Who wants to read my novel-in-progress?

[Prometheus]

Ages ago I started working on a YA Sci-fi novel (before the genera blew up) and then abandoned the project when I realized that I didn't like the direction it was going. I've recently been thinking of starting it up again, and was wondering if anyone would want to read it if I posted the roughs for some of it here.

Basic setting, maybe 50-60 years in the future. America is still mostly intact (minus Texas), but only because they let the states off the leash significantly after a series of scandals severely weakened confidence in the federal government. A handful of planned mega-cities have essentially become states in their own right.

Protagonist, 16 years old. brilliant, but hides it. Extremely anti-authoritarian, and exceedingly upset about living in a surveillance state (one that is also heavily corporate influenced, but with accountability). Then he finds that he is smack in the center of a vast conspiracy, motives and mechanisms unknown. As he digs deeper, he discovers that he isn't the only victim, he isn't even the first to attempt to expose it, and that nothing he thinks he knows can be trusted.


I want to make it clear, although a lot of people have a lot of gripes about how things are running in the future, this isn't Hunger Games, or Maze Runner, or the world of The Giver, or any of that. It's a goddamn utopia compared to modern times. The homeless are cared for, basic health care is a human right, and education is cheap. No, humanity hasn't matured that much, it's just that the bean counters finally convinced the people who run things that a happy, healthy population stays out of trouble, works harder, and makes them more money. Plus, Texas became a popular dumping ground/destination for malcontents who either thought that anarchy would be awesome (it wasn't) or that they could take their money and selfishness, and Galt's Gulch their way to success (only to find that 'when the revolution comes' and 'first up against the wall' weren't idle threats after all).

[joe camel]

Tell us about the plot

[Rook]

 Sounds interesting.. How far did you get into it? I have a bunch of old novel attempts across a few of my external hds.. I never made it past a few chapters.. I'll admit, it's hard staying dedicated to just one story.. I always have so much drive and passion working out the setting, scenarios, characters, and even the first chapter or two.. and then.. life happens, and I put it on the back burner for indefinitely.. By the time I go back to an old idea, my opinions have changed and I just start up a new one.. most likely to suffer the exact same fate.

 I'll give you props though for pursuing such an endeavor.. Definitely sounds like a story I'd at least read the first chapter to see whats up. You havent given an excessive amount of details to go on, but I understand. Good luck nontheless, and if you post some more sample material.. I'll drop back in for a read.

[BallsDeep69]

Ages ago I started working on a YA Sci-fi novel (before the genera blew up) and then abandoned the project when I realized that I didn't like the direction it was going. I've recently been thinking of starting it up again, and was wondering if anyone would want to read it if I posted the roughs for some of it here.

Basic setting, maybe 50-60 years in the future. America is still mostly intact (minus Texas), but only because they let the states off the leash significantly after a series of scandals severely weakened confidence in the federal government. A handful of planned mega-cities have essentially become states in their own right.

Protagonist, 16 years old. brilliant, but hides it. Extremely anti-authoritarian, and exceedingly upset about living in a surveillance state (one that is also heavily corporate influenced, but with accountability). Then he finds that he is smack in the center of a vast conspiracy, motives and mechanisms unknown. As he digs deeper, he discovers that he isn't the only victim, he isn't even the first to attempt to expose it, and that nothing he thinks he knows can be trusted.


I want to make it clear, although a lot of people have a lot of gripes about how things are running in the future, this isn't Hunger Games, or Maze Runner, or the world of The Giver, or any of that. It's a goddamn utopia compared to modern times. The homeless are cared for, basic health care is a human right, and education is cheap. No, humanity hasn't matured that much, it's just that the bean counters finally convinced the people who run things that a happy, healthy population stays out of trouble, works harder, and makes them more money. Plus, Texas became a popular dumping ground/destination for malcontents who either thought that anarchy would be awesome (it wasn't) or that they could take their money and selfishness, and Galt's Gulch their way to success (only to find that 'when the revolution comes' and 'first up against the wall' weren't idle threats after all).

Certainly very.... Interesting plot.... I'd love to read the first couple of chapters though....

