Abigail Barnette's Blog, page 76

DOUBLE STEVE BONUS MONDAY!

 

State of The Trout: “My Best Friend’s Wedding” edition

Hey everybody! just a quick note to say that MY BFF JILL IS GETTING MARRIED! YAAAAY!

But because of this phenomenal happening, I will be pretty busy from now until after the 26th, because I’m a bridesmaid. Don’t expect updates during the week, but know that I’ll be working behind the scenes on:

The Baby cover reveal!
A new Buffy Recap!
A Don’t Do This Ever post with advice from actual editors!
A new chapter of  The Afflicted   on Wattpad!
And a new chapter of Biter for my Patreon supporters!

Thanks everyone for understanding, and I’ll catch you on the other side of the happy wedding madness!

Jenny Reads 50 Shades of Midnight Sun: Grey, Saturday, May 21, 2011 or “THE BIGGEST CHAPTER EVER: PART ONE”

Welcome back, everyone. Because this SINGLE CHAPTER takes up 9% of the total book and is, according to these Kindle page numbers, over fifty pages long, I’ll be breaking it up into four or five recaps to match its corresponding chapters in the first book. That way none of us feel like we’re running a marathon in a wool suit right after winning a pie eating contest.

I feel like this almost goes without saying, but CW: Rape. Because the “hero” of this book doesn’t understand what consent is. But rape is mentioned a lot in this recap.

This day in history: The world was supposed to end. Honestly, considering how hugely popular this book became in 2011, the apocalypse wouldn’t have been the worst thing to happen to us.

If you want to read along with my recaps of the original series, chapter five is here.

When last we met, Christian Grey had just taken Ana to the second location, his hotel room, where he mostly undressed her.

Nearly two hours later, I come to bed. It’s just after 1:45. She’s fast asleep and hasn’t moved from where I left her. I strip, pull on my PJ pants and a T-shirt, and climb in beside her. She’s comatose; it’s unlikely she’s going to thrash around and touch me.

If this book had come out before the others, I would have thought this was foreshadowing that Grey’s kink was necrophilia role play.

I hesitate for a moment as the darkness swells within me,

but it doesn’t surface and I know it’s because I’m watching the hypnotic rise and fall of her chest and I’m breathing in sync with her.

Are you having a hard time visualizing what breathing is like, dear reader? I know I was. So I’m glad that the author included instructions:

In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.

That clears it up, thanks so much.

For seconds, minutes, hours, I don’t know, I watch her.

You’re really bad at telling time, mate.

Christian describes her lovely face, her dark eyelashes, her white teeth…he basically itemizes her appearance, and he’s apparently waaaaay into making lists:

It’s arousing, very arousing. Finally I fall into a deep and dreamless slumber.

And we’re back to the “I don’t know how to end this section, so my characters go to sleep” technique. Look. I don’t care if your characters get into bed together and the chapter ends there. I don’t care if the sleep is implied. But there’s no reason this section couldn’t have ended with the seconds, minutes, hours line. Even though it would still be unreasonably creepy.

Then again, I think I used the sleep/awake thing a few times in First Time so maybe this isn’t the hill I want to die on.

There’s a section break. I really appreciate that E.L. gives us time off while they’re sleeping, considering how often we’re subjected to every mundane detail of their stupid, boring lives. Christian wakes up and sees that it’s 7:43, and he wonders when the last time he slept that late was. We get it, he’s an early riser, as is befitting a God.

I have never slept with a woman. I’ve fucked many, but to wake up beside an alluring young woman is a new and stimulating experience.

Why does Christian’s internal monologue read like dialogue from The Big Bang Theory? Like, the way this is phrased, I’m expecting a pause for the laugh track because the wording is so clunky and clinical.

My cock agrees.

She moans into my mouth, the call of a siren, and finally I can sample her: mint and tea and an orchard of mellow fruitfulness.

She tastes like words directly cribbed from a well-known poem by Keats? “Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness!” Yeah, nobody was going to notice that.

She tastes every bit as good as she looks. Reminding me of a time of plenty.

Of autumn, maybe?

Of course the elevator doors open and their poetic and unattributed face-sucking is interrupted. People get on the elevator with them and give them “knowing looks”, and Chedward is all like, what has she done to me, because he’s obviously helpless to control himself and it’s not his fault. Then Ana smiles at him, and it’s the first indication in the entire chapter that she likes him at all. After the guys get out of the elevator, we have to experience this again:

“You’ve brushed your teeth,” I observe with wry amusement.

“I used your toothbrush,” she says, eyes shining.

OH GOD WHY. All I can think about is that episode of How I Met Your Mother where Marshall, Lily, and Ted learn they’ve all been using the same toothbrush by accident. This grosses me out beyond anything I can even possibly conceive of.

Story time: the batteries on my electric toothbrush went out recently, so Mr. Jen said he changed the head of mine to his so I could use it. At least, that’s what I thought he said. What he actually said was, “Remind me to change the head of your toothbrush to mine.” He hadn’t done it yet. So I ended up brushing my teeth with his toothbrush. I didn’t even run hot water over it or anything.

I used SO MUCH mouthwash.

