Evermann - Chapter 1: Ignorance Is Bliss (sci-fi aprx. 750 wrds.)

[Shadowmancer]

I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice and analyze this first bit of the first chapter of the novel I'm trying to write? If the spelling of some words looks a bit off, chances are it's the Canadian spelling

Cheers

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The commute to work was less than savoury for Joshua Evermann. The shuttle stations in Okinawa, Japan had been unusually cramped for a Tuesday morning. The shuttles came every fifteen minutes, but the amount of human traffic was almost too much to bear. The shuttles were scheduled this way so that accidents would be avoided.

Each shuttle, once filled to capacity, would be shot down the transparent tunnels and propelled by gravitational bursts along the shuttles substratum. The tunnels ran throughout the city and above ground. They were raised thirty feet above the streets by strong, light, and aesthetically pleasing support beams. On any given day, one could walk down the streets and see the shuttles be shot down the tunnels. If you weren't looking for it then you would never know because the gravitational bursts expelled no sound.

These wonderful features of the shuttles were of little comfort to Joshua while he had waited for over an hour to get on the shuttle and take the trip to Global Robotics. When he finally arrived, he was forty five minutes late and extremely agitated that he was unable to stop for a coffee before trying to make it to work on time. He was mildly wet when he finally entered the front foyer of Global Robotics. It was raining outside and in his haste to make it to the shuttle station; Joshua had forgotten to grab an umbrella. This made the walk from the shuttle station very unpleasant.

Walking up to the security check-point, Joshua prepared himself by reaching into his wet business jacket for his encrypted identity slip. Once past that point, Joshua would also have to pass a retinal and DNA scan to finally proceed to his lab.

Security was very strict and cautious with their measures. It was necessary though in order to keep their secrets intact. They could hardly afford to have a competitor stealing their research and gaining an advantage on the market. There was a reason that Global Robotics was the largest supplier of robots in the Galactic Arm.

After passing the security gauntlet, Joshua made his way to the Positronic Lab. The doors to the lab slid open after a swipe of his identity slip. He walked in to find his colleagues staring at him.

"What are you looking at?" Joshua asked. He was directing his question at his friend and co-worker Takahashi Shinji.

"What do you think I'm looking at?" Takahashi Replied. "I'm looking at someone who's almost an hour late and an integral part of this team. We need to be more focused, this is big! I'm also looking at a friend who looks like a bag of smashed apples," he added jest fully.

"So glad I could amuse you this morning Tak. If I had known I was the entertainment, I would have pulled out the clown costume," Joshua said with a hint of sarcasm. After hanging up his wet jacket in exchange for a white lab coat, Joshua turned to Takahashi. "Sorry Tak. I just had a brutal morning and I know that's no excuse, I'm just sorry I took it out on you. Ok man?"

"No problem. We just got a lot of work to do and I guess I went overboard myself. Let's just get the ball rolling. Are you good to go Joshua?" Takahashi asked as he passed Joshua a coffee he had been keeping at his work station for his tardy friend.

Joshua took the coffee with a smile and sat down at his work station, content with the knowledge that he now had the sweet nectar that would sustain him for the rest of the morning. After drinking almost half the cup, he put it down and got to work on the coded clusters that were to be embedded into each robot's positronic matrix.

The morning had been slow going, even with the caffeine in his system. The only break that Joshua had taken was his one hour lunch. The cafeteria's veal sandwiches were amazing and a close second to the coffee as highlights of the day.

Embedding clusters of code into a positronic matrix was very slow and tedious. If the code was even just slightly out of its designated area, everything would have to be recalibrated and the matrix was scrapped. Not only was it hours of work lost, but millions of credits too.

A few hours had passed since his lunch break and Joshua stumbled upon an anomaly buried within one of the clusters.

 

[The Bloated One]

Shadowmancer,

I assume you are looking to develop this and push it towards a publisher or agent?

Now, these are my opinions and not necessarily right!

