Evil Editor's Blog, page 51

Face-Lift 1353

Guess the Plot

Crimson God

1. He is the Crimson God. All things in the red hue he rules over with an iron fist. Sadly, that includes everything Valentine's Day. Can Alan appease the god so he can charm Gwen or will he have to suffer a bloody-red fate?

2. Yahweh and Satan battle it out for the right to wear that red suit, the skin-tight one. The part where they go at it in the River Styx, sloshing around and hurling taunts is a hoot.

3. Disliking blood sacrifice enormously, the god Filenaiy'dis needs to somehow lose the title of "Crimson God." Unfortunately, his cult warring for sacrifices to him has other ideas. Like adding him to the list of victims.

4. The Crimson God and its gun-toting robots were defeated by Rio's ancestors ages ago. Now they're back, and unless Rio can stop them, her people are doomed. The good news is Rio can become invisible. The bad news is it's hard to beat gun-toting robots even if they can't see you. 

5. When Al Gonzalez, jockey of Triple Crown bound Crimson God, dies after a fall at Santa Anita, homicide detective Zack Martinez knows two things. One, Gonzalez didn't shoot himself in the backstretch; and two, maybe he should break down and buy his daughter a pony.

6. It shouldn't be that hard for a god to land the goddess of his dreams, but Eros's face turns red every time he tries to talk to a female, and he runs away in embarrassment. 



Original Version

Dear (Agent's name),

In the new world, many have supernatural abilities, but Rio is more transparent than most, she can turn invisible. [That last comma should be a dash, semicolon or period.] When she was twelve, she survived the frozen wasteland, [That comma should be deleted.] known only as the labyrinth. That's where she gained her gift along with the scars the wolves gave her as souvenirs. [What do you mean by she's more transparent than most? Obviously an invisible person is more transparent than one who isn't invisible. Are the others partially transparent? I would just say many have supernatural abilities; Rio can turn invisible.]

Now at the age of seventeen, Rio is the best hunter in her kingdom and has earned the title of Arch-Huntress, but because her father needs an heir, he forces her to marry her best friend, Leon. She protests to no avail. Every king needs a successor and her father will secure one anyway [any way] he can, so he demands that she forfeits her rank to become a loyal and submissive wife.

Just when Rio thought her hunting days were over, a strange sound erupts in the middle of the night. The sound of a gunshot, [or] at least that's what she thinks it is. But no, that's impossible. Guns are the forgotten weapons of robotic creatures who served the Crimson God. [You're just now getting around to mentioning that your book has robots with guns? This changes everything.] Assuming the history books she read in school were accurate, the false god and his empire were defeated a long time ago by Rio's ancestors. [The Germans were defeated in WWI, but still managed to have guns when WWII rolled around. And even if the Germans had been eradicated, it wouldn't be impossible for some of their guns to still exist.] So when her father quickly dismisses the strange sound, she knows that he's hiding something and that he's been doing it for a long time. [I don't see how she can know all that just from his dismissing the sound quickly. It's not like she's ever heard a real gunshot. If a loud noise startled my child, I think I'd be quick to tell him what it was instead of waiting awhile and letting his imagination run wild.]

With nothing else to look forward to but an awkward wedding, she heads out on one last hunt. [A hunt for the robots with guns?] Rio's experience won't help her this time as she uncovers a secret that will leave her city vulnerable to the reawakening God, still bent on revenge.

My novel is complete at 90,000 words and is the first in a planned series. My manuscript is available, in part or full, upon request. Thanks for your time and consideration.


Notes

I can see how invisibility would be useful to a huntress. But you don't mention how her gift plays a role in the story. You might as well start with paragraph 2: At the age of seventeen, Rio is the best hunter in her kingdom, thanks in part to her ability to become invisible. But can her gift let her defeat an army of robots with guns? We don't need to know about the wolves and scars and labyrinth if they aren't going to come up again in the plot summary.

