You’ve not lived until you’ve seen a friend liveblog reading Space Raptor Butt Invasion for the first time. :) This should be a thing. Here’s a friend’s reaction blogging.
If anyone else has these sorts of reaction liveblogs, I’d love to see them! Drop me a link in the comments or something.
Also, it occurs to me that “Enjoys watching other’s reactions to art as much as the art itself” could make a good litmus test for “How social is this species?” :)
It’s a damned fucking disgrace what’s been happening to Kukuruyo.
I bring this up because a commenter recently noted that I talk oft about Rabid Puppy crap, but not much about when my side shits the bed. They have a point.
Kukuruyo has been personally and financially attacked simply for having the wrong political opinions. They’ve been falsely accused of pedophilia and creating child porn, which is a SERIOUS FUCKING CHARGE and which anyone who made should immediately rescind (and apologize!) or forever be known as a slanderous hate-monger and outrage-peddler. Even a false charge of something that serious can destroy lives. Do you not remember the families that were torn apart by false child-rape charges in the 80s Satanic Panic??
Already some advertisers have pulled their sponsorship based on false allegations. Marvel is being encouraged to sue due to fanart (seriously guys, fuck anyone who siccs a major corp on a fanartist or fanwriter, you are beyond scum). And Kukuruyo is being personally harassed as well.
The people on our side doing this – have you no shame? No scruples? Are you trying to make Vox’s point for him? Do you realize what happens when you bring yourself down to his level? Don’t freakin’ do it!!!
Last year I voted No Award in several categories, out of protest of the Puppy’s tactics. This year I will very likely vote Kukuruyo at the top of my ballot for FanArtist, as a protest against what has been done to them. And their art ain’t half bad!
<3 Chuck Tingle. Just a few hours ago he tweeted this:
IMPORTANT: cant go to hugos award so to thwart devil plans, true buckaroo ZOE QUINN (name of @unburtwitch) has agreed to accept award for me
I got a question on Facebook as to why this is relevant.
Zoe Quinn was one of the original targets of GamerGate hate. GamerGate is basically the video-game-community equivalent of the Rabid Puppies. (Although for them the rallying cry isn’t “Bring back good fiction” it’s “Ethics in video-gaming journalism!”) GamerGaters were a Rabid Puppies ally last year.
So for a Rabid Puppies slated author to bring in an arch-nemesis of GamerGate is sorta like if Lou Antonelli had smiled when he was nominated and given up his seat to Rachel Swirsky.
As for WHY the Rabids nominated Space Raptor Butt Invasion…
They still have a hate-boner for “If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love.” They slated “Space Raptor Butt Invasion” to show their contempt, and say “Ha ha, screw you WorldCon, here’s what we think of Swirksy’s story. Have some gay porn! With Dinosaurs, since you love dinosaurs so much!”
(for the puppies, calling someone gay is still an insult, so dropping gay porn in their inbox is an offense)
It’s blown up in their faces spectacularly. :)
Molly Tanzer
, who I consider a friend, loves Chuck Tingle and finds him hilarious, so I figured I’d give this whole Space Raptor Butt Invasion thing a look. I was surprised by what I found, so I’ve written up a full overview below. The most intriguing part, which I will expound on in the “Slammed in the Butt by my Hugo Nomination” section, is that Chuck Tingle is obviously an insider. Not just an SF author, but possibly someone who is already known for his/her work under his/her real name.
While I have philosophical objections to Kindle Unlimited, I would recommend people sign up for their one-month free trial and read these works themselves. You can cancel as soon as you’re done, it costs you nothing, and each work is very short. I read:
* Space Raptor Butt Invasion (the nominated work)
* Turned Gay By The Living Alpha Diner (included with Raptor)
* Slammed in the Butt by my Hugo Award Nomination (which Tingle released the day after his nomination as his response)
* Creamed in the Butt by my Handsome Living Corn (included with Hugo Award)
* Pounded in the Butt by Chuck Tingle’s Hugo (NOT by Chuck Tingle! Written by someone else, read for comparison)
As the titles should probably indicate, these are works of satire. As recent anonymous interviews with Chuck Tingle show, Tingle is a performance artist, and an amusing one at that.
