The first sentence got me interested, and the remainder of the story developed along possible space-time realities. This story represents one reality that has been used before by other authors. If you change the past, you might not have a place in the future! Star Trek always computes that possibility when the Enterprise travels in time.
I like more showing than telling. Much of this story was telling and I can understand why telling is needed. But the beginning and a number of paragraphs following were bordering on expository prose. I feel that some of the introduction could be re-crafted into showing, and a balance between showing and telling could have been reached.
I mentioned the showing/telling more inline with what I like and not what should be dictated to a writer. I believe that mentioning different styles and word uses and phrasings augments the writing universe by taking our minds off just one aspect to examine another that might have been overlooked or ignored by habit.
I found nothing serious enough to nit-pick about with the writing.
The story is a stab at big corporations and their greed! I just love hearing about how the government should keep their noses out of the free- enterprise system. Most corporations would overlook you health, your family’s health and the communities health if it increased their profits. If they could get away with it, believe me, they would. And that is in any country. Just look at Love Canal. But from a distance! It was reported that burying toxic chemical in the clay base of the canal was the safest method at the time. But I bet it was also the cheapest!
In Count Bakula’s time, people grew suspicious of technology, but research in science made leaps. With continued research in particle accelerator technology, time travel became possible in Count Bakula’s era. Yet, the Count used horses to pull his Dodge mini-van! Interesting. And apparently no viable alternative to oil was developed.
I can buy into this because science doesn’t march forward in unison. Mathematics shot to unparalleled heights during Newton’s time--he was a big contributor---but other sciences lingered.
Whether America’s government would become a Feudal Society--Monarchy--is questionable but possible. I could see gangs taking over since their power is already established in many part of the US and Canada, and a catastrophe of such a magnitude as the story suggests would destabilize law-enforcement. Gangs on the other hand stick together as family with a strong code of obedience to other members, and even other gangs sometimes. The police are paid civil servants, and if the government should crumble, the system stop functioning, they would disappear with gangs quickly climbing to supreme power. Gangs, motorcycle and street gang, are already self-sufficient, and much better suited to endure and prosper in a jungle type society like the one in this story. In fact a Feudal Society might be the end result of present day gangs taking over in the future!
A very thought provoking story---interesting one.
The Furthest Adventures of Count Bakula by Michael Ray Laemm
Tell us what you thought about the February 2009 issue!
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