Elizabeth Moon, Engaging the Enemy
Peter D. Tillman
Elizabeth Moon's current space-opera series is really hitting its stride
in this outing, which kept me up until the wee hours last night.
Protagonist Ky Vatta is starting to get a handle on the bad guys who
massacred most of her family on their homeworld, Slotter's Key. She's
also getting comfortable with commanding the armed merchantman she
recaptured from a rogue Vatta cousin -- the rogue leads her to the
apparent mastermind behind the attack, and the newly-unified pirate
fleet that's starting to attack and annex isolated worlds [1]. Ky is
trying to organize a privateer response, but the privateers get off to a
very rough start. To be continued....
Back home on Slotter's Key, Crazy Aunt Grace is hot on the trail of the
bent politicians who let the raiders slip through the planet's
space-defense net, and the trail is leading right to the top of the
planetary government....
Moon's writing just keeps getting better -- in this book, the quality of
writing, world-building and characterization are getting into the Bujold
zone, high praise indeed. The catch for new readers is that _Engaging
the Enemy_ definitely isn't a standalone -- in fact, the opening follows
so hard on the heels of 2004's _Marque and Reprisal_ that these two
books could be considered a single novel. While the first two books of
Vatta's War were decent and worth reading, they never really clicked for
me. With _Engaging the Enemy_, Moon is back to writing something closer
to pure mil-SF, her home comfort-zone, and the next volume is likely to
be even purer. Newcomers may want to quickly breeze through the first
two books to catch up to the Good Stuff. And, if you've already read
the first two Vatta's War books, you're in for a real treat.
Other opinions:
"This is the kind of space opera I love best: complicated, fast-paced,
full of nifty sfnal tropes that have interesting consequences. Political
shenanigans complete the big picture, but Elizabeth Moon never forgets
the small, human moments..." --Sherwood Smith [2],
http://www.sfsite.com/07a/ee227.htm
"Engaging the Enemy is consummate military-adventure science fiction,
with a distinctly female viewpoint, and further establishes Elizabeth
Moon as one of the most accomplished authors in the subgenre."
-- D. Douglas Fratz, http://www.scifi.com/sfw/books/sfw12449.html
_________
[Note 1] -- the first of which was the planet Bissonet, named after a
street near the Rice campus, where Moon & I both studied in the late
Pleistocene....
[2] -- who is a she, which I hadn't known until reading her fine review.
Wayne Throop
: She's also getting comfortable with commanding the armed merchantman
: she recaptured from a rogue Vatta cousin -- the rogue leads her to the
: apparent mastermind behind the attack, and the newly-unified pirate
: fleet that's starting to attack and annex isolated worlds
I don't get the impression we know the actual mastermind yet.
Just a sort of middle-management-mastermind, not the CMO of the thing.
I expect we're going to find out more about the machinations behind
the anisble monoply and how that fits into it, next book. And that
that will be at least a step closer to the CMO of the thing.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Gene Ward Smith
Wayne Throop wrote:
> I don't get the impression we know the actual mastermind yet.
> Just a sort of middle-management-mastermind, not the CMO of the thing.
> I expect we're going to find out more about the machinations behind
> the anisble monoply and how that fits into it, next book. And that
> that will be at least a step closer to the CMO of the thing.
I got bored with the start of the series. Does it need to be taken from
the top?
Wayne Throop
:: sort of middle-management-mastermind, not the CMO of the thing. I
:: expect we're going to find out more about the machinations behind the
:: anisble monoply and how that fits into it, next book. And that that
:: will be at least a step closer to the CMO of the thing.
: "Gene Ward Smith" <genewa...@gmail.com>
: I got bored with the start of the series.
: Does it need to be taken from the top?
The books are reasonably independent, but some of the way the
characters develop might not be as easy to follow if you skip
ahead.
If you got bored with the first, it's not clear it's worth jumping
in further upstream. Yes, the goings-on are getting more interesting,
and the characters revealing a bit more depth than the cardboardish
cutouts in the first one, but the narrative thread isn't really
different in tone.
Well... it's also not clear it isn't worth it, but just so you know.
Howard Brazee
<Til...@toast.net_DIESPAMMERSDIE> wrote:
>Moon's writing just keeps getting better -- in this book, the quality of
>writing, world-building and characterization are getting into the Bujold
>zone, high praise indeed.
I'm tired of her evil bad guys. Every book has terribly evil bad
guys. To many evil types for me to believe.
