I gave it a read this morning, and it's not bad. Gives an insight into the sort of thing that you don't normally see in game. However, it does come across strongly as gun porn, which detracts from it. It also does this thing that I call "army buddy over a beer" narration:
With it's pilot dead due to severe chest and head trauma inflicted by projectile weapon fire, the sixth fighter craft in the Imperial defence force's first wave spun out of control and slamed side-ways into a nearby building
This reads as if one of the folks in the story was relating an account of the event over beers to an army buddy, complete with pauses for the obligatory chortles. That's fine for informal storytelling, but it doesn't really work for written short stories. There's a cliche about fiction, "show, don't tell", which is only cliche because it is so true. Instead of telling why[ the fighter was out of control, show it:
It's pilot slumped motionless over his controls, the fighter spun out of control and slammed side-ways into a nearby building
You get this same sort of "telling what's happening, instead of showing it" thing throughout the piece. Captain Langlois becoming sad at the reports of fallen friendlies, etc.
It's a nice start, and I think going back over the piece and reworking it with an editorial eye would help turn it into an effective piece of fiction.
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Topic: String of stories by Antares 04 (Read 741 times)