(no subject)

[mrissa]

I would have sworn that if you got a story idea that was, "What if George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden got married in an alternate universe? HAhahahahaHA!", you should maybe, at most, post it on your lj in the above one-sentence form and move on with your life. I am mistaken. Apparently you should send it to F&SF, where they will give you some of my money for it.

Also, the David Gerrold story in that issue goes beyond the maudlin dog story into a saccharine-walled moral pit, and I hope I do not meet the man at a con, because while I wouldn't actually have any difficulty not punching him after reading that damn story, I would sit there and think about it really really hard.

yhlee, darlin', you'd have classed up the joint anyway, but I'm sorry it took so much work to do so.

Comments

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

But if they'd done that, Dave Truesdale would have had one less thing to froth about.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Is he frothing about the Turtledove lameness? Is he frothing that it's lame? Because if he is, he's right. It's totally lame. I'm no friend of the president or bin Laden, but it doesn't even make a pithy point about them.

If he's frothing about it having a take on a conservative political figure, he needs to refocus on THE LAME. I mean, take whatever point you want on the political spectrum or spectra, this story is STILL NOT GOOD. And that matters a good deal more than who it's about.

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

While I didn't outright hate the Turtledove story when I read it (as much as I may have enjoyed the sentiment), I was left with the feeling in my craw that if I had sent it in, rather than H.T., it would've been bounced.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

No. Kidding.

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

That is, unfortunately, true of a vast number of writers and stories.

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

I know--it had just been a long time since the realization of this struck me so sledgehammery.

[valancy.livejournal.com]

that's just pathetic.

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

So help me, I think I actually have to buy this issue.

[scott-lynch.livejournal.com]

"Saccharine-walled moral pit" is a really wonderful phrase. What's the deal with the story it refers to? Your vituperation leaves me curious.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It was not just a dog-killing story under the guise of sweetness, it was a recursive dog-killing story under the guise of sweetness.

HAAAAAATE.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

There is a dog-killing story that's supposed to be _sweet?_

This is grammatically correct, yet makes no sense.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh, the puppy saved the stupid human, how sweeeeeet.

This is honestly not a spoiler: the minute the dog shows up, you know the poor beast is toast.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Gahhh. I have the issue, I think. Now I don't know whether to shun it, or read it just for the frothing.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It was the last line of the story that really made me froth. Be forewarned.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I think the last line was supposed to be really creepy and disturbing. I thought it was somewhat creepy and disturbing, but as an ending, it just seemed pointless.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

By that point it was clear that there was not going to be a satisfying resolution, though: there really was nothing that could happen in 3/4 of a page that would have been satisfying. So the pointlessness was not surprising.

Plot of this story: child turns into amoral monster. M'ris fails to care.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I went ahead and read the beginning of the story, skimmed the middle (they took a _shelter_ _dog_ for this? gah!), and read the end and...dear. Oh, dear.

::frothing::

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

*hands Hannah a towel for the froth*

Yep. I warned you.

[chance88088.livejournal.com]

I do not get GVG's sense of humor at all.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I like funny things. Who doesn't like the funny? But sometimes the senses of humor displayed in some of the major SF mags convince me that the guidelines that say "we don't want humor" aren't that unreasonable. Except that I'm not sure that bad stories in deadly earnest are any better at all.

[ammitbeast.livejournal.com]

I would have sworn that if you got a story idea that was, "What if George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden got married in an alternate universe? HAhahahahaHA!", you should maybe, at most, post it on your lj in the above one-sentence form and move on with your life. I am mistaken. Apparently you should send it to F&SF, where they will give you some of my money for it.

I had much the same thoughts myself after reading Turtledove's story.

Also, the David Gerrold story in that issue goes beyond the maudlin dog story into a saccharine-walled moral pit, and I hope I do not meet the man at a con, because while I wouldn't actually have any difficulty not punching him after reading that damn story, I would sit there and think about it really really hard.

My reaction about half-way through reading The Man Who Folded Himself was to pitch it across the room where it scuttered into the bedroom and hid under my bed. 'Nuff said.

That happened only one other time while reading a story in Barker's Books of Blood. I later rethought my reaction to Barker's story and re-read the it, realized why it bothered me so much, and concluded that it was a damn fine story.

I have yet to re-evaluate Gerrold's stories.