Will in New Haven
Too realistic?
Will in New Haven
--
"Don't worry too much about being bluffed. D*gs DO bite."
_Poker for Cats_ by Feather
Thomas Lindgren
SPOILERS
Well, I read the series BEFORE Vatta's War and found the final(?) book
terribly funny, or funny in a terrible way: the bad guys have
successfully staged a rebellion, taking over a large portion of the
fleet. Ominous music, as the colonies tremble before the awesome
evil. Bad guys: "Ummm ... so now what?" "I dunno, I just wanna cruise
around and be evil." And so they did, until neutralized. They were
awfully poor soldiers too, as I recall.
One would have expected the evil masterminds to have planned ahead,
just a teeny bit more. Incredulous laughter.
Compared to that, the VATTA'S WAR series has been pretty good so
far. The bad guys as revealed are still wet cardboard, but we haven't
seen _too_ much of them yet. (At least as far as I can recall.) The
setting is standard-issue but feels solid enough; the plot is briskly
worksmanlike; the characters are interesting; the adversaries have
sufficient scope. These are the things that Moon does well.
My main problematic issue at this point is instead that the main
characters belong to an oligarch family so wealthy that it can fund an
interstellar trading fleet (which is portrayed as being rather
expensive) and basically stare down the planetary government, yet the
lasses are modest and unspoilt to a fault. (The other family members
don't quite behave like a clan of multi-billionaires either.) I'd have
expected them to be more like Paris Hilton and sister. But maybe this
has arisen from a bit of power creep throughout the series.
Anyway, I'd categorize these as next door (or neighbourhood) to fluff,
with a tinge of grimness (... grim fluff?) ... but fun enough to keep
me reading.
Best,
Thomas
--
Thomas Lindgren
"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
Howard Brazee
<***********@*****.***> wrote:
>My main problematic issue at this point is instead that the main
>characters belong to an oligarch family so wealthy that it can fund an
>interstellar trading fleet (which is portrayed as being rather
>expensive) and basically stare down the planetary government, yet the
>lasses are modest and unspoilt to a fault.
Which is part of why the evil of the variety of bad guys in her novels
is tiring.
Sea Wasp
> : "Peter D. Tillman" <Til...@toast.net_DIESPAMMERSDIE>
> : She's also getting comfortable with commanding the armed merchantman
> : she recaptured from a rogue Vatta cousin -- the rogue leads her to the
> : apparent mastermind behind the attack, and the newly-unified pirate
> : fleet that's starting to attack and annex isolated worlds
>
> I don't get the impression we know the actual mastermind yet.
> Just a sort of middle-management-mastermind, not the CMO of the thing.
Think "Boskone", eh?
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
Wayne Throop
:: sort of middle-management-mastermind, not the CMO of the thing.
: Sea Wasp <seawasp...@sgeobviousinc.com>
: Think "Boskone", eh?
The comparison had occured to me. I hope her onion
doesn't have quite so many layers, or have quite so
cosmic a top end.
Wayne Throop
::: Moon's writing just keeps getting better -- in this book, the
::: quality of writing, world-building and characterization are getting
::: into the Bujold zone, high praise indeed.
:: Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net>
:: I'm tired of her evil bad guys. Every book has terribly evil bad
:: guys. To many evil types for me to believe.
What does "too many evil types" mean? Is that like "too many notes"
or something? I guess she does sometimes suffer from unmotivated evil
syndrome, but that doesn't seem like "too many evil types", exactly.
: Thomas Lindgren <***********@*****.***>
: The bad guys as revealed are still wet cardboard, but we haven't
: seen _too_ much of them yet.
The ones we've seen seem slightly less cardboard to me. Revenge against
Vatta, for two different reasons; they get together and conspire.
Lots of people along hte periphery going along with it because "they
haven't come for me yet". They meet up with bad guys out for profit.
This doesn't seem like "too many types" to me; classic motives, and a
touch of sociopathy, a dash of cowardice, and poof, things to do
hell in a handbasket.
Mind you, this doesn't mean it can be mistaken for subtlety.
I would say she has quite a way to go to approach Bujold-fu.
James Nicoll
>::: "Peter D. Tillman" <Til...@toast.net_DIESPAMMERSDIE>
>::: Moon's writing just keeps getting better -- in this book, the
>::: quality of writing, world-building and characterization are getting
>::: into the Bujold zone, high praise indeed.
