The world’s most famous pop idol receives death threats from a mysterious figure in black who seems to know everything about her, like what she is doing at any given moment, and what she will do next.
A sci-fi short that was written with a writing prompt. The theme was “anticipation”, given to me by my friend TokyoDomeSF4.
At 43 pages and 15,000 words it’s on the long side for a short story, but you’ll breeze through it in no time.
Love Times Infinity Plus One (Daniel Lau)
Let me know what you think! This might become part of a trilogy of short stories with a similar idea.
It was a weird one. First chapter was engaging, after that it went on crazy. Though it was interesting enough to complete it in one sitting.
Saurabh:
Thanks for reading. Surely it wasn’t too weird for this website, though.
I really enjoyed this a lot. I was pretty surprised by the ending.
Thanks Bro!
Did you find anything unclear about the story? One question people asked a lot about the first draft was “what was different about this time round …”
As far as people asking “what was different this time around”… Hurm, well, I thought that was definitely clear enough in this draft. I dunno what it was like in the initial draft, but it was definitely fine in this one. I guess it might have just been a little more subtle?
Hmm, I really wanna read this, but it’s long! I need to find the right moment. My comments are forthcoming at some point though.
Hello, I finished reading it just now. It was a nice read, even had some laughs at some parts. And the punchline of the story leaves a impression too.
shaomi: Thanks, really glad you liked it!
My comments have come forth! Spoiler warning?
I liked it. Less than I did Daddy’s Little Girl. I had some issues with it. But there were also bits I really really liked. Like the chess board mission briefing, Erica and Barry exchanging messages, the one-sided ‘showdown’ on the lake, the messages from parallel realities, the epilogue. Some of Erica’s hanging out in that military base was long-winded. Also, there wasn’t a clear mood/atmosphere. It danced around being funny, tense, non-serious in one bit then serious in another, never really finding it’s place it felt like. Same with the characters, they never really settled into themselves, never really felt either believable or cartoony enough. Dimension travelers going out to other Earths to vent their frustrations is an awesomely twisted concept, I feel like you could have gotten a bit more out of that, and Clara’s character. I would’ve liked to see this story from her perspective. Or see how she started out on her twisted crusade.
I don’t know, halfway through I had a weird epiphany. I’d placed the story in a more serious, realistic looking mental image, then I switched to a different mental image, imagining it all to look like an over-the-top anime’s art style, something like how Furi Kuri looks. And suddenly it all worked a lot better.. So from now on I guess I’ll imagine your stories to look differently in my head. : )
Anyway, I still like your writing style, the way you connect sentences and inject unexpected bits of humor. Ehm, yeah, I guess keep on writing about girl idols who get to sing their songs to the president. Or just keep on writing in general, I like what I’m reading.
Thanks for the comments, Robin. I always like to read people’s responses in as much detail as they can give.
Judging by other people’s comments and yours, tone seems to be something I always have a problem nailing down!
I thought it was really cool.
MawBTS:
Thanks, dude! Update your blog!
cool story! i actually abandoned my other activities to finished reading this. write some more!
Izzati:
Thank you! There’s another story coming soon based on a similar premise.
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