The Great Society--adult sci-fi

[RedRyder]

I found a cool query template on an agent website and thought I'd give it a try since I'm still not happy with mine after several attempts. I think this is the one I've been trying to polish from the heap. Let me know what you guys think, what's good, and what doesn't quite hit the mark. Thanks all, hopefully this is the last revision!

Dear Agent,

Aire Freeman is a fifteen-year-old girl living in John’s Town, a tiny Utopian farming created when several Midwestern states seceded from America under the leadership of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1979 to bring his vision of a Great Society into fruition. John’s Town is the epitome of a perfect civilization in which greed, violence, and poverty do not exist, and Aire cannot stand the bore of it all. She secretly plans to escape to the United States by getting admitted into a real university on the east coast.

Aside from the utter boredom, Aire has always felt there was something not quite right in John’s Town. Photographs of extinct civilizations taken long before the invention of cameras adorn her school history books. The military strangely “recruits” children and cookie baking old women in the night after they have emotional outbursts. Electronic billboards surround the city and cripple anyone who pass them in life threatening seizures.

But when a deadly virus begins to consume the town, college admissions and flashing billboards become the least of her worries. Now Aire must flee John’s Town to get help from the big city doctors to find a cure for the virus before there’s nothing left of her town to save. There’s just one problem; no one is allowed to leave John’s Town alive, the creators of the community always make sure of that.

THE GREAT SOCIETY is a 63,000 word science fiction novel.

[jaredweber]

I like this query and would read the novel.  Because of that, my suggestions are minor.

--Perhaps you could reconsider Aire's last name.  It seems (from the query) like it might betray a more didactically obvious allegory and some are turned off by that.

--With regard to this sentence: "Aire Freeman is a fifteen-year-old girl living in John’s Town, a tiny Utopian farming created when several Midwestern states seceded from America under the leadership of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1979 to bring his vision of a Great Society into fruition."  The sentence itself is a bit long.  Also, "a tiny Utopian farming" ... what, "community?"  It seems like there's a word missing.  Also, "fruition" may not be the best term to follow the preposition "into."  Usually, it's just "to fruition" but even that seems a little inexact.  "Into being" may be better wording.  (But I'm probably straining at gnats here.)

--The phrase "cookie baking" is weird to me, but that could be just a personal thing.

Overall, good query, for my money.  But I'm still unpublished myself, so take that with a grain of salt.

[Zooks]

Interesting premise, but it conjures up a lot of questions for me.

Aire Freeman is a fifteen-year-old girl living in John’s Town, a tiny farming Utopia created when several Midwestern states seceded from America under the leadership of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1979 to bring his vision of a Great Society to life. John’s Town is the epitome of a perfect civilization in which greed, violence, and poverty do not exist, and Aire cannot stand the boredom of it all. She secretly plans to escape to the United States by getting admitted into a real university on the east coast. [Would she even be permitted to make application to east coast universities? And if accepted, how would she be allowed to depart?]

Aside from the utter tedium, Aire has always felt there was something not quite right in John’s Town. Photographs of extinct civilizations taken long before the invention of cameras adorn her school history books. The military strangely “recruits” children and cookie baking old women in the night after they have emotional outbursts. [Do the citizens actually witness these abductions or is it Aire's supposition? If it's well known, then it's not quite a Utopia if the citizens live in fear and frustration of being trapped within the boundaries. Are these citizens ever seen again after 'reeducation'?] Electronic billboards surround the city and cripple anyone who passes them in life threatening seizures. [again, living in fear of this wouldn't be a 'perfect civilization' to me]

But when a deadly virus begins to consume the town, college admissions and flashing billboards become the least of her worries. Now Aire must flee John’s Town to get help from the big city doctors to find a cure for the virus before there’s nothing left of her town to save. There’s just one problem; no one is allowed to leave John’s Town alive, the creators of the community always make sure of that. [You say the Utopia was formed by several midwestern states, then refer to it as a town/community.  Are all of the towns/communities that make up this Utopia of former US states separate but run the same?  I am confused as to where the virus is]

THE GREAT SOCIETY is a 63,000 word science fiction novel.