And no, it’s not the same thing as kissing him, because when I kiss him I don’t suck the plaque and food debris off his fucking teeth. I don’t know what kind of kissing people are doing that they can compare the two, but I’m glad I’m not kissing those people.

 

I take her hand and the elevator doors open on the ground floor, and I mutter under my breath, “What is it about elevators?” She gives me a knowing look as we stroll across the polished marble of the lobby.

Not only should there be a paragraph break after “elevators,” it’s also the second “knowing look” on this page.

In the next recap, we’ll cover whatever is in chapter six of Fifty Shades of Grey. Which I’m sure will be fascinating.

Don’t Do This Ever: “C*** Juggling Thunder C***” edition

People in the indie book world are sharply divided on whether or not crowd funding your author life is ethical or not. The arguments around authors starting Kickstarters and GoFundMes to either fund the writing of their novel or finish a series (with the implication that readers would not receive the conclusion to the series unless the fundraising goal was met) is always pretty much the same: one side feels it’s unethical or “just not done”, the other thinks that any objection to the crowdfunding model is a denial of any author’s right to compensation for their work.

But one thing both sides probably will agree on? Don’t call people who disapprove of your model “cock juggling thunder cunts.”

Author Payne Hawthorne has a dream to quit her day job and write full time:

I’ve spent the last 5 years struggling to become a full time author. I’ve been working odd and part time jobs and writing at night. I’m tired, but I’ve managed to produce 4 series, 9 individual titles, (All big/real books).

I’ve also produced 4 of these as audio books. (Invested $3500.00 just in the audio books).

I’m getting noticed and I’m getting awesome reviews on all of my books. I’m not however making enough to sit and write full time, (which would allow me to also sleep).

As a jaded sort of person, I have to admit that I snerked a little at five years of struggle. Everyone in the business can name someone who’s struggled for four times longer without achieving the goal of living off their writing. But that’s my person feeling, and it’s not necessarily wrong of Hawthorne to feel this way, even if it comes off as a bit entitled to other authors.

My goal is simple. I need to generate a $1000.00 a month. I do have partial support from my family. It’s not a full-time living by any means

Currently the sales of E-books and Audio books brings on average between $100-$200.00/month.

Again, considering I can name authors who make that figure per year, it’s difficult to sympathize. But no one is forced to donate to her campaign, so again, there’s nothing unethical about her sharing these feelings.

Most E-books sell for under $3.00, or less than a cup of coffee, and I get one dollar from that sale. Said E-book took me about 6 months to produce and roughly $1000.00 after paying for cover designers and editors.

Hold up. Her ebooks sell for under $3.00 a pop (less than a cup of coffee…why has a cup of coffee become a marker for what we should and shouldn’t spend our money on?), but her lowest donation amount is $5.00. For that $5.00 you get…

Hmmm. But whatever. She’s giving this information up front, so people donating know what they’re getting into, and they can spend their money to support her however they want.

Most readers are unaware it takes 20-30 hours of writing/editing/polishing time to produce 1 hour of readable/publishable material.

Show of hands, readers. How many of you are unaware that books take a lot of time and effort to produce?

Exactly.

Plus, it should take you longer than 20-30 hours to write a book, if you’re producing quality work. And 20-30 hours is a second job for most people. In other words…writing is already your job. Your second job. It just isn’t paying minimum wage.

Yes, its the most thankless, time consuming non-job on the planet.

The reasonable train has now just derailed and slammed into the station, causing mass casualties and millions of dollars of damage, lost wages, and worker compensation. First of all, if it’s a “non-job,” then it’s a hobby. And if you consider your hobby too “thankless and time consuming,” then you find a new hobby. Plus, I don’t consider writing a “non-job.” Since it’s, you know. My job. And a lot of other authors–even those who aren’t full-time writers–feel the same and probably strenuously object to this description.

Plus, writing is not thankless. If one person says they enjoy your stuff, that’s your thanks. Even if that’s all you ever received, you’ve been thanked. You’ve now effectively insulted all the readers who reach out to you and the reviewers who’ve given your book time and consideration. You threw away their “thanks” because it wasn’t thanks enough.

Does this mean that authors should work only for thanks and no compensation? Of course not. But while statistics often turn up a median living wage between $40k and $60k annually for writers, we have to take into account that some authors are paid astronomical sums for their work, likely bumping that median higher than what most authors are actually making. And as The Guardian reported in 2012, half of the authors in the self-publishing world make less than $500 per year. So in reality, Hawthorne is making more than what most indie authors can realistically expect to make.

Still, none of this is unethical. None of this is illegal. So why are people so mad?

For anyone who can’t read the text in the picture, it reads:

Karen Kennedy 4 hours ago

This is what the charming Payne Hawthorne thinks of people who told her she needs to hone her craft and stop asking for money from people to do something others have to work hard at. “Tonight, not sure why tonight, but my Gofundme campaign got a shit storm of negative comments. It’s been up for 2 weeks. I guess everyone just needed something to hate on. I wanted to say ‘Oh don’t hate me because I’m prettier than you,’ but I didn’t. I might however have called them cunts, or some derivation thereof, something like, Cock Juggling Thunder Cunts (that’s one of my favorites and if you’ve read Lumen, you’d recognize it).’ You’re not pretty, Payne, You’re thoughts make you unattractive to the core – listen to the advice given, go work hard and write something people would actually like to read and stop asking for a handout.

