Fat Stacks of Short Fiction, Comments are (as always) very welcome Options

[Critias]

Fine, fine. Here. I got a few posts and a few PM's telling me to share more fic, so here's (part of) my Shadowrun collection. You guys may or may not have already read one or two of these (the fifth and seventh, to be precise, or rather at least parts of them), but I know the rest of them are new to most of you.

These are backstories and gap-fillers for a 250+ karma character of mine, most of what he does is in in character stuff over at our play-by-post game. I use short fiction to flesh him out, to explain to my other players/GMs how his edges and flaws came to be, how they affect him, how he copes with them and deals with him. The things he does that aren't Shadowruns, exactly, are the things I write about in these. Him as a kid, his initial appearance in Seattle (and the first story ever about him, which came before his character sheet), who he works for, who he doesn't want to work for, what he does for them, what he loses sleep over.

All that good stuff.

The stories are arranged in chronological order, rather than the order in which I wrote them, sorry. A lot of them might not make a ton of sense to people who don't know his whole story, but rather than summarize here (unless people ask me to), I'll just let you work through the fiction and then ask questions if anyone gives two tugs. Feel free to check out any-and-everything else about Connor (and anyone else mentioned in here) at Shadowland, if the mood hits.

First Times

Out of the Frying Pan, into the Shadows

Old Wounds and New Memories

A Walk

The New Job (half of which was previously posted in a recent thread)

A Day in the Life

Campus Life

[Critias]

So, okay. I just gotta ask. 68 people viewed the thread, but I've got no way to tell who actually clicked any links...and I've gotten nada by way of comments or PMs or anything.

So, did people not like it, or did people just not read it?

[Shadowrunner13]

I have intentions on reading these, but at the moment I am pressed for time. You will get at least one post in time. :)

SR13

[Kagetenshi]

I read the first one, then got distracted by something. Snagged the rest and will read at least some of them during class, though ;)

(Ah, review, how wonderfully mind-numbing you can be)

~J

[Critias]

For what it's worth, they probably are all best read one at a time or so, rather than all in one sitting -- I did a few experiments here and there, with them, to try different writing styles and go for different feels. The rambling sentences in that first one (to show child-like trains of thought or excitement), the lack of names in the last one (to keep it anonymous and cold, almost clinical, as a spy-assassin piece)... different stuff, at different times, over the 5+ years those pieces encompass.

So, well, don't feel bad if it just takes some time to read them. I was just getting worried that no one was reading them, wanted to read them, or had read them and then hated them so much they didn't even want to tell me so. ;)

[Backgammon]

I read Old Wounds and New Memories at random, since I only had time to read 1.

The quality of writting is good and everything was clear, no confusion in what you wanted to say or make us understand.

However, I found it cliché and melodramatic. The characters also felt a bit like action movie characters, rather flat and typical in their behaviour.

But since the writting quality was good, I'll read another when I have time and see how I feel about that one.

[Kagetenshi]

Since I forgot which order I put the pages in, I accidentally read Life on Campus. More detail when I mull it over, but the thing that jumps out at me is technical. First off, you've got depleted uranium rounds in a rifle, which is improbable and doesn't really help much. More importantly, you've got armor piercing rounds expanding inside the target ("…a fist-sized hole vaguely at the other…"), which they shouldn't do. Other than that, I enjoyed it; there are a few bits that strike me oddly, but I'll comment once I've rightly figured out what those are.

~J

[Chibu]

In response, I'd like to cite Shadowplay by Nigel Findley, Where the same (depleted Uranium and fist-sized holes) are used in the same way.


Also, I just wanted to say that these are great stories, IMO, In fact, I printed them out (after formating them to look like an SR book) and, will be keeping them next to my printed collection of Tom Dowd shorts. However, I can't think of a title for this group of stories (and it needs a title page before I can bind it) So, any suggestions?



And, i've made this for just myself, unless the author wants a copy that can be distributed however. So, without the author's permission, I won't be distributing this in any way.

