Spoiler warning, some examples may be used from the story. You have been warned
The title says it all. I really wanted to try to wait to write this after giving this story way, way more of a fair listen. Full disclosure, as I write this I’m about midway into chapter 7. I’m going to try my very best to finish or get further and see if it gets better, but here are my problems for anyone who’s interested. I also fully admit I’m writing this while currently frustrated with this story:
Drags on to annoying levels – Chapters 1-7ish are all the beginning of the story and while I can’t say how long an author should take to put together the early building blocks of their story, unfortunately Melchiorri does it in the most annoying and dragged out fashion. Let me explain.
MC is obviously the fish-out-of-water character trope, which is fine, in fact I do like those types. Where it goes wrong here is in relation to dragging the story or certain scenes on to make them longer than necessary. This happens with the usual tropes that come with those types of characters. Both sides (alien in this sense) and MC will obviously say idioms and words that neither understand. Taking a moment to explain is fine. Taking too long to explain in high stress, dangerous situations, or situations where the reader/listener is expecting MC or someone to get something done and you’ve already dragged this out longer than necessary, is the problem. In the 7ish chapters, this happened too much on top of the other annoyances.
MC spends too much time inner monologuing about random stuff. Again, like with the above context in mind (dangerous situation, high tension, waiting for something important to be done) MC will think he wants to do a different thing that the situation calls for (In this case, which I will touch on again, he’s told to leave and escape a potential starship fight and he doesn’t want to abandon the aliens about to get in the fight) so Melchiorri thinks its a great idea to take a moment to have MC reminisce on his dear old dad being a National Park Ranger just to get to the point that some government agencies are underfunded and badly equipped and so one more time uses that to have MC ask for the third or fourth time if he can stay and help after being consistently told no. But remember, the point of this criticism is that MC goes off on inner monologue tangents and reminiscing to try to establish a point that during certain scenes could’ve better been handled in one or two sentences. It was annoying.
MC carried what I tend to call the unnecessary idiot skeptic ball. (These are just some random examples) A ghost smacks you in the face and looks you in the eyes and says, “BOO!” and instead of recognizing it for what it is, Nope, you have to spend several paragraphs and or chapters trying to explain it away with that good old annoying naturalism. A monster appears before you and gets into a fight with you. Instead of recognizing it for what it is. Nope. You have to come up with reasons it’s not an actual monster, but might be a guy in a suit. Hundred extra points if you think it’s a prank. 2,000 more points if you think it’s a highly produced Hollyweird prank complete with stunt people and hidden cameras somewhere. So, yes, MC does that. While I’m fine with it initially because I realize that some people handle trauma with denial, it gets annoying in a story if it’s dragged on too long and especially in this story’s situation where it’s obvious that MC is dealing with aliens and not humans yet he spends a large portion of the 7ish chapters trying to rationalize that it’s not what it is. Even when he’s on a ship, in space, and he’s told to “Go talk to the A.I.” and his experience and exposure to pop-culture and entertainment should allow for him to think or deduce that’s nothing to be all out of shape about, he has to return to his, “I’m now certifiably, lock me up, insane now.” statements. It’s annoying.
MC’s background is often irrelevant until the author wants it to be. (I’ll add also inconsistent to his character at times) First the inconsistent part. MC is somehow both an athlete, a wrestler in high school, and somehow a skinny kid who was bullied? Huh? I mean, I was at once skinny and felt not up to the task to take on some of the bigger guys, but that was in middle school, when I got to high school, started playing football, started lifting weights, I was no longer the skinny kid who could say “I was the skinny kid who got bullied” and even when I didn’t feel like the popular kid, there wasn’t any bullying. I’m not saying that doesn’t happen, but it’s not going to happen to the wrestling kid.
Backstory that’s often irrelevant. Aside from the above, MC’s gone to college. Was in ROTC. Joined the U.S. Army Airborne as an officer. Got out. Went to Graduate school for his Master’s. Went to Post-Graduate school for his Ph.D. And assuming he fast tracked all of this, MC would be in his early 30s. Yet, he’s kind of written like a teenager. And this is just coming from the 7ish chapters I’ve managed to force myself through. Why do I say he’s kind of written like a teenager? Well all of the whining and inability to deduce concepts and ideas that he should be able to figure out from experience, as I said pop-culture exposure, and his education. He also reacts to things in a childish way, not in a way someone who served in the military as an officer would react. Case and point. Remember the aforementioned point about the aliens telling him to leave and he wanted to help. I mean they give him a clear and cut logical reason why. He has no experience in starship to starship combat. He couldn’t even get his ship out of orbit without their help. They tell him to go wake up his A.I. so that can help him get out of the star system so they can handle some potentially hostile enemies coming their way. And I get Melchiorri wanted to stress that MC is not a scumbag who will just abandon people, I get it, but this also goes back to dragging scenes and things out unnecessarily. When he’s given a clear and logical reason, he goes into the aforementioned inner monologue tangents to re-justify his need to ask again. When he’s told “no” in any forceful way, he acts like a petulant child, saying stuff purposefully for them to hear in rebellion. Later on, when he once again re-justifies asking again through another inner monologue tangent, what does he do again? That’s right he asks one more time because he just can’t abandon people and then the friggin aliens have to explain to him, a former military officer, the concept of doing the mission YOU ARE GIVEN, and letting others do the mission THEY ARE GIVEN. WTF?
It was at that point that I someone who served in the U.S. military had to take a break and write this. I’m not saying right now that I DNF’d. I will come back to edit this if/when I get further, but right now this MC is written as someone who annoys the heck out of me. Your mileage may vary.