Put The Kettle On, We're On Our Way

[chopper]

i know,i know, daft title alert. but it does all make sense in the end. just not at this point of the story. this is the start of a short story that involves terraforming and strange alien sculptures on another world. does it all sound plausible so far?

[FONT=Courier, monospace]An hour out of Myers City, they turned off the main carriageway and headed up into the hills. Here the road was narrower and wound alarmingly across contours that, on the map, had looked deceptively easy. Fahim Barad's stomach lurched with every tight corner – and there were a lot of those. A small part of his mind wondered exactly how the roadlayers must have coped with this environment. It's not as though they're made to work in three dimensions, he thought.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Courier, monospace] The car took another corner, much faster than was necessary, and this time the wheels skidded on the hard, bitumen-based surface. Fahim felt his safety belt bite into his shoulder as centrifugal force took hold of him once more.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Courier, monospace] “You're enjoying this far too much,” he observed. “Can we please slow down just a little? I would like to get there in one piece, you know.”[/FONT]
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[FONT=Courier, monospace] His companion grinned and shook her head, but Fahim felt the car decelerate a little as it approached the next bend and, to his relief, this time his stomach stayed where it was supposed to when Maria Ortega swung the wheel around.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Courier, monospace] “Okay, so we were running a bit late,” she conceded, still smiling. “But I suppose the place won't be going anywhere without us.”[/FONT]
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[FONT=Courier, monospace] “Speed demon,” Fahim muttered, but the complaint was meant in good humour. He had worked with Ortega long enough that her habitual impatience no longer bothered him. It was an attitude that poorly suited her job, however: mankind had been waiting for a First Contact encounter since the middle of the twentieth century, and would undoubtedly wait longer yet, no matter how impatient Ortega might be. But nobody could fault her enthusiasm on this road, away from the dull, straight lines of the corporate city grid. Had he been more inclined to such things, Fahim might have taken the wheel himself on this journey.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Courier, monospace] Travelling at a more civilised pace, Fahim took the opportunity to look out at the hillsides, craning his head for his first sighting of their destination. The ground was uneven and, for the most part, quite barren. But there were more patches of green than there had been even just a few months before, when he had last come to the observatory. Clusters of oxygen-producing fungus had been seeded here by the first wave of terraformers, decades previously, to aid the conversion process. The fungus released spores into the air, spread itself across the land on the arid winds. After that, when the thinnest of breathable atmospheres was in place, the second wave of bio-agriculturalists planted genetically modified forests: stiff, regimented ranks of force-grown trees that dug deep into the planet's soil to find the moisture trapped far below the surface.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Courier, monospace] One of these knee-high forests flashed past the car window even as he looked – a legion of infant trees, Fahim thought, waiting as if to march to war. The idea amused him. Perhaps the planners should have planted adult trees with every hundred or so smaller variants, to act as centurions.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Courier, monospace] A much larger shape loomed over the newly-planted forest, casting a long shadow down the hillside. A curving, sinuous sculpture, broad-based and several meters high. Alien and ancient: there were several hundreds of those things in the Myers region of this continent alone. Art, some said. Some kind of message, others argued. The only thing anybody could agree on was that the unnerving shapes could not have occurred naturally.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Courier, monospace] Someone – something – had lived on this world before.[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier, monospace] Fahim fixed his gaze on the shape until it disappeared behind another bend in the road.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Courier, monospace] “Those things freak me out,” Ortega commented. “I mean, you can sit there just looking at them for hours and they never seem to make any sense at all. You can lose your mind staring at them.”[/FONT]
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[FONT=Courier, monospace] Fahim flashed a smile at the young woman. “It is good to hear that even you can know fear.”[/FONT]
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[FONT=Courier, monospace] “Yeah.” She returned the smile. “Things that stand still, Doctor Barad. They scare me.”[/FONT]
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[FONT=Courier, monospace] Acceleration pushed Fahim back into his seat and he shook his head ruefully. “Ah, youth.”[/FONT]

 

[ctg]

To answer your question, yes the story and the characters seem to be plausible. Though I would need much, much more to see if they are two dimensional. The question is, why are you worried when you have Ian Sales and Mr Whates backing you up?

 

[mygoditsraining]

It's fine!

I quite like the way he muses a little distractedly about the terraforming process.

The only thing I'd say that could potentially improve it would be a bit more anchor-work to give us an idea of the relationship between the two characters. You've got a man and a woman in the car together, they've worked together a long time, she's a bit impatient but he's no longer bothered by it - was he bothered before? Was one/is one attracted to the other? Is there any tension or chemistry between them? Or are they lovers? WAS THERE SEXY TIME?

Maybe it goes on to cover some of this but I got the feeling from the final line that it was not only dialogue, but the closing phrase of an introductory vignette.

