Hi again Max Griffin 🏳️🌈 
Today I am reviewing your scifi mystery-murder in reciprocation for your great review of my own first chapter.
Here is where I wish I had a review template, ah, one day my friend.
Overview:
I was delighted as soon as I saw you quoted Machiavelli, it sets a high brow and ominous tone, providing a sense that we are in for an interesting story. Digging in, I began to read.
The tale begins with the first conflict being that a couple has to hide out in a remote and barren location. It is later mentioned that they had been tipped off to a need that they had to hide. Their crime/reason for hiding is implied, not told, to be their illicit love affair.
They converse, sharing travel tales; this gives the reader a further chance to understand the setting. We learn of a barren planet, with place names that are very ‘earth-ish’ and even oversimplified. There is regular mention of the Bible and religious biases that might further explain why they are hiding out. Travel by monorail. During this stage, I understood that the atmosphere must be similar to Earth's.
The Characters
Set from Taggarts POV, we discover him to be a country boy with limited schooling, the son of a church minister, which has a big impact on his knowledge base and how he views things. The clues to the religious beliefs provided seem a bit Mormon-ish. Taggart is very likeable, with a gentle nature; he’s also nervous. It was Taggart who first spotted the trouble nearing.
Kendi, however, is a confident chap, educated, has travelled, and his mother is an academic. His vision seems shaper, though he’d not so worried about keeping a lookout, but then this is not his childhood home. He is still keen to hide from the Flitter, an approaching sky machine. Nice name.
A proper problem arrives. The dumping of the body is where the story develops beyond a simple scene into something far greater. It’s worldly-wise Kendi who first sees this, which fits with his character. Questions flood in for the reader and for the characters in the story.
More please:
There are 2 places I would have enjoyed more input.
“He scrunched closer to his companion, Kendi, whose nearness warmed his body and soul.”
I’d like to know more about their physical interaction while they are just hanging out. Are they both just sitting there? How long were they sitting there for? Were they going to camp out, out there the night, or was it a brief rendezvous? Once I’d ‘met’ them, my mind wanted to know a bit more about the situation.
“ “Sattari, you mean. I agree, he’s a bad one.”
So sure, Sattari ends up dead, but when first introduced I wanted to know why he was marked as ‘a bad one’. It would be a great spot to have one of your protagonists reveal a happening, that would make the reader hate Sattari as much as the young men do.
Of Satari, later you had Tagart think: .”Even if he was a hateful bigot who would have killed both Kendi and Taggart without a second’s thought. Or the least remorse.’ - this information could be bumped into this point of our story, when Sattari’s threat is still very real/current.
A bonus of doing that is that initially, the reader is thinking, ‘Ah, so this is the story's villain’. If it’s hammed up more, the drama of him being found dead a few minutes later is even better.
The Puzzle.
When Kendi rips off those tags and confidently says this could work to our advantage, as a reader I am mystified.
My fresh-to-the-tale mind wonders if he is talking about their original problem. (That of hiding in the Outside).
I’d love a bit more of a clue at this point, but in the very least you have me looking for the next chapter to read!
Technical:
You shall spot one or two typos in your text on your next read-through, the ones I saw were: gleamend, gray and boisonberry.
Kudos:
You have a great strength in ‘showing’ the reader a great deal of information. And the pace of your tale keeps it interesting. (No boring patches in there).
Thankyou for Sharing
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