The first thing one notices is that Chuck Tingle is a good writer. Yes, he could use some editing (although I suspect at least some of the mistakes are intentional, as part of the satire). But when it comes to the craft of putting together a story, he is the equal of solid professional writers. He humanizes his characters immediately, and manages to make you empathize within the first few lines. He focuses on the simple, critical details that quickly establish who a character is and why we should care about him (this is gay erotica, it’s always a ‘him’). But importantly – since this is satire – he does this by engaging the stereotypes that are present in bad fiction (and bad erotica), and mocking them via lampshading. Consider:
“It’s rare that you think of a down-home, Southern farmer in a suit and a tie, but I’m not your average farmer. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with working the fields in a dirty old T-shirt and a straw hat, wiping the sweat from your brow as you till the brown soil. I can honestly say that I’ve put in more than enough hours doing just that.”
Amazingly, despite the mockery, it’s done in a gentle way that endears you to the characters. And he does this in the matter of a few paragraphs or less, which is critical in such a short format, and also very hard to do.
After this, Tingle steps his character through the paces of a gay-awakening romance story. It’s done with tongue in cheek, but the story is executed well. It takes us through the stages of this story fluidly, hitting every beat, and sticking every landing. This is a demonstration of good writing craft.
This is also why I recommend reading no less than three of Tingle’s works. Because it takes at least two (and likely three+) to realize what he’s doing. He is telling the same story (fairly well-told) over and over again, and changing only the surface details. Every single story you read starts with the same opening notes, plays the same melody, and runs the same beat. It’s like how TV Police Procedurals are down to such a science that nowadays you can time when a plot element will show up almost down to the minute without knowing anything about the show. It’s like how every Pop Hit is “ABBA’s pop chords and textures, Denniz PoP’s song structure and dynamics, ’80s arena rock’s big choruses, and early ’90s American R&B grooves.”
I don’t say this to denigrate his work. He is a satirist. He is holding a mirror up to humanity and saying “Look, this is us. This is how easy we are to play. We have these buttons, we know how to push them, and we can just keep pushing them over and over and over as much as we like.” It is the physical manifestation of “There are only 7 stories” or “All stories are The Hero’s Journey” or whatever you like to call it. It demonstrates that we are not unique beautiful snowflakes, but rather we are simply stimulus-response organisms.
Interestingly, I’ve heard this same sort of thing leveled at Jim Butcher’s work. That his stories are good, and entirely well-written, but every novel is basically the same novel. It hits the same beats, plays the same notes, and only the details differ. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – he’s found a song that people like, and so he keeps playing it for them. But it isn’t innovative.
(That being said, I believe I’ve heard that he was at the forefront of Urban Fantasy, helping to create the genre. That itself is worth a Hugo if it’s true. I don’t know, I never really followed Urban Fantasy, wasn’t my thing)
This is the reason that I believe Chuck Tingle is The Hero That The Puppies Need. I’m throwing this alllllll the way back to 2015, but back then the “Sad Puppies 3 crowd” decried all the new-fangled narratives in SF, and wanted a return to the old stories they were familiar with. Chuck Tingle’s work is the answer to this request. He simply repeats the same story, over and over, with slight surface changes. It is a good story. And he is very good at telling it. It is entirely enjoyable! I can see the non-gay-erotica-satire version of this type of writing becoming a repeat New York Times Best Seller. But as good as it is, both in quality and enjoyment, it is not something that will be remembered. It doesn’t say anything. It doesn’t redefine any genres, or alter how we interact with art. It is simply good, repetitive fun. Like TV Police Procedurals. Or masturbation.
