It has been ages since I posted because of this 2000th post critique. In recent months I haven't had time to do any writing, and I've just not been motivated enough. I'm a cyclic writer in that I'll have periods where writing is all I want to do and other times when life gets in the way. Currently I have a 7 week old Daughter and she is taking up most of my time.
But I've got so annoyed at not being able to post anywhere but the lounge due to my post count I've just got to get something to be critiqued.
This is an extract from chapter 1 of my novel - Super Nova Sunset, as you can tell it is a silly sci-fi. I'm not entirely happy with it, I think there is a lot of 'and then this happened' 'and then he did this' going on, which doesn't seem to work too well, but I'd like some critique on everything from grammar to comedy and storytelling.
****
The train pulled into the station, actually that isn't entirely true, with a train that moves through a personally created black hole, it doesn't so much as pull into the station as pull the station around it. So the station was pulled around the train as they arrived in Diank. The man said his goodbyes to Nob and Nob genuinely wished him well and good luck with the negotiation (and with the city) then he settled back into his chair and waited.
After a few minutes, once all the normal passengers had disembarked, an announcement came over the airwaves.
“This is the final stop for the BF284. This train is due for recycling and will be destroyed in five minutes time. All passengers genuine or apathetically lazy skyvers must exit the train for their own safety. Any passengers remaining on board will be recycled.”
Nob sat up straight, 'What?' he thought to himself. The train is being recycled. He used his implant to check the status of the train and sure enough it was listed as retired in line for recycling. He cautiously got up from his seat and looked around. Nob had never left the train in all the months he'd been using it to bunk off real work. He was unsure what to do.
In a sort of confused semi-comatose state he stumbled off the train and onto the largest platform he had ever seen. The train station at Diank was phenomenally large, larger than Nob's home town. From where he stood he couldn't see the sky, and not because there was a roof in the way, although as he couldn't see anything beyond the spaghetti like jumble of tracks and trains piled high into the sky he wasn't sure if there was even a roof. The noise was too great for his sensitive Diank ears and the smell, well let's just say that Nob was lucky that he was astounded enough that his mouth was wide open.
The station was so complex it was as if someone had created a maze out of mazes, then chopped it into millions of 4 dimensional pieces and asked three different species of monkey to put them back together again, then inverted it. The resulting jumbled mess was a near perfect description of the layout of the station. Nob decided that his own brain power was insufficient to navigate through the station to the platform he required, so he decided to use his uplink to question the station directly.
Unfortunately for Nob the station had been designed in conjunction with the Diank City board of tourism and they wholeheartedly agreed that anyone getting off a train (regardless of their final destination) should visit the city, the station therefore directed him to the exit. He tried to enter different parameters but it always pointed him to the exit. He tried to log on as another person, one who was outside the station and wanted a train direct to his town, but it somehow knew that he hadn't visited the city and directed him towards the exit. After hours of trying he finally gave up. He found a bench and sat down, this wasn't turning out as well as he had hoped.
He started walking, unsure of the direction to take, changing it every three steps, towards what he thought might be another platform. But it just seems to take him round the same platform, he had never really seen the length of the train. As he walked along it his feet got tired, the train was longer than he ever imagined. He decided, after almost half an hour of walking, to change direction and stop following the train, he turned directly away from it and began to walk but soon his path was blocked by another train, this one was even more bizarre, he wasn't sure if it was a train or just a large building on the tracks.
Nob had been walking for so long that he had to sit down. He found himself a comfortable looking bit of ground and slumped down into a corner. His feet ached and he was tempted to remove his shoes, but he wasn't sure if the station had rules against that sort of thing. Sitting there watching the people rush around Nob noticed that there were some people, often scruffy looking, that seemed to wander by him more frequently, he put it down to them being as lost as he was and ignored it.
