Orpheus Lupus
The Pretty-Okay Doctor
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- Feb 11, 2007
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Rewriting first chapter of novel: Need Opinions
I've had to rewrite the first chapter of my novel to better reflect later events (though the latter parts of the chapter are mostly the same and won't be changed much). I need to know what people think so far.
(I'm just looking for "I Liked It"/"I Wasn't Interested", people >_<" I'd like to see a post or something.)
Crap, there's still formatting errors. GAAAAH.
I should note that it's a dark comedy based in science fiction and fantasy. There will be non-animal-based aliens and humans later in the story (not much later though), so don't worry about that too much.
Oh, and all of the below belongs to me, and if I see anyone trying to pass it off as their own I will hunt them down and destroy them.
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Reath.
A planet whose size was comparable to that of a suburb.
A planet where castles and magic still reigned.
A planet with an unforgivably bad name.
And a planet that easily, over the course of an hour, went through more crises than one of HALF Industries' daylong sessions of the "Whose Fault Is It Now?" game.
It was the sort of planet than went largely unnoticed. People barely gave it so much as a passing glance as they flew by in their expensive luxury space cruisers. No one cared much about kidnapped princesses anymore. Evil empires were thought to be a perfectly acceptable and routine fact of life, and there were now teams of well-trained suicidal maniacs you could hire to get rid of that nasty dragon problem.
And yet while the rest of the universe slowly marched on into financial oblivion, Reath stuck to its lords, ladies, and mystical beasts from alternate dimensions like a moth to a light source. It has been this way for centuries, and no one really remembers why. No one cared. Individuals from the many races that inhabited Reath just accepted this as the natural order of things. But...
Perhaps, just perhaps, the answer lies within the heart of one boy currently sleeping inside a little house just outside of Gog Tinn village, north of the foul-smelling continent of L'Bark.
At least, that's what people liked to say about this sort of thing. H.A.L.F. (Hreshna-Avi-Lacra-Fuiz) Alliance Spec Ops Officer Qualitas Dsynphoria, a Fuizan wolf of some renown, had heard it all, and while he had not yet heard this particular one, he had been to what felt like a thousand rural planets that all believed the same tired things. It was always the same tune: "A Chosen One will come to save us!" say the people under a corrupt leader, whether a guy in a fancy business suit who really likes money or some sort of evil deity that returns every thousand years to extract horrible vengeance on the universe because someone at the dawn of time once spilt hot coffee on his lap. Then they sit down. And they wait. And they get eaten alive, beaten to death, kicked in the knees, robbed, thrown from high buildings, sacrificed, assimilated, and otherwise greatly inconvenienced, but it's all right, they don't need to do anything, because they aren?t the "Chosen One" or the ?Great Immortal Hero? or "Mookul, Grand Barbarian Cheese Lord". Eventually HALF's Spec Ops would step in and slap some crazed madman in the head and suddenly "We Are Free! Thank You, Our Merciful New Overlords!' Then you had to stay there and explain that you weren?t taking control of the planet and they?d have to work things out for themselves. And then they'd beg you to stay, and then you'd politely ask them to let you go, because you really need to go get your paycheck for the month so you might actually get to eat next week.
Yeah, Qualitas had seen and heard it all, he figured. Zombie outbreaks in vegetable gardens, vampire-run casinos, brutal attacks by genetically modified gangs of janitors. Which only served to make his current assignment all the more infuriating; drifting through space aboard the rusty old Sitting Duck vessel that had belonged to his clan for so long that he wondered why anything worked anymore. They were supposed to be "patrolling"; but the fact was the route they were assigned was in an unusually boring section of space. It was better than being on the Front, he supposed; experiencing sheer terror every day at the notion that the Humans and their Machines might come back and cut a bloody swath across the galaxy starting with you wasn't exactly fun. But at least it was something. Out here the greatest threats were engine failure and running out of oxygen. Otherwise it was not only safe but there was nothing to do. Ever. The Duck didn't even have a sentient AI on board, so there wasn't even a small chance of it going crazy, which made for some very dull reports back to the Den.
"Dear Doctor Vanguard: I woke up today. I ate. I had my arm checked. I watched the news. I found Larry's calming pills because someone hid them under the toilet. I ate again. I had a chat with your daughter. I read a book. I tried to distract the parrot girl and my cousin away from grandpa's horrible wrinkles. I ate for the final time. I used the bathroom. I had another chat with your daughter. Nighthawk planned a mutiny against me and then absentmindedly tried to get me to join it. The annoying Lacranite female walked around in her underwear and made snide comments to everyone. Balthazar spent the whole silently staring off into the distance. I went to bed." Day in, day out. Same old stuff.
