Book Chapter Draft #3: "Row the River Lethe" [a character waking from interstellar sleep upon arrival to a nearby star] - 1495 words

[Logan Selmes]

Edit 3 - Sorry if I'm being annoying by repeatedly posting new edits, just want to put best face forward and compare to previous iterations. I'll leave it at this point until after feedback, I promise.
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She opened her eyes into dim half light after a long dark.

No thought no fear.

Her eyelids fell heavily shut and she willed oblivion to return. Her mind raced on.

Wrong place for long dark. Out of Bedchamber. Row the River Lethe no more. Four in four out. In no more. No more. Never.

Panic suddenly dissolved. A verbal token flashed in her mind earlier than her name did, if her name really was Persis. She doubted the name without knowing why. She turned the token over in her mind. A fragment of old, pretty words. Not her own words, but favorites, a thing from before the long dark. She strained to focus through a claustrophobic tunnel.

Her mouth moved clumsily until she could finally form deliberate shapes with it. She shaped words silently.

“Frame thy fearful symmetry,” she finally said aloud. Disuse had made her voice a whisper. She repeated the phrase several times until her voice sounded almost whole. The tunnel in her mind widened. Thoughts flowed in order.

Fearful symmetry, Blake, Tyger. Tiger. India. Bengaluru. Parsi. Sethna. Jamshed Sethna, Father. Persis Jamshed Sethna, Daughter. Persis… I am.

The mental effort tired Persis, too tired to open her eyes again. Her head started to clear. She heard voices and machine sounds and felt the room’s light brighten against her eyelids.

“We made it, Persis,” said a very familiar voice. “Beat the hardest odds anyone has ever taken.”

Persis didn’t understand. She forced her eyes open to look down at herself. She was nestled horizontally among blankets in a hammock designed for low-gravity environments. An ancient concerto played quietly. She couldn’t recall its name though she somehow knew it was her lifelong favorite

She felt vaguely satisfied. Everything as I prefer. As it was each time. The thought fled before Persis had fully deciphered its meaning.

The curving walls of the room were clad in fragrant hinoki wood finished darkly. Fragments of memories flitted up from a deep pit. Persis laughed softly to herself at the recognition, also pleased to hear her own voice’s smoothness and warmth restored.

“Oh, the hinoki!” Persis said to herself. “What a strange story that was, smuggled out of the PCR… Gavin Hercus arranged that.” She sighed deeply. “Shame what became of Japan. And most other places too. From there to the edge of Sol’s pull. I-”

Persis turned her head to the right and startled. A young woman stood there, her face animated by concern and eagerness. “I know you, don’t I?” Persis asked.

“Of course you do, Persis. Yes!” The girl’s face twisted strangely for a few moments until a feeble smile formed. “Virgilia. I’m Virgilia Hood.”

Persis gazed intently at ‘Virgilia’. Freckles, hazel eyes, red hair tied back, pale skin. As with most people who lived in these conditions, a dancer’s build and easy manner in low gravity. “Virgilia Hood. That seems right… Gavin, that name I know for sure. But not why.”

Virgilia Hood choked out a little laugh. “I’m glad you remember Gavin, Persis. Nothing like the old man before or since. The more comes back to you, the more you’ll know what I mean. You’ll recover most of whatever you’ve forgotten. That’s how it was for me. I’ve been on active crew for a few years now. You’ve already been through recovery more times than just about any person I know of, Persis.”

“Recovery from- you mean the long dark? ‘Rowing the River Lethe’. Sorry, the… cryostasis. Yon Biotech? They were the ones to do it first, I was there! I did all my genfitting well in advance of that. I remember the main procedure, a gene from an arthropod. Freeze-avoidant antifreeze protein production. Avoidant, not just resistant. Reduced damage to recoverable levels. I tested a bedchamber myself. Only ten years the first time, but still, the risk in the oldest models… Oh. Why would I do that? Why did I?” Persis physically shuddered at the thought.

She looked back to Virgilia and stared at the girl. Virgilia had nodded agreeably to every point of recollection.

“Virgilia Hood,” Persis sounded out slowly. “Feels like I should remember you very clearly. Though I don’t. I’m sorry.”

“You will. Persis, what you just said about Yon Biotech? I remember it too. And Gavin. And all the others,” said Virgilia. “Sierra Leone, remember? I was only 18 then. We few who knew you all wondered where you’d disappeared to. The years kept passing and you stayed gone. Even back then the Sethnas were so tight-lipped, the ones who knew anything, I mean. Even quieter than the Yon family.” Virgilia laughed brightly. “Eugene knew the whole time! *******!”

