A.R. Jarvis's Blog, page 9

A Shared Range

Sand cake or terrarium?

It’s a three day weekend, so I went back to the elibrary looking for a hit. The first book I downloaded was so very, very terrible that I remembered why I thought I could write things people might want to pay money for. I mean, f’fuck’s sake. I won’t even tell you what book it was, it was so terrible.

But then I found the ‘sort by most popular’ button, and things improved. I ended up with A Shared Range by Andrew Grey, which is a tale of a modern cowboy and his path to love.

It’s a romance tale, set on a ranch that is magically not struggling for income (oh fantasy versions of reality, you so cute), but where they have occasional troubles with wolves reintroduced to Yellowstone Natn’l Park. Luckily the romance was the focus of the tale, because the side-plot about the wolves got increasingly improbable as the story went on.

The main characters are fairly solid. They don’t break any molds, but they are at least moderately dimensional. The secondary characters are all pretty cookie-cutter, for their part. It didn’t really detract anything from the story, it’s just…some room for improvement.

The romance itself was fairly…well. It was pretty typical, but sweetly done, and nicely balanced with the sex and pacing and prerequisite preaching about how gays are OK! The whole book had an overly-sweet style to it, and since it was a fairly long book, that got old pretty fast (enter: skim mode!), but I think lots of people like that–and honestly, I like too-sweet stories, too, I just like them to be a bit shorter–so it’s not really even a complaint, just a fact.

All in all a decent read for a quiet Labor Day weekend.

Shousetsu Bang*Bang #50

Walden Pond, because literature.

Sorry this wasn’t out sooner, I had things to do, and then I had a shitty day, and then I had other things to do, so I didn’t get through the stories as fast as usual.

But this is the 50th Issue of SSBB!! I’ve been reading them since, like…issue ….actually, I have no idea, but it’s been a hell of a long time, and I’m not even sure they’d made it to double digits when I started. Certainly not more than two dozen. It’s been a long run, and here’s to many more!!

I’m just sorry I couldn’t get my potential submission to work. Maybe I can get it sorted out in time for the winter edition. Or issue #70 (theme: the one that got away), whichever.

But at least I had all these lovely stories to console me. Overall I felt that this was a good issue. I really liked five of the nine tales, and the ones that I most strongly didn’t like were the ones that didn’t fit my interests, so I hold no grudge.

But you really just want summaries, so advance!

He Will My Shield and Portion Be, by Himawari: Set in Afghanistan in the near past, a certain minister and his flock of soldiers. Especially one soldier. Very sweet and heartwarming, with a lot of realisticness.

The Golden Rivet, by Iron Eater: Long enough to split into two parts, about a starship mechanic, and his lieutenant. Some dom/sub stuff, and not how you might suspect. It’s a good, solid tale, with a pretty nice burn.

Broken Bridge, by Hiwaru Kibi: A more lighthearted  tale of a man and his new soldier …guy, who suffers from PTSD. Also very heartwarming at the end, though realistic.

Attrition, by Kougyoku: A less cheerful tale, set in World War I. It’s solid, but written in present tense, which is not my favorite.

Gordon’s, Vodka, Kina Lillet, by Yukiyama Hibana: A James Bond honoring piece. I’m not a 007 fan, so it mostly went over my head, but I bet it’s wonderful if you are a 007 fan.

What Jack Ketch Knows Knot, by Aosora Hikaru: A curious little tale of a superhero and his loyal photographer. Mild BDSM.

Watch, by shukyou: One of my favorites, two soldiers get assigned to a remote watchtower (of the signal-fire sort). Their relief never arrives, but they make their peace with that. It’s a simple and relaxing escape of a tale.

Quantification, by Kimyō Tabibito: A couple attends a BDSM party, and the new guy (who’s previously identified as asexual) gets his first introduction to being a Dom. It was too…guide-booky for me, I think, without any sort of plot beyond a basic “will I be a good dom?” thus completed mostly in skim mode.

