Well, you've got one... another reader, that is. I read your prologue already and started reading the first chapter. It's clear that Chapter 1 predates the prologue, as the writing feels much more confident in the prologue.
Of course, I haven't gotten far enough to learn where we're going with the story, but I'm guessing we're going to have some dogfighting and you've got the hang of that, certainly. There's definitely some technical aspects in there, military lingo and such, that add a level of authenticity.
The following contains nothing so much as a plot spoiler, but some brief excerpts of your prologue and chapter 1. I still protected the text.
I thought that some of the dialog could be more concise at times. In the middle of a raging space dogfight, sometimes the characters were a bit verbose. I'd expect more brevity in the communication, whether use of brevity codes, or just more terse statements. An example:
While "cohesiveness as a unit" is a valid term and concept, it's a mouthful in the middle of a battle. I would have felt more of the speed and excitement of the moment if he had said something more like:
It's not as descriptive, and isn't quite right, but it's got the sense of people who don't have the time or need to be overly talkative. Maybe it's not the tone you're going for, which is fine, but it's an idea.
To me, the less the characters actually say, the more they can imply, so long as you set up a space for those implications to exist. Let the subtext do more of the work. Since it's not a screenplay, you can go ahead and tell me something, rather than having the character tell me. An example might be here:
Here, she says they've been through a lot. Well, he knows they've been through a lot, even if the reader doesn't. For that reason, she doesn't have to tell him, even though it's a way of letting us know. Still, I think the scene might be more poignant if she simply said, "Let's just toast." And then you could fill us in a little on WHY that was important. Maybe we can see the weight of the last month behind her eyes, or suddenly on her shoulders, or in a sigh or something. Maybe he can notice that this is maybe out of character for her, who I tend to think of as semi-Misa in terms of formalities and regulations and over-thinking things, etc. Maybe that's what makes this moment important for these two. I haven't read far enough to know what comes of these two and their relationship, so maybe I'm totally off the mark. I totally just wrote "he" and "she" so that people who haven't read the excerpt won't know who I'm talking about. I'm so anti-spoiler. I had a friend tell me, in 4th grade, right after he returned from Transformers: The Movie (1986) which characters survived. It was a big spoiler moment for me.
What I can tell is that you have some events you want to portray. You have a plot that is likely fairly well developed. And you have a knack for making things go, such as in the dogfight. I'd love to see how the writing as well as the story develops. What's challenging for me, is it seems like this is going to be an ensemble piece. We're going to hear a lot about a lot of different characters, which I always find can be daunting from a story standpoint. What do each of these characters really want? How do the plot points help or hinder them on their quest? Obviously, if they wind up encountering something that threatens their very existence, that's a simple answer, but what bigger questions will we find asked and answered? I'm curious to learn more about Cal, certainly. A book I recently enjoyed was The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie. It's fantasy, rather than sci-fi, but I thought he did a bang up job of staying away from a lot of the fantasy conventions, including tone of writing. It's also apparently set in a world he has written at least four other novels in, but I hadn't read those at the time I read The Heroes. What I found so interesting is that it is also an ensemble piece, with lots of different characters with very different perspectives. Upon reading his other books, I found that that is a gimmick of his, but I like it, and I liked it in The Heroes perhaps the most.
As far as what you had mentioned before, about the ability to take mundane happenings and turn them into tangible moments, objects, I'm really flattered. That was what I was really working on with that story. I had originally sat down to write some exciting dogfighting thing set in the world of Macross Aria, but quickly discovered that my heart wasn't in that. I wanted to do something closer to home. I wanted to describe something I knew, and I've performed at those little dives, the ones with history that seem so unimpressive now. The gross floors, the hangers-on and regulars. So, I was basically just taking the old "write what you know" adage into consideration. The little things that stick with you. For me, I actually rarely describe the setting in too much detail, but rather I describe a few key elements, not props, really, or geography, but these impressions. Like, a memory of something in the past. You might not remember where the front door was, but you remember the smell of the wood stove, or inexplicably you remember this crazy pattern on the drapes, or the way the sunlight caught those little dust motes. So that's what I describe, hoping others will fill in the gaps. That might be part of the filmmaker in me: the actual art direction in the room isn't really my department, I just have to give them something to go on, and they'll do the work. Heh. Anyway, I also think the story I'm writing is going to be a lot less complex than the story you're telling. Mine is basically a very personal story set against the backdrop of something bigger, whereas yours may be shaping up to be the story of the big picture, so it's very much more ambitious. The same is true for the way I wrote Macross Aria. In thinking about it, I've developed a very complex backstory that involves all sorts of big picture elements, intrigue, politics, battles, etc, but the story itself is just the story of one pilot and her circle of peers. I don't think it could sustain an entire series as it stands now, but 10 - 20 minutes? I think so. If I wanted to go for longer, I'd have to work into the bigger picture.
