aren't any animals here. And there's no such thing as an 'alien'
unless you count the one strain of blue green algae they found on
Centaurs. This planet has corn, period, that's it."
"So they've only 'found' one alien organism. That doesn't prove
anything! We've haven't even made it to one percent of the galaxy's
stars. What if something found us? This would be a perfect place to get
a few subjects for study. Or maybe they were here all along, sleeping or
something! Who knows what we might have woken below the surface of this
world when we covered it in corn!" As soon as the words were out of my
mouth I realized how crazy they sounded.
Allen stabbed a finger at me. "I don't have time to give you the psych
evaluation you need, but the stress is getting to you. Now take a
freaking sleeping pill, get some rest, and let me work." He visibly
collected himself. "We've worked together for a long time Tom. I like
you. This is also a very bad time for you to lose it. So get some rest.
Doctors orders. OK?"
Without waiting for a response Allen walked away. I sat back down and
began working the sensors. How could those things have hidden?
* * *
"You have a message waiting," the ship's computer told me when I woke up.
I groaned. I'd fallen asleep in the captain's chair sometime last night.
"Play it."
"Good morning Tom, Ivan. I've finished the cultures and there's no sign
of an unknown virus. I'm not convinced the base is clean yet so I've
gone out to get more samples. I'll. . ."
Oh shit, Allen had left the ship. I tried to calm myself even as I
hurried out of my cabin for the med bay. Allen could be there working
with another sample. Only he wasn't. Next I checked the weapons locker;
the gauss rifle gone as well as Allen's EVA suit. I found Ivan when I
went back to the bridge to scan for Allen.
"Did you get the message?"
"As soon as I woke up. I'm trying to find him now. I can't believe he
went out alone!"
"Anything yet?"
Instead of answering he brought the image of a visible spectrum camera up
on the main screen it showed the gauss rifle laying, bent double, near
the door of one of the buildings. There was a neat row of holes in the
cinderblocks behind it where the weapon had been fired. Everything else
looked peaceful, blue sky and corn gently waving in the breeze, no sign
of Allen. "He's not answering his suit radio."
"Do we go outside to look for him?"
Ivan looked me straight in the eye, "We go outside to repair the ship."
I'd like to think I would have gone looking for Allen had I believed
there was hope. I didn't - don't - believe there was any hope. Those
things I'd seen the previous night had taken him, as well as every other
inhabitant of the planet, off into that vast sea of corn.
Ivan and I grabbed weapons but we didn't suit up. We'd get the ship
repaired faster without them, and Allen's suit hadn't helped him. The
ship would have been impossible to repair in space. We had to unmount
several large assemblies just to get at the fuel pump in question. Ivan
then began to meticulously test each component for faults.
I stood watch during most of the process. The pump compartment isn't
very high up the ship but all significant geological activity on Amgen
ended eons ago leaving it as flat as a pool table. From our perch I
could see over the base's single story buildings and the tassels of the
nearest stalks of corn out into the vast roll of corn that covered the
planet.
Looking at the sweep of corn around us is as close as I've ever come to
seeing infinity. A gust of wind would start at one edge of my vision,
visible as it ruffled the corn's leaves and made a patch of the field
seem white. That white spot would skim along like a spirit until it past
out the other side of my vision. That vastness might have hidden a
civilization or an army. As the sun began to sink into it I had no doubt
it could swallow me up without a second thought.
I spoke loudly so Ivan could hear me, "We'd better get inside the ship."
He looked out at me from his position inside the engine compartment. In
the dim red light his features appeared twisted. Mechanical fluids were
streaked around his eyes like war paint. "Not yet, I'll be done in maybe
half an hour."
"It'll be dark in another ten minutes. It's not safe."
He practically snarled at me, "Keep watch. I'm getting us off this
planet tonight!"
It was dark in ten minutes. After fifteen they came for us. I heard the
corn rustle and had my gun trained on it in an instant. A group of
twenty, thirty, Things broke free of the corn far faster than any man.
They moved with a sort of fluid grace that made it seem they were utterly
boneless. Erect they were shaped like a man, somewhat wider and tall
enough they seemed thin, even spindly.
I opened fire. Bullets spayed into the corn tearing and breaking it.
They hit the creatures as well but with much less effect. At most they
staggered as if they'd been stung. Startled by that and hammered by the
recoil of the gun I fell from the ship. It was 5 meters down but,
amazingly, I wasn't hurt. The fall probably saved me.
The things rushed the ship as I continued to fire into them. I screamed
for Ivan to jump while I crawled, backwards, toward the hatch. He never
had a chance. One caught him, leapt a good 30 meters away from the ship,
and carried him toward the corn. His struggles were as useless as an
infant's. They turned on me.
I barely got the hatch shut in time.
* * *
I can still hear them hammering on the ship. The alloy of the hull must
be too tough for them, but they're strong enough to make the entire
vessel ring. Before they tore off the last of the exterior cameras I
could see they smashed engines and control surfaces well beyond repair.
Even if they retreat when daylight comes I'll never get off the ground.
I've recorded this log to keep me sane through the night as much as to
warn anyone who ventures near the planet. I still hope - pray - for
rescue. If that's to happen I'll need to hold on for at least two months
before we're reported missing and a search party can be sent. I have the
food for that, but already the walls of the ship press on me and I feel
as though I must leave or be crushed. I also fear that if those things
continue their pounding they will reach me.
I've set this message to automatically repeat along with a general SOS.
Please hurry...
--
- Joel C.
"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for
the things we did not do that is inconsolable." Sydney J. Harris
Anopheles
"Joel Crum" wrote:
> Well here's my May challenge. Hope you all like it.
>
> It is 378 words too long. I've cut it down by 2000 words already, and
> I've reached the point where I'd like some feedback as I remove more.
> How do you feel about these sections:
> 1) Ivan's salute.
> 2) The narrator's sunrise. (Did the levity there make sense?)
> 3) The way I've introduced the crew.
> 4) My explanation of the planet's function.
> 5) Did I really have to tell why they couldn't repair the ship in
> space? (It's not really reasonable to think they might but the
> folks on Star Trek always do.)
> 6) Did anything after touchdown drag for you?
>
> My requirements: phobia, cornfield, aliens.
>
> -------------------
> Joel Crum
> Untitled
> May 23, 2003
> -------------------
>
> I woke up and was across the room with my hand on the lights before I
> even knew my eyes were open. My lungs jerked as they caught up against
> my too tight chest, my heart pounded like a dozen over used metaphors.
Right here you can see avenues for tighter editing. Try this, for example:
I woke and was across the room, my hand on the lights, before my eyes were
open. My lungs jerked against my too tight chest, my heart pounding like a
dozen over used metaphors.
That's a 20% reduction straight off plus a tighter read.
> The chronometer read 0330. I got four hours, not bad. From unpleasant
> experience, I knew I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep.
Again...
The chronometer read 0330. Four hours, not bad. From experience, I knew I
wouldn't get back to sleep.
Similar gain.
> I stood with my hands on the bulkhead assuring myself the walls weren't
> closing in then I decided to check the bridge.
This is a strange introduction of a phobia or paranoia that has no reference
to anything. Maybe it will be explained later but it does jar. What with the
symptoms described above, I take it it is an internal condition.
>If I was going to be
> awake, I might as well spot Ivan. His shift wasn't over, but he might
> want to go to the head. I told myself it was the sensible thing to do. I
> wasn't just looking for an excuse to run the bridge sensors.
Perhaps... "as long as I was awake..."
> "Mornin' Cap." Ivan tossed off a jaunty salute when I entered the bridge.
> I let it pass unacknowledged. I don't know if Ivan salutes because he's
> making fun of me, or because he's a stickler for procedure. Maybe he
> just enjoys saluting. I think tossing around salutes is impossibly
> silly. We're set up with a three man crew. Everyone is checked out on
> all the instruments. In system we do 8 hour shifts as pilot. Ivan is the
> mechanic. Allen is our medic. I'm the big dog - captain.
> I glanced down at the nav panel. "Computer, main view screen on.