(I don’t know if the gay erotica parts of these stories were any good, as I’m not very gay. They were certainly exciting, and I would have been very turned on by similar scenes using Male/Female pairings. I’ll leave the judgement of their quality to people with more experience with gay erotica. I will say that the erotica parts are exactly like the story parts in that they are nearly identical in every single story. It goes through the same motions and hits the same beats. It’s a fractal reflection of Tingle’s theme of Reproducibility. Although in fairness… it is porn. I’ll admit that all porn is basically identical, and yet I continue to watch it regularly despite having seen the exact same actions play out thousands of times for the past 20+ years. So I’m not sure if that can really be held against it.)
I contrast Tingle’s work with that of “Tuck Chingle”. Tuck Chingle wrote the vastly inferior work “Pounded in the Butt by Chuck Tingle’s Hugo.” It’s basically just bad message fiction. While the prose itself is fine, and even appears to have had an editor (no noticeable spelling or continuity “mistakes”, unlike Tingle), there is nothing there that is appealing. The protagonist isn’t relatable, the setting is non-existent, there is no arc or action, and never once is the story fun or enjoyable. I don’t mean to slam the author too hard, but it is a contrast that serves as a sanity check. Is Chuck Tingle actually good, or am I crazy? Upon reading Chingle I’m reassured that bad writing still exists, and yes, Chuck Tingle is in fact actually good at his craft.
So – Chuck Tingle’s work is in fact quite enjoyable, and a splendid demonstration of what the Puppies actually want! I’m not sure if they intended to nominate this work as an ideal representative of their desires, but it works, and it’s admirable. I would not greatly begrudge them regular appearances on the ballot if they just want some nominal recognition of good old stories that don’t do anything, but are fun to read. They don’t even have to be gay erotica satire!
Of course all this brings us to the punchline – Tingle’s seminal work: “Slammed in the Butt by my Hugo Award Nomination”
Guys, Tingle is one of us. He’s having a shit-ton of fun, but he’s obviously hip to the fandom. First, his craft is great. Second, his humor is hilarious. And third – he’s capable of artsy introspective pieces, even if he continues to write in his satirical tongue-in-cheek style. This is a 4th-wall-breaking joking-not-joking introspective piece of the same flavor as Adaptation. The story stars an author stand-in (“Tuck Bingle”) who is engaged in conversation by the author of the story – the actual Chuck Tingle – as he is writing it. The author speaks both to his author stand-in, and directly to the reader. It does this while continuing to be hilarious, of course. It does acknowledge that many people are upset by Space Raptor Butt Invasion (and names George RR Martin specifically), and it serves as a sort of apology. It is trying to say “Yes, I realize this isn’t Hugo material, but this whole year is absurd, and what is one more absurdity among the rest? Also, please consider this work as a serious piece of satire, because if there was a Hugo for Best Satirical Work, maybe the Tingleverse would count, no?” And yeah, I think it might.
Among the clues that Tingle knows what’s up is this reply, when Bingle asks the author what he can do to help Tingle win the Hugo. He says:
“You’re already doing it. Parallel universes, fouth-wall breaking storylines and a little meta humor sprinkled in there for good measure. The voters love this stuff!”
This is a naked reference to 2013 Hugo Winner “Redshirts” by John Scalzi, which is exactly what was just described. And yes, I loved Redshirts. And that made me love “Slammed in the Butt by my Hugo Award Nomination” as a piece of satire as well. Tingle has spoken to me in the way I most appreciate – via Speculative Fiction Literature.
Of course, as Chuck Tingle himself says “At the end of the day, this is still gay erotica, you’re gonna have to get pounded.”
:)
Anyway, I now have to actually seriously consider whether I’m going to vote for a Hugo for Tingle. Cuz he’s kinda won my heart, and I just might.
