Today I stumbled across *The Void*, an amazing online project of prose and some contributed illustrations, clearly shooting for the television market. To be clear, there is a lot to read here: three seasons of 15 episodes each so far, the first episode, presumably typical, being some 37,000 words. I should think £0.50p per episode is very good value for money (first three free).
The whole thing is clearly made in the Star Trek mould, with the strong episodic structure of the original series, but borrows hugely from other contemporary televisual space-based science fiction. The first episode feels like it could be put in 50 minutes of screenplay time.
I am not sure how I am going to organize my consumption of this. An episode is a whole dayʼs read; too much to undertake on a regular basis. Perhaps I will allocate the evenings of one week in every four? Iʼm very daunted by the prospect.
But this is a seriously impressive effort. Alas, I am hooked...
The opening episode sets up the universe nicely. An evil corporate empire fell in a partition of the scattered human race in recent living memory, and now that planet enjoys a freer democratic existence but with a strong residual military bent. The protagonists in this instalment are sent to investigate an unknown planet, which turns out to hold dark secrets from the corporate-controlled past.
The first problem that hits you with this concept is that, unlike other universes such as Star Trek or Babylon 5 where ships have to be large to make epic voyages, here the ships ‘slide’ within the locality of the home world. So why do they construct and send a colossal dreadnought on a scouting mission?
In general there are good attempts at explaining strange physics, but some relative gaffes. How does gravity on a city in geosynchronous orbit tethered to the equator work? Most of the unexplained is acknowledged satisfactorily, though.
The main transport technology (Star Trek transporters are *not* available here) is the ‘slide’, which can take place regularly within a star system, or via gates for trans-galactic journeying. It is a nice variation on the faster-than-light problem, especially in that the use of the technology is not taken so much for granted, but takes time and effort to undertake.
The best thing about this story is that the enemy are portrayed as intelligent and the reasoning behind their stance against humanity is clearly defined. It also brings out the human aspect of being intensely guilty of murdering sentient lives.
Punctuation is very wonky around dialogue, but generally the prose is straightforward, yet detailed and efficient at the same time, and moves the story along very nicely.
The story in fact is gripping, and really does encourage the reader to get through to the end of the episode.
The title sets the tone for this work--and it does not have anything to do with Buck Rogers. It is a description of a day in the life of a man brought out of a 2,000 year stasis, from the present time it would seem. It presents a decent exploration of a plausible far future, not massively imaginative, and quite boring: the man misses his family and struggles with the fact that Earth and all he knew is dead. There is no real denouement.
It really could do with having more story to it: the manʼs past might have been more interesting, or the fate of the drifting satellite that he was found on, or maybe he is hunted for the fresh DNA he brings to the stagnant society...?
The writing is unsophisticated, half exposition, half dialogue; it could do with a couple more rounds of tidying, and the punctuation around dialogue continues to be wonky.
Compared to the first episode which was expansive, this one feels very compact. It feels, in fact, very much like an isolated stand-alone Star Trek episode, very tropey, and struggles to fill 50 minutes screen time.
It is harmless fun, just a bit run-of-the-mill.