> Display mid-base camera port side lifter, focus directly in-system." The
> front wall of the bridge flickered away to be replaced with an image of a
> few dozen odd meters of ceramic wing silhouetted against the upper third
> of the system's sun. "You're right! Look at that sunrise."
>
> "If you'd fancy, I could roll to port." Ivan grinned.
>
> "I was awake so I thought I'd see if you needed a spot at the helm." Ivan
> gave me a long look, "Just woke up and thought I might want to take a
> leak, huh? That's - thoughtful." He looked at me again then gave me an
> easy smile. "You know there's a warning light I'd like to look at on one
> of our secondary systems."
This is confusing, mainly to formatting problems. I take it the first line
is the Captain's? Should it read like...
"I was awake so I thought I'd see if you needed a spot at the helm."
(Again, Ivan's already at the helm. Why would the captain say that?)
Ivan gave me a long look, "Just woke up and thought I might want to take a
leak, huh? That's - thoughtful."
He looked at me again then gave me an easy smile. "You know there's a
warning light I'd like to look at on one of our secondary systems."
> Every wall of the bridge is a view screen. As soon as Ivan left I
> activated them all. Suddenly, I seemed to be sitting in open space. Our
> destination, Amgen grain world 27, dominated the forward screen. When
> people think of an inhabited planet they imagine the big city worlds with
> buildings covering 90% of the surface. They never consider the foods
> those people eat. It's all imported. Amgen owns 34 worlds completely
> devoted to growing food grains.
Obviously there's been huge gains in the economics of transporting large
masses. :-)
> Amgen 27 is corn. From space it looks like a perfect green sphere. It's
> covered in corn from pole to pole. The corn is harvested, prepared, and
> even shipped robotically. There are 100 people on the surface to repair
> the machines, but their tiny outpost is invisible from space. From space
> the planet looks like what it is: one massive cornfield.
If it was covered in corn, it would look either like yellow or like Robin
Williams, wouldn't it? Then there's the refraction problems, colour shifts
and so on.
> As our ship approached it the pressure in my chest finally lifted and I
> started to relax. Maybe I just needed a window in my cabin. When Allen
> walked through the door behind me I nearly jumped out of my seat.
Why? Presumably these three have been on the ship for some time. Is this
part of the paranoia? You need to explain the reactions a little more.
Infrared detectors, not cameras.
> "I'm going to turn us around and make for home at our best speed.
> Something's wrong down there. We need to report it."
>
> Ivan cleared his throat, "With respect, Captain, that wouldn't be a good
> idea."
>
> "We don't have another option. Regulations say, 'In the event control
> cannot be contacted, when attempting to land, the landing craft must seek
> another port.'"
>
> "Sir, there's a problem with our reserve fuel tanks. As far as I've been
> able to determine, something in the pump system is shot. We've only got
> enough primary fuel left to land."
>
> Allen asked what I was already wondering, "Why didn't you say something
> earlier?"
>
> "It wasn't important before. I fix the problem and make a note of it in
> my log. Ordinarily, there's no reason for you to even know."
Tense problems? Also, seems a rather important problem not to advise the
captain on.
> "That's wonderful! Just great! Are there any other minor problems I
> shouldn't trouble myself with? Perhaps a small oxygen leak, or. . ."
>
> "Gentlemen!" I interrupted Allen's tirade and forestalled Ivan's, no
> doubt, equally heated reply. "Is there any chance you can fix the problem
> without landing?"
But the problem is a lack of fuel, isn't it?
> Ivan shook his head adamantly, "No. I don't know the pump is bad. Its
> diagnostics say it's fine, but when I turn it on the engine doesn't get
> fuel. Assuming it is the pump I'd have to take apart the fuel intake to
> get to it. We'd be without life support while I worked on it. Since the
> diagnostics aren't working the problem might in the computer circuitry.
> I don't have replacements for those parts."
>
> "Could you jury-rig something?"
>
> "The tolerances are too tight. If I duct tape a soda straw in the whole
> thing will blow when we try to use it."
>
> "So we set down."
>
> Allen sat bolt upright. "But captain! What if whatever disabled that
> outpost is still down there? What if it's a virus? We'd all be toast
> before we even knew what was wrong."
When the captain is being addressed, it's Captain with a capital.
> "We'll take every precaution; it doesn't seem there's any choice."
>
> * * *
>
> I told the computer to set us down then let the ship descend under its
> own guidance. The computer doesn't need me to help it land. Pilots are
> only a crummy back up system these days.
So I'm wondering, Joel, why the strict regime of always having a "pilot" on
deck. It would seem to me, a reasonable futuristic ship ought to fly
unattended. And, that word "Pilot" doesn't seem exactly right for the job.
It seems too "hands on". Do you see where I'm heading?
> The scene outside the ship was eerie. Not, mind you, because something
> was wrong. In fact everything seemed to be fine. The buildings around
> us were neat, unimaginative, cinder block structures. The corn was a
> pleasant green sea surrounding the small island of buildings. The sky
> glowed a wholesome blue. High wispy clouds that suggested today would be
> a good day for a picnic.
Now wait a goddamned minute, Joel. I know you're getting totally sick of all
these interjections from the dumb Mozzie but you need to be more scientific
IF you're going to write in this genre. It's not called SCIENCE-fiction for
nothing. :-)
First, we're back to "green" again. Either it's very young corn which means
the ship is a few days early, OR it's a crop ready for harvest and that
means the corn is YELLOW.
That's the least of the problems here. Picture the planet, covered in corn.
Now ask yourself, what gives the Earth a blue sky, Joel? (HINT. It ain't
corn.) Ergo, the sky ain't blue. It's probably green. <ducks>
> We must have set in the control room for 30 minutes staring out at the
> empty farm surrounded by 10's of billions of hectares of unbroken
> cornfield. I expected some jump suited techno-farmer to step out, spot
> the ship, say something folksy then wave us out to have a glass of sun
> tea. As that didn't happen for longer and longer my mind started to
> paint visions of what could wait behind the closed doors of the complex.
> Perhaps they were filled with bloated or bleeding corpses. Maybe the
> inhabitants had been brutally murdered. Or they were raving mad, crouched
> in locked rooms, covered in dirty sweat, and waiting to kill the next
> person they saw.
Maybe they'd made a still?
> Ivan broke the silence. "I'd best get out there and take a look at the
> pump." He tried sound resigned to a hard task, but his voice had a tight
> brittle edge.
tried to...
> Allen's eyes never wavered from the primary view screen, "First we check
> out those buildings. Full EVA gear and side arms."
>
> I wracked my brain for the regulations. Allen was right. He was also in
> command. The planet represented a possible large scale medical
> situation. It was his responsibility to assure we didn't transport any
> pathogens to more populous words. "Right," I answered at length.
Not just pathogens, I would imagine. Any foreign organism.
> The guns were locked in one of the ships out-of-the-way cargo holds
> against theft, mutiny, or stupidity. It took me a dozen tries to
> remember the password I had chosen years before when I became captain.
> Fortunately, the system had the good sense not to lock me out. After a
> lot of typing and a little swearing we were rewarded with an assortment
> of weapons. "Non-lethal rounds. We don't want to kill somebody because
> they're delirious."
Does it make sense that only the captain of a three man crew would know the
password of such an important arsenal? I mean, you have given a reason for
it but it would seem reasonable only for a larger crew.
> He hesitated for a moment, then nodded and picked out a tranquilizer gun.
> I grabbed one as well and Ivan shouldered a huge weapon designed to
> immobilize with a pile of gluey goop. The EVA suits were easier. The
> ship carries several extra vehicular activity suits each one ideal for a
> different purpose. Without discussing it we clambered into our
> construction suits. That model is armored against heat or impact. The
> idea is to keep its user alive if they swing a blowtorch across their arm
> or put their thumb between a nail gun and its intended target. I'd never
> considered it, but they're a lot like a suit of armor. Dressed in that
> and holding a gun I felt more comfortable descending from the ship.
Secure maybe. Comfortable?
> "Check out the biggest building first?" Ivan's voice was loud, slightly
> distorted, and overlaid with the sound of my breathing as it came through
> my helmet's speakers.
