Aiden by Tor Cumberbatch - Short - A depressed young god becomes infatuated with one of his servants, only to learn of a dark truth. 11 pages - pdf, format

Tor Cumberbatch but Tor Cumberland on the email address, someone writing under a pseudonym?

Anyway...

This felt very Star Trek, not a bad thing... Taro feels straight out of Disney though, echoing Scar and Jafar.

It did feel a little over-written, and some of the formatting isn't how I'd have gone (personal prefs though).

Some specifics
1) Some of Taro's dialogue is a little long and OTN
2) Pupils are black, it's the iris that is coloured.
3) There's some spelling, typos etc (actually etc is one... you have it as ect on page 6)
4) I was with the story until he meets Aiden, but then the romantic interlude and the twist didn't work for me.
5) SPOILER - If he's a god then why can't he bring them back from the dead, reverse time, or wiper her memory of them like you writer BUT not forget him... he doesn't seem the smartest god.

Overall wasn't for me but with some fine tuning and a polish it might work.

Anthony

I enjoyed this up until page 4 then it turned into a sci-fi soap opera. Just too soppy for me.

Dialogue is on the nose.

Lots of unfilmables.

Reads like a novel at times.

If this got made, it would probably be the most expensive short ever filmed.

For me, more planet destruction, less I love you more.

Good luck with it.

Tor,

Some notes.

This reads OK for the most part, but it doesn't pass the logic test for me.  We have aiden who is all powerful which makes him a rather awkward portag.  Taro is sufficiently evil, but where is his hidden agenda?  What does he get from the destruction of Dublin?  Since Aiden can do anything, where is the conflict and risk?

I cannot believe that a starship from some distant future would have ragged women scrubbing the deck--ragged robots maybe but not women.  So, at that point, you lost me.  The rest is way too convenient and coincidental.  But that's me.

Best
Richard