Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 45
October 22, 2022
Zoe Chant is BACK!
Amazon restored the account! Thank you all SO MUCH for your help.
I am pretty sure that this saga, which lasted over a month, was due to Amazon turning over its book review process to AI. We were never able to speak to a human being from that department, and customer service told us that it doesn't have a phone number and it's impossible for them to contact anyone in it!
All the contact we had with the department banning first the book (the fifth in a series they published with no issues, I might add) and finally our entire account consisted of absolutely nonsensical emails that made no reference to anything we'd said or any of the documentation we sent them, ignored direct questions and requests like "Please tell us exactly what proof you'll accept so we can provide it to you," and sometimes included literal gibberish like "If you can attach IDs where we can confirm those signs as valid, please reply."
We have no idea what did the trick. Was it the social media campaign? Did one of our emails finally catch the attention of a human? Did an AI just decide we were okay now?
So if you're an author publishing on Amazon, uh, watch out. Also, when we used to worry about AIs taking over, we thought of stuff like Skynet nuking the world. Did any science fiction writer predict that AIs would destroy us by canceling our livelihoods and sending maddening emails?
comments
I am pretty sure that this saga, which lasted over a month, was due to Amazon turning over its book review process to AI. We were never able to speak to a human being from that department, and customer service told us that it doesn't have a phone number and it's impossible for them to contact anyone in it!
All the contact we had with the department banning first the book (the fifth in a series they published with no issues, I might add) and finally our entire account consisted of absolutely nonsensical emails that made no reference to anything we'd said or any of the documentation we sent them, ignored direct questions and requests like "Please tell us exactly what proof you'll accept so we can provide it to you," and sometimes included literal gibberish like "If you can attach IDs where we can confirm those signs as valid, please reply."
We have no idea what did the trick. Was it the social media campaign? Did one of our emails finally catch the attention of a human? Did an AI just decide we were okay now?
So if you're an author publishing on Amazon, uh, watch out. Also, when we used to worry about AIs taking over, we thought of stuff like Skynet nuking the world. Did any science fiction writer predict that AIs would destroy us by canceling our livelihoods and sending maddening emails?
comments
October 21, 2022
24 Hours to sign up for Yuletide!
You have 24 hours to sign up for Yuletide, and I need a distraction.
View Poll: 24 Hours to Yuletide Poll
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View Poll: 24 Hours to Yuletide Poll
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Zoe Chant needs your help! - ETA: Fixed!
ETA: This has been fixed now! Thank you all for your help.
If you have Twitter, please help me out. I need as many people as possible to retweet this Tweet from my Zoe Chant account and @ Amazon.
There's a longer explanation in the link, but here's the short version. Zoe Chant is a group of authors writing under the same pen name. Amazon is aware of this, as are our fans. This is not illegal in any way. What's going on is that Amazon randomly banned the fifth book in a series by the same Zoe author, claiming she was not Zoe Chant and had no right to publish it. We sent them multiple forms of proof that she was Zoe Chant and it was an authorized Zoe Chant release, including a signed contract, a link to the book on our website, and an official copyright registration.
Amazon published the book, then yanked it two hours later and terminated the author's entire account on Amazon. It pulled ALL her books off Amazon, said she was permanently banned from ever publishing on Amazon again, and sent her a notice saying that they would keep all the money that had already been paid by readers of her books!
We have been unable to get through to anyone at Amazon who we can actually talk to. From the absolutely nonsensical content of the emails we have received, we believe that this entire thing may have been handled by an AI.
We are looking into all avenues of redress, but at the moment our best chance seems to be stirring up a social media shitstorm. Please help us do so by retweeting the Twitter link and/or posting on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and any other places known to Amazon. Tag Amazon and Zoe Chant.
Please no "I told you so" or "Well you shouldn't publish on Amazon" comments. We are not personally responsible for living in a world dominated by giant evil corporations.
comments
If you have Twitter, please help me out. I need as many people as possible to retweet this Tweet from my Zoe Chant account and @ Amazon.
