Prosthesis Prologue /P

Removed.

Omg you have great ending on these as well?! You are so awesome. I'm already dying to read this and I haven't even finished Ch.! Ooo, I can't wait to read more of this Brad, Great job on description, everything seemed so realistic.

Keep at it!
~Rieda

A weighty read, in one way, Brad - as often - and for its brevity, it's laced to suffocation with ideas and with death. I'd say Hell, but as yet, that may a bit much to jump.

The paragraphs, broken between camera lens gaze and the 'narrator's' voice were well-spaced. It made an apt pace, and an introduction that caught more than one angle in little room.

I felt, at points, that the narrator seemed as if he had to make his point, had to says his lines, rather than reporting as if he were there and free. But that may be well as it is - after all, he's leaving a message, and doubtless does need to get something across. It would [will] depend on who he is (whether he returns in the story); and I won't judge it now. He is sometimes, rather starkly philosophical.

It's an ominously heavy opening; quote seems uncomfortably foreshadowing disaster.

So, naturally, no line-by-line.

A woman's body floats in front of the camera. Her eyes are open and lifeless. Her cheeks sunken and her hair matted. Another click.

I wonder if 'are' might be removable. It could be a fragment as that that follows it. But that's an almost superfluous suggestion.



IMP [CCF sponsored ]

Rieda --


I'm still debating on posting more of this.


Poor Imp -


An unsolicited crit? Well, it must have been my lucky day.

To address your question: the heavy handed-tone this has is only a slightly recurring theme. Afterwards, the story picks up in a more sensible fashion.


Thank you both for taking time to read & respond,

Brad

Interesting prologue, I must say. The speaker seems to deny the teleological argument, and uses it to hint at something almost disturbing.

I think the poetic language you use, the sort of gloomy tone you're emulating, is mostly well done. I think, however, that there are also a few slightly clunky sentences which seem to break down that mood. It's very subtle, but a little refinement never hurt anybody, hey?

But eventually all systems dissipate and must be reborn; it's only a wonder the heaps of rock and ash still manage to avoid each other as they do.

In the case of "eventually," I would suggest smuggling it over a few. "But all systems eventually dissipate" just flows better, in my opinion. I would suggest taking out "still" entirely, and perhaps "only," though I don't state that quite as strongly. Nonetheless, "still" strikes me as pretty much unnecessary. The fact that earth still hasn't fallen out of orbit is pretty obvious; the managing is what's unique. Adding more words rarely creates a more succinct impression, unless there is more data to include.

After all, a body can only stand its own skin for so long. It's why snakes shed so often.

The bluntness of the last sentence is a little dull, and takes away the force of what the speaker is trying to convey. It's not really a smooth, rhythmic sentence of the sort you mostly craft. "It's why" is a pretty awkward phrase as it is, and the alliteration of "snakes shed so" is slightly reminiscent of a child's poem. Alliteration is good, but not this heavy in this kind of statement. Compared to the sentence prior, it just doesn't harmonize, if you get my meaning. I won't suggest any specific changes, but think about how you might better communicate the idea.

A picture of a city with cars and people frantically moving about, scurrying in every which direction.

Every which direction? Is the which necessary? And magnification is spelled wrong in the next sentence.

Your talk about the emanations from Hell from within the ocean reminds me of The Kraken, by Alfred Lord Tennyson. I don't know if you intended that allusion, but whether you did or not, I like the mood created by the imagery. It's quite effective.

Are you sure about the use of the word "wobble" at the beginning and at the end? Planets wobbling is a frightening idea, but not so frightening as, say, tremoring, or something to that effect. I don't know; maybe you don't want to state the idea that emphatically. But anyway, I enjoyed this. There was a certain quality of mystique, a very clearly established aura of dread embedded in the speaker's words. I think it's an interesting prologue, and would catch most reader's attention. Let me know when you update.

Well I either finally gave in whether from boredom or the offer of tummy shots. But how ever, here I am.

I'm interested, and it's good. I liked how Ch started more, but this is still good.

scurrying in every which direction.

Every which? it sounds odd.

The water in the ocean is never still, and where it is, it's coldest and deepest.

also sounds weird

I think there was something else but I don't remember what it was...

You happy?

Meh, it may have had brevity, but it seemed to take forever for me to read and with little effect. It seemed like there was an attempt to make me think deeply, yet I felt it was an unsuccessful attempt. You probably had an easy time philosophizing, bit it didn't connect with me.

What makes this special? Not really anything. And as a prologue, it was rather dull, but prologues often can be.

