Knicks

Raine, as you know, I’m a lazy, non-analytical reader, so you’re getting facile first impressions from me – and thanks for ‘stochastic’ – but I thought this a really enticing beginning, launching lots of characters, all of whom promised interest, tension and above averagely intelligent entertainment.

Brilliant, congratulations!

Brilliant, well done John. Please put a link in the Podium when it’s published? You’re on a bit of a roll, there

Thanks everyone who contributed. A name change from Florence to Felicity, to avoid confusion with a hurricane of that name, a couple more edits and it was picked up by Across The Margin. Should be out in the next week or so. Now titled Felicity’s First.

Oop – crossed with Jonathan.

okay, might be waffling on a bit here, but it’s sparked a load of thoughts.

In general I like the opening couple of paragraphs. It paints a strong and immediate picture of character and place.

You set up the omniscient narrator with the phrase highlighted in bold below.
“When the lights went out across Europe, Lina Stephenson did not notice at…[Read more]

Ooh, hmm, okay, now this is challenging. To me, in the opening bits, there is definitely a disembodied voice that says things like “Let her have this moment.” or “Two more people now, to the north of Devendra Kapoor, both of whom he knew although Lina Stephenson did not, yet.”. That opening section is very cool. I like it.

However the voice…[Read more]

Hi Raine,

I love the sound of this story. A literary apocalyptic novel? YES PLEASE!

I definitely like the idea of having scenes from various characters’ lives, i.e. to have sections in different POVs. I think it serves the genre well because it creates an epic, global canvas for your story. Basically – how is the human race as a whole going to…[Read more]

Dammit autocorrect! I’d not spotted the domain thing. Gah.

But thank-you for the vote of confidence. I’ve been vacillating back and forth like you wouldn’t believe!

Personally I like it. The narrator-y bits make the transitions into a sort of PD slide. If you’re going to introduce a range of geographically dispersed characters in a short piece of text, this seems like a good way to do it. And I like the voice

‘This was a Sunday, the day it began was a Thursday’ – comma splice?

‘Domain’ – Demain? (French for…[Read more]

Impact

The EVA suit’s read-out flashed Warning! Oxygen levels at 18% in eerie red. Jepson’s mind was foggy, irrational. All her training hadn’t prepared her for the reality of being stuffed into a damaged evacuation tube and launched into the airless void.

It had begun with impact. Many in fact, although Jepson only counted three as notew…[Read more]