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> Outrageous Fortune, an SR novel in progress
J. Packer
post Jan 31 2011, 08:53 PM
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Outrageous Fortune

Chapter 1

A tone chimed in my ear just as I started on my third beer. They had a really excellent Mexican beer on tap at Jimmy’s Number Five, with a sweet start and a spicy, hoppy finish. An indicator in my deep right-hand peripheral showed an incoming call from Ray-Ray, so I took it right away. When one is verging on broke, one does not refuse calls from the guy that finds one jobs.

I pulled the Airware commlink off of my belt and set it on the counter, activating the trideo phone feature. “Tell me you’ve got something for me, Ray,” I said by way of greeting.

Ray Ray’s face always looked like he’d just accidentally eaten a bug. It very nearly put me off my beer, filling up most of the field of vision on my image-linked lenses. I zoomed the window out - way out - and Ray’s picture soon rested comfortably to one side of the news I was half-watching on the screen behind the bar.

“How’s your Mandarin, greenskin?” he asked. Ray was an equal opportunity offender, as likely to call an ork like me ‘trog’ as he was to call a dwarf ‘halfer’ or to find fault with a human for their gender, skin tone, or perceived sexual orientation. I swallowed my irritation, and hoped that the gig paid well enough to warrant putting up with him. Again.

“Right now?” I asked, rhetorically. “Terrible. But I got a ‘soft that’ll help some. Who’s the Johnson?” I figured I had a good idea, but sometimes Ray Ray would catch me off guard.

“Name’s Kwang Lu, works for the Golden Triangle Triad,” he said, confirming the general direction of my suspicions. “No more details than that, but they need both muscle and brains. I couldn’t find either, so I rang you up.”

Not waiting for me to laugh at his stale joke, or even agree to take the job, a new window opened with a comm ID and a blurred still of the Asian man I was supposed to make contact with, a chronograph counter showing that I had about ninety minutes before I was scheduled to meet him, at the Orchid of Outrageous Fortune up in Boulder, in the PCC.

“This better pay out, Ray. My barstool is awfully comfortable, and crossing borders in this town ain’t exactly a picnic.”

He gave me what I’m sure he thought was a reassuring smile, but came across as a rictus grin. “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised,” was all he said before he broke the connection.

Now, I’m not so old fashioned as to eschew augmentation - in this day and age, with people putting whole ‘links into their skulls, and the kids coming up who can use their own hypothalamus as wireless antennae or however it is they do it, you can’t afford to forgo an edge - but I liked to keep things simple, and to be able to purge out whatever data I wasn’t using when it had lost it’s utility.

So I spent my last few minutes at Jimmy’s multitasking. I slotted a linguasoft that promised to give me facility with half a dozen Chinese variations. Funny thing about ‘softs like that one is that they work on a bunch of neural connections right into your brain, so sometimes they have interesting side effects. In this case, I suddenly smelled lilacs, and had a brief but vivid memory of my third grade teacher. Weird.

After I had my languages all sorted, I set an agent to pulling down every bit of data I could find on this Triad who wanted to hire me and my people. And I pinged the rest of the team with the news that we had a potential gig, with the location and time of the meet.

Oh, and I polished off that third beer.
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Doc Chase
post Jan 31 2011, 09:00 PM
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Interesting. Are you looking for support, or critique? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

I can provide both....moo hoo ha ha.
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J. Packer
post Jan 31 2011, 09:12 PM
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QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Jan 31 2011, 02:00 PM) *
Interesting. Are you looking for support, or critique? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

I can provide both....moo hoo ha ha.

Yes. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I'm a big boy, I can take it.

Besides, there's no other place to hide this stuff on the site, so I figured what the heck.

Oh, and unless somebody makes me cry, I'll be trying to do a chapter every couple days...
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CanRay
post Jan 31 2011, 09:43 PM
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Actually, isn't "Welcome to the Shadows" the place for something like this, as it's "In Character"?
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Doc Chase
post Jan 31 2011, 10:06 PM
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QUOTE (J. Packer @ Jan 31 2011, 09:12 PM) *
Yes. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I'm a big boy, I can take it.

Besides, there's no other place to hide this stuff on the site, so I figured what the heck.

Oh, and unless somebody makes me cry, I'll be trying to do a chapter every couple days...


