Extremes prologue part 2 - 1349 words

[TomS]

Like my first post, I had to cut out quite a lot due to the length requirements. I had to leave out the sections that refer to the teenage boy, Justin, and his reaction to watching what you're about to read on television. There is also a second, slightly more hostile, argument between the two characters, Gary and Ross that I left out. Again, this was only for the sake of the space allowed. It is important to know, however, that those two characters do not get along at all due to their conflicting, outspoken views on religion (or lack thereof).

First in Space:Extremes

The red glow of the heating element illuminated the underside of the three and a half kilometer thick ice, where no light had shone before in all of history. Slowly, the circle of red grew in both size and intensity until, at last, the spiral of the drill broke the under-surface of the ice. Later, the heating element would be reactivated to combat the near instant re-freezing of the breach in the ice layer above where the temperature was currently minus onehundred-eightyfive degrees Celsius.

The drill tube continued downward several meters to reveal the door through which the submarine and its two occupants would begin the exploration of the submerged ocean of Jupiter’s most intriguing moon. As the residual glow subsided, the entire affair was left in utter darkness. Even after the rectangular sub hatch slid open, no light illuminated the environment. Then, all at once, a ring of half dozen lights spilled out into the freezing waters, and silently the sub slid out of the drilling tube and began the long anticipated search for life under the ice on Europa.

Gary’s angular frame made the close quarters incredibly uncomfortable. He had argued that due to his size, he might have difficulty operating all of the controls safely. It had taken some time, mountains of paperwork and wholly unnecessary - yet fully justified – meetings of some of the most brilliant engineering minds of the day, but it was finally agreed to install runners to allow the pilot’s seat to slide back a few inches for comfort. Thankfully, Gary’s arms were long enough to reach all the relevant controls.

Co-pilot and biologist, Ross Sanders, sat on his right. Ross was short and stocky and had acute observational skills coupled with a deep love and respect of all living things which made him the perfect candidate for this mission. His gaze constantly shifted between the circular view window and the various screens which allowed him to see heat maps, topography, infra-red, and the like. However, more often than not, he found himself staring out of the window searching with the naked eye.

“Nothing,” muttered Ross as he peered and squinted out of the window. “Totally dark.”

“What do your readings indicate?” asked Gary who still hadn’t enough leg room.

Ross blinked and shook his head. “Oh. Uh…The temperature is rising. Wow! Rising fast.Ten degrees Celsius…fifteen. Twenty one. Thirty two. Forty three. It keeps going up. Whatever this is, it explains the cracks in the ice. There’s heat all around us. And the floor of the ocean is only fifteen meters below us…Wait. It’s changing. It just shot down to three. Maybe you’d better stop.”

“Why is it so black? It’s like we’re not even here.” Gary switched on the retro-thrusters.

“I know. It feels very close, like a weight.”

Gary glanced over at his partner, “You’re not getting claustrophobic on me are you?”

“No, no.” Ross replied. “It’s just weird. We should be able to see something in the distance by now. Whoa!”

“What?”

“Are we still moving?”

“No. Full stop.”

Ross shifted back and forth between the heat map and depth readings. “The temperature is fluctuating wildly. Something is happening.”

Gary switched on the reverse thrusters. “I don’t like this,” he said as they drifted silently backwards.

“OK, the temp is going back down. So is the surface. It’s back up to nine meters below.” Ross glanced back out of the forward window. The blackness in front of them was doing something strange. It looked to him as though it was starting to billow. “Wait a second,” he said as he started squinting again. “Lower us down. Slowly.”

As the submarine started to descend, it seemed for several long seconds that nothing was happening. Then the blackness abruptly cleared and a scene opened up to them which needed no special sensors to convey the ultimate reality of the situation. An enormous plume of black smoke was issuing from a gently spiraled column of smooth grey rock. The column spread out below to form enormous mounds of the same grey stone. The mounds stretched out into the distance, several of them with twisted chimneys blasting out their own clouds of black smoke. Surrounding all of it and staying close were thousands of long thin creatures, perhaps two meters long, half a meter high and quite thin. They were almost eel-like in appearance yet they clearly had fins and a small vestigial tail. There were no sign of any eyes and none of them gave any sign that they were aware of this intrusion into their world. Floating amongst these amazing creatures were unidentifiable bright specks which one might easily mistake as random bits of debris but were clearly alive and using the rising, swirling channels of heat as their mode of transport. Occasionally, they were able to attach themselves to the bodies of the larger eel/fish and if they ventured too close to the wrong end of their hosts, they found themselves becoming a quick lunch. Many eel/fish could also be seen pecking at the volcano mounds, presumably where the floating specks preferred to live out most of their lives.