Another advantage to dumping paragraph 1 is that you get to the robots with guns faster.

How did these primitive people ever manage to defeat the Crimson God with its army of robots with guns?

I think I'd like this query to carry the plot beyond the uncovering of the mysterious secret. All we have is:

 17-year-old huntress Rio, who has the ability to become invisible, is being forced to quit hunting and marry her best friend. Before the wedding, she goes on one last hunt and discovers . . . what? That the Crimson God, who was defeated by her people eons ago has amassed an army of robots with guns and is bent on revenge? And she tries to stop the God by _______, but her plan is foiled when _______.

She could run back and warn her people, or she could try her plan B, which of course requires invisibility. Each has its pros and cons.

Publishing Opportunity

The annual Fark.com anthology is still open for submissions. We are leaving the window for submissions open until June 15 instead of May 15, so there's still time to get your work submitted. We're seeking Fantasy, Humor, Horror, SF, Mystery, Thriller and poetry that deals with same. No minimum; maximum length 10,000.

Through A Scanner Farkly Submissions

--Khazar-Khum

Face-Lift 1352

Guess the Plot

Summer, 1992

1. The days are long. The nights are short. The nights are hot. The days are hotter. This is a story about a summer. In 1992.

2. My first kiss. My first job. My first murder. My first pet. My first... whaddaya mean, plot?

3. Ah, yes, good old summer time. Backyard cookouts, kids playing in the yard, mint juleps, lying in the hammock... zzzzz.

4. It is the summer that never ends. Literally. Can Jaden figure out a way to end summer before everyone dies of heat stroke?

5. It's like Groundhog Day, the movie. Except this time it spans an entire summer. Starting off with Joseph getting a bucket of ice cold water dumped on him to wake up.

6. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird are looking forward to a summer of dribbling and tinto de verano. But when a maniac starts murdering tourists with basketballs in the Sagrada Familia, they suspect that Michael Jordan is not doing “salsa lessons” in his spare time.

7. It was a year like any other. Only this year, the first World Ocean Day is celebrated. Then it happens again, and again. Except what happens when the ocean inhabits the entire world? Rick is about to find out. 

8. Angel is hoping to save Damon from killing himself with drugs. If she can't, her career as a singer/songwriter is doomed, because all her songs are about him. That her class ring is a direct line to God should help.


Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Please allow me to introduce [Here's the problem with opening with those five words. Immediately my mind goes to "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones, which may actually be what you want, but at this point I have no idea what you want, so to be fair I decide to Google the five words and see if anything else comes up. Nope. I discover the song has been covered  by Guns N Roses, Motörhead and Jane's Addiction. Naturally I have to listen to each version on YouTube to see how they compare with the original. The Motörhead version's pretty good. Maybe I should check out this Motörhead group. I click on another of their songs. Nope. Forget it. Not for me. I wonder what that umlaut over the second "o" in Motörhead does, but I resist the urge to use Google to find out. I go to Spotify and arrange for my computer to play "Honky Tonk Women" and "Wild Horses" over and over while I'm working.] [My point being that, assuming you would rather I focused more on your query than on the two greatest songs ever recorded, you've screwed up royally. I'm listening to the wrong songs.] SUMMER, 1992, a contemporary, new adult, coming-of-age saga with a love story at its heart, coming in at 89,000 words. [That's a lot of words to describe the book's category. I think of coming of age books as covering the growth from childhood to adulthood. I think of New Adult as taking place in the period just after becoming adult. As there's usually no coming of age section in a bookstore, I'd go with new adult love story.]

It's 1992 and 18-year-old singer/songwriter Angel Carlton has her life all figured out. At the end of the summer, she plans to go to college in Nashville, get a record deal, and finally get over Damon, her brilliant and elusive muse of three years. But first, she arrives at her family's beach house for [she'll be spending] a long-dreamed[-]about, unsupervised summer after graduation in Ocean City, Maryland [,where she first met Damon.] with her two best friends, and searches for a job on the boardwalk.

