Hi, Ugly Christmas Sox ,

I was so excited you’ve chosen my story idea for your Part Two entry. It’s an honour. It makes me the worst possible person to review it, of course, since my own vision of implementation makes me biased. I will try to keep an open mind and stay as objective as possible, but you are free to ignore anything that goes against your gut feeling.

It’s a very faithful execution of the outline. There’s a believable routine which prevents John from exploring his surroundings and finding out the truth: his walking path is set, he doesn’t dare to eat the locally grown plants to discover they aren’t poisonous (I kept thinking about the moon, though. He’d be able to see the moon, and it’s a real plot hole in the story idea). There are a couple of brilliant details I just loved in your story. You mentioned Covid—I even thought you might use it to explain why the base was abandoned in the first place—it places the story in a real time frame. The fact that John doesn’t recognize a smartphone was also a nice touch. And I loved the ending: so casual, so life-goes-on. It made me crave a hot dog. Icelandic pylsur, preferably.

There were a few things that bothered me, though, and I’ll leave it for you to decide if it’s a real problem or just a deviation from my version. First, there is little objective evidence of John (or other base dwellers) actually going mad (and they had to be at least a little mad to forget they weren’t on Earth). We only have John’s word for it, and John doesn’t really strike me as someone who’s lost it or fears he’s going mad. Seeing things that aren’t there must be terrifying. The first crew member leaving the habitat without a suit had to be desperate and suicidal. John is neither. He’s just ignoring very rational arguments of his “visions”, he isn’t even tempted to believe them. He doesn’t test his hallucinations or search for what’s real. There’s no struggle—or at least we don’t witness it. Even when his mother comes to see him, I couldn’t quite feel how tormented he is. John just accepts he’s crazy and recites the occurring events.

The issue might be in the narration style itself—dry, factual, telling. I’m not advocating against that style. It might be exactly who John is—this emotionless observation might be a defence mechanism, rationalization. I can certainly understand his wish to hide the hallucinations from his reports, from his “vision visitors” even, but he also hides them from us, readers.

It made me less inclined to believe his side of events. When an entire group of tourists entered the habitat and explained what was happening, John seemed stubbornly blind. I wanted to smack him and shout, “Wake up, you fool! Use your rationality, dammit!” He’s just… passively sure, and it’s annoying (but you made me react emotionally, so well done). There are some instances when he reacts how I expect him to: “Maybe they weren’t. No, a hallucination would say that”, but I still don’t feel he’s terrified of slipping out of touch with reality. He’s just someone who refuses to accept the evidence. I expect more from an astronaut in training.

At some point, I wished there was a double twist: what if John actually was on another planet, and his “vision visitors” were actual hallucinations? What if he stepped out of the habitat and died?

But the double twist didn’t happen. John finally left the habitat—although I couldn’t quite feel that he had reached his rock bottom, and it was his only available option—and saw more “visions”. I loved “The poisoning must have begun to eat at his brain”, I wish there were more reactions like that. Yet I kept asking myself, why would a piece of paper be more convincing than a group of tourists who told him exactly the same information? (Because they already revealed the readers the truth, this second revelation felt anticlimactic) Why would John believe a pamphlet but not people? Because he could touch it? Does it mean he never tried to touch his “visions” before? The human brain is so powerful, not all hallucinations melt away when you touch them. That paper might be as illusionary as the words he heard in his habitat.

The story is constructed so none of what John thought was hallucinations actually was a delusion, and, while it’s elegant, it’s hard to believe his only logical mistake was the assumption he was on another planet.

I’m a huge fan of hard science fiction, and although I’m not an expert in the actual science of space exploration, some statements struck me as questionable. For example, stitching up or cobble together a pressure suit from spares sounded like an impossible task if we wanted to achieve integrity. There could be, of course, special patching tapes for emergency fixes. And, of course, being on Earth (or even on a planet with an atmosphere) instead of a vacuum helps a little, but the sceptic in me had questions. Another one concerned this statement: “Even if he were rescued, so much time would have passed on earth that no one he knew would still be alive.” Is there relativity involved? Faster-than-light travel, a black hole he was in orbit of? He’s been in the habitat for 17 years (or was it 15? I thought they assembled the habitat when they arrived); even if he lost count of days—he was writing the daily reports, so it doesn’t seem logical he had lost the track of time—he can see himself in the mirror to know he’s not yet a centenarian so all he knew on Earth would be gone. And I’m not sure about cyanide in the atmosphere. When four of them entered the base, they knew they were on Earth. Was cyanide a training scenario, or they just invented it along the way?

I’m normally quite useless when it comes to proofreading, but I’ll try:

John ate his processed protein slurry like he had every day for he had lost count of how long. // The phrasing is a bit confusing: I first thought “for” was used as because/since instead of a part of for how long.

He grew his own nutrient slurries from the cultures they base had in stock. // Typo: the base.

They were nutritionally complete and all they required was sunlight and water // Either get rid of the second “they” or put comma before “and”.

a very convincing hallucination of Tom Roberts the mission commander stated. // I would put commas around “the mission commander”.

But not that long ago, John had begun seeing family and friends he had left behind on earth. It was really beginning to wear him down. // Begin seeing and beginning to wear down are too close to each other and sound as a repetition. There are quite a lot of “started doing” instead of direct action.

“John, come on, man! You’ve proved you were the toughest! You swore you would hang in the longest, but this is getting ridiculous!” Tom argued. // A few missing commas.

James and Tom followed him, muttering between them about how stupid he was to be taking this all so seriously. // Missing comma.

Somewhere along the hike, James and Tom left him. // Missing comma.

He hasn’t been exposed to Covid or vaccinated, so he is very susceptible. // Missing comma.

John kept putting one foot in front of another, expecting each step to be his last, but he had yet to feel the effects of the atmosphere poisoning him. // Another comma.

A new-looking structure stood on the far side of the parking lot. // I think new-looking should be hyphenated.

“I would like a chili dog. // Missing closing quote.

The woman looked at him and then the pamphlet. // And then “at the” pamphlet?

She tapped at it then put it to her ear. // I’d like to see conjunction between “it” and “then”, or at least a comma.


I hope you find something useful in this stir of thoughts. I’m always up for a post-review discussion if you have any questions.

Cheers,
J.B.