posted
Alrighty...this is an excerpt from a short story I've been working at for the past month or so, on and off. A basic plot synopsis would say something along the lines of "survival in a hostile environment...specifically, the debris field of a destroyed capital ship." The POV is fairly obvious (I hope...if not, I have some serious work to do).
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A piece of flotsam struck his faceplate, accompanied by a subdued tink. His suit was pressurized from insulated toes to armored helmet, which accounted for the sudden sound in an otherwise soundless void. Speaking of which, he thought wearily, it’s getting pretty crowded around here. As if in acknowledgment, another piece of debris—this one considerably larger than the last—nudged his right leg. The impact sent his body into a dizzying spin. Reluctantly, the survivor fired his attitude control jets to reorient himself…the largest lump of debris in the area fit in nicely as a reference point.
His suit contained two energy packs…one for life support and computer systems, the other directional control and communications. A mere thirty percent power remained in the latter pack, unfortunately. He’d be lucky to raise anyone within a thousand meters, much less contact a search-and-rescue ship beyond the edge of this artificial asteroid field.
The life support/computer pack was looking good so far…still holding steady at ninety-two percent. The energy system was designed with endurance in mind, and therefore had regenerative capabilities. However, those capabilities didn’t help one much if a pack took damage in any way, shape, or form. In his case, the form had been the severed torso of an unlucky comrade.
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So...tell me what you think. Good? Bad? Ugly? [You know I'm wincing after that last one, right?]
Seriously, though, pick it apart. Hunting season is open and the game is Inkwell's latest experiment...let the fun begin.
Inkwell ------------------ "The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp." -Anonymous
posted
Assuming that this is an excerpt from the middle rather than the first thirteen lines...?
Pretty good. Couple of things. In modern third person limited viewpoint the thoughts of the point of view characte do not need to be italicized. It is imlicit that all things written are essentially his thoughts.
Weak sentence : "The life support/computer pack was looking good so far…"
Simple fix: The life support/computer pack LOOKED good so far
Try to avoid to be and use strong verbs...don't try to eliminate its use, but look at a sentence and see if its really necessary. Almost any sentence in the form was ____ing can usually cut the was.
"...those capabilities didn’t help one much..." Why did you use "one" here? Him would be valid and much stronger.
That's all the nits I can come up with. Interesting tale from this excerpt. I'd give it a good.
[This message has been edited by Christine (edited April 01, 2004).]
quote:However, those capabilities didn’t help one much if a pack took damage in any way, shape, or form. In his case, the form had been the severed torso of an unlucky comrade.
the line "any way, shape, or form" is a cliche and really bothered me. I realize the next sentence depends on it, but nonetheless... drew me out of the story.
quote:A piece of flotsam struck his faceplate, accompanied by a subdued tink.
Note: I'm assuming this is from the start of a scene, maybe even of the story. If this is wrong, the following statement can be safely ignored:
Having a pronoun like 'his' without a clear character attached to it is confusing. Whenever starting a new scene, I would always name the character involved rather than use a pronoun.
quote:...sudden sound in an otherwise soundless void. Speaking of which, he thought wearily, it’s getting pretty crowded around here.
Was he actually thinking about the void? That seems a little odd for a character who is in it, and presumably in some kind of trouble. If I were him, I'd be thinking about survival first, and the fact that his suits pressure allows him to hear things that strike it last.
quote:Reluctantly, the survivor fired his attitude control jets to reorient himself…the largest lump of debris in the area fit in nicely as a reference point.
I like that. Thats the kind of detail that makes a scene like this work, I think.
quote:A mere thirty percent power remained in the latter pack, unfortunately.
'Unfortunately' seems redundant here. The entire scene seems rather unfortunate...
Assuming that this is an excerpt from a POV that has already been introduced, would it kill you to use his name once in three paragraphs?
"His suit was pressurized from insulated toes to armored helmet, which accounted for the sudden sound in an otherwise soundless void." Ugh. Completely needless and intrusive exposition. "Jane let the waves lap at her feet...she noticed that the water was wet!" Okay, even that sounds not terrible to me.
Italics can be used to set aside an entire sentance as POV stream of consciousness or sub-vocal commentary (yours looks more like the latter), but when you do that, it is redundant and kinda bad style to insert the phrase, "he thought" in the middle.
"[Subject] nudged his right leg. The impact sent his body into a dizzying spin. Reluctantly, the survivor fired his attitude control jets to reorient himself...." The word "nudged" doesn't match an impact that sends him into a dizzying spin. If he's in a dizzying spin, it doesn't make sense that he would be reluctant to fire his attitude control jets. He might well be careful...that makes some sense. But if he's really so reluctant to use his control jets, then maybe he should try something else first.
"He’d be lucky to raise anyone within a thousand meters...." Give me a break. If the power pack is for attitude control and comm, and he used all 70% of what's been used so far in correcting that "dizzying" spin, that still means that the remaining 30% should be sufficient to send a signel that could be picked up several light seconds away.
"artificial asteroid field." Yeah, I was going to comment on this at some point anyway, probably should have mentioned it earlier. This debris field simply couldn't have come from a single ship. You have things moving in different directions and hitting each other with significant impact velocity rather than all moving away from each other. That just makes no sense.
