Tiggum posted:

The only review on Amazon posted:

This book is essentially a 350-page diatribe about human rights abuses by the government that are allowed to happen in the name of the war against terror--although in this book it's the war against aliens. The first book in the trilogy, The Merchant Prince, was a fun read. The second, The Merchant Prince Volume 2: Outrageous Fortune, was also interesting although a bit more serious. Capital Offense, however, is nothing more than a rant by the author. [...] This is also the only book of the trilogy where Armin Shimerman (who played Quark in Star Trek and Principal Snyder in Buffy) did all the writing.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Pastry of the Year posted:

oh holy moly it's a trilogy and the last one appears to have kind of gone off the rails



that is extremely embarrassing

zoux posted:

You have to remember that it's real popular in modern evangelicalism to believe that demons and angels aren't actually metaphors or relics from when people didn't know any better, but that there's an actual invisible war being waged for the souls of mankind. When you see a woman that's not your wife and think sex thoughts, that's actually a literal demon whispering it in your ear. Christians are supposed to be direct combatants in this war, which leads to a kind of militaristic view of faith. Also see the music of Carman for further examples of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AAJNmoxWp0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJiheZ3aEug

When I was a cool Christian teen we ate this poo poo up, we couldn't get enough.

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/bobby/status/869831517169737728

quote:

Greetings. My name is Jebuiz y’Har. If my calculations are correct, you should be receiving this transmission in the year 1990 AD. We measure our dates differently where I’m from, but to make things simple, I am writing from the year 49,170 AD.

quote:

Niko walked beside me, wearing a silver kimono, her silky black hair dancing around her chestnut face, as we followed the crowd.
She caught me looking at her.

“What is it?”

“I love how you always look the same.”

A smile cracked her lips as she brushed a lock of hair from her face. She did look just as she had in 2,952 AD — Year Zero — when we had gone together to the clinic for the infusion.

In our batch there were ninety thousand others, and we were to be entombed for the night in pneumatic pods, all hooked like batteries into the roots of a mechanical tree that towered high in the stadium. Aluminum leaves shivered up in the corrugated iron branches that were fastened together with spikes through each bend in each branch. The tree glowed green — the steel plate trunk translucent, water bubbling under the surface. A bioluminescent sun hung in the air above it, and a mist was rising up through cracks in the ground.

quote:

The stadium that housed this construct had hosted the Olympics recently — track and field. All the seating had been torn out and the pneumatic pods spiraled out from the base of the tree, each one glowing soft white as they waited for their occupants. Nervous chatter sounded through the crowd as we waited to enter; two men in brown, hooded robes were shepherding us inside the stadium. We were told to walk single file through the steel gates, and we were given lit candles to carry with us. The wax dripped on our wrists as we walked between the rows of pods looking for the numbers on our tickets.

quote:

Her hair glimmered in the sunset, and the way her lips parted to smile — the way the light reflected off her teeth; I can’t help but cry now.

quote:

We did become gods when we entered the Digital Realm, but we lost our connection with each other as the deviations added up, isolating ourselves within our own realities. Here we are simply human, and that’s why we’re all together today. Here there is but one reality, the organic reality, and it is the matrix that connects us together.

“The powers we had programmed for ourselves in the Digital Realm never could have extended beyond the microchips. It was our hubris that convinced us that we understood the quintessence of the universe, but we did not even understand ourselves. An eon passed before we became aware of our error. By then there was nothing we could do to fix it; the coding had replicated far beyond what we could have imagined before we lay down that day;the spring equinox, the scales balanced for life.

quote:

Pulling my clothes back on, I whispered my thanks to the monkeys.

quote:

Figuring I could take it easy until everyone was awake, I grabbed a towel that the monkeys had traded to us and stripped off my clothes. Wading into the surf, I fought my way past the breakers and let the waves wash over me. Hearing a conversation break out on the beach, I looked back to shore, but no one else had emerged yet. Before they could come out to gawk at me, I waded back onto the beach and dried myself off with the towel. Pulling my clothes back on, I whispered my thanks to the monkeys.

quote:

His vocal chords were straining, but he managed to chirp out, with exaggerated syllables that wavered through the higher pitches, “My… name…” The monkey exhaled and panted for breath before trying again. “My name.” He touched his chest and chirped a few syllables. I concentrated on his mouth as he chirped again, and I thought it sounded like “Ché-du Makar.”
I focused on the sound and tried to wrap my mouth around it. “Ché-du-mah-kar?”
Ché-du clapped his hand and touched his chest again. “Ché-du Makar!”
“My name is Jebuiz y’Har.”
“Jay — ” Ché-du scratched his head as he considered the rest.
“Juh-bwiz,” I said.
“Jay-bwiss?”
“ee-Har.”
Ché-du clapped his hands. “eee-Ha?”
“Close enough,” I said, and I reached my hand out. The monkey grasped my index finger and his eyes widened when I shook his hand. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Ché-du Makar.”

quote:

I stuck closer to him as we continued our sweep, and I began to acclimate to the jungle at night, to the silence. It felt like mufflers had been shoved over my ears; even the insects weren’t droning, as if they could sense our presence, sense that we were intruders.

