first impressions - DemonBorn

Our final first impression comes from Lauren Ritz, who can be found on her blog, Eclectic. This is the first page of her sci-fi/fantasy, DemonBorn. She notes that the ameso are aquatic so they use sign language. My comments will be in purple and when you have a moment, go see what Dianne thought about this first page.

Shadyel turned her head to let her side-set eyes focus on a space in the circle, the place of least prestige (this is an interesting phrase) immediately in front of her. Her hands moved in the familiar ameso (Should ameso be capitalized?) signs, larger than normal because she was angry. Where is Tiyet? she asked, and the others' hands fluttered without meaning.

Sunlight sprayed in curious ripples from the surface of the lake above them, obscuring some motions and accentuating others. Trees wavered beyond, two moons almost indistinguishable from the clouds. Like this.

They floated in the traditional circle in the deep water shadows, Shadyel in the center where the priestess should have been. Only one priestess agreed to come with them, and she had died at the beginning of this campaign against the humans. This is interesting but might be more so if I knew the importance of the priestess and Shadyel's relationship to her.

Not able to get away, Giyac reported, his hand-signs very small as if he wanted to avoid her notice. He held a position on the human Blod Lord's team, (who is this person? Someone important?) hunting the ameso. The identifying pattern of scars along his arms in ameso form were not something which could be easily duplicated. The humans seemed unaware that the ameso took on the memories of their targets when they chose another shape, so they had created "safeguards" which rested in the memory rather than the flesh. This made it very simple to replace humans when the team felt it necessary.

Three of the humans rested under rocks at the bottom of this lake, and ameso had taken their places. (I'm a little confused. How could humans 'rest' at the bottom of a lake. Wouldn't they drown? And when you say three ameso had taken their places, do you you mean stolen their identities and lives?) Three of the ameso on the team had been discovered, tortured and killed.

Shadyel indicated her contempt for the absent ameso woman, fingers almost shouting the words. No excuse.

It seems like there's a lot of interesting things happening here. The trouble is none of it means much because I'm not familiar enough with this world and I don't know these characters yet. Is Shadyel a good guy? Should I like her? Or is she the enemy? I think if I understood the characters and had a better sense of place I would like this opening a lot more. I wonder if there's a way to intersperse information through action or dialogue or even inner dialogue. Maybe focus on one character (someone to care about perhaps?) and let us see this world through their eyes. But let me add that scifi/fantasy is one of my favorite genres to read and I would probably read on out of curiosity. 


What about you guys? What do you think of this first page? Any suggestions for Lauren?