[RedRyder]

Jared- Originally Aire didn't have a last name when I wrote this, so its never mentioned in the book, but I had a lot of people review previous query versions who said to include it. It was the first name that popped into my head, so I'll definitely consider changing it to something that's less obvious. LOL yes I realized after I posted this I forgot a word in the first sentence, and I've had another reader say the cookie baking phrase was weird. Will definitely reword that. Thanks for the positive feedback and great sugesstions!

Zooks- Aire is allowed to take her SATs, and I'll leave it at that for now. Don't want to spoil the end. The citizens don't live in fear of the army, they're conditioned to believe its a good thing to be drafted. So glad you picked up on the, 'hey wait a minute, how is this a perfect civilization if people are taken away for acting inappropriately and they aren't allowed to leave?' That's exactly what I was going for    Ooh, you caught me on my first line on the history of the community. John's Town is a small town that is part of The United Community that was formed when Johnson seceded from the states. Will definitely clarify that. Great catch! Thank you for the great feedback!

[RalucaB]

I just want to say that I love this premise and the fact that someone else out there writes adult sci-fi.   This premise reminds me a little of Knight's short story, The Country of the Kind.

I think the first sentence really doesn't do this justice; I nearly stopped reading there. Here are my suggestions for you to take or leave as you like. Best of luck to you!

Dear Agent,

Aire Freeman is a fifteen-year-old girl living in John’s Town, a tiny Utopian farming created when several Midwestern states seceded from America under the leadership of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1979 to bring his vision of a Great Society into fruition. You might actually consider getting rid of this sentence altogether. The next one is more dynamic and concise, and we don't really care how or when John's Town was created at the query phase. John’s Town is the epitome of a perfect civilization in which greed, violence, and poverty do not exist, and Aire cannot stand the boredom of it all. She secretly plans to escape to the United States by getting admitted into a real university on the east coast.

Aside from the utter boredom, Aire has always felt there was something not quite right in about John’s Town. Ooh, I think THIS is a great opening line. Photographs of extinct civilizations taken long before the invention of cameras adorn her school history books. The military strangely “recruits” children and cookie baking put a hyphen to make it cookie-baking, and the sentence isn't awkward anymoreold women in the night after they have emotional outbursts. Electronic billboards surround the city and cripple anyone who passes them in life threatening seizures.

But when a deadly virus begins to consume the town, college admissions and flashing billboards become the least of her worries. Now Aire must flee John’s Town to get help from the big city doctors to find a cure for the virus before there’s nothing left of her town to save. There’s just one problem; no one is allowed to leave John’s Town alive, the creators of the community always make sure of that.What makes her the only one who can do this? Is it because she's one of the few who has a scholarship to a US university, and therefore can leave the town legally?

THE GREAT SOCIETY is a 63,000 word science fiction novel.

So here's what I would do with this:


Aire had always felt there was something strange about her tiny utopian farming community, John's Town. Sure, violence and poverty don't exist, but Aire has a feeling that lies still do. Photographs of extinct civilizations taken long before the invention of cameras adorn her school history books, and the military “recruits” children and cookie-baking old women who dare to have emotional outbursts. Electronic billboards surround the city and threaten anyone who passes them with seizures.

Only, nobody else seems to find this strange, so Aire resolves to escape to the United States by getting admitted into a real university on the east coast. But getting to the east coast becomes a matter of life and death when a deadly virus sweeps over the town. Now Aire must flee John’s Town to get help from the big city doctors and find a cure for the virus before there’s nothing left of her town to save. There’s just one problem: no one is allowed to leave John’s Town alive - the creators of the community always make sure of that. (Mention why she's the best person for this job, and why she takes this mission upon herself.)

[RedRyder]

Thanks Raluca! I actually wrote another query that is very similar to the one you suggested, so maybe I can mold the two and create the super query LOL I've had several comments of people recommending to explain why the main character is the only one who seems to be able to leave John's Town, but if I explain that, then it spoils the end. So I'm wondering, if excluding the information of why Aire seems to be able to leave is going to turn my query into a no? Is leaving out this information a huge downer for it? Suggestions are welcome from all as to how to handle this situation. Thank you everyone!