Was it a dark and stormy night? Was the rain really falling in savage sheets, and the wind really howling hauntingly between the city’s somber, skyscraping tombs? Was this his apartment? His city? His world?
Who the hell knew any more, Harlin groggily asked himself. Who the hell cared? But of course, it had to be his world, he concluded, as his clearing mind registered the floor covered in crumpled trash and the furniture caked in thick layers of dust. No purchased world would ever look so shabby.
Reaching trembling arms out to the framework of the apparatus, and stretching reed-thin legs down toward the floor, Harlin disengaged the waist clamps that suspended him. Though it was only a few inches between feet and soiled carpeting, the sickly looking man’s legs still buckled beneath the unaccustomed weight of his torso. Only his tight grip on the machine’s tarnished aluminum frame kept him from collapsing entirely.
I'll trade you a critique for a critique if you'd like. You have mine already.
The series of questions at the start was a bit of a put off. But I stuck with it to see where you were going.
Then I was introduced to the character. The first thing the character thinks, after introducing himself is "Who cares?"
Immediately I thought, well, if he does not care, why should I?
One consistency thing:
Does aluminum tarnish? All I've ever seen it do is get a kind of white haze, if not polished.
I agree with mike. Try starting with the third paragraph. It does a great job of getting me to ask engaging questions about the story. Questions like: Huh, what's wrong with this guy? Why does he need a machine to carry him? Is he sick? Why is he getting out of his chair?
All those questions start to get me into the story.
Mike and D_Allen, I appreciate your time, and the full version is on its way to you both.
There are two problems. One is that you have a bit of uneven POV penetration and the character doesn't seem very sympathetic. The other problem is that so far this looks like another "perils of addiction to Virtual Reality" story without much to set it apart. I don't know that you want to address the latter right away. It will tend to take care of itsel if you can make the POV character more intersting as the sort of person we'd like to get to know better. Right now pretty much everything about this person tends to repel us and make us leery of reading more about him and his life.
Based on this new perspective, I'm going to lay out a brief plot summary. Looking at the story through fresh eyes, I see that there's more editing here than I originally planned, and I'd especially appreciate comments on whether the story itself warrants all the extra work. If this is just a rehash of a theme that's already been done to death, I'm inclined to set it aside and work on polishing some of my other, more unique projects. (My writer's group has set of deadline of 2 weeks to get at least some material out into circulation).
Harlin is a sinner. Harlin uses his purchased virtual realities to act out upon his own dark impulses. Unknownst to him, he has been identified and targeted, though. A salesman comes to Harlin's door, offering him a 'free' upgrade of his V.R. gear, and though he has doubts, he accepts. Obviously, this is a bad choice, and he quickly finds himself in a 'virtual hell'. A (poorly-defined) antagonist/religious zealot slowly reveals to Harlin that the realm was set up to punish the sinners of the countless virtual worlds, for the broader society has long since allowed itself to slide into decadence. Harlin faces a choice about his own future, and finds some small measure of redemption. Throw in some muddled religious symbolism, and spatter with a generally dark and gloomy tone, and you have my little tale.
Looking at this post, I think I just answered me own question....
I did like your imagery in the third paragraph. I had a clear enough picture of those legs to curl my lip in revulsion.
I was also thrown off by the "dark and stormy night" reference, as others have mentioned. Unfortunately for whoever the original writer of that line is, the first thing I think of now when I read it, is Snoopy. So I was thinking funny and then thrown off a bit when I reached the next paragraph.