Dabir posted:

Is the main character named Jeb Bush? Am I reading that right?

Antivehicular posted:

"Protuberant, tight young breasts" is a memorably bad phrase. Is there something in the human brain that just loving short-circuits when trying to describe breasts without word salad?

Waterbed Wendy posted:

PYF Terrible Book: I whispered my thanks to the monkeys.

Tiggum posted:

I'm still trying to parse "Naked, except for the belt of white he wore around the expanse of skin normally covered by swim trunks". Is he wearing a miniskirt or something?

Tiggum posted:

I'm still trying to parse "Naked, except for the belt of white he wore around the expanse of skin normally covered by swim trunks". Is he wearing a miniskirt or something?

Waterbed Wendy posted:

The opening paragraph/sentence...

quote:

Greetings. My name is Jebuiz y’Har. If my calculations are correct, you should be receiving this transmission in the year 1990 AD. We measure our dates differently where I’m from, but to make things simple, I am writing from the year 49,170 AD.

Arivia posted:

No no give us the other page. The sexy one. The one with the sex words.

Arivia posted:

No no give us the other page. The sexy one. The one with the sex words.

DACK FAYDEN posted:

Holy loving poo poo. I read your stuff in the other thread and then this one and then bam, Jebuiz y'Har out of nowhere. It's literally been THREE YEARS since that idiot posted his poo poo on LUELinks. This video is three loving years old at this point:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4iuoUmn1QI

Sad that he abandoned the phrase "you see, we have a slightly different timescale". And also that he didn't use the current year as the transmission recipient.

...Uh, trap sprung?

Dabir posted:

Is the main character named Jeb Bush? Am I reading that right?

quote:

An urge ripped through me — something I thought I had lost — and I found myself holding Kara in my arms.

“I’d like that,” I said. The air between our smiles glowed as Kara wrapped her arms around me. “I don’t know how you women deal with your hair.”

“It’s a labor of love,” she purred.

I could see galaxies glowing beneath the bronze of her cheeks and her eyes searched mine. I came to and let go of her, but she kept hold so I let my right arm drape around her waist. We floated in silence for a while.

quote:

Kara walked over and grabbed one, drying herself off. She looked back at me. “Do you want one?”

My throat constricted — I could see her nipples through her bra. I shook my head and cleared my throat. “I’ll let the wind dry me off.”

She bent down to dry her legs. “Yuck! I feel like I’m getting dirty again.”

“It’s warm,” I said. “It’s not so bad being wet.”

“I know, but still…”

quote:

Kara turned to face me, reaching up to brush hair out of my eyes. I lifted the long lock of hair that hung over her face and tucked it behind her ear. As I did this, she grabbed onto me.

“Hold me,” she whispered. I hugged her to me and we sank into the bed of leaves.

I need to be honest with you, whoever may be reading this. I have no way of telling anyone how truly mixed up I’m feeling. It doesn’t help that all of this is so new — so different. I have been managing to make it all work because of my writing: I put everything into order with the narrative, but everything that’s going on outside of the narrative, outside of the possibility of language, is driving me insane. It’s the ineffable nature of grief; writing can’t give me any power over the ineffable. That word has been floating through my mind these past days like a fishing bob floating in the current of a river, waiting for a bite, so I can catch something I can grasp onto.

I use metaphor as my jungle, as a place where I can hide and try to grapple with the war inside me. Kara thinks we can help each other move past our grief, but I know we can only distract ourselves from it. She keeps trying to pull me out of myself, away from Niko. I might seem happier on the surface, but Niko isn’t out there and I feel so alone — even with Kara sticking to my side all day as we tramp through the jungle. She speaks through one ear, and Niko, or her memory, sits in the corner of my mind, trying to join in the conversation. Niko tells me she understands. She and Kara had been such good friends. She wants me to move on, and that’s why I can’t. That love is too dear to let go.

quote:

“What do you think they’re saying?” Kara asked.

I pointed at one of the adults that was trying to corral the youngsters. “That one’s saying, ‘What in the bloody hell are those things?’”

Kara laughed and pointed at a small dolphin, less than a meter long, that was tumbling through the water and emitting a constant stream of whistles and squeaks. “What’s that little baby saying?”

“That one’s reciting the great soliloquy from Hamlet. I truly have never heard better delivery.”

“Oh my goodness.” Kara burst into a fit of giggles and had to wipe tears from her eyes. “Yes! What a talented dolphin!”

The current had swept the dolphin downstream, and two of the adults swam towards it. “Now his mother’s yelling at him,” I said. “‘Quit showing off!’ And look, his father’s cutting in: ‘Now, darling, we should encourage him.’”

