Space Dick by Mark Rupprecht - Short, Sci Fi, Thriller - Sometime far into the future, where space tourism is the world’s leading industry, a detached homicide agent, deals with the madness of isolation and loneliness of space travel as he heads for a faraway planet to investigate the murder of an American traveler. 40 pages - pdf, format

Hey Mark,

I don't know if you're around -- don't recall seeing your name on any posts -- but I took a read anyway.  Glad I did.

You write very well.  40 pages for a short may seem a bit daunting, but this was a very quick read.

Okay, you have many unfilmables in here.  They should go.  Sometimes I get caught up too much in a good read, but it's just not proper for a script.  You gotta show us, not tell us.

Your action lines.  all were written pretty much without periods or commas.  Instead you've chosen to give us dashes  -- -- -- between your sentences.  I have seen it done this way before, just not to the extreme you take it.  I didn't mind all too much, but after a while it got a bit tedious.  It think, perhaps, those dashes work when your're describing action sequences -- such as a car chase -- but not for the length of the script.  You may wanna rethink your usage of those.

The story.  Well, it was definitely a page turner.  Your descriptions were vivid.  I enjoyed the sequence with the travel agent to set it up, and I could feel Glumly's loneliness and frustration in space.  Although it may have been a bit over the top with how frustrated he was, constantly banging on the equipment.  Seemed a bit much.   I also enjoyed the scene at the intake station.  It gave me a good feel that Glumly was def in a strange, uninviting world.

However, it may have taken a bit too long.  Could have gotten to this planet a lot sooner.

The rest was set up well.  There was tension, suspense, humor that made this a good read.  the one story issue is that the ending was anti-climactic.  I was disappointed because I was expecting this big showdown, but it sort of fell flat.  Skinless was a pretty good character.  Would have liked to see some sort of resolution with him!

this def reads like it could be a longer piece.  I suspect it might.  I wanted Glumly to turn his ship right back around and take care of business.  Or perhaps Skinless follows him back to earth?  Either way, it could be a feature, IMO.

Well, I hope you show up around the boards.  This was some pretty decent writing.

Steve

I liked it good read...
the story was different and very well thought through
the title is funny

keep up the good work

Ugo