Azoraa
Well-Known Member
Dear forum,
ok - so let's try this.
I'm asking for feedback about the intro of the first chapter of my novel "A World Without Turtles".
It's a sci-fi novel, eco-fiction, and the second draft is 75% finished. So far only my alpha-reader (husband) has read it.
The excerpt has ~1100 words. I know there is an issue with the tenses, as the first two paragraphs are past tense, and
the rest is present tense. Not sure exactly if I should change it, or if I can treat the first paragraph as a kind of intro-intro
and leave it that way.
What I'm more afraid of is that you'll say it's too wordy and too little action...
Be honest and have no mercy! I'm here to learn!
*nervous chuckle*
Lisa
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A World Without Turtles
Part I
Anna was underwater when she met her, on a research dive. They regularly monitored the starfish population
they had reintroduced six months earlier. The pink starfish, or Artiaster roseus, was a hybrid and a product of
careful genetic engineering and ecological consideration. Lito and she were working alongside each other.
They needed to record the GPS-data of the starfish they found, read out the chips with their identification
numbers, take measurements and tissue samples. That was her job. In order to survey their impact as a key-
stone reef species, Lito was responsible for monitoring their effect on the reef. He took soil samples and counted
the invasive Egyptian penny mussels and a number of other small reef species which they hoped the starfish
would predate on.
Lito was a few meters behind her, on the other side of a patch of dying coral, when she saw the turtle: gliding
towards her with ease, out of the deep blue. She was big, almost Anna's size, but she moved as though she
weighed nothing. Her carapace was colored in shades of green, blue, and a dark red. Every scale on her body
had a different color, and was framed by white, leathery skin. Her fins were moving gently up and down.
Anna held a starfish in her hand at that moment. She had just measured its diameter and arm circumference,
measures that would help monitor their health. It wriggled between her fingers. The turtle stopped in front
of Anna, and looked at her, curiously, out of these old, knowing eyes. Her face with the pointy beak looked
like the face of a friendly grandmother. Anna reached out her hand, then pulled it back. A wild turtle! She had
never met a wild turtle. Now her head was only a meter away from Anna's face. The turtle's black eyes held
her gaze. Suddenly, she turned and swam away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s the year 154 AF, after the Fires, long after they had domesticated the turtles on a global scale. With a little
bit of genetic engineering, turtles were found to be: excellent guides for underwater vessels, also under difficult
circumstances; easy to train for surveillance and maintenance tasks; apt at learning to carry weapons and
finding mines; reliable guiding animals for the blind. Many were born blind these days. Currently the rate
hovers at around 50% and growing. More and more babies are born with their eyes closed, as if they were
sleeping, the eyeball under the closed lid dysfunctional. A genetic problem that many scientists and whole
labs are working hard to resolve. But there are also other issues at hand that demand attention. And with
half of the social and economic life having already moved underwater, some people argue that it is the right
time to rethink which organs and senses humans actually need, and those they can do without.
They break through the surface, and pull themselves back up on the boat.
“Did you see the turtle?” Anna asks Lito right away.
He hasn’t. He also doesn't think it likely, and says that she probably confused a rock, or a shadow for a
turtle, and then he turns towards the sun, and dozes off.
Anna signs the turtle to take the boat back to the research station, which is easy enough in today’s calm
waters, and they speed off. The Eilat research compound, where their lab is located, is a city in itself.
Formerly a tourism hotspot, most of the giant hotels that had regularly housed tens of thousands of tourists
looking for sun, sea, and party on the Red Sea shores had been turned into laboratories and research facilities,
housing some of the brightest minds and most innovative research projects. After the formation of the
Five-State-Alliance between Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria in the year 67 AF, that was built officially
in order to cooperate on environmental challenges in the region, but inofficially in order to prevent the
inevitable genetic collapse by triggering migration and genetic exchange, the region changed.
