Responding to the discussion, someone mentioned that they didn’t see precog, tekenesis, etcetera, as technologies. I didn’t have a problem with it; I figured it would be explained eventually, and I don’t think I need to know right now.
Regarding whether the prologue is a problem, or whether it adds or doesn’t add anything to the story by being a prologue, I think it’s too soon to say. We can’t see whether a prologue needs to be a prologue until we’ve read the whole book, I think. And I assumed that the star would become important later.
It didn’t seem too preachy to me, when it comes to humans destroying the world, but that IS something that will put some people off, and if that’s important to the characters or the story I think that’s just something that you’ll have to be aware of. *shrugs*
I was a tad bit iffy on the debates, too. It’s not that I wasn’t engaged, it just, I don’t know. By the time it got to the second debate it did seem awfully like a device to get more important information out there, not to mention the first bit of the plot. Maybe if we had something else to break up the two debates that would help.
I wondered along with Karl if Ashley’s reaction wasn’t somewhat overblown. Of course, she’s also a teenage girl. Though I think they’re supposed to have stopped being uber touchy by that age. (Because, you know, I was a teenager so LONG ago *cough*)
Also: Let the agent worry about the genre of your book. You worry about writing it.
And now, for my comments:
The prologue has me wondering who the narrator is. It’s not an urgent question, but something in there signals to me that the way the story is told might somehow be important to the story itself. If that makes any sense.
As for the start of chapter one, this doesn’t really seem like a class. This seems more like the professor proposing a question, sitting back, and letting the students take fire. Which I guesss is fine if that’s what you want, but it seems a little strange.
On the top of page six, you write, “Who wouldn’t be interested in the group that caused the fall of technology, setting the world back 300 years in terms of technological reach?” To me, this just screams infodump. I think it’s because you’re reiterating points already made: We already know Ashley’s interested in them, and we already know that they caused the fall of teleportation at least. If it’s the fall of ALL technology and that or the 300 years bit is something we absolutely need to know, you can string those details in in a more subtle fashion, I think. Nor do we need to get them all at once.
That's about it from me.