(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

All righty. Cute bit of noir. I love noir. Fast, easy read. I'm curious to see where it goes, and I'll try to keep comments to a minimum on it unless something leaps out. I'm supposed to be editing a bunch of other stuff. Yet, here we are. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Downsides: Admittedly, my prose can get purplish, especially in a noir setting. That's why Caracas now sucks the life from people, rather than just the man-eating trees. Conversely, this seems light on descriptors. I don't know what Ray-Ray is. I know the protagonist is an Ork, only because he describes himself as such. I don't know what the bar looks like. Is it a place where everyone knows your name? Or is it a place that just has Modelo on tap? The conversation is nice and sweet, to the point, and has character - but the characters sound...similarish. The point of the story is to paint a picture, and this is a nice wireframe - it just needs to add color.

QUOTE
Now, I’m not so old fashioned as to eschew augmentation - in this day and age, with people putting whole ‘links into their skulls, and the kids coming up who can use their own hypothalamus as wireless antennae or however it is they do it, you can’t afford to forgo an edge - but I liked to keep things simple, and to be able to purge out whatever data I wasn’t using when it had lost it’s utility.


Flavorish, but I don't feel direction with it. It seems lost, forlorn - not sure what to attach to, and as a result it sees a touch awkward to me. It establishes that Greenskin has 'ware, but not a lot. There's...better ways of describing. You can integrate this in the following paragraph. Something like...

QUOTE
I spent my last few minutes at Jimmy’s multitasking. I slotted a Chinese linguasoft that promised understanding of a half-dozen dialects. Nice and simple, just like my 'ware. Don't need to turn my hypothalmus into some damn antennae like kids these days. 'Softs like that one, though, they got interesting side effects. I smelled lilacs, and had a brief but vivid memory of my third grade teacher. Weird.


About the same size, but it packs in a bit more information. YMMV.

I'm also a sucker for a bit of a puntastic finish for the opener. Color me influenced by CSI: Miami. On the end of the suggested change, you could simply tack on:

QUOTE
Looks like my third beer was going to have to be to go.
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J. Packer
post Jan 31 2011, 10:20 PM
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QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Jan 31 2011, 03:06 PM) *
<<suggestions snipped>>


I really didn't expect this level of thoroughness. I sincerely appreciate it, and will take your ideas to heart when I hit the editing room this evening. Thanks!

As for the locale, I'll be fine if the mods decide it needs to move - I thought it was primarily for PbP stuff in there or I'd have posted it there myself.
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Doc Chase
post Jan 31 2011, 10:22 PM
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Among my many accolades, a Journalism degree. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) I like SR. I like seeing it become a better living world through everything that people write for it, no matter if you get paid or not. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
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sabs
post Jan 31 2011, 10:27 PM
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Doc! Get back to Editing Maracaibos!

Oh and, you haven't commented at all on the Amazonia thread, for shame!

btw JP. Nice bit of writing.
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J. Packer
post Jan 31 2011, 10:34 PM
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QUOTE (sabs @ Jan 31 2011, 03:27 PM) *
btw JP. Nice bit of writing.


Thanks. I've got two more chapters in the can and will keep cranking them out until I'm done. The beast is already essentially plotted, so it ought to be a piece of cake. Ha!
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Doc Chase
post Jan 31 2011, 10:40 PM
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QUOTE (sabs @ Jan 31 2011, 10:27 PM) *
Doc! Get back to Editing Maracaibos!

Oh and, you haven't commented at all on the Amazonia thread, for shame!

btw JP. Nice bit of writing.


FfffffffffffffffI've been spotted!

I'm torn between just giving changes plus requests on Maracaibo, or doing the research myself. I have some extra time tonight, so I think I'll do changes/requests, then take a look.

I BLAME MY 'OOH, SHINY' ATTENTION SPAN
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Mardrax
post Jan 31 2011, 11:46 PM
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Hrm. Doing alright so far. I'm standing by Doc's critiques.

Also, I like how you're trying to portray the main character as a down-to-earth guy (just assuming masculinity here, without gender or even name given), with a touch of (show?) cynisism. The dialogue with Ray Ray goes a long way to establish that, the barstool and the 'soft lines are both nice touches there.
What I'm missing out on though, is the same character applied to his inner monologue. Is he really the down to earth guy? Or is it just show? As his inner monologue seems to be much more, -I don't know. Elaborate? Well spoken?- in places. I can't exactly put my finger on what's causing it, but it feels off, somehow. As if I'm looking at two different characters. If it's intended, power to you. If it's not, you could try looking into it.
The second sentence, the "trideo phone feature" and the "field of vision on my image-linked lenses" really jump out as passages that bug me there. Might be just my not being a native speaker that offset perceived tone some though.

Anyway, nice job. Keep it up, and count me looking forward to more ^^
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