But Angel has a secret. She believes that because of an answered prayer that reversed the sale of the house, God has sent her to the beach, where she met Damon, to save him [Damon] from drug-fueled self destruction before the summer's end. If successful, she'll become a star; if not and he dies, [she'll become an even bigger star.] she fears she may never write another song... since they are all about him.

Confident that God has already arranged for them to meet, Angel impatiently waits to run into Damon, and vows to remain just friends when it happens. Meanwhile, she begins to suspect that her class ring with the cross might just be a direct channel to God. Every time she looks at it and prays for something, it happens. [If I had that ring I'd be constantly praying. Why isn't she?]

When she actually does run into Damon, all Hell breaks loose. [So the ring was actually a direct channel to Satan. Nice twist.] By the end of the seven tumultuous weeks with songs written, promises broken, and dreams in danger of going up in smoke, Angel is no longer sure of anything anymore. Now she has to figure out what she really wants and, more importantly, what she really believes before she loses everything and everyone she loves the most. [The first plot paragraph had more specific information than I wanted. This one is the opposite. Broken promises and lost dreams seems pretty mild for something described as all hell breaking loose, and everything after that line is vague.]

The story, best described as ELEANOR AND PARK meets THE NOTEBOOK is told in diary format. It alternates between 1992 and the present as the main character, now middle-aged, types up her journal from the summer of 1992 while sharing it with her sixteen-year-old daughter, curious to see if she can guess what it hides without being told. Because of the dominant time period and the resulting nostalgia, I believe it has cross-over potential for women's fiction.

For many years I worked in Nashville's music industry where I pursued rock stardom after spending a summer at the beach. Currently I work as a web designer and homesteader on Maryland's Eastern Shore. I excel at talking people out of things.

Thank you for your time and consideration.


Notes

I'd drop the third plot paragraph and rewrite the fourth with more specifics about what happens during those seven weeks and how failing to immediately figure out what she really wants and believes will cause her to lose everything and everyone she loves the most. 

Usually when we get to the end of the plot description the MC needs to take some crucial action or make some crucial decision that will determine how the story ends. Figuring out what she wants and believes is so wide-open it feels bland. Can you at least narrow it down to a couple wants or a couple beliefs?

Using the names Angel and Damon seems heavy-handed to me. 

Feedback Request

Revision of Face-Lift 1288: The Feast of Masks, previous revision posted 4/23/17.


In legend, dragons could accomplish anything with their magic if they obtained the right treasure.

Mercenary Tali Adilrein, who once wielded dragon magic, finds one such powerful "dragon treasure" in Shimmer, a girl she rescues from kidnappers. Suspecting a rogue mage wants the girl, one who doesn't care that using her to fuel his magic will eventually damage her, Tali hires on as Shimmer's bodyguard.

What Tali doesn't realize is an ancient dragon has roused from a millennium of slumbering captivity. Cautious at first but growing more bold, the dragon sends out [Sends out? Explain.] bespelled traps to kill those who defeated its unwitting minions (the kidnappers) and recapture Shimmer: arrows it can guide to strike specific targets, a necklace that will control the wearer's mind and body, flames that move and act as if alive. [That sentence is easy to get lost in. It's Tali alone who defeated the dragon's minions, right? So all the "traps" are targeting her? So you could replace "those who defeated its unwitting minions (the kidnappers)" with "Kali." Specificity is good, but I'm not sure we need the list of traps (two of which sound more like deadly weapons than traps).] 

To counter the dragon's spells, Tali will need to once again wield dragon magic. To protect Shimmer, she will need to risk accepting the girl's aid as treasure.

To fight the dragon, Tali will need to become a dragon.


