Wednesday, December 14, 2011

December Buyer's Remorse #1

TITLE: The End World
GENRE: YA sci-fi

If Mortimer told me three years ago to go climb a three story
building in eighty-degree weather, I would have told him to fuck off.
By now, I learned to say yes sir like any good Spinner and would climb
a skyscraper if I had to.
      
The faded theater sign stood on side of me, most of its plastic
letters lost in time. There was no telling the last movie that was
playing before The End World went to hell. I shrugged. Finding
similarities and differences between Earth and this dump was a pastime
of mine. Researchers said the similarity ratio was about seventy-three
percent. Who said I had to take their word for it?
      
I grabbed the rough cement ledge above me and hauled myself up.
Across the street, Sal was already lying down, scanning the street
with his own NF P90.
      
Damn, he is fast.
      
His voice crackled in my earplant. “Need to lose a few pounds,
girlfriend. Soon you won’t be able to climb a speed bump.”
      
I gave him the finger.
      
“Love you too, Lana.”
      
“Just focus on our mission, will you!” I hissed in my vocollar,
taking his silence as agreement.
      
Control always programmed our earplants and vocollar on the same
frequency before a mission. I squirmed at the idea of getting the
implants bored into my body but I had to admit, they prevented more
than one sticky situation. We could have an entire conversation
without anyone else knowing.

6 comments:

  1. Overall, I really like this opening. :) But there are a couple tense issues. Since this story takes place in past tense, the first para should read:

    "If Mortimer had told me three years ago to go climb a three-story building in eighty-degree weather, I would have told him to fuck off. By now, I had learned to say yes sir like any good Spinner and would've climbed a skyscraper if I had to."

    Also, the "Damn, he is fast" should be "Damn, he was fast"

    Other than that, nice job!

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  2. Overall, I like the concept this piece is presenting. I'm a fan of apocalyptic worlds.

    There's a few punctuation issues in this (missing commas), as well as the tense issues that Stephanie pointed out.

    And, for some reason, I thought the main character was male up until Sal used her name. Not sure why that was, but maybe because I read the first paragraph as mocking of a male versus a superior who is belittling him? But it could read female as well.

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  3. I liked this as well. Other than the tense issues that Stephanie pointed out it's very good. I agree with Kimberly...I too thought it was male. THe voice is strong and appeared male to me.

    Overall..I really liked this and would read on to see where you take it. :-)

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  4. I like it. Nice characters, world building, setting up the right kind of questions. And great first line. I'd keep reading.

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  5. Nice beginning. Moves along nicely and makes me want to know more.

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  6. I like this beginning, and I'd definitely want to read more. However, I found that I stumbled a bit over "The End World". I had to read the sentence a few times in order to understand what it meant.

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