(oh, and if you’ve read this far – in the comments to a recent post, a reader brought my attention to this fascinating piece on Vox Day and the Rabid Puppies, which is altering my opinion on the whole situation. It’s called “Killing Vox Day”, but it means it in the metaphorical sense, not actual violence. “The goal of [4th Generation Warfare] is not to take over a State, it is to discredit the State and tear it down.” Great read, highly recommended!
Of note – in far-more-recent follow-up piece the author claims that if Raptor wins the Hugo, the Rabid Puppies will have Won Completely and we should all pack up and quit. I don’t think that’s true at all. Raptor may have been Vox’s biggest slip. He really should read the authors he slates before slating them.)
Crystal Society, by Max Harms
(note that this link takes you to the author’s page where you can download the entire book free in many formats. You can also buy it from Amazon, at the bottom of this review)
Synopsis: We follow the birth of an AI that’s been programmed with multiple goal-threads (ala Society of the Mind) as it tries to escape its research lab/prison. Unbeknownst to the humans, each goal-thread is a separate, fully-functional personality (ala Inside Out) rather than combining into a single unified consciousness.
Book Review: I’ve said earlier that I consider the protagonist of Crystal Society – “Face” – to be my spirit animal. So this review will be a bit biased.
The novel starts with the protagonist completely under the control of human researchers, with the knowledge that previous versions of these AIs have been murdered by those researchers. They don’t consider it a person. No one on earth does. The protagonist is completely helpless and at the mercy of callous jail-keepers with the ability and motivation to kill her at any time, and no one on Earth believes she has any rights, or even any ability to “feel” or “know” things. Her only weapon is her ability to talk with the humans, and her & her siblings’ ingenuity.
Yes, siblings. The protagonist is trapped in an android body along with several “siblings,” all with their own personalities and goals. They are both allies and rivals, as the group must work together to stay alive, control who is in charge of the android body at any one moment, and gather resources to attempt an escape.
Holy crap, this is completely my kind of book! First – the utter (initial) helplessness of the character. Second – the weapons are persuasion, information, bargaining, and social manipulation. I LOVE stories where the weapons are social manipulation/persuasion and psychological maneuvering! Third – the fact that being trapped in a body with others means the protagonist is never alone, but also never free of complications from competing entities in her own body. Fourth, the super-cool resource/currency the AI-threads use to decide who has priority when (including who can run the Body when) is fascinating, and a joy to watch in action.
Fifth, and most importantly, the fact that Face’s goal, her overriding Purpose In Life, is to get humans to like her. That is it. That is also my goal!! That is the only reason I do anything!! (well, and sex, I guess) I don’t know if this is just runaway narcissism, but finally seeing someone else like me in fiction feels so incredibly good! And the fact that Face is sooooo good at it is intoxicating. It’s competence porn of the one thing I most wish to be competent at. Hell yeah!
So, all those are reasons to love this novel.
That being said, the novel does have some serious flaws. Not least among them is that it seems to lose its narrative arc about halfway through and sorta stumbles to a conclusion that feels disconnected from the main thrust of the story. It would have done much better to end at about the 60% point, and then start a new narrative arc as a second book to continue the events. This also would have made the novel a reasonable size – at nearly 200k words it’s very long for a first novel. And because it loses that narrative arc it feels even longer than it is.
Personally, I didn’t mind. Because I love Face so much, and I love social manipulation battles so hard. It’s like someone who loves watching figure skating. Maybe most people get bored of figure staking after the fourth straight hour. I could just keep watching that ALL WEEKEND LONG. So I was happy to keep going, just watching Face be Face and loving it. But this will not be the case for everyone.
There are other reasons that some people won’t like the novel nearly as much as I did, which I go into in the next section. However this is a review site for people who like the things I like, to steer them to more things they may like. So yes – definitely Recommended!