Notes

Which comes first? The dragon waking up or Tali rescuing Shimmer from kidnappers? It's easy to assume things happen in the order you tell us about them, but hard to imagine the dragon has minions doing its bidding if it hasn't yet awakened from a millennium of sleep.

Maybe we don't need to know the dragon's been asleep. What Tali doesn't realize is that the kidnappers are the unwitting minions of an ancient dragon now set on recapturing Shimmer.

Those three closing sentences, all in the To ________, she will have to ________. format aren't grabbing me.  Maybe something like:

To defeat the dragon, Tali will need to wield dragon magic. And for that . . .  She will need to become a dragon.

Or: To defeat the dragon and protect Shimmer, Tali will need her dragon magic along with the girl's aid . . . even if it kills them both. 

New Beginning 1066

A small pair of black feathered wings sprouted from Kumo's back. He stepped in front of the sobbing boy who saw him as a guardian angel descending from heaven.

Crimson eyes accompanied by a series of huffs drew their attention to the hallway. Lurking on the other side of the wingless child's home was a beast whose indistinguishable silhouette watched them. Rather than to say it hid in the shadows, it instead was a living epitome of unilluminated space. Every spot of darkness was its to control. It was a blanket growing larger as it grasped at anything light couldn't reach.

More broken whimpers escaped the boy's mouth. The angel looked back, giving a warm smile. "Don't worry," he said to calm the young one's thoughts, "I'll protect you."

"B-But, it's scary!" the other one protested, referring to the beast in front of them. He didn't like scary things. In fact, he detested them.

Its claws scraped the hardwood floor as thick, black goo oozed down the walls. It enveloped the hallway in darkness until nothing but its eyes flashed.

"Harry," the Angel said to the beast, "You're scaring the boy. Can you knock it off, please?" The boy looked at the Angel, confused.

"Sorry," Harry said in a surprisingly soft, high-pitched voice, reminiscent of Mike Tyson.

The boy's fear turned to wonder, and he looked up at the Angel, still holding his hand. "You know him?"

"He's my brother."

"Isn't he a... demon?"

"We're all children of God."

"Oh," the boy said. "I thought that only applied to people. The Bible says--"

"Oh, that. That was an uncorrected proof. The final version never caught on."


Opening: Natanne Norman.....Continuation: Audra Coldiron

Feedback Request

The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1351 would like your opinion of the following revision:



Dear Evil Editor,
After murdering his abusive parents, Victor’s taken to a manor for mentally ill and paranormally infected teens. If you meet the requirements—crazy, not human, and dangerous—attendance is mandatory. Along with three others, Victor must train to join the rumor detectives, a police force charged with keeping the world’s weird creatures in line. [If you mean attendance is mandatory at rumor police training classes you should mention the rumor police before mentioning attendance (basically, by switching sentences 2 and 3). If you mean attendance is mandatory in the manor, we pretty much assume that from the fact he was taken there after committing murder.] He wants to be a good rumor detective. But sometimes Victor thinks he’s more villain than hero. [Based on the requirements, I feel like everyone in this place is more villain than hero. Why are people who are crazy and dangerous chosen to train as rumor police?]
When Victor discovers that he and his friends have a strange Tarot card disease, it’s more proof his life is rife with oddness. Brands appear on their bodies, marking [each of] them as one of the Major Arcana—which card depends on their personalities and pasts. Victor is branded the Tower, the card of disaster and revelation. Though he gains the ability to create thunderstorms and hear lies, the magic is draining and difficult to control.
The White Man, a murderer branded the Devil, calls them the End of the World. [Is the White Man already a rumor detective? If not, is he training? Does he live in the manor?] Whether the world is destroyed or its reality altered for the better depends on if they can defeat him, but the biggest threat isn’t always who it seems.
Victor believes Hugo, whose card gives him the ability to bend reality to his will, plays a large part in the White Man’s plans. As a rumor detective, he knows he should eliminate Hugo before he becomes a pawn in their enemy’s games. [Wouldn't it be better to eliminate their enemy than his pawn?] But his feelings for the boy cloud his judgement—just like the memories of killing his parents.
A YA urban fantasy, THE ALL MADS takes place in Prague. It is complete at 120,000 words.
Thank you for your time and consideration.

