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Little Green Men
How It Rates
Description
After the invasion of the Bane, Earth is all but shattered, though humanity strives to fight back and reclaim the world for themselves. What reason did the Bane have for invading the planet? As one soldier thinks back on the world that was, will he ultimately learn the answer?
Comments
Thanks for writing this story. I enjoyed reading it!
I think your main character is relatable, likable and believable. I seriously LOVE the army men parallels you draw through the story.
A few thoughts:
- Did you ever consider calling this story "Little Green Men"?
- I think it needs a couple of good editing passes to put some polish on it. I saw a decent number of conjunctions that would probably be better off removing and using separate sentences.
- I feel like the start of the story could be punched up to really hit us in the gut. Most of what we're being told is important to your world building and to help us learn about the character.
But the story starts off slow, and really stays that way for the first 1/3 (~1,000 words) of the story. One idea may just be to start this story in the middle of the action, then work the history/backstory in.
- **SPOILER WARNING** I've read it twice now, and I'm struggling with understanding the ending. It's possible that I'm missing some critical detail, but the Stalker's pilot says a lot of stuff, and I'm not sure I have the context to understand it what he's saying. I sort of get the impression that at least one side (if not both) have been lied to, and this war is a result of that. If the pilot's statements all are in reference to some god/Creator entity, then I can make things work in my mind--just not sure if what I think lines up with what you wanted to communicate. It sounds like somebody is playing war games on an interplanetary scale. I think?
**SPOILER WARNING** One other thing I forgot to mention. I've always had a hard time with first person stories where the character dies in the end. First person really gets us inside their head, but you always have to wonder how they can tell us their story when they're dead.
No biggie, just something I thought I'd mention.
I think I'd echo all of Ethan's sentiments. The prose of this could really be punched up, it can be quite monotonous and seeps some of the immediacy from the action, but I found the story itself to be damn good and engaging.
The prose could really take use of more active voice. The exposition could be broken up a little with some more action in the beginning. It would really help to vary the sentence structure and length and make this story flow. This is a kind of story that wants to be read quick, one that wants me to read it again after I finish. Making it more digestable would achieve that. You might even want to experiment with either limiting your sentences to two contrasting images or having a series of consecutive images to show movement. I noticed that the sentences where you did the latter worked best. There were indeed a lot of conjunctions, "as" being the worst culprit. You could replace a lot of those with more precise conjunctions, and cut out some excessive conjunctions. Change it up every once in a while. This story would work best at break-neck speed. Maybe limiting some of the narrator's editorializing during the action sequences would help this, as well as be economical.
Yeah, content-wise, I think this is a solid story as is. The toy soldier thing works great. The characters are thin yet exactly serve their purpose. With a few tweaks I think the resolution is fully satisfying. Excellent.
LBL attached.
I liked the flow of this story, it read very smoothly to me. It did seem a little slow, particularly in the fight sequence.
I liked how you tied in the tub of army men with the soldiers. It leaves you wondering what kind of being is watching over and orchestrating the war.
Overall, a nice read!
It kept my attention fully and kept me reading to the end. I too wonder what has orchestrated this war. They are trying to prove their worth to some god. Very engaging story!
I appreciate the background, but thought it could've been more ingrained in the character rather than presented in the first several pages of the story. I didn't sense that the scope of such a setup (with Christmas, and the invasion, and family thoughts) was particularly necessary for the situation the character was portraying. I would've liked to have known him a bit more through his interactions with the other troops for example.
I dug how the protagonist jumped into being the hero for a while, and confronting the enemy with that sort of eff-you attitude, but I didn't get the enemy at all. I can conjecture what the pilot was talking about, but as a reader, I'd rather know. Was the "he" he was referring to God? I don't know. If so, it still doesn't make sense to me. I got the impression that the author had an absolutely clear idea of what was going on, but I was kind of lost.
One pet peeve -- chain guns, tanks, and a brigade of troops couldn't bring down this vehicle, but a medic sticks his rifle into its knee and bashes it with a pipe to topple it over? Hmm...
