Firstly, thank you for giving my story a shot. You’ve been a thorough reader, which makes you a companion, since this story is semi-autobiographical. In a way you’ve got to know a person intimately, in a way people in my real life only graze the surface. You’ve also allowed me to move on from this story since it was my first attempt at a short novel. I’ve had a hard time letting it go, and I could probably tweak it and write different endings to it for the rest of my life.
Above everything, this story was my attempt to show what it will be like when people start to go to work in the virtual world and life becomes similar to a video game. I’m not sure I captured that. After all, I started writing it 20 years ago, BEFORE the first Iphone came out. It was hard to portray virtual reality two decades before it actually hit the marketplace.
This story is different for many people. I’ve had one reader say this was the funniest book they’ve read, probably because they know me. For them, I don’t think the fantastic scenes held much that was believable. Maybe you got a laugh, but then again, maybe you saw it as a serious work.
I’m really happy that you could identify and even enjoy the passages of loneliness. I was wary that might bore most readers, but it sounds like you recognized something in them because of you security work. Understanding the loneliness was crucial to understanding the atmosphere, which you did.
It’s funny that you mentioned Kerouac. It was his few paragraphs in On The Road about a security guard, and the park ranger in Dharma Bums that let me know that I could share my version of the Night Watchman.
Celine however, I’m unfamiliar with. A Journey to the End of Night is a fine title and would have summarized my story completely. Thanks for recommending that author. I am sure to check him out!
I agree that I treated the serial killer perhaps too fast. The serial killer represented a conventional plot and kept things moving, but I still had the video game life in mind. In my view, playing video games is super fun, but when you shut the system down, there is something empty, something that lacks achievement. It doesn’t matter how many points I rack up, how many levels I complete, what dragons I slayed, there was the big fat nothing waiting for me at the end. The pathos you mentioned is that cold feeling. Of doing much that amounts to little. Of interacting but never fully participating. So the serial killer subject has the reader wanting more, which sometimes stays out of reach.
Lastly, I can tell that style is important you. Whatever the story has or doesn’t have, I hope you at least got a good ride on the language. Thanks for your honest and clear assessment.
My goal is to create stories that readers like to go back to, maybe find more. 2x for you!!!
See ya, brave poet.