REVISED:

The first beat of the drum roused it from its state of near-oblivion; its consciousness stretched finely throughout the seas of the world. It felt itself drawn into a denser form near the shore of a great river. The second beat focused it further and it remembered clearly what it was to have a body. The third beat pulled the garbage floating in the freezing waters towards it. The trash was twisted and forged by unseen forces into something like a human body; legs of wood, wrapped in shreds of rotting steel—no two body parts alike. Plastic bags wove together with scraps of seaweed, forming a hooded cloak. The body felt good, felt strong. It raised one of its new hands above the scummy water and examined it with eyes of broken green glass. The wire sinews flexed the wooden fingers into a

[This message has been edited by skadder (edited September 04, 2008).]

[This message has been edited by skadder (edited September 04, 2008).]

[This message has been edited by skadder (edited September 04, 2008).]

Send it on. The first 13 read well, but my main concern would be the possibilities of character interaction/development, etc. I'd only be willing to follow the "creature" for so long depending on how you handled it.

Regards,

The 'creature' will slowly be revealed as man, and should prove more tolerable to follow, althought the POV switches to the drummer during the story for a significant period.

Sorry, I assumed you wanted a review of the whole thing. I'd keep reading as it's well written and intriguing, but there would be a little bit of scepticism as to whether you could pull it off. I'm not sure how a cranky editor would see it.

Cheers,

I felt distant because of the fact that it is just a "him", if he is aware i feel he should consider himself by a name. Though this might not fit in with your story. I also found the first sentence a bit long winded - not in amount of words, but in ideas. You have pretty outlandish idea (i think its awesome, but it was hard to latch onto at first) and I think it needs better clarification through the first sentence. I totally enjoyed the rest of it though.

On afterthought - would it work to refer to this entity as "it" for now? When "him" or "her" are used I automatically relate it to the corresponding physical forms and features of a human "him" or "her". If you were to use "it" I am less likely to form an opion on the features and form of "it" - I think I can slide easier into the fact that it has no physical form to begin with.

example:

"The first beat of the drum roused it from a state of near-oblivion. It's consiousness was stretched finely throughout the seas of the world."

once this entity does start to take form, maybe you can move to "him" if that is the shape it is taking.

Revision above.

I find this sentence confusing, and think it would read better if "like" was added to the mix along with a comma after the word "further":

A creature coming to life with disgarded garbage. Planks of wood for legs, broken glass for eyes, COOL!.

The ook,

This drum thing. What is the deal with it? I know it has relevance in your story but added to this opening makes it... I don't know... sappy?

Listen here, monkey boy. Any more comments like that and it's no bananas for you. OK?

Sappy? I am not certain what you mean... Do you feel it weakens the story--too cliche, or something else?

I like the drum as it is intrinsically connected to the story. It isn't an African connection, but some Indonesian island connection years ago in the past. The creature is currently just about to go into New York.

The drum is how it is called; it has to hear it--it is the drum too.

[This message has been edited by skadder (edited September 06, 2008).]

I liked the drum beat. It establishes the presence of magic, it provides the "why now" (i.e. because the creature was called or created in some manner), it gives the garbage creature an immediate goal--to find the person who created it, and, most importantly, it suggests forward direction in the story by opening a realm of possibilities: is the creature controlled by the drum? will it kill the person who's working the drum? Was it called out on purpose, or was it an accident of some drum circle on the shore? I would read on precisely to find out the answers to those questions.

There is a cliched element, I will agree: tribal beats, native magic, shaman, orientalism, (I'm speculating here, obviously) etc etc. It could be cheesy. But there's enough here that would keep me reading.

I think the writing could be tighter. The first three sentences are a bit clunky. For instance:

The second beat focused it further and it remembered clearly what it was to have a body.

"focused it further" adds nothing. It's just more stuff to read. Same with "clearly". The more important part is that it remembers corporeality.