You need to turn this on its head. Start with the last line and work form there. Several paragraphs of scene setting, though very well written, won't get past a second look. You need to bang a hook in at the beginning, not at the end. e.g.

Tarquin Jenkins could travel five hundred years in a split second, but fail to keep an appointment a mile from his house. Miss this jump, and he would wait a further six months before travelling again.

See how several questions come out of a simple opening paragraph?

Hope it helps,

TBO

 

[Shadowmancer]

Thank you for the input that actually really helps.

I'm not actually looking to push this at all. I'm doing it mostly for fun and then who knows, but that is not my initial intention. I'll definitely put your advice to use and post a revision once I get some more feedback...hopefully

Cheers

 

[Sylvetra_Snake]

There are a few grammatical errors but nothing too bad, though one i have to raise. "Jest fully", perhaps it would be better to say, "in jest".

When i read the story, i got the feeling the characters were forced along their paths and forced to speak scripted words. It didn't flow so well. Also, i would like to know why Tak had a coffee ready and drinkable even though Joshua was an hour late. There also seems to be quite a bit of info-dumping early, though it might be required, i think perhaps a few paragraphs down the page, or perhaps cut it down a bit to make the story more interesting.

There certainly is promise in this.

 

[chrispenycate]

The first bit reads like a technical manual, forties science fiction, and uses the word "shuttle" far to many years (I'm not disagreeing with the use of the word, which precedes the space shuttle by several millenia, and has been used for a number of things that went back and forth, just the number of repetitions) One problem with explaining your technology is that nit-pickers like myself try and find weaknesses in the explanation…

If you weren't looking for it then you would never know because the gravitational bursts expelled no sound.

"Generated" rather than "expelled"; Actually, I see no advantage in gravitational bursts (well, I do; since the force is applied to the entire vehicule and its contents, there is no feeling of acceleration, and no jerking from the bursts) which would explain away not using electromagnetics.

These wonderful features of the shuttles were of little comfort to Joshua while he had waited for over an hour to get on the shuttle and take the trip to Global Robotics

Either they "had been" little comfort, or "while he waited" (difficult to know where the reference 'now' falls; your first paeagraph is simple past tenses, and it's further back than here)

Takahashi Replied. "I'm looking at someone who's almost an hour late and an integral part of this team. We need to be more focused, this is big! I'm also looking at a friend who looks like a bag of smashed apples," he added jest fully.

obviously, no capital "R" for replied. A semicolon rather than a comma after "focused" and, while I'm not sure about how to spell "jestfully" I'm convinced it has to be ib one word.

There are a lot of words that don't seem the optimum choice; "cramped" for the subway stations, "cautious" for the guards, "substratum" for the shuttle drive – not exactly wrong, but carrying baggage that you don't really need. And "positronic" shouts "Asimov" - he invented the term, and any use of it leads directly to comparisons.

I was consumed with an itch to rewrite this, to improve the rhythm and flow (it's all right, I won't) and, if the first bit has to drag to emphasise how boring and frustrating it all is (rush hour, security, rain) try and get some character building in there.
Sorry about the negativity; I always am.

he passed Joshua a coffee he had been keeping at his work station for his tardy friend.

Forty minutes late andhe'd been keeping the coffee?

A few hours had passed since his lunch break and Joshua stumbled upon an anomaly buried within one of the clusters.

That should probably be "when" rather than "and"

 

[ctg]

Well, as usual, I'm different beast. The narrative at the beginning, although it's simple, it was effective enough to draw me in to read more. You also made very smooth move from the narrative to the character narrative and to dialogue. So well done. What you should do here is to explain bit more about the hack, but then again, you can do that also later on with dialogue.

