Pale Farewell

It was right after he was first talking with Flint, just before he was talking with Walt. In the beginning, not sure what page.

Hahahahah I loved the opening dialogue, but the redacted bit had me in stitches. Unexpected and clever. Pushed the feel of a first person narrative knowing it was somehow being monitored.

In the realm of speculative fiction, I always feel its hard to bring something new to the table, but you did it in under 5,000. Well done.

I also dig that your word choice is expansive without feeling too high brow or 'L'iterature. It's nice to see a rich vocabulary used effectively. Makes the cussing mean more if you have an arsenal of words.

Thanks for the solid tale. 

I really like how clear and easy this is to follow without sacrificing style. Also love the notion that your MC's pretty much dead as we're reading this, since the strike-through passages imply someone's reading this after-the-fact. Nice DOA touch. I'd scan it over one more time for some minor spelling errors--sorry, I'm doing this on my phone so I can't provide an LBL--but otherwise you've written a cool, stylistic piece. Nice job.

Nice and interesting. There's a few spelling/grammar slips but all in all it's a very well written piece. I have to say the opening didn't grab me, it was only after the story proper kicked in that I was drawn into it, and all the unexplained acronyms threw me a little, but by the end I really enjoyed this. Nice work.

Very interesting. This reads a little like a melding of two other stories in the contest – The Quiet Detective and Heart, both of which are amongst my favourites.  Right from seeing the title I was expecting a pulpish take, and I wasn’t disappointed. The narrative is good, the characters are individuals with their own voices, and it all flows very well. It all builds to a nice crescendo as well, though I had some issues with the ending (more of that shortly).

There are some great passages here. My particular favourite was the description of Walt, “He was a dragon; smoke poured from every oral orifice when he spoke,” and that he gave off, “a stench reminiscent of some high-cultured son of a bitch who listened to Bach concertos in his winged leather armchair, with a walnut-panelled humidor on a nearby table”. It is one of the best character descriptions I’ve read on here.

There were a few issues I had though. The redacted name struck me as a pointless gimmick. I saw Dino’s comments on it, and I have to say I did not view it in the same way. Written as it is in the first person, I don’t see how anyone could be reading it after the fact. If they were, I’d have thought Flint’s name would have been redacted. Maybe I’m completely missing the point (which is more than possible), but I can’t see any reason for redacting the name, and can’t see how doing so serves the story.

The ending also confused the hell out of me. Again this may be just me, so take it with a pinch of salt, but it took me another read just to realise that Flint was ECSS. I don’t understand Flint’s motivation. Why does he need to kill Mr Redacted? Revenge for killing his “partner”? He claims that the protag is a chink in his armour, but this is a guy who has no idea that Flint isn’t exactly who he says he is, a WHOP. It feels like a twist ending, just for the sake of a twist ending. If I have missed something, than maybe it just needs clearing up and making it a little more obvious.

Also, one question occurred to me while reading… why do they only harvest one organ? Why not swipe all the originals at once, rather than waste decent organs? I thought that maybe everybody had replacement organs, and there were few originals, but at the end the job is to swipe the heart, and obviously he takes the kidney instead for Shay. It’s not a major point, just something that niggled me a little.

Apart from those few minor issues though, I really did enjoy this one. Best of luck with it.

Hey James,

This was a good futuristic noir.  I liked your MC and your prose was solid all the way through.  In terms of character, I think Flint could use a little bit more distinction, but all-in-all these are unique people.

Adam pointed out some of the points where suspension of disbelief could be strained and I agree with him for the most part (e.g. if the MC's name was redacted, why wouldn't the fact that Flint runs ECSS be redacted too).  But the truth is none of these pulled me out of the story.  The one thing I didn't love though was the ending.  The trouble with twist endings is if they don't work for a reader, then the whole thing feels like a bit of an anti-climax - which is how I felt after finishing.

I think the dialogue could also use a little work in the scene with Shay.  It feels kinda on-the-nose.  I could use a little more subtext and maybe a little more hope that she might come around.

This was a thumbs up from me.

P.S. It might not seem like I've given a thumbs up, but that's because I rated it a few weeks ago and today I finally felt I was decent enough at this reviewing business to come back to yours.