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The inevitable paradise
How It Rates
Description
In the near future, humanity has created a world where everything seems perfect, where everyone is omnipotent, a world without hate, greed or worry. Paradise. The pinnacle of human developement.Why would you ever leave?
*edit In response to your helpful comments i've made numerous changes to the story, fixed grammar and spelling errors. There are fewer scenes now and the story is told from the perspective of the computer.
Comments
Hi there,
I think the story needs some editing. There are a few typos and punctuation mistakes, and I got the impression that this is the first draft? I felt there was too much 'telling' and not enough 'showing', and some of the dialogue felt unrealistic. I can see you had a moral to the story, but using the characters dialogue to show that didn't work for me.
There are some good elements though, so stick with it and work on it some more :)
Like it. The matrix-wake-up scene could do with some work. Cannibals raiding the pods feels a bit too much. Maybe it would be even scarier if the problem is that nobody really cares abou the pods anymore.
Very smooth read. It reminds me of a cross between A Brave New World and The Matrix. Was Johanna always the computer or did she ever actually exists?
I like the concept of your story, but it does need some editing - along the same lines as JC is suggesting - don't tell us so much. Show us more - let us feel the computer's empathy and dilemmas rather than telling us.
I think the premise is interesting, but the style and structure was jarring for me. I personally found it difficult to get into the story because of these issues.
Vel gert!
I really liked the story. The idea is original and the world sounds intriguing. However, the story itself needs a little work. I need to believe that Marcus is in love with Joanna for the story to work and I'm just not convinced.
I think fewer scenes, more complete in and of themselves, would make the story simpler and easier to follow.
It does read like a first draft, and I think that it has enormous promise. Keep working at it; simplify the storyline and make Marcus a more complete character (what did he do before? Why did he enter the pod and stay so long?) You have a great idea for a story here, one that might end up in one of the bigger sci-fi magazines, but it needs work. Do the work.
I really enjoyed this story.
The only real suggestion I have other than additional drafts--revising, checking grammer, etc--is I think your story really ends with the sentence where the computer sends the electrical surge. Everything past that seems a little too apocalyptic for where the heart of this story really lies--the computer coming to a decision. I don't think there's much of a need to go ahead and describe the inevitable end you've already foreshadowed. Take us out with the curtain closing on our main character. Maybe a few sentences to smooth it out, but let the focus stay with him and the computer.
Thanks for sharing!
I do like the idea of fully submersive better-than-life artificial realities - they are becoming a staple of sci-fi, but this didn't feel in any way re-hashed or unoriginal. It was a good lead in, the description of the characters were too fantasy-like, but then the realistion hits that there is a reason for that. There is a good superficiality to the story in the opening segments which perfectly mirror the superficial nature of the world they inhabit. I would have liked to have seen more hinted at between Johanna and Marcus. That kind of obsession after a few days seems misplaced when he is so adamant he wants to remain in the virtual world. I do agree that the wake up scene is a little much, but presumably you go with cannibals to up the fear-factor in the real world as a counter-balance to the virtual utopia. I like that Johanna's disappearance is never explained, and the inference that she may have fallen foul to the scavengers is well done. The eventual tragic ending is signposted, but still very well done - I loved the actions of the computer, and loved the bleakness of that last paragraph.
Unlike others, this doesn't really feel like a first draft to me. My first drafts don't come out this well. :)
I thought you represented both the virtual world and the real world very well. I think the 2-dimensional characters are probably what would happen if they lived as gods in a virtual world. I accepted that. I think the real world with scavengers was a very nice touch, complete with the burning down of the world.
You do see the ending coming from a long way off, though. That might take a lot to change, if it mattered to you. The only scene I remember feeling was unecessary was the one with her father. You open an can of worms with that: he's only known her for a few days, but he knows who her actual father is and where to find him? Nothing new comes out of that scene, either, and if it were me, I'd ditch it. There was a little confusion with the Julia and Tomas scene, too. That's very hard to visualize, since Julia seems to appear and sound entirely like a man, and vice versa for Tomas. Maybe this is one of the things that is easier to do in books and on film, but for those of us who create pictures in our heads as we read, that was a slow patch in the story telling.
Overall, the language was good and the ideas clever. The track of the story was pretty good too, but just lacks a bit of depth, maybe. Thanks for posting this!