I do feel the tone well enough and it could be said to solemn, though I found it solemnity a bit too unreaching. It was difficult for me to get into this. Well written, as always, but I wasn't a fan of the topic.

Hey Brad!

A picture of a city with cars and people frantically moving about, scurrying in every which direction.

"Scurrying about in every direction" seems simply to reinforce "frantically moving about", I don't think both are needed. Scurrying is a much better verb than "moving" with an advern, so I'd advocate keeping the latter.

The water in the ocean is never still, and where it is, it's coldest and deepest.

The last part is confusing -- are you trying to say where it is still, it is at it's coldest and deepest? If so, it should be "it's at it's coldest and deepest."

An interesting prologue, in fact I found similarities between the prologue of Prosthesis and my own Spirited -- a somewhat philosophical beginning, a dead woman, questions but no answers. It seems we followed a similar path, so I can only say it is good (to reinforce my own writing XD). I hope to see its relevance to the plot in the future.

This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign shall be given to it...
—Luke 11:29

Very evocative. Brooding, but deliciously so. Okay, I looked the quote up, as I haven't memorised the thing, and I wanted to know the context. Leaving out the "...except the sign of Jonah". That was smart, keeps it more as an atmosphere than the angst and suffering of the individual. I find that chapter one of such contrast, chapter 11, of hope, of ritual, of pride, of despair, and this line especially which has this weight of abandonment.

The planets continue their slow dance around the sun.

'Continue' rubs me the wrong way, but then again that word always had. This line tastes of David Attenborough, in a good way. Slow to who, though? Random thought.

They wobble on an imaginary axis, tempting fate with each year. But eventually all systems dissipate and must be reborn; it's only a wonder the heaps of rock and ash still manage to avoid each other as they do.

I think I like wobble, though it's incongruous with the dance metaphor. In this paragraph it's a little like the objective voice corroding. Your opening line is analytical, impersonal. The second line shows more of the voice's own opinions, and portrays the planets as imperfect, as dangerous, clumsy things almost. The third enforces the second with the 'heaps of rock and ash', and 'manage to avoid'. In three sentences you subvert the image of the planets from one of elegance, of stately grace, to enfeebled, obese, and mortal things, doddering with a little luck through the time they have.

But does any law prescribe them a fixed point in the galaxy? Do mechanics anchor them to a spot they can't escape from? Does it keep one celestial body from busting loose and going renegade on another? What - or who - keeps catastrophe at bay?

Not as strong as the first paragraph, but still good. The first three questions seem to follow the corrosion of the objective voice, again, but these seem more to be almost paraphrasing one another with less formal language rather than changing the image as in the first, so, yes, not as vivid as the first.

Another click. The machine whines and reels as it reloads another film slide. The green and blue of the earth below are snapped into focus and frozen for a few moments. A red light occasionally flashes in the window, obstructing the camera's capabilities.

Effective transition. Clean, and yet diminishes neither part. Nice personification, and reference back to the repetition. You're using your verbs, excellent. Strong images which you create without heavy-handed adjectives, but a series of exact observations.

From here, the world is not a place of causality. The only thing time produces is increased randomness. Clouds form and roll over waters with no pattern or reason until they reach land, where they dissipate before reforming.

Rich, epic statement. I love it. "Increased randomness" has an awkwardness about it, keep in mind your rhythms there. I love the imagery in your last sentence there, but 'no pattern or reason' might be toyed with, maybe you can play with something about anarchy or chaos if you want something more dramatic in keeping with your first line of this paragraph.

Truly, nothing is ever created or destroyed. Transformations are all we are capable of affecting--I suppose that is as much a blessing as it is a curse. After all, a body can only stand its own skin for so long. It's why snakes shed so often.

Delectable balance of delicate scientific/ philosophical ideas with these snapshot images, and the personal 'I' with the societal 'we', the blessing and the curse, continuing the ideas of contrast. Using 'body' in a different context from the 'celestial body' of before was very clever. Snakes, biblical allusion again? V. good.

It cranks to the left and zooms in. A picture of a city with cars and people frantically moving about, scurrying in every which direction. Another magnification and a building is sharp in view. Grey pillars sit at its entrance.

Again, your transformations are good, the mechanical movements to ground the responder. "Frantically moving about"? What about the pretty pretty verbs? Scurrying works, I suppose, but still, I miss those goddam strong verbs, they were sexy. Continuing the repetition thing, good. Grey pillars, the mediocre and the grand, then personified and it's sitting at the entrance like a busker. Subtle.

Another magnification. A person is walking, talking in his headset. He runs his hand through his hair as the camera clicks another picture. It zooms out and rotates to face Africa. The light flashes once more.

