Sci-Fi/Fantasy

[thogmaster]

I and a brother have been putting our brains together and working on a Sci-Fi/Fantasy saga set within another galaxy. Various Series follow different characters or stories:

The first follows a young atheist's coming to grips with God's existence.

The second follows evil beings from the galaxy coming down and invading the Milky Way--that series demonstrates how ineffective international alliances and such are at preserving universal peace and how destructive it can be.

The third series follows the "Sect" (basically equivalent to the Atheists) attempting to combat God through persecuting the Christians. We're still forming that series.

For the most part, the evil characters are actually descended from the people of Troy, several survivors of whom ended up being transported into this other galaxy. They multiplied and turned agains the original inhabitants... and so begins the story.

There are also various ideals that we hold that are injected into the tale:

Don't mess with genetics, it's not a matter of if, but a matter of when it's going to back-fire,
Nets of international alliances and governments only weaken the world,
It's best to leave civilians armed to deal with threats that could arise at any time,
You can't fight against God (pretty easy to figure out--to some),
And others

Anyways, we're trying to find out, do you think that this is anything anyone would be seriously interested in?

[israle]

I would buy it, definitely!

[myrthman]

Same here!

[thogmaster]

Okay... I figured I'd throw in some actualy material to be read in here... critique is welcome... although not anything close to a rough draft... I'm still considering it a draft. It is part of the beginning of the first book in the series: "The Dead Civilization".


Chapter #1: Thunder in the Dark

Darkness lay within the large cavern. A loud, ringing silence reigned within its chambers, punctuated occasionally by the sloppy drip of water from the ceiling. An air of complete desolation hung about like shrouds of doom—nothing, not even a solitary bat lived within the cave’s deeps. Large networks of other caves such as this one connected together into a long, seemingly endless labyrinth located some 50 feet below the ground.

The floor, although made of solid rock, had the appearance of being covered by a thick layer of slime, although a few small stair-steps had been carved into the steeper portions of the ground. Stalagmites reared sharply upward from the ground, a slight layer of moisture on their slick, rippled, red-brown surfaces. Stalactites, glittering as though of brownish crystal in the light of a single flashlight, hung downward from the walls, the largest being around two feet in diameter.

Behind the flashlight, three figures crept cautiously along. All were human, and young—they were dressed in faded, dirty denim jeans, heavy coats, and hiking boots. Their leader, a nineteen-year-old named Richard Holmton, walked almost crab-legged on the slippery-looking ground. About five feet, eight inches tall when standing up, he currently moved along the ground in a slight crouch.

The second figure—18 yr. old Paul Katchev—looked to be a few inches taller, a little wider across the belt, yet he had the same broad shoulders as his elder companion. His face was hidden in the various pits of the shadowed light, and his close-cropped brown hair was completely invisible. A working, thoughtful look remained on his face, giving him a pondering and calculating appearance that contrasted starkly with that of Richard, whose facial expression was as of stone—impassive, immovable.

A third form, of the same age as the second young man, followed close in the wake of the other two, yet his form was completely indiscernible in the darkness—he was too far away from the light source to be seen. Yet occasionally one of his long limbs protruded into the light, or else his short, pleasant face became visible—for a moment. The sound of his tread indicated a slight spring, as though not too disappointed or discouraged easily, and so he was. A ‘would-be’ joker by nature, he remained always ready to take a stab at his dream career of a comedian, although such he never would succeed in becoming.

Richard glanced behind him at the following forms of his comrades. “Shouldn’t we have hit the surface by now?”

Paul heard Richard’s voice echoing off the walls of the cavernous labyrinth. He shook his head gravely after several moments of pondering. “Like I told you before, we’ve been down here too long.” He and the third man, Jacques Voltimer, stepped up next to their leader. Paul felt behind himself and slowly let his weight down on a particularly thick and blunt-topped stalagmite, eventually leaning entirely on the projecting structure.

Jacques squatted on the ground, letting his long arms dangle in front of him. He chewed his lip thoughtfully for a time. “You thinking we’ve been down here too long, Richard?” he queried. The other didn’t respond at once, so he continued. “Are you worried?”

Richard shook his head, trying to prevent his true feelings from penetrating into his voice. “Not yet,” he lied. He shifted weight from one leg to the other. “But if you haven’t noticed, we’ve switched direction three times, and every time, we’ve come to another dead end.”

Paul looked at him puzzledly. “And that’s assuming that they’re different dead ends.”

Jacques looked down at his sore feet. “What do you mean?” He wiggled his toes inside his shoes, and extended his cramped legs out from underneath himself.

“Who’s to say we’re not just going in circles?” Paul’s mouth twisted in thought, and he shrugged his shoulders as he asked the question. The others didn’t even respond—they knew no answer was expected.

Richard flashed the light around slowly, probing the area in hopes of finding another tunnel. Miniature stalactites scattered across the walls like icicles on a window sill after a terrible freeze, and in one section of the open space the floor was covered in a veritable forest of stalagmites. He sighed with boredom. Getting stuck in the caves underneath France wasn’t exactly what he’d planned on doing for vacation. Maybe something with a little more adventure to it—he snorted with disgust. How do you get more adventure than trying to survive inside abandoned caverns without a guide and with virtually no tools save for a flashlight?

That's all for the moment.