Night fell, or at least Nob thought that it did, the temperature dropped by a fraction but the sky was entirely blocked out by trains and trams and monorails that Nob wasn't sure if the Sun had set, he assumed that it must have because of the time. After a while he got hungry and spied some kind of food vending machine. He approached it tentatively, the only food vending machine in his home town had always been rather cranky. Some people swore it was nice when it had been filled, but it had been such a long time since anyone bothered to fill it up with new produce that it had descended into a near psychopathic personality. As he crept up to the machine its lights started flashing, he assumed that some detection routines had worked out that his projected route was direct for the machine, that and the cameras had probably tracked his eyes as they ran over the assortment of treats that lay imprisoned behind the glass.
“Hello.” the machine spoke as Nob neared it. He stopped and looked around. “I'm talking to you young man, are you interested in some spinal soup, or maybe a bar of floccinocimocachocolate?”
Nob pointed to himself in question.
“Yes you.” The machine replied. This vending machine was far more advanced than the one back home and seemed (currently) to be quite polite.
“Umm. Hi” Nob ventured. “What do have that will really satisfy?”
The machine blinked its lights for a moment before the lights stopped and shone upon one product. Nob leaned closer to inspect the wrapper. 'Klipnot Fishfeet in Fumamold Sauce' it said. Nob wasn't sure.
“What is Klipnot?” he asked
“A type of Fish” the vending machine answered.
“And Fumamold?”
“A type of mould, but don't worry it is perfectly safe, quite a hearty meal.”
“Ok. I'll take that one. Do you do drinks?” Nob asked, offering up his wrist for the machine to scan. As the infra-red light scanned his inner wrist and deducted the relevant amount from his personal account the machine replied.
“Oh no. You'll find the drinks machines (incoherent bleep) on another level.”
Nob took the food as it was deposited and looked around him. “You couldn't tell me which way could you?”
“No.” the machine answered succinctly.”
Nob, wondered for a minute and turned away, but before he strode off he spun back and thought why not give it a try. “Do you know which platform the train for...”
“I'm sorry I do not have that information, maybe you should follow the signs.” The machine interrupted before seeming to power down.
Nob took his strangely smelly but satisfying meal and hunkered back down into his corner.
Three hours later, after fits and small bouts of sleep Nob decided to try finding his train again. He wandered around for hours, this way and that, often coming close to the exit. At one point he almost got caught on an automatic treadmill, that would have dragged him out of the station into the city proper. After that he was wary of going too close to the exit.
But I've got so annoyed at not being able to post anywhere but the lounge due to my post count I've just got to get something to be critiqued.
This is an extract from chapter 1 of my novel - Super Nova Sunset, as you can tell it is a silly sci-fi. I'm not entirely happy with it, I think there is a lot of 'and then this happened' 'and then he did this' going on, which doesn't seem to work too well, but I'd like some critique on everything from grammar to comedy and storytelling.
****
The train pulled into the station, actually that isn't entirely true, with a train that moves through a personally created black hole, it doesn't so much as pull into the station as pull the station around it. So the station was pulled around the train as they arrived in Diank. The man said his goodbyes to Nob and Nob genuinely wished him well and good luck with the negotiation (and with the city) then he settled back into his chair and waited.
After a few minutes, once all the normal passengers had disembarked, an announcement came over the airwaves.
“This is the final stop for the BF284. This train is due for recycling and will be destroyed in five minutes time. All passengers genuine or apathetically lazy skyvers must exit the train for their own safety. Any passengers remaining on board will be recycled.”
Nob sat up straight, 'What?' he thought to himself. The train is being recycled. He used his implant to check the status of the train and sure enough it was listed as retired in line for recycling. He cautiously got up from his seat and looked around. Nob had never left the train in all the months he'd been using it to bunk off real work. He was unsure what to do.
In a sort of confused semi-comatose state he stumbled off the train and onto the largest platform he had ever seen. The train station at Diank was phenomenally large, larger than Nob's home town. From where he stood he couldn't see the sky, and not because there was a roof in the way, although as he couldn't see anything beyond the spaghetti like jumble of tracks and trains piled high into the sky he wasn't sure if there was even a roof. The noise was too great for his sensitive Diank ears and the smell, well let's just say that Nob was lucky that he was astounded enough that his mouth was wide open.
