They were ghosts of worlds, memories of what was. Thousands upon thousands glowed bright against the velvet darkness. Worlds of the Legion Consortia Galacium, their essence, their memory, captured, held. Althea Ram gazed up at the vast array spread out above her. There were so many. There had been so many. At least one of them must still have what she was looking for, what she needed.
There you have it, the original opening lines and paragraph of this novel. I still like them very much, feel it has resonance; certainly enough to bring the text back as a demonstration of how the NANs in Altheas brain are restoring her memories to her.
As you can see, it is poetic and moody as opposed to intense and action oriented. And it does offer a feeling of the loss she feels to the core, planets, civilizations, cultures, ghosts, all gone.
On www.helium.com, the original opening chapter of The Undeniable Labyrinth, found in the Science Fiction Novel Excerpts category it is still #1 on the list as of May, 2011.
Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself. What that says about my writing or Helium itself, I’ll leave up to you.
Now, back to the commentary:
There is something else here too, a criticism of Althea’s search, in the voice noted as Shirae Valerian. Remember this, as Shirae is in Althea’s thoughts and dreams for a reason, she is one character who has been quite influential on our protagonist.
So there, we have the opening to Part Three, and things have indeed changed. The men are on board with her plan and the NANs have completed their restoration work. Only, they can’t fix everything, of course.
She relaxed back down again, stretched her arms, legs, body under the sheets. Then she knew. Althea smiled. The NANs had finished their work!
She slipped out of the bed, stood on her feet, up on her tiptoes, grinning broadly. More wounds, more agonies to consign to history, to memory. Not even an ache remained.
All the pain is gone! I’m healed! Then she tried, Dorian, Dorian?
Althea is as fit a human being can be, given the circumstances, although she has only limited access to what makes her more than human, to her technology. And she will have to deal with it.