>
>:: Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net>
>:: I'm tired of her evil bad guys. Every book has terribly evil bad
>:: guys. To many evil types for me to believe.
>
>What does "too many evil types" mean? Is that like "too many notes"
>or something? I guess she does sometimes suffer from unmotivated evil
>syndrome, but that doesn't seem like "too many evil types", exactly.
Her antagonists are always evil moustache-twirlers. She could
write a book about a golf open and the main rival to the hero would
turn out to have clubs made from compressed kittens.
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
Wayne Throop
:: or something? I guess she does sometimes suffer from unmotivated
:: evil syndrome, but that doesn't seem like "too many evil types",
:: exactly.
: jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
: Her antagonists are always evil moustache-twirlers. She could
: write a book about a golf open and the main rival to the hero would
: turn out to have clubs made from compressed kittens.
Would you say Weber has the same tendency? I'm thinking of
the "pirates" in the Furyverse, and the Mesans in the Honorverse.
The Havenites too, until they inexplicably got religion, or patriotism,
or whatever it is they got. The pirates are, of course, particularly
similar to the Vattaverse's setup, what with both being pirates and all,
and both naict being pawns/fronts for what seem to be twirlers motivated
by money and/or power, who expect to disassociate themselves from their
front at some opportune moment.
Anyways, yes, that's pretty much what I meant by "unmotivated".
There's no understandable motive to make golf clubs out of kittens;
the iconic acts that demonstrate how eeeeeeevil they are being all
out of proportion to any reasonable benefit they are alleged to
be gaining from it.
But... like I say, the Vatta opponents seem to have a slightly
more plausible motivational structure than usual. Slightly.
Andrew Plotkin
> Wayne Throop wrote:
> > : "Peter D. Tillman" <Til...@toast.net_DIESPAMMERSDIE>
> > : She's also getting comfortable with commanding the armed merchantman
> > : she recaptured from a rogue Vatta cousin -- the rogue leads her to the
> > : apparent mastermind behind the attack, and the newly-unified pirate
> > : fleet that's starting to attack and annex isolated worlds
> >
> > I don't get the impression we know the actual mastermind yet.
> > Just a sort of middle-management-mastermind, not the CMO of the thing.
>
> Think "Boskone", eh?
It is a measure of something-or-other that I read this and thought
"Well, I've only attended one, but it didn't *seem* to be organized by
evil masterminds bent on interplanetary conquest."
And I've read the Lensmen series multiple times. Not, I admit, since
February.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
Regret, by definition, comes too late;
Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate.
John M. Ford, 1957-2006
Peter D. Tillman
"Gene Ward Smith" <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I got bored with the start of the series. Does it need to be taken from
> the top?
You could skip the first.... but you've already read that. Hmm. You'll
be a bit puzzled at the start of #3, if you skip the second, but I
expect you'll catch on quickly enough.
Happy reading--
Pete Tillman
Peter D. Tillman
wrote:
[stuff]
Wayne, your newsreader is splattering references again.
--
"It's a sin to waste the reader's time" -- Larry Niven
Wayne Throop
: Wayne, your newsreader is splattering references again.
What? <mouses up recent posts>
Oh, foo. Buggy piece of crap. OK, I'll fix it, thanks.
( Article IDs have grown long enough to mess things up.
Of course, some *other* readers choke or partly-choke on line-broken
references, so possibly the fix is to simply remove the offending
formatting code, but I digress. I mean really, whoda thunk IDs would
ever get this this long:
<Tillman-C62A8B...@sn-radius.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net>
?? And dates only need two digits, too, nyeah, so there. )
Peter D. Tillman
> : Thomas Lindgren <***********@*****.***>
> : The bad guys as revealed are still wet cardboard, but we haven't
> : seen _too_ much of them yet.
>
> The ones we've seen seem slightly less cardboard to me. Revenge against
> Vatta, for two different reasons; they get together and conspire.
> Lots of people along hte periphery going along with it because "they
> haven't come for me yet". They meet up with bad guys out for profit.
> This doesn't seem like "too many types" to me; classic motives, and a
> touch of sociopathy, a dash of cowardice, and poof, things to do
> hell in a handbasket.
>
> Mind you, this doesn't mean it can be mistaken for subtlety.
> I would say she has quite a way to go to approach Bujold-fu.