"regenerative capabilities. However, those capabilities didn’t help one much if a pack took damage in any way, shape, or form." What exactly is the point of regenerative capabilities that fragile? I mean...seriously? What is even the point?
Anyway, the prose is pretty good, POV voice is unambiguous if undefined. The biggest real turn-off is that second sentance. You follow up with a few description problems, and some plausibility issues. But I have no real trouble following what you're saying, it's just that some of what you're saying makes no sense.
My verdict is "Bad." Okay looking, but definitely not good.
posted
Interesting situation. I would probably read on despite the problems I see.
1. Avoid confusing the narrative voice with the character's thoughts. A character should never think something in response to narrative exposition.
2. Give us his name right off the bat.
3. As Survivor pointed out, an explosion of a single ship would not leave a crowded debris field with fast-moving pieces hitting each other.
4. The "regenerative" capabilities of the enery system sound suspiciously non-scientific. Where does it get the energy from?
5. A thousand meter range on a spacesuit com system seems very limited. Even if it was designed only for very-short-range communication, a search & rescue ship would presumably have detection equipment designed to detect low-power transmissions. And any smart spacesuit designer would include a rescue beacon for situations like this, so you'll need to explain that the beacon was either damaged or malfunctioning.
quote:The word "nudged" doesn't match an impact that sends him into a dizzying spin.
Yes, but I was trying to account for the effect zero gravity tends to have on impacts, no matter how small. Even such limited contact can drastically affect your movement (depending on the mass and inertia of the 'striking' object). I do agree, after reading over it again, that "nudged" is not a powerful enough descriptive word for this action.
quote: If he's in a dizzying spin, it doesn't make sense that he would be reluctant to fire his attitude control jets. He might well be careful...that makes some sense. But if he's really so reluctant to use his control jets, then maybe he should try something else first.
The reluctance is explained in the next sentence. Perhaps I should insert a comment that the jets were not depleted from that simple correction. I'd thought the way it was written implied a preceding cause, but I guess I was wrong. Anyway, when one is in zero g, accompanied by no large objects of relative velocity in close proximity, it would be very hard to regain control without using the jets (the NASA astronauts don’t attempt to ‘grab hold’ of their vehicle in an emergency unless their MMU—manned maneuvering unit—fails).
quote:"He’d be lucky to raise anyone within a thousand meters...." Give me a break. If the power pack is for attitude control and comm, and he used all 70% of what's been used so far in correcting that "dizzying" spin, that still means that the remaining 30% should be sufficient to send a signal that could be picked up several light seconds away.
First of all, the descriptive text does not state that the communications gear is only able to reach out one thousand meters at maximum...it's stating that the individual would be “lucky” to reach 1000 meters on 30% power.
Second, I should have mentioned that the jets were depleted when the survivor escaped the superstructure of his doomed ship. I suppose I could throw in the fact that he'd specifically needed that lost 70% to outrun the explosion of the vessel's reactor(s), or something along those lines. Emergency suits (in this technological arc) aren't designed for long-distance thrust burns, just maneuvering. I'd thought that getting into all that would bore some readers, but now I think I'll make revisions with a little more detail.
quote:"artificial asteroid field." Yeah, I was going to comment on this at some point anyway, probably should have mentioned it earlier. This debris field simply couldn't have come from a single ship. You have things moving in different directions and hitting each other with significant impact velocity rather than all moving away from each other. That just makes no sense.
This might be true of a small ship (i. e. most of those seen on Star Trek), but a vessel possessing a length of three kilometers or more could produce a debris field of significant size. A large capital ship could easily comprise hundreds of thousands of tons…I didn’t specify either way, so much of your analysis on this subject is assumption (and rightly so, since I didn’t state a solid fact, which I’ll have to rectify in the revision). Also, if an enemy vessel were to pour enough devastating fire into its prey, and then have that prey explode from within (i.e. the reactor failure), the random nature of debris trajectory could be explained. I think for the most part (setting the POV difficulties aside for now) that I did not put enough description into the text to make it readily clear to most readers. I need to consider that some people will look deeper than others into the technical factors of the setting (many of which can be interpreted individually, as I demonstrated in my above responses). I think I’ve underestimated the subconscious analysis skills of the average sci-fi reader…I’m glad I get to learn this lesson here where it doesn’t count for points. Thank you all for the great comments/suggestions. I’ll take another crack at this thing and revamp the POV, structure, and level of depth/detail. If anyone else has some suggestions, please feel free to let me know what you think. As always, this stuff is a work in progress.
[Edited to add...]
Also, on the regenerative power cell concept, I came across this after a Google search several weeks ago. I'll let you take a look at it for yourselves (since most of it flies well above my head...the basics were enough for me to speculate that future technologies will possess compact recycling power systems). Sorry for the edit...I usually like to keep my posts clean the first time around and without add-ons.
I hope this supports my tech theory a little, EricJamesStone. Thanks for pointing it out...I need to come up with some more detailed tech specs just for my own reference (which shouldn't be hard...I love coming up with new technologies for my stories and sketching their inner and outer mechanisms on notebook paper).
