Writing Sample

#1 This is not my first piece of fiction..i have beenw riting fiction off and on for last few years...this is the first one i feel is ready for peer review :P

#2 I didn't have much to do and wrote some really long comments down below. Of course I'm not a native english speaker so some of my comments may be wrong. I enjoyed the story enough to read it thru and give you some pointers. I'm not a writer by education or profession so take it as advice from a reader. I think with a little polish and further development it has the potential to be a very good short story. Event though you never really explore the environment in detail, I still get a good feel for where we are. Maybe it's all of the sci-fi movies I've seen. A note regarding textual flow, one of my teachers once said: "If you take every pause and exaggerate them by a factor of ten and every sentence and read it as fast as you can, you will hear the music of the words. If you have trouble understanding what you've written while doing this or feal uneasy while pausing, that's a false note. If you can't read what you've written no one else will want to.". Of course all of this means you'll have to re-read your work many times, which isn't very enjoyable. Critics like to whine. We're all critics but very few of us are writers. I'm sure there's something down below you'll want to totally disregard.

Long analysis ahead!

-- Story
The moment he walked into that decrepit bar in New Bombay, I somehow knew that my life would never be the same. There was something about him which made you feel uncomfortable. Well, Lance Feral was that way. Just looking into those eyes, cold as steel would make you uneasy.

-- Comment
What way was Lance, you never mention the way you refer to. Then we have: "eyes, cold as steel would", you are missing a pause here. Maybe: "eyes, cold as steel, would"

-- Story
And then there was the way he moved. His face was expressionless and the body looked very relaxed. Yet it was in his eyes. His eyes were darting about in cold crisp movements taking in everything and that brain behind the cold eyes analyzing and evaluating every bit of data.

-- Comment
Last sentence is too long and contains too many "and". Perhaps replace "and" with "everything. That".

*edit*
Grammar.

#3 -- Story
I can bet you by the moment he walked in, he knew exactly how many people were in the bar and how many were packing. He must have known, for New Bombay was not a place for the faint hearted. Unless you happen to be a despondent loser like me who no longer cared what happened to him.

-- Comment
Same problem, last sentence lacks a pause. Maybe "like me, who no".

-- Story
Well the gold rush of '80 did that to a lot of people. Now there were two kinds of people in New Bombay, people who had given up hope and people hope had given up on. Feral did not look like either, yet strangely he seemed right in place in that seedy joint. He walked up to the barkeep and ordered a shot of sura, the local liquor brewed from genetically engineered yeast. He took a sip and looked around. It was then that I caught his eye. I swear to God he smiled. He smiled at me. His lips curled up in a faint smile as he looked at me and winked. I looked down and in the folds of his overcoat, I saw the butt of the biggest gun I had ever laid eyes on. He held his finger up to his lips and made a silent "shhh" sound. Well in New Bombay you learnt to keep your mouth shut and eyes elsewhere. I lowered my gaze and concentrated on my half empty glass of sura (in a different life, I would have advised people that the glass was half full, but what the hell.). I knew something was going to happen and the funny thing was I did not give a damn.

-- Comment
Why the parenthesis? Why not just "sura. In"? "but what the hell" also seems to indicate that the person has changed his mind and is going to say something. "did not" destroys the flow of the text here "didn't" might be better?

-- Story
It was deafening when it happened. It all happened so quickly that by the time I had heard the series of booming discharges of the big gun and had taken cover under my table and looked up, Feral was standing there like some roman gladiator over his fallen enemy. Feral was a tall man, and he cut a very imposing figure with the big guns (yes, there were two of them. I somehow had missed the second one) still smoking.

-- Comment
I'm generally anti-parenthesis unless they are absolutely necessary and these ones makes my mind focus on something which isn't really important. Maybe just stating the fact that there were is enough or extracting the sentence from the parenthesis?

-- Story
I looked down at the fellows he had just killed. I saw half the chest ripped off of DeeBee, The Slice, the local collector for The Syndicate and his assorted cronies dead at the table they had been sitting and drinking a minute ago.

-- Comment
This part is very confusing for me and I might be missunderstanding what it is you're trying to do. I'm guessing it was just DeeBee who had half his chest ripped off, so maybe: "DeeBee. The". Then change the last sentence to something like: "The Slice, the local collector for The Syndicate and his assorted cronies lay dead at the table where they had been sitting and drinking a minute ago."?

#4 -- Story
Feral was relaxed, but his eyes were quickly scanning the room for signs of retaliation. Well, he was not going to get any from this room. Nobody gave a damn about The Slice, until and unless he went medieval on them to collect the Syndicate dues. But then after two minutes, you cared more about how to get your entrails back in your stomach than the Slice. I caught his eye again and again there was that half-smile and then he turned. There on his right cheek just below the eyes, I saw something that I hoped I would never see again.

-- Comment
The first comma might be superfluous. Maybe removing the "Well, " part is good idea? Then we have this part: "The Slice, until and unless", until implies unless. So dropping the "and unless" might be a good idea. Writing "went medieval" is using an expression which isn't understood by everyone. You might want to change that. Just take what "going medielval" means and put it there instead. The next sentence is unclear and distracting. Mentioning numbers is probably not what you want to do in this case. Just make the reader realize it's a short period of time. If you get very specific readers might start thinking about the numbers and how accurate they are. Then they might wander even further and start thinking about what on earth he could do in just x ammound of time. They might end up having to go back since they got lost. Let people imagine the time. They will put whatever time they feel appropriate in there and no one doubts their own numbers so they wont waste time analyzing them. It's like saying: "the man was tall as an oak" and "the man was 2.56 meters tall". Tall as an oak really doesn't say anything more than that he's pretty tall and people can visualize this. They've met tall people. However it's hard to visualize numbers.
Next sentence has way too many and's. You managed to get eye contact, smile and walk away all in one sentence. Then there's time distortion in the story, he turns but the character notices "The Code" after he's turned.
-- Story
The Code. My hands instinctively went to my right cheek as I rubbed my craggy beard. Hidden below that matted mass of hair was a similar tattoo. For I too was a member of what Feral must have been a part of .The Enforcers. So Feral was an Enforcer. But the order of the enforcers was defunct now. The Syndicate had taken care of that, in the mayhem following the Great War.

-- Comment
Here you have two sentences consisting of just two words. These are big revelations and strongly marked when left like this. Maybe it's too much?
The sentence, "So Feral was an Enforcer", seems to be a thought and looks odd. Maybe "So, I thought to myself, Feral.."? Last sentence has a lost comma. Might want to remove it completely.

-- Story
In the lawless stretches of the sprawling slum of New Bombay, It was the syndicate, which called the shots. That was why I wore the beard. Technically, I was not an Enforcer in those days, but only a Quartermaster. But still I was a member of the Judiciary. But that seemed so long ago.

-- Comment
Maybe turn the first sentence into: "In the lawless stretches of the sprawling slum of New Bombay it was the syndicate who called the shots"?
Next thing is the three sentences with but's. That's just bad practise.

-- Story
Now we were hunted to extinction by the Syndicate, which suddenly seemed to have taken over the task of.. ahem... administrative duties in New Bombay. Suddenly I snapped back to the present. Feral was right in front of me, looking intently at my eyes. He put his hand on my shoulders and said, "Let's go". My legs obeyed. The whole bar had now come out from their hiding places and was looking at us leaving. We walked right out of that bar and into the seedy night.

I knew my life would never be the same again.

-- Comment
which => who. "Ahem" needs to be taken care of.

#5 Thanks peter.... nice of you to give it such a detailed read.... :) shall try to incorporate some of the suggestions in to the next draft