Work's been killing me so all of these are taking longer than they usually should. Hope I didn't take too long to get this to you boss:
You actually have a very interesting mesh of plot points here, with: the emptiness of space, what crashed into them at the end/did it kill them, and what I believe is probably going to be your central theme, can AI truly feel? You’ve set up a scene where I’m actually interested enough to see the next chapter. But there are a few things that I, as a reader, was interested in seeing.
Your omniscient narration at the start was actually not a bad call, in fact, it’s interesting because its detached style of speaking absolutely works with the overall feeling of being alone in the empty vacuum of space. However, when we got down to Sym, we continued that style of speaking instead of fully shifting into close third person, and that’s where I feel like my feelings for the character sort of struggled. We’re not experiencing the world through his perspective beyond a few short descriptions and his own pieces of dialogue. As such, I kind of didn’t have the ability to sympathize with him and could absolutely see myself believing he’s fully dead, because of how little we were introduced to his inner workings, instead of believing “oh, the author wouldn’t do that to a character like this” only to be heartbroken when you really did. My advice would be to do something like swapping from telling us that the air is cold, to describing how the cold air feels to Sym.
Gonna leave most of my comments in the line by line so I don’t overstate most of my feelings about this, so I’ll end off with saying I did enjoy the potential threads you’ve shown in this overall chapter, and I’m excited to see what happens in chapter two. Good luck writing further, and I hope you got something more useful than the “write it my way” stuff I posted below. If you have any questions, want me to clarify one of my points, or think I just missed something feel free to let me know.
Line-by-Line (these are notes I take during my read. As such, they are not going to have the same tone as my overall review, and will reflect my current emotions during my read of each line). Additionally, since I had so many taste specific comments, I will label them as such, so you can understand what I as a reader stumbled on and should be cleaned up, and what I as a reader would’ve preferred to see, knowing that I might not be the exact demographic you’re striving for:
(Craft)
“The void stretched in all directions, a vast, unknowable blackness pierced only by the dim glint of distant stars, tiny, indifferent witnesses to the slow death of a once-proud vessel.” - I actually really like this slow, immersive feel you went for. But I had to reread it once because the commas made me think ‘tiny’ was about to reference a new subject.
(Taste)
It drifted silently through space, the figure of a black hole rising before it like the mouth of some ancient, hungry god. - This scene’s overall felt super original so the familiar wording of ‘hungry god’ weakened it a bit for me.
(Craft)
“Where once two powerful engines had driven it through starfields at impossible speeds, there now” - you did “where once… now” a bit too close to the last time you used it.
(Craft)
“The once vibrant command systems, machine cores, and support subroutines had gone dark,” - you didn’t go with another “now,” but it still has the same feel because of the consistent amount of times you’ve used it.
(Taste)
“Around the ship, the emptiness stretched, infinite and without mercy. There was no rescue coming, no signal received, no trace of life for light-years.” I actually think this would’ve been a great starting point, or at least put after we describe the ship with a bit more detail to give us that isolated feeling you were going for.
(Taste)
“The black hole loomed. It was not merely an absence of light, but the utter annihilation of it.” - We’re still missing a ton of details as to what the scene actually looks like in favor of your more poetic narration. And even though this “Light bent unnaturally around it, as though…” does give us a somewhat partial description, it still doesn’t flesh out the scene enough. I would’ve liked either a more vivid detailing, or at least stopping the narration where you continue to describe it in emotions you’ve portrayed plenty of times by this point.
(Taste)
“The ship was no different. It would be torn apart, molecule by molecule, its atoms stretched into infinite threads by the sheer violence of gravitational tide.” - Very good shift to more tension, but the detached feeling of the narrator does make it feel more like a transcript of a nature documentary.
(Taste)
“And no one would be there to see it happen.” - Another good line right after.
(Craft)
“Fires had long since died out from lack of oxygen, leaving behind blackened trails along the ceilings and walls.” - I understand now. Since everyone is dead, there isn’t actually a head to put us in. Makes more sense from a perspective point what you’ve done so far now.
(Craft)
“The cockpit, once a hive of interstellar activity, was now a graveyard of broken tech.” - You once used this style of writing, and now you still do.
(Just a random comment)
“Sym.” - so there is actually someone who’s alive in this.
(Taste)
“was a ruin of bruises.” - was a ruin just feels like an awkward way to describe a face covered in bruises.
(Taste)
““When those mining drones came alive...” - came off a bit like exposition, because the AI wouldn’t need a recap of the events. Just give us a basic “you even got me out of this,” and if you really want to describe what just happened, describe the debris of millions of droids in the opening scene. Not wanting to get to prescriptive, but natural dialogue really really is needed to keep me hooked in a story.
(Taste)
“A pause. Then, with an almost human softness:” - I really don’t think you should’ve used the word ‘human’ here. The pause alone would’ve given us the context needed to know it’s not just an normal AI.
(Taste)
“Cold air flooded his lungs, clean and sharp” - This is where I would’ve liked more detail about the air instead of just “clean and sharp.” I really want to know how this man feels right now, in pretty much every aspect.
(Taste)
“Another pause. Then, for the first time, a note of curiosity entered Sage’s voice.” Again, I felt like the words she said were enough themselves give us the tone without the explanation of her tone being necessary.
(Taste)
“And then… Nothing.” - I felt like you ended off on a very strong note, but I definitely would consider cutting the last line in favor of ending off on ‘nothing.’ Even that one line about the darkness felt like we were dragging the image of the isolation you were painting so far.
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