>
> I shrugged, then realized the gesture was hidden by my suit. "That's a
> common area. It would be as good as any to find the inhabitants."
>
> The door squealed when I opened it. My helmet muted the sound, but no
> more than a window would have. I took a deep sniff. I have no idea what
> I was looking for, perhaps some hint of rot or corruption. All I got was
> purified air from my supply. I flipped the light switch but nothing
> happened. That made sense; our ship would have been able to detect a
> functioning electrical generator. I activated the spotlight embedded in
> the shoulder of my suit and gestured for the others to do the same.
>
> "Let's stick together. Keep each other in sight."
>
> We surveyed the building room-by-room. Mostly they were empty but it
> didn't seem they had been peacefully deserted. One lounge area showed
> the clearest evidence of trouble. A large screen dominating one wall and
> low comfortable chairs faced it in a semicircle. The room had been
> designed to screen imported entertainment.
Imported entertainment is hardly necessary to point out on a world with a
population of 100? Maybe make it offworld?
>As I swung my light around I
> saw several cups and bags of junk-food set carelessly or spilled as
> though they had been hastily thrown down.
As it would be a fixed light, maybe:
As I swung around, my light picked up several cups and junk-food bags set
carelessly or spilled as though hastily thrown.
> I only realized I was blocking the door when Ivan stopped behind me.
> "Looks like they left in a big hurry."
>
> Allen stepped past us into the room and picked up a cup of coffee. "I'd
> prefer a blood sample but this should be enough to locate any serious
> contagion."
>
> Ivan let out a distinctly humorless bark of laughter. "I don't think a
> case of chickenpox chased these men out of here."
>
> I was having trouble concentrating. I wished I could take off the EVA
> suit. It was as much a desire to get out into the open as clear thought
> that motivated me to speak up. "We aren't finding anything here. Let's
> see what's happened to the power."
>
> * * *
>
> It had been smashed.
>
> The generator, a bulky but efficient fusion rig, had been destroyed by
> brute force. There were dents all over its surface. Most of them were
> in unimportant areas like the housing of the Tritium rig but enough blows
> had fallen on circuit boards to render the generator inoperable. Unless
> the base stocked an incredible number of spare parts, it was beyond
> repair.
You start by saying "had been destroyed by brute force." Then you use word
like "dent". It appears at first the damage is cataclysmic then seems far
less severe.
> "Raiders," Ivan pronounced over the wreckage.
>
> "Who would raid a corporate grain planet?" Allen asked. He and Ivan
> seemed set on snipping at one another like a pair of five-year-olds.
> "Even if there was something worth stealing Amgen would never sit still
> for it. This was some sort of virally introduced madness."
If there is this antagonism going on, it doesn't come cross in the speech.
To get this add... "Who would raid a corporate grain planet?" Allen asked,
sarcastically.
> I tried to tune them out as I leaned over and examined one of the dents.
> A deep impression in the steel doors which had once protected the
> generator's serviceable circuitry from the elements had preserved the
> features of the device used to batter it open.
Features perhaps wrong word. Shape? Outline? Or,
An indentation in the steel doors, that had once protected the circuitry
from the elements, betrayed the device used to batter it open.
>The shape of the indent
> reminded me of something. The object had been two inches wide and
> composed of three rounded elements. They were potentially bent as they
> displayed a larger, hinge like, dents at one end. Suddenly it hit me.
>
> Fingers. The dents could have been made by fingers balled into a fist.
> But who, or what, could possibly swing a three fingered hand with the
> force of an industrial hammer?
>
> "Guys I think we'd better get back to the ship."
Maybe I'm jumping ahead of you here, but if I were captain, I would be
giving just a little thought to refueliing.
> We made it back to the ship and spent a lot of time asking each other a
> lot of questions we couldn't answer about what was going on. Ivan wanted
> to hook our ships power systems to the base systems and see if we could
> get any information out of their computer. I wouldn't let him because I
> didn't want to use up our remaining fuel. Allen started a culture on his
> samples. He was confident he'd find some explanation there. That seemed
> that seemed farfetched, but I let him work on it to keep him occupied.
> It was getting dark; no one mentioned going outside. Instead Ivan, who
> had been awake for better then 24 hours, turned in for the night, and
> Allen walked back to the med-bay to finish work on his samples. I'd been
> awake at least 20 hours by that time, but the ship was feeling pretty
> tight, and I was too wired to sleep. Without much direction I wandered
> up to the bridge to run some scans across the base. It looked as dead to
> the low light cameras and radar as it had during the day, but when I
> switched on the infrared I saw something.
>
> Out in the vast field of corn dots moved. I adjusted the instruments to
> bring the shapes into focus. There was too much corn in the way. The
> things were at least a few hundred meters away. They were big:12 feet
> tall and proportionally wide. The blobs looked human shaped, though that
> could have been subjective.
>
> I'm not sure how long I watched before it occurred to me to get one of
> the others. I didn't waste time doing it. I practically drug Allen out
> of the med bay and ran back to the bridge.
Bad time to be doing drugs, Joel.
> "There!"
>
> "There what?"
>
> I followed Allen's blank look. The rough shape of the ground, buildings,
> and corn were picked out in cool blue heat signatures. The burning dots
> I'd seen earlier were gone.
>
> "Something hot was out there. Body heat from animals - maybe aliens. I
> don't know what, but they're behind this!"
>
> "There aren't any animals here. And there's no such thing as an 'alien'
> unless you count the one strain of blue green algae they found on
> Centaurs. This planet has corn, period, that's it."
Would it be a bad time to mention cross fertilisation here? Bees?
What? After being out in space?
A valiant attempt here, Joel, but one that needs work. It needs editing.
Editing will get you well below the word limit. It is a good story but needs
some changes for credibility. Apart from those I've already pointed out
about the world you have created, think of this. A world covered in nothing
but corn, no lakes, no seas. no bloody water... and no rain. How can they
grow corn without water?
All that aside, it has the basis for an interesting entry if you could crank
up the tension a little. It needs to build more. It all happens at the end.
Now to your answers:
> How do you feel about these sections:
> 1) Ivan's salute. It didn't seem to lead to anything.
> 2) The narrator's sunrise. (Did the levity there make sense?) It
needed more to be funny.
> 3) The way I've introduced the crew. Okay.
> 4) My explanation of the planet's function. I think I've
answered that already.
> 5) Did I really have to tell why they couldn't repair the ship in
> space? (It's not really reasonable to think they might but the
> folks on Star Trek always do.) You need to explain everything
that goes against common sense.
> 6) Did anything after touchdown drag for you? Nothing really
"dragged" but tightening up would help make it flow better. Also, you spent
half the story getting to the planet where it all happens. Do you think this
is a little unbalanced?
I know this will seem very negative, Joel, and I'm sorry not to be able to
seem more enthusiastic, but I believe you have a talent for story telling
that needs to be released from its restraints. One problem is that you use
more words than necessary. As I've shown above, you could reduce this by 20%
easily. After that, you could slim it down again. Each time, it would get
better and not a thing would be lost. It's a painful exercise but it would
improve your writing so much.
If you've got this far, thanks for putting up with my cruel reviewing.
Anopheles
jeanannd
it, a see of green corn stalks under a blue sky with fluffy clouds. I
can't really think of anything to improve this story. Loved it!!!
--
^ ^
>"< jeanannd
/ I \ /
\ / I \/
"Joel Crum" <cru...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:Xns93849A0C56A6B...@129.250.170.100...
Joel Crum
news:bamsn7$1fiop$3...@ID-34438.news.dfncis.de:
Hello,
I've got a huge reply here. I'm not doing it because I intend to argue
with your advice. Just the opposite! You've touched on one half of my
wordiness problem. I've considered almost all the technical questions
you bring up and I think I have feasible answers, but can they (should
they) be worked into the story? And if so how?
Hopefully someone will be willing to scan far enough into my wild hare
technical speculation to give me an idea of what I should do with
infobable like that when writing.
I haven't responded to all your points. The ones I've totally cut are
where I completely agree with the changes you suggest.