Not top-drawer Bujold, maybe, but I'd say this one is better done than
_Ethan of Athos_, say, or _Diplomatic Immunity_. I really liked her
leisurely, quotidian exposition of Ky and Stella inventorying the pirate
holds, opening bank accounts, sparring with station personnel.... The
trial of wossisname, the traitor Vatta captain, with the invocations of
the Forest Lord, and *very severe* penalties for being impolite.... Now,
*that* was Bujold-class.
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
Gene Ward Smith
Peter D. Tillman wrote:
> Not top-drawer Bujold, maybe, but I'd say this one is better done than
> _Ethan of Athos_, say, or _Diplomatic Immunity_.
Only if you think those were worse than usual will your comment even
make sense. I don't.
David T. Bilek
>In article <11597...@sheol.org>, Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
>>::: "Peter D. Tillman" <Til...@toast.net_DIESPAMMERSDIE>
>>::: Moon's writing just keeps getting better -- in this book, the
>>::: quality of writing, world-building and characterization are getting
>>::: into the Bujold zone, high praise indeed.
>>
>>:: Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net>
>>:: I'm tired of her evil bad guys. Every book has terribly evil bad
>>:: guys. To many evil types for me to believe.
>>
>>What does "too many evil types" mean? Is that like "too many notes"
>>or something? I guess she does sometimes suffer from unmotivated evil
>>syndrome, but that doesn't seem like "too many evil types", exactly.
>
> Her antagonists are always evil moustache-twirlers. She could
>write a book about a golf open and the main rival to the hero would
>turn out to have clubs made from compressed kittens.
Exactly. If ever a book didn't call for a moustache-twirling villain,
it was _The Speed of Dark_. It was like dropping Fu Manchu into the
middle of "Flowers for Algernon".
-David
Thomas Lindgren
Yes ... her work would IMO improve by, say, trying casting some
nearly-good but too flawed characters as villains instead. Not that
I'm too disappointed; it just seems Moon is capable of more. (Based on
these couple of series, I should say. She did get a Nebula after all.)
Sea Wasp
Now THAT would be cool. Can Charlie defeat the evil mastermind before
his brain goes back to normal?
Thomas Lindgren
Sea Wasp <seawasp...@sgeobviousinc.com> writes:
> Now THAT would be cool. Can Charlie defeat the evil mastermind
> before his brain goes back to normal?
Are you _sure_ your day job isn't elevator pitches in Hollywood?
("Yeah, and Fu Manchu could be done by Dustin Hoffman, with Charlie
being Billy-Bob Thornton, and, yeah, hang on, it could all be a
bitter-sweet romcom. Right. So Algernon has to go. No, that Gollum guy
could be it, bluescreened into a cute dog. No wait, let's cast Jessica
Alba.")
James Nicoll
>:: or something? I guess she does sometimes suffer from unmotivated
>:: evil syndrome, but that doesn't seem like "too many evil types",
>:: exactly.
>
>: jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
>: Her antagonists are always evil moustache-twirlers. She could
>: write a book about a golf open and the main rival to the hero would
>: turn out to have clubs made from compressed kittens.
>
>Would you say Weber has the same tendency?
It's been long enough since I read Weber I don't care to say.
He never struck me as subtle, though.
Wayne Throop
: jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
: It's been long enough since I read Weber I don't care to say.
: He never struck me as subtle, though.
Heh. Yeah. Subtlety, thy name is not Weber.
Peter D. Tillman
"Gene Ward Smith" <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
Didn't mean to imply that these were poor books, but most readers here
would (I think) put these towards the bottom of Bujold's list,
quality-wise
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
Damien Neil
> Howard Brazee wrote:
> > I'm tired of her evil bad guys. Every book has terribly evil bad
> > guys. To many evil types for me to believe.
>
> Too realistic?
Moon doesn't seem to know when to stop when writing a villain.
A pirate captain. Who betrayed the people who trusted him. Who murders
people. Who rapes them first. Who rapes and tortures them first. Who
rapes, tortures, and uses them in foul sadomasochistic rites before
murdering them.
Even in her most restrained work, _The Speed of Dark_, she can't resist
throwing in a character who escalates to attempted murder.
Has she ever had a villain with a single redeeming aspect, or who didn't
push the limits of evil to the very edge of what was possible for him in
his context?
- Damien
Mike Schilling
"Damien Neil" <neild-...@misago.org> wrote in message
news:neild-usenet4-C3C...@news.individual.net...
> Even in her most restrained work, _The Speed of Dark_, she can't resist
> throwing in a character who escalates to attempted murder.