Both Ross and Gary stared at this panorama silently for long minutes, neither daring to breathe. It was Ross who broke the silence, his voice sounding distant in his own ears.

“God bless lifekind.”

Gary snapped out of his own reverie at these words. “What the hell did you say that for?”

Slightly taken aback, Ross replied, “It’s a beautiful, miraculous thing we’ve just discovered. I was thanking God for allowing us to find it.”

“Allowing us? We did it ourselves. They’re just some fish. And anyway, your religion has no place in our mission. Don’t you realize that your filthy words are being transmitted back to Earth and will now go down in history as ‘The first thing said when they discovered life on Europa.’?”

Ross was beginning to get angry now. “Filthy words? I don’t think so. Your words are being transmitted too.”

“And they should be.” sneered Gary. “You bastard. You’ve just offended millions of proper thinkers.”

“How can they be proper thinkers if they’re offended by another person’s opinion? They sound like a bunch of troll-headed pricks.”

With that, Gary shot his long right arm out to connect his fist with Ross’s jaw. Stunned by the unexpected attack, Ross leaned back for a moment, then rose up out of his chair, his small size giving him the freedom to move in the cabin quickly, and clamped his hands around Gary’s throat. But Gary’s limbs were too long to allow Ross the chance to remain there for very long, and he was able to push him back.

The inside of the submarine was small and this action caused Ross to fall back against the controls. The two rational scientists were too busy trying to kill each other to notice that the sub was now on a fast collision course with the nearest black smoker. As Gary had grabbed the front of Ross’s shirt and started punching him, the sub crashed into the chimney directly in front of them. Neither of them ever had time to scream. The designers of the seven inch thick window hadn’t reckoned with it being exposed to intense heat and heavy rock simultaneously and what started as a crack quickly imploded in the enormous water pressure which caused the sub to sink to the ocean floor of Europa.

Their words were being transmitted all right, and so were the images from the external cameras. Despite the thirty-five minute delay, no one thought to edit any of it as it was beamed into houses around the world. Everyone watched with a mix of shame and horror as the last image transmitted was that of one of the eel/fish caught under the crippled sub right in front of the camera. It twitched a few times as it struggled to free itself until it slowed to a stop and moved no more. These were the images transmitted back to Earth as part of our blessed history.

[springs]

First in Space:Extremes

The red glow of the heating element illuminated the underside of the three and a half kilometer thick ice, where no light had shone before in all of history.I think you could tighten this down a lot without losing detail eg do we need to know the exact thickness? Slowly, the circle of red grew in both size and intensitydon't understand why its intensity grew until, at last, the spiral of the drill broke the under-surface of the ice. Later, the heating element would be reactivated to combat the near instant re-freezing of the breach in the ice layer above where the temperature was currently minus onehundred-eightyfive degrees Celsius.

The drill tube continued downward several meters to reveal the door through which the submarine and its two occupants would begin the exploration of the submerged ocean of Jupiter’s most intriguing moon. As the residual glow subsided, the entire affair was left in utter darkness. Even after the rectangular sub hatch slid open, no light illuminated the environment. Then, all at once, a ring of half dozen lights spilled out into the freezing waters, and silently the sub slid out of the drilling tube and began the long anticipated search for life under the ice on Europa.It might just be me, but I'm bored. All I needed to know was they opened the ice - I would start with the drill bit going through as its a nice visual image - and the submarines coming. Anything else is taking me down detail which slows it down for you.

