3/26/2023

I think there's a certain measure of boredom which elicits creativity on my part. For example since I've gone back to invoicing at a nationwide maintenance outfit I've had more creativity than previous years.

3/26/2015

Had trouble breathing last night, and relocated to the couch. Dreamt I was trying to chase down this busty, peroxide blonde. I don't like blondes. She resembled Didi from Menage a 3. Towards the end of my dream she apologized for thinking I was a serial killer, and how ridiculous she was thinking someone as sweet as me could hurt a fly. Her words, not mine.

Yesterday I finished Allen Steele's Galactique series in Asimov's. The Children of Gal started off solid by centering on decanted, tweaked humans from a slower-than-light generation ship living on a superearth, dubbed Eos, in a trinary star system. Steele balanced the strangeness and familiarity, making for a fun read to suss out what was happening in the plot.

The plot was simple, these tweaks were divided by a great storm many years ago. One set moved to an island, avoiding the worst. The remainder stayed on the mainland, forever separate from the "chosen". Whenever someone commits heresy by thinking for themselves, or questioning the status quo, they're banished to the mainland. Okay, it's by the numbers and not really Hugo-worthy but Steele is entertaining.

Bringing us to the point where the story falls apart like so much barbecued pork from the bone. After all this worldbuilding, a baseline human shows up and he isn't alone on Eos. The tone switches to an infodump. Tons of telling, not showing. Baselines chide each other not to overwhelm the natives with technobabble in hopes of lampshading the development. Eventually the protag assures them, "I think I understand what you're saying" despite only being in their presence for a handful of hours. What about culture shock? What about language barriers? After all, Eosians speak their own flavor of pidgin/creole/chutney. It's not Nadsat, but sufficiently strange for the author's purposes.

Sweet Christmas, I was experiencing a new world and it turns into a TED talk.

One irritating bit was an anachronism. The Children of Gal takes place 300+ years in the future, and those humans still think enough of Neil deGrasse Tyson to name a ship after him. It's like Spider Robinson's Variable Star, a hot mess of more anachronisms where future humanity still fixates on 9/11, and uses the term "googling". Anachronisms kick readers out of the story.

The cherry on top? Steele leaves the series open to another installemnt, presumably with the "scientific" humans facing off against the one dimensional "religious" tweaks. I know SF is neckbeardy, but Great Scott! Don't fucking wave it in my face.