Savant by Brandon Vega - Sci Fi - Burdened with loneliness, a simple-minded mailroom clerk undergoes a controversial experiment releasing the full power of the mind, gaining unlimited knowledge and worldwide fame only to have his sanity questioned after predicting World War III. 121 pages - pdf, format 8)

Limitless and Lucy come to mind. Let's see what you have...

Up to page 71. Took me a bit to get in the swing of things. The opening scene almost made me close it because of the writing, thought I would be in for a snoozer. But, once I hit who Neal is, I started to follow and you have done some good character development. You've painted 4 solid main characters. Cane is deliciously evil in his near stereotyped way, but it works well; love his lines. While I think your writing could be tighter I like what you have. At this stage I feel something should be happening in a big sense however Neal happening is big, in a way. Anyway, will pick it up later and see where you take me. Nice job.

This does look pretty good. I'm gonna finish it asap.

SPOILERS





You have all the right elements and the emotional feeling for Neal we should have. Cane retains his character and in the end we see he's human, too, after screaming that he is such a greedy dick. Melisa and Seymour do their parts well, but Cane, the villain if you will, carries this and does a fine job of it. I like these people. The dialogue is good, bordering on really good. I don't pause at this.

Here is what I do give pause to: World War III. When the military brass shows up en mass and talked about the mess, I (subconsciously melding into continuously said "what mess?") How did I miss that? I didn't miss anything else, I'm sure of it, although I must confess I am closer to Neal BC than Neal AC, and I have never been sedated (like here anyway). But I digress. You know you needed high stakes here and you set out to get them but it didn't pay off for me. Neal saw what he saw but I don't see where Neal said anything about it, so why the mess? Should I go back and read it to see what I didn't see? On one hand I did quickly go back to the UN thing, but to reread, no. It should be clear that there is a mess so there really is something at stake. The whole UN thing, while it got ugly, didn't make sense to me. The preacher v.o. is not that catalyst. In the end we see that Neal misread things and made mistakes. He was not perfect, he was not a god. However that isn't the point. The military said Neal made a mess and I don't see where he did that.

That is the major bust of your story and it is major. The rest of it is good. It's the same but different and the ending, while I'd rather see him out mowing a lawn, aka Forest Gump, than in a padded white room (saying padded in the description is redundant), fits what you're going for...

...which, now that I think of it, kind of makes me wonder if this is really tied up. I get Neal made some errors, and if he did almost start WWWIII, is he good for a lobotomy and not something else? Is it that he will die unsedated? What is the real reason here?

That's the afterthought I have, not during the screening. So maybe explore the afterthought. Ask yourself what if.

Good work.