the ceiling was covered in blueprints. It took me a moment, but I realized they were- … -organs.
Blueprints are for construction projects, not really organs (even if they instruct on how to develop an organ). You'd be better off which medical diagrams or something along those lines.
How do I know that? I search my mind and find… nothing.
I'm not sure I fully understand how one doesn't recognize organs as a form of common sense. You wouldn't need much technical knowledge to recognize diagrams of organs, especially if they're labeled.
My eyes are a deep shade of amethyst.
I get the vaguest idea that this is some sort of memory jumping in, but it isn't clear enough for me to say that for sure. If that's the case, I think you can build on that idea a bit more, but if it isn't then I have no idea how the protag would know this.
My eyes catch on a file with a picture of me on the front of it.
Where did this file come from? Last we heard, the only thing in the room where "blueprints."
Also, how does he know it's his face? We later learn that he knows nothing of himself.
I approach it slowly, like a bomb, and pick it up. I open it and read.
Having these as two separate sentences make read really awkwardly. I'd combine them in some way, let it flow better.
This one though, assimilated
You need a comma after "one" too
its body smoothly and perfectly.
I don't have the grammatical know-how to say why this bothers me, but I read "smoothly and perfectly" and my brain jerks to the side a bit. But, as with everything, you've got the final say-so on what changes you make.
I slam the book shut and back away quickly
A file and a book are two different things with different connotations, I'm not sure you can use them interchangeably.
I get out of the room and find a mirror ouside it. I examine it closely. I have the head of a… cat? Huh. I have pads at the end of my feet and my legs are taut with wiry muscle. My black furred body is free of scars save for my chest.
First, a note to fix "ouside."
Second, this whole sequence doesn't make much sense for a few of reasons and I'm gonna try to be succinct about it.
- I don't really dig exiting the room and finding a mirror leaving so much to be desired. Homie has no idea where he is, yet we get absolutely nothing on the environment. Shouldn't he be taking in details? How does he find a mirror?
- We jump into a descriptor of the protag, but this is all stuff that could have been noticed earlier along with the fur, a mirror isn't needed to tell you have pads on your feet and that you've got inhuman musculature. I'm not saying that you have to do it before, but give us the reader some more to chew on that develops the situation, gives us insight into his feelings. Of course he's shocked, which would hinder his processing of a situation, but let us into that mindset.
- The line about the cat head is surprisingly collected. If he did somehow know about his face, then shouldn't he be a bit more confused or panicked? Then again, he hasn't seemed all that panicked about a whole lot of things that should be of concern to him: fur, scars, waking up in a madhouse. He's expressed some panic, but it isn't communicated in a way where it feel consistent and convincing to me as the reader.
- I'm sure it's gonna come up later, but why did all the scars spontaneously heal except the chest ones? Why isn't he more cognizant of this discrepancy? A more petty take, but it's something on my mind.
A long, jagged line runs from my collarbone, across my chest, and down to under my left arm. Where did I get that? I rack my brain again and still come up blank.
Look, I get it, people can be stupid, especially in strange situations like this one, but this feels absurd to me. He just read a file that he has already associated as being about him where it details organ transfer. Surely he'd put that together?
I suddenly become aware that I am completely naked. I can feel cool air on my bare body,
But he isn't bare. He's covered in fur. I won't argue against naked, that's technically true in the sense that we define naked as having no clothes. Feeling the cool air is debatable, depending on the air flow. If it's just stagnant air, I think the fur would do something to insulate against it.
but something tells me I should get dressed.
Nix the "but," it doesn't make sense to have there.
The needle and twine are in good condition, thank goodness.
Why is this what jumps out at him? He's got no injuries to sew and doesn't have any plans to get into a position where he'd need them.
There's a door. Panic settles in. I have to get out. I run to the door and slam it open.
This is a massive leap from where we just were. Why is panic only now setting in, why at the sight of the door? I'm not saying it can't be like that, but why?
about 1.7 metres tall
This could just be my American patriotism kicking in at the mere sight of a metric unit, but giving an exact, decimal point height feels out of place. This goes for all of the instances of this.
"There's some stored food in here, if you want to help yourself to it."
When did he see this? How does he know?
Why don't we take you?"
The protag has expressed zero interest in going anywhere, let alone Halfforge, why offer a ride?
There are diagrams and notes filled with recipies and notes, results.
Nix one of the "notes."
"Take a look at this. Whoever was here, they were trying to create something. Were they…trying to create a living being?" The tall one looks horrified. I guess there's some pretty nasty stuff in them.
