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Thursday, March 25, 2010

165 Techno-thriller

TITLE: BROKEN EAGLE
GENRE: Technothriller


Lazarus' day deteriorated when the F-15C's piercing “Missile Launch” tone joined his wingman’s shouted radio call, “SAM LAUNCH, RIGHT FIVE O’CLOCK!”

13 comments:

  1. Missile launch tone kind of confused me...could you have been more descriptive?

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  2. Partial hook -- not my genre, but I like the portended fast pacing.

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  3. I'd keep reading, but what throws me off here is the combination of an acronym/abbreviation (F-15C), a descriptor in quotes ("Missile Launch"), and a quotation in all caps ("SAM LAUNCH, RIGHT FIVE O'CLOCK.")

    This may seem like nitpicking, but it's a lot for my eyeballs to take in within the first sentence. :-)

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  4. Not my thing. Bet my hubby would love this though!

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  5. I like how you open with tension right away, but I got tripped up by the verbiage "missile Launch" (also, why is it in quotes?) tone and the all caps for the dialogue. I think if you rework it, I'd be hooked.

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  6. Not hooked, sorry--it's a bit confusing with the "tone" and the all caps dialogue immediately puts me off as a reader.

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  7. The sentence was a difficult one to get through, tho the meaning is clear. My brain, however, wanted to go back and make sure I understood wingman, knew the difference between the F-15 and 16, got the Missile Launch tone and figured out the final phrase. This sounds like a book I might actually pick up and read if it hooked me so I'd really like to see you generalize this sentence.

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  8. I'm not really hooked. I probably would be more hooked if it hadn't taken me a few moments to decipher the more jargon-y aspects.

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  9. Starting with action as in a real (or mock?) battle is tricky, because the reader has not had a chance yet to get to know the characters, and it's difficult to introduce a character in a fight. It could work if this is a plot-driven story.

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  10. Huh. Interesting comments. I work on missiles, so none of that bothered me. The all caps may not be necessary, but they did add a screaming element to it.

    What I'm missing here is a certain crispness. It's one long sentence for the amount of tension. And it starts by telling us his day deteriorated and then starts showing it. You don't need both.

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  11. I might read on if I was in the mood for a thriller about fighter jets, but the opening doesn't say anything extraordinary to me.

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  12. For a first sentence it was really dense - I needed to read it twice . And that would put me off right there.

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