That name was also important, Persis knew.

“And I know why you tested it yourself so early on,” said Virgilia. “We didn’t know exactly what you meant, but before you dropped of the map you always said you’d never ask anything of us unless the same was expected of you. ”

Persis raised an eyebrow. “Did I?”

“Yes. Before and after that incident. Yet another mantra,” said Virgilia. “You were known as a woman of extremes. Sometimes in a good way. But Persis, you made me who I am. You called me family, your sister, you said so yourself! Remember?”

Persis widened her eyes at this comment. In the depths of memory some things were still perfectly clear. One was the exclusive way Sethnas always talked about family: the literal and verifiable sense of lineage, blood, genetics. “Did I?” she asked again.

“Oh, Persis,” Virgilia said, “of all memories that might not return, let that not be one of them.”

Virgilia’s open exasperation earned an agreeable shrug from Persis. “I’ll do my best. Out of my control, isn’t it?” She fought to keep her eyelids open and her mind focused the conversation.

“Sorry. Sorry for keeping you awake,” Virgilia said. “Your medical team will want to see you soon, they’ll wake you. Phys, psych, everything. They’ve had you out of the medical habitat for a month now. You’ve time to rest for now, at least a few hours.”

“Wonderful,” said Persis as she nestled deeper into the hammock’s luxury. “Oh. You heard me talking about the hinoki wood?”

“Um, I did, yes. I’m glad its here. Its really beautiful. A good sensory detail, too.”

“Isn’t it strange how things like that follow us?” Persis said. “Mostly in memory. But that hinoki really did follow me across all that distance, so far from-” Persis turned in the hammock to stare at Virgilia, who already stood in the doorway. “I don’t remember where we were going and who went with us.”

Virgilia nodded, pausing for a long moment before speaking. “We’re on the Howqua. With the Hansa flotilla, five ships. We left Sol for Teegarden’s Star just before the other flotillas did. All parties have made it in by now, and all mostly intact. For better or worse. Insane odds, that.”

“Teegarden b… Twelve and a half light-years,” said Persis. She noticed the reverence in her own voice. From Sol, a leap of 112.25 trillion kilometers, moving at 15 percent of the speed of light. Persis let out a horrified groan. “I’ve missed too much, haven’t I? How long have we been in system?” She made tentative effort to escape from her hammock. She saw stars but fought through the disorientation to keep moving herself.”

Virgilia moved closer again, extended an arm and effortlessly pushed Persis back into the hammock’s curve.

“Now listen, Persis. Listen. Our people arrived first in system. We’ve only been here two months. Nobody’s had time to do anything other than learn new neighborhood before making any big moves. No violence, good communication, and it should stay that way.”

Persis let herself go limp again. “Okay.” More time to think was all she wanted. More information. “What do we know, who have we lost, who’s doing what, and what have we heard from elsewhere? Biosignature on Teegarden b is still good? Give me all that and I’ll sleep.”

Virgilia was already backing out of the doorway and into a corridor. “We’ll get you caught up soon. Really I shouldn’t even have talked to you this way so early on. Barely convinced your med team to give me this much time, and we’ve gone over. See you soon. Good to have you back, Ms. Sethna”.

Before Persis could protest the door had already slid shut. The lights dimmed to almost pitch black. She felt a surge of sedation from a source she couldn’t locate or even conceive of. Her will to keep herself awake slowly drifted away.

Alright. Doesn’t matter. You’ve made the voyage, mind intact. Never again on the river of forgetfulness. You’ve gone far enough, stolen enough time to fill lifetimes. Promise. Do you?

In the few seconds before sleep smothered all conscious thought, she committed herself.

Never again, I promise. I promise. I do.

After eighty years of thoughtless void, Persis Sethna dreamed.

 

[The Judge]

I've looked at this three or four times now, and to be honest I found it rather hard to read, and for me it didn't improve on re-reads.

I can understand that you want to show how disconnected/disorientated Persis is as she wakes up, and the prose does mirror that with the fragments of sentences and apparent non sequiturs, which is fine as the piece begins. However, the longer it goes on, the less convinced I am that it's working in your favour -- for me, it soon began to drag.