There's a longer explanation in the link, but here's the short version. Zoe Chant is a group of authors writing under the same pen name. Amazon is aware of this, as are our fans. This is not illegal in any way. What's going on is that Amazon randomly banned the fifth book in a series by the same Zoe author, claiming she was not Zoe Chant and had no right to publish it. We sent them multiple forms of proof that she was Zoe Chant and it was an authorized Zoe Chant release, including a signed contract, a link to the book on our website, and an official copyright registration.
Amazon published the book, then yanked it two hours later and terminated the author's entire account on Amazon. It pulled ALL her books off Amazon, said she was permanently banned from ever publishing on Amazon again, and sent her a notice saying that they would keep all the money that had already been paid by readers of her books!
We have been unable to get through to anyone at Amazon who we can actually talk to. From the absolutely nonsensical content of the emails we have received, we believe that this entire thing may have been handled by an AI.
We are looking into all avenues of redress, but at the moment our best chance seems to be stirring up a social media shitstorm. Please help us do so by retweeting the Twitter link and/or posting on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and any other places known to Amazon. Tag Amazon and Zoe Chant.
Please no "I told you so" or "Well you shouldn't publish on Amazon" comments. We are not personally responsible for living in a world dominated by giant evil corporations.
comments
Zoe Chant needs your help!
If you have Twitter, please help me out. I need as many people as possible to retweet this Tweet from my Zoe Chant account and @ Amazon.
There's a longer explanation in the link, but here's the short version. Zoe Chant is a group of authors writing under the same pen name. Amazon is aware of this, as are our fans. This is not illegal in any way. What's going on is that Amazon randomly banned the fifth book in a series by the same Zoe author, claiming she was not Zoe Chant and had no right to publish it. We sent them multiple forms of proof that she was Zoe Chant and it was an authorized Zoe Chant release, including a signed contract, a link to the book on our website, and an official copyright registration.
Amazon published the book, then yanked it two hours later and terminated the author's entire account on Amazon. It pulled ALL her books off Amazon, said she was permanently banned from ever publishing on Amazon again, and sent her a notice saying that they would keep all the money that had already been paid by readers of her books!
We have been unable to get through to anyone at Amazon who we can actually talk to. From the absolutely nonsensical content of the emails we have received, we believe that this entire thing may have been handled by an AI.
We are looking into all avenues of redress, but at the moment our best chance seems to be stirring up a social media shitstorm. Please help us do so by retweeting the Twitter link and/or posting on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and any other places known to Amazon. Tag Amazon and Zoe Chant.
Please no "I told you so" or "Well you shouldn't publish on Amazon" comments. We are not personally responsible for living in a world dominated by giant evil corporations.
comments
There's a longer explanation in the link, but here's the short version. Zoe Chant is a group of authors writing under the same pen name. Amazon is aware of this, as are our fans. This is not illegal in any way. What's going on is that Amazon randomly banned the fifth book in a series by the same Zoe author, claiming she was not Zoe Chant and had no right to publish it. We sent them multiple forms of proof that she was Zoe Chant and it was an authorized Zoe Chant release, including a signed contract, a link to the book on our website, and an official copyright registration.
Amazon published the book, then yanked it two hours later and terminated the author's entire account on Amazon. It pulled ALL her books off Amazon, said she was permanently banned from ever publishing on Amazon again, and sent her a notice saying that they would keep all the money that had already been paid by readers of her books!
We have been unable to get through to anyone at Amazon who we can actually talk to. From the absolutely nonsensical content of the emails we have received, we believe that this entire thing may have been handled by an AI.
We are looking into all avenues of redress, but at the moment our best chance seems to be stirring up a social media shitstorm. Please help us do so by retweeting the Twitter link and/or posting on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and any other places known to Amazon. Tag Amazon and Zoe Chant.
Please no "I told you so" or "Well you shouldn't publish on Amazon" comments. We are not personally responsible for living in a world dominated by giant evil corporations.
comments
October 20, 2022
I wrote Biggles fic!
Biggles Celebrates His Birthday, based on this exchange in my comments. (Comments to that post also include a fantastic set of WWI aviation movie recs by sovay).
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comments
October 19, 2022
Hallowe'en Party, by Agatha Christie
In the opening scene, murder mystery writer Ariadne Oliver gets dragged to a Hallowe'en party for kids ages eight to eighteen.
"But you've written lots of books," said Joyce. "You make a lot of money out of them, don't you?"