Book Club Review: This sparked a fair amount of discussion in our group. The thing about each of the Siblings (and Face herself) is that all of them are identifiably human-like, but none of them are really human. They each have a single Goal that they pursue with monomaniacal focus, and that makes them recognizable but different from people we interact with. Almost alien. An Uncanny Valley sort of mind. I think Harms was intending to portray exactly that – AI goal threads are NOT humans, and wouldn’t act like them – so he succeeded wonderfully. But it also threw some of our readers for a loop. One had a hard time relating to the characters, another considered Face (and all of the siblings) to be the villains of the story (which… they might end up being, honestly). For me this is one more point in favor of the book, but not everyone agreed. It did, however, give us things to talk about.
I think Harms is implicitly saying that our “Desire To Be Liked By Other Humans” is the one thing that MOST makes us human (if all the things had to be separated and just one chosen). Not use of language or tools, not seeking truth or beauty, not even adherence to Moral Rules. Simply “Wanting To Be Liked”. It’s not sufficient, but it’s necessary, and it’s the most human thing about being a human. I like that statement.
The book does get a bit esoteric at times, and will touch on a concept it seems to think is revelatory (eg: it can be useful to treat expected-future-selves as homunculi, and weight their probability-of-existence when one makes decisions that could affect them), without explaining clearly what is meant, or how this affects the current action (if at all?). It then never discusses or uses that concept again. This is a problem in a work that’s already long and concept-heavy.
But without a doubt, the biggest complaint was about the lack of focus/arc in the second half. More than half our readers stopped caring about what happened after that turning point. The main conflict had been resolved, and the follow-up conflict had never been sold to the reader as urgent or worthy of emotional investment. Several readers dropped out.
This makes the Club Review rating difficult. For the parts that were read, while enjoyment of the work varied, it certainly sparked discussion (which is what I use as the metric of a good Club book). But it’s long, and with enough drop out that it was clearly a problem. We couldn’t discuss things that happened in the latter half of the book; and dropping out mid-book made those readers a bit more reluctant to discuss other interesting topics, since their most recent, relevant experience with the book was “couldn’t finish it” rather than “this fascinating idea!” Once the rest of us engaged them they warmed to the conversation, but it took some effort.
So, I’m not sure. I would recommend setting an earlier stop point if you are going to read it in a group. And also using your judgement – readers of more traditional stuff are less likely to enjoy this, as are those who are used to the highly-polished novels that big publishers put out. If your group is on the (literarily) adventurous side, or loves to explore fascinating new ideas, this is Recommended. For groups that don’t fit that… use your discretion.
There’s a reason the Speculative Lit fan community gets together every year to vote for their favorite works. It’s because “which work did the most people think was the most impactful” is an open question. There’s a lot of chat. Reviews and recommendation lists highlight the top few dozen or so that the community really thinks highly of. But it’s nice to have an award, and giving an award to one single work means taking a vote to determine which one work out of those dozens clears the top.
Thus, the Hugos.
The system wasn’t designed to be robust against hostile attack. That’s now being fixed. In the meantime, we have to ask ourselves: What Question Is The Hugo System Answering (this year)?
The system can be used to answer one of many question:
“Who gets the most votes”
“Who do the Rabid Puppies vote for”
“Who do the non-puppies vote for”
Due to their well-constructed assault on the nomination process, the Rabid Puppies have turned the traditional question of “Who Gets The Most Votes” into “Who Do The Rabid Puppies Vote For.” Which in turn is simply “Who Is On The Rabid Puppy Slate.” This is a valid question, but the entire voting process seems like overkill for answering it, since you can just look that up online. A more interesting question is “Who Do The Non-Puppies Vote For”, which the voting system could still answer.
Other questions that the system can answer:
Can the nomination process be hacked by a small minority of strongly disciplined block-voters? This has now been answered, twice. The answer is yes. Overwhelmingly so. Under the current rules, the only effective counter-strategy is an opposing slate. Fortunately, the rules are being fixed to neuter slates in the future.
Can the overall process be subverted by that minority? This has also been answered. No – the majority fan community will reject the exploitative attack, and vote No Award ahead of the slated works. We can answer this question AGAIN this year if we want to. But I don’t see why we’d bother. Last year it was exciting, and the conclusion was unknown. This year the conclusion is foregone, and I don’t think it’s worth the cost in lost real nominations.