AC Marchman 1 hour ago

So you’re prettier than us? Cock juggling thunder cunts?? Really? You’re so classy. Please keep it up. And maybe if writing doesn’t work out (which it obviously hasn’t) then maybe get a full time job…

These comments were deleted from the GoFundMe page, but Hawthorne doesn’t deny making that Facebook update. In fact, as of writing this, it was still public on her personal Facebook page:

Now we’ve reached the real meat and potatoes of this DON’T DO THIS EVER post. First of all:

Okay… please remember this is my personal page. Not a business page.

Here’s a big mistake you can easily avoid, authors: if you don’t want people to see it, don’t post it publicly on your Facebook page. Just saying, “This is my personal page” doesn’t take it off the record, especially if you’ve got readers and authors friended on that personal page. And making the post public? Also not a great idea.

After the “cock juggling thunder cunts” paragraph quoted by Karen Kennedy above, Hawthorne goes on to say:

The reason is simple. How dare these people judge me and condemn me for asking for help. Especially when I’ve not divulged anything else about myself apart from, I need help. I’m struggling in all aspects of my life at the moment. Plain and simple, if I don’t generate something soon, I very well might be at the corner with a cardboard sign asking for help.

Maybe that’s a part of the problem. She didn’t specify that she was in dire need. She said she didn’t want to work an outside job. The dire need was only mentioned, by her admission, two weeks into the campaign, and only after people objected to it.

Why does that garner a better response than what I’m doing? Does it? Do these same Pharisee judgmental bastards spit on the homeless beggars as much as they all just spit on me?

The reason it garners a better response is because for the most part, people are more willing to help someone in dire need than someone who’s asking to have their fantasy lifestyle indulged. The fact that Hawthorne left out the “cardboard sign” portion of her plight might very well have everything to do with the negative response she received, although if she were to include that bit of information, she might want to remove the part where she says she’s spent upwards of $3k producing her own audiobooks (which aren’t a part of many indie authors’ models for the simple fact that they do cost so much to produce, release, and distribute). It should go without saying that objecting to a controversial payment model is not in any way comparable to physically spitting on a homeless person.

I’m kind of shocked all these wonderful, upstanding citizens who apparently have full time jobs, and families, and they write full time as well, how do they have time to malign me? It’s really interested actually.

Is she accusing other authors of not working enough? I’m not sure what this has to do with anything.

I’d like to challenge each and every one of these wonderful women to a writing contest. How about an 80K (that’s 80,000 words people, not dollars!) novel. It needs to be fully edited, proofed and a professional cover designed for it. Oh, and they have only 6 months to do all this. Ok, go. Get back to me on this when you have time in between all the shit slinging. (Oh yeah, I’ve written 12 novels people! 12, over 70K word novel in less than 5 years!)

Okay. I accept the challenge. Let me check my watch. Yup, I won.

The output Hawthorne is bragging on isn’t any different from what many indie authors are producing, many in much shorter time frame. Hawthorne seems to be under the impression that authors are paid for the volume they produce, when the truth is, we’re not even paid for the quality we produce. It’s clear that she feels cheated by readers because they haven’t thrown gobs of money in her face, but that’s not the way the industry has ever worked.

And what happened to the old adage; It never hurts to ask? When was the last time you asked someone for something and they turned all venomous on you? Like turned it back around to make you feel like shit for asking? Did I just manage to block all the passive aggressive bitches lingering in the trenches? Good!

I agree, there’s nothing wrong with asking for something. People were mad when Stacey Jay asked for money to finish her series, it’s true, but mostly it was because she flatly said that she wouldn’t be finishing her series if her Kickstarter goal wasn’t met, and negative opinions were generally centered around that; readers felt the book was being held hostage. But for the most part, just asking isn’t a bad thing at all. I’ve done it. I’ve got a Patreon, and I used to accept Google wallet donations. Amanda Palmer’s “The Art of Asking” TED Talk changed my life, because I realized that I could ask for help. Did people think I was being a jerk for asking? Yup. And I still get the occasional email or Facebook message saying that I shouldn’t have a Patreon for my blog. People have a hard time accepting a crowd-funded model. This isn’t news to the industry.

How dare you come to my page, my house, and insult me the way you all just did! How dare you treat me like a less than because I’m asking for help. In what world do we live in where if someone is humble enough to ask, we treat them like shit?

But Hawthorne wasn’t humble. Her GoFundMe description indicated that she felt she deserved more than what most people are making for doing the same job. Again, nothing at all wrong with asking, but publicly declaring that you haven’t been thanked enough or compensated to the standards you expected isn’t being humble. It’s asking with one hand and doling out ingratitude with the other.

Seriously people? I know full well that most, if not all of you who I spent the entire evening deleting and blocking, are Christians. How dare you treat someone else, anyone, and especially another child of Jesus the way you all treated me tonight.

