Saturday 13 October 2012

Science Fiction Fantasy Saturday #50

Welcome to this week's #sffsat snippet! I'm continuing with Terms & Conditions Apply, and Marie has just rejected the services of one of the space station's avatars despite its attractive appearance...
 
Cover by Danielle Fine
She jumped up and tried to shove past him, but the dense composition of an avatar meant she only jarred her arm and had to sidle past in an embarrassingly servile fashion. He made no attempt to stop her, and she headed blindly down the nearest access corridor.
Tears blurred the curious faces as she passed them. She wasn’t sure where she was going or why. A starship home perhaps, or to the quarters Jaisen had booked and that no doubt held her meager luggage at this moment…
Someone caught her elbow and steadied her as she swayed with indecision. “I really don’t think you want to go that way.”
She tried to shrug off the hand and found herself held by the same avatar. His easy smile stopped the curse on her tongue and, as he clasped her upper arms, she knew a struggle would be pointless.
“Then tell me which way gets me off the station,” she snapped, anger flaring at the tremor in her voice she couldn’t hide.
 
 
© 2009-2012 Copyright Philippa J. Green All Rights Reserved
You can check out the other authors in SFFSAT by going to the main blog here.

11 comments:

  1. An interesting take on avatars being realistic enough to be solid, and then to grab hold of a person...good stuff.

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  2. Well, the idea of a graphic image being an avatar is a recent thing. The original definition is the embodiment or manifestation of a god. :)

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  3. Something tells me that this avatar is more than he appears. Good snippet!

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  4. Loving the snippet, especially the line "Tears blurred the curious faces". :D

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  5. I'm with Patrick. Something more about this avatar, indeed. I'm looking forward to more!!

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  6. I like the use of "avatar" in the traditional sense. Very interesting.

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  7. The avatar is beginning to sound like a prison guard.

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  8. I'm intrigued by the bit about the dense composition of an avatar. Almost makes it sound like they've been engineered.

    Good snippet! Definitely makes me want to read more.

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  9. Also intrigued by your take on avatars!

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  10. And suddenly the avatar has gone from mildly to extremely on the interesting scale. Great sense of rising tension here. Very excited to see what's next.

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I always love to hear your thoughts.