Title: Tagestraum
Genre: Fantasy
Name: T.L. Bodine
Dear Guest Judges,
When social worker Adrian Montgomery's seven-year-old client Nathaniel disappears, he jumps on the chance to aid in the investigation. He doesn't expect the search to lead him to another world.
At the scene of the boy's disappearance is a doorway that only Adrian can see. On the other side is Tagestraum, a faerie realm fed by the energy of children's imaginations. Without their dreams, the whole kingdom would be plunged into the sort of Darkness where monsters are born and nightmares become real. But Tagestraum's been suffering an energy crisis lately because someone has been stealing dreams – and the kids who make them.
In order to find the dream-thief and rescue Nathaniel, Adrian must journey through a savage wonderland of flesh-eating unicorns, dream-addicted faeries and corrupt monarchs. Worse, Tagestraum itself assaults the sanity of rational minds, and Adrian's is made up of locked doors and labeled file cabinets. At night, the Darkness drags him through his darkest memories, forcing him to face horrors from his own troubled childhood.
As the search unfolds, he realizes that he's not here by coincidence. And if he can't stop the dream thief, Tagestraum isn't the only world that will be overrun with Darkness.
TAGESTRAUM is an 80,000 dark fantasy that would appeal to fans of Neil Gaiman and China Mieville. My short stories have previously appeared in the Dark Valentines anthology from Whortleberry Press as well as Freedom Fiction Journal and MicroHorror.
4 comments:
This seems like an adult twist on Monsters Inc. Interesting....flesh-eating unicorns! Remind me NOT to travel there.
Interesting plot. The query is a tad long, but it flows well and doesn't overwhelm the reader with clots of information. I would suggest changing the line: At night, the Darkness drags him through his darkest memories, forcing him to face horrors from his own troubled childhood. You use night, Darkness and darkest in the same sentence. Suggest using another word instead of darkest and perhaps instead of night at the start say As he sleeps or something to that effect.
I would ask for the full manuscript. Consider subbing this to MuseItUp Publishing, it fits their requirements at this time. Submissions open again Sept 1/12
Hi T. L.
You did a great job on this. Good flow and just enough information to tell us exactly what we need to know.
Wishing you much luck!
Hi TL,
The query is pretty lengthy and gives away a lot of the 'goods'. I'd recommend trimming it back a little. Sounds like a wonderfully dark story!
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