Then the whole thing rather descends into an info-dump that to my mind doesn't work, not only because of the "As you know, Bob," vibes it's giving out in the conversation, but because it's delivered in such a speedy fashion, with so little context, that I frankly failed to take any of it in. And while I don't believe every scene needs great conflict, for me the lack of tension and anything actually happening meant there was little to maintain my interest.

I also felt that you seemed to be trying to ride two horses at once by being immersed in her POV but also using omniscient to give an overview which for me didn't work eg the first line's "after a long dark" and later on "Disuse made her voice a whisper" don't to me sound like her thoughts, since it would mean she knew she'd been in cryostasis and she hadn't spoken in a long while, which doesn't seem to equate to where she is in coming to terms with her situation at those points. And, of course, the last line can only be omniscient.

Grammar-wise, you obviously know what you're doing, which is all to the good, and very little for me to nit-pick on those grounds. There were a couple of times your punctuation, or lack of it, pulled me up as "No thought no fear." and "Four in four out" need commas to my mind; there's a missing "a" before "tentative effort" and an errant " at the end of the following sentence, but that's about it. So good job on that score.

Overall, I do think you need to look at this again and reconsider whether you actually need a scene of her waking up and then going back to sleep -- exactly what is the point of it, other than to dump a lot of information? If you're convinced it is necessary, then my advice, for what it's worth, is to prune it heavily, keep her struggle to understand short, restrict the info-dump to things that the reader needs to know now (eg she's been asleep 80 years; they've just arrived at the system) and introduce some kind of contention or action (eg it's not a possible friend waking her, but someone she dislikes; there's some kind of time pressure upon her) to give it a lift and show more of her character.

Hope that's of some help. Take what you need and discard the rest. And good luck with it.

 

[Yozh]

I actually really liked this. Will write more specific critique later.

 

[Yozh]

I found the portrayal of her disorientation at the beginning very immersive and thought it was well-done. It *is* a lot of information, but to me it felt justified b/c of the situation as it is set up. Virgilia has a need to feed Persis this backstory quickly, apparently breaking with protocol to do so. As a reader, I am intrigued to find out why, and whether she is beneficently aiding Persis, or manipulating her for her own ends. We don't know at this point whether this backstory is even true, which makes things interesting. I would hope that the story as it plays out delivers satisfying answers about Virgilia's motivations and the history between these two characters.

Virgilia moved closer again, extended an arm and effortlessly pushed Persis back into the hammock’s curve.

Good use of physical action; could be read as showing the characters' close familiarity, but also shows Virgilia carefully maintaining control of Persis.

To the Judge's point about the shift in voice/POV. Have you considered using first person for this? Using first could ease the transition between the close immersion in the moment and the "omniscent" seeming end, along the lines of pre-20th century novels which were often written as a first-person narrative or memoir, with MC recounting past action and also "zooming out" to give narrative commentary based on what is known at present. (Think famous line from Jane Eyre, "Reader, I married him") First person woudl also allow you to better maintain ambiguity about MC's true identity, if that is soemthing useful to the story.

 

[Swank]

I liked the different memory/sensory cue thing that is part of waking and establishing memory. But the section overall seems to serve as a rather obvious conduit for exposition. I think readers see that and it tries their patience to have to sit through a slow section of dialogue with no immediacy just to transmit five sentences of background information.

Small niggle - I don't think people think about their own names until they are confronted by them, so I didn't see any reason why Persil would have been thinking about the legitimacy of her name. It would be better if she was experiencing some sort of records review and reflecting on that - but that can also get sticky with the info dump.

I think you'd be better off having a short conversation with Virgilia that raises some questions in Persil's and the readers' minds, but not necessarily the same questions.

Then explore the other issues in dribs and drabs during the action. But right now you are trying to establish a past and set up a conflict with a conversation between a stranger and a semi-conscious woman as she comes out of intensive care. Consider dumping her into the action sooner or spread her waking out between other events or exposition that isn't all Persil's first person.



Tiny thing - is 15% the max speed at the middle of an accel/decel type propulsion, or did the ship quickly get up to 15% and cruise unpowered?

 

[Logan Selmes]

All good insights, thank you all so much! Time for me to cut, trim, focus, and reduce density of information.

I want to make this work without using 1st person perspective for any character.

My goal is to stay entirely in 3rd person. I thought I was in 3rd person limited with one viewpoint character.

