The Psychic Warrior by Donald Sullivan

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kailhofer
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The Psychic Warrior by Donald Sullivan

Post by kailhofer »

Is there something about the name "Al" that gives a hero wobbly powers? :)<br><br>Another jaunt back to the good old days of alien invasions, psychic powers, and humanity succeeding by the skin of its teeth and trickery, Donald. <br><br>Is Al going to return again??<br><br>The similarities between Donald's Zenin stories and Robert M's Majius stories really jump out at you. Al=Al. Janine=Sue. Silly Baldies=Inept Rylls. Blackstone/Sciavone=Tom Vickers. College of Majisters=CAPS (well, sorta). Likewise similar, this one reads as another chapter in the ever-expanding Books of Al, instead of a stand alone.<br><br>(If it was intentional, you could do worse than emulating Robert, but don't tell him I said that. It'll go right to his head. :) )<br><br>I noticed a few grammatical/punctuation boo-boos, but not too many. <br><br>I'd have liked to have seen tons more description, but that's just my personal preference. <br><br>In terms of character development, Al certainly grew to discover his new power, and used it to save the world. Also, he seems to be acquiring a love interest, and nothing complicates life and makes you grow like one of those. I was curious as to what caused the overload of input on the plane, however.<br><br>Have you considered giving Al a flaw to make him even more endearing in your next psychic sequel? Something like extreme bashfulness around Sue, or perhaps a backlash effect from too much mental activity?<br><br>The plot flows fast and furious to go from taking the left into Albuquerque to saving the planet in, what, 5,000 words? I'd suggest a change of pace or slowdown in the middle to let readers catch their breath. (Maybe it was the right pace for other readers. Just one opinion in a sea of many.) <br><br>Whether the pace alters or not, the plot was logical, and flowed well from event to event. I thought lifting the bands was a marvelous idea. (I thought he was going to psychically push the 'door open' button & distract the guards to sneak by... but Al's strategy works better.)<br><br>One thing that seemed off was the "voices" of the various characters. They seemed the same, humans and alien. If you took off the character identifiers, you really wouldn't be able to tell who was saying what, except maybe Orr-pon, who kept repeating Al Rice's name. The books on writing all say that this distinction in dialog is important. I guess I can't prove otherwise...<br><br>I look forward to your next one.<br><br>Nate
Last edited by kailhofer on November 08, 2004, 08:55:31 PM, edited 1 time in total.
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Robert_Moriyama
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Re: The Psychic Warrior by Donald Sullivan

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

Nate the K. was right, I think, in noting that your characters all 'sounded' alike.  The only real exception was Vickers, who had that 'Hail, fellow, well met!' heartiness and a little Texas in his choice of words -- but his whole speech was a recording.<br><br>The development of Al's powers might make sense if we assume that the changes made by the Zenin are still happening -- the Zenin set in motion a process that is still forming new structures and synaptic paths in Al's brain, maybe without even intending to do so.  At some point, Al and the Zenin might have a serious discussion about the ethics of literally messing with someone's mind (or brain).  I would presume that the uncontrolled telepathy was an indicator that new cerebral circuitry was becoming active; if so, Al would experience similar glitches as any new abilities emerge (precognition?  clairvoyance / 'remote viewing'?)<br><br>More description of settings and of the characters wouldn't hurt (although I'm not going to go all 'five senses' on you ...).<br><br>Say, if the Al Rice and Al Majius stories are somewhat similar in structure, there must be the alien equivalent of a Morgenstern out there.  What if the Zenin, who exposed the falsity of the Ryll and Dorion claims of friendship, are themselves playing a con game?  What if they are not interested in mineral wealth, but in psionic potential?  Go forth, and tell us all What Comes Next!<br><br>Robert M.<br><br>
Last edited by Robert_Moriyama on November 10, 2004, 05:35:17 PM, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Psychic Warrior by Donald Sullivan

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

Don, never say never, it was good seeing the Zenin Menace troupe make a comeback, and personally i won't mind at all reading more about their future antics.
i agreed with Greg regarding Vickers and his DVD into. It was a bit too mechanical of an introduction, and while of course you needed to bring the uninitiated up to speed, maybe a couple of paragraphs using Al's own thought or conversations with the CAPS team would have worked better. I think i know what image you had in your head when writing Vickers, probably someone along the lines of William Hurt in Contact, .i.e the omnipresent billionaire benefactor?
honestly, i like these UFO capers of yours, although telepaths and other mutants don't do it for me, mostly coz you just can't trust them (don't much care for the X people for this same reason). however, i found Al's dealing with the Rylls and Orr Pon quite gratifying, and actually cheered as that first headband came off.
and on the plane, when Al starts hearing people think, having it multi-lingual would have been a nice touch. this is the US after all, and on any flight heading to the Southwest you'd get a healthy mix of languages trawling people's neural paths.

Lee
<br><br>... That was JOHN Hurt in 'Contact' (most famous for the chest-burster scene in 'Alien', reprised in (of all things) 'Galaxina'). William Hurt, on the other hand, was the scientist who underwent reverse evolution in 'Altered States', and was Prof. Robinson in the 'Lost in Space' movie.<br><br>As for the multilingual thought patterns thing -- Al's telepathy lets him read the thoughts of alien species with no problem. If the other passengers were thinking in Spanish, Portuguese, or Esperanto, Al would probably 'hear' it in English.<br><br>Robert M.
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

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