The majority of the populations of the five countries moved to the fertile regions: the Nile delta, and to
the area around the North of Israel and the South of Lebanon, and avoided the growing extinction zones —
which was basically all the rest. The alliance was a success, for all it’s worth. The gentic census data taken
every five years showed that the average genetic destruction rate progressed at a slightly slower rate, and
surveys showed a slow, but steady increase of intercultural marriages. The five leading parties of the alliance
partners, who had merged into one conflict-ridden party, congratulated themselves that their crafty plan
had worked out.
Despite these small successes, the birth rate was still in free fall. Had been, for several decades. With the
consequential decrease in population, many villages and cities in the periphery were abandoned. Eilat was
one of them. Research institutes quickly jumped at the opportunity to move into the disused infrastructures
by the Red Sea — a sea known for the last more-or-less functional coral reefs on Earth, with a greater
biodiversity than any other marine area, and thus also a treasure of genetic material that had become scarce.
The half-flooded buildings lining the shore, victims of the rising sea level, slowly turned into amphibuildings,
reappropriated by newcomers in need of blended marine-terrestrial environments, who didn’t complain
about flooded living rooms, or used by research institutions who needed direct access to the ocean.
Lito wakes up just in time, as they are getting back to the lab. "Thanks for steering, Anna."
He blows a kiss in her direction, and starts to get out of his wetsuit.
He doesn't mind anyone seeing him naked. Never has.
“I didn’t do anything. Lini103 did all by herself.” She strokes the proud turtle’s head.
Anna is used to him and his quirks by now, and has at one point started to actually like him. Completely undressed,
Anna can see Lito's brown skin, his muscular body, scattered with sparkling red scales. This is due to the marine
DNA that his parents had used to repair his dysfunctional embryo after learning that his chances of survival,
if untreated, hovered somewhere around less than 15%. That’s generally considered an alright probability,
but it was not good enough for them. Lito's mother is a geneticist, and his father a taxonomist. They did their
own research on the topic, and decided for two sequences of DNA from the Flame Angelfish, Centropyge
loricula, to be inserted into their unborn son's genome. And thus Lito was born, a healthy boy with webbed
fingers, strong lungs - an underwater performance of 120% - red scales, brown skin, and crimson hair.
ok - so let's try this.
I'm asking for feedback about the intro of the first chapter of my novel "A World Without Turtles".
It's a sci-fi novel, eco-fiction, and the second draft is 75% finished. So far only my alpha-reader (husband) has read it.
The excerpt has ~1100 words. I know there is an issue with the tenses, as the first two paragraphs are past tense, and
the rest is present tense. Not sure exactly if I should change it, or if I can treat the first paragraph as a kind of intro-intro
and leave it that way.
What I'm more afraid of is that you'll say it's too wordy and too little action...
Be honest and have no mercy! I'm here to learn!
*nervous chuckle*
Lisa
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A World Without Turtles
Part I
Anna was underwater when she met her, on a research dive. They regularly monitored the starfish population
they had reintroduced six months earlier. The pink starfish, or Artiaster roseus, was a hybrid and a product of
careful genetic engineering and ecological consideration. Lito and she were working alongside each other.
They needed to record the GPS-data of the starfish they found, read out the chips with their identification
numbers, take measurements and tissue samples. That was her job. In order to survey their impact as a key-
stone reef species, Lito was responsible for monitoring their effect on the reef. He took soil samples and counted
the invasive Egyptian penny mussels and a number of other small reef species which they hoped the starfish
would predate on.
Lito was a few meters behind her, on the other side of a patch of dying coral, when she saw the turtle: gliding
towards her with ease, out of the deep blue. She was big, almost Anna's size, but she moved as though she
weighed nothing. Her carapace was colored in shades of green, blue, and a dark red. Every scale on her body
had a different color, and was framed by white, leathery skin. Her fins were moving gently up and down.