I've had to rewrite the first chapter of my novel to better reflect later events (though the latter parts of the chapter are mostly the same and won't be changed much). I need to know what people think so far.
(I'm just looking for "I Liked It"/"I Wasn't Interested", people >_<" I'd like to see a post or something.)
Crap, there's still formatting errors. GAAAAH.
I should note that it's a dark comedy based in science fiction and fantasy. There will be non-animal-based aliens and humans later in the story (not much later though), so don't worry about that too much.
Oh, and all of the below belongs to me, and if I see anyone trying to pass it off as their own I will hunt them down and destroy them.
----------------------------------------------
Reath.
A planet whose size was comparable to that of a suburb.
A planet where castles and magic still reigned.
A planet with an unforgivably bad name.
And a planet that easily, over the course of an hour, went through more crises than one of HALF Industries' daylong sessions of the "Whose Fault Is It Now?" game.
It was the sort of planet than went largely unnoticed. People barely gave it so much as a passing glance as they flew by in their expensive luxury space cruisers. No one cared much about kidnapped princesses anymore. Evil empires were thought to be a perfectly acceptable and routine fact of life, and there were now teams of well-trained suicidal maniacs you could hire to get rid of that nasty dragon problem.
And yet while the rest of the universe slowly marched on into financial oblivion, Reath stuck to its lords, ladies, and mystical beasts from alternate dimensions like a moth to a light source. It has been this way for centuries, and no one really remembers why. No one cared. Individuals from the many races that inhabited Reath just accepted this as the natural order of things. But...
Perhaps, just perhaps, the answer lies within the heart of one boy currently sleeping inside a little house just outside of Gog Tinn village, north of the foul-smelling continent of L'Bark.
At least, that's what people liked to say about this sort of thing. H.A.L.F. (Hreshna-Avi-Lacra-Fuiz) Alliance Spec Ops Officer Qualitas Dsynphoria, a Fuizan wolf of some renown, had heard it all, and while he had not yet heard this particular one, he had been to what felt like a thousand rural planets that all believed the same tired things. It was always the same tune: "A Chosen One will come to save us!" say the people under a corrupt leader, whether a guy in a fancy business suit who really likes money or some sort of evil deity that returns every thousand years to extract horrible vengeance on the universe because someone at the dawn of time once spilt hot coffee on his lap. Then they sit down. And they wait. And they get eaten alive, beaten to death, kicked in the knees, robbed, thrown from high buildings, sacrificed, assimilated, and otherwise greatly inconvenienced, but it's all right, they don't need to do anything, because they aren?t the "Chosen One" or the ?Great Immortal Hero? or "Mookul, Grand Barbarian Cheese Lord". Eventually HALF's Spec Ops would step in and slap some crazed madman in the head and suddenly "We Are Free! Thank You, Our Merciful New Overlords!' Then you had to stay there and explain that you weren?t taking control of the planet and they?d have to work things out for themselves. And then they'd beg you to stay, and then you'd politely ask them to let you go, because you really need to go get your paycheck for the month so you might actually get to eat next week.
Yeah, Qualitas had seen and heard it all, he figured. Zombie outbreaks in vegetable gardens, vampire-run casinos, brutal attacks by genetically modified gangs of janitors. Which only served to make his current assignment all the more infuriating; drifting through space aboard the rusty old Sitting Duck vessel that had belonged to his clan for so long that he wondered why anything worked anymore. They were supposed to be "patrolling"; but the fact was the route they were assigned was in an unusually boring section of space. It was better than being on the Front, he supposed; experiencing sheer terror every day at the notion that the Humans and their Machines might come back and cut a bloody swath across the galaxy starting with you wasn't exactly fun. But at least it was something. Out here the greatest threats were engine failure and running out of oxygen. Otherwise it was not only safe but there was nothing to do. Ever. The Duck didn't even have a sentient AI on board, so there wasn't even a small chance of it going crazy, which made for some very dull reports back to the Den.
"Dear Doctor Vanguard: I woke up today. I ate. I had my arm checked. I watched the news. I found Larry's calming pills because someone hid them under the toilet. I ate again. I had a chat with your daughter. I read a book. I tried to distract the parrot girl and my cousin away from grandpa's horrible wrinkles. I ate for the final time. I used the bathroom. I had another chat with your daughter. Nighthawk planned a mutiny against me and then absentmindedly tried to get me to join it. The annoying Lacranite female walked around in her underwear and made snide comments to everyone. Balthazar spent the whole silently staring off into the distance. I went to bed." Day in, day out. Same old stuff.