[Graham]

Thanks for all that, gmw. All very interesting.

I'll have another look at the first couple of pages as suggested.

Spoiler:

Good comment about being led to believe it was more hard SF by the opening. I hadn't thought of that, thinking more that it would be accepted as 'retro'. That also gives me another route into figuring out whether the naming convention is confusing. I'll see if I can take a different approach.

ANG-E and AND-E is a clever idea, but I think they're probably too similar. The only reason for the names really is to make it clear about the owner of the face, which I'm working on. Maybe I just have to let go of 'Kenny' and call him The Engineer. That actually makes a lot of sense as it would put him in the same class as the Mate and the Captain, and thus a clear possessor of a face.

I haven't really considered keeping the Captain and the Mate's true nature a secret. It did occur to me as a possibility when I was editing, but it wasn't an idea that I followed up. You're right that I should explore this. It might be a bit hard to pull off well though, and would change the feel at the end significantly.

Graham