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Your polishing work made a difference! The prose is like every other work of science fiction I've read.

It's written like this is a dystopia but billing $180/45 minutes in rural low cost of living area sounds awesome. And the choreographer billing "more than a truck" for three weeks? The dream!

3 comments

> The prose is like every other work of science fiction I've read.

Well, then, you gotta move on to reading better science fiction. Because this is pretty damn bland. I gave up after 2 minutes because of it. Kinda feel vindicated after coming to the comments.

I can see it working for casual readers, which is why it's already an editorial problem. Imagine having to sift through a growing number of faux writers sending publishers AI generated prose.

Hard science fiction isn't known for the quality of its prose. I'm reading something like Starship Troopers or The Martian because I believe the technology and culture depicted in the setting is interesting.

Of course! You don't expect them all to live up to Gibson. Doesn't mean you can't look out for authors pushing themselves. Andy Weir's prose may be formulaic but effectively so. Having figured out the thriller side of it is enough of a leap. Like Stross did. More recently qntm has been dropping gems, relevant to our time. Someone like John Ringo managed to write enjoyably written hard scifi (Live Free or Die) that holds up to this day.

But this submission? It feels like the writer is trying to enter a spiral which turns out a circle. Ridden with exposition and matter of facts. The dialogue is barren, soulless. I tried to pick it up again, but the more I read the more I want to get out. Its topic being brand new doesn't justify all of the monotony. I'm sorry to the author (orchestrator?); I'm just being earnest.

The story didn't mention what had happened to inflation in the meantime. A dozen eggs costs $32.

Huh, I got cottage core, not dystopia!