And whose purpose in the novel is simply to be an asshole boss. We've all
had those (some of us lots of them); how many actually tried to have you
killed?
Wayne Throop
: Has she ever had a villain with a single redeeming aspect, or who didn't
: his context?
Yes imo. In "Engaging the Enemy", she has the corrupt president,
a minor villian, take the pill when offered it. The person who
offered it approved, and told him he'd done the right thing
(or "good for you" or words to that effect). His internal
monologue was roughly that he had done it all to try
(in his corrupt way) to ensure the safety of his planet,
and not really moustache twirling for the most part.
Of course, earlier he had hired a hit man to take out an old lady
for the good of the planet, and twirls a bit there... but still.
Restrained, for Moon, imo.
Or at least, so my memory relates it.
James Nicoll
count? But I only knocked over one container labled "picric acid".
William December Starr
thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) said:
> Yes imo. In "Engaging the Enemy", she has the corrupt president,
> a minor villian, take the pill when offered it. The person who
> offered it approved, and told him he'd done the right thing (or
> "good for you" or words to that effect). His internal monologue
> was roughly that he had done it all to try (in his corrupt way) to
> ensure the safety of his planet, and not really moustache twirling
> for the most part.
Is "take[s] the pill" a metaphor for something, or do you mean
that he literally swallows a pill (poison?)?
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
Andrew Plotkin
Mike Schilling
"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:efronl$hvt$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> In article <pAdUg.6806$TV3....@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com>,
> Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>"Damien Neil" <neild-...@misago.org> wrote in message
>>news:neild-usenet4-C3C...@news.individual.net...
>>> Even in her most restrained work, _The Speed of Dark_, she can't resist
>>> throwing in a character who escalates to attempted murder.
>>
>>And whose purpose in the novel is simply to be an asshole boss. We've all
>>had those (some of us lots of them); how many actually tried to have you
>>killed?
>>
> Would putting me in a room filled with explosives and corrosives
> count? But I only knocked over one container labled "picric acid".
>
Does anyone know of a newsreader with programmable function keys? I want to
define one as
INSERT except for James, of course.
Damien Neil
> Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >And whose purpose in the novel is simply to be an asshole boss. We've all
> >had those (some of us lots of them); how many actually tried to have you
> >killed?
> >
> Would putting me in a room filled with explosives and corrosives
> count? But I only knocked over one container labled "picric acid".
Yes, I believe that would count as your boss attempting to get your
coworkers killed.
- Damien
William George Ferguson
wrote:
I think he literally swallows a pill, but he defintely suicides as an
offered option which will cause the least damage to underlings and family
that would be caught in the grinder if he elected to fight it out to the
bitter end (legally that is, he had lost his political weaponry for
fighting it physically).
It should be added that the old lady he hired a hitman to take out
(referenced in the paragraph you snipped) was perhaps the least helpless
person on the entire planet and was instrumental in his downfall. He
should have, in fact, made sure to get her before going after the rest of
the Vatta family (without an official title, she was effectively the
spymaster of the Vatta corporate empire).
While Moon doesn't do 3-dimensional villains well, (heck, Heinlein went
through his entire career never advancing past 1-dimensional villains), she
does have non-villains who are intelligent, competent, and who do not agree
with each other, with a reasonable basis on each side and no indication
that one of them is clearly right and the other is clearly wrong.
While Ky Vatta is the clear heroine, from the second book on you really
have a double path story of Ky and her cousin Stella, whose primary public
purpose in the Vatta family had been to be the horrible example black
sheep. Ky thinks primarily in military terms, while Stella thinks
primarily in commercial terms, and it isn't clear that one is completely
right and the other completely wrong when they disagree. I rather like
Stella's story more than Ky's right now.
--
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
(Bene Gesserit)
Wayne Throop
:: Yes imo. In "Engaging the Enemy", she has the corrupt president, a
:: minor villian, take the pill when offered it. The person who offered
:: it approved, and told him he'd done the right thing (or "good for
:: you" or words to that effect). His internal monologue was roughly
:: that he had done it all to try (in his corrupt way) to ensure the
:: safety of his planet, and not really moustache twirling for the most
:: part.
: wds...@panix.com (William December Starr)
: Is "take[s] the pill" a metaphor for something, or do you mean that he
: literally swallows a pill (poison?)?
Literal. He is given a pill. He asks "will it hurt?", and is told
"yes, but it is quick". After some pondering, finding the decision
difficult he says "you could have told me it was painless!".