Anna held a starfish in her hand at that moment. She had just measured its diameter and arm circumference,
measures that would help monitor their health. It wriggled between her fingers. The turtle stopped in front
of Anna, and looked at her, curiously, out of these old, knowing eyes. Her face with the pointy beak looked
like the face of a friendly grandmother. Anna reached out her hand, then pulled it back. A wild turtle! She had
never met a wild turtle. Now her head was only a meter away from Anna's face. The turtle's black eyes held
her gaze. Suddenly, she turned and swam away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s the year 154 AF, after the Fires, long after they had domesticated the turtles on a global scale. With a little
bit of genetic engineering, turtles were found to be: excellent guides for underwater vessels, also under difficult
circumstances; easy to train for surveillance and maintenance tasks; apt at learning to carry weapons and
finding mines; reliable guiding animals for the blind. Many were born blind these days. Currently the rate
hovers at around 50% and growing. More and more babies are born with their eyes closed, as if they were
sleeping, the eyeball under the closed lid dysfunctional. A genetic problem that many scientists and whole
labs are working hard to resolve. But there are also other issues at hand that demand attention. And with
half of the social and economic life having already moved underwater, some people argue that it is the right
time to rethink which organs and senses humans actually need, and those they can do without.
They break through the surface, and pull themselves back up on the boat.
“Did you see the turtle?” Anna asks Lito right away.
He hasn’t. He also doesn't think it likely, and says that she probably confused a rock, or a shadow for a
turtle, and then he turns towards the sun, and dozes off.
Anna signs the turtle to take the boat back to the research station, which is easy enough in today’s calm
waters, and they speed off. The Eilat research compound, where their lab is located, is a city in itself.
Formerly a tourism hotspot, most of the giant hotels that had regularly housed tens of thousands of tourists
looking for sun, sea, and party on the Red Sea shores had been turned into laboratories and research facilities,
housing some of the brightest minds and most innovative research projects. After the formation of the
Five-State-Alliance between Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria in the year 67 AF, that was built officially
in order to cooperate on environmental challenges in the region, but inofficially in order to prevent the
inevitable genetic collapse by triggering migration and genetic exchange, the region changed.
The majority of the populations of the five countries moved to the fertile regions: the Nile delta, and to
the area around the North of Israel and the South of Lebanon, and avoided the growing extinction zones —
which was basically all the rest. The alliance was a success, for all it’s worth. The gentic census data taken
every five years showed that the average genetic destruction rate progressed at a slightly slower rate, and
surveys showed a slow, but steady increase of intercultural marriages. The five leading parties of the alliance
partners, who had merged into one conflict-ridden party, congratulated themselves that their crafty plan
had worked out.
Despite these small successes, the birth rate was still in free fall. Had been, for several decades. With the
consequential decrease in population, many villages and cities in the periphery were abandoned. Eilat was
one of them. Research institutes quickly jumped at the opportunity to move into the disused infrastructures
by the Red Sea — a sea known for the last more-or-less functional coral reefs on Earth, with a greater
biodiversity than any other marine area, and thus also a treasure of genetic material that had become scarce.
The half-flooded buildings lining the shore, victims of the rising sea level, slowly turned into amphibuildings,
reappropriated by newcomers in need of blended marine-terrestrial environments, who didn’t complain
about flooded living rooms, or used by research institutions who needed direct access to the ocean.
Lito wakes up just in time, as they are getting back to the lab. "Thanks for steering, Anna."
He blows a kiss in her direction, and starts to get out of his wetsuit.
He doesn't mind anyone seeing him naked. Never has.
“I didn’t do anything. Lini103 did all by herself.” She strokes the proud turtle’s head.
Anna is used to him and his quirks by now, and has at one point started to actually like him. Completely undressed,
Anna can see Lito's brown skin, his muscular body, scattered with sparkling red scales. This is due to the marine
DNA that his parents had used to repair his dysfunctional embryo after learning that his chances of survival,
if untreated, hovered somewhere around less than 15%. That’s generally considered an alright probability,
but it was not good enough for them. Lito's mother is a geneticist, and his father a taxonomist. They did their
own research on the topic, and decided for two sequences of DNA from the Flame Angelfish, Centropyge
loricula, to be inserted into their unborn son's genome. And thus Lito was born, a healthy boy with webbed
fingers, strong lungs - an underwater performance of 120% - red scales, brown skin, and crimson hair.