"In a way," said Mrs. Oliver, her thoughts flying to the Inland Revenue.
"And you've got a detective who's a Finn."
Mrs. Oliver admitted the fact. A small stolid boy said sternly, "Why a Finn?"
"I've often wondered," Mrs. Oliver admitted truthfully.
She had intended to help out but mostly hangs around eating the apples that are supposed to be saved for party games; she regrets this when Joyce, one of the teenagers who had earlier claimed to have once witnessed a murder and is dismissed as a liar, turns up drowned in the bucket they used for bobbing for apples.
Mrs. Oliver calls in her old friend Poirot, who is forced to do a lot of outdoor detecting in unsuitable patent leather shoes; key locations include a sunken garden, multiple cottage gardens, and a forest. A lot of the main characters are children and teenagers, who are viewed in a distinctly unsentimental manner.
No one seems to have much liked Joyce the murder victim, who is widely believed to have been a liar. But her original claim, which was that she saw something years ago which she only realized had been a murder when she got older, intrigues Poirot. It certainly seems like an odd thing to lie about. And there's no other apparent motive to kill her unless it was a homicidal maniac. (It is almost never a homicidal maniac.) So Poirot starts looking for a murder an unknown number of years in the past that a girl could have seen without realizing what she saw...
This was a re-read of a book I'd re-read relatively recently, so I remembered who the murderer was, though I'd forgotten some complex machinations over a will.
Though flawed by some annoying lecturing on the Good Old Days, the good parts of this are excellent: the opening scene at the Hallowe'en party, the near-magical sunken garden, Ariadne Oliver getting triggered by apples and having to resort to dates, some very funny bits, some deeply creepy bits, a memorable villain and murder motive, and one of my all-time favorite Christie characters, the child Miranda, wise beyond her years in some ways and heartbreakingly not in others. Had I re-read this book earlier, I would have requested Miranda for Yuletide; I really want to know what she did next.
Though multiple people go on and on about Kids These Days, the kids we see are as varied as the adults; some awful, some heroic, some ordinary). Apart from Miranda, I particularly enjoyed two fashionable teenage boys in amazing-sounding outfits (one of them appears in a flowy white shirt, a pink velvet coat, and mauve pants) who are very eager to help Poirot solve the mystery. One of my favorite bits of the book was them spinning theories about the murders and then looking hopefully at Poirot, "like dogs who had fetched their master a bone."
( Read more... )
Christie scale: MEDIUM levels of xenophobia, directed at a Russian refugee who deserved better. HIGH levels of ableism on the subject of mentally ill people being crazed murderers who should be permanently locked up.
Currently $1.99 on Kindle.
[image error] [image error]
comments
"But you've written lots of books," said Joyce. "You make a lot of money out of them, don't you?"
"In a way," said Mrs. Oliver, her thoughts flying to the Inland Revenue.
"And you've got a detective who's a Finn."
Mrs. Oliver admitted the fact. A small stolid boy said sternly, "Why a Finn?"
"I've often wondered," Mrs. Oliver admitted truthfully.
She had intended to help out but mostly hangs around eating the apples that are supposed to be saved for party games; she regrets this when Joyce, one of the teenagers who had earlier claimed to have once witnessed a murder and is dismissed as a liar, turns up drowned in the bucket they used for bobbing for apples.
Mrs. Oliver calls in her old friend Poirot, who is forced to do a lot of outdoor detecting in unsuitable patent leather shoes; key locations include a sunken garden, multiple cottage gardens, and a forest. A lot of the main characters are children and teenagers, who are viewed in a distinctly unsentimental manner.
No one seems to have much liked Joyce the murder victim, who is widely believed to have been a liar. But her original claim, which was that she saw something years ago which she only realized had been a murder when she got older, intrigues Poirot. It certainly seems like an odd thing to lie about. And there's no other apparent motive to kill her unless it was a homicidal maniac. (It is almost never a homicidal maniac.) So Poirot starts looking for a murder an unknown number of years in the past that a girl could have seen without realizing what she saw...
This was a re-read of a book I'd re-read relatively recently, so I remembered who the murderer was, though I'd forgotten some complex machinations over a will.
