Trouble with re-write/possible new start for military sci-fi story

I'm working on the second draft of my military sci-fi novel. I started by trying a new direction with the story.

Originally, the first few chapters took the reader through some key scenarios in the protagonist's childhood - showing how some of his abilities/knowledge began to manifest. He's a half-alien child who inherited his father's telepathy and memory/knowledge. The birth father came from a race of human descendants of slaves kindnapped centuries ago. Their alien captors genetically enhanced their brains to allow them to pass down knowledge genetically (genetic memory) rather than re-train the next generation of slaves. Those slaves revolted and escaped.

Anyway, the first version took place on present Earth and let the boy grow up before being confronted with who he really was. The second version starts in a future Earth and he's older. In this version, humans did attempt Faster Than Light travel centuries earlier, but all colony ships disappeared. One survived and perfected the technology (and similar genetic enhancements of telepathy and genetic memory).

In general, which would you recommend? And please don't say "whatever you prefer." That doesn't really help. My personal preference may not help make the story more marketable. I'm looking for the opening direction that will help the story sell.

HELP!

Chris P said:

If I were to read the first few chapters of the first version, I'd expect the entire book to be about a child, ...Any essential passages from his childhood might be better told as flashbacks, and kept to a minimum, of course.

Just my thoughts, though.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input.

The early chapters do include scenes with the aliens. They raise alien/human hybrid under the guise of private schools/academies. The motives and purpose of the children becoming soldiers is made apparent in the first chapter.

Personally, I hate flashbacks, they disrupt the flow. I do have some scenes where the protagonist dreams of being in epic space battles and later learns that those are his birth father's memories surfacing.

The childhood only goes through the first 2-3 chapters before the second part of the book begins.

Chris P said:

If I were to read the first few chapters of the first version, I'd expect the entire book to be about a child, ...

Any essential passages from his childhood might be better told as flashbacks, and kept to a minimum, of course.

Just my thoughts, though.

Click to expand...

The first chapters in the original version jump a few years at a time. The first chapter starts on the day the protagonist is born and his mother dies. It also introduces the aliens - they learn of the mother's death but aren't sure what happened to the child. There's a brief dialogue about the types of soldier the child would make. The next two chapters show how some of his other skills develop and are nurtured (namely astronomy and martial arts).

Personally, I never liked flashbacks. they break up the flow for me. The closest thing I did was include a couple of scenes where the protagonist dreams of being in space battles. He later learns those are memories inherited from his birth father.

Lhun said:

I'd say it gives the story a slightly different focus. Or at least will appear that way for the first few chapters. The first version sound more like a coming of age story (set in SF) while the second version sounds more like straight-up military SF. So i'd say, depending on your target audience, decide what kind of story you want to tell.

Click to expand...

I like your take on that. I never really thought of it like that. I initially wrote the childhood chapters to show the evolution of the protagonists abilities and how they impacted his life/development.

Lhun said:

On another note though, please, PLEASE do not use the term genetic memory for this. Invent a term or just call it "inherited memory". Genetic Memory has nothing whatsoever to do with inheriting memories from parents, despite many bad SF TV shows using it that way.

Click to expand...

The reason I used the term "genetic memory" is that it is the most recognizable term and least likely to need detailed descriptions. That said, in most references back to the ability I do say "memories inherited from the birth father."

Let me rephrase. Let me try this another way. Assume the protagonist is 17 in both versions. The "aliens" are actually human in both versions (not big on the whole complete alien/human compatibility thing) but here's basically the idea for them returning to Earth. In both cases the alien population was attacked and mostly sterilized forcing their return to Earth. Here's the "origins" idea.

In the "future Earth" setting, the "aliens" are members of a humanities first attempt at deep space colonization using an experimental FTL drive. They're never heard from again and considered dead. They were lost but eventually settled and began their own society. The colonists included a lot of scientists, including some experimenting with genetically passing on memories (hoping to reduce time to train children) to build/advance the society faster.

In the current Earth, the best approach seems to be referring to alien abductions from a millenia in the past. The aliens modified the human slaves with the genetic/inherited memories so they wouldn't have to re-train the next generations. A limited form of telepathy was a side-effect that those aliens didn't know about, which helped the humans rebel and escape. This could give rise to a storyline for a sequel and prequel.


Opinions? Funny looks?

Lhun said:

Yes, i guess that's the way the term became so widespread in TV. It's still really horrible to hear for anything who know what it really means. (And people who don't wouldn't mind hearing a different term either)
Let me give you a comparison: it's like having SF world where some antigravity thingummy is cheap enough to install in all cars which don't use tires anymore but float a metre above ground.
And then they're called hovercraft, because they're vehicles that can hover. Sure, who the term is derived is logical, but it'll still cause everyone to cringe who knows what an actual hovercraft is. These are prime examples of the general principle that no science (or freely invented science) is better than wrong science.

Click to expand...

While I agree with some of what you're saying, I've also read that it's generally not a good idea to re-invent the wheel. If the generally accepted term is "genetic memory" stick with it. Those who know the "real science" will never be satisfied, but the average reader will be.

If you come up with a new term for something accepted by the majority, then you need to add unnecessary wordiness to explain it. And basically it's not inaccurate. The character/alien race are born with the knowledge/memories of their parents just like their parents' genes determine hair color, eye color... It's a genetic trait of the alien/non-terrestrial humans.

But we're getting off-topic. I'm just trying to decide whether to start with a present-day Earth or future Earth. All else equal, which is a better start.