On 6/25/06, StudioPC <studiopc@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
Note: I've gotten two bits of C&C on chapter 2 and both mentioned
that they hadn't seen chapter 1. So I thought I'd best repost it. C&C
on this is welcome, as I've done some tinkering.
In an attempt to stave off some of the less-constructive whingeing
that's been going about, here's some C&C!
Disclaimer: Moldiver is the property of Pioneer, inc. No money is
being made from this and no such intent should be inferred.
Inspiration is drawn from "Moon With A View" by Richard C. Hoagland,
available at http://www.enterprisemission.com/ if you're curious.
Disclaimer: I haven't seen Moldiver. ...in a few years. ;) Also,
all C&C from me is offered As-Is, with an implied warranty and UELA
which you agree by opening the packaging of this e-mail. Buwahahaha.
If it doesn't help you, feel free to disregard any
corrections(attempts)/comments I make.
Morning dawned clear on Tokyo in the year 2048. With long fingers,
the sun chased away the shadows, summoned the citizens from their
beds and houses, and watched them as they went to work, or to school.
I'm not feeling 'long fingers' of the sun. Somehow, it just doesn't
scan that well to me, and the ending of that second sentence feels a
bit awkward, as well. Ah.... Maybe, shortening the end to 'as they
went about their business' or 'lives'? I'd also ommit the 'watched
them' part, or possibly make it another sentence. This latter
approach could also help if you wanted to keep the 'work, or to
school' bit.
I could be thinking about this too hard, though. <_<
Or in the case of the Ozora Household, Tower Three, Level 29, Ichigo
Street, being lazy.
This turns out to not be true in the case of Mirai, though. I think
we should add a level of focus (the sentence is unweildy, yeah, but
you can plead stylism) and put Hiroshi's name here instead of in the
paragraph below. Also, this allows one paragraph for each character
(more or less).
This morning, only two people were in residence; Hiroshi Ozora, age
24 and his sister Mirai, age 20. Their parents and younger brother
were in Australia, visiting family and looking at possible schools.
Hiroshi was skinny, with unkempt hair and eyes that squinted behind
his glasses, while Mirai was slightly shorter, with long brown hair
and a figure that was partly genetics and partly the result of
borderline masochistic exercise program. Though just as smart as the
rest of her family, Mirai craved the spotlight. She thrived on the
flash of cameras, the hum of the video recorders and the roar of the
crowd. But to live that life, she had to be in top physical condition
and she was. Her stomach was flat and hard, her arms and legs toned
and tanned, and if her skin was any clearer, it would be transparent.
But Mirai had a sweet tooth and so she had to work even harder then
most to stay on top.
I'd put a comma between 'physical condition' and 'and'. Also, the bit
about transparency....
Maybe you could use 'if her skin was any fairer, she would glow'?
Hiroshi, on the other hand, only needed to keep his brain in shape.
He was an engineer, currently between jobs and keeping himself busy
with consulting work . . . usually.
This morning, he sat in the dining room, a spoonful of cereal in his
mouth, a palmtop in one hand, and the morning paper in the other.
With one ear, he listened to the news, the other, he listened to
Mirai, who was in the living room working out on the Isokenetic
machine with weights added in.
"One ninety-eight, one ninety-nine, two hundred!" he heard her call
out and then the whine as the machine powered down and the clunk of
the weights being placed back in their holders.
I'd suggest breaking this paragraph into two sentences, probably after
'call out'.
Moments later, she walked in, wearing a sweat-soaked one piece outfit
that left nothing to the imagination, and a towel around her neck.
Her hair was tied back from her forehead and she was mopping her face
with a small hand-cloth.
Not nothing ... how about 'practically nothing'? ;)
And what's her hair tied back with? I'm thinking it's a headband, but
she could also have her hair up in a ponytail.
"Wha!" Hiroshi gaped. "Mirai!" He loved his sister, but she had a
tendency towards casual nudity that shocked him. He suspected she'd
work out naked if her figure didn't need support and binding when
doing physical activity.
nudity --> displays of indecency (?)
'doing physical activity' kind of reads flatly. What's that term. Is
it passive voice? Somehow, it doesn't seem to scan as well, though.
Not sure what to suggest. Maybe ... 'partaking in her rigorous
regime'? Ah, something along those lines.
She rolled her eyes at him and vanished into the kitchen. He heard
the fridge open and close and then Mirai returned, bottle of water in
hand and wearing a lightweight robe.
That second sentence is awkward. I'd suggest a quick pause or
something to break up the 'open and close and then' bit. Maybe Mirai
can make some other noise, or Hiroshi can be briefly distracted by his
palmtop? None of this is required, of course, and I suspect I tend to
be overly nitpicky.... Just in case I haven't stressed this enough
already, ignore any comments I offer that you don't find helpful.
(Just don't expect to get more if that's "all of 'em". ;)
"Prude," she chided, opening the bottle and drinking deep.
Hehe!
"I'm not a prude," he replied, setting the paper down. "But really,
Mirai, don't you think you--" he broke off as the door bell rang.
"Who could that be?"