What’s Jesus’ policy on calling people “cock juggling thunder cunts” or comparing your desire for a full-time writing job to being homeless? I’m not a child of Jesus, so I’m a little unclear here.

It’s not only absurd, but malignant and cancerous, and no, I will not stoop to a reply. You don’t deserve the space for the comment in the first place. And yes, I delete and block all of you. I don’t care if I lose every single friend.

She said, in her reply, which she will not stoop to make.

I made myself from nothing and got this far all by myself. You have no fucking idea what I’ve been through or how hard I’ve struggled to get to where I am. No fucking idea! How dare you pre-judge me without even knowing me! And funny thing, not one of the twenty something blocks I enacted tonight were friends. They know nothing about me in the slightest.

This paragraph highlights exactly what people have been objecting to every time an author puts up a GoFundMe or a Kickstarter asking for living wages while working on their books. Every author struggles. Even mega names like Stephen King and J.K. Rowling have struggled. Yes, even E.L. “astronomical success out of nowhere” James produced her work without expectation of payment at the beginning. No one is guaranteed success or money for their work in any artistic field. Is it right or fair? No, but no small business owner is guaranteed success. And that’s what authorship is. It’s running a small business.

One of my friends on Facebook suggested that authors have started taking the “starving artist” thing a little too close to heart. Maybe that’s so. But Hawthorne seems to be suggesting that every author who objects to crowdfunding has never known a taste of struggle. We all have. Believe me.

So yes, I called them, Cock Juggling Thunder Cunts for a reason. They are! I pity the men in their lives. I pity their children. Run far, run wide. How dare they malign me in such a way, in my house no less!

Back it up, drama queen. The internet isn’t your house. And while Hawthorne has every right to delete negative comments from her Facebook or remove people from her online life if they’re causing her psychological stress, no one has actually come into her house and attacked her. And again, trying to take the moral Christian high ground while calling people cunts and suggesting they’re somehow abusive to their families (who should leave them) isn’t a tactic likely to open wallets.

Yes, they are fucking cunts and if that means I am excising potential readers, so be it! I wouldn’t want them in my life or my words. My words are precious and every single story I write is one of my children.

Honestly, I would be less turned off by an author calling someone a cunt than I would be reading them calling their words “precious” or their books their children. That’s honestly the red flag that keeps me away from a lot of authors, and I know this is true of other readers, too.

And on a final note, have any of you heard of sponsors for artists? Like seriously people, starving artists get donations all the time. I personally know of quite a few authors who have kickstarters or crowdfunding campaigns. What is the difference between me asking for help and some other artist being gifted money to continue painting, or sculpting or what have you. I simply don’t get it.

And here’s where we reach another real problem with her campaign. Patrons of the arts give money so that art can be created. But they’re not under an obligation to purchase that art after it’s produced. If I donate money to someone working on a screenplay, I probably get a copy of the movie for free. If I become a regular donor to the local symphony, I probably get better seats or free tickets for some kind of upcoming gala or something. Patrons give artists money to ensure that future creations will be funded. But what Hawthorne is offering to readers is material that’s already been produced (other levels upward of $5 are offered audiobooks or ebook collections from her backlist), and it’s assumed that she still expects readers to pay for her books in the future. Other authors who crowdfund their projects offer the future product to their backers, not the work they’ve already produced.

So it offends you? Move along, walk away, slither back into the shadows. What gives you the right to kick me when I am at my most vulnerable?

None of these people knew that Hawthorne was at her “most vulnerable” based on her GoFundMe page. What they saw was a writer describing the average life and larger than average compensation of any indie author and asking for more. And while there’s nothing wrong with asking, some people don’t like the model. If they sent abusive comments, that’s not right. But neither is suggesting that anyone who disagrees is just jealous because she’s prettier than they are, or calling them “cock juggling thunder cunts,” which is, by the way, not original to Hawthorne’s book, but a well known and often quoted insult from Blade: Trinity. 

Whatever your stance on author crowdfunding, invoking Jesus and Christianity, comparing your larger-than-average author salary to the life of a homeless person, repeatedly insulting authors and readers, and invoking hardships you’ve never previously mentioned as a way to shame people into giving you money in your very public author meltdown is a big, big Don’t Do This Ever.

 

DOUBLE STEVE BONUS MONDAY!

 

5 Animated Movies You Should Definitely See, If You Haven’t Already

I love animated movies. Here are some that I love, that I think you should watch, too. And I’m putting them in no particular order.

PERSEPOLIS

Based on the graphic novel memoir of Majane Satrapi, Persepolis is a true story of growing up in Iran after the Islamic Revolution and during the Iranian war with Iraq. It’s gripping and scary, and retains the style of the original black and white illustrations. I highly recommend reading the book first, so you can appreciate the frames reproduced directly in the film. It’s sad and funny, and the feminist ideals of the author remain intact in the film version.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS

Before Peter Jackson’s sprawling adaptation, Ralph Bakshi’s animated condensing of Tolkien’s The Lord of The Rings and The Two Towers were the only way to experience a film version of the fantasy epic. The film doesn’t stick to one animation style, utilizing rotoscoping, solarization live-action, and psychedelic lighting effects for a look that’s staggeringly unique. While significant cuts were made to fit the story into its two hour run time and the Rankin-Bass sequel was far inferior in comparison, this is worth watching, even if only to find the scenes that Peter Jackson blatantly cribbed for his version.

