Critique mah writin'

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I finally decided to get off my arse and write a very short piece in order to flex my writing muscles and give others an opportunity to share their observations on my writing. Basically, I can't improve without criticism. So here goes:

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The vessel barrelled through the roiling energies of Hyperspace, her impellor field disturbing the striating storms of gas and dust for kiloparsecs all around. Maybe it was just her imagination, but the nebulous clouds of star-stuff seemed to twist into leering mockeries of visages that were at once terrifyingly humanoid and mind-scatteringly alien, shifting through unearthly spectra that no baseline eye could detect. Scanning to the rear, she did not see her pursuers on any wavelength, but she could feel them on the Threads of spacetime, their passage inducing vibrations like a spider on a web. She was their prey, but she knew that if she could escape this storm or find a quiet patch she could exit Hyperspace and they would be unable to follow.

Suddenly she saw her chance - a miniature storm within a storm, the calm centre of it's little eyelet a mere swirling eddy within the greater tempest. The whole thing was a barely a megaparsec across, the eye smaller still, but with the right timing the calm centre would provide the perfect conditions to safely drop out of Hyperspace. Notching up her impellor field to it's maximal peformance, she made a direct line for the eyewall, a whirling sphere roughly a gigaparsec in diametre.

The pursuing Hyperspace beings changed course to intercept with renewed vigour, as if realising her plan, but they were too late by just under a nanosecond - the vessel crashed through the eyewall, the forces of it slewing the vessel sideways, and a picosecond later as she was clear, she disappeared in a brilliant flash of lambent green and actinic purple.

"So what were those things, Zelyndi?" Postael Akriser asked the ship's avatar, who appeared as a hologram of a woman a mere three centuries old.
"I'm not entirely sure. I've collected a lot of data but I'm too busy checking over the impellor field generator to look at it in detail. They appear to be creatures inhabiting Threadspace but limited to effecting Hyperspace" Postael looked at her meaningfully.
"You know, I'm not exactly an expert on 101st century physics, but isn't Threadspace supposed to permeate all of existance or something like that? Why can't they effect anything outside Hyperspace?"
"Like I said, I'm not sure, but it has something to do with Thread harmonics. I believe we've reached our destination" Zelyndi smiled mysteriously.
"At last. I need get ready" Postael gave a grin in return, and turned and walked away to his quarters.

Sikkul Station was a truly enormous facility composed of four crescent-shaped units sharing the same orbit, spaced equidistantly around the primary star, a blue supergiant. Each unit was 100 million kilometres wide, their exterior surfaces bristling with titanic docking arms, cyclopean control towers, hangar domes the size of planets and countless landing pads of all sizes. The space surrounding each unit of Sikkul Station shimmered and swarmed as starships came and went in their millions, from one-klick tramp freighters visible only from their engine exhausts that were glittering motes against the vast bulk of the station, to the tiny bright disks of 1000km-wide Battlemoons returning from patrol.

---

So, what do you think? Also, should I continue?

[which doctor]

I'll start off by saying I'm not the biggest fan of sci-fi; I've read a little Dick, but not much else besides that.

The impression I got was that you were trying too hard to sound like sci-fi. I just don't see much of a reason to use words like nanosecond, picosecond, gigaparsec, etc. I can't imagine that most people reading it (except die hard sci-fi fans) would understand a lot of the words you used. You did have a few good sentences though, and honestly it wasn't too bad.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The impression I got was that you were trying too hard to sound like sci-fi. I just don't see much of a reason to use words like nanosecond, picosecond, gigaparsec, etc. I can't imagine that most people reading it (except die hard sci-fi fans) would understand a lot of the words you used.

It was an attempt at conveying vast scales of space and microscopic scales of time - although I may grant you that there might be better ways of doing so - any suggestions?

[butterfly]

You convey it here

she disappeared in a brilliant flash of lambent green and actinic purple.

I enjoyed it, you should continue.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Continued:

In the interior of one of Sikkul Station's units, Postael was skiing at high speed down one of the mountains of Diin Blayk Hab Cylinder - at this height, the snow was pure carbon dioxide, any water manifested in rock-hard boulders of glittering ice, and the counter-spinward direction of this particular mountain face ensured maximum speeds at all times, just how he liked it. Negotiating the boundary between the CO2 snow and the water snow would be heart-stoppingly tricky, but Postael would have it no other way. He shot off a ledge like a shell from a gunbarrel, landing in a massive spray of white on a sloping expanse of virgin snow, before artfully weaving between stretches of scree and the occasional ice boulder thrusting up like fingers of diamond.

The slope steepened even further as Postael approached the transition level, clouds of freshly-sublimated CO2 beginning to obscure his vision as the snow beneath him firmed up, its water content increasing, making for rough progress. Breathing hard though his respirator, Postael fought for control, his heart pounding and adrenaline coursing through his veins as he approached the cloud deck. Within moments his visibility had reduced to tens of metres, all his concentration focusing on not hitting any object that suddenly sprang into his view, simultaneously keeping an eye on reading what little slope he could see before him for tell-tale signs of any changes. The cloudiness began clearing as he rushed further down, visibility improving, the snow almost completely composed of water now. From here on it would be an easy coast down the mountain face, although he had the option of taking another, much faster route down the precipitous Delotho Spur which curved sharply down below the snowline, on which he would be able to hang on through centripetal force if he kept just below the ridge.

As Postael was considering his options he heard a small chime in his ear, indicating that Zelyndi wanted to speak to him. He'd asked her not to interrupt him unless it was important, so he brought himself to a stop in an arcing spray of flakes and acknowledged the call with a mental impulse, whereupon a holo of Zelyndi suddenly flickered into life, projected from an emitter on his helmet.

"Akriser, it's about the impellor field. It's important you get back as soon as you can"
"What's going on?"
"I don't want to talk about it here, I need to address the whole crew"
"I'm on my way" with that, the holo rapidly dispersed in a riot of multicoloured pixels, and Postael worked a wrist unit to call his flyer, but on second thoughts requested a teleport back to Zelyndi's bridge, sending a message of apology to the flyer. A moment later Postael disappeared with a loud clap of inrushing air, carving out a perfectly smooth crater in the snow.

Postael instantly appeared on the bridge with a loud pop, the small pile of snow around his feet rapidly beginning to melt. He saw the almost the entire crew was already present, although he tutted when he saw that some of them were merely telepresent; holographic or as a pleasingly-shaped bank of foglets, it was still rude.
"Glad you could make it Postael" Zavek Niles greeted him, a brilliant but friendly grin splitting a face which was darker than the intergalactic void. "Zelyndi's going to explain how she almost got us eaten alive"
"I heard that, Niles," reproached Zelyndi with mock seriousness. "If it weren't for me your delightfully pretty face would have been digested and reduced to quark-shit" A ripple of laughter spread throughout the room.
"Now if you gentlebeings have quite finished dofshing about, I'd like to convey to you what the brilliant minds on this station have made out of the data I collected"

To be continued...

[Killfacer]

I enjoyed it, although i think for your average reader the first paragraph may be a bit too packed out with really long scientific words which don't convey as much meaning as they should.

I also think that there must be a better word to use than visages.


The bit where it says "they were too late by just under a nano second" or something sounds a bit clumsier than the rest of it.

I agree with which doctor on some aspects, sometiems you should sacrafice overly sci-fi words with more descriptive adjectives.

I really like it.

[Angry Young Man]

Never use the word critique ever again, especially as a verb! :cursing:

Unless you're speaking French, of course.