Feedback Request

The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1307 would like comments on the revision below:


John Piscus survived the apocalypse, but lost his memories.

Humanity is decimated when a nanotech experiment is accidentally unleashed to [on] the world, which makes [making] light lethal to humans and forces [forcing] the survivors to live in the dark. All John wants is [to] survive the [this] hostile world, but a girl’s arrival at his shelter stirs [disrupts] his near paranoid and self-centred life; she is glowing, and therefore she is a threat to him.

The girl is convinced danger is near. He is reluctant to trust her, until fearsome troopers, who are herding survivors, hunt and eventually incapacitate them both, and bring them to a research facility [teeming with other survivors].

Unlike what he expected, they [Their captors] allow John limited freedom in the facility, though he is closely monitored. However, they take the girl away. John is worried [investigates], and decides to find her. He discovers that those who run the facility are experimenting on the other survivors, in an attempt [hoping] to reverse what happened to the world. And the girl is integral in achieving it [to their efforts]. But he also uncovers the truth about his forgotten past. At the risk of dying, John must [vows to] save the girl, otherwise those in charge will not only end up killing her, but also finish off [before she and] the few [others] who survived the apocalypse [are killed].

THE DARKENING is a 97,000 word post-apocalyptic horror novel, and will appeal to readers who enjoyed the melancholy mood and tone of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and P. D. James’s The Children of Men.

I am a bilingual Greek who studied and lived in Scotland for five years. [Sorry to have marked up the text so much; it's really not that bad considering you've lived most of your life in two countries where they don't speak English.] My short stories have appeared in online magazines, including Voluted Tales, Eternal Haunted Summer, and 9 Tales Told in the Dark.

Thank you for your time and consideration[period]


Notes

If the choice is between risking the lives of the survivors in the facility in order to fix the world so survivors everywhere else can handle being exposed to light, and rescuing the survivors in the facility but maintaining the status quo, which will lead to everyone dying, I'm for doing what's best for the many. In other words, the stakes are too high in the wrong direction for us to get behind the hero. Saving humanity takes precedence over saving the girl. Unless she's really good looking.

Also, I still don't get how the people who have yet to be exposed to light know that being exposed to light is lethal. Anyone who works in a radio or TV station would have been exposed to light, so how is word getting out? Perhaps people like the troopers who aren't affected by light are doing it? Even so, most of the limited number of people who haven't been exposed to light yet would probably find it hard to believe a radio announcement telling them they have to stay in the dark or they'll be devoured by a monster.

As you've opened with a one-sentence paragraph in both versions, I'm guessing you read somewhere that this is a good idea. I recommend dumping the first paragraph and just adding John's last name the first time you mention him after that.