Gary’s angular frame made the close quarters incredibly uncomfortable. He had argued that due to his size, he might have difficulty operating all of the controls safely. It had taken some time, mountains of paperwork and wholly unnecessary - yet fully justified – meetings of some of the most brilliant engineering minds of the day, but it was finally agreed to install runners to allow the pilot’s seat to slide back a few inches for comfort. Thankfully, Gary’s arms were long enough to reach all the relevant controls.

Co-pilot and biologist, Ross Sanders, sat on his right. Ross was short and stocky and had acute observational skills coupled with a deep love and respect of all living things which made him the perfect candidate for this mission. His gaze constantly shifted between the circular view window and the various screens which allowed him to see heat maps, topography, infra-red, and the like. However, more often than not, he found himself staring out of the window searching with the naked eye.and again, I feel like I'm being told...

“Nothing,” muttered Ross as he peered and squinted out of the window. “Totally dark.”

“What do your readings indicate?” asked Gary who still hadn’t enough leg room.

Ross blinked and shook his head. “Oh. Uh…The temperature is rising. Wow! Rising fast.Ten degrees Celsius…fifteen. Twenty one. Thirty two. Forty three. It keeps going up. Whatever this is, it explains the cracks in the ice. There’s heat all around us. And the floor of the ocean is only fifteen meters below us…Wait. It’s changing. It just shot down to three. Maybe you’d better stop.”

“Why is it so black? It’s like we’re not even here.” Gary switched on the retro-thrusters.

“I know. It feels very close, like a weight.”

Gary glanced over at his partner, “You’re not getting claustrophobic on me are you?”

“No, no.” Ross replied. “It’s just weird. We should be able to see something in the distance by now. Whoa!”

“What?”

“Are we still moving?”

“No. Full stop.”

Ross shifted back and forth between the heat map and depth readings. “The temperature is fluctuating wildly. Something is happening.”

Gary switched on the reverse thrusters. “I don’t like this,” he said as they drifted silently backwards.

“OK, the temp is going back down. So is the surface. It’s back up to nine meters below.” Ross glanced back out of the forward window. The blackness in front of them was doing something strange. It looked to him as though it was starting to billow. “Wait a second,” he said as he started squinting again. “Lower us down. Slowly.”

this section was better, because there's action in it, it's drawing me in.

As the submarine started to descend, it seemed for several long seconds that nothing was happening. Then the blackness abruptly cleared and a scene opened up to them which needed no special sensors to convey the ultimate reality of the situation. An enormous plume of black smoke was issuing from a gently spiraled column of smooth grey rock. The column spread out below to form enormous mounds of the same grey stone. The mounds stretched out into the distance, several of them with twisted chimneys blasting out their own clouds of black smoke. Surrounding all of it and staying close were thousands of long thin creatures, perhaps two meters long, half a meter high and quite thin. They were almost eel-like in appearance yet they clearly had fins and a small vestigial tail. There were no sign of any eyes and none of them gave any sign that they were aware of this intrusion into their world. Floating amongst these amazing creatures were unidentifiable bright specks which one might easily mistake as random bits of debris but were clearly alive and using the rising, swirling channels of heat as their mode of transport. Occasionally, they were able to attach themselves to the bodies of the larger eel/fish and if they ventured too close to the wrong end of their hosts, they found themselves becoming a quick lunch. Many eel/fish could also be seen pecking at the volcano mounds, presumably where the floating specks preferred to live out most of their lives.The paragraph looks daunting - a big wall of text. Could it be broken down a bit, some dialogue as the men see it for the first time?

Both Ross and Gary stared at this panorama silently for long minutes, neither daring to breathe. It was Ross who broke the silence, his voice sounding distant in his own ears.

“God bless lifekind.”

Gary snapped out of his own reverie at these words. “What the hell did you say that for?”

Slightly taken aback, Ross replied, “It’s a beautiful, miraculous thing we’ve just discovered. I was thanking God for allowing us to find it.”

“Allowing us? We did it ourselves. They’re just some fish. And anyway, your religion has no place in our mission. Don’t you realize that your filthy words are being transmitted back to Earth and will now go down in history as ‘The first thing said when they discovered life on Europa.’?”

Ross was beginning to get angry now. “Filthy words? I don’t think so. Your words are being transmitted too.”

