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RE: Boy's Adventure Tale - Part 13
At last, I've read up to a post that I can upvote.
I am not fond of vampire stories nor of other human beasts. Therefore I would say you provided yourself with a challenge, if you were to manage to make me like Inna. (It helped that when I hear that name, I have visions of a sweet slip of a Russian girl, so I guess my subconscious is creating a migma of the way it reacts and your imagining of your Inna.
Still, I am very fond of my flesh (and am very glad I will not be around to see what happens to it after I die), so I'm going to tiptoe around Inna and keep my fingers crossed for Oskar, for I know it is not enough for him that he survives her - which of us, when we fall in love, care whether we survive joining with our beloved?
Thank you for your very thorough mini-review. I grant all of your points. I generally avoid vampire and monster stories myself. But Empress Raina I, AKA Inna -- who is of distant Russian extraction, although at this late date such things hardly matter -- is an aborted incarnation of the Demiourgos, the insatiable god dreaded by the Gnostics. It is her nature to receive sacrifices, and her appetite for them follows her like a shadow, even on happy days. Yet she has a human soul, and knows love, pain and regret. Oskar may yet survive her embrace. But I can guarantee that he will be changed.
I only mentioned what I do not like so as to highlight that I found it strange that I can read of a woman drooling as she fights herself, so as not to eat him, and like her - but I do.
To me, my love of fiction is based on the author bringing alive the characters; both the good and the bad. That I am reading after a number of posts should indicate that you have succeeded. Are you going to make her arch foe (see? you got me talking as they did in the days of Danny Dare and the Eagle comics) more real for us, or is he/it going to remain an indistinct shadow dancing across the stage, tantalising us with unanswered questions about it?
I'm humbled to have my work placed anywhere near Dan Dare. Fine, fine stuff that was! If there is a rule that I follow when writing my universe, it's this: no villains allowed, nor any heroes. Is Inna is a dreadful threat to all flesh, or is she a good woman doing her level best to play a bad hand? Is Oskar a plucky survivor, or is he just a foolish kid in over his head? Depending on your perspective, all are true. The tension and uncertainty make the story fun to write.
Inna's full story arc is elsewhere, in an series of unpublished novels. She's both more sympathetic and more dangerous (!) than I reveal in this story, which takes place during a "lull" in her galaxy-busting adventures. Based on the reception she's gotten here, I'd better get busy and finish editing them!