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Alistar Meriwether is a successful trader and an honest man, a far cry from the scheming scavenger he’d been raised to be. As Alistar plans the biggest sale of his career, his boss is attacked and a priceless piece of equipment goes missing… and Alistar’s estranged family have left their DNA all over his space station. His coworkers, the Governing Council, and even his best friend seem to believe Alistar is connected to the crimes. Left with one loyal ship and her crew, Alistar chases the thieves back to his home planet and discovers that no one’s loyalties are what they seemed to be— not even his own.
(No author's note)
Awesome. This is polished, competent work, and a delight to read. And the first line is great. The chapter has dozens of excellent touches that draw readers into your world without force-feeding it to us. Since I feel the need to give feedback more constructive than praise, I'll just say this: you might want to drop more notes of Alastair's fled-from past into the opening pages, or perhaps to move some of the later hints/mentions forward; contrasting the present order with some shady past might do it...but then again, it is hard (for me, at least) to have a sense of pagination when reading off the book country screen.
Purely excellent. Really. This feedback box seems to want more before it will enable the rating stars for me, so...great. ah, there we go.
Hm. Hard to say with just one chapter...keep writing more and I'll tell you.
Overall:First, I liked the initial line, though it could be a little stronger. Unfortunately, the chapter opens too slowly and by the chapter's end, I still don't know where this is going or what is coming next. The writing is pretty good, though it could benefit from a hard edit.Chapter 1General:Heavy use of EN dashes rather than EM dashes, but while some authors use a lot of EM dashes, it's often inappropriate and certainly slows the reader. When a comma will work, use it.In several places, you slipped from past to present voice.Page 1'There are bad people in the world, and many of them are my relations.' First, drop the comma. Second, suggest: 'There are bad people in the world and many of them are my relatives.'Page 2'That-plus ten years-rendered me rather hard to recognize.' (A bit awkward, the dashes should be EM ones (--) but I would suggest: 'Ten-plus years later, and you wouldn't know me.')'The would-be cheats came through every few cycles, and were a joke among the administrators.' (Drop the comma after 'cycles'.)Page 3'I returned the note without reading it' ('note' repeated in last sentence.)'I had a delayed transporter to bring home' (This wasn't clear. A 'transporter is a person, a ship, a machine or something else?)'Itwas not the largest' (Need space after 'It'. This might be a formatting problem with the system, but you ought to fix it.)'this section of the station is a quiet one,' (Suggest: 'the station was a quiet one,' Also, 35 words long.)Page 4'The room itself is ('was') controlled by my voice.''The artifacts on display- (:) the heavy wooden desk, the hand-blown Orinian glass castles with their fragile spires, the etched stone bench opposite the wall screen-all remained exactly as they were.''I'd met my first AI on the ship' (You just used 'AI')In the sentence starting with 'I found her marvelous', I'd replace the dash with a comma. Also, this is 33 word long.Page 5In the sentence starting with '' The ship's cargo bays' 'waste' and 'wasteful' echo each other.In the sentence starting with 'There was little chance', it's 51 words long and a bit rambling.Page 6In the sentence beginning with 'If it wasn't resolved soon', it's 32 words long and 'Boliskay' is used twice.In the sentence beginning with 'Any other settlement' it's 35 words long, 'Boliskay' is used again and 'outsiders' is used twice.In the sentence beginning with 'Or bribed,' you need a space between 'pinch.' And 'Boliskay' used again.Page 7Also, you might want to explain 'working gate'. I could only guess, a wormhole or something.Page 8'Let me know' (You just used 'know')'They're boring, these meetings-(;)there's no blackmarket ('black market') business on this station'The sentence starting with 'There are two possibilities' is awkward and confusing. I'd consider rewording.Page 9"You have need of me?" Awkward. Perhaps: 'You need me?" or something less rigid.In the sentence beginning with 'As Chamberlain' the dashes should be comas.'Xavia has access' should be 'had' access and 'Xavia' is repeated from last sentence.Page 11 'Fair enough, I thought, (Drop this comma.) and sent''She was halfway across the ring, and (Drop comma.)Page 12'from a hundred feet' Strongly suggest you convert all weights, distances, etc. to metric as they typically are always used in SF.Page 14'He shrugged and leaned' then 