I'm not part of the contest but I love Sci-Fi and wanted to read one of the short stories. I very much enjoyed your story, "The Space Station: Sparta" and wanted to share some of my thoughts on it. I think it is an excellent story with a very powerful ending, one that shocks the reader with the explosion of the space station. The technological descriptions of the cage transports and the physical descriptions of the station and the weapon are very interesting and believable. The crisp efficiency of the command sequences also reminded me of "Star Trek" and "Babylon 5". I like the way you describe the action as well, in a manner that creates suspense ("At first there was static, then the screen went black...a small spaceship, like an old bullet, hung lifelessly" and "There was pin-drop silence in the Comm Room").
In terms of "tips for improvement": I don't like getting into the grammatical aspects of a story, but I find it's often a good idea to have a grammar-minded person proof-read it and make suggestions to give it a better flow.
The main thing that I noticed when I read the story for the first time was that, in terms of the three characters, I at times became a bit confused as to who was who. After I read it a second time, I realized that Kelly was Commander Wilson's daughter, and that she was witnessing his death as the station exploded. The story's meaning then snapped into focus and I found it very powerful. I was thinking, though, that it is important for the reader to have a very strong sense of who the individual characters are from the beginning so that it will be crystal clear at the end that "Dad" is Commander Wilson.
Zed seems to function mainly as the narrator of the story, which from an emotional point of view is about the daughter, Kelly, and her reaction to her father's death. The description at the end is brief but very poignant ("Dad," Kelly whispered and I turned in time to see a single drop run down her cheek"). The story could possibly be improved by including a little more of the narrator's impressions and feelings about Kelly before that, so that the reader gets to know both Zed and Kelly a little more. That way, the death at the end will have more impact on the reader. The story itself is an excellent one, and I believe it would be well served by connecting the reader to the characters on a more personal level--perhaps through a stronger description of Kelly or through slightly more interpersonal dialogue between Kelly and Zed?
These are just a few impressions from one reader's perspective. I know that weaving a personal narrative into a technological story with a command setting is a bit tricky, but it may help to establish the characters more firmly in the readers' minds at the start of the narrative, so that they keep reading and won't miss the strong, explosive ending.
Overall, I thought the story's plot was well put together and it was excellent science fiction.
I found this poem to be timely and very interesting, as I have had similar questions about the direction in which society seems to be going. I found the images powerful, and my favorite line is "pale glazed faces in waiting rooms gaze/at screens where cockroaches take to the stage".
The first lines of the poem are also especially arresting, about our children "marred by coin slots on the bridge of their nose". I found it very sad, but yet interwoven well with satire. I also liked the question at the end, as it challenges the reader to think more about the human condition.
The only "improvement" type of comment that I could share (from one reader's perspective) is that in the fourth stanza I wondered if "public service announcement" might be shortened or replaced by another word that flowed a little more with the previous three lines? The first three flowed together so nicely that in the fourth line I found I was hoping for a word that not necessarily needed to rhyme with but which was similar to "Klein".
Overall, I found the poem to be an excellent wake-up call for where our society is headed if we continue along the same path.
Thank you for this article on positive vs. negative thinking. It's a good reminder to me to work on creating positive thoughts; as negative thinking patterns can become so ingrained in our minds that it does indeed dominate our lives. It's true that negative thinking produces emotions like anxiety and depression, or "anxession" as I call it. I look forward to reading more articles on this subject, especially about overcoming the negative thought patterns.
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