“And they should be.” sneered Gary. “You bastard. You’ve just offended millions of proper thinkers.”

“How can they be proper thinkers if they’re offended by another person’s opinion? They sound like a bunch of troll-headed pricks.”

With that, Gary shot his long right arm out to connect his fist with Ross’s jaw. Stunned by the unexpected attack, Ross leaned back for a moment, then rose up out of his chair, his small size giving him the freedom to move in the cabin quickly, and clamped his hands around Gary’s throat. But Gary’s limbs were too long to allow Ross the chance to remain there for very long, and he was able to push him back.at this stage, as the reader, I'm amazed. Amazed that they haven't had psychological testing to ensure this sort of thing wouldn't happen. Amazed that they're so badly trained.

The inside of the submarine was small and this action caused Ross to fall back against the controls. The two rationalall their actions say they're not. scientists were too busy trying to kill each other to notice that the sub was now on a fast collision course with the nearest black smoker. As Gary had grabbed the front of Ross’s shirt and started punching him, the sub crashed into the chimney directly in front of them. Neither of them ever had time to scream. The designers of the seven inch thick window hadn’t reckoned with it being exposed to intense heat and heavy rock simultaneously and what started as a crack quickly imploded in the enormous water pressure which caused the sub to sink to the ocean floor of Europa.

Their words were being transmitted all right, and so were the images from the external cameras. Despite the thirty-five minute delay, no one thought to edit any of it as it was beamed into houses around the world. Everyone watched with a mix of shame and horror as the last image transmitted was that of one of the eel/fish caught under the crippled sub right in front of the camera. It twitched a few times as it struggled to free itself until it slowed to a stop and moved no more. These were the images transmitted back to Earth as part of our blessed history.

I'm sorry Tom S, I couldn't stretch my disbelief in the end to accept the fight. No matter how much they dislike each other, they are trained in what to do in these circumstances. If they are volatile enough to descend like this there is no way they would be in that sub in the first place. Sorry.

[TomS]

Springs,

I appreciate your comments. In the first half of this, I do mention that they both lied on their psyche tests. And I've also seen, first hand, the kind of hostility this kind of disagreement can incur. I'll grant you this is an exaggeration of that hostility, but I also believe that the human race has already shown more than once their capability of doing this. All it takes is one or two madmen to really mess things up. It's happened and will continue to happen.

I did indulge in a bit of biting sarcasm by calling them "rational". Perhaps I could tone it down or present it in a different fashion.

[RcGrant]

I agree with Springs. There is a hell of a lot of info dumping, and frankly I just scanned it because it started to bore me. I don't want all this factual information; I want a story.

When you get to the dialogue between Gary and Ross the readability picks up, but like Springs, I just didn't believe it. To me it seems to be bordering on the ridiculous. Arguments DO happen, but in this setting, when so much is at stake? Sorry, at this point I would be throwing the book across the room in annoyance.

ETA: And saying they lied on a psyche test wouldn't make me believe it either.

ETA 2: Also you have to keep in mind stories HAVE to be logical. Real life may be a bunch of unrelated coincidences but stories need to make sense. It's where the saying "truth is stranger than fiction" comes from.

[RJM Corbet]

The second part of your first post, once you get into the dialogue, is actually quite good, although still a bit wordy, mostly in the form of trying to include a lot of scientific information which ends up seriously interfering with the flow of the story, and the same applies here, although to a lesser extent because this piece is tighter than the first one.

To give an idea of tightening:


The red glow of the heating element illuminated the underside of the three and a half 4Kmkilometer thick ice, where no light had ever shone before in all of history. Slowly, the circle of red grew in both size and intensity until, at last, the spiral of the drill broke the under-surface of the ice. Later, the heating element would be reactivated to combat the near instant against re-freezing of the breach in the ice layer above where the temperature was currently minus onehundred-eightyfive degrees Celsius. -185 degC.

The drill tube continued downward several meters to reveal the door through which the submarine and its two occupants would begin the exploration of to explore the submerged ocean of Jupiter’s most intriguing moon. As The residual glow subsided, the entire affair was left in until there was utter darkness Even after the rectangular sub hatch slid open, no light illuminated the environment. and then, all at once, a ring of half dozen lights spilled out into the freezing waters, and silently the sub slid out of the drilling tube and began to begin the long anticipated search for life under the ice on Europa.