Notes
When you say Victor and his friends have been branded, and later say the White Man is branded, I'm not sure it's clear that the White Man isn't a member of Victor's team. This can be avoided either by naming Victor's friends (instead of "along with three others" say "along with his friends Hugo, Sebastian and Caroline." and/or by mentioning somewhere that Victor's team call themselves the All-Mads, so that you can later say the White Man calls the All Mads the End of the World, instead of he calls "them" the End of the World.
It's an improvement, but I still feel we spend too much time on the situation, and too little on what happens. Perhaps opening with something like this: 
Seventeen-year-old Victor Jones and his friends Caroline, Sebastian and Hugo make up a police squad charged with keeping weird creatures in line. It's a job they were born for, as all of them have unique paranormal talents. When brands appear on their bodies, marking each of them with one of the Major Arcana of a Tarot card pack, they aren't sure whether it's a disease or an omen.

. . . and following with a paragraph about the White Man--who is he, what has he done that convinced them he was their enemy, what's his goal, what happens if he succeeds?

Finally, a paragraph telling us how the All Mads plan to stop the White Man, what goes wrong, what decision they must get right to succeed.

You should be able to squeeze some specifics about the Tarot cards into those paragraphs.

This eliminates the awkward situation of having to explain why dangerous crazy teens are given such authority. 

New Beginning 1065

Howls of the dead and the horrifying screams of the living were the only sounds that could be heard. The deserted town was potent with the stench of trash and iron making bile burn in the back of my throat. Nonetheless, I didn't have time to think about the disgusting state of the area. Chasing after us was a mob of rotting corpses.

Moving corpses slowly cornered us, literally and figuratively. Backed against a wall, I was forced to come to terms with the fate that awaited us. I looked over to my brother with tear-striken eyes and whimpered, "At least we have each other. I love you, Jack."

His grey eyes wavered when he gave me a shaky smile and ruffled my hair. "I love you too, Lulu. But," he gripped onto my shoulders and said, "I love myself more." A smirk stretched his lips as I registered his last words.

In a matter of seconds, his warmth was gone, replaced by a strong force pushing me away. Jack ran past the zombies before they could blink, never looking back. The echoes of his laughter overshadowed even the groans of the dead.

It only took a single shot to the back of the knee to quiet Jack's giggles, and as he crumpled to the ground, the undead could sense the fresh iron smell leaking from his wound. As they turned to feed on what passed for his brain, I slipped away into the shadows. Yes, Jack was nimble and Jack was quick, but Jack forgot my semi-automatic.


Opening: Natanne Norman.....Continuation: ril

Face-Lift 1351

Guess the Plot

The All Mads

1. It's a Masquerade and Suzy is enjoying every minute of it. But when the clock strikes midnight, everyone becomes the mask they wear. Can Suzy find her friends and escape the curse or is she doomed to forever be a white rabbit?

2. John Gibbons, head of the Sydney Home for Disturbed Boys, needs to find an outlet for all that youthful energy and violence. And so he proposes a football team to take on the city's best. But they need a name, and the name they pick, the All Mads, might not do them any favors.

3. Every pharmaceutical company, every drug counter at the store, every light-shaded bottle with colorful pills inside.... oh, you said mads.... That works tOo. Them drugs dO things tO yOur mind.

4. After murdering his parents and being diagnosed as mentally ill, Victor trains to be a detective. Not just any detective, though. Part of a team called the All Mads, who police all the world's weird creatures.