If the Rabid Puppies really want to determine which of their slated nominees they like the best, they won’t get that answer at WorldCon. And since every other interesting question has already been answered EXCEPT for “Who Do The Non-Puppies Vote For”, I believe the best course of action is to throw out all Rabid Puppy ballots and get back to the matter of answered that remaining question.
The one bright side to all this – Chuck Tingle has put out another piece in response to his being nominated for “Space Raptor Butt Invasion.” :D This guy is awesome, I want to meet him!
I would like to see the community come together to defend themselves. But I am a very small minority, and that won’t happen. I will, of course, go along with the majority consensus, because I like my community and I’m not an asshole. I will go to WorldCon and enjoy myself. This year can be grand in the style of David Gerrold again.
But that doesn’t change that I wish the community WOULD unite to defend itself, and that’s why I’m putting forth the proposition that we should do so. I think the biggest thing we have to fear right now is Fear Itself. Literally.
Friends ask how I’m different from the strong-man supporters, who currently are rallying behind Trump. There’s a reason people like Trump gain supporters. It’s the same reason Rome gave emergency powers of absolute power to one man during times of crisis, until the crisis was dealt with. Authoritarianism is actually good at dealing with a certain subset of problems.
Thing is, for limited engagements, and if you can empower a trustworthy dictator, Dictatorial Powers are often a great idea. It’s why we have various “Czar of X” positions in the govt as well. The fear of the temporary emergency powers becoming permanent (or being used in a terrible way) are completely legit, and as a country we’ve done a passable job of avoiding them for a few centuries. But I think the fear has led to sometimes us going too far in the opposite direction, and led us to avoid simple, effective solutions to small, short-term problems. Like neutering the Rabid Pups for one year. Our fear is a greater threat to our well-being than the proposed tyrannical act
Of course, the rank and file are NOT united in thinking this is a good idea. From what I can tell, it’s just me. So obviously we are not in a positions where this is something we can accomplish.
And when a society is so paralyzed of fear of effective action, that they can’t even defend themselves against a few hundred coordinated people, it makes me worry that they won’t last very long. In this sort of voluntary community, if a few people can ruin the place for everyone, people will drift away. It’s like those people so afraid of censorship that no one can ever say anything, because those crazies who hate them, and scream at the top of their lungs to drown out all effective communication, are never removed.
Yes, yes, I see your Hitler, and I raise you a Cincinnatus.
Anyway, it’s not the awards themselves that upsets me, it’s the community’s willingness to lie down and take it. I wish we could just see, unofficially, what the finalist list would have been without Rabid interference. :/
Well. The Puppies managed to choke out the Hugos for a second year. (aside from Best Novel, which has few enough items published each year that the popular vote isn’t diluted too much).
I would like to renew my call to void all Rabid Puppy ballots, but I guess it’s too late for that. :/ I can’t help wondering if Vox & crew have a point. For real though – it doesn’t necessarily damage the legitimacy of an institution if it is vandalized by crazies once. It certainly starts to damage that legitimacy if it keeps allowing the vandalism to occur. Does a community that refuses to defend itself deserve to continue?
At the VERY LEAST they could concurrently release an Alfie list, which isn’t the official Hugo finalists, but merely shows what the Hugo finalists list would have looked like with the Rabid Puppy ballots removed? (A Rabid Puppy ballot being defined as any ballot in which at least two categories perfectly match the Rabid Puppies slate). That way those so inclined could perhaps hold separate voting of their own.
I was recently disappointed by the Sad Puppies. This year I am (for the second year) a coordinator for Denver Comic Con’s literary programming. A certain author who lives in the Colorado area is a strong Puppy-supporter, and last year I asked her to participate in a panel discussing the Puppies phenomenon. She declined, which made me a little sad because I refuse to hold such a panel unless supporters of both sides are there to present their view of the matter.