Inkwell ------------------ "The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp." -Anonymous
[This message has been edited by Inkwell (edited April 02, 2004).]
[This message has been edited by Inkwell (edited April 02, 2004).]
posted
OK, I'll accept that the term "regenerative" can be used for a power supply like that. It still leaves the question of where the power for regenration comes from. In the DARPA projected you linked to, it comes from piezoelectric components. The might work for generating power from a person walking while carrying the power supply, but it's not going to work for someone drifting in space. You could use some sort of photoelectric cells, if he's close enough to a star.
As for the power for transmission, if your power supply is anything like a battery, then he should be able to transmit at nearly full power (for the transmitter) until he's almost down to 0% on the power supply. Surely this isn't a system where he can only transmit at full power when the power supply has a full charge, and only 50% when the power supply has a half charge.
And if you're talking about a 3km ship, to have a radio which cannot all the way across the ship if the battery's down to 30% doesn't make much sense.
Another thing: what kind of propulsion system would use the kind of power that's also used for the communications? The thrusters are most likely a fuel-based system, rather than electrical.
And even if the ship is kilometers long, the initial result of an explosion will send debris outward from the explosion, so pieces of debris will keep getting farther away from each other as time goes on.
And if he manages to outrun the explosion of his vessel's reactors, then he will most likely outrun the debris from that explosion as well.
Now, secondary explosions inside large pieces of the hull could cause multiple sources for the spreading of debris, so it would be possible for some pieces of slower-moving debis to be hit by other pieces.
But the basic principle is that the more time goes on, the more dispersed the debris will get, unless at some point (long after your hero has died) gravitational attraction brings some of the pieces back together.
posted
In zero-g, all you have is mass and velocity (momentum). Something with enough mass and velocity to make a man spin "dizzyingly" would have to impact with more than a "nudge." But then the piece of debris could do damage to him--we're sort of squishy (even in a spacesuit) and will "give" on impact while pieces of debris are probably not squishy and will damage us on impact. There's also the problem with where it hits him to create spin. I'd think a "dizzying" spin would be safest if caused by a glancing blow or a side swipe instead of a "nudge."
Besides, a spin is "dizzying" because the eyes are perceiving movement while the inner ears are not (due to zero-g). Weightlessness all by itself can be "dizzying."
The thing about the debris field, though, is that one explosion will cause all of the pieces of debris to move away from all of the other pieces--they won't be colliding. You need to have more than one explosion, each from a different place, for separate pieces of debris to move toward each other.
No signal is going to go 1000 meters and stop. A weak signal may spread out so much after some distance that it is hard to pick up, but it won't stop, and it will still be detectable if someone is looking for it.
posted
You could call it a disorienting spin. That way he doesn't have to be spinning all that fast, just enough to make his stomach a little off-balance.
Posts: 292 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
My two cents on "regenerative" ... In that pdf you posted, regenerative is a bit of a misnomer. They are designing a system which reclaims some of the energy it uses to power itself later, which really just means that it is efficient. Once it has lost energy, however, that energy is gone. Also, their system (like every other system) loses energy over time, though their design makes that happen slowly. A life-support system, which must presumably process air, maintain temperature, etc, could not "hold steady" at a given power level.
posted
As I said before, the worst problem is that second sentance. Everything else is something I could buy, but after that sentance I didn't feel like it.
As you say, if something heavy hit an outstretched limb at a relatively low velocity, and he happened to react just the wrong way, he could give himself quite a disorienting spin from a nudge. But that would require fuller description anyway, showing the point of contact, his mistake, and the resulting spin (probably a fairly slow head over heels flipping rather than what we would usually think of as a spin).
I was thinking that having a powerpack for thrusters would make sense if they were advanced enough (like a field thrust effect--some people have been playing with that stuff), but you're still talking about a lot of power compared to a transmitter, even a fairly crude one. Maybe you mean that he would need to outshout a lot of radio noise from the debris...but you would need to mention that and explain why the designers were so stupid as to use a frequency where there would be a lot of natural noise. Or at least explain that they were stupid (hey, we've all experienced improperly designed equipment).
Okay, biggest problem...I was already sort of assuming that he found some kind of armored bolt hole which survived the explosion or explosions, then emerged after things cooled down a bit. If he'd tried to outrun the explosion, then...look, you don't outrun explosions without going fast. But even worse, you posit that this ship was several kays, some number of KTs...large portions of the ship broke apart to significant distances before exploding independently...and we're expected to believe that intrepid Spaceman Spiff is worried?
He could survive for weeks by scavenging the wreckage. Powerpacks and other supplies aren't even an issue. And this all still doesn't account for how fragile the regenerative supply is supposed to be.
But back to basics...sure, you can explain most everything, but you don't. And you haven't thought through the implications of some of your elaborations either. But again, it really comes down to that second line. That line is terrible, and it destroys the reader's trust in you. A big blooper like that makes all other mistakes loom larger, and casts doubt even on what is not particularly reproachable.
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I'd give it a good. 
