Excellent review. I actually agree with all of it. Teethers does sound comical doesn’t it? Any suggestions for a more intimidating name? They are insects, with huge gaping maws of razor teeth as well. Stingers, crystalline wings, hard shell casing for their exterior, two vulnerable spots. Feel free to help out with a name. I definitely need to make some edits. As I said to someone below I get so caught up in my world that I don’t describe it because of the thought that everyone else should be in my head lol. Terrible stance for a writer to take. I’ll definitely be making edits to this piece.
Sci Fi & Fantasy / As the Storm Strikes
Sergeant James Hellion turned and lifted his eyes to the darkening horizon. No one had paid much attention to rain prior to that day exactly one year ago, maybe a quick glance at the weather report to see if an umbrella was necessary on that particular day. Now… now almost every human in existence had developed a keen sense of weather knowledge. Rain meant death, unless you were a capable fighting force with the guns to back up your balls, you were going to die. Unless you could find cover, sometimes in cover you were safe, other times they’d tear through it regardless, it depended on one of two things: How much of a hurry they were in, or how hungry they were. From James’ personal experience, they were always one of the two.
He threw his rifle onto the back of the APC as he clasped his lieutenant’s hand; the burly man hoisted him easily onto the weapons platform.
“They’re coming Kai”
“I know Sergeant. The weather scanner hit critical moments ago.”
“You knew before that obviously?”
“Long before.”
“Then they’ve hit more stations, the reports are coming slower.”
“They’re learning sergeant. Fast.”
The sergeant shook his head, his balaclava keeping his black hair in place underneath his tactical faceplate and helmet. His stony grey eyes lifted to the skies again, the blue rarely stayed around for long these days. He missed the sunny skies, he missed that warm gentle sheen on his face, even in battle it seemed to invigorate him and his men.
“L and L?” said James, using the abbreviation for locked and loaded as he tapped twice on the roof of the APC. The vehicle lurched into life as two side-runner escort vehicles lifted off the ground, hovering a full meter above the earth to accompany the convoy on their way back to the base.
“L and L Sergeant. Speak freely?”
“Kai, don’t be coy.”
“The men sir, frankly… well frankly they’re shitting themselves, James”
The sergeant ignored the slip up. His old friend always reverted to his proper name when he was extremely concerned or extremely angry. He could see it too though, back at the camp before they had loaded up, many of the men’s hands were visibly shaking, others walked away to vomit, fewer but still a numerous number actually pissed their pants, graciously ignored by the other men. Not one man in the camp could say he didn’t feel like doing the same, and the Sergeant was sure that many were close to doing it but had the self control to keep it in.
“Kai, it’s been a year fighting these bastards and I’m still shitting myself, and I’m meant to be…what are the men calling it these days?”
“Built tougher than a Bunker in the Dead Zone, sir. They’re saying now that you tore open the mouth of a Teether with your bare hands.”
The Sergeant laughed out loud, slapping his Lieutenant on the shoulder.
“Anyone stupid enough to put their hands near a Teether’s mouth is a dead man sure enough.”
“Let them have their heroes Sergeant, we all need some.”
“I’m no hero Kai.”
“I know at least five platoons that would attest differently to that Sergeant, we all saw what you did in the Rift Wars, half the army saw what you did.”
“I did what I had to.”
“I can’t name another man that would have had the balls to do what you did James, and the men needed to see it; for some, it’s the only reason they keep fighting. For one man to do something like that…It left them hope.”
“Yeah? Well it left me nightmares.”
“Yes…Some of the men say they hear you screaming at night. A lot of them respect you more for it, they hear you roar and say they’d rather step in front of a Teether defenseless. ”
The sergeant had to laugh at that. The comical image brought back some degree of triviality to the conversation. He hadn’t liked where it was going, he never wanted to be placed on a pedestal. He wanted to fight; dirty and ballsy like the other men in his army. It was his place and he liked it, let the pretty pen pushers have the glory; he wanted each and every alien on the business end of his rifle.
“Well if the supply trains don’t get through the Teether barricade, facing them defenseless is just what we’ll be doing.”
“About that…”
“Kai, I swear if the next words out of your mouth are: ‘We’re escorting a supply train’ then trust me, you’ll wish you were facing the Teethers defenseless.”