Though flawed by some annoying lecturing on the Good Old Days, the good parts of this are excellent: the opening scene at the Hallowe'en party, the near-magical sunken garden, Ariadne Oliver getting triggered by apples and having to resort to dates, some very funny bits, some deeply creepy bits, a memorable villain and murder motive, and one of my all-time favorite Christie characters, the child Miranda, wise beyond her years in some ways and heartbreakingly not in others. Had I re-read this book earlier, I would have requested Miranda for Yuletide; I really want to know what she did next.
Though multiple people go on and on about Kids These Days, the kids we see are as varied as the adults; some awful, some heroic, some ordinary). Apart from Miranda, I particularly enjoyed two fashionable teenage boys in amazing-sounding outfits (one of them appears in a flowy white shirt, a pink velvet coat, and mauve pants) who are very eager to help Poirot solve the mystery. One of my favorite bits of the book was them spinning theories about the murders and then looking hopefully at Poirot, "like dogs who had fetched their master a bone."
( Read more... )
Christie scale: MEDIUM levels of xenophobia, directed at a Russian refugee who deserved better. HIGH levels of ableism on the subject of mentally ill people being crazed murderers who should be permanently locked up.
Currently $1.99 on Kindle.
[image error] [image error]
comments
October 18, 2022
Biggles # 1: The Camels Are Coming, by W. E. Johns
He broke into a peal of nerve-jarring laughter which ended in something like a sob. "Get me a drink somebody, please," he pleaded. "Lord! I am tired."
This is the very first Biggles book, a collection of the first Biggles short stories, set in WWI and including his first appearance in "The White Fokker." He's introduced as a teenage pilot barely holding himself together, and the whole collection is understatedly harrowing. It's also full of exciting aerial warfare, fascinating period details, and cool concepts, plus an introduction by Johns in which he describes some of the experiences that inspired the book and says that most of the stories in it are more-or-less true.
These planes, or "machines" as they're often called, were made of canvas and wood, and were flown without parachutes or radio. (Pilots used hand signals (!) or plane movements to communicate.) If you were shot down, you generally died. But if you crash-landed, you could often literally get up and walk away. At one point someone gets a ride hanging on to a wing!
Dogfighting pilots were so close at times that they could see each other's faces and even expressions, and the aces on both sides knew each other's names and some personal details. It was a weirdly intimate kind of warfare.
The stories were published individually, but they connect to form a loose narrative. The flying sequences and the general sense that death is hanging over them all and can come at any moment when they're in the air gives the book incredible tension. In "The Packet," he's the third pilot to be sent on the same mission within a matter of hours, after the first two were killed trying. He has to pick up a packet of papers that are only twenty miles away; he'll be either back or dead within the hour.
Major Raymond appears in "The Balloonatics," in which he eggs on Biggles to risk his life for six bottles of whiskey! (To be fair, there was a mission of tactical significance involved, and Biggles would have been happy to do it without the prize.) I would bet money that this more-or-less really happened. That story would have fit right in as a M*A*S*H episode.
Algy Lacey is introduced in "The Boob" and plays a major role in "The Battle of Flowers," both of which also have a M*A*S*H-like feel. He's Biggles' cousin whom his aunt arranged to send to his squadron. Biggles has less-than-fond memories of him from childhood: "His Christian names are Algernon Montgomery, and that's just what he looked like--a slice of warmed-up death wrapped in velvet and ribbons."
Algy arrives with ten hours of flying Camels under his belt, and Biggles warns him that the average lifespan of a new pilot is 24 hours, but if he survives the first week he should be all right. He's serious, too. Of course, he shows his stuff in a pleasingly unexpected manner, and turns out to be even more of a courageous lunatic than young Biggles.
Marie Janis appears in "Affaire de Couer," which establishes that Biggles' type is "honorable and attractive German spy, any gender fine."
"The Last Show" sees Biggles so far gone that he's about to be sent home before he gets himself killed, but he has one last mission he's determined to fly...
Reading this without context, it's an excellent set of atmospheric, exciting war stories with interesting hooks. Read with the context of a bunch of other Biggles books, I kept thinking, "This poor kid!" He is SEVENTEEN.
I'd already read Biggles Learns to Fly, which has a similar tone, but this one is especially good to keep in mind as his and Algy's backstory when reading other books.