An Origin, by Ogiwara Saki: Two parts. Once again SSBB saves the best for last. An injured soldier finishes out his commission in India, at least partially on the grace of his rich aunt and uncle. Also a lovely look at the political and social situation of the setting and time period. Seriously an awesome story.

Tigerland

Okay, so, my boyfriend is out of town this weekend, which means I have all this extra time that I normally would spend on him, which in turn means that I spent it reading books instead.

Only this time I got an ebook from the library that I knew I’d like. Tigerland, by Sean Kennedy, which is a sequel to Tigers and Devils, a book that I read so very, very long ago I figured the statues of sequliation was probably up. But after a few sad let-downs from the library, I thought I’d go ahead and at least try to read something that I knew would be at least not horrible.

First I suppose I should say a few words about Tigers and Devils. I remember it being good, but not good, and that I’d been looking forward to the sequel, but only remembered to do that for a few months before I forgot such a thing even existed. I haven’t known the sequel was out for a while now, but since I read the first eons ago…

So I wasn’t sure what to expect of this book. Probably good, but probably not good was a start, and at least something about Australian Football, but beyond that…mystery.

Now having read it, I can say that it’s good, possibly even good. The characters are solid, the setting is Australia, their jobs seemed surprisingly realistic (for fiction…), secondary characters are just as wonderful, and have their own troubles to fight through. Secondary females are treated as people, and not horrible cliches (though I’m one to talk…). The plot was a bit slow and a bit thin, but there was enough going on that I didn’t really mind. And there was no explicit sex. Oh, and oodles and oodles of witty banter, which I love. OMG, be still my heart, for witty banter is here.

And, perhaps even more better than witty banter, this book didn’t rely heavily on the prequel. I didn’t feel like I was missing anything with my patchy and almost non-existant memories of the previous novel. Sure, there was a reference here or there that I would have caught better if I remembered the first book, but I’ve seen stand-alone pieces that have more missing information.

Which was simply wonderful, because ain’t no one want to type ‘tigers an–‘ into my kindle’s search function and download the original. I mean, gah, that would take all of what, sixty seconds? I ain’t got that sort of time on my hands, don’t be silly.

So a completely wonderful book, and one of the sort that I wish my library were full of, with a clear and simple go read this recommendation.

The Old Fashioned Fairy Book

Thanks for the jewel, but I still won’t marry you.

It’s been awhile since I’ve read a fairy tale book. I still love them, and want to read them, but I got somewhat carried away with finishing all the books on my to-read list, where the fairy tales are only added when I start reading them, so…it’s been awhile.

But I finally got around to starting (and finishing) the next fairy book on my list, which happened to be The Old Fashioned Fairy Book by Constance Cary Harrison (on kindle).

It’s a book of stories written by a mother who told these stories (or ones like them) to her children. They are in the vein of fairy tales, but the astute reader can tell that they aren’t.

Still, I found the first few stories to be interesting and fun, but the more I read, the longer the stories dragged, and the more clear the misogyny and racism and other outdated values became. Like the story where the little girl goes to a bunch of different “parties” (in her imagination because she was sick and couldn’t go to a real one), the first of which is in Japan with all sorts of horrible cliches, another of which is to the ‘Esquimaux,’ who give her a horrid oily baby to use as a pillow (her words, not so much mine). And then it just kind-of goes downhill. Or the tale where the Ogress throws pots and pans at the girl, but thank goodness the Ogress is female and none of them reach their mark (I didn’t want the girl to get hit, but come on).

Thus, by the time the medieval romances rolled around, I could hardly stomach them and their overt religiosity. So I maybe didn’t read the last few tales.

Should you read this one? ehhhh….no probably not. There are many much better things to read out there in the universe, although I suppose if you’re desperate there are also worse things to read.

Grown Men

Something like this

Last night I went on my third foray into borrowing stuff from the library. I hadn’t wanted to, but the internet was basically down, so I didn’t have a lot of other options (and my book of fairy tales has taken a turn for the suckage).

