Title: The End World
Genre: YA sci-fi
Word Count: 66,000
Query:
Eighteen-year-old Lana would do anything to honor her father, killed the day he discovered The End World, a devastated parallel planet. So, when Earth calls for prodigies to study and rebuild The End World, Lana packs up her kick-ass attitude and F-bomb slippery tongue to become a Spinner, traveling between the two worlds and escorting researchers throughout the devastated landscape.
One problem: the survivors consider them invaders, and one screw up could spark an inter-dimensional war.
Appointed as the youngest Headsquad, she agrees to set up a truce with the survivors' leader, but when she learns he’s the one who killed her father, she’s faced with a gut-ripping choice: follow her orders and develop peace, or avenge her father’s death and risk war.
First 250:
If Mortimer had told me three years ago to go climb a three story building in eighty-degree weather, I would have told him to fuck off. By now, I had learned to say yes sir like any good Spinner and would’ve climbed a skyscraper if I had to. Today, however, was only a three story building.
The faded theater sign stood on side of me, most of its plastic letters lost in time. There was no telling the last movie that was playing before The End World went to hell. Finding similarities and differences between Earth and this dump was a pastime of mine. Researchers said the comparison ratio was about seventy-three percent. Who said I had to take their word for it?
I grabbed the rough cement ledge above me and hauled myself up. Across the street, Sal was already lying down, scanning the street with his own NF P90.
Damn, he is fast.
His voice crackled in my earplant. “Need to lose a few pounds, girlfriend. Soon you won’t be able to climb a speed bump.”
I gave him the finger.
“Love you too, Lana.”
“Just focus on our mission, will you!” I hissed in my vocollar, taking his silence as agreement.
Control programmed our earplants and vocollar on the same frequency before a mission. I squirmed at the idea of getting the implants bored into my ear canal but I had to admit, they prevented more than one sticky situation.
Good query, great stakes! So much voice, nicely done :)
ReplyDeleteI'm intrigued enough to want to read more. Nice voice.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Hope...great stakes! The query really makes me want to pick up the book and the excerpt hooks me right in. Great job!
ReplyDeleteThis is a super fun idea and, what can I say? The writing is so awesome and solid in this opening I gotta read more. I want a FULL!
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the request! I loved your query, the stakes were so clear, and what a great idea! I also loved the voice in the writing, and your words for things were very believable, vocollar, earplant, I was right there in this world. Nice work!
ReplyDeleteI love your query. Stakes were so clear and got right to the point. Totally cool!
ReplyDeleteAnd congrats on the full! Yipee!!!
Great voice! Nice first 250! CONGRATS ON REQUEST!
ReplyDeleteYou know John, I'm going to sit on your heels on this one too. Cuz the more I thought about it, the more I want to see it. Two weeks, that's what you get. Then I get the full too.
ReplyDeleteOooh, someone turned up the heat on this one.
ReplyDeleteThis is great writing all around. The query is so concise, and the pages reminded me of a perfect cross between Uglies and Divergent (with perhaps a sprinkle of Artemis Fowl). This is going to be a fun read.