[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited February 04, 2008).]

See what happens when you try to slip one by KDW. I was a fool to try. Seriously, I wanna see Beckham go up against this woman. Hey, arent you supposed to be on strike Kathleen.

Here's my reasons why:

You bring us into a scene that starts off intensely close, so close I don't really understand what is going on other than he is admiring Adria. Then you go on to, "tell," the reader how she affected him, when that scene could be easily shown to the reader.

To sum it up, I feel your moving this story along too fast. My advice would be to slow it down, let the reader take in the descriptions of what Adria looks like, where their at and so on.

Edit: I do like what your going for though, as in how your trying to start your story with a feel of your main character's day to day life. But like I said, 13 lines make it hard to grasp the story; I can only really comment on this scene

[This message has been edited by Grijalva (edited February 04, 2008).]

Well, the opening has tugged at my interest, so we're all good there - I think it's Priam himself that's done it ('but you do warm the cockles of my heart, dear'). The one thing that IS nittering at me, though, is how many commas you've used. Or, more to the point, haven't used. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is only a personal preference, because I can't find anywhere that is specifically WRONG... but still. Here, in bold, are where I'd like to see commas that aren't currently there:

'Priam stopped polishing the corroded cooling fins of the salvaged heat sink, and just admired Adria’s splendid form for a few moments. He didn’t mind that she had that effect on him; in fact, it quite pleased him. She had cost him two good ships, a well producing mineral mine, and no small number of fed bars on top of that. Left him not that far from broke, in truth. But in nine weeks he had no hint of buyer’s remorse. She watched his eyes scan her shape, and made the face most women do when a man gratuitously checks them out.'

I am, it must be said, a fan of commas . As I say, there isn't anything specifically wrong with the way you've puctuated your sentences, but I personally would be happier seeing even a couple of the above examples slotted in.

Now, to some little nits in the prose. Your first sentence could stand to lose an adjective, in my opinion. 'Corroded' is the least important of the three, so I'd go with that. You COULD leave it as it is, but for me, it's a little bit 'I quietly snuck out into the freezing cold dark night, treading lightly on the clean, white snow'. Bit too much description. Also, I'd consider losing the 'just' in 'just admired Adria’s splendid form'.

'well producing' - I'm not 100% sure about 'well producing'. It sounds odd. And, in any case, I'd be tempted to hyphenate it to 'well-producing'. If you can find a single word to replace it with (e.g. 'lucrative' or 'profitable', though there's a better one that's on the tip of my tongue and I can't quite think of it), I'd do so.

'But in nine weeks he had no hint of buyer’s remorse' - bit of tense confusion, here. You either either want 'in nine weeks, he had had no hint', or 'But, nine weeks later, he had no hint'. The first option can be shortened to 'he'd had', obviously, and I suspect that that's what you're going for. Anyway, one option is past, one is present - you have a mix of both at the moment.

That's all the petty bits I have - I'd read on .

With that in mind, I'm going to disagree with Grijalva - I think your pacing is fine as it is, neither too fast nor too slow. There's plenty of time to add in a word here and there later on to give us physical details, more relationship info etc. Not TOO much later on, to be fair, but later nonetheless.