This time I limited the books to those available, and basically went with the first thing I came across, since I was searching on my phone and it was really very difficult to do so, and I ended up with Grown Men by Damon Suede. I was expecting it to be mediocre erotic (using the past to predict the future!), and I wasn’t entirely wrong, but I was also pleasantly surprised by the book.

The premise is that a guy is stuck on a world which he’s working to terraform, and he was supposed to have a “clone-wife,” but she died in transit, so they sent him a hulking brute instead.

I actually really enjoyed the world-setting, and the string of occurring events was decent, although not quite enough of anything to call a plot beyond the ‘relationship,’ which was the plot, and that’s fine, since this was an erotica book. The actual writing style did tend to meander into boring exposition at times, but it was never very long and never really unbearable.

But. The hulking giant was HUGE. Like, HUGE. And the other guy was tiny. I did not care for this distinct and unavoidable size-difference. The story would say “HUGE guy was HUGE,” and my brain would go “nononononooooo, that’s just…literary license.” But the story would insist “HUGE” and I…was alarmed, frankly. Plus the kink in the final and only sex scene was not mine (is it a spoiler if I say it was sounding?), so I didn’t read that hardly at all.

So, as with the last two library books, I’ll give the author another chance (which a bit more analysis of kinks and motifs before I begin), but not for a while, and in the mean time I’m going to try yet another new author in the hope of something good.

Hammer and Air

I went back to the elibrary and tried to find a decent gay fantasy book. My first three choices were already checked out (guess I’m not the only one…), so I went with Hammer & Air by Amy Lane, and it was…uh. Well, the sex was hot.

I’m going to do the spoilery thing, because I don’t actually think anyone should ever read this book, so if you plan to do so, you should maybe just go acquire it and do that. Otherwise I’ll save you a few hours with the following summary:

They had sex–actually, no, let’s try to summarize the story leaving out all the sex, as an exercise to see if that makes it seem legit. So.

Take 2:

Two friends, Hammer and our first-person protagonist (Eirn?), have grown up together in an orphanage, where Hammer always watched out for the MC. The story begins with them realizing it’s time to deepen their relationship, and setting up plans to do so in a few days. Then MC gets struck at work just before their meeting, and they decide to skip town, but first Hammer returns and offs the striker, so they really, really have to leave town. They spend a few months in the wilderness surviving on their skills with modest success, but once winter hits they get attacked by a giant cat, and Hammer is wounded. From there they stumble their way into a Snow-White and Rose-Red fairy tale–I mean, an enchanted cabin, where Hammer heals. A bear comes to visit, who we then learn can turn into a man, and who develops a crush on MC. The relationship between the three deepens (I said I’d leave the sex out). MC and Hammer apparently haven’t learned the word “love,” but eventually they figure it out, explain repeatedly to the Bear that they don’t want him, try to leave, have a run-in with a bear hunter on the way out, have to save the bear, who turns out to be a king. Then they live happily ever after (but just the two of them, in case you were wondering).

That doesn’t sound so bad. But just go back through, add at least one sex-scene at the end of each sentence, make every single secondary character a rapist (or potential rapist), add in a few issues of consent with the bear, and make sure you assume everyone is madly in lust with MC, plus include plenty of whining on the part of MC about how ZOMGwonnerful Hammer is. Oh. And then go back through again and change every instance of the word ‘was’ to the word ‘were,’ for authenticity of dialect. And then you might have a fairly complete representation of this novel.

The sex was sort of crude and hot, and I caught myself reading more of it than I usually do, but that’s not really high praise, and it’s not the reason I choose to read a book. I would not read this book again, and I wouldn’t really suggest that anyone else read it, although I think I might give the author one more try, since I can get them from the library, and it might have been an off-day, y’know? (plus I gotta support my name-sisters), but I don’t have high expectations. And I have a bunch of stuff to try and read before I get back to her.

Fireflies

Lots of fireflies trained to fly in unison

I thought the new SSBB was to be out this week, but then yesterday I learned that I was a week off, which is terribly tragic, since I’d planned my reading perfectly so I’d be doe with other things and could read SSBB this week.