He is told (flatly, matter-of-factly) "I don't lie."
And yes, it did hurt.
Wayne Throop
: It should be added that the old lady he hired a hitman to take out
: (referenced in the paragraph you snipped) was perhaps the least helpless
: person on the entire planet and was instrumental in his downfall. He
: should have, in fact, made sure to get her before going after the rest of
: the Vatta family (without an official title, she was effectively the
: spymaster of the Vatta corporate empire).
Indeed. And when confronted with his downfall, his first impulse,
even before he knew any details, was "How did she do it?".
Robert A. Woodward
jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
> In article <11597...@sheol.org>, Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
> >:: What does "too many evil types" mean? Is that like "too many notes"
> >:: or something? I guess she does sometimes suffer from unmotivated
> >:: evil syndrome, but that doesn't seem like "too many evil types",
> >:: exactly.
> >
> >: jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
> >: Her antagonists are always evil moustache-twirlers. She could
> >: write a book about a golf open and the main rival to the hero would
> >: turn out to have clubs made from compressed kittens.
> >
> >Would you say Weber has the same tendency?
>
> It's been long enough since I read Weber I don't care to say.
> He never struck me as subtle, though.
He certainly has had over the top villains, but what about Robert
Pierre? His name is a bad pun, he was responsible for the murders
of thousands, even millions of people, but he had reasons for his
actions other than lust for power. Much of the government of Haven
as of _War of Honor_ aren't villains at all, but they tried for a
knock out blow.
--
Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com>
<http://www.drizzle.com/~robertaw>
Brad Sims
> Would putting me in a room filled with explosives and corrosives
> count? But I only knocked over one container labled "picric acid".
Ok how many knew this was James without looking?
--
Amateurs built the ark, professionals built the Titanic.
Par
>
> Sea Wasp <seawasp...@sgeobviousinc.com> writes:
>
> > Now THAT would be cool. Can Charlie defeat the evil mastermind
> > before his brain goes back to normal?
>
> Are you _sure_ your day job isn't elevator pitches in Hollywood?
I think our dear jellyfish simply have read too much comic books. What
little of my SOs X-men mags I have draged my mind though indicate that
this might be perfectly normal storylines there.
/Par
--
Par use...@hunter-gatherer.org
I like Government Research incompetence much better than warmed over
corporate management pretending to be Academic incompetence.
-- Booker C. Bense
Sea Wasp
> In Dread Ink, the Grave hand of James Nicoll Did Inscribe:
>
>> Would putting me in a room filled with explosives and corrosives
>>count? But I only knocked over one container labled "picric acid".
>
>
> Ok how many knew this was James without looking?
*raises hand*
Sea Wasp
> Thomas Lindgren <***********@*****.***>:
>
>> Sea Wasp <seawasp...@sgeobviousinc.com> writes:
>>
>>
>>> Now THAT would be cool. Can Charlie defeat the evil mastermind
>>>before his brain goes back to normal?
>>
>> Are you _sure_ your day job isn't elevator pitches in Hollywood?
>
>
> I think our dear jellyfish simply have read too much comic books.
I haven't read ENOUGH comic books.
John F. Eldredge
<seawasp...@sgeobviousinc.com> wrote:
>Brad Sims wrote:
>> In Dread Ink, the Grave hand of James Nicoll Did Inscribe:
>>
>>> Would putting me in a room filled with explosives and corrosives
>>>count? But I only knocked over one container labled "picric acid".
>>
>>
>> Ok how many knew this was James without looking?
>
> *raises hand*
When you combine the act of knocking over a container of picric acid
in a room full of explosives, and the fact that the narrator is still
alive to tell about it, James Nicoll _immediately_ comes to mind. He
apparently has a modified form of the Teela Brown gene.
--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
Cyli
<jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 03 Oct 2006 23:24:08 GMT, Sea Wasp
><seawasp...@sgeobviousinc.com> wrote:
>
>>Brad Sims wrote:
>>> In Dread Ink, the Grave hand of James Nicoll Did Inscribe:
>>>
>>>> Would putting me in a room filled with explosives and corrosives
>>>>count? But I only knocked over one container labled "picric acid".
>>>
>>>
>>> Ok how many knew this was James without looking?
>>
>> *raises hand*
>
>When you combine the act of knocking over a container of picric acid
>in a room full of explosives, and the fact that the narrator is still
>alive to tell about it, James Nicoll _immediately_ comes to mind. He
>apparently has a modified form of the Teela Brown gene.
