The Travel Agent by Jay B. Eckert

[kailhofer]

I'm glad that this story was held over from last month because it received no reviews.<br><br>I know I've seen the author's name as logged in periodically, and he's probably been out of his mind with concern. Alas, Real Life and distasteful things such as Day Jobs can get in the way of higher callings such as helping one's fellow man.<br><br><br>I really enjoyed this story--with some caveats.<br><br>First off, I couldn't help but be reminded of Douglas Adams in the beginning, which was a good thing. Adams is (or rather, was) one of my favorite authors. The tone of the opener brought to mind Ford Prefect speaking to the barman in Hitchhiker. Both Ford and Nohman knew what was really going on, and had a manner or way of speaking which caused their audiences to listen, in spite of the obvious reasons not to. Likewise, the custom planet angle was so like the planet forges of Magrathea, it was hard not to draw a line between the two.<br><br>I would have liked a tad more description, using all the senses instead of just sight and touch, especially in the reboot cave. I just couldn't picture it, except for the big red button.<br><br>On character, I just didn't go for the name, Nohman. It was too obvious to think of it as No Man, which pretty much telegraphed that Nohman was Phil, losing the surprise at the end. The rest of the characterization I was all for, and quite enjoyed.<br><br>On plot credibility, while I liked the idea of planets starting over for the amusement of others... I had a problem with the actual mechanics of it. I mean, people are alive. They have their own life force, for lack of a better term, keeping them going, existing. How did they all just vanish and quit at the end? Remove the Sun, and we all slowly freeze to death. Blowing up the Earth requires a phenomenal amount of energy, and we'd still get a few moments of recognition as we evaporate into wisps of nothingness. I mean, I could buy it if the oceanic and continental plates were sucked below the mantle of the earth during those 7 hours and "washed" clean with boiling lava. They could then re-emerge to start the whole works over. But just ending I couldn't suspend my disbelief over.<br><br>Good use of voice. The listener clearly spoke and thought in a different voice from Phil Nohman.<br><br>All in all, I quite liked it, but thought that there was some room for improvement.<br><br>Nate

[jayeckert]

Thanks, everyone, for your feedback. So a couple of clues into where my head was when I wrote this. <br><br>First off, Nate, I was thinking HG2G and most definitely Magrathea when I began to take the story from concept to written word. In fact, there was a whole chunk of elaboration that I took out because, while I was aspiring to write in the style of Douglas Adams, I realized that it didn't move the story forward.<br><br>In terms of Nohman.. no he was not Phil. Think in terms of Slartibartfast. "The man", as Lee alluded to, may have been Phil, but then again, given the first line of the story, perhaps he is one of many incarnations of Phil. <br><br>Lastly, I've never been to new New Zealand but did quite a bit of research, including checking out many images of Mt Ruapehu and its terrain. So, much of what I describe about the terrain is real.<br><br>Jay

[jayeckert]

Hi Lee,<br><br>As to who Nohman is: think in terms of the bag he left behind and the title of the story.<br><br>"The man" is as I described earlier in the thread. I envision him as a random creation in memory, if you get my drift.<br><br>The more I think about it, the more I realize that one could construe the ending in a number of ways. All I can say is that I don't believe Phil was present in that final scene.<br><br>Jay