The sergeant felt a throbbing in his head mere moments before images of a supply train flashed past his mind’s eye, their squad in transit hovering right next to it.
God damn psychics.
***
He is the one.
The thought universally floated through the swarm, filled with a mentally captured image of a rough looking soldier standing by a skinnier man on the back of the human transport. The image flickered into the Hive mind and filtered its way down the cerebral connection to even the lowest of the Hive. A collective hiss rose across the planet as the Drones and Soldiers had the image burned into their connection.
He must be stopped, at all costs. This is the one.
The cerebral connection dropped. The hive cluster closest to the Sergeant collectively turned their heads to the East. The Drone image-capture thoughts filtered directly to their mind, they all uncased their crystalline wings and took to the air. A storm gathered over their heads, lightning bolts struck down from the sky in the dozens, and as the rain touched their bodies their insectoid forms grew from mere feet in size to two to four meters long. The insects became predators, the heavens roared, and in the distance, Sergeant James Hellion swore at the storm.
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AmyChait reviewed Version 1 -
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So, I wanted to take a stab at reading your Sci Fi cause it is a genre I usually don’t read. You said girls do not appreciate this genre, but I can appreciate the strong diction choices and imagery you put into this story:)
I could list on and on diction and imagery I like because the story is full of them, but I am just going to go over the criticism to prevent from getting super lengthy.
Sentence 2 and 3 I had re-read a couple of times to grasp the tense, and what the particular day was. If I am correct of going from past to present then maybe something like “Exactly one year ago, no one would have paid attention to the rain on this day, and if they did, they only took a quick glance of the weather report to find out if they needed an umbrella…..” If anything, possibly go with out repeating “that particular day” or be more informative/detailed why “that particular day” is worth noting.
Also, since you said people now have developed a keen sense of weather knowledge? How so, why is significant they have developed this knowledge? I assume because “rain means death” but maybe a sentence filling us in why and how this is crucial to what is happening in this story. Rain means death is pretty dramatic, so I think elaboration will build the intensity why things have changed.
“Unless you could find cover, sometimes in cover you were safe, other times they’d tear through it regardless, it depended on one of two things: How much of a hurry they were in, or how hungry they were. From James’ personal experience, they were always one of the two.”
>>>> maybe keep this in 3rd person, and avoid “you” .. also, what is the “it” in this sentence? What depended on two things? Also, “they’d” does not stand out enough for me, maybe use a stronger description of this creature, not necessarily naming what it is, but an adjective that contributes to the mystery, danger, creepiness of it so the reader wants to find out what they are and why there is threat on this day…and you can probably break this into two sentences.
“He missed the sunny skies, he missed that warm gentle sheen on his face, even in battle it seemed to invigorate him and his men.”
>>>>>> maybe… “He missed the sunny skies and the warm gentle sheen on his face; even in battle, _(adj) weather seemed to invigorate him and his men.” For me, I like to replace “its” to make the image stronger. I think you could replace the it with a emotional, ironic description of the sunshine invigorating men during war.
Anywho, good work! No other specific examples right now to possibly revise..
btw, I just think “The cerebral connection dropped.” is a cool sentence :)
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SwordMistress reviewed Version 1 -
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The piece flows well and I am definitely intrigued. I want to know more about the Teethers and how they came to be, how the rain makes them bigger, what they look like or more importantly what they do their prey. As far as characterization, you have a good start with the sergeant, but theirs really not enough here to really judge characterization. You definitely have a good base to build on with Jame’s character. Now you just have to deepen that characterization, which can’t be all done in less than four pages.
“before that obviously?” If it’s that obvious it wouldn’t be a question, it’d be a statement.
“was extremely concerned or extremely angry.” Avoid the overuse of adverbs. In this case, use a stronger word in place of ‘concerned’ such as afraid or worried. Angry is fine on it’s own or you could use something like ‘irate.’
“Teether” Kind of a comical name. Was that your intent or was it meant to be scary?
““I’m no hero Kai.” You’ve used names in speech quite a few times. In real life, people don’t use each other’s names so often. This starting to get a little stagnant. Give a little description. What does this vehicle look like? Where are James and Kai riding? What do they see? What does it feel like to ride in this vehicle? Is it jerky, smooth? Just give us a few details mixed in with the dialogue.