> I know this will seem very negative, Joel, and I'm sorry not to be
> able to seem more enthusiastic, but I believe you have a talent for
> story telling that needs to be released from its restraints. One
> problem is that you use more words than necessary. As I've shown
> above, you could reduce this by 20% easily. After that, you could slim
> it down again. Each time, it would get better and not a thing would be
> lost. It's a painful exercise but it would improve your writing so
> much.
I don't mind a harsh crit in the slightest! In fact I've repeatedly
asked for them. :-) Most people are far too quick to say "this is
great". As to cutting it down. hehe Yeah I've been doing that for a
week or two. To be honest I realized I could get further by rewriting
bulky sections but I'd just lost the heart for hitting it any further and
I thought I'd pick up some feedback before I went on.
Some answers to technical questions:
>> consider the foods those people eat. It's all imported. Amgen owns
>> 34 worlds completely devoted to growing food grains.
>
> Obviously there's been huge gains in the economics of transporting
> large masses. :-)
This is my single biggest cheat. Assuming things are pushed out of the
(perhaps with a process only used by unmanned transports) gravity well
with a ground based power source, and it takes basically zero energy to
get between solar systems (a ridiculous assumption but FTL transport is
already pretty much magic anyway) you might manage as little as 15
dollars per lb given current energy generation tech. (I'm thinking of
the figures I've seen in relation to launching things on laser beams.)
I've given them cheap fusion so that just might lower the cost of energy
enough to make it feasible.
That being said it was a total cheat. However I believe Asimov pulled
the same trick in foundation.
> Infrared detectors, not cameras.
Honest I meant cameras. Something capable of creating a picture with
light from below the visible range. http://www.x20.org/thermal/
>>From space the planet looks like what it is: one massive
>> cornfield.
>
> If it was covered in corn, it would look either like yellow or like
> Robin Williams, wouldn't it? Then there's the refraction problems,
> colour shifts and so on.
I'll have to make it clearer in the rewrite I was thinking of corn the
plant, not corn the kernel. ( http://www.foodsafetynetwork.ca/bt-sweet-
corn/bt-corn-jul25.jpg ) The refraction index of the atmosphere isn't
sufficient to change the color of a single band of light being reflected
by a colored surface. Thus the earth still appears green, blue, brown and
white from space ( http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/stories/nasm/earth.jpg ).
Our sky is blue because we are looking at scatter from a point light
sorce which emits across the entire visible spectrum.
That being said a planet dominated by a single monoculture would be
**very** interesting to look at. I think you'd see the cover vary from
green (ripening) to yellow (tasseled) to brown (drying) across the
climatological bands of the planet. You'd only get a single shade if the
planet lacked axial tilt and localized weather patterns.
To defend my honor as a geek I'll say I *did* consider this and decided
the planet might as well go without those things. I hope after cutting
back on my wordiness I'll have room for a more detailed description.
>> I told the computer to set us down then let the ship descend under
>> its own guidance. The computer doesn't need me to help it land.
>> Pilots are only a crummy back up system these days.
>
> So I'm wondering, Joel, why the strict regime of always having a
> "pilot" on deck. It would seem to me, a reasonable futuristic ship
> ought to fly unattended. And, that word "Pilot" doesn't seem exactly
> right for the job. It seems too "hands on". Do you see where I'm
> heading?
I think my logic is most effective here. Airplanes and *especially*
trains can already do without their pilots. However, strong unions and
paranoid passengers will keep those men at the helm until Windows last
crash is 100 years in the past.
I had this whole world going in my head where controls must be manned in
system on a vessel that A) carries human crew or B) will set down near
habitation. Most of the corn is shipped off world by entirely robot
transports which don't require captains. The vessel I had landing
*wouldn't* have carried corn, it was a strictly mail run. Unfortunately
readers can't read my mind. So I've got to say those things. I just
didn't have a way to work it into this short a story.
That probably means I should have cut the detail entirely. Cutting my
"nifty ideas" is my biggest problem.
>> "There aren't any animals here. And there's no such thing as an
>> 'alien' unless you count the one strain of blue green algae they
>> found on Centaurs. This planet has corn, period, that's it."
>
> Would it be a bad time to mention cross fertilization here? Bees?
Duh-oh! You is so right and I never did think about bees. I did
consider the few hundred strains of bacteria I'd need to decompose the
corn and fix nitrogen. I also mentioned them in the longer version. If
I get enough word space I'll give them a clause in that sentence.
>> Unless the base stocked an incredible number of spare
>> parts, it was beyond repair.
>
> You start by saying "had been destroyed by brute force." Then you use
> word like "dent". It appears at first the damage is cataclysmic then
> seems far less severe.
Very good catch. As I saw it, the entire device has been pounded to
flinders. But I never make it properly clear that he looks a single
clear sample among hundreds.
> A valiant attempt here, Joel, but one that needs work. It needs
> editing. Editing will get you well below the word limit. It is a good
> story but needs some changes for credibility. Apart from those I've
> already pointed out about the world you have created, think of this. A
> world covered in nothing but corn, no lakes, no seas. no bloody
> water... and no rain. How can they grow corn without water?
I thought about that as well. The planet was dead, no soil, before
mankind arrived, maybe no water. Waves of engineered bacteria and other
life forms might be able to chew a five feet of dirt free from the rock.
That would be enough to grow corn. Then you import water and corn at the
same time. The corn would be a huge evaporative surface to keep the
water in circulation, the bedrock would proved an incredibly shallow
extremely even water table. I think highly even weather patters would
develop and it's within the realm of possibility that you could create
the perfect, artificial, growing environment.
The odds are probably much much *better* that you'd be a small, but ever
so meaningful, percentage off of perfect and nothing would grow. Still I
think it's close enough I can say it would work in a story.
--
- Joel C.
"If your going to mess with the stuff of Greek tragedy you'd better be
prepared for the consequences" - Tadpole
Joel Crum
news:5HCza.702033$OV.654872@rwcrnsc54:
> Great story Joel!!!! Your description of the planet of corn had me
> seeing it, a see of green corn stalks under a blue sky with fluffy
> clouds. I can't really think of anything to improve this story.
> Loved it!!!
>
Thanks; it's always great to hear someone say something like that. I hope a
lot of other people agree. :-) But you never have to be nice to me just to
keep me from getting demoralized. If / when you think I've sucked it up
with a story come right out and tell me!
Anopheles
"Joel Crum" wrote:
> "Anopheles" <hi...@jeack.com.au> wrote in
> news:bamsn7$1fiop$3...@ID-34438.news.dfncis.de:
>
>
> >> consider the foods those people eat. It's all imported. Amgen owns
> >> 34 worlds completely devoted to growing food grains.
> >
> > Obviously there's been huge gains in the economics of transporting
> > large masses. :-)
>
> This is my single biggest cheat. Assuming things are pushed out of the
> (perhaps with a process only used by unmanned transports) gravity well
> with a ground based power source, and it takes basically zero energy to
> get between solar systems (a ridiculous assumption but FTL transport is
> already pretty much magic anyway) you might manage as little as 15
> dollars per lb given current energy generation tech. (I'm thinking of
> the figures I've seen in relation to launching things on laser beams.)
> I've given them cheap fusion so that just might lower the cost of energy
> enough to make it feasible.
>
> That being said it was a total cheat. However I believe Asimov pulled
> the same trick in foundation.
Maybe he did yet consider Einstein's Third Law. "There ain't no free
lunches." No matter how much they improve mechanics and technology, physics
will still remain physics. You're talking about transporting a while planet
full of corn, remember. It's fine to have a cheat but this is SciFi not
Magic.
> > Infrared detectors, not cameras.
>
> Honest I meant cameras. Something capable of creating a picture with
> light from below the visible range. http://www.x20.org/thermal/
Yes, I understood what you were talking about, yet in the context, one is
detecting heat sources with IR and one uses detectors to do so. Even thermal
imaging displays used in cameras are detectors with add ons.
>
> >>From space the planet looks like what it is: one massive
> >> cornfield.