Saddened by this flaw in my plans, I took me to the local library’s website, where I went on Overdrive and perused the gay books there. I wanted to borrow a Josh Lanyon book (‘cuz who wouldn’t), but it turned out that I’d read all of his that the library had, so I was at a bit of a loss. There’s a couple of authors that I’m pretty sure I don’t like, but who I might be confusing with a different author to the extent that I actually like them, and there’s at least one author that everyone else in the slash-reading world is agog over, who I am NOT confusing with anyone else, and who I frankly just don’t like.

Then there are a lot of books by authors I haven’t heard of, or authors that I’m not sure if I’ve heard of, and it’s tricky to look those guys up on goodreads out 0f the blue, plus I’d’ve been there all night…

Basically, I went with a pretty cover. I did check the book of GR, and I’ve read something by the author, which was unimpressive, but I figured I had to start somewhere, and if it was terrible, well, it wasn’t like I paid money for it.

Which is how I ended up with Fireflies by Ally Blue.

It’s a modest book in length and scope, and frankly also in quality.

There’s a guy who has a tattoo, and then has a mental break-down, from which he’s rescued by a fairy, but that’s okay because the fairy met him once when he was five, and so now they can have sex. And then we learn that he’s got some magical powers, so they have sex to celebrate. And then we learn that he is the son of the Antagonist, so they have sex because pity or whatever. And then they practice learning to use the magic, the Antagonist attacks, they go elsewhere, and have sex.

At which point Our Guy gets upset that he’s been pulled from the life that he had previously, to the extent that his magic acts up and separates them, the Fairy does some things that prove Antagonist ain’t all that dire, they reunite, and then they fly on a plane to a secret location, where they have to spend three chapters getting across a damn gorge. But when they get to this secret location they have lots of sex. Mildly kinky sex. Until Antagonist appears, and a few obvious and contrived things happen that aren’t really all that dire or intense until the characters muse about what could have gone wrong. But then they have sex.

So, you know, it was…eh. I read it, but also I almost fell asleep, and was pretty much in skim mode the whole time. It just failed to impress, I’m afraid. It wasn’t awful, but I’d have felt gypped if I’d paid money for it, honestly. Maybe a good choice for a non-picky reader on an empty afternoon?

Blameless, Heartless, and Timeless

I miss this lake.

You may have noticed, astute reader, that there haven’t been any posts here for awhile. Well, that’s because I was reading the last three sequels to Soulless, and I figured I’d just review all of them at once, rather than one at a time because it’s more efficient. Also, being of the same series, they are all pretty similar, so we’d all be bored if I did separates.

And, of course, then my reading went slow because I had the paper versions of the books from the library, and I’m not supposed to read at work. And if my boss is reading this, I never read at work anyway, so actually that had no effect whatsoever on my reading rate.

*ahem*

So. Blameless, Heartless, and Timeless. I liked all of them better than I did Changeless. In general I loved that Alexia is a very strong woman throughout, and…aw, crap, that’s all spoiler stuff, isn’t it? Well, I like her. I liked her less in Blameless, but even that wasn’t so much that I didn’t like HER as it was that I did not care for the way the author chose to write about her state. Which I cannot go into detail without spoiling everything.

I’m also not too very keen on the way the author keeps shoving red herrings into the stories. Because they lead to nothing, they keep making the climaxes feel flat. It’s kind-of nice in the sense that the reader has to keep guessing about what’s going to happen, and try to figure out if path A or path B is going to lead to the Conclusion, but the best best stories are the ones where you have to take both path A and path B to get there. So, some vague disappointment there.

Otherwise, I like Alexia, like I said, and I like the world set-up, which I don’t know if I said, and I suppose I’ll read more (there’s some sort of companion series, isn’t there? I thought I heard that somewhere).

The End.

The Forever War

ATTACK!!!

