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Robert smiled and waved the officers back to their posts as he considered what he had learned. This magic, which Sargol had called the 'Aether', was far more than he had ever dreamed of in terms of power. How one could find it and use it were things he didn't know. But once he captured those five crew members of the Darkstrider, he would.
Such power was never supposed to be in the hands of the rabble. It was destined for men like him, men who had a proper vision for how things should be. Robert had plans, many, many plans for what he would do with such power, but he held them in check for now. There was no sense in living in delusions of grandeur, when he had no power to speak of. Just then, a holocall came through, that was put to the war table.
"Major Sawyer, good to see you, boy!" stated the image of Captain Daruisz Walczak.
"Captain Walczak, sir!" Sawyer saluted. "How may I be of service, sir?"
"Well, you can start by giving me a SitRep of everything that has happened since the last transmission by Sargol was sent. Where is that man anyway?" the captain wondered.
"Captured, sir. As I said in my reports, the man had become sloppy and he got nabbed before the final order to leave the town was issued," Robert reported. He then detailed everything that had happened, but excluded the bits he had learned about the Aether. That information was for him alone, not to be placed in the hands of some militant relic.
"Hmm. While it is not the ideal situation, it will do, as adapting to any stratagem is what we do," Daruisz replied with a smile. "We still have a commanding position and once we are in orbit of Prodosia, the town will have no choice but to surrender."
"Indeed, sir! To a sound and swift victory!" Robert intoned.
"To a sound and swift victory!"
******************************
And that's a wrap on chapter 43!! Things start getting more complicated as it is now a battle of chess, all about move and counter-move! No longer are the crew facing pompous idiots, but competent commanders who know what they are doing! If they want to come out on top, they are going to have to make the correct moves, or wind up as prisoners! Lots more is going to happen in the chapters to come and how this part of the story ends? Well, stay tuned!
Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read my work and I hope that you've enjoyed it! I'm open to constructive criticism and will seriously consider any suggestions made about various story arcs. Please rate and comment on my work down below and ask me questions if you wish, as I love hearing from my fans! If you like what I write, don't be afraid to follow and share with your friends, though your views, ratings and comments are enough for me.
In the meantime, this is C.H. Darkstrider, signing off to grab a beer and some quality time with the wife! ;) You will attain whatever you most desire, as long as you believe in yourself. Cheers!
- COMMENTS
texster6 months agoHello CH Darkstrider…I’ve read all 43 chapters available here, and I saw your comment on chapter 42. I have a few thoughts on what you said. “It is unfortunate that I cannot write these additional stories, or amp up the production of my main stories, but that's how it is. After over 6 years of doing this, I only have about 22% of the support I need in order to take up writing full time. It's been a slow, uphill battle just to get this far and the way things are, it will be longer still. Barring some sort of miracle, the pace I have going will have to be the pace that things stay at. For now.”
So, I have some thoughts about why you’re only at 22%. You have a wonderful and creative mind, and your stories are entertaining. The two things that I think are holding you back are your grammar/sentence structure and the balance of story and sexual content in your chapters.
Both issue can be overcome with a strong editor, but that person (or group of people) has to have the freedom to make pretty significant changes. You have to embrace the changes, and adapt to learn and improve your writing as you go forward.
For the grammar & sentence structure issue, there are a bunch of missing words, typos, and pretty glaring mistakes that should be caught by an editor. The sentence structure issue is not as easy to correct, because it’s a combination of mismatched tenses, added, fluff, and other issues. Let me take a paragraph from chapter 43 as an example:
“While most of the crew had drifted off to sleep, Matthias was restless. He was still hopped up on nerves and adrenaline, wondering what he'd do now. The man wandered the bowels of the Darkstrider, taking in the ship he was in. It was a splendid ship, one which appeared to be fairly new. He wondered how that was, given that many ships outside of the military were this new, yet so powerful.”
This was a paragraph I picked at random, but it has some examples of the issues that span your stories. If I were your editor, I would immediately call out the last sentence, because I think what is written is the opposite of what you meant (NOT many ships outside of the military were this new or this powerful). Second, I would suggest combining several sentences, cutting out some redundancies. Something like this:
“While most of the crew quickly drifted off to sleep, Matthias was restless, still hopped up on adrenaline. He wandered around the bowels of the Darkstrider, marveling at the splendid vessel. It struck Matthias as odd that the small crew owned this ship…generally only large militaries could field ships with this much power.”
The other big issue is the sexual content. This is Lit, so we expect some sex mixed with the story, but your sex scenes are very long, and often come with an abrupt transition from plot that comes to a screeching halt for a long, drawn-out sex scene. They tend to be descriptive to a fault, and at least for me, fairly dull. There are also a ton of sex scenes that involve minor characters, seemingly introduced just as an excuse to shoehorn in a sex scene. If I don’t care about a character, then I’m really not going to care about that person’s sex scene. Frankly, I’ve been skimming the sex scenes for the past 20 chapters, just making sure there isn’t any plot hidden in them and hoping they are short so I can get back to the actual story.
One last thing I’ll say, and this is more of a personal observation, but the AI storyline with the 3 trying to achieve life-like existence (and especially the sex scenes with them) are not really connecting with the rest of the story…the whole plot feels really out of place. I’m sure you have a story plotted out with them, but I know I am not invested at all in their “tron city” experiences or splitting their consciousness stuff - I could really do without all of that. Others may disagree on that point, but that’s my 2 cents.
I hope you view this as constructive criticism, as I do enjoy your stories and think your universes are full of potential - I’d love to see you succeed and become a full-time writer. Cheers!
Michael56Smith7 months agoDoes the Darkstrider crew have enough time to fix up the needy ships, and to get the shield up over the town? The 'bad guys' seem pretty 'bad', .... and no more pomegranates for the parrot, .... whew, .... ;-) ttfn
Michael56Smith7 months agoOh boy, moves and counter moves, ... lots of gamesmanship and surprises from the Darkstrider's crew, .... interesting times, .... ;-) ttfn
AnakhimRising8 months agoOnly complaint: too much time between chapters. Love the story, can't wait for more.
