..............

Jezmer shot the two-seater corvair up and around the Fuji-like volcano vomiting up its colossal plume of ultrahot sulfur, guiding them about with intuitive ease, while his young female passenger sat next to him, white-knuckled and stiff. Intending to give her a supreme view of Io's unbeatable vistas from closer in, he banked the corvair hard and low over yet another series of volcanic rifts, smoldering wide blisters, arterial runoff patterns with dizzyingly fractal tendrils and branches as if the Jovian moon suffered from an unprecedented, virulent skin disease.

.....

[edited for spelling, twice]

[This message has been edited by Nietge (edited June 11, 2006).]

I am not sure that some of the descriptions are clear enough. They may be too fancy for their own good, giving me a lot of style, but not enough content. How is the volcano Fuji-like? I know that Fuji is a volcano, but I do not know how this volcano is similar to Fuji. From my point of view, the sentence is essentially telling me that it is a volcano-like volcano.

I also find it difficult to believe that far enough in the future that there is breathable atmosphere on Io, corvairs will still exist, still be driven, or have been transported to Io for cruising. Without any kind of information, I am being given two things which make no sense together, and have no way of putting them together.

Again, the description gets overblown for my taste, and the sentence way too complex at the end. blister, rifts, runoff, fractals... that is already very discriptive, almost too much so, but then it is compared to a skin disease, which throws my brain for a loop.

As for the second sentence, it feels like and info dump. Chopping it up into three or even four sentences would probably help.

...

Jezmer shot the two-seater corvair up and around the spectacular volcano with its colossal plume of ultrahot sulfur, guiding them about with intuituve ease. Just to do it: an impromptu celebration of skillful flight. The corvair was an older DaimlerFarben model, humble as a grasshopper in the hands of most, but Jezmer adored pushing it beyond the edge. Its octagonal thrusters blasted at full, sucking them into their smartgel seats at better than three gees. Jezmer adored to just let his free-wheeling piloting instincts take over at times like this, making the corvair soar and dart like a seagull in harsh thermals.

.....

Of course, you have to make the volcano description really riveting so we'll read the second paragraph. Make the reader "feel" being there. The heat coming out of it. How the wind/air was like a blast furnace over the frozen ground. It lit up the sky brighter than Jupiter overhead. The onboard compass failed this close to the base and fingers tingled from the magnetic field fluxes. Description that evokes sensory feelings in the reader.

Corvair still bothers me because I remember that Chevrolet MADE a Corvair once upon a time. I think you need to make clear at the first mention of the vehichle's name that it is a...what? An atomic flyer? An antigrav flyer? The Corvair (trade name, remember..or is it? I'm suddenly not certain here in your story.) antigrav flitter swooped.... well, something a bit more specific so I know what a corvair (or Corvair) is.

[This message has been edited by arriki (edited June 12, 2006).]

"colossal plume of ultrahot sulfur"

I have things to say about this volcano usage as well, but again, I need to bite my tongue and give thanks to the contributing reviewers. I'm hesitant to give *too* much emphasis to this volcano, since for now it's only scenery really, an eyeball kick in other words, and doesn't figure prominently in the story, admittedly. I'd have to give a summary for the whole story for this all to make sense. Should I just give a summary, and tell everyone what I'm trying to pull off? I would do it here, but the post would wind up being rather long and I feel I'd need to ask first, to see if it's at all warranted. Again, my hearty thanks so far to all who chipped away at this behemoth o' mine.

(Nota bene for the jury--so far I'm quite impressed at the attention this little ditty has garnered from you all so far; I don't feel like I'm being beat upon. Critiquing is an act of love. I should definitely pay more attention to my *own* critiquing in return. I'm glad I found this forum, truly. I'm growing as a writer just from this example.)

.....

Jezmer took a sec to gander at his wrist comm: 17:26 and some change. An opportune time for joyriding mayhem. He'd brought Acie along with him, his teen girl admirer (at least at times) who often pulled at his sleeve cuff for a free ride in the two-seater microship, speeding over Io's moonscape. Now he was admittedly stuntflying, to thrill her, establish some connection. Just to do it: a celebration of Jezmer's piloting. But so far on this microship run, it looked like he was failing to touch her deeply like he'd planned. It was at least a little sad. Something volatile in his chest reached out to her, like telepathy. A need for comprehension. But she had her shields up. She looked pained, on the edge of her seat. Pressed back in the smartgel cushions in the cockpit next to him. Trapped in the crash webbing. On the edge of terror, even. Regrettable. Of anyone, Acie had the best chance of understanding him, and the Voices, the best. But Jezmer was losing her.

The same goes for his relationship with Acie. "Something volatile in his chest reached out to her, like telepathy." is confusing. Does he really have telepathy? If not, what is reaching out to her? Could you get the same idea across in a way that is more easily understood?

As it is, I've got too many questions about who they are. Who's Acie? A fan or potential girlfriend? What does Jezmer do for a living that makes him popular? Is he allowed to give her a free ride? What the hell do the Voices have to do with anything? Your first attempt didn't strike me because there wasn't enough info, and this one there's too much.