I was on a mini-vacation with my sisters this weekend, but some how a lot of it ended up being down time (while one sister took a nap, and then the other sister took a nap), so I finally got a chance to finish The Forever War by Joe Haldeman–although in the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that I read the last 45-minutes or so by the “flashlight” on my iPhone–which is really bright, and I wouldn’t recommend it (another flaw of paper books, I guess).

The book wasn’t recc’d specifically, but a person somewhere on this internet mentioned that they really liked it because the social aspects and how the fictional society handles homosexuality is interesting. And it was interesting.

The science was really awesome, too. It’s a book that includes FTL travel, but with the time dilation as a major aspect of the book. It was written back in the 1970s (here I am on the cutting edge of books again!), but the science is still pretty valid. Possibly more valid than certain science fiction stuff you can read today. I mean, time dilation, and also their ships didn’t have magical gravity (although they did have gravity, but from realstic physics), so that was amazing.

And the other interesting thing about it is that, since it was written in the 1970s, but is set in a war that begins in 1997 or so, it is itself displaced in time. Which is awesome, in a meta-ironic sort of way.

The homosexual society stuff is…basically there’s a soldier who gets sent on this war, which jumps him ahead several different chunks of time (decades at first, then centuries), and every time he returns to Earth society is vastly different, starting with open acceptance of homosexuality, which then leads to encouragement of it (as a cure for overpopulation), which leads to flat-out requiring it, and his heterosexuality being seen as a disease, and then…on into weirdness. It’s a very quiet sub-plot, and I thought it was an interesting look on how the future could play out, but it–maybe because their ‘overpopulation’ point was 9 billion people, which I think we’ve already hit? Or maybe because it went the ‘people are terrible‘ route, which I just can never buy on a societal level–it just didn’t ring true to me, if you know what I mean. Like, “well, okay, but society doesn’t actually work like that, and we’ve already dealt with a bit of this, but that’s not how it goes…” (they made a single common currency– HA! Euro, how’s that going?).

But it was interesting.

So the cultural world-building was interesting, and the science was interesting, which is great…but the plot was…less than.

It was a war novel, following the life career of a soldier who survived the whole 1000+ year war, so there was rising action as their weapons and engagements got more and more intense, and then it was over regardless of him, so I guess that’s realistic, but it felt a bit flat. Maybe I read too many sweeping epics, and I just don’t have a taste for realism in my war stories. A fruit-flavored-candy vs. fruit sort of issue.

Was it good? Yes. Do I regret reading it? No. Should you read it? Maybe; if my explanations of the interesting things interested you, then yes. If not, then no.

Oology 101

Could it be??

As some of you know, possibly since you stumbled your way here from there, I’ve been posting more of Eggs Unsung on FictionPress because…well, frankly because people actually read my writing there, and I sometimes get comments, feedback, or reactions (imagine that!). It’s also a place designed for the posting of stories, which cannot be said of this blog.

But, since EU is a really weird tale with an unfathomably strange world-setting, I’ve offered my readers an Oology 101 class to attend. I even said I’d try to make it funny (if I can). That’s the sort of thing FP frowns on, so I’m here, not with a review, but with …whatever this is.

I think it will look more like a Q&A session, actually, with Cyrphon and I sitting up front in padded folding chairs behind a folding table with a white tablecloth. There’s a dark blue banner draped over the table with the con’s logo on it. I’m nervously spinning a pen on my fingers–at least until it falls onto the floor, where I leave it, instead sitting up very straight, folding my hands in front of me, and hoping my bright expression hides the nerves.

Cyrphon’s tapping his fingers on the tablecloth, looking bored.

There’s also the panel host, who stands beside the table and speaks into a microphone. “Welcome to Oology 101,” she says, “a question and answer session with Qui, author of Eggs Unsung, and Cyrphon, the main character of the tale. I have a few questions prepared for you, and then we’ll open the floor for the audience.” She pauses for dramatic effect. “Now the first question is for Qui; how do you pronounce your names?”