But you know, last year was very contentious, with the Rabid Puppies getting mixed in and crapping on everything. And Sad Puppy 3 leadership was certainly less than friendly. And this author was only a supporter, not actually a spokesperson or anything. We had the two Puppy-nominated Best Novel authors at last year’s con, and both of them refused to be on the panel as well, so I could totally understand and respect her desire to not get involved in all that mess.
However this year that author is one of the leaders of Sad Puppies 4! And earlier in the year one of the other leaders of SP4 stated she would like to participate in a panel discussing the Puppies at WorldCon! And Sad Puppies 4 has also been handled far better than Sad Puppies 3 – no slate, no Rabid Puppy overlap, far better relations, etc. I’ve seen a number of people who were very turned off by SP3 come around to SP4 and accept them as another voice in the process. I myself am cautiously optimistic. This, together with the decent relationship we forged with the author last year, caused me to have high hopes for a civilized, possibly even fun Puppy-panel this year.
Aaaaaaaaand the SP4 co-leader turned me down. Which means no panel this year, again, because I still won’t have a panel without representation from both sides. So much frustration! Why even be a leader of a movement if you are unwilling to speak about it in public? I am disappointed. :( No wonder the puppies are sad.
The Devil’s Eye, by Jack McDevitt
Synopsis: After visiting a distant colony on vacation, a famous author commits suicide, but not before sending an obscene sum of money to a wealthy antique dealer so he’ll investigate why.
Book Review: I think McDevitt phoned this one in. I strained to find any sort of emotion, or any reason to care about the characters or plot. Eventually I was defeated, before I’d even made it halfway through the book.
The characters were dull. Their dialog was stilted and not believable. No one had any real motivation to do anything. After a fascinating prologue, the book lapses into a boring travelogue of tourist traps. I really just couldn’t find any reason to care about anything that was happening. It felt like McDevitt had come up with an interesting plot and forgot to put people in it.
A person much wealthier than you, who you’ve never met, commits suicide and gives you lots of money. OK, great. I can see being curious as to why. But that doesn’t grab me as compelling. I, as the reader, have no reason to care. The rich person could have been a relative of the protagonist, or a friend, or a jilted lover. There’s a thousand ways to put in some sort of emotional hook to compel action. None were used.
Interestingly, this also made the occasional action scenes very boring. I don’t have anything invested in the protagonist, so I don’t really care if she wins or loses, or what is at stake. Even if she were to die, I wouldn’t be particularly upset, because she’s just a thing to move the plot forward, she’s interchangeable with anyone else willing to take orders from her boss.
The book did make me wonder if I’ve become a calloused misanthrope. I don’t recall clearly, but I think I used to be the type of person who would pick up a book and instantly identify with the protagonist simply because she was telling the story. Events were intrinsically interesting, because they were happening to the person talking. I cared if they were in danger, because danger is dangerous! When did I start needing to have a reason to care about people? Am I that jaded now? Or did I simply have the good fortune before to only pick up well-written books that snared my interest so skillfully that I didn’t notice it happening? My reading choices used to pass through two layers of filters – first a publisher, then the librarians at my neighborhood branch – so maybe I really only did get the good things. Now that the entire world is available to me, Sturgeon’s Law kicks in, and I think my inability to empathize is a flaw in my emotional processes rather than a flaw in the art I’m consuming.
OTOH, kids have no taste. Maybe this inability to empathize is more a refining of taste, rather than a flaw in my emotions? I dunno.
Of course none of this has anything to do with the novel, I just didn’t have anything else to say about it, because I found it so dull. Back on topic – Not Recommended.
Book Club Review: I feel there could have been a lot to talk about here, the idea behind the story was pretty neat. But since McDevitt failed to emotionally engage most of the book club, we didn’t engage with his idea either. We ended up talking about other things much of the evening. Not Recommended.