INSIDE OUT

The premise of Inside Out is fairly simple: your emotions are little creatures that live inside your head. Isn’t that quirky? Disney/Pixar could have gotten by on silliness alone, but instead they used the chance to show the effects of clinical depression on a preteen girl, in a way that audiences of all ages can understand. When Joy and Sadness go missing in Riley’s brain, only Disgust, Fear, and Anger are left to drive her through her day to day life. As Joy and Sadness struggle to help Riley, she shrinks from her old interest, friends, and finally her family. It sounds like a total bummer, but it’s packed with as much humor as sentimentality. As a bonus, it can give kids a better understanding of mental illness without the veneer of social stigma distorting the message.

THE PRINCE OF EGYPT

There are some stories that can just work better as animated movies. The scope of the story of the Exodus is huge, would require a cast of thousands or expensive CGI effects, and expensive locations. Dreamworks’s decision to animate it was a stroke of brilliance. Without the hindrance of having to pay extras or build elaborate sets, they were free to create a true cinema epic that, despite being marketed to families, pulls no punches depicting the brutality of slavery and the horrors of the biblical plagues. And while there are shockingly few Jewish actors or People of Color portraying Hebrew characters or character of color in the voice cast (off the top of my head, only Jeff Goldblum, Danny Glover, and Ofra Haza come to mind), the stylized visuals are stunning, the music is Broadway caliber, and the story proves powerful enough to resonate across cultural and religious lines.

THE LAST UNICORN

This is not only my favorite animated movie of all time, but it’s high in the running for my favorite movie overall. I rented this one over and over when I was a kid, but it was only after I watched it as an adult that I truly understood its themes of the destructiveness of possession, the danger of hubris, and longing to be something that you’re not. The visuals are enchanting, the voice cast is like this ridiculous cavalcade of talent, and I hardly ever watch it anymore because I can’t make it through the main titles (and the theme song, written and performed by America, as are all the tracks) before I burst into tears.

Jealous Haters Book Club: Apolonia, chapter 13

And we’re back, with more space rock nonsense.

Remember how in the last chapter–okay in every single chapter so far–Rory demanded answers about Cyrus’s weird behavior and everything that was going on? Well buckle up, because you’re about to get the exposition dump of your lives. Rory and Doctor Z are sitting on his couch, which she thinks he probably got from a garage sale.

Dr. Z was a humble man even though he’d won a Fields Medal, the Hubbard Medal, and the international Balzan Prize.

Okay…has this ever happened? I tried to find out via google, but I had no luck. It seems unlikely to me, because the Fields Medal is for math and the Hubbard Medal is for exploration. The Balzan prize kind of covers both of those, so probably people have won that one and the other ones, right? Is this like an EGOT thing?

He expected to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry one day for his thirty years of research on the calcium-sensitive proteins within cells and their biochemical language.

That’s kind of ballsy, to expected you’ll win the Nobel Prize. He’s like the Kanye of chemistry. Except Kanye is way more interesting.

But for over a year, he’d been obsessed with newly discovered, unusually regular radio signals coming from an unknown object in the Galaxy M82. His oldest and most trusted friend, Lucius Brahmberger, a renowned astrophysicist, had discovered the signal, and together, they had begun investigating the anomaly and Eric von Däniken’s paleocontact hypothesis.

Is this how science really sciences? You just start out in math, then wander over to chemistry for thirty years, than suddenly oh, space looks interesting, I’m going to give up all of this other work I’ve done and bop on over there? Because if that’s how scientists really work, I picked the wrong fucking field. That sounds perfect for someone with no attention span. Rory goes on to tell us that Brahmberger disappeared seven months after he first got the radio signals, and Dr. Zoidberg kept doing his research for him. He thought maybe he would find Brahmberger on the other end of the trail of space breadcrumbs or something. A secret government person told Dr. Z about the meteorite that landed in Antarctica, so Dr. Z rolled on down there, then came back with the rock. Dr. Z figured the meteorite was the same one that was sending the signals, so… This still doesn’t explain why Dr. Z has the rock. It’s specified in the text that he went to an Antarctic Special Protected Area, so he had to have an in to get there. Yeah, he had a “secret government contact” feeding him information, but how’d he physically get into the site? The secret contact was like, “Hey, I’m leaking information to this guy, can we get him a plane ticket and a permit?” Plus, those sites are already crawling with scientists and military, so why would they let Dr. Z leave with the rock? While we get two big paragraphs explaining how he knew about the rock, we don’t get any explanation as to why he was given this rock, or why it left the ASPA in the first place.

He lectured to his classes, giving no one any reason to ask questions.