The action was there - the backdrop was there - the enemy was real and deadly - but the why? was elusive, especially when the enemy went so far as to reveal himself -- that should have been the point of revelation -- whatever the twist was here, that's where it should have been exposed, but I didn't get the twist (maybe I missed it?) -- was there one? That's where I got a little lost.
You've got great visualization going on though -- really liked the imagery. Definitely saw this guy getting pissed off and pretty much spitting at the enemy that ruined Christmas.
I enjoyed this story. I thought you conveyed the action very well. It may have just been me being slow but it wasn't until the second 'flick' that I understood what you were getting at. Once I got it, I thought it was brilliant.
Have to see if can edit it or if this version is how it is. Definitely should change title too Little Green Men as that does apply to the plastic toy men and the aliens at hand.
I tried to leave the ending a little open to interpretation, but the original intention I had is that the Bane are really us - true humanity as we know it in this world. The idea is that this cycle happened to us and it's continuing. Basically, God plucks down these Earths, trying to perfect the human race. He found 'us' lacking and so he thought that maybe a second heart would make us feel more and fix the issue. The Bane (us) have learned from being attacked and surviving that there are more human looking people in the universe and this is how they see the problem. The Bane (us) have been declared imperfect and that doesn't sit well with them, and so when they discover this new planet with the next incarnation of humanity, they're determined to prove their worth and show to God that we are the ones deserving of God's attention and he needs to quit testing the equation and love them. In the end, the Bane are only doing this because they need God's love so badly, and being declared faulty wrecks them.
I tried to hint at this by using 'he' and 'him.' I had thought of making each 'he' and 'him' capitalized, but thought maybe that was too on the money and that leaving some questions up in the air might be preferred.
Enjoyed this very much!
I have to say that I agree with Ethan that's its a bit odd when the main character dies, but its in first person. Not sure what you can do about this though, I did enjoy it despite that.
Another thing, slightly more (or less depending on your point of view) important. You used the word 'mom'. Am yow from the west midlands? I don't know of any others that use that word. If so, well done :-D
Matty
I like the juxtaposition of the toy soldiers and actual war, though it feels like you could have hit home a little more on the horrors of war. The punches feel a little pulled in places. While it’s slow at the beginning, I liked that, and thought it was more successful than the latter part where he confronts the Bane. There should be a little more action in the action sequence, and maybe the unmasking can be done a little more organically. Having the Bane show himself pre-chest shot didn’t quite work, I’d consider doing it afterwards in the shock of seeing the two hearts. That twist was very well done by the way, a neat play on expectations. The whole scene that follows is very well played, a mysterious finish with no resolution but I didn’t feel any lack of satisfaction with it. I actually thought that finish elevated the story a little. This certainly has bags of potential.
I very much enjoyed the 'voice' and tone of this story, especially at the beginning. I'm not overly concerned that I have no idea what was going on at the end, except for death, but there were some phrasing issues starting about the middle part of the piece. For instance, I thought the simile of "...struck the Stalker like a punch in the face" was distracting. Striking it and punching it backwards a step or two would have been sufficient. But that's a quibble.
What I most liked about the story was, of course, its focus: the comparison between the play games of children with their little green men and the horrifying aspects of actual battle. That was done quite well.
Also, I was expecting, y'know, martians when I started reading this. Heh.
PS (post-reading the comments above): I actually like the lead-in paragraphy. It was well-written and developed the idea of toy soldier/real soldier quickly. Not every piece needs to start off with something getting blown up (as long, that is, as what it does start off with is important and draws the reader in, which I would say this opening did). I was reading the He/Him at the end as God, but still didn't get the cyclical nature of the multiple Earths--kept thinking that the protag must be one of the Bane that had infiltrated the humans. And, yeah, I had some problems with the rifle jammed in the leg bringing down the Stalker, but then again I have a rabbit in one of my stories fighting a fox, so I can't really say anything.
So, anyway, it could use some polish, but most of it is there.
--Patrick
The Human Argument