Hello I would like to include an extract of my novel "The Flight of the Eagle" (you find it on B&N and Amazon pages as well as PublishAmerica, I am the author Stephan Haderer).
Since nobody really has given me any critique so far (it has been published in May) I am hoping to hear some:
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Fresh air covered the shady palm-trees of the oasis like thin mist and each of the small tents appeared in a shadow. It was early in the morning. Sunlight hadn’t reached the tops of the trees yet. No one would dare to suppose that soon the hard sandy ground would lose its natural, creepy coldness, that soon it would be burning as if it were incensed. The steppe seemed to be infinite and endless – as if there was no beginning, as if there was no end. Like a maze, like a vicious circle which seduces people the way a piranha-plant seduces insects with its natural, indescribable beauty. And nevertheless, it was the home and shelter of uncountable species of animals and plants. Not many human-beings dared to occupy this territory, although they could easily do so; maybe they feared the unknown, maybe they feared its frightening loneliness. A red ball of fire which rose up in the sky like a sunken wreck of a ship which gets buoyed up by a sudden current; at the same time, the sky got illuminated in a creepy tone of red, the typical aurora-color which did not only indicate the beginning of a new day, but also made arise certain different feelings in every creature that was already awake, watching this unique, natural spectacle. Malagan appeared as shadowy and dark as a white sheet of paper of which one part is covered with black ink. Of course, it never lost its magical endeavor, its hypnotizing attractiveness, but suddenly, in those early morning hours, no human-being with much common sense would dare to enter the woods alone – no matter how enchanting and refreshing this spot might be in the course of a hot day in the deserted steppe. And everywhere there were hidden dangers treacherously lurking for their weak victims, outshining the rest of the cruel world, not only in their beauty but also in their dangerous charm and their merciless indifference toward their incidental victims. It wasn’t the animals and the plants, not even the blowing sands, the droughts and the thirst, though. They might be contributors, but they were certainly not the cause. Sometimes life is like a horror-story: Malice lies in the deepest angles of human-beings. Either the ones who were in the know would be able to cope with it or they wouldn’t – a fact which depended on the circumstances and the ones who were involved.
She was a small spot in this part of the world. Not helpless, but desperate and melancholic, probably still on the search for the unknown, for inner peace, pursuing to forget her past and everything that had formed her life and that had been a basis previously. Too weak to define her own flaws, to forget foes and make friends on a different level, she ended up in disappointment. Neither the big world where she had come from nor the small world where she had come into made her feel real happy. Exempt of materialism, greed and envy, she had come into a milieu where personal contact counted more than universal dedication and success. But hadn’t she lost something that had been and that was very dear to her still – her privacy? Everyone knew the feelings and reactions of the other one, no one was indifferent but rather worried and concerned, and no one would stop trying to interpret her actions and reactions. Every tear – tears of joy and tears of desperation, tears of grief and tears of inner liberation and relief – would be interpreted, no matter if it was a right or wrong interpretation. The things which were quite unusual and strange to this alien people would be considered abnormal, the only contact-person would remain rigid and stiff as she had done before, afraid to open her mind in front of a stranger who probably was more congenial and related to her than anyone here. The new society was scared of a change, of something that might bring them out of their routine, frightened that a new kind of inter-human contact might destroy their entities and, in her opinion, one-tracked minds. In comparison to them – she’d analyze from time to time – she was a person who was living in gradual, spontaneous changes, nonconforming, aimless, unpreventable and unstoppable.
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Since nobody really has given me any critique so far (it has been published in May) I am hoping to hear some:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Fresh air covered the shady palm-trees of the oasis like thin mist and each of the small tents appeared in a shadow. It was early in the morning. Sunlight hadn’t reached the tops of the trees yet. No one would dare to suppose that soon the hard sandy ground would lose its natural, creepy coldness, that soon it would be burning as if it were incensed. The steppe seemed to be infinite and endless – as if there was no beginning, as if there was no end. Like a maze, like a vicious circle which seduces people the way a piranha-plant seduces insects with its natural, indescribable beauty. And nevertheless, it was the home and shelter of uncountable species of animals and plants. Not many human-beings dared to occupy this territory, although they could easily do so; maybe they feared the unknown, maybe they feared its frightening loneliness. A red ball of fire which rose up in the sky like a sunken wreck of a ship which gets buoyed up by a sudden current; at the same time, the sky got illuminated in a creepy tone of red, the typical aurora-color which did not only indicate the beginning of a new day, but also made arise certain different feelings in every creature that was already awake, watching this unique, natural spectacle. Malagan appeared as shadowy and dark as a white sheet of paper of which one part is covered with black ink. Of course, it never lost its magical endeavor, its hypnotizing attractiveness, but suddenly, in those early morning hours, no human-being with much common sense would dare to enter the woods alone – no matter how enchanting and refreshing this spot might be in the course of a hot day in the deserted steppe. And everywhere there were hidden dangers treacherously lurking for their weak victims, outshining the rest of the cruel world, not only in their beauty but also in their dangerous charm and their merciless indifference toward their incidental victims. It wasn’t the animals and the plants, not even the blowing sands, the droughts and the thirst, though. They might be contributors, but they were certainly not the cause. Sometimes life is like a horror-story: Malice lies in the deepest angles of human-beings. Either the ones who were in the know would be able to cope with it or they wouldn’t – a fact which depended on the circumstances and the ones who were involved.
She was a small spot in this part of the world. Not helpless, but desperate and melancholic, probably still on the search for the unknown, for inner peace, pursuing to forget her past and everything that had formed her life and that had been a basis previously. Too weak to define her own flaws, to forget foes and make friends on a different level, she ended up in disappointment. Neither the big world where she had come from nor the small world where she had come into made her feel real happy. Exempt of materialism, greed and envy, she had come into a milieu where personal contact counted more than universal dedication and success. But hadn’t she lost something that had been and that was very dear to her still – her privacy? Everyone knew the feelings and reactions of the other one, no one was indifferent but rather worried and concerned, and no one would stop trying to interpret her actions and reactions. Every tear – tears of joy and tears of desperation, tears of grief and tears of inner liberation and relief – would be interpreted, no matter if it was a right or wrong interpretation. The things which were quite unusual and strange to this alien people would be considered abnormal, the only contact-person would remain rigid and stiff as she had done before, afraid to open her mind in front of a stranger who probably was more congenial and related to her than anyone here. The new society was scared of a change, of something that might bring them out of their routine, frightened that a new kind of inter-human contact might destroy their entities and, in her opinion, one-tracked minds. In comparison to them – she’d analyze from time to time – she was a person who was living in gradual, spontaneous changes, nonconforming, aimless, unpreventable and unstoppable.
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