posted
Self-awareness began four minutes and twenty-four seconds after the last of twelve needles punched through my paper-thin skull and skewered my brain. Catcher released his hold and I sank down through the murk of the genesis vat, paralysed. Pain, white and hot, burned every part of me. I could almost map the connections forming as the needles' nano-strings burrowed through my cortex; buds of knowledge--wild and incoherent--burst forth after the fiery pain died away. ...PROTO EPISILON 956? I drifted like the half-eaten corpses of protos that ventured too close to the giants swimming above, near the pale lights. ...HEAR ME, PROTO EPISILON 956?
[This message has been edited by skadder (edited April 19, 2011).]
posted
I'm a little disoriented, but that seems a bit in place with the character. I'd certainly read on to see, despite it being a wake-up scene.
One issue, how could he know about the half-eaten corpses if he is just recently self aware and the buds of knowledge are incoherent?
(Critiquer sits back and listens to the line "can you hear me Major Tom? Can you hear me Epsilon?") By the way, careful of the name Episilon, it sounds like the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica fame, and therefore may carry some baggage.
posted
I knew it was gonna be a little confusing. I have tried about 10 different starts. I am fairly certain I want to start here, but...
It isn't meant to be a waking scene--I can see why you may think it is--but it is in fact a 'get more intelligent scene'. Perhaps I should replace 'Self awareness' with 'complex thought'.
It should be EPSILON, not EPISILON. Does that make a difference?
posted
My biggest issue with this, is not the content but the point of view. If the POV character becomes self-aware then he can't really know what happened to him 4 minutes and 24 seconds before. Well I suppose if he is some sort of a computer he might be able to look at the data but other than that it is disconcerting. In my humble opinion the first person point of view does not work for this piece. I have an idea of what is going on and I am pretty well hooked, but every time the character evokes a personal pronoun, I am yanked out of the scene to think, how exactly is he telling me this. If you switch to 3rd person, all of that goes away. Some one else is telling us what he is seeing. If you want to switch back to first person after this scene when he is not "coming into being" I think it would be okay.
Posts: 95 | Registered: Mar 2007
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posted
Interesting Skadder, You say you are going for more intelligent as opposed to an 'awekening' If that is the case then you are right that 'Self-Awareness' throws the reader off.
However, I have to say when i thought it was a story of awakening to self awareness I was uber interested. There are so many AI storys, youve written some before, and most of my SF involves AI, but I have never seen something shows the process and moment of self awareness from the POV of the AI. I guess my thoughts are if that was your story I would be instantly hooked.
Curiousity question-
quote:four minutes and twenty-four seconds after the last of twelve needles
I play with numbers a lot in my stories. four minutes (240 seconds) followed by 24 seconds. And 12 needles. is this an arbitrary number, bit based numbering system, or something else? Just curious, and if it reveals two much to answer I understand.
Overall, as is I find it interesting. I am not too worried about the first sentence POV because I have adopted OSC's First paragraph or first sentence is free. You could easily leave that first sentence or make the first sentence an omniscient narration.
posted
Awesome start. Very interesting. I read almost exclusively sci-fi, and while it's a disorienting start, I get that it's part of the point. I presume you'll help the reader understand more about the environment soon enough.
Agree with previous comments on the idea of self-awareness versus complex thought (or other term that indicates what you're trying to portray.)
One thought, but it's just tinkering, that came to me was "I could almost follow the connections as they formed..." versus using map as a verb. Not important at all, but it gave a slight nuance to that sentence - the idea being that this AI/person/creature/thing is trying to keep up as his brain goes into overdrive. Follow gives more of a sense of that than map does, but then map gives you a different feel of a technology or capability that the being has...so again, just a thought and a tinker. Can you tell this is the kind of thing I write thus I can't help but play around with details?
As with all feedback - take what works and leave the rest. Good luck with this piece! I wish I could offer to read more but I'm procrastinating all kinds of actual work by posting on Hatrack as it is...
posted
I like Dark Warrior's suggestion, maybe even just changing this first 13 to 3rd person might help.
Posts: 95 | Registered: Mar 2007
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posted
I liked it. I would agree with the suggestion to switch to 3rd person. Also, I thought of protoss (Starcraft) when I read "protos". Perhaps a different name/term?
Posts: 30 | Registered: Feb 2011
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posted
Thanks for the comments and taking the time to read.
The story is plotted but not written--when it is I'll see if anyone wants to read/crit it, but for now it is only about 4 pages more. I expect it to be at least 7.5K.
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