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

After Victor murders his parents, he’s taken to a manor for mentally ill and paranormally infected kids. Along with the mind-manipulating Sebastian, the gentlemanly Caroline, and the insanely adorable (and plain insane) Hugo, he trains to become a rumor detective—a police force for all the world’s weird creatures. [Because in this enlightened world, law enforcement is the perfect field for mentally ill murderers.] 

Hunting physical monsters is easy. [If hunting monsters is the job, it would have a better name than "rumor detective." You're as likely to hear rumors that there's a thief or a serial killer in the area as a monster.] [Also, if you want me to read about a team who hunt monsters, don't start by telling me hunting monsters is easy. I want it to be challenging.] It’s the ones in Victor’s head that give him trouble. But [maybe] the other kids might be able to [can] tame them, since they’re certainly capable of taming real ones. [That the other kids have tamed the monsters in their own heads would be a better indicator than is their ability to tame real monsters.]

When Victor discovers that himself [he] and his friends have a strange Tarot card disease, it’s just another event that proves [more proof that] his life is rife with oddness. A murderer named the White Man, who plans to use the four in a devilish plot, calls them the End of the World. [(They prefer to go by "The All-Mads.")] Whether the world is destroyed or its reality altered for the better depends on them, but sometimes they seem too bad to be the good guys. 

A young adult LGBT urban fantasy, THE ALL MADS takes place in Prague. It is complete at 120,000 words. The full manuscript is available upon request.

Thank you for your time and consideration.


(The reason the title is The All Mads is because that’s what the kids name their team, claiming “they’re all mad here.”)


Notes

Do Caroline, Hugo and Victor have paranormal powers that are useful in their jobs, as Sebastian does? If so, you should mention them rather than using adjectives like "gentlemanly" and "insanely adorable." If those adjectives and the monsters in the kids' heads are attempts to hint that this is LGBT, I think you need something more obvious.

The Tarot card disease is interesting, but it has no apparent connection to the White Man, so either move it, delete it, or connect it.

The second paragraph doesn't tell us much beyond Victor has monsters in his head, which we can infer from the fact he's apparently a mentally ill murderer. If we dump that paragraph, we'll have room to expand on the third paragraph with information like what the White Man wants them to do, and what his goal is, and how they plan to stop him. How the world might be destroyed or its reality altered. The symptoms of Tarot card disease. 

And perhaps why you describe this as LGBT. There's no need to mention LGBT just because you have a couple LGBT characters. If that term applies to the entire team, and their struggles as LGBT are a major theme of the book, that's a potential selling point and perhaps needs to be made more obvious.

They're a police force for all the world's weird creatures. I'm not sure even after reading the whole query whether that means they protect the world's weird creatures (from monsters?) or they protect the world's humans from weird creatures (including monsters).

Feedback Request

The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1350 would like feedback on this revision.


Ziva Kritikos wants to grow up. Her best friends, Sophie and Abigail already have goals in mind for their lives. Kyle, a boy hooked on messing with her is headed towards his dreams while Ziva doesn't even have any. She doesn't want to be left behind, and her library's books won't help her find a path. Desperate for a change, Ziva relies on a shooting star.

When her wish is granted however, she gets a limitless supply of information at the tip of her tongue instead. Now holding the power to devour her written words, her hunger doesn't allow them to stay on paper. In turn, no one else can see them, leaving her once perfect grades at the mercy of blank tests and notebooks.

To make matters worse, the fourteen-year-old's body now only craves words, rejecting anything else. The more ink she eats, the more she begins to doubt if she's human. However, the only thing beastly about Ziva is her appetite.

As she indulges in her greed, the girl comes to a realization―her meals are memories stolen from humanity. She becomes terrified of what her loved ones would do if they knew, so she keeps the grim truth to herself. Seeing as how the stars won't listen to her pleas, Ziva decides to starve. She can prevent herself from stealing anything else while fading away in silence.

