[General Battuta]

http://rickwilber.com/dellaward.htm

In case you don't want to read through the opening paragraphs linked there -- it's a national award for college undergraduate science fiction/fantasy writers. I placed second!

I got an honorable mention last year, so this is a big step up. Since the judges include at least one important editor, this represents more progress towards publication. I'm pretty excited.

My entry, 'Hypocrite', was a hard science fiction story about the crew of an AI-hunting ship, Mishanni. One of the ship's combat teams ends up in a dangerous situation -- trapped on a station near the active star DX Cancri during a solar flare. Their only chance of survival is to upload brainscan backups to a computer substrate. But the only available computer is already running a program: three simulated human infants, grown in sensory deprivation as a philosophical experiment by a rogue individual.

The team members have to decide whether to destroy the infants in order to to save themselves. Conflict results. The story explores themes regarding the humanity of AIs and uploaded human intelligences.

There was some cool military tech involved in the story, including some explorations of powered armor, a fairly realistic kind of interstellar warfare (no faster-than-light travel), and the role of cyborg augmentations in a society that extols the purity of the human body (they've created an order of special-purpose cyborgs called Hypocrites, who are viewed as necessary but subhuman.)

[Stealth]

lol

[Stealth]

congratulations man... maybe you can post the entire story here sometime so we can read it?

[watsisname]

Congratulations, mate.  Your story sounds like a very interesting read.

[General Battuta]

Oddly, I thought the story was rather poor (mostly due to a weak first half,) especially in comparison to last year's story. Fortunately, the judges disagreed.

[Polpolion]

Oddly, I thought the story was rather poor (mostly due to a weak first half,) especially in comparison to last year's story. Fortunately, the judges disagreed.

It's really your opinion of the story that counts. Unless there was prize money for doing well.

Anyway, I'm interested in reading it, too. Please post is. If you don't want to post it, could you at least e-mail it to me or something?

[colecampbell666]

Me too.

[Inquisitor]

Can we read it?

[General Battuta]

I can post it. It just needs formatting translation into forum tags. I'll work on that, unless anyone can suggest a workaround.

[Hellstryker]

Sounds quite Interesting, ill read it. Great job on the award too 

[colecampbell666]

Attach the .DOC/.ODT/.Whatever.

(if you don't know how, click "Additional Options" below the text body)

[General Battuta]

Okay, thanks! I attached it in .txt format; this seemed to be the only one allowed. It's pretty much hideous (single-spaced, for instance) in current format, so you might want to double-space it in Word or something before reading. Also, all italics/underlining have been lost, so it might read a bit weird.

Give it a read if you like. I don't think it's representative of my best work, so if people are interested, I'll post other (shorter!) stories of mine.



[attachment deleted by ninja]

[Dark RevenantX]

Just zip the original format and upload that.

[General Battuta]

Good idea. Done!

[attachment deleted by ninja]

[Inquisitor]

That's pretty neat.

[Mefustae]

That's pretty neat.

Yes, his penmanship is truly excellent.

[General Battuta]

* General Battuta coughs nervously

If anyone has any criticisms, those would be the most helpful thing.

[Colonol Dekker]

Kudos and congrats. I'm off on the razzle but thought i'd give my regards. > have a col Dekker in your next story

[Flaser]

Just finished reading it.

It has left me emotionally drained.

I think it's a masterpiece.

It may be sketchy - as in, all the actors do is cite the mere core of their philosophy - but it is still very good. You address the question of humanity from all sides, and you don't flinch from letting a 'bigoted' person throw our own **** into our face...in the end we find out that she's just as right as the rest of us...and grow as a person.

Sci-fi can often only examine an idea and either offer a cautionary tale or show some kind of 'solution'. The reason I really like your story is that you haven't taken the easy way out: the central problem isn't answered, because it can't be.

Hard assed literary critiques still won't consider your novella literature, because you 'failed' to grasp the essence of a century or living....or some bull**** about not giving an accurate portrayal of the experience of life. Which would be fine for them - all of them a bunch or romantics, who can only see into the past, and need a mirror of their own life the reflect.

What you did though is what sci-fi should be about: asking hard questions and seeking tentative answers. You show us a warped mirror, and in the end, we realize that it isn't warped at all, and the monster (or monstrous reflection) on the other side is really us...and he isn't so monstrous at all....(or we're more monstrous than we ever imagined, aren't we Di?)

[Inquisitor]

I had some minor grammar quibbles, and probably some minor story quibbles. I think the change of heart at the end seemed sudden, and possibly a little out of character, but not sure you can fix that with 8 minutes until all hell breaks loose without of exposition at the beginning. Dunno, may need to re-read it to see if I missed something leading to it.

I really liked how you didn't explain the titles so much, except when it was story relevant, exposition for the sake of itself is often tedious, and i like how you worked in the explanation of the "Hypocrite" just enough.

I find short pieces like this to not need to much over analysis, even the quibbles others may not see. Fiction is art.

Its pretty well written, some great diction and an interesting premise and question to explore. Leave it sit for a few months and come back and read it yourself.

Neat stuff.