Comments on: Building New Atlantis

By: locohama

locohama — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 11:52:13 +0000

I love the idea of the construction of a new world in the middle of the ocean. This idea is rich with possibilities. The way it was told here feels like you were giving an outline of a novel, novella or some sort of longer work rather than a fully integrated short story. Aside from that i think it was very imaginative and not as “weird” as I hoped and expected having read a couple of your other pieces. I kept waiting for some alien race to be behind Atlantis, which they built to be like a roach motel or fat farm for humans or something hehehe.
Do you intend to do more with this?
Loco

By: Carl A. Helsing

Carl A. Helsing — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:17:28 +0000

To:Michael John Grist—I have a web site as listed–It is also entitled as SKYTRAINZASTRON,an anomalous title.
It may be my version of hypothetical “Atlantian” causus belli—I believe mine may have once actually happened.–But,don’t we all feel that way about some of our dream’s–????

By: David Meyer

David Meyer — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:14:52 +0000

I’ve stopped trying to guess the age of your stories since I blew it on “The Sphinx”.

I think this story has the potential to be reworked into a much more thoughtful piece on a theme like an alternative to the US military response to the 9/11 attack, or the morality of the nuclear strikes on Japan at the end of WWII. Not that I would necessarily agree with either thesis, but I think they would make very thought-provoking stories.

You would need a little more nuance in your depiction of the US government, though. In this version you’ve got no more than an evil-Nazi caricature.

By: MJG

MJG — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:50:36 +0000

David- This is an older story, about 6 years, written at the height of antipathy towards America over Iraq’s missing WMD as the cause of war, so that colors the story. It doesn’t fit now- the Obama ‘Yes We Can’ message is doing what New Atlantis hoped to do. I hadn’t intended to publish the story for those reasons, but did because I didn’t get enough story submissions from other authors, and just wanted something up.

As for the cataloguing, right on, it should be sci-fi, amended, thanks for pointing it out.

By: David Meyer

David Meyer — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:47:44 +0000

New Atlantis is an interesting idea and could be a great setting for a series of science fiction stories, but this story’s politics is too grotesquely one-sided for me to enjoy the read or to feel receptive to its message.

I’m not sure what you mean by categorizing the story as “surreal”. It seems to me you are going for something here far more realistic than, for example, “Waterfall”. Am I missing something?

Anyway, just my thoughts offered in a spirit of constructive criticism. I don’t expect all your stories to be to my liking. Looking forward to reading your next one.