Hello all, I've finally decided to stop leaving books half finished, so I've started a writing spree with a bookm of mine. So far, I've written all 19 pages in two days, but there are some things that I'm wondering. First off, I'll paste a description text here, because I'm not sure if I've done it right.
Just to let you know in advance, this particular scene is set around three thousand years in the future, and the original inhabitants of planet Mars, reptilians as I call them, cloaked their planet to keep others away, until they evaluated their system's companions and then revealed themselves. I realise that Mars isn't an imaginative planet, but I wanted this to be our future, and I had to find a planet near Earth for my favorite species.
So, here's my description. Mainly I want to know if it's too long or poorly structured. I make hundreds of typos, so I'm not looking for grammar or spelling, since I know I'll be having problems with those. This is not something short, but if you have the time, please read it and give your advice.
The Dragon Wing was one of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of spaceships entering and exiting and cruising Martian space. Even the huge, defensive blockade of a hundred Federation Battlecruisers and the two orbiting Behemoth Battlecruisers were completely insignificant compared to the rest of the traffic around the capital of the Federation.
There were large convoys bearing trademarks of big companies. There were private fighters, public cruise liners, and ships that race each other from one ship to another, weaving through narrow ship corridors like photons running through fiber optics. Small, frigate-type ships – most of them personally owned – flew mockingly around Battlecruisers like slow gnats around a giant’s flexed hand. Every here and there, reptilian patrol boats shot menacingly at unruly space yatchs, while huge cargo vessels exchanged private agruments over who would have priority accessing so-and-so entry lane.
In the midst of this chaos sat the Mars’ Birther, a disproportionally huge space station, hundreds of kilometers long, that was in fact the famed martian shipyards. This huge mechanical monster churned out Battlecruisers, gunships, frigates, fighters, microdestroyers, droid vessels, reconnaissance ships and a whole spectrum of private vessels. The station was fiercly guarded by a locust swarm of federal microdestroyers; these were fighter-sized craft that packed the armament of a destroyer, plus a little more.
The worst part of all was that the ships and stations were completely disorganized and without any particular priorities. Reptilian space traffic officers, Othrum knew, had a blast watching the myriade of ships fend for themselves. All they did was randomly ask questions, send patrol craft after any ship that got too impatient at the terrible traffic, start casual conversations with those who happened to be reptilians, and yell at any ship trying to land anywhere other then a spaceport.
Ithruk set a course for one of the entry lanes to the city of Khsa. That particular city was less infamous then others like Ipeatind, Dyssal or Millyanium, but it was still safe, and a haven for the rich and the nature-lovers – it being conveniently situated on the border that separated the expansive martian red desert from the almost equally expansive martian rainforest.
As the Dragon Wing approached Mars, the planet finally became visible amidts all the chaos. It gleamed like a red, green and blue jewel in a sea of black space and metal hulls. Almost 95% of the terrestrial surface remained a pristine, untouched wilderness. This wilderness was so strongly protected by both the martian governement and the reptilian people that those who would have wanted to defile it in any way would have considered such an act suicidal.
The reptilian homeworld was truly a world of scales. Almost all of the native cratures belonged to either the reptile or the insect families, regardless of the fact that many of them had wings and behaved much like giant birds. Yet another trait of reptilian life; almost everything was big, surprisingly big for such a small planet. Reptilians were large for sentinents, and there were a collection of meter-long beetles, dragons, giant flying wyrms, whale-sized crustaceans that swam like sharks and lizards that preyed upon those meter-long beetles. This size can be partially explained by the fact that everything on Mars grows bigger with age, and that everything a thing from Mars eats goes to making it bigger and better; nothing is wasted. Absolutely nothing.
And the plants were also incredible. Most of them were biologically made to last for as long as there was enough fertilizer, water and sun to keep them alive; this has resulted in towering trees, many hundreds of meters tall, that were thicker then spaceships and older then most species of animal. The "rainforests" of Mars were home to a stunning variety of flying insects and agile reptiles that made their homes in the middle to top levels of the canopy alone. Most of the forest, however, was a sort of canopy forest; there were almost no branches for the first ten or twenty meters, but after that, the branches became imperceptibly more commone for hundreds upon hundreds of meters into the air, until ther covered so much of the sky that one could not see any light.
The oddest part about that, however, was that there was still a good deal of light at the bottom of the forest. This was due to something quite peculiar; martian plants had evolved to had the underside of their leave be reflective, like mirrors, to shine light back down to lower leaves and branches. Even with all the branches below them, some light managed to get down to the surface, and give the impression that, at ground level, the forest was constantly dusk.