By cutting those words, you will be reducing the passages to less than half their length without losing any essential information? I think you're aiming at a casual, conversational way of putting 'scientific' information across but it risks lecturing the reader, always a dangerous thing to do, instead of complimenting his intelligence to fill in the gaps by himself.

Also, do try to keep these scientific 'info dumps' to just the most basic facts at this stage because you can expand and fill in the details later in conversations over cups of coffee in the canteen or something, but after first making sure you have captured your reader's interest in the story.

I feel I was a bit abrupt in my previous 'butchery' of the info dumping and want to make it clear I think you can write well in your grasp of character story, and especially of dialogue, but that you risk losing your reader's attention in the early stage by swamping him with too much technical information ...

[Hex]

I really liked the tone of this. The problems that Gary has fitting. It made me grin.

re the fight: I wonder if it would be more likely if there was more of a lead-in -- as it is, they go from perfectly amicable co-operation to violent conflict almost instantly (I know they don't, but the build up is still very short). If the tension rose more slowly and they sniped a bit first, while they're doing other things, maybe it would be less of a leap?

[Boneman]

I liked it. I needed the info dumping and it didn't seem extreme. Knowing I was reading a prologue, I guess I kinda expected it, as a setup for the story. The antagonism between the two comes over very well, but I'd have expected better measuring/detecting devices with the type of technology we're seeing, but the story's the thing. As to the fight, I could see a punch happening if Gary is as p*ssed off as he comes over, but you did go to great lengths to show us how cramped the sub was. Maybe the punch knocks Ross out and his slump onto the controls knock the sub off course? Then Gary desperately tries to lift him, and the crash happens? I'd have expected proximity detectors, some kind of fail-safe, otherwise. It's nitpicking, really, and whatever, you've got a great start to your story.

[Hex]

I'm very sorry to double post (especially since this is going to be another short one) but I wanted to say how much I enjoyed the writing. I have very low info-dump tolerance normally, but I thought the quality of writing lifted this and made it enjoyable in itself. I liked the descriptions of the scene very much.

You write so well that if I was reading the book, I'd let you off with a bit of delay before the action because I'd trust you to know what you were doing.

[TomS]

Proof positive that you can't please everyone. This will always be. I'm not the type to get all bent out of shape by harsh critique....aw, lets call it what it is, criticism. There's just so many differences, I'm not sure which advice to follow. One rule I follow is that if more than one person mentions it, then listen very hard.
I've known for a long time that my strength is in dialogue. I tried to get across that it's very possible for people to snap with out warning. I've seen it, I've done it. I've never seen murder before, though. Nevertheless, I'm sure it happens. "Such and such killed a man for snoring." That sort of thing. It isn't plausible to a rational mind and a rational mind can turn monstrous without plausibility. That's the terror, the shame, I've tried to get across here. Maybe I didn't do it very well. And anyway, it just the mechanism to plunge the human race (in the story) into a collective depression. There may be other ways of doing that. Perhaps not even mentioning the "how" and merely stating that is has happened. I don't know. I have a lot to think about.

[The Judge]

Originally Posted by TomS

There's just so many differences, I'm not sure which advice to follow. One rule I follow is that if more than one person mentions it, then listen very hard.

I would always listen to someone who has a constructive criticism more than someone who praises. By the very nature of critiquing if people like someone's work they are very happy to come along and add a brief post to say so without anything more (and very welcome such posts are, of course), whereas those for whom the piece did nothing or who found problems with it are less likely to speak up -- firstly, because no one likes to upset another member, and secondly because critiquing something actually takes a lot of time. So those who praise it are probably most of those who actually did like it; those who critiqued it probably only a proportion of those who thought it had problems.

Also, even if someone praises a piece, it doesn't mean it's perfect, just that they are happy to overlook defects in view of the writing's other strengths. Accordingly, making the piece better is unlikely to affect their praise, so you're not losing anything if you address those defects and you're improving your chances of others praising it thereafter. Obviously, there there are occasions when you're faced with two diametrically opposed views on exactly the same issue, but those are relatively rare.

