I’ve been kicking this thing around for a few years, and used it in some writing classes when I was in college. I submitted it to Analog and a few other magazines, but they didn’t like it enough. After that it sat forgotten on my hard drive, occasionally getting shuffled to a new computer.
Recently I picked up an anthology of fantasy short stories called Dragon, Sword, and King. One was a tale of Westeros, which was of course a good story. Others were, well, le suck. I read part of the Shanarra story, got bored, and thought, “Surely I can do better than this!” But I figured I needed a second, third, and n[sup]th[/sup] opinion, which brings me here.
A lot of sci-fi action movies have death dealing cyborgs, like Robocop or Vader. So I thought it would be interesting to write from a more psychological perspective about what it would be like to have a mostly artificial body. I have four drafts of the story, so if you want to read any or all of them let me know. I expect you to be tough but fair, so don’t hold back!
I just finished reading it and I like it. I’m not a critic by any means so I’ll leave that part of it to others but there’re two things I do have questions about.
[spoiler]The first is Greg’s use of interrogatives. I noticed he didn’t use any question marks at first and when it dawned on me that it was probably because he was a cyborg, I smiled at the subtlety of it but then I noticed he was using them later on and it ruined the affect. I’d suggest removing them.
The second is Kathleen’s sudden change in demeanor. It came out of nowhere. I know you wrote her as sympathetic immediately but you didn’t build it up enough to make it believable. What exactly was her motiviation? The last paragraph, where she punches him in the chest and breaks his ribs, would seem to indicate she’s not quite what she seems to be either but I’m not sure. Is she?[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Greg started using interrogative inflection when he got a voice upgrade that could handle it.
I meant to say that Greg punched Dr. Krieger, not that Kathleen did.
[/spoiler]
Looking back, I think the story development needs to be fleshed out more. It tends to skip and jump a bit.
“Sure. Fine. Whatever.” I hadn’t decided if I would rather be dead or… whatever I was now. “What about Fergus**?**” is the next to last paragraph in your second segment which was before he got his upgrade.
And the story’s fine until the last third. It’s there that it starts getting rushed with what I mentioned before.
I see you have some reviewers - anyway check out http://www.critters.org/ for your future reviewing needs (I am not a member & have no affiliation, a co-worker is a member).
