Aphelion

The shifts in POV in this story bothered me . . . the POV goes from one person to another and from internal to external. Nothing wrong with doing that; it just needs to be done in a way that the reader doesn't get confused by it.

And what was all this about, anyway? Too much unexplained; the whole story is just a scene out of something bigger, and the reader doesn't get enough back-story to make sense of it.

An inconsistency:

Turning quickly to face the blade, Johnny reached up with both hands and grabbed Damian's wrist with his right and twisted.

Was Johnny using both hands, or just one? I'll call this the Writing Faster Than You Can Think syndrome; probably also responsible for the confusing POV shifts.

A plot-hole kind of problem:

He would have just killed the thug that had come for him if it hadn't been for the fact that Joe had something of Johnny's. Johnny just didn't know what Joe had.

Seems like Johnny ought to know what that 'something' is, or he won't be motivated. A commodity is worth nothing unless potential buyers know about it. (Thank you, C. J. Cherryh.)

Another plot hole: Joe wanted someone to kill him? (WHY?) He has (or, had) a perfectly suitable thug for that; why bother with Johnny?

There were some very nice descriptive passages, but the story had too many loose ends, and careless construction. Slow down and think about your work, Damian.

Lester Curtis wrote:The shifts in POV in this story bothered me . . . the POV goes from one person to another and from internal to external. Nothing wrong with doing that; it just needs to be done in a way that the reader doesn't get confused by it.

And what was all this about, anyway? Too much unexplained; the whole story is just a scene out of something bigger, and the reader doesn't get enough back-story to make sense of it.

An inconsistency:

Turning quickly to face the blade, Johnny reached up with both hands and grabbed Damian's wrist with his right and twisted.

Was Johnny using both hands, or just one? I'll call this the Writing Faster Than You Can Think syndrome; probably also responsible for the confusing POV shifts.

A plot-hole kind of problem:

He would have just killed the thug that had come for him if it hadn't been for the fact that Joe had something of Johnny's. Johnny just didn't know what Joe had.

Seems like Johnny ought to know what that 'something' is, or he won't be motivated. A commodity is worth nothing unless potential buyers know about it. (Thank you, C. J. Cherryh.)

Another plot hole: Joe wanted someone to kill him? (WHY?) He has (or, had) a perfectly suitable thug for that; why bother with Johnny?

There were some very nice descriptive passages, but the story had too many loose ends, and careless construction. Slow down and think about your work, Damian.

My impression was that Joe, knowing that he was atypically hard to kill, figured he'd need somebody a lot more skillful than his regular utility-grade thug...