 

[Shadowmancer]

Thanks for all the feedback

I'm very embarrassed about that capital R chrispenycate (way for me to read over my work ) Just to give some background as to where my inspiration comes from, it's a very large chunk of Asimov (which explains the positronic ), some Gordon R. Dickson, Robert A. Heinlien, and some Bear. So the comparison to 40's sci-fi is by no means a stretch

I'm taking this advice and running with it. I'm going to encorporate a lot of the suggestions and hopefully it will make the chapter flow better and help in the formulation of the next chapters as well. Thanks again.

Cheers

 

[Shadowmancer]

Here is a revised version of the first part of chapter 1.

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A few hours had passed since his lunch break and Joshua Evermann stumbled upon an anomaly buried within one of the clusters of nuron code. The code was jumbled and encrypted. This made no sense to Joshua since he was supposed to have full access to the codes in order to properly embed them. Not only was the code encrypted, it was also burried deep within the cluster itself.

"Hey Tak, what the hell is this?" Joshua asked in an annoyed tone.

Joshua walked over to Takahashi Shinji with his newly found discrepancy on a micro-tablet. He calmed himself on the walk across the lab. This problem had been the straw that broke the camel's back. The process involved with this kind work was tedious and mind-numbing; almost enough to drive a person insane, but it payed well.

"There's a problem with this code. It's encrypted and burried deep inside the cluster. Have you seen or heard about this?" Joshua asked. "Unless new advances have been made and I don't know about it, I can't do a blessed thing with this."

"This is strange. I'm surprised this was allowed to slip through. The programmers are usually very careful to leave the code unencrypted so that we can properly embed the clusters. This type of encryption is usually done after the matrix has been completed." Takahashi replied in disbelief. "I'm going to take this to Dormer and see what is going on."

Takahashi took the micro-tablet and walked out the door. Joshua decided that this was a great opportunity to take a break. He quickly grabbed his credit slip and headed for the cafeteria.

Joshua stepped out of the Neuron Matrix Lab and into the hall at Global Robotics. The hall was well lit by the by the by the sun's rays. The hallways around the interior perimeter of the building were encased in a translucent polymer that gave an amazing view of the central courtyard. This was a place for employees to go and get away from the lab. Joshua could definetly appreciate the need for a place like this within a building full of labs, components, and robots. He decided to make a stop there after going to the cafeteria. Takahashi would probably be awhile and no work could be done until the issue was resolved so Joshua didn't think it would hurt to take an extended break.

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Please let me know what your thoughts are and if it's an improvement from the original post.

Cheers

 

[Kodemunkey]

One r in buried. Other than that, i like the story.

The hall was well lit by the by the by the sun's rays

only need "by the" once.

 

[flynx]

I like it. I don't think you should remove the first part about the shuttle (although saying the tube in japan is cramped is extremely understated, they actually employ people now to push passengers on board at rush hour)
although it really does need heavy editing and probably re-writing altogether.

Like Chrisp says there are lots and lots of obvious 'sources' for your story in choice of words and style.

The thing you're doing wrong (to my mind) is not actual info-dumps but what get called this when the writing tells instead of shows. Past tense doesn't help any either. 'was', 'had', 'arrived'

I think your choice of high sounding words is a bad one too. The shuttle's substratum, for instance, is actually nonsense.

Chrisp pointed out 'gravitational bursts' and in so doing actually gave you something very skiffy to hang on to the phrase which I would always expect in skiffy: new words/concepts generally require explanation.

Having said all that I'll repeat the first thing I said too; I like it [but it needs a lot of work.] Show don't tell.

 

[Shadowmancer]

flynx,

Thanks for the input I'm actually going to be putting the transportation system information into the chapter once Joshua gets to the central courtyard. So if you enjoyed that part, it'll be in there in revised format. I was also wondering if you could give me contextual instances where I've used the past tense and it doesn't work?

I'm glad that you and chrisp were able to see my obvious influences. In my opinion it means that I'm doing something right and can only hope to add a bit of my own flavour to it (unless I'm not ). I'm a big admirer of Asimov and I'm not surprised that it comes out in my work but I thank you for noticing.

Thanks again for the input and I hope to have more to critique soon.

Cheers