I ended up reading this off the Internet Archive link because the versions I could find online were so poorly formatted. I will eventually get a hard copy (It's on my wish list and my birthday is coming up JUST SAYING) but I wanted to read it sooner. Hopefully this is not the infamous bowdlerized edition where the pilots are risking their lives to win six bottles of lemonade (originally whiskey.) I wonder if the other pilots in that edition worry about Biggles because he's gotten so depressed and burned out that he's drinking half a bottle of lemonade before breakfast!
[image error] [image error]
comments
This is the very first Biggles book, a collection of the first Biggles short stories, set in WWI and including his first appearance in "The White Fokker." He's introduced as a teenage pilot barely holding himself together, and the whole collection is understatedly harrowing. It's also full of exciting aerial warfare, fascinating period details, and cool concepts, plus an introduction by Johns in which he describes some of the experiences that inspired the book and says that most of the stories in it are more-or-less true.
These planes, or "machines" as they're often called, were made of canvas and wood, and were flown without parachutes or radio. (Pilots used hand signals (!) or plane movements to communicate.) If you were shot down, you generally died. But if you crash-landed, you could often literally get up and walk away. At one point someone gets a ride hanging on to a wing!
Dogfighting pilots were so close at times that they could see each other's faces and even expressions, and the aces on both sides knew each other's names and some personal details. It was a weirdly intimate kind of warfare.
The stories were published individually, but they connect to form a loose narrative. The flying sequences and the general sense that death is hanging over them all and can come at any moment when they're in the air gives the book incredible tension. In "The Packet," he's the third pilot to be sent on the same mission within a matter of hours, after the first two were killed trying. He has to pick up a packet of papers that are only twenty miles away; he'll be either back or dead within the hour.
Major Raymond appears in "The Balloonatics," in which he eggs on Biggles to risk his life for six bottles of whiskey! (To be fair, there was a mission of tactical significance involved, and Biggles would have been happy to do it without the prize.) I would bet money that this more-or-less really happened. That story would have fit right in as a M*A*S*H episode.
Algy Lacey is introduced in "The Boob" and plays a major role in "The Battle of Flowers," both of which also have a M*A*S*H-like feel. He's Biggles' cousin whom his aunt arranged to send to his squadron. Biggles has less-than-fond memories of him from childhood: "His Christian names are Algernon Montgomery, and that's just what he looked like--a slice of warmed-up death wrapped in velvet and ribbons."
Algy arrives with ten hours of flying Camels under his belt, and Biggles warns him that the average lifespan of a new pilot is 24 hours, but if he survives the first week he should be all right. He's serious, too. Of course, he shows his stuff in a pleasingly unexpected manner, and turns out to be even more of a courageous lunatic than young Biggles.
Marie Janis appears in "Affaire de Couer," which establishes that Biggles' type is "honorable and attractive German spy, any gender fine."
"The Last Show" sees Biggles so far gone that he's about to be sent home before he gets himself killed, but he has one last mission he's determined to fly...
Reading this without context, it's an excellent set of atmospheric, exciting war stories with interesting hooks. Read with the context of a bunch of other Biggles books, I kept thinking, "This poor kid!" He is SEVENTEEN.
I'd already read Biggles Learns to Fly, which has a similar tone, but this one is especially good to keep in mind as his and Algy's backstory when reading other books.
I ended up reading this off the Internet Archive link because the versions I could find online were so poorly formatted. I will eventually get a hard copy (It's on my wish list and my birthday is coming up JUST SAYING) but I wanted to read it sooner. Hopefully this is not the infamous bowdlerized edition where the pilots are risking their lives to win six bottles of lemonade (originally whiskey.) I wonder if the other pilots in that edition worry about Biggles because he's gotten so depressed and burned out that he's drinking half a bottle of lemonade before breakfast!
[image error] [image error]
comments
October 17, 2022
The Moving Finger, by Agatha Christie
After young pilot Jerry Burton is severely injured in a plane crash, his doctor advises him to recuperate in a small, dull, relaxing place. His sister Joanna is delighted to accompany and care for him, as she's a social butterfly recuperating from her latest disastrous love affair. They rent a house in a small English village which, surprisingly, is NOT St. Mary's Mead. It is, however, plagued with a mystery rash of nasty anonymous letters.