> >
> > If it was covered in corn, it would look either like yellow or like
> > Robin Williams, wouldn't it? Then there's the refraction problems,
> > colour shifts and so on.
>
> I'll have to make it clearer in the rewrite I was thinking of corn the
> plant, not corn the kernel. ( http://www.foodsafetynetwork.ca/bt-sweet-
> corn/bt-corn-jul25.jpg ) The refraction index of the atmosphere isn't
> sufficient to change the color of a single band of light being reflected
> by a colored surface. Thus the earth still appears green, blue, brown and
> white from space ( http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/stories/nasm/earth.jpg ).
> Our sky is blue because we are looking at scatter from a point light
> sorce which emits across the entire visible spectrum.
Agreed. The colour of an Earth sky depends on the cones in the observers
eyes and the dipole scattering. However, all planets are not the same and
nor are all light sources. Here is an opportunity to provide change. As to
the corn, you missed my point. A corn field when ripe is all yellow, the
chlorophyll having been drained. The earth appears green, blue and brown
because there are huge masses of these colours. Your planet is monotone and
yellow.
> That being said a planet dominated by a single monoculture would be
> **very** interesting to look at. I think you'd see the cover vary from
> green (ripening) to yellow (tasseled) to brown (drying) across the
> climatological bands of the planet. You'd only get a single shade if the
> planet lacked axial tilt and localized weather patterns.
And an axial tilit would be a rarity?
> To defend my honor as a geek I'll say I *did* consider this and decided
> the planet might as well go without those things. I hope after cutting
> back on my wordiness I'll have room for a more detailed description.
I'm sure you did, Joel. I'm just throwing in some fire crackers to make you
jump. :-)
> >> I told the computer to set us down then let the ship descend under
> >> its own guidance. The computer doesn't need me to help it land.
> >> Pilots are only a crummy back up system these days.
> >
> > So I'm wondering, Joel, why the strict regime of always having a
> > "pilot" on deck. It would seem to me, a reasonable futuristic ship
> > ought to fly unattended. And, that word "Pilot" doesn't seem exactly
> > right for the job. It seems too "hands on". Do you see where I'm
> > heading?
>
> I think my logic is most effective here. Airplanes and *especially*
> trains can already do without their pilots. However, strong unions and
> paranoid passengers will keep those men at the helm until Windows last
> crash is 100 years in the past.
Yes, but ecomomics would soon kill that off, not to mention boredom on long
travel routes.
> I had this whole world going in my head where controls must be manned in
> system on a vessel that A) carries human crew or B) will set down near
> habitation. Most of the corn is shipped off world by entirely robot
> transports which don't require captains. The vessel I had landing
> *wouldn't* have carried corn, it was a strictly mail run. Unfortunately
> readers can't read my mind. So I've got to say those things. I just
> didn't have a way to work it into this short a story.
>
> That probably means I should have cut the detail entirely. Cutting my
> "nifty ideas" is my biggest problem.
>
Rather than cut the ideas, find a way to combine them more efficiently.
Creating a universe is what we do when writing, particularly a novel. With
SciFi, we expect to be told of a world different to ours and ideas are the
flotation that keeps scifi afloat.
> >> "There aren't any animals here. And there's no such thing as an
> >> 'alien' unless you count the one strain of blue green algae they
> >> found on Centaurs. This planet has corn, period, that's it."
> >
> > Would it be a bad time to mention cross fertilization here? Bees?
>
> Duh-oh! You is so right and I never did think about bees. I did
> consider the few hundred strains of bacteria I'd need to decompose the
> corn and fix nitrogen. I also mentioned them in the longer version. If
> I get enough word space I'll give them a clause in that sentence.
Not to worry because many plants do not need bees or insects. They rely on
air eddies wafting pollen in all directions. You just need to point that out
in the story to shut nuts like me up.
first the damage is cataclysmic then
> > seems far less severe.
>
> Very good catch. As I saw it, the entire device has been pounded to
> flinders. But I never make it properly clear that he looks a single
> clear sample among hundreds.
>
> > A valiant attempt here, Joel, but one that needs work. It needs
> > editing. Editing will get you well below the word limit. It is a good
> > story but needs some changes for credibility. Apart from those I've
> > already pointed out about the world you have created, think of this. A
> > world covered in nothing but corn, no lakes, no seas. no bloody
> > water... and no rain. How can they grow corn without water?
>
> I thought about that as well. The planet was dead, no soil, before
> mankind arrived, maybe no water. Waves of engineered bacteria and other
> life forms might be able to chew a five feet of dirt free from the rock.
What time frame did you have in mind for that? I guess it's not important.
> That would be enough to grow corn. Then you import water and corn at the
> same time. The corn would be a huge evaporative surface to keep the
> water in circulation, the bedrock would proved an incredibly shallow
> extremely even water table. I think highly even weather patters would
> develop and it's within the realm of possibility that you could create
> the perfect, artificial, growing environment.
Logistics. How much water would one need to sustain a planet of corn?
Looking at the cycle, let's say one has one third in use, one third in
evaporation and one third doing what? Yes, rain but unless the surface is
perfectly and uniformly flat, that water is going to collect and that means
lakes if not seas. I'm afraid you're back to an earth-like model.
All this is apart from the effort of transporting 2000 trillion megalitres
of water. Of course, you might like to ship it dehydrated. :-)
> The odds are probably much much *better* that you'd be a small, but ever
> so meaningful, percentage off of perfect and nothing would grow. Still I
> think it's close enough I can say it would work in a story.
>
Anything can worl if you provide a reasonably logical story and if you
can't, you invent the "YouBeaut" toy that does it all.
Good luck, Joel
Anopheles
jeanannd
"Joel Crum" <yeah> wrote in message
news:Xns9385281BF0DA...@129.250.170.82...
> "jeanannd" <jean...@attbi.com> wrote in
> news:5HCza.702033$OV.654872@rwcrnsc54:
>
> > Great story Joel!!!! Your description of the planet of corn had me
> > seeing it, a see of green corn stalks under a blue sky with fluffy
> > clouds. I can't really think of anything to improve this story.
> > Loved it!!!
> >
>
> Thanks; it's always great to hear someone say something like that. I hope
a
> lot of other people agree. :-) But you never have to be nice to me just to
> keep me from getting demoralized. If / when you think I've sucked it up
> with a story come right out and tell me!
>
> --
> - Joel C.
>
Alaric
"Anopheles" <hi...@jeack.com.au> wrote in message
news:banbmk$1iqdf$1...@ID-34438.news.dfncis.de...
>
> Maybe he did yet consider Einstein's Third Law. "There ain't no free
> lunches." No matter how much they improve mechanics and technology,
physics
> will still remain physics.
Ye canna fight the laws o' physics.
It's worse than that. He's dead, Jim.
--
"I said, "There is no justice," as they dragged me out the door,
Judge said, "This isn't a court of justice, son. This is a court of law."
Billy Bragg, "Rotting On Remand."
Joel Crum
news:lQHza.957373$3D1.563677@sccrnsc01:
>
> "Joel Crum" <yeah> wrote in message
> news:Xns9385281BF0DA...@129.250.170.82...
>> "jeanannd" <jean...@attbi.com> wrote in
>> news:5HCza.702033$OV.654872@rwcrnsc54:
>>
>> > Great story Joel!!!! Your description of the planet of corn had
>> > me seeing it, a see of green corn stalks under a blue sky with
>> > fluffy clouds. I can't really think of anything to improve this
>> > story. Loved it!!!
>>
>> Thanks; it's always great to hear someone say something like that. I
>> hope a lot of other people agree. :-) But you never have to be nice
>> to me just to keep me from getting demoralized. If / when you think
>> I've sucked it up with a story come right out and tell me!
>>
> Joel, I'm not sucking up....I liked this story.
I didn't think you were. I just wanted you to know you never should. ;-)
My girlfriend tells my I really suck at taking complements on my writing.
lol But all the same I'm happy when someone likes it.