[kevyn668]

[Critias]

"Depleted Uranium" rounds is just the fluff-desrciptor some of us on SL have occasionally used for any sort of APDS or AV ammo (in much the same way I try to assign actual calibers, etc, to SR weapons when writing something like this). "Fist sized hole" was more an issue of the fact that a burst was being fired at a frail old man, than any properties of the bullets themselves. ;) You'd probably get the same description from me if Connor just punched him. I'll do some poking around this magical internet, and see if I can't maybe find something a little more realistic. Thanks.

And I've never really considered a name for these stories, primarily because they aren't where the real action is with this character. Like I mentioned, these are things I write when I want to explain some downtime, or delve into his background a little more. Most of what he actually does (and most of what the world does back) takes place in IC forums, with other 'Runners stomping around, dice getting flung left and right, and that sort of thing. These are...I dunno...the stuff that slips between the IC cracks, the stuff that never quite comes up in gameplay (no matter how much I try to play up my Day Job), the stuff that hasn't quite got a direct bearing on die rolls or shadowruns. It'd feel kind of incomplete, to me, to just print these up and staple them together and call them a story (by themselves). Lemme know if you think up a good name. I might use it. :) And distribute away! Just mention my user name on here (or "Talondel" on www.shadowland.org) as a footnote somewhere, so anyone who happens to get a hardcopy can toss me some feedback.

I've got another piece about...ohh...well, allright, nowhere near done, just started. When I get around to finally wrapping it up (if ever, it covers an awful lot of stuff and it's a basic subject/storyline idea a lot of people won't take very well, so I'm trying to tread carefully), I'll post it here if anyone's interested. I've got another one in the works (in my head), too, that's less a Connor story and more a Ghost story (that just happens to be Connor's old unit, before everything fell apart), detailing some of my ideas about how they operate.

Anyways! Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Keep it comin' if anyone's got anything else, please.

[Kagetenshi]

Ah. It wasn't clear to me that it was a burst; I'd assumed it was single-shot mode. Rereading, it's still unclear, so you may want to specify if it's important. Either that or I'm missing something, which considering the time is entirely possible.

~J

[Critias]

Pfff. What kind of loser isn't wide awake and crisply alert at 2 am? (oh wait, that's right, I work a weird shift, everyone else works the normal one -- sometimes I forget)

I'll go back over it and double check. Either way, I figure if that's the biggest complaint anyone's got about the story, I'm notching it up as an okay bit of short story.

[Demosthenes]

Entertaining read.

I'll second the comments about the characters coming across as a bit stereotypical here and there. On the other hand, in short fiction you don't enjoy the same amount of leeway for 'creating character', so the stereotype (and how you change it) is perfectly valid - and still fun enough to read.

The only real criticism I'd have is more technical than that: on a couple of occasions in one or two of the stories, you're writing in the present tense, but then collapse back into the conventional 'past tense narrative'. It's a bit jarring to read.
(I know how easy it is to write like that though, as I do it myself all the time.)

Second...and this is a real nit-pick...spell-check...

I enjoyed the stories.
Kudos for putting them up where other people can enjoy them too.
:)

[Critias]

PM me with a few details about that, Demo? I don't mean that in a "prove it!" sort of way, but rather in a "please tell me exactly where, if you remember, so I can fix it."

I can think of one or two stories where I changed tense and point of view purposefully (a flashback scene, for instance), but...yeah. If you remember any instances of it off the top of your head, lemme know. Ditto with typos.

You know how easy it is to miss stuff like that in your own work. When you're reading over stuff you've written, you see the word and spelling you know comes next, not necessarily what's on the screen. :)

[Demosthenes]

I'm at work, so it'll take a while. I'll send you details when I can though (which means soon).

[amadeus]

Great stories Critias, and yes I would be interrested in reading more stories about Conner...

reading all of this SR fanfic (i am trudging around the old forums...) has really gotten me thinking about my own stories.

again great stories IMO, no real nit picks or anything, I would just like
more material, and maybe some more detail about the surroundings, let the reader know what the atmosphere is at the current time/place, but those are just my humple thoughts...

amadeus