His third chybut sack swelled - Let's Read The Furlites of Aroriel

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > His third chybut sack swelled - Let's Read The Furlites of Aroriel

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

anilEhilated posted:

Cats? I thought they were lizards? With... fur? What the hell is a Mattisia, since the name and blurb clearly assumes we should already know that?

The Furlites are sapient lizards with fur. Matissia are flying animals kept as pets. The Furlites are loosely inspired by cats, but there are also cat-creatures called Felakoons. I won't spoil how they get tied into this, but it's a real doozie.

Edit: Actually, I don't think that the Felakoons show up until the second book. I hope that this thread covers both.

Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Sep 25, 2017

# ¿ Sep 21, 2017 19:51

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 12:53

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

Beautiful thread so far. I was a little surprised by that first scene, because I recognize it word-for-word from Curse of Koris. I wonder how much else ended up in there - it's awful enough as it is, but to be that friggin' lazy on top of everything else is really special.

Count me among those who can't learn about Shartball soon enough.

One quibble:

chitoryu12 posted:

Also please note how the book and its synopsis (preteen aliens stow away on their dad's spaceship with their wacky pet and meet humans) seems like a novel for kids, and it's even included on the Family Saga list on Amazon

That's not what "family saga" means. A family saga is a story about a family, not a family-friendly story. Think One Hundred Years of Solitude. (But really, who could read On Matissia Wings and not think of that?)

Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Sep 21, 2017

# ¿ Sep 21, 2017 22:25

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

anilEhilated posted:

Pointing you folks to Twissted might be a better suggestion for the depths fanfic-quality writing can sink to. I think that was self-published though?

So was this.

Edit: Might as well link the thread for that one; it's required reading.

Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Sep 22, 2017

# ¿ Sep 22, 2017 15:13

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

chitoryu12 posted:

Also, I can't wrap my head around the idea of them writing 512 as "1000" just because they use a base eight math system.

It's 8 cubed. Just like 1,000 (decimal) is 10 cubed. Put 512 (decimal) into any octal converter and you'll get 1,000 (octal). In octal, 8 is 10, 64 is 100, 512 is 1,000, 4,096 is 10,000, and so on.

Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Sep 22, 2017

# ¿ Sep 22, 2017 16:20

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

chitoryu12 posted:

Yeah but the text explicitly says that they write it as 1000 because they're base eight. It makes it sound like because it's their equivalent to a millennium, they actually write it in place of 1000, which you would think would make the math required to create an interstellar starship pretty hard.

They write it as 1,000 because the digits for "1" and "0" are going to be the same no matter what base you're using as long as you have a place-value system. You're reading it backwards - it's not because it's "equivalent to a millennium" that they write it that way; it's because of 512's place in octal that they think of 512 years the way that we think of 1,000.

Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Sep 22, 2017

# ¿ Sep 22, 2017 16:32

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

How the gently caress do you people even find this stuff

I found the spinoff Curse of Koris in a used book store. I posted about it in the PYF terrible book thread, and that inspired chitoryu12 to do a Let's Read of The Furlites of Aroriel proper.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2017 23:48

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

Tagra posted:

I love that his name is cute-ius, too. Subtle. Well, maybe. I presume there is a pronunciation guide somewhere in the appendix.

I've always read it as "cootie-us" myself.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2017 07:17

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

RoeCocoa posted:

I think my favorite thing is that, in this world of cat-dinosaurs with a whole other vocabulary for their alien biology and culture, a steak sandwich is still a steak sandwich.

Be fair. It's a ~~guano~~ Guanis steak.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2017 21:46

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

Kavak posted:

Why is there a swimming pool on their exploratory craft?

And why is it there?

# ¿ Sep 27, 2017 08:16

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

Samizdata posted:

Yeah, no. From what I have seen, no real editor would have passed it on in it's current condition, so it has to be basically a vanity press production. As soon as you go that route, you deserve what's coming your way.

