Re: agent query letter, take 2
- From: spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Jonathan L Cunningham)
- Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 15:24:20 +0100
Gerry Quinn <gerryq@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <e5fg80$5u3$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
mkkuhner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx says...
Thank you to everyone who helped me with this query letter. Here
is another try at it--just the part explaining the book. I think it's
too long now, but at least it's more specific. I'd welcome any
comments.
I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that it is easier to write a
100,000 word novel than a 1-sentence summary.
**
_Harry's Landing_ is a space opera with supernatural elements, as
if Melissa Scott's _Five-Twelfths of Heaven_ met CJ Cherryh's _The
Pride of Chanur_. Merchant starship captain Chernoi finds that in the
covert conflict among humans, aliens and demons on a lost colony world,
an outsider's questions can be more dangerous than guns. This is the
first book of a trilogy, with #2 completed and #3 in progress.
Captain Chernoi and the crew of the merchant starship *Radiant* are
dodging trouble at home when they agree to take on a passenger to an
unknown destination. Aaron's homeworld turns out to be a taut triangle
of paranoid human colonists, telepathic elephant-like natives, and an
infestation of nightmarish creatures that the colonists call demons.
When the colony refuses to give Chernoi the route-map she needs to guide
her ship home, she and her crew are drawn into the complex, cutthroat
political situation. The natives' unexpected friendliness only worsens
their relations with the human colonists.
When Aaron disappears, Chernoi turns to the natives, who deliver a
battered and half-mad Aaron to her. Her ship's psychologist heals him,
at the cost of a tight psychic bond between them, and learns that the
colony leadership has been infiltrated by demons. The conspirators try
to kill Aaron, then send a demon to possess one of Chernoi's crew.
Throwing her backing behind the least compromised human leader she can
find, Chernoi triggers open conflict among the on-world factions while
struggling to deal with the demon onboard. The human-loyalist faction
emerges on top, although Chernoi's pursuit of the chief conspirator is
foiled by a massed demon attack. Chernoi finally gets her route-map
home, but the on-world situation remains critical, and her sense of
responsibility will eventually drive her back.
Way clearer than any previous iteration. I think it should be "at the
cost of creating a tight psychic bond between them" - the current
version is close to suggesting that the cost was the destruction of a
pre-existing bond.
Should there be an indication that the bond was in large part the cause
of her 'sense of responsibility'? Or is it?
I'm not sure about that last sentence. It doesn't feel like a proper
ending. Presumably it's introducing book number 2? But you already
mentioned it's a trilogy.
It's also not clear why Chernoi *has* a "sense of responsibility". She
got involved to rescue Aaron: is she now responsible for an entire
planet in perpetuity? All this is, no doubt, either clear from reading
book #1, or is explained at the beginning of book #2. The summary isn't
sufficient to explain it -- and it may be dangerous to end on something
puzzling.
Jonathan
(My newsserver seems to be playing up: I hope this appears in time to
be of (potential) use.)
.
- References:
- agent query letter, take 2
- From: Mary K. Kuhner
- Re: agent query letter, take 2
- From: Gerry Quinn
- agent query letter, take 2
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