“Thank you, Ms Jarvis. ‘Amy’ is pretty straight forward, but ‘Qui’ is pronounced ‘key.’ It means ‘who’ in French. I used to think that was clever.”

There’s an awkward pause. “I meant–” Ms Jarvis trails off with a half-gesture at Cyrphon.

“Oh, oh, right, well. It’s phonetic, just as it looks. ‘Cyr-phon.’ ‘sir-fon.’ Ampherdien is ‘am-fer-deen.’ Edgar is ‘ed-gar.’ Of course.”

“And what about last names?”

I look over at Cyrphon suspiciously. “You guys have last names? Is that in my notes?” I start to shuffle papers, looking, but the crowd laughs, so I play it off as a joke.

“The next question is for Cyrphon: What do the eggs do, once they are sung?”

Cyrphon frowns. “What universe are you from?”

“Cyrphon,” I caution, holding up a finger.

“Oh, fine. They sing. We sing to the eggs, and they start to sing back.”

“But is there more to it than that?” asks Ms Jarvis, looking a bit bewildered.

“Older eggs sing prettier songs.” Cyrphon sighs, and waves a hand through the air. “Look, I know what you’re asking, I had to take a whole course on it in college, but the point is that the eggs make beautiful music–they can be like a whole orchestra, or an orchestra and a half, like nothing you’ve ever heard, and little you can imagine. It’s beautiful, and some claim that it is the music of the heavens, but in the end, it’s just music. They sing.”

“It’s like having your portrait painted,” I cut in. “Mostly for snooty rich people, but still appreciable by all.”

“Okay, next question,” Ms Jarvis glances down at her notes. “I’m not sure which of you will be better able to answer this one, but, where do the eggs come from?”

Cyrphon raises a finger from the table, and I incline my head for him to answer. “They come from the aether,” he says. “Where the aether and the regular world meet, eggs appear, without warning or expectation.”

“People don’t make them?”

“How in the aether would they make one?” Cyprhon’s tone is scathing, so Ms Jarvis turns to me.

“Would you like to add to that, Qui?

I shake my head. “That pretty much covers it. Eggs are natural occurrences.”

“Okay,” she said, dubiously. “Then, my next question is: what’s the aether? where does it come from? is it something to do with the magnetic field of Earth, or the dark matter between galaxies?”

“What’s Earth?” Cyrphon asks, turning to me. “What’s dark matter?”

“Dark matters when the light won’t work,” I say, unable to resist. The audience titters. “I’ll explain later, Cyrphon, it would take too long right now. The aether is my answer to faster-than-light travel; something that avoids the laws of physics, rather than  pretending to honor them. It’s not outer space, not at all, but it has its own set of dangers. To Cyrphon and the people living in it, it’s just the stuff that exists between worlds–which are not planets, by the way. To us its a fantasy-like tool used to make a sci-fi setting work.”

“Can you do things with it?” Ms Jarvis asks.

“Some things. It’s been about a thousand years since they learned to travel through it, plus a few hundred before that to study it, and their scientists have found some things that can be made with it or from it, but it’s still mostly an incomprehensible substance, which does not do well being defined by our physical and chemical laws. And that’s why they don’t fully understand the aethereggs, either.”

“Huh. Guess that makes sense.” Ms Jarvis taps her pen on the top of her notes for a moment. “I the next few questions look like they are about Cyrphon’s scar, starting with where it is.”

“I can show them,” Cyrphon says, jumping up and reaching for the bottom of his shirt.

I yank him back into his seat. “It’s on his side–” I try to gesture, but realize the futility and grab my pen off the floor instead, scribbling quickly onto a piece of scratch paper. “Where’s that crayon…” I mutter as I work. Finished, I hand the paper to Ms Jarvis. “Can you put that on the overhead, please? The scar’s drawn a bit low, but you can get the idea.”

“That’s, um…” Cyrphon begins.

“My art degree hard at work,” I agree.

“I was going to say it was missing a few details, actually. But you made it even more embarrassing for yourself, so we’ll go with that.”