'lean' later echoing.Page 15'Thought I'd stop in and see how you do' Awkward. Perhaps: 'Thought I'd stop in and see how you were doing'Page 17'We had our own cross-trained security compliments, (Drop the comma.) and a reputation'Page 18'Kani has ('had') a serious intolerance'' "Excellent," I said, and gave no more thought.' Suggest you drop the attribution and just leave the beat. Perhaps: "Excellent." I gave no more thought.''What's he about?" This seems awkward IMO. I don't know what this means.Page 19"He wasn't looking for a new home?" followed by "You think so?" didn't work for me. It's almost a non sequitur response."I will ask Ox to keep close on him, then, and worry when the trouble comes." This seems awkward and I'm not sure what it means.'The Boss-(,)Dorun to his friends and Sir to his staff-(,)was sitting' (This is an apposition and requires commas.)'amused by the waterfall images' This is telling. The reader has no idea what was amusing. Show them.'The boss is ('was') an'Page 21'It's not easy to surprise the Boss, but that did, if only for a moment.' Telling: Why did he conclude this?Page 22'He rose, (Drop this comma.) then, and crossed'The sentence starting with: 'The boss knew' is 44 words long.'When do you start moving down?' What does this mean?Page 24'Someone-she'd never divulged whom-had paid for the Boss's removal.' (Another apposition. Replace the dashes with commas.)Page 25'This was different. Sander was family and family has ('had') a long memory.''(The fact that I had' Brackets and fiction don't go well together. I strongly recommend against it.Page 26The sentence beginning with: 'I answered the first' is 40 words long.Page 27'The boss believes ('believed') in three things'The sentence 'I'd expected him' is 55 words long and two dashes that should be commas.Page 29'Word had arrived from the Boliskay-several of their gates had stormed four days ago,' First, what does this mean? Second, replace the dash with a comma.'The Civilis-Lestry and her crew-had been' Replace the dashes with commas.
VoiceIt thought the voice was excellent and worked well through the chapter and set the tone for the story and the characters, but I would have preferred more of an idea about the protag other than him and how he conducted business.
ContinuityNot my specialty, I'm usually a nuts'n'bolts sentence-by-sentence guy, but I didn't see any continuity errors at all. There were unexplained areas where the reader should be informed (Gates are a good example.)
Terrific opening line.Terrific opening section--there's enough information to get a sense of the background of your MC without getting bogged down in set-up.First paragraph in the second section has a sudden tense shift (past to present) that jars.I am catching many more of these awkward tense shifts as I read.See if you can tidy these up throughout. Change if you must, but try to keep it logical and smooth when you do. Avoid shifting in mid-paragraph especially."Movement is expensive. Cheap goods aren't worth running across the ring." NICEUsing "their" as a gender-neutral, singular pronoun is a pet-peeve of mine and also not done in written English, however common in speech. (Sorry, my inner English teacher just leaked out.)The banter with the cousin is very good and believable. More so than with the women (see "continuity" below).
I find his voice likeable, trustworthy and real. But very business-like in the opening scenes and perhaps misleadingly so (on purpose). I think you're doing well with the difficult job of first-person.
I don't quite follow his relationships to the different women around him. At first I thought maybe he had a thing with Kani, then with Xavia, then with Lestry. But it isn't clear that he's some kind of playboy, if that's the idea you're going for. It just feels kind of muddy.
I like your opening sentence.I'd prefer more action earlier in the story. Have you considered moving the destruction of the Civilis closer to the beginning? Of course I don't know how it develops.
I like the family relationships and the setting, but I wish your story had more action so far. The adrenalin junkie speaks..
One property I look for in SF is original world-building. My impression of this story is that the built world is fine but not too original. What's the most radical technological breakthrough since the present?
Great style, nicely written. The author is obviously talented at creating plot and character. The dialogue is well-executed too. I think any Sci-Fi reader would be intrigued by the beginning.
Very nice. I get a good idea of the narrator's character by the way you've written the story. Kudos - I have have a tough time with first person, so well done!
A bit hard to tell from this one chapter, but I would say that it is streaming well so far.
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