I realize now the mixed up perspectives between viewpoint character and omniscience. I think maybe even moving exclusively to 3rd person omniscient narration might be even better overall and shorten scenes in general.

To me, in this scene and in the wider story what I want to portray most is the alienness of the situation on a personal level, more than the mystery of the characters themselves. After all, these are characters reintroduced from earlier in the story, so the audience really already knows them and what motivations and circumstances have brought them here.

Of course, I hope it shows that these are not simple stock characters either, and I don't want to deal at all with that type except as background scenery when necessary.

--

As for the mention of 15% percent, I'm thinking roughly that you use nuclear fusion pulse propulsion to get up to 15% of c by using most of your pulse units (read: mini-nukes around 2-ish kilotons each) in fast succession after initial launch. You then coast until some time after the halfway point, where the skeleton crew can unfurl the solarsail brake and activate the magnetic sail braking at the same time, and use both simultaneously since light and magnetism have no interaction.

Short answer: by "15%" I mean that for a theoretical star 15 ly away, you can get there in 100 years. Later in the story humans improve on this incrementally.

 

[msstice]

There was a meme a while back that agents threw away books that began with a character waking up from sleep. I don't hold by such absolutes, but this opening reminds me there is an element of truth to that absolute.

The "From sleep" opening is often used, like it is used here, to describe a state of disorientation in the character. Not everything works equally well. In this opening the things that worked well for me were concrete descriptions of reviving abilities. What did not work well were the mysterious phrases.

Worked:

Her mouth moved clumsily until she could finally form deliberate shapes with it. She shaped words silently.

The tunnel in her mind widened. Thoughts flowed in order.

Did not work:

Wrong place for long dark. Out of Bedchamber. Row the River Lethe no more. Four in four out. In no more. No more. Never.

A verbal token flashed in her mind earlier than her name did, if her name really was Persis. She doubted the name without knowing why. She turned the token over in her mind. A fragment of old, pretty words. Not her own words, but favorites, a thing from before the long dark.

Fearful symmetry, Blake, Tyger. Tiger. India. Bengaluru. Parsi. Sethna. Jamshed Sethna, Father. Persis Jamshed Sethna, Daughter. Persis… I am.

More strategically, I like to ask the question, what does any part of the writing achieve in terms of character, plot and world-building. I can't tell what this opening achieves in these respects. It's almost like the story begins here:

The mental effort tired Persis, too tired to open her eyes again. Her head started to clear. She heard voices and machine sounds and felt the room’s light brighten against her eyelids.

This was a bit of over-explanation:

You’ve already been through recovery more times than just about any person I know of, Persis.

Uh-oh, it might mean we're heading for ...

Recovery from- you mean the long dark? ‘Rowing the River Lethe’. Sorry, the… cryostasis. Yon Biotech? They were the ones to do it first, I was there! I did all my genfitting well in advance of that. I remember the main procedure, a gene from an arthropod. Freeze-avoidant antifreeze protein production. Avoidant, not just resistant. Reduced damage to recoverable levels. I tested a bedchamber myself. Only ten years the first time, but still, the risk in the oldest models… Oh. Why would I do that? Why did I?” Persis physically shuddered at the thought.

She looked back to Virgilia and stared at the girl. Virgilia had nodded agreeably to every point of recollection.

“Virgilia Hood,” Persis sounded out slowly. “Feels like I should remember you very clearly. Though I don’t. I’m sorry.”

“You will. Persis, what you just said about Yon Biotech? I remember it too. And Gavin. And all the others,” said Virgilia. “Sierra Leone, remember? I was only 18 then. We few who knew you all wondered where you’d disappeared to. The years kept passing and you stayed gone. Even back then the Sethnas were so tight-lipped, the ones who knew anything, I mean. Even quieter than the Yon family.” Virgilia laughed brightly. “Eugene knew the whole time! *******!”

... a badly designed info dump! Too late!
I've set myself the task of removing such dialog info dumps and mixing it more integrally with the story so I notice it in other people's stories.

Ok, so I kind of stopped reading after this point and skimmed it. It's a pretty standard "Wake from hypersleep" flavored opening.

My main suggestion would be to try and change the flavor of the opening so we get an idea of what is different with your story that starts from hypersleep that makes it stand out from the thousands of such stories with similar openings. I think this is an instance of starting the story too early which is why you felt the need to do info dumps rather than make us one with the character and time and place.

Looking forward to reading revisions. Keep writing!