There's a guy named Frank Reid on the flyfishing newsgroup who seems
to share it, too.
I am amused and amazed by people who get into situations that I'd, if
I thought about it, try to avoid. And they survive quite well.
Best not to be too physically close to them too much of the time. They
seem to attract odd and dangerous events.
--
r.bc: vixen
Speaker to squirrels, willow watcher, etc..
Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless. Really.
James Nicoll
><seawasp...@sgeobviousinc.com> wrote:
>
>>Brad Sims wrote:
>>> In Dread Ink, the Grave hand of James Nicoll Did Inscribe:
>>>
>>>> Would putting me in a room filled with explosives and corrosives
>>>>count? But I only knocked over one container labled "picric acid".
>>>
>>>
>>> Ok how many knew this was James without looking?
>>
>> *raises hand*
>
>When you combine the act of knocking over a container of picric acid
>in a room full of explosives
_Labelled_ picric acid. It turned to be completely empty but
I didn't know that as it fell towards the floor. Luckly, the bucket
of lithium shot it fell behind might have absorbed some of the blast,
if there had been one, which there wasn't.
Joe Bednorz
>On Tue, 03 Oct 2006 20:16:57 -0500, John F. Eldredge
><jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 03 Oct 2006 23:24:08 GMT, Sea Wasp
>><seawasp...@sgeobviousinc.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Brad Sims wrote:
>>>> In Dread Ink, the Grave hand of James Nicoll Did Inscribe:
>>>>
>>>>> Would putting me in a room filled with explosives and corrosives
>>>>>count? But I only knocked over one container labled "picric acid".
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Ok how many knew this was James without looking?
>>>
>>> *raises hand*
>>
>>When you combine the act of knocking over a container of picric acid
>>in a room full of explosives, and the fact that the narrator is still
>>alive to tell about it, James Nicoll _immediately_ comes to mind. He
>>apparently has a modified form of the Teela Brown gene.
>
>There's a guy named Frank Reid on the flyfishing newsgroup who seems
>to share it, too.
>
>I am amused and amazed by people who get into situations that I'd, if
>I thought about it, try to avoid. And they survive quite well.
>
>Best not to be too physically close to them too much of the time. They
>seem to attract odd and dangerous events.
ObSF: There was a character like that in David Drake's "Patriots,"
based on Ethan Allen (who captured the British Fort Ticonderoga during
the American Revolutionary War. No one knows why.)
Anyway, the Ethan Allen character was described as the type of person
who could charge into machine gun fire and live. This made him
dangerous to be around, because the people around him could still get
killed.
From memory:
"Type? He's a type?"
"Like the Mars Diamond is a type. It's just that all the others
aren't flawless and weigh 32 pounds."
From <http://www.david-drake.com/patriots.html>
"There were other interesting things about Allen. While unquestionably
violent, neither he nor the violent men under his command killed
anybody. That's really remarkable. Taking Allen as a model, I wrote a
book in which nobody is killed (which a lot of people will find
remarkable also)."
--
SF at Project Gutenberg: <http://thethunderchild.com/Books/OutofCopyright.html>
Baen Free Online SciFi: <http://www.baen.com/library/>
Baen Free SciFi CDs <http://files.plebian.net/baencd/>
SciFi.com classic/original: <http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/archive.html>
Free SF samples from Baen and Tor: <http://www.webscription.net/catalog.asp>
All the best, Joe Bednorz
David McMillan
> In article <pAdUg.6806$TV3....@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com>,
> Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> "Damien Neil" <neild-...@misago.org> wrote in message
>> news:neild-usenet4-C3C...@news.individual.net...
>>> Even in her most restrained work, _The Speed of Dark_, she can't resist
>>> throwing in a character who escalates to attempted murder.
>> And whose purpose in the novel is simply to be an asshole boss. We've all
>> had those (some of us lots of them); how many actually tried to have you
>> killed?
>>
> Would putting me in a room filled with explosives and corrosives
> count? But I only knocked over one container labled "picric acid".
...<checks headers. Yep, it's James>
Well, given that it was *you,* James, he was probably just trying to
kill *everyone else* within a 50m radius. Suicide-by-Nicoll, perhaps?
David McMillan
> In Dread Ink, the Grave hand of James Nicoll Did Inscribe:
>> Would putting me in a room filled with explosives and corrosives
>> count? But I only knocked over one container labled "picric acid".
>
> Ok how many knew this was James without looking?