A human heart posted earlier about wanting to see the "drunken James Joyce" mentioned in the OP, so I'm pretty sure the complaint isn't that the thread is making fun of a book but that it's doing a poor job. That may be a fair point - I'll admit that I've followed better mock threads - but it's not one that I can entirely agree with, if only because of the post right above yours.

And yes, this book is vanity-published, as are the others in Marie J. S. Phillips's oeuvre.

Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Sep 27, 2017

# ¿ Sep 27, 2017 15:30

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

chitoryu12 posted:

One thing that I can't get unstuck from my craw is that they keep using "oct-" prefixes for everything because of their base 8 number system. The problem is that as far as I know, they're not speaking English! Unless the Furlites have a stranger origin than I thought, the author is translating alien words into equivalent English terms that aren't actually real words anyways.

It's even dumber than that, because every single unit has the same prefix. Octlo. Octa. Octafet. Octien. So it's completely meaningless as a prefix! It's like if the metric system's units of distance were decameter, decapeter, decabeater...

On the topic of "translating alien words into equivalent English tems that aren't actually real words anyways" (give me a second to catch my breath), I really love "chafkhead". Either "chafk" doesn't actually mean "poo poo" and instead stands for some concept beyond the limits of English, or the Furlites' word for head is literally just "head".

# ¿ Sep 28, 2017 00:18

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

Samizdata posted:

The whole Oct- thing is why I asked if they had 4 fingers way way back near the start of the thread.

Samizdata posted:

Yeah, no. So two of them are stealthed decoy testes?

Bilateral symmetry would argue against that!

It actually wouldn't at all, but I should clarify that only Kutius has only one functional chybut, for reasons that might be spoilers if I mention them (although they're basically covered in what I quoted for PYF).

Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Sep 28, 2017

# ¿ Sep 28, 2017 06:31

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

1. As long as the third chybut is centered between the other two, they're bilaterally symmetrical. A functioning chybut between two dummies would be even more so.

2. They're aliens.

3. This is the least entertaining thing possible to mock the book for or care about at all, you dork. And you wonder why A human heart hates this thread.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2017 10:05

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

chitoryu12 posted:

�I never realized before now just how important they are. Twenty-five years is so long. They will miss everything we do. Winning the Shartball World Title without them means so little.�

This line hasn't gotten enough love. I want it framed on my wall.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2017 10:17

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

Sorry to drag this up from the last page, but I only just now caught back up with the thread after a busy week.

chitoryu12 posted:

Also, someone mentioned Kutius being sterile. Here's why:

That's about how his ancestor Koris and his followers were punished. Kutius was castrated entirely on his own terms.

chitoryu12 posted:

Is it just me, or is there practically zero conflict in this book? 80 pages and Kutius being a dickhead and the stress of leaving the twins behind have been the only sources of conflict. There's been plenty of arguments and disagreements, but every one of them has so far been resolved with everyone apologizing and forgiving one another before moving on to a different subject.

I think that this is part of why this thread's gotten such a weak reception (especially compared to the runaway popularity of your Handbook for Mortals thread). The insane, incoherent worldbuilding is funny, the word "chybut" is funny, and Shartball is the greatest sport ever conceived, but the actual substance of the book just sits there doing nothing. That's also why I posted precious little besides the sex scenes from Curse of Koris; most of that book (from what I could tell at a quick skim) is just Furlites talking at each other without contractions.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2017 05:09

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 12:53

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

chitoryu12 posted:

Somehow this makes it worse.

I just realized that this makes it sound like it was his idea or something; I was too tired when I typed that. (I had started with "his own merits", but that makes it sound like it was a reward.) Anyway, his castration is not connected to that of Koris.

chitoryu12 posted:

Also, I apologize if I don't have rapid updates or a whole lot of cheer recently. My fiancee kinda left me yesterday and I can't tell when or if this depression is ever going away.

That's awful. I hope that the "kinda" means that you might end up back together, but if not, I hope that this gets behind you quickly.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2017 19:04

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > His third chybut sack swelled - Let's Read The Furlites of Aroriel