This is another sequence that doesn't make much sense. The protag was presumably seen by the hunters exiting the building (or just standing right outside it) and he's the one who tells them about stuff stored inside, yet they take no qualms with him once they find the experimental stuff? We as the reader know it isn't his work, but the hunters don't. They're appropriately horrified by the stuff, yet they don't interrogate the one person who they know was in the building. You can't make the argument that they saw that he'd been experimented on because they didn't react at all to his appearance before, leading the reader to presume that cat-humanoids aren't atypical in this universe.
"Trade College?"
How does he know it's a trade college?
The journal is still there
What journal?
The wildenransh near here are dangerous at night."
I'm gonna put it here since this is the first time it crops up, but this applies to all of the instances where you throw in a foreign language term or explain away a race with a footnote.
I really, really don't dig this if I'm being honest. It feels like you're trying to thrust in fantastical and/or foreign elements without giving them the proper time to be explained in the story itself. Of course, people in real life who are bilingual are known to use individual terms in another language, and that's something you are perfectly allowed to mimic in the writing, but I don't think you should define it with a footnote. Give it context in the story, maybe the protag asks what something is. Same applies for the races, let that be defined in the story. The protag seems to be completely unaware of the world around him, so let him be curious about other races.
Also, when you use another language in text like this, it should be italicized.
We spend the next two hours or so loading the diagrams, journals, and specimens onto a separate cart. Larent drives that cart.
Just as with the file excerpt earlier, you should just combine these in some way. Ex. "… and specimens onto a seperate cart for Larent to drive." or something along those lines.
around fountains who's statues
The possessive version of who is whose.
"Here. Ye aren't feverish, but yer malnutritioned. Ye weigh next tah nothin', and I saw ye eyin' some of the meat.
This isn't an academic paper, you don't need to cite sources. If you really feel compelled to do that, do it in an author comment on the piece.
On her hips are two girls, presumably her children. They stare at me with obvious fascination, then scamper out as the mother shooes them away so that I can dress in privacy.
They're on her hips yet scamper out?
I get up to help her, but she shooes me away into the main lounge, where I stand clulessly until Narav hands me some inks and a pad of sketching paper. I immediately sit down and begin to sketch diagrams os an arm. I don't know where it will go, but it will be very helpful when it's done.
Why does he give him ink and paper? Why does he immediately start drawing diagrams of an arm? Why does he think it'll be useful?
Also, "os" —> "of"
has already gone to bead hours earlier.
"has" —> "had," "bead" —> "bed"
a stick in his hand.
I don't think this is a proper comparison to make, it'd be hard to mix one up with the other, especially if it's a handgun (which is what I presume it to be since "hand" is singular.)
My vision goes red as I take the nearby fire poker and gouge his left eye out. My right arm hangs uselessly at my side, but I still immobilize the hand he's using to hold the pistol. I force him to the ground and kick at his skull. He goes limp, and I sit down, tired from the ordeal. Ronfharan rushes out to aid me, but I don't care. All I can think is that I'm just tired. I don't even feel the gunshot wound, but I can tell that it needs attention.
Not a huge fan of this sequence of events, it really flies by without anything to give it substance. Someone comes in, shoots the protag, protag fights back, and done. All in a single paragraph. I'm not saying you need a ton of detail, I think action works best when it's quick and snappy, but this feels like it's sparse less because it's trying to be quick and more so because it's got nothing to say or doesn't really matter. And if it doesn't matter, why does it happen? Explaining mundane things with no purpose can have its place, but an assault isn't a mundane aspect of life (at least, not for this character.)
"Onyx? Ithought you were dead."
"Ithought" —> "I thought"
Overall thoughts:
I'm not sure how much I enjoy this. It feels like you've got this grand idea in your head, a big world with a lot of detail, but you aren't taking the time to bring the reader into it. You throw detail in because you know about it, but don't give the reader the opportunity to be eased into the world, you just throw in a footnote and call it a day. Alongside that, the introduction of this character feels just as rushed. He's in and out, little detail given about the circumstances he's in and what he's feeling. I'm sure the circumstances in the broader sense will come to be put into more detail as the series goes on, but the immediate is lacking. The "inner voice" is a bit wonky, but I get what you're going for, so I don't have much to say on that.
Tldr: it's moving at a million miles an hour and doesn't bother to stop and smell the roses.
Of course, this is all subject to what you want and/or don't want to take, I ain't no paragon of storytelling. You've got final say so.