<raises hand>
David McMillan
> In article <11597...@sheol.org>, Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
>> :: What does "too many evil types" mean? Is that like "too many notes"
>> :: or something? I guess she does sometimes suffer from unmotivated
>> :: evil syndrome, but that doesn't seem like "too many evil types",
>> :: exactly.
>>
>> : jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
>> : Her antagonists are always evil moustache-twirlers. She could
>> : write a book about a golf open and the main rival to the hero would
>> : turn out to have clubs made from compressed kittens.
>>
>> Would you say Weber has the same tendency?
>
> It's been long enough since I read Weber I don't care to say.
> He never struck me as subtle, though.
Tendency, yes, though he tries to fight it -- Moon doesn't even seem to
make an effort.
Honor-book 2, frex: the Masadans are foaming religious zealots (Taliban
with spaceships, basically), but the strongly-religious Graysons are
mostly capable of getting past their prejudices (albeit needing a bit of
a kick in the pants, in some cases), while most of the Havenite officers
on loan to Masada turn out to be pretty ethical.
Rob Pierre started a reign of terror and rode a bloodbath to power for
sincerely good reasons. Oscar Saint-Just was a cold-blooded mass
killer, but he acted out of honest loyalty to Pierre. Cordelia Ransom,
OTOH, was Stalin's Beriya all over again -- she actually *believed* her
own propaganda.
The Pirates in "Fury" were a fairly scummy lot, but the situation kind
of required it -- their CO, Howell, was portrayed as a reasonably honest
man who'd gotten himself into an evil situation for what he believed
were worthwhile reasons. Most of his subordinates were the kind of
people you'd expect to hire on for a campaign of terror. The Prime Evil
of the novel was simply a cold-blooded political empire builder with
very grandiose plans, and the willingness to do whatever he had to in
order to succeed. But even he didn't have his golf clubs made from
compressed kittens.
Howard Brazee
<inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Anyway, the Ethan Allen character was described as the type of person
>who could charge into machine gun fire and live. This made him
>dangerous to be around, because the people around him could still get
>killed.
Not always - look at Nelson who wasn't afraid of danger that would
destroy his arm, and who finally died in such a charge into the
combined flotillas of his enemies - en route to a tremendous victory
and near deification in his country.
Wayne Throop
: The Prime Evil [ in Path of the Fury / In Fury Born ]
: was simply a cold-blooded political empire builder with
: order to succeed. But even he didn't have his golf clubs made from
: compressed kittens.
Yah, he just attempting to build an empire on a mountain
of baby corpses. Much less gratuitously evil.
Robert Hutchinson
> In Dread Ink, the Grave hand of James Nicoll Did Inscribe:
> > Would putting me in a room filled with explosives and corrosives
> > count? But I only knocked over one container labled "picric acid".
>
> Ok how many knew this was James without looking?
At this point, I find it wise to always look first.
--
Robert Hutchinson | "I've never really been that into hips, T-Rex!"
| "Perhaps that is because you have a case of the
| perversions!"
| http://www.qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=849
David McMillan
> : David McMillan <spam...@skyefire.org>
> : The Prime Evil [ in Path of the Fury / In Fury Born ]
> : was simply a cold-blooded political empire builder with
> : very grandiose plans, and the willingness to do whatever he had to in
> : order to succeed. But even he didn't have his golf clubs made from
> : compressed kittens.
>
> Yah, he just attempting to build an empire on a mountain
> of baby corpses. Much less gratuitously evil.
He probably intended to be a decent ruler (in his own terms) once the
ugly-but-necessary was over. The point being, he wasn't being Evil just
b/c he enjoyed murder, mayhem, and destruction. He just had no scruples
about doing whatever was necessary to get what he wanted.
Most of Moon's villains, though, seem to revel, even wallow, in evil
acts for no cause other than the pleasures of the act itself. And while
there are people like that in RL (and a few in Weber's books, as well),
Moon seems to default to that choice Every Single Time.
I dunno, maybe it's the *way* she writes them. I mean, her New Texas
Militia wasn't really any worse than the Taliban, but the way she
portrayed them just... fell flat. They came across as B-movie "how many
vices can we pile into this stereotype" Central Casting villains rather
than the truly nasty and frightening types that a neo-Taliban writ to
planetary scale should have been.
Weber's Masadans, in contrast, while being even more Talibanish, aren't
nearly so cartoony, even though they do suffer from their share of
two-dimensionality.