EP143: Flaming Marshmallow and Other Deaths

[Camille Alexa]

So, I was going through the archives of Dinosaur Comics, when I came across this little gem from December '05:[. . .]
Guess we know where the idea for the death machines came from, now. A Canadian talking T-rex.

Hi, wintermute!

YEP!  Ryan North is one of the three editors for the forthcoming Machine of Death anthology.  You can find more about the project at
http://machineofdeath.net/a/

Thanks for listening!

[wintermute]

Hi, wintermute!

YEP!  Ryan North is one of the three editors for the forthcoming Machine of Death anthology.  You can find more about the project at
http://machineofdeath.net/a/

Thanks for listening!

Huh. I didn't know there was an actual connection. I thought it was just an odd co-incidence.

I ought to get the anthology sometime. But my to-be-read pile is a foot high at the moment.

[Holden]

Looks like the collection will be on podiobooks once it is released. I'm interested.

[lieffeil]

Oh my goodness. SO many comments.
First of all: Dinosaur comics are excellent. Check them out if you haven't.
Second: The wood chipper thing was in Fargo, but not in the postmortem revenge on the doctor scenario that you're talking about. But it was still disgusting.
Third: The story.
I thought long and hard on what was bothering me about this one, and I think it's the stereotypes. Combined with the intro, about SF and young adults.
Because this is not a story that I would give to a teenager, not if you wanted to get them into Science Fiction. The main character, while appealing in an easy to recognize way, was not a strong main character. I couldn't stand it if there was an entire novel based on her, unless she went through some radical changes. Not all teenage girls are that annoying, in fact most of them are quite intelligent when given a chance. That didn't shine through. This girl had no deeper thought about what was happening around her. No self-respecting teen would read something this degrading and ageist, and still enjoy it, especially if given to them by an older person. It would come off as patronizing.
And wouldn't it be great if those awful stereotypes weren't perpetuated? Maybe if we stop saying "teenagers form cliques based on ridiculous criteria", then they'll stop thinking that it's natural and expected behavior. This is like saying "The women are meant to stay in the kitchen", and then shaking our heads in baffled disgust when they do. Is SF really supposed to reinforce our negative customs of segregation?
I hadn't thought so.
A little disappointed.

[Unblinking]

I quite liked this one, and Camille Alexa's officially on my list of authors to watch for.

This made total sense to me as the logical result of high schoolers finding out the cause of their deaths.  It's no less asinine than any other clique-formation justification.  And just like splitting into groups based on skill/interest in sports that you'll all rarely play after high school, it's very likely an inverse of how potentially successful these people might be after they graduate.  The ending highlighted this particularly well with the difference in how she reacted and how her father reacted, though I think the most likely result will be that she'll lie to her classmates about what her slip said.

And, for the record, I'm not a father, so add me to the not-parent-but-liked-the-story roster.