People and persons unknown, yet we are focusing in from globe to individual. Good juxtaposition of the continent and the anonymous person suggesting the insignificance and facelessness of the person, or perhaps the cold omniscience of some kind of Orwellian Big Brother.

When I first arrived, I was amazed at how much beauty the human eye was incapable of seeing from home. To behold the world from up here is, at first, miraculous. But things change when you look close enough. The water in the ocean is never still, and where it is, it's coldest and deepest.

And thus we are lead to a protagonist. Conscious narration, not a fourth-walled mind, but not through reference to the reader directly, just the exposition has an awareness to it. The water, gorgeous metaphor. Hey, you said metaphors in prose was a wank, but you're using them pretty darn well.

I watch those parts closest. Four times I have seen the glow of Hell emanate from their depths, and not once a reproach from the Heavens. If God did anything, he should at least maintain the distance between men--we are a desperate species searching for validation, a sign from above, and we will do everything we can to get it.

Interesting how you decided to start a new paragraph there, I agree it gives more balance in the shape of the thing. It's more fluid, and keeps to the old, one focus per paragraph dealie. Just threw me at first referring to 'those parts' which I'd left way back a whole line before. Short attention span. Oh, now we're into the fire and brimstone. Quite gothic that, the dystopia. Also, getting back to a practical God, an intervening God, which is quite Old Testament. Again, you have the 'we' and 'I', but now I'm getting the feeling that the 'we' is the buffer from the problems of the 'I', that the individual can only confront themselves through analysing the corruption of society. It is from themselves they seek separation. Or am I reading things into it?

The camera zooms in just below the tip of South Africa. It is night, and the water - that silent beast - is the deadliest force to be reckoned. Yet a ship moves quietly around the perimeter of land. Its pace is but a crawl; it is large and unable to sustain the impact of its own speed.

It is strange thinking of night in a planetary sense. Malevolent water.. hydrophobia? Franchising? Keep in mind your scales here, even though your zooming in. Oh, I like that last thought there, again, a metaphor for society. You were fibbing about metaphors in prose, admit it.

People are on the deck. They move like amoeba in a slide: jerking back and forth, violent, as if they are trying to rip themselves in two. The reel begins to turn as a burst of light explodes beneath its hull. In a matter of seconds, the ship is sucked underwater. The camera clicks.

I like your use of 'people' throughout. The amorphous mass. Makes me think of fish, too, something about the plurals, and the uses of 'fishes' and 'peoples' in a similar way. Passable verbs but I'm not seduced. Oh, man, though, the sterile, objective slip into catastrophe, with the neat little symmetry with the camera click. That is hot.

The world is in peril, but people need not fear their environment, need not worry about the evil of other men. It is far too late for such considerations. Our capacity for good or evil is never determined anyway. We argue over nurture or nature and how they affect our development, but these are at best misguided queries: the question is not why are we what we are, but what we are.

You know I'm very curious about this voice. What with the biblical allusions and the hell-fire and brimstone, I'm thinking of Arthur Miller's latest, about Hitler's early years as told from the point of view of a demon, or perhaps Isaac Bashevis Singer's short stories narrated by demons. 'It is far too late', the helplessness and cage of one's context, like 'from here'. That last sentence was pure Inc. Loved it, and it's shoulders.

And with a limb that is foreign we will limp to our own demise, and even this death will not give us peace or solitude. I write this only in the hopes that someone finds it before it is too late. Survival through winter has only secured us death in the summer. With unbridled power comes the greater wobble of planets, until they tip too far, fall off their tracks and loop around the pinball machine. Nobody notices or wants to, because today we seek only to cure our sickness with the hair of the dog that bit us.

"Limp to our own demise". Glorious, tragic perfection. Aha, again, a reference to Chionophobia. the snow has melted but the fear remains. Again, a composer's sense of structure and symmetry, tying it back to your opening. 'Hair of the dog', damn you you stole my phrase of the week, I just wrote song with that title. And you use it better than me. You suck. Pinball metaphor effective and brings back a little of your sexy verbs.

A woman's body floats in front of the camera. Her eyes are open and lifeless. Her cheeks sunken and her hair matted. Another click.

I'm not sure of 'lifeless'. I love the matted hair. Very neat ending, with appropriate crushing of reader's vital organs.

Your writing is far to sublime. I rate this five envious thwacks and the theft of your brain.

I did read this first, just didn't comment on it (just for the record :shrugs: ). The first paragraph sucked me in, and :sigh: I couldn't stop reading. No really, I tried . But anyways. I liked the camera throughout, especially how it clicked even at the end.

-Amelia