To give you a comparison example, there's a flashback section very close to the start of The Algebraist where four people are travelling in a high speed craft together. One person is playing fast and loose at the controls, another is chiding him for it (and, as I recall, attempts to tamper with the controls? Could just be my memory). There's a good chunk fo unrequited attraction going on in there, and a bit of history established between them, and the fairly short passage has an air of risk to it, because they shouldn't be there and we're not sure why.

Of course, the novel then proceeds to be one of the most drawn-out, dull, unexciting plots ever conceived, dragging to the point that I could easily iamgine the author having to screw his dangly bits between white-knuckled fists to extract every last drop of the proverbial urine. Normally I don't grudge Iain M. Banks his odder moments, but when he's depserately trying to re-engage the reader between chapters on the gas giant by being deliberately grim,* then I just stop caring.

Mind you, the rest of the novel is beside the point - the section in the aircar/flyer/whatever was quite good, is what I'm trying to say.



*ooh! Not only does he have the head of a rebel as a punchbag BUT ALSO he tortures a dude to death with genetically-modified teeth OH OH BUT WAIT his winkie is full of truth serum and all this other junk AND AREN'T I JUST SHOCKING?

 

[BSCVadhan]

The way I understand it, Fahim is an older guy and Ortega, his younger partner. Their relationship is entirely professional with just a hint of harmless affection between them...the piece is well written.

One or two things though, the reference to the knee high forest flashing past the car window is fine, except that you reiterate that Fahim was looking out the window. That he was looking out the window is already part of the earlier para. You might consider omitting it.

The description of the alien sculpture is very good! Would love to read the complete short story.
BSCV

 

[Boneman]

When I first started reading it, I assumed it was desert on Earth, because I went straight to it, without reading your intro. 'Myers City', 'main carriageway', 'hills', 'road', 'the car', 'wheels' 'bitumen based surface', 'safety belt' are all such common words that I thought that aliens must have arrived at some point in the past in a deserted part of our world, and built the sculptures. Not sure if that needs to be addressed, but there won't be guideline in the short story, will there?

So it's only nitpicking, but I guess if it's an alien world, I 'spose I'd expect different. It wasn't until I was a few paragraphs further on that I got the idea they'd been there for ages, but I wasn't sure how long........and not a stargate in sight.....!

Other than that distraction I liked the feel of it.

His companion grinned and shook her head, but Fahim felt the car decelerate a little as it approached the next bend and, to his relief, this time his stomach stayed where it was supposed to when Maria Ortega swung the wheel around.

But that's a very long sentence, and there's a repetition of 'this time' from the last action description of the car's movement.

 

[mygoditsraining]

The way I understand it, Fahim is an older guy and Ortega, his younger partner. Their relationship is entirely professional with just a hint of harmless affection between them...

My point was that it's a bit of a dull relationship to kick things off with, especially when it could be given just a tantalising edge of something else. All he has to do is sneak a look at a glimpse of leg south of her hemline (licentiousness! Romance is dead!) and it may well just prove to be him being a bit of a window shopper, but the hook - so what's this guy's deal? Does he fancy her? Love her? is their relationship anything other than professional? is there.

As I commented right at the start, it's a nice bit of scene-setting, but I just think that the scenario could be used to advance the characters a little bit more.

Imagine chopper had to set the whole story in that one journey. What would we learn about the characters? "OK, so we put two people in a box, in close proximity. And...they are completely respectful and friendly to one another."

I appreciate that the piece presented is completely fine in terms of the writing and may well be all that chopper wants to give at that point in terms of content, but there's a whole world of backstory to be explored between characters, and when we get an opportunity to ram them together, isolate them, make their personalities clash or meld - shouldn't we milk it just a little?

Second example, and it's a film one this time. In Local Hero, one of the most sedate movies ever, the car journey with Peters Riegert and Capaldi reveals pretty much everything you're ever going to need to know about the two of them, and their relationship, especially when they hit a rabbit -

"Why don't we kill it? Hit it with something hard..."
"You've already done that with a two-ton automobile."

 

[HareBrain]

Very good generally Chopper, and yes, plausible, at least to someone with my level of scientific knowledge (they're saying now that the earth goes round the sun, is that right?)

An hour out of Myers City, they turned off the main carriageway and headed up into the hills.

I like the start, which plunges you straight in without any premable - it reads almost as though some opening paras had been chopped. More stories should begin like this.

It's not as though they're made to work in three dimensions, he thought.

Just a suggestion, because the reader doesn't know that's his thought until the end of the sentence, I would either use italics or report it through narrative: "It wasn't as though they were made to work in three dimentions."

The car took another corner, much faster than was necessary, and this time the wheels skidded on the hard, bitumen-based surface. Fahim felt his safety belt bite into his shoulder as centrifugal force took hold of him once more.

A bit wordy. To be really picky, we know it's the wheels that skid, we assume it's a bitumen-based surface, we know what forces are acting on him. I'd shorten this to:

The car took another corner, much faster than was necessary, and this time skidded. Fahim felt his safety belt bite into his shoulder. .