Joel Crum
news:banbmk$1iqdf$1...@ID-34438.news.dfncis.de:
>
> "Joel Crum" wrote:
>> "Anopheles" <hi...@jeack.com.au> wrote in
>> news:bamsn7$1fiop$3...@ID-34438.news.dfncis.de:
>>
>> Some answers to technical questions:
>>
>> >> consider the foods those people eat. It's all imported. Amgen
>> >> owns 34 worlds completely devoted to growing food grains.
>> >
>> > Obviously there's been huge gains in the economics of transporting
>> > large masses. :-)
>>
<...>
>>
>> That being said it was a total cheat. However I believe Asimov
>> pulled the same trick in foundation.
>
> Maybe he did yet consider Einstein's Third Law. "There ain't no free
> lunches." No matter how much they improve mechanics and technology,
> physics will still remain physics. You're talking about transporting a
> while planet full of corn, remember. It's fine to have a cheat but
> this is SciFi not Magic.
So I need to make it absolutely clear that the single ship which gets
attacked *isn't* going to be hauling back all the that. (Honest I never
wanted it to.) Correct? I think I could have the characters discuss
intercepting a corn transport to get back home. That would replace the
ineffective discussion of repairing the ship with something more
interesting.
>> > Infrared detectors, not cameras.
>>
>> Honest I meant cameras. Something capable of creating a picture with
>> light from below the visible range. http://www.x20.org/thermal/
>
> Yes, I understood what you were talking about, yet in the context, one
> is detecting heat sources with IR and one uses detectors to do so.
> Even thermal imaging displays used in cameras are detectors with add
> ons.
I believe I can rephrase that. Something along the lines of "We brought
up a thermal image of the base. The buildings were evenly sun-heated, no
warm bodies."
>> >>From space the planet looks like what it is: one massive
>> >> cornfield.
>> >
>> > If it was covered in corn, it would look either like yellow or like
>> > Robin Williams, wouldn't it? Then there's the refraction problems,
>> > colour shifts and so on.
>
<...>
>
> A corn field when
> ripe is all yellow, the chlorophyll having been drained. The earth
> appears green, blue and brown because there are huge masses of these
> colours. Your planet is monotone and yellow.
I never intended it to be ripe, at least not in that climate band should
we tilt this world on it's axis. I comment on it's greenness once I'm
down and eyeballing things under normal conditions.
>> You'd only get a single
>> shade if the planet lacked axial tilt and localized weather patterns.
>
> And an axial tilit would be a rarity?
No but it would be your enemy, so if you're going to terraform planet you
might as well do one without any tilt.
> I'm sure you did, Joel. I'm just throwing in some fire crackers to
> make you jump. :-)
I think it's a very productive conversation. There are some things I
will rephrase for a better technical impact. I love little technical
touches in fiction so I ought to be writing them.
>> I think my logic is most effective here. Airplanes and *especially*
>> trains can already do without their pilots. However, strong unions
>> and paranoid passengers will keep those men at the helm until Windows
>> last crash is 100 years in the past.
>
> Yes, but ecomomics would soon kill that off, not to mention boredom on
> long travel routes.
Here we just disagree. There are a lot of salaries being paid at this
very moment that could be lower or nonexistent if economics was only the
determining factor. But it's just not when you're dealing with people.
>> I thought about that as well. The planet was dead, no soil, before
>> mankind arrived, maybe no water. Waves of engineered bacteria and
>> other life forms might be able to chew a five feet of dirt free from
>> the rock.
>
> What time frame did you have in mind for that? I guess it's not
> important.
Somewhere very firmly between one year and six thousand. ;-)
Soil on earth is created at a rate of one inch per hundred years so that
would be our upper bound. Bacterial action in a friendly climate is very
fast. It takes me three weeks to turn five gallons of wort into five
gallons of beer with a gram of yeast. So if you could make a strain of
bacteria that thinks of bedrock as sugar and craps dirt, then evenly seed
the planet with a picogram of bacteria per cubic meter of rock the
surface would practically boil with action.
That would be very cool to watch. But it's a big "if" considering we
don't understand the genetic components of any metabolism yet let alone
some strange rock eating yeast.
>> That would be enough to grow corn. Then you import water and corn at
>> the same time. The corn would be a huge evaporative surface to keep
>> the water in circulation, the bedrock would proved an incredibly
>> shallow extremely even water table. I think highly even weather
>> patters would develop and it's within the realm of possibility that
>> you could create the perfect, artificial, growing environment.
>
> Logistics. How much water would one need to sustain a planet of corn?
> Looking at the cycle, let's say one has one third in use, one third in
> evaporation and one third doing what? Yes, rain but unless the surface
> is perfectly and uniformly flat, that water is going to collect and
> that means lakes if not seas. I'm afraid you're back to an earth-like
> model.
Perfectly and uniformly flat isn't such a huge got-yah. If tectonic
action ended long ago (and I said it had ;-) ), the planet was dry, and a
it had an atmosphere, then the wind should have eroded to a smooth ball.
Even earth, which has a great deal of water and tectonic action, is
smoother then a billiard ball would be at the same scale.
> All this is apart from the effort of transporting 2000 trillion
> megalitres of water. Of course, you might like to ship it dehydrated.
> :-)
They pounded one pole of it with comets. That got rid of the axial tilt
as well. lol AND the last mountain range!
Egad
The mix of levity and tension doesn't do it for me, but I think that is a
personal taste thing. There are some punctuation errors, dependent clauses
not set off with commas and such. Also, there is this part, "Allen started
a culture on his samples. He was confident he'd find some explanation there.
That seemed that seemed farfetched, but I let him work on it to keep him"
That one is obvious and I am sure that others have or will point it out.
I think you could cut the required words out of this if you got a little
more distance.
Good job. I like it.
Thanks for posting
Egad
"Joel Crum" <cru...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:Xns93849A0C56A6B...@129.250.170.100...
Alaric
Good helpful start, eh? But after that, I love some of the concepts. The
idea of Amgen is cool. The multiple viewscreens - yeah, I could do that. I
also like the non-Star Trek reaction to lack of response from the planet -
let's bugger off. I don't agree with Barry, incidentally, about the slow
build-up. I think the early section is very well paced indeed, and serves as
a valuable introduction to the characters. The reserve fuel tank thing, in
that light, seems a bit convenient and stretched. I can't believe it wouldn'
t have been brought to the captain's attention. There might have been any
number of reasons why this would be important mid-journey.
Excellent section with the captain worrying about what might be waiting
outside the ship. Obviously they're still syndicating The X-Files. And a
great sense of mystery with the Marie Celeste building. The three fingered
hand, though, is rather an odd concept for the captain to imagine. And what'
s this no such thing as alien crap? What about the Martian rock samples?
Later contamination my arse.
The description of movement in the corn as they're repairing the ship is
superb. Oh, yeah. Exterior cameras. Can't he use those viewscreens on the
ground?
Overview. Excellent old-fashioned Ray Bradbury type sci-fi. Very impressed.
Enjoyed the read.
Michael
I'm with Barry on this one - wow, that surprises me too - but I think
all the sections you need are there, it's just that the writing needs
to be pulled apart, stripped down to the bare essentials and then
rebuilt. I'm pretty sure that (as Barry's pointed out) you could trim
at least one word in ten - a ten percent reduction would bring the
count just under 3500.
Don't stress on the overwriting though - I do it too. All the time.
And I think your approach of overwriting and then culling paragraphs
and sections is a good one, but instead of ripping out whole sections,
try working through section by section and removing unneccessary
words. There's an excellent section in Sol Stein's (very good)
"Solutions For Writers" where he deals with some approaches to editing
excessive verbiage. It's helped me, anyway.
All that aside - good conceit, and it moves at a good, fast pace. With
judicious editing, this would be a real page-turner.
Thanks for posting.
Wind River
>
> "Anopheles" <hi...@jeack.com.au> wrote in message
> news:banbmk$1iqdf$1...@ID-34438.news.dfncis.de...
> >
> > Maybe he did yet consider Einstein's Third Law. "There ain't no free
> > lunches." No matter how much they improve mechanics and technology,
> physics
> > will still remain physics.
>
> Ye canna fight the laws o' physics.
>
> It's worse than that. He's dead, Jim.
