Ok this is something old I found on my computer that I had started but never got chance to continue. I wanted to know what people thought. If it is liked I might consider doing something with this when I finish Shadow Flight.
P.S. I know there is no background and no description that is because this is a sort of extract from later on that I made into a prologue.
We exited warp space too late and were right in the middle of no-man’s-land. Dwindling Lizarian and Human ships were blasting away behind us at overwhelming Vorag battleships, cruisers and a command supper battleship that was holding just behind the main line straight in front of us.
“Sir they outnumber us and the garrison sixteen to one” A Lizarian shouted “Roughly 28 against 448”
“Open fire and get us back to the Lizarian line!” Soraka ordered.
“Incoming!” I shouted as what felt like thousands of missiles were launched at us. The shield took the brunt of the attack but many got through. Most of us were thrown to the floor from the impact.
“Hull is critical we can’t take another hit!” A female Lizarian shouted.
“We need to run now!” I shouted.
“Yet more Lizarians playing at war all of you stand down and you will be spared” the Vorag general Rovok ordered in a confidence sapping calm voice. We all looked at Soraka as the highest-ranking member of the battle the decision fell to him.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,011 Literary Works • 672,841 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to it,
Hmmm....well you can certainly see how this one was an excerpt, and I have to say if you maybe did any changes to make this into more of a prologue, they aren't really showing through all that much here. This one still reads very much like an excerpt from a chapter and that doesn't terribly well for a prologue here. I think you might want to change things a little bit more to fit a prologuish style here.
Moving on from that particular point though, I think you have a pretty solid scene here. It certainly is the sort of thing that can get you interested quite quickly as reader and I think you've really done quite a nice job of building things up here. There also seems to be quite a world built behind all of this too which certainly helps out quite a lot. It definitely seems to be based on a whole hierarchy of things that has already been established which is a great sign in general for a story.
So overall, I'd say you have a pretty solid piece here to work with, you just need to adjust things a tiny bit my making this scene stand on its own a little bit better. Then it would definitely work out just fine as a prologue here.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Hey, I really need some more reviews, so I'm going to review this for you!
I really think this should be 'blasted'; it fits the story better and it just flows more.Yeah, as Vox said, this line is awkward. You might want to change it to something like: 'Thousands of missiles pummeled the ship as I cried out in fear and anger.' Or you could just take out your shouting altogether.
OK, I really liked how you used 'brunt' in this sentence. (new word for me!
I would advise either putting in a semicolon or a period between critical and we. Without punctuation, this dialogue portion is just one huge, giant blob with no pauses in between. Also, 'a' should be changed to lowercase, since it's part of a dialogue tag.
Ooh, very suspenseful ending. But the thing is, the missing punctuation takes away all the pow! I would advise saying something like this: 'We all looked at Soraka; as the highest-ranking member of the battle, the decision fell to him.' But you could replace the semicolon with a period.
This was a very tense prologue! I really liked how you kept the action and suspense going throughout the whole piece. Nice job.
Ok I thought I would post some background on the three races involved in that battle.
Races
Lizarian
Home world: Lizaria
Description:
Green scaled humanoid lizards that have orange slit eyes, thumb on each hand three claw toed feet and a tail.
Background:
Lizarians:
The Lizarians were thought to be the first race capable of space travel, however this was disproved with the finding of Ancestor relics and the uncovering of the Vorag. The Lizarians believe that their ancestors were capable of space travel and had extremely advanced technology. All Lizarians dedicate most or all of their lives searching for and unravelling the mystery of the Ancestors.
Ancestors:
The forefathers of the Lizarians. It is thought that they were highly advanced and had a vast empire sprawling the entire galaxy. However the Ancestors simply and unexplainably vanished, leaving behind many relics in mainly the most inhospitable places in the galaxy. Stories of Ancestor relics and immense power that is held within them draws even the most unconfident and sceptical to search for them.
Vorag
Home world: unknown
Description:
Large insect like creatures with a hard black exoskeleton resembling square plates cover their chest legs and arms. Their torso resembles a beetle’s shell. They have two heavily armoured legs leading down into armoured talon like feet with small black claws. Their arms are more lightly armoured, and in some places revealing dark black skin. They have three fingers that have medium sized claws on them. Their neck is unarmoured exposing the black skin. The head is held out from the body by a roughly fifty centimetre long neck, their head is a large oval shape fully armoured they have two mandibles and small totally black eyes.
Background:
Rumours and theories say they were the second race capable of space travel in the time of the Ancestors. It is unknown what happened to the Vorag after the Ancestors disappeared, but it is thought they retreated into the most inhospitable regions of space to find the Ancestors or their relics. For whatever reason they appear to have vanished just like the Ancestors. No trace of them has been found to prove or disprove the theories and rumours.
Humans
Background:
The humans were visited by the Lizarains in early 3450. The Lizarians said that when a sentient race progresses stage of advancement were they are capable of travelling through space, they are assisted in the building warp drives to unlock the rest of the galaxy to them. The Lizarians then educated the Humans until they were able to cope with space travel and colonisation. In return the Humans pledged to assist the Lizarians in their search for the Ancestors and the Ancestor’s relics.
Ok thanks, I will consider continuing it after I finish off Shadow Flight. Glad you liked it.
All the best.
Wow. After reading one paragraph, I'm itching to see the next portion! This is like the summary they'd put on the back of a book.
Some minor edits to point out:
“Sir they outnumber us and the garrison sixteen to one” A Lizarian shouted “Roughly 28 against 448”
Okay, first, insert a comma between "one" and the quotes. the "A" doesn't have to be capitalized. A period after "shouted." an exclamation mark or period after "448".
I shouted as what felt like thousands of missiles were launched at us.
This line is a little awkward. rewording it would give it more zing.
the Vorag general Rovok ordered in a confidence sapping calm voice.
it would sound better rewritten to something like ...ordered calmly in a confidence-sapping voice....
We all looked at Soraka as the highest-ranking member of the battle the decision fell to him.
insert semi-colon after Soraka
All in all, a very intreiguing bit of a story. I really hope you continue this!
Keep writing.
-Voxina