Brant
Surrounded by the swarms of disinfectant nano-bots that dwelled inside his spaceship's morgue, Quasar D'Arete leaned back in his chair and rested his boots on the autopsy table.
Good start, good writing.
He gazed through his sunglasses at the eleven-dimensional screen of the handheld necrometer one last time, then casually tossed it across the room.
"Gazed" made me think of staring at some far off thing, or gazing into a lovers eyes. Maybe squinted, or peered, or something might be better.
Hercules Moonsmasher's muscles bulged as he caught the all-in-one autopsy machine.
Do all of your muscles bulge when you catch something "hand-held"? I pictured him flexing like a bodybuilder while catching it. Maybe you could focus on his hand, or forearm muscles.
He glanced at the readings, then placed the device next to the quartet of corpses on the table.
Quartet is irreverent, but probably unnecesary. "Four" would serve just as well.
The cadavers all had broken necks, and their larynxes, esophagi, tracheas, and lungs had been ripped out through their throats.
At first I thought the "through their throats" was redundant, but then noticed you had added "lungs" in there as well. Worth thinking about.
Their faces were purple and black, their heads turgid, their features distorted.
Turgid huh? Anyone here read Steven Erikson? He uses that word a LOT.
Some of them were missing eyeballs.
I agree about the eye/eyballs thing. Also, with only four bodies, "some of them" seems strangely imprecise. You could say "three of them".
Overall, I like it, and would read on.
My two cents.
[This message has been edited by debhoag (edited August 11, 2008).]
I like this opening. It’s clear, has an immediate hook and introduces us to a character to follow. It also promises an intriguing scenario. I’m a sucker for a murder mystery, so this is a great start for me.
I have a few very minor nits, all of which have been identified by other people. The first is the muscles rippling of Hercules Moonsmasher…it’s a little bit cartoonish, though you seem to want that given his name. However, if you want a cartoonish feel to the story, it’s a bit at odds with the graphic nature of the autopsy scene.
If you use turgid to describe the heads, then I imagine that they’re extremely swollen, probably beyond the swelling that would be caused by a beating. Even if they had big hemotomas, I’d imagine they’d go down pretty quickly after death (though I’m not a doctor, etc.) Simply the heads as bruised and swollen will probably do the trick.
Finally, unless you have a really good use for the 11-dimension scanner, I’d discard it. I only know enough about string theory to know that I know nothing about it. As far as I’m aware, the “extra” dimensions purely refer to dimensions at the sub-atomic level. If you only intend it as a technological device for background colour, I’d abandon it as you’ll immediately lose anyone who understands string theory. If you actually have a use for it, make sure that you bring it into the story as soon as you can so that there isn’t a credibility issue.
Cheers,
Nick