BSFA Short Story Competition 5

Maria Via Lily by Gary Spencer

Maria’s daughter Lily has died. Before death she was scanned and rendered into a Realm where she lives a digital afterlife. Unfortunately her Realm was stolen, copied widely and has become a world–wide hit. Maria grieves for her own Lily – her unique Lily. The story concerns her attempts to persuade Evermore – the company that makes the Realms and whose employee stole Lily – to grant her wish.

The scenario and story idea are fine, then. However, there was a large degree of very crude info-dumping and Spencer’s handling of English is frankly awful. He apparently has no clue about the correct use of the apostrophe. Mostly it is neglected – we are given the plural forms of words instead of possessives – but elsewhere it is inserted where it doesn’t belong. Spencer also has top draw for top drawer, replaces effect for affect and pixilation (intoxication) for pixellation (blurriness.)

These are huge distractions which undermine any trust in the narrative and, crucially, in the author. Had I not been reading this out of interest in the standard of the BSFA competition’s entries I would have discarded it.

As it stands Maria Via Lily is, in my opinion, not of publishable quality. With suitable editorial amendments it might be, but not in its present form.

It looks like BSFA members were getting these stories warts and all.

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