The parents were nuzzling their baby between them as they swam back towards the pod. “You see how gentle they are together?” Kara asked, and she leaned against me, putting her arm around my back. We watched in silence as the dolphins continued rounding up all the children. Once they were all calmed down, the pod turned and swam off downstream.

“Goodbye!” Kara called. “Remember to follow your passion!”

quote:

The two armies stretched several kilometers across the field with a half-kilometer zone between them. I gritted my teeth at the thought of having to walk around the battlefield, so I magnified my voice and called out, “Could you call a cease-fire for a little while?”

The battle quieted down as both sides turned to look at me.

“My friends,” I continued. “I have no part in your battle. I am simply a traveler, passing through. Would you be kind enough to let me by?”

A figure broke away from the human-army and sprinted across the field towards me. As he neared, I could make out all the insignia pinned across his uniform which marked him as the Lieutenant General. He bounded up the ridge and stopped in front of me, gasping for breath. “My Lord,” he said. “Could you consider forming an alliance with us?” He gestured at the alien-army, and I spotted one of their numbers trotting across the battlefield. “These intruders are here to rape our women, kill our children and steal our resources.”

I crossed my arms as the alien commander walked up, removing its helmet. Its head looked like a bowl of mashed potatoes that had been molded into a sphere, and its eyes seemed to float around inside it. A hole opened in its face and the alien gurgled a few phrases before pulling a device out of a pocket and flicking it on. The device said, “We are fortunate to have you in our midst, my Lord, but surely someone such as yourself has more important things to worry about than this conflict. Our forces will gladly call a cease-fire to let you pass.”

“But sir!” the human said.

I studied both of them. “I have been told this conflict is over resources,” I said. “Is this true?”

“This is true,” the alien said.

“Sir!” the human said. “Think about the women and children.”

The alien had its translator process these words and a squelching noise echoed out of the alien’s mouth, followed by its gurgling speech. The translator said, “What good would your women and children do us?”

I held up a hand to silence the human. “Why don’t you two make a deal that would be mutually beneficial?”

“They’d never agree to it,” the human said. “Their home planet is drained of resources.”

After more gurgling, the translator said, “That’s not true. Our planet is abundant in resources. Your planet simply contains certain elements that are unavailable to us at home. Don’t you understand that not all planets are the same?”

“You see,” I said. “This should be mutually beneficial. I’m sure there are plenty of minerals on your planet that are worth a fortune here. You could trade your resources for those available on the Earth.”

After a very pregnant silence, the human muttered, “Like what?”

“We have prosperous rhodium mines, rubies, diamonds,” the alien’s translator said.

The human’s eyes boggled in their sockets. “I like the sound of that.”

“You see,” I said. “Communication is much more effective than violence.”

“Your wisdom is the stuff of legends,” the alien’s translator said.

“Well, I’ll let you two hammer out the details,” I said. “I’m on my way home.”

chitoryu12 posted:

If you insist.

swamp waste posted:

I like how the macho front of pulp writers crumbles when they start actually talkin about sex. Like that guy appears to be jacking off to his own excitement at the thought of seeing a woman whose outfit is fairly sexy for the 1940s??

Maybe that's a pulp tradition because they legally couldn't be explicit when the genre was developing. But it's still funny to me that lowbrow "feminine" stuff-- romance novels, Anita Blake style halloween porno-- is so much more raw and real about sex than, like, Hemingway.

chitoryu12 posted:

Antivehicular posted:

Is there some kind of misprint on 76/77? It jumps straight from terrifying underwater rape seduction to Cal escorting some girls home. Did something get deleted/misplaced, or does this author just have no way of clearly delineating fantasy sequences?

I don't even know what to make of the first passage, but it really just cements my conviction that this prose is Achewoodian. I can see Ray Smuckles leaning back from his laptop after writing the "Mound of Venus" passage and thinking "that's what they liked back then, right? Really huge lady-junk? Yeah."

Waterbed Wendy posted:

Bolding mine. Not sure he knows what bioluminescence is.

swamp waste posted:

I like how the macho front of pulp writers crumbles when they start actually talkin about sex. Like that guy appears to be jacking off to his own excitement at the thought of seeing a woman whose outfit is fairly sexy for the 1940s??

Maybe that's a pulp tradition because they legally couldn't be explicit when the genre was developing. But it's still funny to me that lowbrow "feminine" stuff-- romance novels, Anita Blake style halloween porno-- is so much more raw and real about sex than, like, Hemingway.

Sham bam bamina! posted:

Pretty sure the idea is that it's some sort of artificial light inside the stadium.

Waterbed Wendy posted:

i guess, but why make an organic sun out of algea of whatever instead of just using a light. it's just the matrix.

e X posted:

Haven is not the Soviet Union though, it's literally Revolutionary France, hence the Robespierre reference, since the entire thing is basically Horatio Hornblower IN SPACE!!