Guess the Plot
The Vein of Tomorrow
1. The technology for altering DNA has progressed by leaps and bounds, and humans are staring at a whole new level of evolution. Brad is the attorney handling defense in a battle over a patented, redesigned human circulatory system.
2. It's humanity vs. the Creks, a blood-sucking vampire-like alien race. Unfortunately the war is taking place in a distant solar system, and though we have a weapon that would kill all the Creks, someone forgot to bring it. We're doomed.
3. A vein of gold deposits, discovered in a Wyoming mine, makes Fort Knox look like a piggy bank. It's enough to eliminate poverty in America, but the president shuts down the mine, claiming all that gold will have disastrous effects on the world economy, and besides, it rightfully belongs to him.
4. A pair of asteroid miners return to Earth after a disaster claimed the lives of the eight other crew members, only to find themselves trapped in a time loop one day before the mission's launch date. They must prevent the mission from happening without bumping into themselves. Along the way they find love. Maybe space monsters too.
Original Version
Dear____,
Andrew Whitaker lost most of his Cherokee culture and family in the first attack by the Crek — a race that converts its victims with a bite. [For a moment I thought this was a historical novel, as the Cherokee and Creek tribes were rivals, and Crek might have been a typo. But I don't think the Creeks converted their victims with a bite. Also, is it accurate to call them victims before they've been bitten?] As one of the handful who has survived, unturned, he wants only two things: to end the war and return home with his sister, the only family he has left. He just needs to ignore the voices in his head calling him home. [He wants to go home, but he needs to ignore voices calling him home? Why doesn't he go home? Will the war be lost without this guy?]
When a rescue mission leads to a biological weapon capable of killing entire species by genetic sequence, Andrew races back to Earth [Whoa. He's not on Earth? Can you work his location into the first paragraph?] [Is he on the home planet of the Crek? If so, I don't blame the Crek for attacking, especially if they've heard how Earth's white men treated the Creeks and Cherokees.] to find the schematics designed by his sister, hidden in a location only he would know. [One minute he's refusing to head back to Earth because without him the war will be lost. The next minute he's racing back to Earth because it's the only way to win the war.] [Also, no matter how fast he races, by the time he gets back to wherever he was, the war will be over and everyone who was fighting it will have been dead a hundred years. (I'm assuming the war between the Crek and Earth is being fought in another solar system, since humans fighting in wars need air.)] [Why did Andrew's sister design something that kills entire species, and then move to another solar system, leaving the schematics behind? Did she ever use the weapon on Earth? As long as Andrew was heading to Earth, why didn't he take his sister with him?] Designs created before the war with a warning: don’t let the military have it. But abandoning them means the war continues and thousands die, and ignoring his sister means handing a weapon over to his commanding officer, Tomorrow Murdock, who's been lying to him for years. [The military has been lying to its soldiers consistently since the days of the Roman Empire.]
Because Murdock — Andrew’s best friend and the one who kept him fighting, hoping, and believing his sister was alive — was the man who killed his sister. [She's dead? How long has she been dead, because she was his only living family five sentences ago.] With Andrew's trust in humanity wavering and the voices growing stronger, the line between himself and the enemy blurs. He must choose: remain the tool the military made him or embrace the enemy who calls him brother. [The Creks call him brother? Why?]
THE VEIN OF TOMORROW is an adult science fiction complete at [] words with series potential, told through four intersecting viewpoints across three narrative arcs. It blends the erosion of human ethics under colonial rule reminiscent of The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey, the multiple POV with differing moral frameworks such as Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse, and the moral inversion similar to Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh.
Notes
I'm not clear on how this weapon appears. Apparently it's an Earth weapon, not a Crek weapon. But it just turns up during a mission to rescue someone from the Crek? Is it on this planet, or is it just the existence of the schematics that comes to light? They rescue someone, and that person reveals that they heard about a weapon that could kill all the Creks, but we'd have to go to Earth and get the schematics and build it, and then wait however long it takes for it to change all the Creks' genetic codes.
Usually no one tries to convince you that your sister is alive unless you have reason to believe she's dead. Why does Andrew think she's dead, when he was so recently planning to go home with her?
While your plot makes perfect sense in the book, you don't want your query causing agents to ask a bunch of questions, because you won't be there to answer them, and they won't really want the answers anyway.
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