Oh, that’s it? He’s just sneaky about it? Well, that explains everything. Except how he got the rock back to the states, but whatever. I’m seriously hung up on this whole “secret government contact” and nobody knows he took the rock with him until the government just finds out and has to come after him. Did the “secret government contact” put the rock on the plane and fly Dr. Z out of there, too? Too many people are involved in the chain of command here for the space rock they’re all studying in a remote location to just go missing. So, now Dr. Zoidberg is about to get all the answers he’s been looking for, and Rory is about to get all the answers she’s been hounding Cy for. Cy says:

“The specimen is dangerous, Dr. Zorba. It’s the last piece of a long-dead planet, Chorion. The planet had suffered civil unrest for years before wars, planet-wide devastation, and finally, what we had always thought was a plague led to its demise. The planet had been quarantined for decades. All of Chorion’s inhabitants are extinct.

“The remnant, your specimen, is something I’ve been tracking for a very long time. It contains inactive parasites, and given the right environment, those parasites could spawn. Earth was the perfect place for the remnant of Chorion. Fortunately, the mixture of nitrogen and oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere keep them inert, so there was no danger of the parasites reactivating. I tracked the specimen here with the intent to bring it back with me so that we could properly…dispose of it, just as we did the rest of the planet.”

I sighed. “We don’t have time for this.”

BUT THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANTED YOU WANTED ANSWERS FROM HIM WE’VE HAD TO LISTEN TO YOU INSISTING THAT YOU WANT ANSWERS AND YOU’RE GOING TO GET THEM AND NOW YOU DON’T HAVE TIME FOR IT? I’m so glad I’m reading this on my computer and not my Kindle, because the latter would be in pieces on the floor right now, and there are way too many empty Coke cans and discarded fruit snack wrappers around my computer for me to reasonably lift it in a fit of rage.

“Hush, Rory!” Dr. Z said, frowning and waving me away.

Slight diagonal clap for you, Dr. Zoidberg!

“So, you’re saying you…you destroyed an entire planet?”

“We had no choice. It was overrun.”

So, continuing the massive info dump, the parasite is dormant because the host is extinct, these parasites can wipe out a planet in like two days, and Cy is from a planet called Yun. Underlines indicate italics in the text:

“Yoon?” I asked, trying to form my mouth around the word.

“Yes, Yun. Its meaning is similar to sunshine.”

“Boring. Not even any Kryptonite in this story,” I said, my chin resting on my palm.

“So, my planet had to blow up another planet, because we’re aliens.” “Ugh, this is so boring. Can we talk about pop culture references now?” Yes, Mary Sue characters are important for the development of young girls learning to write. Professionals, however… I mean, seriously. The “spunky” heroine is unbearable, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I turned the page and found out that she was actually another daughter of Elrond, who has dazzling color-changing eyes and curves in all the right places.

Rory is going to end up paired with Draco Malfoy by the end of this fucking book.

The head of all the sciencey stuff on Yun got a signal from Chorion and had to go check it out, since it was coming from a dead planet. Their “Amun-Gereb,” Hamech, sent somebody over to find out where it came from, but they never came back. The signal that Dr. Brahmberger thought he was getting from the planet was really an SOS from the exploratory vehicle.

“What is a hammock?” I asked.

It’s a thing you put in your yard and lay in it.

“Hum-OCK,” he pronounced precisely with a slight accent. “He is our Amun-Gereb. He is a…like your President, but he leads our entire planet. He is king.”

So he’s not like a president at all, is he? He’s more like a king.

“Amun-Gereb,” Dr. Z said. “As in the supreme Egyptian god.” “That’s where Egyptians first heard the word, yes, from our exploratory teams, as they did Osiris, my namesake.” “Oh,” I said, nodding. “The ancient astronauts were real. The paleocontact hypothesis is correct! Please, Cyrus, go on,” Dr. Z said, engrossed.

Never has this picture been more appropriate.

Okay, so, this is a thing I’ve been thinking about, because I’ve been watching Ancient Aliens a little bit on the Netflix, and I started thinking about how weird it is, well, not weird, just racist, that we seem to feel that the only way–the only way–that a civilization of people of color could have possibly made these huge leaps of technological advance is with help from aliens. In our science fiction, we really do seem to be content with the trope that the ancient Egyptians not only were incapable of figuring out all those STEM fields they had on their own, they also couldn’t form their own culture. It had to come from aliens. That’s the conclusion a lot of people are content to settle on. Not that human innovation was responsible for the advances of this society on Earth, but that visitors from another planet is the most likely explanation. The only time we’re willing to accept the greatness and importance of the ancient Egyptians themselves is when we’re pretending they’re white.

The slaves and servants can stay black, though. Because the casting directors don’t see color.

Anyway. Exodus: Gods and Kings wasn’t science fiction, but The Fifth Element, and Stargate both were, and both featured that exact trope. They’re also two of the most celebrated science fiction movies of the last century. It’s so ingrained, Maguire probably didn’t have any idea that she was furthering this really offensive trope.

As a sidebar, there’s an episode of Futurama where the Planet Express crew delivers to an Egypt-like planet, where the aliens tell them all about how they visited Earth and met the ancient Egyptians. But the flip is that these aliens learned their culture and how to build pyramids and shit from the Egyptians, not the other way around.