Jerry and Joanna get slowly sucked into village life, but retain their very funny bewildered outsider point of view. They befriend the unhappy Megan, who is almost 21 but whose family treats her as a child they don't much care about. They get to know Mrs. Dane Calthrop, the unsettlingly acute Reverend's wife. And they start poking into the matter of the anonymous letters...
This is one of Christie's most delightful books. It's got hilarious dialogue and lots of very funny bits in general, has not one but two romances that I really rooted for, a solid and fair puzzle, and a whole passel of vivid, likable, memorable characters.
It also casually breaks several of the normal genre and series rules: it doesn't take place in St. Mary's Mead, it doesn't have any overlapping characters with the first two books until quite late, up until about the 60% mark the characters aren't aware that a murder has been committed (readers will be immediately suspicious of a supposed suicide) and Miss Marple doesn't appear until about the 70% mark. Despite Christie's reputation for rote potboilers, she actually broke a lot of rules and varied her form quite a bit.
( Read more... )
The characters and comedy absolutely sparkled in this book.
Christie scale: LOW levels of -isms. There's gay = feminine stuff (about a man who isn't identified as gay but is clearly meant to be), but he's a fun character who's clearly living his best life.
[image error] [image error]
comments
Jerry and Joanna get slowly sucked into village life, but retain their very funny bewildered outsider point of view. They befriend the unhappy Megan, who is almost 21 but whose family treats her as a child they don't much care about. They get to know Mrs. Dane Calthrop, the unsettlingly acute Reverend's wife. And they start poking into the matter of the anonymous letters...
This is one of Christie's most delightful books. It's got hilarious dialogue and lots of very funny bits in general, has not one but two romances that I really rooted for, a solid and fair puzzle, and a whole passel of vivid, likable, memorable characters.
It also casually breaks several of the normal genre and series rules: it doesn't take place in St. Mary's Mead, it doesn't have any overlapping characters with the first two books until quite late, up until about the 60% mark the characters aren't aware that a murder has been committed (readers will be immediately suspicious of a supposed suicide) and Miss Marple doesn't appear until about the 70% mark. Despite Christie's reputation for rote potboilers, she actually broke a lot of rules and varied her form quite a bit.
( Read more... )
The characters and comedy absolutely sparkled in this book.
Christie scale: LOW levels of -isms. There's gay = feminine stuff (about a man who isn't identified as gay but is clearly meant to be), but he's a fun character who's clearly living his best life.
[image error] [image error]
comments
October 16, 2022
The Nox, by Joe White and Catriona Ward (Original Audiodrama)
In a climate change apocalypse near future, an expedition sets out for the Arctic in search of polar bears, which are believed to be extinct but might not be. They find the frozen body of a polar bear cub on the ice, way south of where bears have ever been sighted, and bring it aboard the ship. Weird, creepy events immediately ensue. Is the cub actually alive? Is the ship haunted? Are there weird creatures outside trying to get in?
This sounds good, right? Nothing like Arctic spookiness! I was so excited to see what Catriona Ward would do with that!
It's nothing like her usual style and I suspect that she had very little to do with it. In fact, this audiodrama has the remarkable distinction of making me ragequit TWICE. I ragequit at the first big twist, then decided I wanted to find out what was going to happen and also I was listening while cleaning my kitchen and was nowhere near done with that, then ragequit for good at the second big twist.
The performances are okay at first, but get more and more melodramatic as they go along. The sound effects are very loud and intrusive. This led to a number of unintentionally hilarious scenes that were basically this:
Actor: "He-hello? Helloooo? Is anyone--AGH NO!!!"
Sound effects: GRRRRR! CRUNCH! SNRRRRR! SKREEEEEE!!!
Actor: "AGH! ACK! AHHHH!"
Sound effects: BRRRRRR! CRUNCH! SQUISH! ZZZZZT!
Actor: "AIEEEEE! AUGGGGGHHHH! ARRRRRRGH!"
And so forth.
The frustrating part was that it started out as a very promising Arctic horror-thriller. Then we hit Plot Twist of RAGEQUIT number one.