As a general point, not directed at the differing views here but for future work, what might help you since you're a relative newbie, is to look at other critiques given by the same people. If, for instance, they praise everyone's work, even work you believe to be sub-standard, or if on the other hand they never find anything good to say even about work which you think is brilliant, then it puts their comments on your extract into perspective. The longer you stay here, the more you'll get to know different members and how they critique and how much credence you want to give to each of them.


And, since I'm here, I'm in the too-info-dumpy and too-extreme-reaction critiquing camp, I'm afraid, but I have an extremely low tolerance for info-dumps and an acute sense of psychological reality. People do lie in psych tests, but in view of all that's resting on these two I don't think it's feasible they'd have been paired together; and although people do flip over relatively minor issues, and from a standing start, to me it didn't read as real, which is more important.

[Bakerman]

Great follow-up to your last post. You did mention earlier that three characters died in the prologue, so I'm working under the assumption that there's more to read .

I also feel like the conflict between Ross and Gary was a bit rushed. You did say you've cut out stuff to fit it within a forum post - I'd be really interested to see the whole piece, though! Especially if it lets that conflict develop a lot more naturally. I feel like we really need to see them trying to be professionals - having disagreements, getting over them, or at least putting them aside, then finally breaking. I do like Boneman's suggestion, though I think you could keep the current ending if you build up to it a little more.

Originally Posted by TomS

Occasionally, they were able to attach themselves to the bodies of the larger eel/fish and if they ventured too close to the wrong end of their hosts, they found themselves becoming a quick lunch. Many eel/fish could also be seen pecking at the volcano mounds, presumably where the floating specks preferred to live out most of their lives.

I just wanted to pick out this section in particular, where I felt you slipped into a passive voice. I didn't mind that big paragraph, since you did a really good job of building up to it and making me wonder what was going on. My problem here is that instead of describing the scene the instant they see it, you start to describe actions that take place over a period of time. You mention that they sat watching it for several minutes, but only after introducing this passive narration. I'd just move this stuff down, until you have established that they are spending time observing.

[TomS]

Originally Posted by Bakerman

Great follow-up to your last post. You did mention earlier that three characters died in the prologue, so I'm working under the assumption that there's more to read .

Yes, you're right. Unfortunately, due to space constraints, I was unable to post that section of the prologue. It's a shame really because I think that the way I have the whole thing worded, it becomes poetic. Not in the sense of conventional poetry but in the sense of a theme being repeated.

There are actually two such themes that are referred back to in this prologue but aren't visible due to cuts I had to make because of the word count limit. The second theme is the phrase/concept of "Is anyone listening?" It's stated at the beginning of the first half by the narrative voice, by Justin when he's talking to his parents, and again at the end (which was cut) by the narrative voice.

I understand the reason for the word count restraints: because it's not just reading time, it's also thinking time and typing time. Still, it's a shame for the writer/reader who has a decent attention span.

[Bowler1]

The red glow of the heating element illuminated the underside of the three and a half kilometer thick ice, where no light had shone before in all of history. Slowly, the circle of red grew in both size and intensity until, at last, the spiral of the drill broke the under-surface of the ice. Later, the heating element would be reactivated to combat the near instant re-freezing of the breach in the ice layer above where the temperature was currently minus onehundred-eightyfive degrees Celsius.
The opening was technical and a little info dumpy for me, not bad but distracting from the storyline.