“God damn psychics.” This is confusing. It seems to be in the Sergeant’s point of view. So who his thing this? The long before sounds like he’s getting a psychic image. Is he damning himself? Are the teethers invading his mind and giving him the images?
Hive, Drones, Soldiers, now it sounds like the enemy are bees or some other insect. Teethers, however, make me think of giant pairs of teeth.
I didn’t give high scores for an authentic main character because I don’t know enough about him yet. Right now he’s pretty much your classic military hero, but as I said earlier you can’t do much more than that with only a few pages. The lower score of a indepth world is because I really don’t know what your world looks like. You’ve given us some important details, but nothing to really help us picture this world you’ve created. The writing would indicate that you have a clear picture in your mind of what it looks like, you just haven’t put it down in the writing.
I definitely want to know more.
Cilasliag reviewed Version 1 -
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Hi, there I read your short story. It was interesting and I would like to see more. The reason is that I would like to see what is different from this than the movie “Starship Troopers” that it seems to based on. Now there is nothing wrong with taking an idea from an already existing storyline, but the overall theme must be different. So far I don’t see much of a difference. It has the same kind of giant bugs in an organized military hive group fighting a human army trained to combat them.
The telepathic aspect of the insects reminds me of the smart-bugs in the movie; although, I don’t recall them ever putting pictures in a human’s mind. I think you need to come up with some real obvious differences with your monster bugs. I recommend looking up some insects in an encyclopedia. And if you haven’t ever seen “Starship Troopers” I recommend it, because your story is much too similar to it. But I suspect that you have and that you based this piece on it.
Now as far as story goes, so far I haven’t seen one really. You have a group of soldiers getting ready to defend themselves from an impending attack from an army of monster bugs. But you have no climax and resolution of the story.
What you do have is bit-dialogue that makes your characters somewhat believable; but not really, because you go over-the-top on a few things that puts them out of reach. We make our characters believable by making them flawed and weak in areas that we are weak and flawed in ourselves, or reminds us of people that we know who have similar flaws. But the writer must be smooth in its use. Small doses carry the most weight.
Maybe one of the character cheats on his wife a lot? Maybe one of them has a nasty habit, like picking his nose. Maybe one them jerks off in his sleeping bag. Heck anything. You did make an apparent effort when you went over the top saying that a great deal of the men pissed themselves. Although likely true in real life, it’s not usually good in a story. It would have been better if you only had one of the men doing it and then explained that maybe he was the sole survivor of the last encounter and then had him remembering the event in vivid blood-and-guts detail.
The reader must be able to relate to the characters and to do that they must be vulnerable in realistic ways. Especially in such a short work as this.
I do find the last part the most interesting where you are writing from the bugs’ perspective. As far as I know, this has never been done before. I feel with every bit of writing experience I have that this is what you should pursue. It would make your story different from the movie and because you did it so very well. I see amazing talent in this last part of your story. It’s almost as if the two parts were written by separate writers. This is your strongest scene and you should consider it carefully. If you do so and take my advice one this one thing alone, I am confident that you would have something amazingly good here.
P.S. Think of Ann Rice, the writer of the Interview of the Vampire. No one ever thought of writing from a Vampire’s perspective before she did. Her story concept took the Vampire Legend to an all new height. Think about it.
Good luck,
Dave.
Absynthe reviewed Version 1 -
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The first paragraph is informative and yet just a bit confusing – excellent. I had a little trouble with jargon, but that could just be me, as this isn’t a genre I tend to read heavily. You seem to exclusively switch between narration and dialogue, and there is nothing wrong with that, but it would be really nice for you to add more details about the setting into the story as the friends are speaking. That said, your dialogue is strong, and you do an excellent job of incorporating necessary information without seeming tedious, and the familiarity between the men shows in their words.
It flows well, and I’m definitely intrigued. I want to know more about this world you’ve created, about these characters. I’m assuming this is intended to be part of something much longer, so for right now I don’t mind that I don’t know a lot about the main character, but maybe a little more information would be good. Perhaps, if it’s not necessary to keep for later, you could tell the readers about how these men met to give a little more weight to their obviously extended friendship?
Overall, I like it a lot. Great start.
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