Paula’s Comments (group member since Oct 28, 2015)

Paula’s comments from the Science Fiction Microstory Contest group.

I so much admire your commitment and caring for your family, Thaddeus. Best wishes for your brother's renewed health.

Bill, this is such sad news. My condolences to you on your loss. Carrol's death is an enormous loss for all of us. As you know, she published a novel of mine, through her Lillicat Publishers, for which I was and am very grateful. Her work both as an editor/publisher and as a writer has been so wonderful, and her spirit amazing.
I am so sorry to hear of her death, Bill. I think we'll all remember and admire Carrol for a long time.

Is the client's audiobook fiction, Justin. I love your audiobook/audio-stories work.

Congratulations, Tom! Nice work.

For World--From Across the Outer Ness
Copyright 2023 by Paula Friedman

They are banging on the walls again. Banging away.

It has always been like this.

Or maybe only since the lowering time. The leaving time. In those days when Ending lifted us from World into the Outer Ness, those days/nights of no ending when we fell through outer space, forgetting World our home, forgetting mothers, fathers, friends we we knew, forgetting all except the Dark.

“Came to Earth.” Came in a crashing, smashing, breaking of all hopes and bones and ripping of our World-sent thick protective sheeting which had swathed the cabin of dear Ship who'd been a home for us in Outer Space. So that we—Remanda, Genree, Milay, Jeauvay, I, and tiny Yansee, we who remain—came out into this new world. And came to love it--for awhile. Of course--for here we learned to build, new ways to struggle, newer means to hold off these (this world's) harsh predators--Trr-Bords, Cr'-Ungers, looming Spinders--ways to flee and fight in ever-more novel ways. To forever fight, in this our long and losing fight against this world's recursive cruelties.

Yet recalling. Never, for all we had learned, forgetting. Always, in some sweat-drenched night, awaking from a sudden, never foretold dream of loss, to think "Oh but yes, thank God, I am not fallen there, not to harsh Earth--but instead am here, still here .... here, home again on World."

Only to realize what had waked us weren't the peace-trilling songbirds of World; what had waked us were the throbbing bangings of the Trr-Bords, Spinders, Cr'Ungers, nightmare predators to which we are a small but (it would seem) delicious prey—seeking us always as they clamber, hammer, batter on these walls.

Long, deep in space, good Ship’s walls had protected us. Here, harsh Earth warming to long summer, dampness wilts, possibly rots, such walls. Here we huddle, while those few defenses we had learned to construct—knowing only our gentle World and nothing of the interspecies preying of an Earth—crumble; we wipe each other's tears and clutch our babies' hands and hold their little bodies close to offer hope, life, while we can.

And even as, while walls and safety wilt and our predators bang and blast away what was or might have been, we yearn, no longer with hope yet without cease, for what we used to know, for World that was, so far away and long ago.

[428 words]

Marianne wrote: "Thanks, eveyone. My mom died with those she loved around her in hospice. She was finally ready to let go.

Now, I just have to get hubby back on his feet. Knee surgery went OK."

I'm glad to hear his surgery went okay, Marianne, and that you and others she loved could be with your mother when she died.

My condolences on your mother's death, Marianne.
Please take the time you need for grieving (and for the work of executrix) and do not feel any time-pressures to post.

Perhaps if it improves vastly--the example Jot pointed up for us had, for instance, one grammatical error ("like" for "as if") and a great many segments in the style of: simple-shortish-declarative-sentence-ff.-by subject(noun)-repetition-in-simple-short-other-declarative-sentence---a style heavily loaded into about every example of ChatGPT I've seen.
Certainly, such obvious requisites as crediting the authors on whose works a given set of ChatGPT products (books of type RT or BN, for ex.) have been developed, indicating whether a book is human-written or (X %) ChatGPT developed, etc. etc. must be part of further such AI development. And--so far, for sure--as Carrie noted here, a bit of human input is sure needed for the piece to be much more than a non-felt template/attempt.
Of course, we don't know what books have been the teaching ex's input into ChatGPT; I'd be interested to see one built using,, say, only the most emotionally and intellectually compelling works of Dostoevsky, Undset, Tillie Olsen, Chekhov, H. Green/J. Greenberg, Connie Willis, and 4 or 5 others who can rip you to tears while bringing in serious mental content---be interesting to see what an AI development can do with that. And I'm sure each human here has their own cluster of authors whose near-clone works they'd be anxious to examine. After which, one may have more longterm opinions. Maybe.
Of course, by then human opinions may be of lesser weight.

Thank you for bringing this matter up, Jot. Also, folks may be interested in the discussions of this on the Authors Guild's website..

This critique contains spoiler/s.
Re "The Future Is Now"---superbly fits Greg's superb theme.
Brilliant and excellently written, though some tightening to avoid repetitions would better clarify the flow, and perhaps you want to more develop the narrator and/or the female character as characters. I am reminded of a recent statement by one overseas lit critic who called a story "essayistic, which is both its strength and a weak point." (Of course, the "essayistic"ness does not keep this tale from giving a strong narrative sense and actualllly-felt characters.)

So only today have I had a chance to read all these fine March stories. Every one well done indeed.
And, S.E., what lovely usage of rhyme/poetry amid so much world/character-building---nice work! Super.

Sweet story, Greg.
Congratulations--very well deserved.

So sorry to hear this, Jot. Please accept my condolences.

A good St. Patrick's Day to all of you.
Marianne and Jot, thinking of each of you and of your wonderful devotion to your parents; may they have a gentle time in these coming weeks and months.
I've been getting lots of editing gigs again, so not likely to be doing any sf stories this, or probably next, month.

Very good 58th birthday to you, Jot.

Marianne wrote: "Fyi, all, I may not get a story in this month. My mom took a turn for the worse so we will see."

Marianne, I hope your mother may have a return to better health. So good of you to be there for her. Thinking of you both.

What I've sampled on those links of their writings, J.F., indicates they're both first-rate writers. And the blurbs and honors for their books certainly backs that up. Should be a wonderful experience, and you have lots of skill/background to contribute to the workshop. I hope it goes wonderfully for you!

Good idea, J.F. Do you know much about the workshop leaders, by the way?

I agree, JF, readers' critiques can be of real value sometimes. Also it is good for people to practice critiquing, in fact--imo.

Good work, J.F. Congratulations! I've never forgot "Summer Bites"; it was, and is, a superb story, professional in quality and effect. Interesting, too, that you used Ch. 1 of Brickweavers! Selecting samples for compets and applications is so hard--you made some fine choices. I hope the workshop is wonderful!

Will you be starting on the novel version soon, then, Jot?