[Penumbra]

Sffworld has finally updated to include my short story, "Token of Esteem." Also, I now have two SF articles on display, "Genre Difficulties" and "Can Anyone Tell the Time." I would very much appreciate hearing from forum members as to their comments on the story and the articles.

[Erebus]

Just found a few spare minutes to read your tale, Penumbra!

It drew me in straight away; nicely paced with sufficient intrigue to keep my eyes racing through your well-written words. The outcome was not what I'd expected - in fact, I almost said: rats! http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/wink.gif

Forgive my penchant for puns, won't you. [S]pooky story - I loved it!

[nicba]

I've read your story too. And I liked it just as much as erebus. It was very exiting and really captured me.

I've also read the two articles you mentioned. But unfortunately I have to say that none of the two really rang true with me.

I'll try to leave some comments on all three text below to explain what I thought about them and why. I hope it will prove helpful in some way.

1)"Token of Esteem"

OK, first the stuff I thought worked: The story flowed really well, there were no long info dumps (or at least none that I noticed) yet I never felt "lost" while reading it. There was lots of action throughout the whole story but the action was "clever action" and not just wild, random shooting at green-eyed bugs.

Also, I liked the fact that you didn't use the word 'alien' about the aliens in the story. From the story, I felt as if the humans had known about this race for some time now. Thus it felt only natural that they had invented some kind of slang word to describe them.

The aliens wasn't entirely logical, or at least I couldn't see the higher logic behind all of their actions, but that's entirely okay. They're aliens after all and don't necessarily have to follow human logic.

The last thing I noticed, or rather nearly didn't notice, was the main character's double role: As a new recruit and as a "detective" on the tail of a weapon smuggler. I think you made some mention of that fact early in the story, but I thought it was somehow a little vague and I didn't really get it before the ending. Maybe it would stand out stronger if you let it play a bigger role in the thoughts of the character early on?

But anyway, that's only a very minor thing and, as I said, I really loved the story. For some reason it reminded me a bit of an old Sean Connery movie called "Jupiter Station" or something similar...

2) "Can Anyone Tell the Time"

"Can Anyone Tell the Time" seemed to me to be a little murky on the actual message of the article. You spent a good part of the article summarising the development of the computer technology, while the true aim of the article was instead to say that time is a little understood phenomenon that deserves to be written more about in SF? Or have I completely misunderstood it?

3) "Genre Difficulties"

The last article "Genre Difficulties" seems to me to be a rant against popular TV-series such as Star-Trek, Babylon 5 ect. and against un-originality in SF.

Well, I think we can all agree that originality is A Good Thing. But what I can't agree readily to, is the assertion that un-originality somehow stems from these series or their popularity.

Personally, I think that un-originality of genre fiction is not only the fault of the established big-names or big-series. It is at least as much the responsibility of the writers sitting about and yelling up about the "death of new ideas" instead of getting on with it and write us something new to show everyone how great it can be.

(...and please don't take the above wrongly, it's not meant to be a personal attack or anything.)

Secondly, I think you strike a little unfair when you bash star-trek and the like for having too human-like aliens. After all, these shows, as most SF, aren't really about the aliens at all. They are about humans and human behaviour. For example in Star-Trek the klingons represents "The Warrior" (agressivity, honour ect.), the vulcans the conflict of emotions vs. cold intellect and so on. Showing them as anything but slightly altered humans would not only be impractical but also contribute very little, or even obfuscate, the point.

But that is, of course, only IMHO and I'm sure many others disagree.

[Penumbra]

Great commentary so far and some interesting points made. Wishing you all an excellent new year and a happy holiday.