Gary’s angular frame made the close quarters incredibly uncomfortable. He had argued that due to his size, he might have difficulty operating all of the controls safely. It had taken some time, mountains of paperwork and wholly unnecessary - yet fully justified – meetings of some of the most brilliant engineering minds of the day, but it was finally agreed to install runners to allow the pilot’s seat to slide back a few inches for comfort. Thankfully, Gary’s arms were long enough to reach all the relevant controls.
Belief is important for the reader. Cars have these runners as standard TomS so this was very off putting for me. Nice idea however I can see what you were attempting.
As the submarine started to descend, it seemed for several long seconds that nothing was happening. Then the blackness abruptly cleared and a scene opened up to them which needed no special sensors to convey the ultimate reality of the situation. An enormous plume of black smoke was issuing from a gently spiraled column of smooth grey rock. The column spread out below to form enormous mounds of the same grey stone. The mounds stretched out into the distance, several of them with twisted chimneys blasting out their own clouds of black smoke. Surrounding all of it and staying close were thousands of long thin creatures, perhaps two meters long, half a meter high and quite thin. They were almost eel-like in appearance yet they clearly had fins and a small vestigial tail. There were no sign of any eyes and none of them gave any sign that they were aware of this intrusion into their world. Floating amongst these amazing creatures were unidentifiable bright specks which one might easily mistake as random bits of debris but were clearly alive and using the rising, swirling channels of heat as their mode of transport. Occasionally, they were able to attach themselves to the bodies of the larger eel/fish and if they ventured too close to the wrong end of their hosts, they found themselves becoming a quick lunch. Many eel/fish could also be seen pecking at the volcano mounds, presumably where the floating specks preferred to live out most of their lives.
Deep sea vents then just like on Earth. Trust the reader a little more, SciFi fans will know a lot about science.
I think the wall of text for your deep sea vents could have been handled easier with dialogue, which you do well.

Their words were being transmitted all right, and so were the images from the external cameras. Despite the thirty-five minute delay, no one thought to edit any of it as it was beamed into houses around the world. Everyone watched with a mix of shame and horror as the last image transmitted was that of one of the eel/fish caught under the crippled sub right in front of the camera. It twitched a few times as it struggled to free itself until it slowed to a stop and moved no more. These were the images transmitted back to Earth as part of our blessed history.
Belief again, live TV already has built in delays in case someone swears so a big fight would be easily handled. I also have a few issues with the fight as it was not really a reason to start punching.
To be fair, a lot less on the info dumps and smoother reading from the original section posted for review. The dialogue was good if stretching my belief in what was happening. You’re making a big thing out of religion in your plot and I have to be honest I don’t quite get it. Realism surrounding your characters is what I’d ask you to focus on please mate. As ever your idea is a good one and will need some explaining but remember you’re preaching to the choir with SciFi readers! I feel I’m being harsh here TomS but I did like the pace and character development and I thought the writing was good.

[TomS]

Originally Posted by Bowler1

Belief again, live TV already has built in delays in case someone swears so a big fight would be easily handled. I also have a few issues with the fight as it was not really a reason to start punching.[/FONT][/COLOR]
To be fair, a lot less on the info dumps and smoother reading from the original section posted for review. The dialogue was good if stretching my belief in what was happening. You’re making a big thing out of religion in your plot and I have to be honest I don’t quite get it. Realism surrounding your characters is what I’d ask you to focus on please mate. As ever your idea is a good one and will need some explaining but remember you’re preaching to the choir with SciFi readers! I feel I’m being harsh here TomS but I did like the pace and character development and I thought the writing was good.

Thanks, Bowler. It seems I've had different personal experiences with either SciFi readers or maybe just people I know. Also, I still believe that worse things have happened "In the name of God" than a fist fight. It's not even a matter of some kind of imagined notion for me. I've witnessed stuff and I want to address them in a SciFi setting. It may be true that I'm preaching to the choir in a general sense, but if there is just one person I can help recognize something of this in themselves, and inspire them to change, then the ultimate job is done. I know militant extremists. I'm saddened by their words and actions. I've been severely punished psychologically by trying to reach them verbally. I'm trying to reach those who don't quite fit into the general audience but are nevertheless there. All it takes is one.

[RJM Corbet]

Originally Posted by TomS

Proof positive that you can't please everyone ... I'm not sure which advice to follow. One rule I follow is that if more than one person mentions it, then listen ... I have a lot to think about.

And there are some people you can never please at all.

But as you say, if something seems to be a concensus of opinion here, then it's probably a good indication.

Incidentally, the very fact that your work has aroused such a lot of interest and discussion here is also a good indicator.

It's when I post something and it just lies here, dead in the water, that I really worry about it.

I repeat that I think you really write well, but to me it's too much technical detail swamping the narrative. That's not because it boggles or confuses me, or that I don't understand it -- I do. But it's still too much for me.