Cy tells them about how the crew member who sent the SOS signal was already infected by the parasite, and she met a pretty grisly and painful end. Rory thinks about how Cy can still hear the woman’s screams, and how some memories never fade even if you try to get rid of them. But, you know. At the top of the page, this was all boring, until she could compare her own traumatic experience to it. Cy says he’s been studying humans since Heracleion was discovered:

“The underwater city discovered in 2000 near the Nile Delta?” asked Dr. Z.

So, remember Rory’s inane questions about how to pronounce shit? Writing Tip: Nobody talks like this. The pronunciation questions could have been cut, because they weren’t totally necessary. Instead, Rory could have asked what Heracleion is, and Dr. Zoidberg could tell her, and it wouldn’t feel so wonky. Here’s an example. Imagine if someone said, “I’ve been watching Doctor Who since the reboot,” and someone else responded, “The long-running British science fiction program which was rebooted in 2005?” instead of, “Oh, that show with the guy with the phone booth for a spaceship?” or something similar. It would sound pretty fucking weird, right? Anyway, back to Heracleion.

“It was an area of interest for our people around Earth’s three to four BC. Heracleion was a place our people visited often. There were many statues erected in my ancestors’ honor and many scripts detailing our assistance to the Egyptian culture. Part of my function is to make sure our civilization is protected, and the discovery of Heracleion was alarming to our council. Your oceans are vast and largely unexplored, and so for centuries, we weren’t concerned about the relics detailing our visits here, but once Heracleion was discovered, I decided to design a mission to extract any concrete evidence of our existence to prevent any unwanted contact.”

That’s another part of the science fiction Egyptians trope. The heroes of Egyptian myth weren’t borne of a need to explain the natural forces of life and death and the environment around them, but someone had to come from space to teach them to make these myths and put up statues. Also, if you don’t want people to know about you, maybe you should be like, “Hey, guys? The statues are flattering, but you probably should chill. You look a little desperate.”

Dr. Z  thinks they should try to make contact and an alliance and everything.

“You have to admit, historically, humans don’t make the best neighbors,” Cy said. “It would become, What do you have? And then, What do you have that I can take? And then, the fighting starts.”

I rolled my eyes. It’d be fascinating maybe, if it weren’t a huge steaming pile of bullshit.

I can’t tell here if Rory means the entire alien story, or just the idea that humans are violent thieves. If it’s the latter, shut the fuck up, Rory. You spent this whole book telling us about how little you trust people because of the violence you experienced. So, Cy info dumps more about how the parasites redirected the SOS signal from Chorion to Earth, using the infected crew of the vessel. Now, the CIA has these parasites on the rock or whatever, and probably Brahmberger, and they’re going to make him reanimate the parasites or something. But why the fuck would they want to? And what’s the point of a parasite that kills its host that quickly? In two days, it can decimate a whole planet? How is it surviving? And I’m so confused. Chorion had been considered long dead for decades. Then a signal came from it. So Yun sent a vessel. And that vessel found an alien vessel, and the alien vessel had been sending a signal to Yun. And there was life on the planet, but it was alien life, aka, this parasite. This parasite that wipes out an entire planet in two days, but was somehow still alive and thriving decades after the planet was dead. But most importantly:

“We can’t let Tennison keep the specimen, Dr. Zorba. If he manufactures a sustainable alien atmosphere, and the parasites are reanimated, none of us will last long.”

Okay, so…why would he do that, then? Does Tennison know that the parasites could reanimate if he put the rock in the right environment? Or is the danger that he might maybe just accidentally create the right environment? I need more information here before I can decide if this is a situation that calls for panic.

“Tell us what to do,” Dr. Z said.

“Hold on, I have questions.”

Like, two pages ago you were all, “We don’t have time for this,” Rory.

Cy frowned. “I know you don’t believe any of it. I expected that. But we can’t stay here. They’ll be knocking on the front door any minute.”

You just told the longest story in the history of exposition, but now there’s a sense of urgency? Rory asks Cy why he didn’t just take the rock the very first time he had access to it, and Cy tells her that he stuck around because he wasn’t sure how much “data” had been collected. He was worried that Dr. Z would hand over the “data” to NASA and they would send an exploratory vessel to the planet. The planet that…was…destroyed? NASA is going to send a ship there? And how does Cy know all of this stuff about our CIA and our government and humans, etc, but not realize how limited our manned spacecraft capabilities are? Then this happens:

“Why would the parasites redirect the beacon here?” “It’s a flourishing host.”

But how is it a flourishing host if it can’t survive in the environment? And if it’s dormant in the first place? I feel like a lot of stuff here just isn’t making sense at all. I’ve gone back and reread this chapter a few times and I’m still not understanding what’s going on. Because so far:

Cy’s planet got a signal from a dead planet.
They sent a mission there.
The planet wasn’t really dead, there were these parasites.
The parasites redirected the signal to Earth, where the environment isn’t suitable for life.
Cy’s planet blew up that planet.
A chunk of the planet just happens to land here.
Where a scientist might or might not seize it and create an environment in which the dangerous parasites could live.

There seems to be a lot of coincidence driving these events. And you know, science fiction is riddled with coincidence. But usually not this many, and not with so much of the danger contingent on further coincidences that sound unlikely at best.

