Hatrack River Writers Workshop: The Merchant Princess

This is topic The Merchant Princess in forum Fragments and Feedback for Short Works at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by waterchaser (Member # 8729) on :

This is another rewrite.

Sasha was in the vents looking for a broken spiderbot when the head hunters came for her family. They had come in fast and jammed the semi-sentient gluon glass, locking it up in hyperspace with a barrage of quantum viruses. But they couldn’t fool the dogs. Their howling was the only warning that death had called on the Hornika family.
What she saw next scared her more than anything she had ever seen, and not just what happened but why.
Sasha had just found the tiny spiderbot and bundled it in her brother’s favorite jacket. She then crawled to an air vent overlooking the docking bay. By the time she reached the vent overlooking the dock, all hell had broken loose.
“Watch the entrances for more of those damned Anthrobots,” barked a grating voice. Through the smoke, she could see several robotic limbs strewn across the black glass floor and she heard the whimpering of a dog.
_________________________________________________________________

She was in the vents looking for a broken spiderbot when the head hunters came for her family. They had come in fast and jammed the semi-sentient gluon glass, locking them up in hyperspace with a barrage of quantum viruses. But they couldn’t fool the dogs. Their howling was the only warning that death had called on the Hornika family.

Sasha had just found the tiny spiderbot, bundled it in her brother’s favorite jacket, and made her way carefully in the dark to an air vent overlooking the docking bay. By the time she reached the vent overlooking the dock where her family sometimes did discreet business with unsavory pirates and the strange Yang, all hell had broken loose.

[This message has been edited by waterchaser (edited August 01, 2009).]

[This message has been edited by waterchaser (edited August 05, 2009).]

Posted by MAP (Member # 8631) on :

I am very confused.

quote:
She (is there any reason to withhold her name?) was in the vents looking for a broken spiderbot when the head hunters came for her family. (Nice first sentence. Personally, I was disappointed when you dropped this. I would like to know more about how she survived, why her family was targeted, and how she felt about it.) At seventeen, she was only the size of a toddler, and because they were a slow (slow-slow in growing? Is she a 17-year-old toddler mentally or just physically because their family grows slow? Or are all of the people of her race small at this age? This needs to be clarified.) family, she wouldn’t be registered with the Troika for almost another year. (no idea what this means.) Her parents had been citizens for a hundred years and her brother had been certified as a Trade Pilot (no idea what this means) for as long as she could remember, about 15 years was.(Is was a typo? Her brother was a pilot for 15 years?) She knew her family was different. (how? Is this connected to her brother being a trade pilot.) They had lots of naturals (no idea what this means. Does this have something to do with her family being different?) who came to work for her great-grand parents, the owners and operators of the family trade business for 600 years. Most of the family’s friends she grew up with were getting their periods (Is this menstration, your world is so confusing that I am unsure.) and signing up for various prestigious tech schools on Mars, Earth, and Luna while she lingered on her parent ship.

You present way too many unfamiliar terms in so few sentences, none of them are explained at all. You don't have to explain everything in the first thirteen, but I am so utterly confused at this point that I have no interested in trying to decipher your world. You need to slow down and show us how this world works at a rate that doesn't frustrate the reader.

I hope this helps.

[This message has been edited by MAP (edited July 29, 2009).]

Posted by waterchaser (Member # 8729) on :

Point taken. 'Ang on a sec, I'll be right back.

thanks for looking at it!

Posted by waterchaser (Member # 8729) on :

She was in the vents looking for a broken spiderbot when the head hunters came for her family. They had come in fast and jammed the ASTERs, locking them up in hyperspace with invading viruses of quantum energy, trying to change the prime directives of the semi-sentient glass crystals, and the only warning they had that the asteroid compound had been discovered was the dogs that were sensitive to the magnetic fields generated by the boarding ships’ engines.
She had just found the tiny spiderbot, bundled it in her brother’s favorite jacket, and made her way carefully in the dark to an air vent overlooking the docking bay. By the time she reached the vent overlooking the dock where her family sometimes did discreet business with unsavory pirates and the strange Yang, belligerent hell had already broken loose.

Posted by waterchaser (Member # 8729) on :

She was in the vents looking for a broken spiderbot when the head hunters came for her family. They had come in fast and jammed the semi-sentient gluon glass, locking them up in hyperspace with a barrage of quantum viruses. But they couldn’t fool the dogs. Their howling was the only warning that death had called on the Hornika family.
Sasha had just found the tiny spiderbot, bundled it in her brother’s favorite jacket, and made her way carefully in the dark to an air vent overlooking the docking bay. By the time she reached the vent overlooking the dock where her family sometimes did discreet business with unsavory pirates and the strange Yang, all hell had broken loose.