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Wk 20
Oct 15, 2020 17:52:30 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Oct 15, 2020 17:52:30 GMT
Hey Carol, do you ever start to read a cap, but then don't? Usually, if there are mistakes or the prose or story itself is weak, I'll start to skim, maybe hoping it'll pick up, maybe to see how the hook, if there is one, resolves. Or maybe I'm just a masochist. But this Woods piece is the first sub to cross my little litter-filled lift-top desk that I have stopped reading completely, and after only a few paragraphs.
"A shot cut down the power line in the woods was scary at night."
This caused multiple parsings, till I realized the VC means, shortcut.
So this repeat of it a few sentences later didn't trip me up as much.
"he’d take the shot cut to the camp"
This might be a dialect thing, but now my guard is up.
"He had forgotten his Rolex and left it down to the family camp at Toddy Pond."
How does one leave something to somewhere?
Finally,
"There had been break-ends at the camps..."
WTF is a break-end? Is that like a break-in with no editing?
Anyway, if the prose'd been a tad tighter or the narrative more engaging, I might've kept reading. But they weren't. So I quit. Didn't read it the way I don't read any "news" pertaining to viruses anymore, especially if they involve heartbreaking anecdotes or bullshit studies. Weird, because the VC, if cover letters are to be believed, has writing credits out the wazoo. His novel even won an Eppies back in 2002.
[Rocks stomps over to the Porthole and tries to kick it open. Angry tears flow down his quivering cheeks. Fucking thing's either stuck or he kicks like a fruit fly.]
Little help here, sister?
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Wk 20
Oct 20, 2020 19:18:11 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Oct 20, 2020 19:18:11 GMT
Rocks personally did not greatly enjoy this Day in the Life of Alfonso Roberto Gonzalez, which begins with his waking up. Writers, especially inexperienced ones, often begin their stories with their main character waking up in the morning. But, given it is about a day in Alfonso's life, perhaps it makes sense, and Rocks can forgive it. Then, for several pages, really the entire story, nothing happens. Alfonso sneezes and brushes his teeth and dresses himself and combs his hair and eats a nice breakfast with his loving wife, and, even though it is their "late and beloved" daughter Sofia's birthday, feels blessed. Rocks has a ridiculously easy and secure job that he no longer even needs, a loyal wife, is an excellent ping-pong player and, just the day before yesterday, had a story nominated for a Pushcart. But he does not feel blessed. Sometimes he feels lucky is all. Yesterday, even though he thought he might have Covid-19 because of a slight scratchiness on the left side of his throat, a little congestion possibly not accounted for by his mild seasonal allergies and an embarrassing touch of diarrhea, he came to work and answered "No" to all the Covid-19 health questions on the government form that every employee must fill out, sign, date and place in a binder for Human Resources to later assess. But today he feels fine, just not blessed like Alfonso. Also Rocks is not illiterate. So maybe he is jealous of Alfonso and is taking it out on his story. After breakfast Alfonso goes to Home Depot, drinks spiked coffee and waits with other Mexicans for work to appear. As luck would have it, a very fine job presents itself, in the course of which he is required to cook for a group of people at a Rotary Club attending a party for a little girl also named Sofia, whose birthday it also is, who is also very nice and even looks like his deceased daughter. It's uncanny. Rocks' stepdaughter was killed with her son and partner in a car crash a few years ago. He thinks of her a lot, especially when he hears Fire and Rain by James Taylor. This is just one of many reasons that if Rocks believed in a meddlesome God, he would not forgive Her. So maybe it wasn't because nothing happens in this story that Rocks didn't enjoy it. What doesn't happen happens very well. Maybe it is just because he and Alfonso are so unalike. But that is no reason to put it out the Porthole. Rocks knows good writing when he sees it. And here he does. Rocks will let his friend, The Bull, and the new Fish thing upstairs decide. Yes. That is what must be done. That is the right thing to do.
[Rocks slaps himself upside the head as if to clear something or shake something loose.]
Hey, anyone here ever notice how quality voice gets in your head and fucks with your own? Maybe, just like you shouldn't grocery shop hungry or peruse Tinder horny, you shouldn't review a cap you just finished reading.
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Wk 20
Oct 24, 2020 21:28:43 GMT
Post by sturgeon on Oct 24, 2020 21:28:43 GMT
Wow, Rocks, that got deep. Feelin' ya, buddy.
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Wk 20
Oct 28, 2020 19:24:11 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Oct 28, 2020 19:24:11 GMT
Hey sentient aquatic lifeform! Thanks. Touched. No more barbed hooks for me. All catch and release from now on.
So in this Exitees cap, aliens capable of interstellar travel come to Earth in their enormous spaceship in order to impregnate vast numbers of us with organisms that grow like tumors to some sort of maturity then pop out to childbirth-like pain and bloodshed before getting tractor-beamed back to the mother ship. These alien parasites are distributed randomly throughout humans' bodies, many receiving more than one. There is no removing them because they enjoy complete physiological control and, somehow knowing when they are about to be excised, threaten dire medical consequences like tachycardia, which human medical professionals are unable to address. So we all just let them be: no biopsies; no scans or imaging of any sort; no study whatsoever, until they burst out in a screaming gory mess and go home. They do this several times. For some reason, this highly advanced species cannot find or clone suitable hosts on their own world, and are partial to Homo sapiens here. Perhaps Covid-19 has increased our herd stupidity to the point that, despite our having (by the year 2023 (which makes me think this is an older piece)) developed thimble-sized hydrogen bombs demonstrable in the let's-stick-a-fork-in-this-turkey type happy ending of blowing them and their ship to kingdom come, we just stand back and gawk and whine and let them do to us what we've been doing to pigs now for half a century at least. Mice too.
So, as a "science" fiction, for me it falls well short. And because the MC/narrator is basically an unlikable and somewhat superficial dick, it fails dramatically and romantically as well.
Technically it's solid. The voice, though wrong for the story, is persistent, chatty, even at times engaging. Writers like this Leahy VC, make it look easy. Even without one of the most impressive and comprehensive CVs I've ever seen, replete with a long and detailed list of publishing links, credits and writerly recognitions, including once having shortlisted in the prestigious Fish (I knew the piece had a slight UK lilt to it) literary competition, I'd have known this was crafted by an able wordsmith. In this case, however, he didn't just make it look easy, but took it easy as well. No research. One of those let's just write-and-see-what-pops-out (pun intended) things. Fun. But no cigar.
[Rocks gives his head a few 360 degree spins. The spindliness of his neck allows this. Where is everyone?]
Did you hear what I said there, cousins? No cigar. Or whatever y'all are into now.
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