Reviews for City Heart
Hi chapter 1 . 4/13/2017
Type your review ; but nice made me horney.
breakthehabit chapter 1 . 4/13/2013
O_O Oddly.. captivating story. I like it. xD Scary though. :P
berndi chapter 1 . 1/18/2009
Oddly beautiful, and your writing is very empathetic.
Jecai chapter 1 . 7/30/2008
Easily as good as some published short sf I’ve read. Thoughtful and fun.

The crash is a good start. It’s easy to make the trope suck, with tired and unconvincing descriptions of mortal danger, grim determination etc. You don’t.

The first sentence’s personification of the pod is hard to take seriously and I got a bit nervous when I read it. But then I realized that Ava’s being sarcastic, maybe trying to cope by thinking about the laughable inadequacy of the pod instead of what she could be thinking.

I remember trying to focus on other things when I was stung by a ray and lost what was to my ten year old self a substantial amount of blood. So that made it real for me.

Describing re-entry conditions isn’t worthless, but it doesn’t really convey fear on the same level. I haven’t been there, and you haven’t been there and I know that.

Maybe that’s all just my over-reading. If it is, it worked.

Also you present a non-idealized universe with real costs from the start e.g. “bargain-bin junk”, which to me is always more attractive.

The background paragraphs are well-placed, which doesn’t seem really easy given the story’s length. Thanks for not just introducing the general prohibition on modified humans when Ava reaches City Heart. I think having to grasp both her paradigm and the offense to it simultaneously would lessen the effect in this case.

The first third of this was very strong; stopped me from hitting the Back button. Especially:

“And now here I was, farther than ever from home. Or maybe closer. Didn’t know. No Navigation Computer. At least I still had my combat boots.” - Like she’s applying literary motifs to reality, which makes sense. I’m always mystified by future civilizations that seem to have no pop culture. Also that the sentimental first sentence is qualified, while the last two are true if cliché.

“PILOT ERROR” and “ ‘Not your fault of course...You’re just a piece of junk.’ ”

Both _ -eliciting and provocative. To me conveys human inability to handle physics that are just doing what they always do. The machine telling the pilot that she’s the faulty component is sort of foreshadowing, as is her talking to the pod.

(I can also see the error message as an unflattering commentary on the inadequate pod’s designers)

Which segues into what I thought thematically:

The indiscriminate ban on all human-machine hybridization (and all sentient machines?), which in this case turns out to be a solution, conveys the same failure of human insight that led to the GenEn deaths in the first place. The fear of “abomination” is externalized to a given class of objects. But it seems to me that a given type of hardware isn’t necessarily good or bad; just depends on whether you’re smart enough to use it well.

I also liked:

CH/Lainah being “peevish” at Ava’s rude comments, and her statement that “I am a human, now.” - How I’d expect a cyborg or a human-emulating AI to react. Cause really, who you are it’s just what platform you’re using.

“sturdy as bedrock in the air” heh.

“it’s not really a riveting life” heh heh.

Technical stuff:

I assume the pod didn’t travel very far before reaching the planet. So I assume the Trade ship’s stop in that system was scheduled. Why would she have no idea where she is? Maybe that info’s on a need-to-know basis?

I’ve never seen and can’t find “convicted” used in the sense of ‘having religious conviction’, but maybe it is used like that.

“bits of energy moving inside the veins of the woman” - would be good for a screenplay; but I don’t think she’d say “bits of energy” given that most of her speech is scientifically literate. Maybe she’d think it, not knowing or caring about the details, and I think that’s what you’re trying to convey. That would make more sense to me if the whole thing were pure stream of consciousness. (not that I’d like SoC overall)

I’d say something like “inexplicable bits of light flowing through her veins”. But it’s not mine.

It’s mostly in past tense except for the jump to present in the second paragraph and then at the end. But the two present-tense parts reflect different points in time. I personally don’t have a problem with that; it recognizes that it’s art and that the story is more important than strict continuity.

“It was reflecting a dull glow all over its surface, but I’ve no idea from where.” - Don’t know if present tense is intentional.

That's all.
Juniorette chapter 1 . 5/5/2008
Wow- this is amazing! I love all future stories because they are so interesting!