Opening the door, he stared at the two men. Both wore identical dark
suits and one of them carried a briefcase. "Hiroshi Ozora?"
"Yeah?"
"My name is Tom Smith and this is William Lee Jones. We're with the
International Space Commission and we'd like to speak to you and your
sister. May we come in?"
"Sure," Hiroshi said and stood aside. "Mirai! Company!"
'said and' scans passively, I think. Maybe just 'said as he'?
He led the two men into the living room and moments later, Mirai came
out, now dressed in a blouse and jeans. Her hair had a slight frizz,
indicating that she'd stepped into the sonic shower.
'came out' doesn't seem right for some reason. Then again, we haven't
been shown a lot of detail on where people are moving about. Maybe
'reappeared'?
"We'll get straight to the point," Smith said.
"We know about Moldiver," Jones said. "We know that Amagi was
Machinegal, and did not, as Amagi Corp said, die in a jetcoptor
accident."
Now, this is a prickly point for some people. Personally, I try to
avoid repetition of the word 'said', though many authors will tell you
it's fine to use it as often as you want. I won't say either way for
you, but if you go for the former approach, we could change Jone's
'said' into 'continued'.
Mirai's face was as hard as stone and and she had slipped one hand
into her pocket.
Smith held up a hand. "We're not here about that. We know what he was
up to and the world's better off. Quite frankly, you should be
commended."
Where did they get their info? Ah, all will become clear in time, I'm sure....
"What do you want?" Hiroshi said, grabbing his sister's wrist. "Like
you said, get to the point."
said --> asked (this, uh, doesn't apply to that last comment I made so
much; it's really a question. :p )
"Are either of you familiar with the writings of Richard C.
Hoagland?" Jones asked.
"I've seen him cited on a few conspiracy theory sites," Hiroshi said.
"He popularized the face on Mars theory, didn't he?"
Would a respected scientific mind admit this so openly? I would
expect a bit of hesitation if the guy's really a crackpot, or
suspected of being one. Then again, maybe Hiroshi's confident enough
(he did build Moldiver) that he doesn't care....
Smith nodded. "He and his team were considered crackpots, but they
maintained their position until the very end. The point, Mister
Ozora, is that he was right, and we need Moldiver's help."
"But there is no face!" Hiroshi said, "I've been to the Cydonia
plain. There's no face there."
Or, considering this, maybe he should be more dismissive where I commented last.
"No, you haven't," Jones said. "The real Cydonia is about a hundred
miles southeast. You should both feel special, you're about to be let
in on one of the biggest secrets in history."
"There is a face?" Mirai asked.
Smith nodded. "A face, a city under the Martian Ice, evidence of
ancient astronauts, the whole thing. Fact is that so far, Hoagland
was one hundred percent right, and there's just one thing left to
prove, which is where the two of you come in."
Mirai removed her hand from her pocket as the siblings exchanged
glances.
"Go on," Hiroshi said in a guarded tone.
Jones opened the case, revealing a holo projector.
"July Twentieth, Nineteen Sixty-Nine," Smith said. "Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings on the Moon. During
their moonwalks, they found the remains of a structure several miles
north of the landing site. Radioing back to Earth for instructions,
they were instructed to take photos and then return immeditly to
Earth. Under the mandate of policies in effect at the time, as the
goverment believed that the public would be unable to handle the truth."
I believe someone else already commented on this, so I'm going to snip
down to just grammatical comments for a bit.
"The public hid it themselves," Smith said. "It wasn't until the
Nixon scandal that the public as a whole realized that they could no
longer completely trust the goverment. But by then, the so called
official version had already taken root. Aldrin and Armstrong landed,
took pictures, planted the flag, collected samples and returned to
Earth. Simple, straightforward and easy to swallow."
"And they did," Jones said. "The few who asked questions or disagreed
were dismissed as crazy."
said --> added (?)
"History records that were seventeen Apollo Missions," Jones said.
"But in reality there were twenty, three launched from Russian soil
in order to hide their real purpose, which was to find out that
structure was."
said --> continued (?) (Though, realistically, since it's just the
two of them, and they're alternating, you can omit the whole "<name>
said" bit.
"But in truth, we found way more than Hoagland ever suspected.
There's at least three cities on Mars, all demonstrating a clear
Sumerian architecture and more than enough writings to prove that
there's a connection," Jones said as he leaned forward. "At least one
of those structures was a spaceport. There's also what appears to be
an underground subway system, possibly covering the entire planet.
The buildings were also patrolled by guard robots of some kind. Very
fast, programmed to kill. Some very good people died before we could
figure out how to kill them."
kill them --> take them out (robots aren't alive; though, this is a
person speaking, and people can make mistakes. I would expect more
from a secret agent of some kind, however.)
Smith took a deep breath. "We also found several functioning vid-
screen, showing humans or human appearing entities issuing warnings,
or at least that's what we think they're saying. All we really have
to go by is the tone of voice."
Jones: I still maintain that the green guy was just saying, "Eat at Chuck's".
"Wait," Hiroshi said. "Are you telling me that human beings at one
point had the technology and ability to go to the Moon and Mars, and
build cities? What the hell happened?"
said --> interrupted (?)
