Chimera
James Nicoll
ObDisclaimer: Shetterly and I have some minor history
online. OTOH, while his political worldview is silly[1], it's
not like he's ever going to get into office and he was involved
in one of the few shared world series which did not make me long
to know Ja-el and own both a travel agency and very large supply
of tent pegs.
HERE THERE BE SPOILERS
Generally, one can count on a Shetterly to be a fast read
[_The Tangled Lands_ was not for me but I hate the subgenre it
belongs to and didn't like the retroactive alteration to _Cats
Have No Lord_]. _Chimera_ is not a disappointment in this regard:
unlike a lot of the bloatware straining the store's shelves, it's
an evening's entertainment. There are a lot of pre-made set
pieces from other genres: the Detective With A Past, snappy
patter, a handy gat and the beautiful women who sleep with him,
for example. On the other hand, Chandler's character seldom
discovered that the woman he had just slept with was a killer
AI wearing an android body or lost his gun with anything like
the regularity the protagonist does in this book. Most detectives
don't have pocket universes stuck in their arms, either.
I have never fired a pistol, revolver or automatic.
Assuming you throw a loaded automatic across a room a dozen
times, assuming a round in the chamber and the safety is
off, how often would you expect it to go off?
ObOffTopic: the hijacking scene in _The Sopranos_.
The detective isn't the brightest guy in the world:
at one point he sells himself into slavery to rescue the
girl, only to realise the part of the plan where he escapes
is undeveloped. Luckily, the book runs largely on movie
logic and they get away anyway.
Speaking of movie logic, I'm glad that powered cables
and explosive chemicals are handy enough that one can count on
them when the killer androids attack.
Not everything happens quite like a movie: a movie would
milk a chase scene for a few minutes, not have the protagonist
fatally impede the progress of several large calibre rounds right
at the beginning of the chase.
Worldbuilding? I'm not sure there is a coherent world
behind these sets but the stage pieces are entertaining enough.
The US allows UN operations on US soil? Not likely, even if the
libertarian gov't has bumped the US down many notches in the
international pecking order [Not actually said, but seems compatable
with what's shown]. The libertarians in the book are barking mad,
but turnabout is fair play and there have been a lot of demented
non-libertarians in libertarian fiction. The, hrm, inter-intelligence
interactions are mostly power-politics driven but I find it hard
to believe in the re-introduction of slavery in the US, at least for
beings so close to human that they require facial tattoos to be
identifiable.
On the whole, not a bad read. Walter Mosley covers the same
extremely general sort of topics far better in his very good Easy
Rawlings series, but Mosley's SF isn't as much fun.
James Nicoll
1: I'm thinking of the states rights stand here and the bit where
he claimed Queen Elizabeth owns her subjects.
--
My Pledge: No more than 2 OT posts to rasfw a day. No replying
to trolls and idiots. Start five good on topic threads a day to drown
out the crap. Drink more coffee.
Rick
news:8tf2lc$34t$1...@watserv3.uwaterloo.ca...
> I have never fired a pistol, revolver or automatic.
> Assuming you throw a loaded automatic across a room a dozen
> times, assuming a round in the chamber and the safety is
> off, how often would you expect it to go off?
Depends on the gun. Older guns lacked firing pin safeties and thus were
much more likely to go off on any impact jarring enough to push the hammer
into firing pin and into the primer. New guns, particularly more expensive
ones, have firing pin interrupts--plates that stay between the firing pin
and the hammer or striker to prevent the hammer from hitting the firing pin
on impact.
Thus, if the protagonist was using an older 1911 45 or an old revolver or
something of that sort, it would be likely to go off under those
circumstances, whereas if he had a newer gun like a Beretta or a Smith and
Wesson, it would likely not go off.
William Burns
Nicoll) wrote:
> I have never fired a pistol, revolver or automatic.
>Assuming you throw a loaded automatic across a room a dozen
>times, assuming a round in the chamber and the safety is
>off, how often would you expect it to go off?
Every time. Not that it necessarily would go off every time. I'd
just expect it to.
--
William
Only 65 days, then it's "Welcome to the Third"
Mark Atwood
>
> I have never fired a pistol, revolver or automatic.
Everyone should, at least once, IMO. At the very least, should know
how to check and unload it.
> Assuming you throw a loaded automatic across a room a dozen
> times, assuming a round in the chamber and the safety is
> off, how often would you expect it to go off?
How I would I react if I was in the same area? I would "expect" it to
go off every time. This is similar to "the gun is loaded, even tho
someone I know and trust just checked it and then handed it to me".
As a practical matter? If it's of US or European manufacture,
rarely. Some models, practically never. A Chinese, Asian or South
American knock-off? I wouldnt be all that amazed if it ADs *before*
it's dropped.
--
Mark Atwood | The summit of Mount Everest is marine limestone.
m...@pobox.com |
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Ian Sutherland
> a handy gat and the beautiful women who sleep with him,
They _sleep_ with the _gat_?
--
Ian Sutherland email: isut...@condor.depaul.edu
DePaul University
Sans Peur
Kyri
it's a quick, relatively entertaining read. On the other hand, I usually
like my books to be more than that. I was annoyed by the fact that we
never really find out why the chimeras were created, and why the animals
in question (an interesting assortment) were picked. I also would have
liked to see them exhibit better-researched animal traits. (as an
example of what I would have liked to see, I love the part in the Uplift
books where the dolphins have racial memories of sharks.)
Another minor annoyance was that the character on the book's cover
didn't look anything like what I thought she should.
--K
--
What is the moral who rides may rede, when the night is thick and the
tracks are blind?
A friend in a pinch is a friend in need, but a fool who waits for the
laggard behind.
Down to Gehenna or up to the throne,
She travels the fastest who travels alone. --Kipling
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Richard Horton
On Mon, 30 Oct 2000 19:12:59 GMT, Kyri <ky...@usa.net> wrote:
>I just read this book and have to admit that I somewhat disliked it. OK,
>it's a quick, relatively entertaining read. On the other hand, I usually
>like my books to be more than that. I was annoyed by the fact that we
>never really find out why the chimeras were created, and why the animals
>in question (an interesting assortment) were picked. I also would have
>liked to see them exhibit better-researched animal traits.
All very good points. Plus I felt that Shetterly shied away from
seriously confronting the (very interesting) issues his book raised.
Still, that didn't make me dislike it. It is what it is: "a quick,
... entertaining read." It's only that it could have been much more.
>Another minor annoyance was that the character on the book's cover
>didn't look anything like what I thought she should.
Well, yeah, but that I don't hold against the novel.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.sfsite.com/tangent)
William December Starr
jam...@nyquist.uwaterloo.ca (James Nicoll) said:
[ re Will Shetterly ]
> ...and he was involved in one of the few shared world series which
> did not make me long to know Ja-el and own both a travel agency and
> very large supply of tent pegs.
Okay, that's it. Nobody gets out of here alive until you _explain_
that last bit. Ja-el? Tent pegs? Wha?
-- William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
Stevie Gamble
Starr) writes:
No, no; all of that is easy. What I really want to know is when James had his
sex-change- I assume we know where...
--
Stevie Gamble
The right to be heard does not automatically include
the right to be taken seriously.
Hubert Humphrey, 1965
James Nicoll
She offered, um, Sissera [I think] refuge without mentioning
her real name or that she hated him and then as he slept, drove a tent
peg through his head. Old Testament.
_Heroes in Hell_ would be a tent peg job.