I sneer at him, but good-naturedly. “Remind me why I pay you?”

“I’m the best egg-singer you could imagine, remember?”

Ms Jarvis clears her throat. “I think that…illustration clarifies things, a bit. The scar isn’t red, though, is it?”

“No, it’s rainbow,” Cyrphon replies.

“Right, well, where did you get it? Or how, I guess. If it’s not too painful to say.”

“It happened back when I was seven,” Cyrphon says, waving away her concerns. He likes talking about himself, anyway. “I was on vacation with my family; we went to one of those aether-hotels, and I had the time of my life, since we had a patio that opened right into the aether–with glass and salt keeping it at bay, of course, it was amazing. Anyway, I ran out onto the patio at the exact wrong second one day, when a falling object smashed through. The metal protective doors snapped shut, and the vents started, but it was too late for little me–well, it would have been too late, had it not been for my mother’s quick thinking, and a handy salt-garden–”

“It’s like a zen garden, with the rocks and the rake, but the base is salt,” I interrupt to clarify.

Cyrphon glares at me. “My mom dumped the salt-garden on me, which probably saved my life by drawing out the aether-energies. It still took me years to fully recover.”

I roll my eyes, because I know it only took him weeks, which he dragged out to months for sympathy from friends and family. It grows in the retelling.

“And what about how your scar reacts to aethereggs?” Ms Jarvis continues. “What’s going on there?”

“I’ve been wondering that, too,” Cyrphon says, eyes on me. “I mean, I know that it burns, but why? I’ve always wondered that.”

I clear my throat. “I suppose there’s something connecting the two?” I say, rubbing the back of my neck. “They are both artifacts of the aether, so it makes sense that they’d respond to each other.”

“Other people have aetherscars, though,” Ms Jarvis says. “Do their scars react to eggs?”

I nod. “They do, but they’re usually blue-collar workers, who either don’t come in contact with eggs, or only come in contact with very young eggs–like as they collect them from the aether–and so any reaction would be less severe. Plus Cyrphon was so young, his body grew up with it, and learned to listen, I guess you could say.”

“Okay, well, I have only one more question before we open up to the audience; what’s the deal with silenced eggs? And Cyrphon has a muted one, doesn’t he? isn’t that the same thing?”

“My muted egg has been sung,” Cyrphon says, reaching into his pocket. I know he’s clutching it in there. “I sang it a few years back, and I figured out I can convince it to sing more quietly, but that’s like adjusting the volume on an emitter. If an egg is damaged, and the song cannot be extracted, then it’s silenced.”

“I know he just made muting sound obscure, but it’s not, it’s just that most people don’t bother adjusting the volume, especially since you need an egg-singer to do it,” I say. “Cyrphon here just thinks it’s impressive because he figured out how to do it without training. Silenced eggs, on the other hand.” I tap my fingers on the table as I try to come up with a succinct way to explain. “I guess it would be more like breaking an ipod; it stops making noise, but for more reasons than volume adjustments. Of course, to continue the ipod analogy for a bit; singing the egg would be like turning it on, muting an egg is like adjusting the volume, and then there’s silent, which is sometimes because the egg is broken, but can also be because the battery is dead. Oologists and singers can confuse the latter two states. Some egg-singers, like our esteemed Cyrphon, here, can tell the difference between ‘uncharged’ and ‘busted,’ but there the analogy breaks down because it’s a lot harder to sing a–a very quiet egg than it is to sing one that’s just not been turned on yet. Does that clear it up?”

“Eggs are like ipods?” Ms Jarvis asks, inquiringly.

I grimace. “Yeah, but I only just thought up that analogy, and I’m not going to rewrite the whole novel for it.”

“Well, that ends my list of questions,” Ms Jarvis says. “I guess we’ll open it up to the floor; what would you like to ask these two?”

A pair of men start to wander through the seated crowd, holding wireless mics, and I take a moment to sip from my water bottle. So far it’s been going well, I thought.

One of the men holds out a microphone to an audience member, who leans forward, and says…