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Ocean Europa by E. S. Strout
Beyond that, I can hardly wait to see what Bill has to say about it . . .
Tell us what you thought about the March 2012 issue!
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gino_ss wrote:Recall that the earth bound folks had use of that neat little space-folding gravity drive feature that allowed them to travel to and from Europa in almost real time.
gino
Merchant said, "Stephen, I can get you to Europa and back in days.
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Lester Curtis wrote:gino_ss wrote:Recall that the earth bound folks had use of that neat little space-folding gravity drive feature that allowed them to travel to and from Europa in almost real time.
gino
Not quite -- quoting from the story itself:That's days for a physical trip; light-speed telemetry is still gonna take hours each way.Merchant said, "Stephen, I can get you to Europa and back in days.
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Lester Curtis wrote:There's another thing that irks me about this story -- they extracted one single organism from a whole ecology, and it goes whacko. Where does that begin to make sense? The creatures were obviously mortal -- their captive specimen did die on them, after all . . . so, why doesn't the whole planet spin out of orbit when one of them (much less a daily lot of 'em) dies of natural causes?
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Lester Curtis wrote:Oh, and don't forget -- these critters have to see where they're going, too!
Damn, they just get more improbable, I mean, more impressive by the minute!
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Lester, It is not seemly for a critic, especially one who is a writer himself, to take apparent enjoyment at flagging another author's work with comments laced with insults about his ability to write a competent story.
Lester Curtis wrote:Mark wrote:Lester, It is not seemly for a critic, especially one who is a writer himself, to take apparent enjoyment at flagging another author's work with comments laced with insults about his ability to write a competent story.
Gino . . .my apologies if I came across as too harsh; I don't intend to insult.
Believe me, though, I'm AT LEAST this harsh on my self, and frequently more so; the rest of you just don't get to see that. If I find myself writing something that sticks out as too improbable, I change it. Had to completely restart my novel project because some of the initial premises and circumstances were too unlikely. Major plot change, shifting of characters, the whole works. It really hurt, because I loved a good deal of the stuff I'd had, but the result IS better.
Sarcasm is, unfortunately, in my nature. I try to keep aware of it, and don't always succeed. Nonetheless, for me, the story does raise too many questions that don't get explained, and I found myself being taken out of the story by these. That's the important issue.
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Jaimie wrote:Okay, I’ll weigh in on the critiquing discussion before giving my own critique. First, Lester and Gino have been around long enough to know each other. I didn’t sense anything malicious from Lester. There have been instances of nastiness on this site and I’ve been a victim of it, but for the most part folks have been very constructive.
You need to have a thick skin as an aspiring writer. Some editors are not as kind as the contributors and the editors of Aphelion. If you’re not prepared, someone could easily crush your soul. I’ve always wondered how many great writers never developed because of an overly negative review that discouraged them from proceeding further.
Lastly, hard science fiction is held to a different standard than most other genres. Unlike fantasy or horror, editors will scrutinize your science. Yes, underneath it all, it’s magic; otherwise it’d be science fact and not science fiction. But you had better at least not contradict the existing laws of physics.
Alright. So that said, here is my feedback. I liked the concept. I think there were some potential issues with the actual science, but (like most everyone else) I would leave that to Bill to analyze. The gravity engine, while a neat idea, seemed to be included solely to overcome a potential plot hole later on in regards to the distance between Europa and Earth. Perhaps just stating it existed instead of investing so much time trying to explain it would have been better.
The plot is emphasized over the characters. I know that’s not uncommon for hard sci-fi, but more character development would have been better. I think that would have helped the pacing as well; the narrative is too compact, almost rushed. With such short sections, you lose the epic nature of what’s going on. Instead of telling that people are swarming their respective religious institutions, you could include a cut scene of child holding her mother’s hand as they pray in Earth’s final moments. Humanize the story a little bit.
I’m kind of on the fence with this one. Although it’s polished in some aspects, I think it needs to be further developed.
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