Feedback Request

The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1275  (the post just below this one) would like feedback on this revision:


Dear Evil Editor,

In 2097, fourteen-year-old Brian has always been fascinated by the first interstellar colonization mission [Saying he's always been fascinated in 2097 is like saying Last Tuesday Brian always wanted to be a fireman. In any case, we can guess that it's well in the future, so no need to specify the exact year.] – a 300-year-long, 20 light-year voyage [We don't need both the time and distance of the planned voyage.] that the crew will spend mostly in Cryosleep. After he nearly drowns, his dad tells him they both have the rare Cryosleep genetic modifications, a requirement for going on the mission. He’s stunned to learn that his mother’s death eight years ago was [mother died eight years ago] in a bombing by fundamentalist terrorists opposed to genetic modifications. His dad never told him, to protect him from growing anti-genmod prejudices fostered by fundamentalist propaganda. [We don't need to know why dad didn't tell him. We just need to know he's got the genmods needed for the mission.] [I provided a sample of a cohesive opening paragraph in my notes on the previous version, one that eliminated the mother's death eight years ago and Brian's failure to drown. I see they've made their way into this version. How mom died would be important if it were the inciting event in Brian's signing on to the mission, but he's always been interested in the mission. We don't care that Brian nearly drowned, we only care that he has the genmods. In fact, I'm not sure we even need that. Can't he just get the genmods after he's approved for the mission? Why did he get them so young? They wouldn't modify you at a young age, knowing you might not want to go on the mission when you were older, or that you might not even be qualified physically and emotionally and intellectually for the mission.] 

Brian is delighted when he and his dad join the mission. But the mission will be canceled if it hasn’t reached its goals by an approaching deadline – anti-genmod prejudices are slowing recruitment, as many are afraid to disclose, or even unaware that they have, the essential Cryosleep genmods. [The whole point of getting the genmods was to be prepared for the mission, so why are there people who don't know they have them?] [How many recruits do they need? When NASA has ten positions available in astronaut training they get thousands of applications. Hey, the more people with genmods get subjected to prejudice, the more they're gonna want to get off the planet.] When Brian learns the mission is also short of pilots for its critical Dragonfly one-person support spacecraft because the fundamentalists are blocking approval of the contract for training software, [Apparently things are different in the future; in our time, we would never give fundamentalist terrorists the power to block approval of contracts for anything to do with any kind of mission.] 

[The mission to put a man on Mars has completed the training phase.

Excellent. So what's the holdup?

The rocket fuel contracts still haven't been approved by al Qaeda and ISIS.]

he adapts shareware from a gaming group he’s in to do the job, and recruits some new teenage mission friends to help test it. Their hard work earns them spots as Dragonfly cadets, and their teenage adaptability helps them do well, despite attempts of some jealous older cadets to discredit them. [Failed attempts to discredit them is a minor subplot that has no place in the query letter.] But the terrorists are worried that positive publicity surrounding the teenagers’ participation will save the mission by boosting recruitment, and attempt to eliminate them – the teenagers barely escape.

The teenagers are more determined than ever, and are sent into space with the other cadets to the nearly completed starship to finish their training. But while they’re drilling in their Dragonflies, a robotic cargo ship establishes a collision course for the unarmed starship. Time is short, and the teenagers are the only ones in a position to stop it, [In the previous version you said the starships were nearing completion. Yet not only is this one unarmed, it can't even go to warp 1 to escape a cargo ship?] although the attempt could cost them their lives. But if the starship is lost, it will be the end of humanity’s first attempt to reach the stars – and of all the rest of the Dragonfly pilots and other close friends still onboard. [It's not clear that the robotic cargo ship is being controlled by the bad guys. Maybe it's gone off course due to a computer glitch.]

Mission of Terror is a young adult hard science fiction novel with series potential, complete at 95,000 words. It’s use of human genetic engineering for Cryosleep, [I don't remember Ripley needing any genomes to be put in Cryosleep in Alien.] [Just once I'd like to type "genmods" without Blogger changing it to "genomes."]and fundamentalist terrorist opposition to genetic engineering, drive much of the stories’ [story's?] conflict.

Thank you for your time and consideration.


Notes

You keep using the word "fundamentalist." I Googled fundamentalism and found it was a movement in American Protestantism that arose in the early part of the 20th century in reaction to modernism and that stresses the infallibility of the Bible not only in matters of faith and morals but also as a literal historical record, holding as essential to Christian faith belief in such doctrines as the creation of the world, the virgin birth, physical resurrection, atonement by the sacrificial death of Christ, and the Second Coming. Is this what you mean by fundamentalists? I think you need to come up with a name for the group. If al Qaeda called themselves the "fundamentalist terrorists," the world would ignore them. Your group needs a cool name, like the Antediluvians. 

Even if fundamentalist terrorists wanted to stop genetic modification, it seems they'd attack buildings where it's being done, or politicians who favor doing it, not a starship whose mission is colonization. People will think they attacked the starship because they believe man was not meant to travel to the stars.

This sentence has too much unnecessary information: When Brian learns the mission is also short of pilots for its critical Dragonfly one-person support spacecraft because the fundamentalists are blocking approval of the contract for training software, he adapts shareware from a gaming group he’s in to do the job, and recruits some new teenage mission friends to help test it. Here's what we need: When Brian learns the mission needs pilots for its Dragonfly spacecraft, he and some of his friends sign up.