I'd be very grateful for your feedback on my short-short story (1,400 words), "A Confederation of Freaks and Orphans" -- either feedback on just the opening (below), or if you have time to respond to the full story, please let me know and I'll e-mail a copy. Thanks!

Luc

Most of the thawers were dying, but they were bringing them all out anyway. A hundred and eighty years was about enough for the taxpayers after one cryogenics facility after another went bankrupt, apparently. That’s what the social worker told Pete when he came out. Then she gave him a little pellet he was supposed to stick in his ear, which would guide him to his apartment and help orient him.

She spent about fifteen minutes with him, then put him in a little room where pictures flickered on all eight walls and a canned voice described the differences between the early 21st century and the late 23rd. Colonization in space, nanotechnology and nanosurgery, the rise of androgynes as a third sex, holography, full-immersion virtual reality, underground supersonic walk-tunnels, the combination and resplintering of the various North American nations, cybernetic ships launched into the far reaches of space to explore distant star systems, the Age of Implants and the backlash to it … after the first ten minutes it was all a blur. After fifteen minutes the room gave up on Pete and told him to come back when he could understand it all.

 

P.S. Congrats on becoming a finalist for the anthology! That's really impressive!

 

rshowen, awhile back you mentioned a dark fantasy with a 10K word count. Is that still up for reading?
 

I'm afraid I didn't think to post when I had finished this story and sent it out! Yet comments on the opening and/or the story are still helpful to me now, since either it will come back and I'll want to send it out elsewhere (perhaps with a few improvements) or else it will be purchased and I can improve it before it goes to print, so thanks very much for the thought going into this.

Luc