[constantinople]

Don't make the protagonist 16.  If he's a 16 year old American male no-one will believe his capable of any more than crying about social justice and spamming his twitter and instagram.

Basically a  16 yr old white male in America today is about the most pussy ass faggot ass bitch made demographic on the face of the planet and none, not even a fictional one, deserve to have a book written about them.

[Zanick]

Don't make the protagonist 16.  If he's a 16 year old American male no-one will believe his capable of any more than crying about social justice and spamming his twitter and instagram.

Basically a  16 yr old white male in America today is about the most pussy ass faggot ass bitch made demographic on the face of the planet and none, not even a fictional one, deserve to have a book written about them.

True, but he's picked his audience and they probably won't know any better.

[Prometheus]

I honestly didn't give much thought to his race, but given that he's from the LA area, I suppose he'd be primarily hispanic. The social justice thing is more part of his background, not part of the plot, except that it influences what sorts of people he knows, and gives him a background in avoiding surveillance without looking suspicious. Additionally, you could describe him as a drug dealer, if you wanted to stretch the definition. He occasionally does small batch synthesis of patented pharmaceuticals, his small way of striking back against the megacorporation that primarily runs his city.

My first attempt at this got maybe 100 pages, before I realized that at least 60 of them had to be thrown out, and the other 40 needed to be heavily rewritten. For example, I originally started with him (his tentative name is Ian, but I'll probably change that) with a girlfriend, but I think it works better with her being a girl he knows, and they've been dancing around the subject of a relationship for a while.

I don't know why I was dodging revealing the key plot element. It comes in pretty early, after all. Essentially, the vast conspiracy involves Ian discovering that he is the product of illegal genetic engineering. While biotech has come a long way, and extreme body modding is a fairly common thing, germ line genetic engineering of humans has become extremely taboo, in addition to getting you life in prison, assuming an angry mob doesn't get to you first. Multiply abortion by incest, and you're in the neighborhood of how reviled it is. Generally fixing genetic diseases is accepted, tweaking genes for anything like hair color, height, or metabolism is legal, as long as the result is still human-standard, but still taboo. Anything incorporating non-human DNA that can be passed on to the next generation, or anything effecting mental development, is considered a crime against humanity. Fanatics have even been known to kill children that were the product of genetic engineering. Legally, such children have to be sterilized. Some humanitarian groups have been known to smuggle such children to China, where society is much more accepting of them.

Given future genetic medicine, the only way that someone could grow up without extreme genetic engineering being discovered is if both government and medical computer systems are being manipulated to hide it, thus, the vast conspiracy.

[Prometheus]

I should probably note, that while I put the novel itself on the back burner, I kept going back and doing world building. I have significant notes on mostly technology, but some geopolitics, development of societies, etc...

Most notably, the development of arcologies in hyper-dense populations. They started out as proof of concept for self-sustaining space stations, and a couple of them kept growing like tumors. Most of the first act is set in one built on the ruins of LA (10.7 earthquake).

Most of the second act is split between Dawn and Dusk, two space stations at L4 and L5, founding members of the Twilight Republic, a loose government of orbital city-states that started out as zero-g manufacturing plants. I think that their fight for independence (later known as the Twilight Rebellion) would make for a good story as well, but I don't feel skilled enough to attempt a war story yet. Between years of extremely lean resources, and the need to slip in and out of protective gear at maximum speed, residents of Dawn and Dusk (and by extension, the rest of the Republic) developed a strong cultural preference for nudity. And an indifference to BO, although the younger generation has been trending towards tailoring their skin bacteria to a blend that doesn't create odors.

[starvingniglet]

It looks sort of promising, but then you get all 'militant leftist' and that just makes me think that it will be fucking stupid. 

[Prometheus]

At what point am I militant left? Seriously, I want to know, because that is absolutely not what I'm going for. Yes, my character has a bit of that going on, but throughout history teenagers have rebelled, usually in smallish ways, against whatever social system they're living under. In this case, it's a fairly fascist government, but it's also functional and not overly stifling. I even justify this by having it set in an arcology, which was built with investor money, primarily from one multinational corporation. It's essentially a company town, that has grown to encompass several million people.