"We wish we knew," Smith said. "What we do know is that it happened a
long, long time ago, and devastated the entire solar system."
"You still haven't explained what this has to do with us," Hiroshi said.
said --> noted (?)
"Hoagland maintained that Saturn, or more specifically, its moon
Iapetus, held clues to our own origins. He cited it's unusual orbit,
its strange 'yin-yang' coloring, hexagonal shaped craters, and that
Iapetus itself was hexagon shaped. He said that Iapetus was an
artificial object created for some purpose. He suggested an Ark, a
seedship from somewhere outside the solar system, a warship, or
perhaps some kind of resort."
it's unusual --> its unusual
"it's" is a contraction of "it is". "Its" is the possessive form:
http://www.stormloader.com/garyes/its/#top
"Now that the manned colony on Ganymede is up and running, the ISC
wants to start exploring Saturn. Those of us in the know want answers
to what we've come to call Hoagland's Riddle."
"Those of us in the know" would indicate, to me, that Hiroshi and
Mirai are dealing with the brass in the project, not just men in
monkey suits. Is this intentional, and are Jones and Smith big boys,
or just speaking above their rank? I suppose it makes sense that a
trained monkey wouldn't be sent to deliver this kind of
information....
Interesting.
"It was suggested, but on the other hand, what's better? Wasting time
and energy trying to reverse engineer and duplicate the work and then
training someone in its use, or recruiting the inventor and someone
who already knows it backwards and forwards?"
Hiroshi frowned. He couldn't argue with that.
It also smacks of a certain bit of desparation on the parts of the Men
in Black, though, I may be looking at that from a current political
viewpoint, and not the viewpoint of 2048.
The two men stood up. "We understand that this is a big decision,"
Jones said. "So we'll leave you to think this over." Smith closed up
the projector and Jones set a card on the table. "If you decide yes,
call this number."
The two men let themselves out and the Ozoras stayed where they were,
staring at the table. The business card and the briefcase stared back.
Briefcase: Whatchu looking at?
Card: Yeah! Eyes off, Bub!
Night had fallen when Mirai finally spoke. "Let's do it." She turned
to look at him. "I mean it Hiroshi, let's call the number, say yes."
Hiroshi: "It"? I didn't think this was one of THOSE kinds of anime!
Mirai: Don't dare project some freakish 'brother' complex on me.
Hiroshi: The way you flaunt yourself all the time, it's kind of hard to say....
Mirai: Major creeped out. I'm now going to start working out in
arctic gear. I meant call the number!
Though, it does seem that some kind of joke or misunderstanding could
be put in here; it was just morning, and they've (apparently) spent
several hours just staring at the goods.
;)
"I dunno . . ."
A.... Nah. The elipses comment isn't worth it anymore. :p
"Look at me, Hiroshi, look me in the eye and tell me you really,
honestly, believe that.
Are we missing a quotation mark here?
"Mirai, it's late, we should get some sleep. I'll decide in the
morning."
I'd suggest replacing the second comma with a semi-colon.
After a while, Mirai fell asleep as well. But it did not come easily
and as she laid there, she made her decision.
I really liked this part. Excellent introspection.
She was going to Iapetus. With or without Hiroshi.
Though.... Maybe 'Moldiver was going...'? All things considered,
that might lend a bit more impact to the above. Your call, of course.
;)
There was also no rumors about Moldiver's real identity. Which begged
the question of how the ISC knew about Mirai, and if they knew, who
else?
There could be a hidden threat there, actually. Jones and Smith (or
their backers) just need to let some information information slip, and
then Hiroshi and Mirai are in a whole lot of potential trouble.
On the other hand, if it was a trap, he'd be handing them the Mol-
unit on a silver platter.
Not that they wouldn't potentially be able to take it anyway....
And he still had no idea how they knew about Mirai.
He must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, Mirai was
standing over him.
The second Mirai --> she (?)
She smiled, and set the card-sized device on his chest. "I have to go
to work, bye!"
Go to work and hand in her notice, you mean. :p
Step one was give himself some insurance. There was a subculture on
the internet where information was the coin of the realm, and for the
right info, you could get anything you wanted. Hiroshi stayed at the
edges, but he was owed a few favors and called one in. He transmitted
the data module along with an explanation, leaving out the part about
Moldiver. The bargain was straightforward; If you don't hear back
from me in two years, assume I'm dead and do what you like with this.
They agreed on a password and that was that. Hiroshi then reassembled
the briefcase and set it aside before making something to eat.
Virtual Adept: Information wants to be free!
The next step was the mol-unit. First, he reconfigured the unit to
only activate in the presence of his or Mirai's brainwaves. It wasn't
iron clad , but it was the best he could do given that they were
headed into combat.
I disagree. That's probably just the best he could do on the
spur-of-the-moment. ;)
Jones hung up.
"Yeah," Hiroshi said to the phone as he hung up. "I bet we are."
Repetition, 'hung up'.
Okay. So far, I'm liking this, and am curious to see where it goes. :D
Excellent work, and I hope to C&C more later tonight.