Short story introduction

[Vertigo]

Thanks JR I wasn't happy with that bit and felt it needed reorganising.

Cryosleep doesn't come into it; you literally leave your life to some one in your will and if you die they can then have a baby. Everyone would automatically have a life will registered when they are born with the mother as the automatic beneficiary. Then when they are old enough they would be able to specify some one different if they chose.

 

[Belador]

Hi,

Overall pretty good I thought, but I think it could do with another proofread for punctuation, particularly around the dialogue.

I am a little confused by how the birth laws work and what therefore could have shown up on the genetic analysis to cause such alarm (unless he's not her biological father, but would that be so concerning?) but presume that gets explained later.

A couple of random, more specific comments:

"There's been a multi-vehicle accident near the city centre," said the A&E sister. She was a quiet centre to the orderly storm surrounding her. "We're expecting around fifteen casualties in the next ten minutes or so. Rooms are being prepped and we're calling in a couple of extra doctors."

I would suggest the above tweaks to this paragraph

His momentary pause was hidden by the paramedics gently lifting her from the trolley to the treatment couch.

I would suggest removing the first half of the above sentence - seems a little strange if we are in his POV - maybe just 'The paramedics gently lifted the girl from the trolley to the treatment couch.'

Before he could respond the nurse returned holding a tablet.

I presume you're talking about a tablet computer, but I think there's potential for confusion in a medical setting, so perhaps a different word would work better

The arrogant scowl had vanished from the father and he was...

'From the father's face'?

 

[Mouse]

"What's the emergency?" Ian had just arrived and was observing the efficient bustle of preparatory activity.

Sounds like he's been standing there a while before he decides to ask what's going on? Maybe it'd make more of an impact if you put something like 'Ian arrived just as... etc.'

The sister pulled a face. "Apparently some hotshot wanted to impress his friends, hacked his cars safety system and took it out of urban auto-control. His reaction time wasn't up to it and they found themselves in the middle of an eight car pile up."

car's

Ten minutes later and the victims started arriving in a noisy convoy of hospital trolleys. Ian's first patient was whisked into his treatment room by two paramedics.

Ten minutes later sounds a bit weird, I don't reckon you need that.

So children were rare… very rare and this girl can't have been more than fourteen or fifteen.

couldn't have

His momentary pause was hidden by the paramedics gently lifting her from the trolley to the treatment couch.

I don't think you need this bit either. Or put something like 'his surprise went unnoticed as the paramedics... etc.

One of the paramedics held the door for the nurse and following her out they paused at the wave of sound from outside; shouts and doors slamming. Noticing the girl's increased anxiety, Ian called out to the departing medics, "What's with all the noise out there?"

Awkward paragraph. I have no suggestions though.

"There's some guy storming about from room to room. Looks like he's headed this way. Want us to stick around?"

Why about?

"I'm her father and she comes with me now!" He tried unsuccessfully to barge past the paramedics.

Maybe change the 'he' to 'the man' otherwise to me it sounds like Ian is trying to barge past.

----

Some of your dialogue is a little stilted. And honestly, I think this might work better in first person. (Give it a go! )

I really like the idea though and would read on!

 

[Vertigo]

Thanks for that Belador. I like your specific suggestions.

The one on the "momentary pause"; I was trying to give a context for the info dump in the previous para. However J Riff's suggestion may alleviate that particular problem.

The tablet thing is interesting. I imagine that we will typcially all have personal computers the size of an eReader and was trying to think what we would call such a thing. Tablet seems to be one of the names becoming popular. Have to have a think on it.

Puncuation is always going to be a problem. I have never written before and my English grammer was lousy at school and not a lot better now. Interesting that you particularly mention punctuation around dialogue; never having written dialogue before - ever - I found myself very confused here. Have to do a bit more studying the dialogue in books I read!

With regard to the childbirth laws I didn't want to spend too long on it and I think some of that would become clearer later. However let me explain a more fully so people understand the context a bit better. Then I just have to figure out how present it.

First of all the childbirth laws. With rejuvenation and future medicine for illnesses, people are going to live a long time. So to avoid the inevitable population explosion there is a strict "one death, one birth" rule. A child can only be born after someone has died. The problem of who is to have one of these rare babies is solved by having a registered "life-will" naming a beneficiary who would be permitted to have a child if you should die (from an accident or similar). Everyone would automatically have a life-will created for them when they are born with the mother as the beneficiary. This they could change when they reach adulthood.

This actually creates all sorts of interesting frameworks(?) for a story. Could you sell your life-will? Or if you are a beneficary what sort of money might be offered to you for the licence to have a child? Could people be coerced into assigning their life-will to someone not of their choice and then have a sudden "accident"? What do you do with illegal babies? Or the one I was thinking of here.

The rejevenation of the story is achieved by turning genes on and off. Something that I belive we can pretty much do now (the switching that is, the real problem is figuring out which genes to switch!). So I'm imagining that they are effectively turning off the aging genes. This would be something that would be very obvious in a "gene scan" and would feature in the report from it. Now given a technology like that what is going to happen if the treatment were given to an adolescent who has not yet finished growing. I'm suggesting here that it would halt their growth and lock them into adolescence. Horrible though it may be there will always be criminals out there that would take advantage of such a thing. My man in the story is one such and also not the father and that's why he's running. I would imagine the punishment for such a crime would be very severe.

I'll be honest I'm not really sure I have the skills to deal with such a difficult subject in an appropriately sensitive way!

Crikey I didn't mean to write such a long post. Sorry!

Mouse - I'll get back to your later - jsut had a visitor dropped by