Cy hesitated. “I am scheduled to leave. If I am not at the rally point at the predetermined time, I fear…” His eyes lost focus as he retreated into his mind.

“You fear what?”

Cy stepped out of the darkness into the only trace of streetlight coming into the room. “Apolonia.”

I love when they say the title of the thing IN the thing!

I wasn’t sure if Apolonia was the parasite or something worse.

I bet it’s worse. I bet it’s his fiancé. I’m calling it right now.

Cy tells them that Apolonia is “emotional” and that if he’s not at the abandoned gas station by the Old River Bridge at the right time, she’s going to come looking for him. That would be bad. But he won’t tell them why it’s bad.

Rory asks Cy if he’s going to take the rock with him, but he says he wants to contact his people first. He can get the rock from Tennison later, and he doesn’t want to involve Dr. Z and Rory any further. Rory points out that they’re pretty much already involved, and Cy agrees that they should all stick together. Cy made a reference to Apolonia’s crew during the discussion, and Rory wants to know what he means by “crew.”

Apolonia is a b-string Channing Tatum.

“Before I go running around in the dark in winter, I want more answers.”

Cy shifted, clearly impatient. “We can’t stay any longer, Rory.”

“Just answer this, and then I just have one more question, and then we can go.”

You know the scene in The Rocky Horror Picture Show where everyone is like, “Janet! Brad! Dr. Scott! Rocky! Janet! Brad! Dr. Scott! Rocky!”? Well, I feel like that scene is this chapter. “We need answers! We don’t have time! Rory, hush! We need answers! We don’t have time! Rory, hush!” Just with Rory and Cy flipped some of the time.

“Crew might not be the right word. They’re more like a retrieval team. Apolonia is the daughter of Hamech. She’s a highly decorated soldier and leads the Jhagat, Yun’s army. She is the captain of her father’s best warship, the Nayara.”

I swallowed. “And she’ll be emotional if you don’t show up because…Apolonia is your betrothed, isn’t she?”

BOOM! Called it.

Fuck. He really was going to leave. If even half of what Cy said about this woman was true, how could Earth compete with a Xena the Warrior Princess?

Never has an analogy been so far off the mark. Xena: Warrior Princess took place in a mythical AU ancient Greece. Apolonia is a space princess and the captain of a warship. If anything, Apolonia is Princess Leia.

Cy tells Rory that he’s sorry, and Dr. Zoidberg is all like, have you two had sex, and they’re like no, and he says:

“Good,” Dr. Z said, taking another step toward Cy. “Or else you would have to worry about more than just Tennison. Let’s get you home.”

Is this what he’s implying?

So, that’s what happens in this chapter. Everybody sits on a couch and talks about how much they shouldn’t be sitting on the couch while Cy explains the entire plot of the book to them and the readers.

DOUBLE STEVE BONUS MONDAY!

 

New Spam Filter Alert

Over the past week, the spam comments on this blog have gotten ridiculous. As in, thousands every day. Tez Miller, my awesome comment moderator was dealing with sorting through all of these comments to make sure your real comments got through (she also provides other services for authors who need help with stuff like taking care of your emails or social media accounts, and she’s super dedicated, so check her out if you’re interested), but we got a new plug-in to deal with the situation and I think we’ve got it taken care of now.

However, this is the internet. And shit almost always happens. If you posted a comment in the last twenty-four hours–and you were not trying to sell me sunglasses or discount Nike products–and you don’t see it showing up, please let me know either through my Twitter account or email. Those links are available in the bar above, under “contact”. We’ll figure something out through hard work, boot straps, good old American ingenuity, etc. or whatever.

STATE OF THE TROUT: 6 minute long rant about Miley Cyrus, plus other various newses

Hey everybody! Do you remember back in the day when D-Rock and I had a weekly show here on the blog? We called it Roadhouse and we talked about a lot of random shit. Well, it isn’t back, because D-Rock lives all the way across the country now. But someone on Tumblr was like, “Hey, I like that you’re doing more videos lately,” and I was like, “Yeah, why did I stop?” so here. Have a video in which I rant about how fucked up it is that Miley Cyrus can run around all over the place talking about weed and co-opting black culture when she’s not in any danger of being treated the way black people are treated by our drug laws. And I also touch on why abled people shouldn’t try to center themselves as the loudest voices in the pro-legalization movement.

OTHER NEWSES

Giveaway prizes are half-shipped. If you haven’t received yours yet, it’s probably because it hasn’t made it to the post office yet because I can only fit so many things into my bike basket. Things have been a little hectic lately and while I meant to get them all out last week, it just didn’t happen, so thank you for your patience and I promise the rest will ship tomorrow.

Book News! I’ve been figuring out my writing schedule for next year, and it’s not going to include as many self-pub releases. I’ve got a really exciting joint project I’m working on with someone with the intent of seeking a traditional contract, as well as an old release I’m retooling for similar purposes. But I do have two projects that are definitely slated for next year, Second Chance (which will be two new Ian and Penny dual novels) and an as-yet-untitled second spin-off from the Boss series, featuring Emir as one of the heroes. Yup, it’s going to be M/M.

So, that’s what’s going on in Trout Nation at the moment.