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It is a story about the weaknesses of humans and how that landed them losing the control of the planet. The main character has been teleported by his species to have a personal experience of the problems created by humans. The MC also teleported to places where the human suffering is at the peak. Finally, when the MC returned to his ship, his experience helped him to take the decision to further action about the fate of the earth.
ISBN (Digital) | - |
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ISBN (Hard copy) | 978-969-696-151-2 |
Total Pages | 62 |
Language | English |
Estimated Reading Time | 1.5h |
Genre | Sci-Fi |
Published By | Daastan |
Published On | 21 May 2020 |
Rating:
Feb 21, 2022
This is a story of aliens looking to understand the weaknesses of humanity and bring balance and correction to the human species. A father teleports his son into the consciousness of different human beings around the world – President, doctor, scientist and aid worker. In every situation, destruction ensues on a large scale. Yet we do not get an obvious reason why this destruction occurs. Is it power and the pursuit of land? Does one side seek to impose its ideology on the other? We may sympathise with the aliens wanting to bring peace and harmony to the world, but the suggestion is they are also going about it the wrong way.
Through these transformations, what does the character learn? How does he seek to bring change? There should be something that drives the story forward, otherwise we are left with a series of random incidents. The man in the red jacket is the person who links all the stories together, but we discover nothing about him until the end. There needs to be more characterisation to draw the reader in, with less telling and more showing. Part of the problem is, it is too big a concept for such a short story. One or two transformations would have showed that human beings are destructive and need to change. The author needs to consider how the aliens were planning to bring about lasting change. Were they simply going to invade our consciousness and leave humans in a compliant zombielike state? Were they considering selective breeding to eliminate certain destructive traits?
Language; there are a few places where the language used is not correct. It should be the air conditioning. This is concrete and specific, it is known. The air conditioning is in that room, that building, not across the street or in a neighbour’s flat.
Less is more, the fewer words you include, the more impact the words you use will make.
‘Slamming the bedroom door behind him, he quickly fell on his expansive soft bed.’
‘Slamming the door, he collapsed onto his king sized bed.’
When using dialogue tags, he/she said or using the character’s name, Andy said, are fine. Dialogue tags are only used to clarify who is speaking. If there are only two individuals having a conversation, then they may not be necessary.
Due to the structure, characterisation and problems with the language, I cannot recommend this highly, but it is an interesting concept and if re-written, could be improved.