After telling Sophie and Abigail about her powers only to recieve fear-strucken [stricken] faces in response, Ziva confides in Kyle. He learns of her 'solution', but won't let her die so easily. After seeing her pass out from anemia, he brings her to the nurse's office. There, he makes her write his name in her sleep as a way of apologizing. However, he's ignorant of the consequences.

Ziva, now conscious and frustrated, has to make up for her reckless choices with one last decision: erase any trace of her existence or indulge in her greed without regrets?

A concoction of paranormal and fantasy, Words, a young adult novel is complete at 50,000 words.


Notes

While this is an improvement, it's still not clear. Lines I don't like:

a boy hooked on messing with her 

her library's books won't help her find a path (every library has books on careers. WHat more does she want?)

she gets a limitless supply of information at the tip of her tongue (that falls flat since you haven't yet mentioned that she eats words.)

holding the power to devour her written words
indulges in her greed(I would leave off the "in" if you must use this phrase, but I don't think it helps either way. And you use it twice.)

her meals are memories stolen from humanity(Meaning what? SOme of her meals were her school tests and reports. Were those humanity's memories. WHen she eats humanity's memories, does humanity lose the memories? IF she writes 2 + 2 = 4 and then eats it, do people no longer know what 2 + 2 =?)

he makes her write his name in her sleep as a way of apologizing (I don't see how that's an apology.)


These phrases obviously make sense to you, but I'm not sure what they mean.

It's gonna be hard enough to get readers to buy into this eating words concept. Explaining it in vague terms won't help.

New Beginning 1064

Five years ago, the semi-automated, MoonMax class freighter Magellan2050 launched from the Space Station at Lagrange Four. MoonMax class freighter required two maintenance men for it’s fifteen year flight.

“I dreamed of the beach and sunbathing again last night,” Cordell said.

“You dream? I’m still in the thrall of learning tapes,” Nate chuckled.

“Comparative philosophies again?

“A boring professor droning on about Man and Superman, Ego and Id, Situation Ethics, rational individualism, and best of all, Existentialism… A miasma of doubt black enough that no sky leaks through. Clearly, I’m not destined to be a philosopher.”

“What diseased social planner thought a philosopher required on Centauri B?” Cordell always searched for reason. He was disappointed many times. If he had been in his human body, Nate would have shrugged but this mechanical body didn’t shrug.

“They never studied philosophy. They just think it’s needed.”

“It’s all so ghastly, a douce-bag full of god swill.” Cordell laughed, venomously. Nate didn’t want to discuss comparative dis-illusionary ontology. They wrestled a new door into place for Cargo Hold 237. The old door was damaged by a pea-sized chunk of rock. Such impacts were rare. Finished, they transferred their minds to their flesh and blood bodies and slept.

Hundreds of hollow-eyed students followed Nate, mumbling 'Jungian, Freudian, Kantian' as they raised their hungry heads to him. Patchouli, pot and port mixed together in an unholy swill. And still they chanted, desperate, seeking truth--Nate jolted awake. It was coming true, as he'd always feared: being TA to old Philosophy professor Grange had come back to haunt him.


Opening: Dave Fragments.....Continuation: Khazar-khum



Notes

P1: Comma not needed. Hyphen needed between Moonmax and class. No need to capitalize space station. Station name would probably use 4 or IV, not Four. Its, not it's. Hyphen between fifteen and year. The second sentence is referring to this specific flight, not flights in general, so should use the ship's name instead of repeating "Moonmax-class freighter." Better yet, repeat neither; say, "Aboard for the fifteen-year flight were two maintenance men.

P6: I might go with "needed" instead of "required," which sounds more like it's a regulation, in which case there'd already be a philosopher there. 

P8: Douchebag.

So is maintenance man Nate studying philosophy because he's to become the resident philosopher on Centauri B? Maybe it would be easier to train a philosopher to do maintenance than the other way around. Although they both sound more like philosophers than maintenance men.

This flight has ten years to go. Let's hope something more interesting than conversation will happen soon.