There are six people on the ship. They have brought aboard a frozen polar bear cub they found, which several of them have dreamed came to life. The captain is becoming convinced his dead husband is on the ship. And the computer, which monitors their vital signs, is detecting SEVEN heartbeats!
What is the most annoying and anticlimactic possible explanation for that?
( Read more... )
If this had been a physical book I'd have thrown it across the room. As it was, I ragequit with half an hour left to go and my kitchen only half-tidied.
The Nox
comments
This sounds good, right? Nothing like Arctic spookiness! I was so excited to see what Catriona Ward would do with that!
It's nothing like her usual style and I suspect that she had very little to do with it. In fact, this audiodrama has the remarkable distinction of making me ragequit TWICE. I ragequit at the first big twist, then decided I wanted to find out what was going to happen and also I was listening while cleaning my kitchen and was nowhere near done with that, then ragequit for good at the second big twist.
The performances are okay at first, but get more and more melodramatic as they go along. The sound effects are very loud and intrusive. This led to a number of unintentionally hilarious scenes that were basically this:
Actor: "He-hello? Helloooo? Is anyone--AGH NO!!!"
Sound effects: GRRRRR! CRUNCH! SNRRRRR! SKREEEEEE!!!
Actor: "AGH! ACK! AHHHH!"
Sound effects: BRRRRRR! CRUNCH! SQUISH! ZZZZZT!
Actor: "AIEEEEE! AUGGGGGHHHH! ARRRRRRGH!"
And so forth.
The frustrating part was that it started out as a very promising Arctic horror-thriller. Then we hit Plot Twist of RAGEQUIT number one.
There are six people on the ship. They have brought aboard a frozen polar bear cub they found, which several of them have dreamed came to life. The captain is becoming convinced his dead husband is on the ship. And the computer, which monitors their vital signs, is detecting SEVEN heartbeats!
What is the most annoying and anticlimactic possible explanation for that?
( Read more... )
If this had been a physical book I'd have thrown it across the room. As it was, I ragequit with half an hour left to go and my kitchen only half-tidied.
The Nox
comments
October 14, 2022
It's Yuletide!
Yuletide is open for signups! You have through October 22 to sign up - don't miss it!
Here is the tag set where you can see all the fandoms you can request. There's a huge variety!
Requestable fandoms that might be of particular interest include the Biggles and Worrals series by W. E. Johns, multiple intriguing side characters from Agatha Christie (under "Poirot" and "Miss Marple"), Revelator, Baahubali, multiple Octavia Butler works including "Bloodchild" and "Speech Sounds," the traditional ballads "John Barleycorn" and "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight," Double Indemnity, Annihilation, Us, Nope, and "Top 5 Rat Movies I Made Up."
Not to mention historical fiction about Hildegard von Bingen (12th Century German Mystics RPF), Crazy Horse | Tȟašúŋke Witkó (The Great Sioux War of 1876-1877 RPF), Rabbi Yochanan ben Nappachah (Rabbinic and Talmudic Judaism RPF), Zelda Fitzgerald (Jazz Age Writer RPF), and Willow | Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom's Dog (British Royalty RPF).
Here's what I'm requesting this year.
View Poll: The Yuletide Poll
comments
Here is the tag set where you can see all the fandoms you can request. There's a huge variety!
Requestable fandoms that might be of particular interest include the Biggles and Worrals series by W. E. Johns, multiple intriguing side characters from Agatha Christie (under "Poirot" and "Miss Marple"), Revelator, Baahubali, multiple Octavia Butler works including "Bloodchild" and "Speech Sounds," the traditional ballads "John Barleycorn" and "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight," Double Indemnity, Annihilation, Us, Nope, and "Top 5 Rat Movies I Made Up."
Not to mention historical fiction about Hildegard von Bingen (12th Century German Mystics RPF), Crazy Horse | Tȟašúŋke Witkó (The Great Sioux War of 1876-1877 RPF), Rabbi Yochanan ben Nappachah (Rabbinic and Talmudic Judaism RPF), Zelda Fitzgerald (Jazz Age Writer RPF), and Willow | Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom's Dog (British Royalty RPF).
Here's what I'm requesting this year.
View Poll: The Yuletide Poll
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