Just to let you know in advance, this particular scene is set around three thousand years in the future, and the original inhabitants of planet Mars, reptilians as I call them, cloaked their planet to keep others away, until they evaluated their system's companions and then revealed themselves. I realise that Mars isn't an imaginative planet, but I wanted this to be our future, and I had to find a planet near Earth for my favorite species.
So, here's my description. Mainly I want to know if it's too long or poorly structured. I make hundreds of typos, so I'm not looking for grammar or spelling, since I know I'll be having problems with those. This is not something short, but if you have the time, please read it and give your advice.
The Dragon Wing was one of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of spaceships entering and exiting and cruising Martian space. Even the huge, defensive blockade of a hundred Federation Battlecruisers and the two orbiting Behemoth Battlecruisers were completely insignificant compared to the rest of the traffic around the capital of the Federation.
There were large convoys bearing trademarks of big companies. There were private fighters, public cruise liners, and ships that race each other from one ship to another, weaving through narrow ship corridors like photons running through fiber optics. Small, frigate-type ships – most of them personally owned – flew mockingly around Battlecruisers like slow gnats around a giant’s flexed hand. Every here and there, reptilian patrol boats shot menacingly at unruly space yatchs, while huge cargo vessels exchanged private agruments over who would have priority accessing so-and-so entry lane.
In the midst of this chaos sat the Mars’ Birther, a disproportionally huge space station, hundreds of kilometers long, that was in fact the famed martian shipyards. This huge mechanical monster churned out Battlecruisers, gunships, frigates, fighters, microdestroyers, droid vessels, reconnaissance ships and a whole spectrum of private vessels. The station was fiercly guarded by a locust swarm of federal microdestroyers; these were fighter-sized craft that packed the armament of a destroyer, plus a little more.
The worst part of all was that the ships and stations were completely disorganized and without any particular priorities. Reptilian space traffic officers, Othrum knew, had a blast watching the myriade of ships fend for themselves. All they did was randomly ask questions, send patrol craft after any ship that got too impatient at the terrible traffic, start casual conversations with those who happened to be reptilians, and yell at any ship trying to land anywhere other then a spaceport.
Ithruk set a course for one of the entry lanes to the city of Khsa. That particular city was less infamous then others like Ipeatind, Dyssal or Millyanium, but it was still safe, and a haven for the rich and the nature-lovers – it being conveniently situated on the border that separated the expansive martian red desert from the almost equally expansive martian rainforest.
As the Dragon Wing approached Mars, the planet finally became visible amidts all the chaos. It gleamed like a red, green and blue jewel in a sea of black space and metal hulls. Almost 95% of the terrestrial surface remained a pristine, untouched wilderness. This wilderness was so strongly protected by both the martian governement and the reptilian people that those who would have wanted to defile it in any way would have considered such an act suicidal.
The reptilian homeworld was truly a world of scales. Almost all of the native cratures belonged to either the reptile or the insect families, regardless of the fact that many of them had wings and behaved much like giant birds. Yet another trait of reptilian life; almost everything was big, surprisingly big for such a small planet. Reptilians were large for sentinents, and there were a collection of meter-long beetles, dragons, giant flying wyrms, whale-sized crustaceans that swam like sharks and lizards that preyed upon those meter-long beetles. This size can be partially explained by the fact that everything on Mars grows bigger with age, and that everything a thing from Mars eats goes to making it bigger and better; nothing is wasted. Absolutely nothing.
And the plants were also incredible. Most of them were biologically made to last for as long as there was enough fertilizer, water and sun to keep them alive; this has resulted in towering trees, many hundreds of meters tall, that were thicker then spaceships and older then most species of animal. The "rainforests" of Mars were home to a stunning variety of flying insects and agile reptiles that made their homes in the middle to top levels of the canopy alone. Most of the forest, however, was a sort of canopy forest; there were almost no branches for the first ten or twenty meters, but after that, the branches became imperceptibly more commone for hundreds upon hundreds of meters into the air, until ther covered so much of the sky that one could not see any light.
The oddest part about that, however, was that there was still a good deal of light at the bottom of the forest. This was due to something quite peculiar; martian plants had evolved to had the underside of their leave be reflective, like mirrors, to shine light back down to lower leaves and branches. Even with all the branches below them, some light managed to get down to the surface, and give the impression that, at ground level, the forest was constantly dusk.