Ye canna fight the Laws o' Trek -- never wear a red shirt, or Bones will
pronounce you dead.
nativelaw
Hey Joel,
"Joel Crum" <cru...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:Xns93849A0C56A6B...@129.250.170.100...
> Well here's my May challenge. Hope you all like it.
>
> It is 378 words too long. I've cut it down by 2000 words already, and
> I've reached the point where I'd like some feedback as I remove more.
> How do you feel about these sections:
> 1) Ivan's salute.
> 2) The narrator's sunrise. (Did the levity there make sense?)
> 3) The way I've introduced the crew.
> 4) My explanation of the planet's function.
> 5) Did I really have to tell why they couldn't repair the ship in
> space? (It's not really reasonable to think they might but the
> folks on Star Trek always do.)
> 6) Did anything after touchdown drag for you?
>
> My requirements: phobia, cornfield, aliens.
>
> -------------------
> Joel Crum
> Untitled
> May 23, 2003
> -------------------
>
> I woke up and was across the room with my hand on the lights before I
> even knew my eyes were open. My lungs jerked as they caught up against
> my too tight chest, my heart pounded like a dozen over used metaphors.
over-used; but metaphors and pounding hearts didn't go, for me
>
> The chronometer read 0330. I got four hours, not bad. From unpleasant
> experience, I knew I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep.
>
> I stood with my hands on the bulkhead assuring myself the walls weren't
> closing in then I decided to check the bridge. If I was going to be
> awake, I might as well spot Ivan. His shift wasn't over, but he might
> want to go to the head. I told myself it was the sensible thing to do. I
> wasn't just looking for an excuse to run the bridge sensors.
>
> "Mornin' Cap." Ivan tossed off a jaunty salute when I entered the bridge.
> I let it pass unacknowledged. I don't know if Ivan salutes because he's
> making fun of me, or because he's a stickler for procedure. Maybe he
> just enjoys saluting. I think tossing around salutes is impossibly
> silly. We're set up with a three man crew. Everyone is checked out on
> all the instruments. In system we do 8 hour shifts as pilot. Ivan is the
> mechanic. Allen is our medic. I'm the big dog - captain.
I think just "I'm the big dog" - we know he's captain by now.
Repeated "that seemed"
> It was getting dark; no one mentioned going outside. Instead Ivan, who
> had been awake for better then 24 hours, turned in for the night, and
> Allen walked back to the med-bay to finish work on his samples. I'd been
> awake at least 20 hours by that time, but the ship was feeling pretty
> tight, and I was too wired to sleep. Without much direction I wandered
> up to the bridge to run some scans across the base. It looked as dead to
> the low light cameras and radar as it had during the day, but when I
> switched on the infrared I saw something.
>
> Out in the vast field of corn dots moved. I adjusted the instruments to
something moved? word missing?
> bring the shapes into focus. There was too much corn in the way. The
> things were at least a few hundred meters away. They were big:12 feet
> tall and proportionally wide. The blobs looked human shaped, though that
> could have been subjective.
>
> I'm not sure how long I watched before it occurred to me to get one of
> the others. I didn't waste time doing it. I practically drug Allen out
> of the med bay and ran back to the bridge.
>
> "There!"
>
> "There what?"
>
> I followed Allen's blank look. The rough shape of the ground, buildings,
> and corn were picked out in cool blue heat signatures. The burning dots
> I'd seen earlier were gone.
>
> "Something hot was out there. Body heat from animals - maybe aliens. I
> don't know what, but they're behind this!"
>
> "There aren't any animals here. And there's no such thing as an 'alien'
> unless you count the one strain of blue green algae they found on
> Centaurs. This planet has corn, period, that's it."
I don't understand why his teammate would doubt him here? Wouldn't
he take what was said from the captain at face value?
>
> "So they've only 'found' one alien organism. That doesn't prove
> anything! We've haven't even made it to one percent of the galaxy's
> stars. What if something found us? This would be a perfect place to get
> a few subjects for study. Or maybe they were here all along, sleeping or
> something! Who knows what we might have woken below the surface of this
> world when we covered it in corn!" As soon as the words were out of my
> mouth I realized how crazy they sounded.
He seems strident
>
> Allen stabbed a finger at me. "I don't have time to give you the psych
> evaluation you need, but the stress is getting to you. Now take a
> freaking sleeping pill, get some rest, and let me work." He visibly
> collected himself. "We've worked together for a long time Tom. I like
> you. This is also a very bad time for you to lose it. So get some rest.
> Doctors orders. OK?"
>
> Without waiting for a response Allen walked away. I sat back down and
> began working the sensors. How could those things have hidden?
>
>
> * * *
>
> "You have a message waiting," the ship's computer told me when I woke up.
> I groaned. I'd fallen asleep in the captain's chair sometime last night.
>
> "Play it."
>
> "Good morning Tom, Ivan. I've finished the cultures and there's no sign
> of an unknown virus. I'm not convinced the base is clean yet so I've
> gone out to get more samples. I'll. . ."
>
> Oh shit, Allen had left the ship. I tried to calm myself even as I
> hurried out of my cabin for the med bay. Allen could be there working
> with another sample. Only he wasn't. Next I checked the weapons locker;
> the gauss rifle gone as well as Allen's EVA suit. I found Ivan when I
> went back to the bridge to scan for Allen.
>
> "Did you get the message?"
>
> "As soon as I woke up. I'm trying to find him now. I can't believe he
> went out alone!"
neither can I <g>
>
> "Anything yet?"
>
> Instead of answering he brought the image of a visible spectrum camera up
> on the main screen it showed the gauss rifle laying, bent double, near
semicolon after screen?
Just those few nits, Joel, and a couple of punctuation things I didn't point
out figuring they were typos. Very suspenseful, I was getting that nervous
sensation reading.
I don't have a problem with Ivan's salute, since the captain explains it;
but it and the explanation doesn't really add much to the story IMO, if you
are looking to cut words. The narrator's sunrise -- the levity levitated
over my woollybrained head, I'm afraid. 3 & 4 were fine w/ me -- the planet
being a huge grain terrain, is fine. It didn't drag for me after touchdown;
I think you were ok with explaining about no repairs in space, you might
want to cut that though and just sort of state it, to save words.
Nice job with this, Joel.
Andrea
Joel Crum
news:mizAa.1576$0_6....@news01.roc.ny.frontiernet.net:
> Just those few nits, Joel, and a couple of punctuation things I didn't
> point out figuring they were typos. Very suspenseful, I was getting
> that nervous sensation reading.
Cool, very much the intended effect. Bwahahahahahahaha
> I don't have a problem with Ivan's salute, since the captain explains
> it; but it and the explanation doesn't really add much to the story
> IMO, if you are looking to cut words. The narrator's sunrise -- the
> levity levitated over my woollybrained head, I'm afraid. 3 & 4 were
> fine w/ me -- the planet being a huge grain terrain, is fine. It
> didn't drag for me after touchdown; I think you were ok with
> explaining about no repairs in space, you might want to cut that
> though and just sort of state it, to save words.
That's about what I've done in my repost. Unfortunately I've added a
couple of things (made the planet a little more complex, explained why
the ship is crewed slightly better) which add's length and lumps too much
information in the same paragraph. I'm really going to need to beat on
that in a final rewrite.
As to the sunrise. Well I was writing this on an airplane and being too
cute for my own good. The sun would be on any object in space all the
time (unless something eclipsed it.) And of course ship "days" and nights
would be wholly relative. I saw everyone sleeping and working in shifts
so the bridge could be manned 24/7. By targeting the sensor correctly the
Captain makes it seem that the sun is in the correct place for a sunrise.
The irony is that it would always look like that with some sensor. Ivan
offers to do a port side barrel roll because that would make the sun seem
to move relative to the ship in the same way the sun "moves" during a
planet bound sunrise.
All this inspired by the sun moving along the wing of my 767. :-)
> Nice job with this, Joel.
Thank you very much. Both for the kind words and the pointers.
- Joel C.
Joel Crum
news:EIUza.1236$Lz4.38...@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com:
> The mix of levity and tension doesn't do it for me, but I think that
> is a personal taste thing. There are some punctuation errors,
> dependent clauses not set off with commas and such.