Clusters of oxygen-producing fungus had been seeded here by the first wave of terraformers, decades previously, to aid the conversion process. The fungus released spores into the air, spread itself across the land on the arid winds. After that, when the thinnest of breathable atmospheres was in place, the second wave of bio-agriculturalists planted genetically modified forests: stiff, regimented ranks of force-grown trees that dug deep into the planet's soil to find the moisture trapped far below the surface.

As Boneman said, this is the first hint that we're on another planet, though I didn't mind that - just be aware of it.

Also, as an aside, the idea of the "centurion trees" is actually used. Oak plantations often have faster-growing beech amongst them to act as a windbreak, and hazel coppice woods include taller "standards" such as chestnut for the same reason.

 

[chopper]

Thankyou one and all, first off. SF stories are still something i'm struggling with, not least because i have no idea about science at all. i'm making this up as i go along so if something doesn't ring true about the terraforming, the whole story will fall flat on its face.

ctg: i know one ian, but not the other! (and mr sales will see this a week on monday...) and i worry because (see the above). fantasy is what i consider i do best, but i'm finding anything i do SF-wise looks best as a short story. you seem to have a better grip on SF than i do.

MGIR: um. i hadn't planned to give them much backstory actually, given that i want to (try to) keep the story under 5000 words and i don't want to distract too much from the matter at hand - radio signals, sculptures, linguistic art....but i'll see how it pans out and if there's room i might give Barad and Ortega a bit more padding. you've put me off the algebraist though

BSCV: cheers for the tweaks - i'll tighten that bit up a bit.

Boneman: do you think i need to add some reference or anchor point at the start of the story, to prevent any confusion? i did want to launch into it as though Barad takes the planet and his own presence there for granted, just like nobody leaves their house in the morning thinking "OK, it's March 20th 2009, and I'm in South Yorkshire". but since i'm being deliberately low-tech as well (my SF doesn't have warpdrives, teleporters, or owt like that - it has technical issues, HR problems, and bad coffee) maybe i need to change tack a bit?

HB - thanks for the centurion trees - given the wind on this world (plot!) the plantations'll need them!

 

[chopper]

[FONT=Courier, monospace]One of these knee-high forests flashed past the car window even as he looked – a legion of infant trees, Fahim thought, waiting as if to march to war. The idea amused him. Behind the plantation was a long line of beech-variants, placed to ward off the prevailing winds; they towered over their smaller charges with the authority of centurions.[/FONT]

that actually works a little better, i think.

 

[Boneman]

By Chopper
Boneman: do you think i need to add some reference or anchor point at the start of the story, to prevent any confusion? i did want to launch into it as though Barad takes the planet and his own presence there for granted, just like nobody leaves their house in the morning thinking "OK, it's March 20th 2009, and I'm in South Yorkshire". but since i'm being deliberately low-tech as well (my SF doesn't have warpdrives, teleporters, or owt like that - it has technical issues, HR problems, and bad coffee) maybe i need to change tack a bit?

Well, if there's hardly any oxygen in the air just yet, maybe a reference to the vehicle sealing itself, or a comment by him to the driver as a semi-sarcastic aside that if she keeps driving that like she'll blow the seals and they'll have 10 minutes to live? Or maybe he nervously plays with the respirator he's going to need when he has EVA. Oh, sorry....extra-vehicular-activity. Possibly a sarcastic reply by the driver that "c'mon, they rolled this prototype three times in trials and the seals held, what are you worried about?"? But...if there's enough O2 to go outside without a respirator, then maybe a comment along the lines of: " do you think they brought the bitumen all the way from earth, just to make us feel at home?" Or is that too obvious? Probably......
Maybe there's two moons, or three orbiting planets

Or this comment could be expanded:

A small part of his mind wondered exactly how the roadlayers must have coped with this environment. It's not as though they're made to work in three dimensions, he thought.

It's all in there, in many ways, just needs to be more obvious, 'cos I'm not sure what the second part of the sentence is supposed to mean! Must have been hellish building the road in full immersion suit with oxygen tanks on their backs, sort of thing?

 

[ctg]

Must have been hellish building the road in full immersion suit with oxygen tanks on their backs, sort of thing?

Not really, a dirt track is very easy to do and you need only a vehicle or two. Then again, you could imagine a paved road, which the prose doesn't indicate and to do that you would need a heavy equipment, like for example this:

 

[Boneman]

Yeah, but if there's no oxygen to breathe, and none to drive the internal combustion engine, it's going to be a real problem........

 

[ctg]

You do know that you don't need internal combustion engine for a heavy engine as there are several options to replace it. All the way from the toxic chemicals to the electric ones. Given that this one is a sci-fi story, there are even more then what we at the moment in our disposal. However, I don't want to argue, so let's say you win.

 

[Boneman]

But as it's in the future, and an alien planet I accept what you say, ctg, they should have moved on from internal combustion centuries ago. My point was that this piece didn't sound like an alien planet and didn't have enough descriptive elements to suggest technological advancement and root the story strongly enough in the future......