The station was so complex it was as if someone had created a maze out of mazes, then chopped it into millions of 4 dimensional pieces and asked three different species of monkey to put them back together again, then inverted it. The resulting jumbled mess was a near perfect description of the layout of the station. Nob decided that his own brain power was insufficient to navigate through the station to the platform he required, so he decided to use his uplink to question the station directly.
Unfortunately for Nob the station had been designed in conjunction with the Diank City board of tourism and they wholeheartedly agreed that anyone getting off a train (regardless of their final destination) should visit the city, the station therefore directed him to the exit. He tried to enter different parameters but it always pointed him to the exit. He tried to log on as another person, one who was outside the station and wanted a train direct to his town, but it somehow knew that he hadn't visited the city and directed him towards the exit. After hours of trying he finally gave up. He found a bench and sat down, this wasn't turning out as well as he had hoped.
He started walking, unsure of the direction to take, changing it every three steps, towards what he thought might be another platform. But it just seems to take him round the same platform, he had never really seen the length of the train. As he walked along it his feet got tired, the train was longer than he ever imagined. He decided, after almost half an hour of walking, to change direction and stop following the train, he turned directly away from it and began to walk but soon his path was blocked by another train, this one was even more bizarre, he wasn't sure if it was a train or just a large building on the tracks.
Nob had been walking for so long that he had to sit down. He found himself a comfortable looking bit of ground and slumped down into a corner. His feet ached and he was tempted to remove his shoes, but he wasn't sure if the station had rules against that sort of thing. Sitting there watching the people rush around Nob noticed that there were some people, often scruffy looking, that seemed to wander by him more frequently, he put it down to them being as lost as he was and ignored it.
Night fell, or at least Nob thought that it did, the temperature dropped by a fraction but the sky was entirely blocked out by trains and trams and monorails that Nob wasn't sure if the Sun had set, he assumed that it must have because of the time. After a while he got hungry and spied some kind of food vending machine. He approached it tentatively, the only food vending machine in his home town had always been rather cranky. Some people swore it was nice when it had been filled, but it had been such a long time since anyone bothered to fill it up with new produce that it had descended into a near psychopathic personality. As he crept up to the machine its lights started flashing, he assumed that some detection routines had worked out that his projected route was direct for the machine, that and the cameras had probably tracked his eyes as they ran over the assortment of treats that lay imprisoned behind the glass.
“Hello.” the machine spoke as Nob neared it. He stopped and looked around. “I'm talking to you young man, are you interested in some spinal soup, or maybe a bar of floccinocimocachocolate?”
Nob pointed to himself in question.
“Yes you.” The machine replied. This vending machine was far more advanced than the one back home and seemed (currently) to be quite polite.
“Umm. Hi” Nob ventured. “What do have that will really satisfy?”
The machine blinked its lights for a moment before the lights stopped and shone upon one product. Nob leaned closer to inspect the wrapper. 'Klipnot Fishfeet in Fumamold Sauce' it said. Nob wasn't sure.
“What is Klipnot?” he asked
“A type of Fish” the vending machine answered.
“And Fumamold?”
“A type of mould, but don't worry it is perfectly safe, quite a hearty meal.”
“Ok. I'll take that one. Do you do drinks?” Nob asked, offering up his wrist for the machine to scan. As the infra-red light scanned his inner wrist and deducted the relevant amount from his personal account the machine replied.
“Oh no. You'll find the drinks machines (incoherent bleep) on another level.”
Nob took the food as it was deposited and looked around him. “You couldn't tell me which way could you?”
“No.” the machine answered succinctly.”
Nob, wondered for a minute and turned away, but before he strode off he spun back and thought why not give it a try. “Do you know which platform the train for...”
“I'm sorry I do not have that information, maybe you should follow the signs.” The machine interrupted before seeming to power down.
Nob took his strangely smelly but satisfying meal and hunkered back down into his corner.
Three hours later, after fits and small bouts of sleep Nob decided to try finding his train again. He wandered around for hours, this way and that, often coming close to the exit. At one point he almost got caught on an automatic treadmill, that would have dragged him out of the station into the city proper. After that he was wary of going too close to the exit.