I swear I put them in. I think they just run off after I've posted the
piece. Hmmm I should write a story about that. A bucolic scene with all
the little commas playing together.
> Also, there is
> this part, "Allen started a culture on his samples. He was confident
> he'd find some explanation there. That seemed that seemed farfetched,
> but I let him work on it to keep him" That one is obvious and I am
> sure that others have or will point it out.
>
> I think you could cut the required words out of this if you got a
> little more distance.
>
> Good job. I like it.
Thank you.
- Joel C.
Joel Crum
news:baql3h$6b7$1...@titan.btinternet.com:
Hi Alaric,
Thanks for your kind words and your suggestions. I've thought a lot
about why I'm getting that retro feel to this and I think it's my basic
treatment of the technology. All the tech is a logical extension of what
we have now or just presented without even a hand wave to explain *how*
it works. There's also the characters. My guys are space truckers not
Starfleet. For the rewrite I'm definitely going to work on what you've
mentioned. I think I'll also try to push that retro feel a little
further. I believe I can get a good effect there if I handle it write.
Joel Crum
Well I've put out a shorter version but I did it by cutting those sections
I mentioned in my note on the post. I think I'll go to this version of the
story more then that one when I rework it. I will rework it because I find
using feedback in the manner that really teaches a lot.
Thanks for telling me what you thought of the piece. I'm going to keep
that book you've mentioned in mind.
Huw Lyan Thomas
You're taking a long time to get going here. I think you need to work on
getting us involved with the characters or setting. The next para
contains good scene setting...
> Every wall of the bridge is a view screen. As soon as Ivan left I
> activated them all. Suddenly, I seemed to be sitting in open space. Our
> destination, Amgen grain world 27, dominated the forward screen. When
> people think of an inhabited planet they imagine the big city worlds with
> buildings covering 90% of the surface. They never consider the foods
> those people eat. It's all imported. Amgen owns 34 worlds completely
> devoted to growing food grains.
but my advice would be to start with this
>
> Amgen 27 is corn. From space it looks like a perfect green sphere. It's
> covered in corn from pole to pole. The corn is harvested, prepared, and
> even shipped robotically. There are 100 people on the surface to repair
> the machines, but their tiny outpost is invisible from space. From space
> the planet looks like what it is: one massive cornfield.
That sentence "Amgen 27 is corn" is, IMO, the perfect opener for this
story, and a powerful evoker of curiosity.
If you opened with the above para, you could drop in some of the
background detail and introduce the crew next, firing up the conflict
engine as soon as you possibly can.
> I kept the ship, with our hail automatically repeating, in orbit above
> Amgen's only outpost for five hours of eerie silence.
This seems contrived, particularly dropping in the hail part in the
middle of the main idea. Try breaking it into a few short sentences for
more cohesion and snappiness.
> Our cameras
> showed a seemingly static image of buildings. Nothing moved around them.
cut "around them"
> Infrared cameras were unable to find the heat which should have come from
> warm bodies.
Make it pithier. "The infrared cameras revealed no trace of body heat"
or something.
> The EM band remained dead; there wasn't even haze from an
> operational generator. By the end of my shift as pilot, I was ready to
> give up.
cut "as pilot". Try "pilot shift", perhaps.
>
> "I'm going to turn us around and make for home at our best speed.
> Something's wrong down there. We need to report it."
"at our best speed" sounds wrong. Surely he'd just say "get us home
ASAP" or something?
> Ivan cleared his throat, "With respect, Captain, that wouldn't be a good
> idea."
>
> "We don't have another option. Regulations say, 'In the event control
> cannot be contacted, when attempting to land, the landing craft must seek
> another port.'"
>
> "Sir, there's a problem with our reserve fuel tanks. As far as I've been
> able to determine, something in the pump system is shot. We've only got
> enough primary fuel left to land."
work on making the dialogue more natural. "As far as I've been able to
determine..." sounds hokey, and generally this exchange makes me think
you're writing the speeches without "listening" to the characters.
> Ivan shook his head adamantly, "No. I don't know the pump is bad. Its
> diagnostics say it's fine, but when I turn it on the engine doesn't get
> fuel.
Cut adamantly.
He'd simplify and abbreviate. "The pump may be good. Diagnostics check
out, but no fuel's reaching the engine."
I often go on about giving each character an agenda in dialogue, and
this might be somewhere where that would pay off. Also, each one needs a
more distinctive voice. Finally, resist the temptation to overexplain,
eg
> Allen sat bolt upright. "But captain! What if whatever disabled that
> outpost is still down there? What if it's a virus? We'd all be toast
> before we even knew what was wrong."
where moderately SF-literate readers will know why the captain doesn't
want to land.
> Pilots are
> only a crummy back up system these days.
you have an opportunity to personalise: Guys like me are only a crummy
backup system...
>
> The scene outside the ship was eerie.
cut "the ship". Try: "Outside, the scene...
> Not, mind you, because something
cut "mind you"
> was wrong. In fact everything seemed to be fine. The buildings around
> us were neat, unimaginative, cinder block structures. The corn was a
> pleasant green sea surrounding the small island of buildings.
cut the (overdone, IMO) description of the buildings and drop it into
"small island of cinderblock..."
> Perhaps they were filled with bloated or bleeding corpses.
cut "or bleeding". Bloated is enough to get the point across
> Maybe the
> inhabitants had been brutally murdered.
superfluous
> pathogens to more populous words. "Right," I answered at length.
answering at length implies he said a lot. Try "eventually" :-)
> The guns were locked in one of the ships out-of-the-way cargo holds
> against theft, mutiny, or stupidity.
cut the above and mention it's the password to the gun locker below
> The
> ship carries several extra vehicular activity suits each one ideal for a
> different purpose.
you could maybe finesse this exposition into the suit-selection scene.
> "Guys I think we'd better get back to the ship."
comma after guys
> That seemed
> that seemed farfetched, but I let him work on it to keep him occupied.
duplicated "that seemed"
> It was getting dark; no one mentioned going outside.
Try a full stop iso semicolon
> Instead
insert comma
> Ivan, who
> had been awake for better then 24 hours, turned in for the night, and
> things were at least a few hundred meters away. They were big:12 feet
twelve, and a space before it
> the others. I didn't waste time doing it. I practically drug Allen out
drug: regionalism or slang?
> Erect
insert comma
> They turned on me.
Maybe more dramatic: The rest of them came after me.
> I've set this message to automatically repeat along with a general SOS.
>
> Please hurry...
Nice spooky build-up and a dramatic ending. As others have mentioned, it
needs tightening. Sorry that this review comes too late to have much
relevance to the challenge :-)
to answer your questions
1) Ivan's salute.
"tossed off" is double-entendre over here. As for the salute itself, you
didn't really work on further characterisation so I felt it wasn't in
character with what came later.
2) The narrator's sunrise. (Did the levity there make sense?)
The "You're right! Look at that sunrise." came too far after "Mornin'
Cap." and also, he never specified that it was a "good" morning ;-)
3) The way I've introduced the crew.
Worked fine for me. One of the advantages of first-person narration -
you can divulge things like this.
4) My explanation of the planet's function.
Excellent, I thought. As I mentioned, I think you should open with this.
The story is about the planet, so let's get there ASAP.
5) Did I really have to tell why they couldn't repair the ship in
space? (It's not really reasonable to think they might but the
folks on Star Trek always do.)
Personally I'd assume they couldn't, particularly if the characters
state that they have to land :-)
6) Did anything after touchdown drag for you?
No.
--
Huw
http://huw.hexlibris.com
Joel Crum
news:MPG.19432c32b...@192.168.0.1:
> cru...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
>> -------------------
>> Joel Crum
>> Untitled
>> May 23, 2003
>> -------------------
Hi Huw,
Like you said I won't be able to make the changes in time for the close of
the challenge but I intend to rewrite this for practice so they will come
in very handy there. For some reason it never occurred to me to move the
beginning parts around but I think it will help me get that section going.
Thanks for the tip!