Author Topic: EP101: The 43 Antarean Dynasties  (Read 62881 times)

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Reply #125 on: February 25, 2010, 06:45:21 PM
I've loved some of Resnick's other stories that have appeared here, in particular Barnaby in Exile.  He's a very good writer, able to trigger emotions in the reader (as the responses to every one of his stories has shown)

But this story fell flat for me.  A few reasons that I've figured out:
1.  No plot movement.  There was definitely conflict, the internal conflict of the guide.  But nothing about him or the tourists changes from beginning to end.  I guess that's the point, that nothing is going to change, but to me, having nothing change tends to make the story very dull.
2.  It carried a familiar theme, showing the evils of Western tourism, but didn't offer anything new to the theme.
3.  I would've really liked to get to know the guide's point of view, in particular where his views did not mesh with my views.  In this respect, I think the story would've been better served to make the tourists not so clear infuriating tourist stereotypes.  I'm not saying those stereotypes aren't sometimes true, but these are the sort of tourists that I, as a fellow tourist, would be pissed off at too.  If the tourists had behaved in a way that I would've thought was reasonably acceptable, but seeing into the guide's thoughts I could see how their behavior was infuriating, then it might've inspired new insight into how I behave when I travel.  Instead I was told that these people were jerks, when it was already clear that they were jerks.
4.  The SF setting weakened the emotional impact for me.  I'm not trying to re-open the can of worms that is the "Is it SF?" question.  My dislike for it is similar to my dislike for the fantasy setting of Narrative of a Beast's Life over on Podcastle.  Both take real-life settings which carry a great deal of emotion with them and make a minor change to make them fantastic/SFnal.  But the original setting is already so emotionally strong because these things REALLY happen, and moving them to another world where everything still pretty much works the same takes away some emotional impact.  If there were some traits of the alien world, whether it be differences in aliens to humans, or the materials they had for construction, or an infinite number of other possibilites, than the world could've been used to enhance the emotional impact, but because it was so similar to the real place it was based on, it just became a dim reflection with nothing vivid of its own.

Somewhere back in the topic thread was the question of why some books were in the literature section and others in science fiction/fantasy section, and how SF/fantasy looked down upon by many who declare themselves lovers of literature.  I don't have anything profound to add to the discussion but I wrote a blog post a while back that had a paragraph about this I particularly liked:

"Classic science fiction and fantasy is generally classified as literature also–I believe I’ve seen The Time Machine, A Clockwork Orange, 1984, and other classics in there. Is Speculative fiction like a fine wine, somehow gaining quality as it ages? If we’d been alive to taste of The Time Machine shortly after it was written, would it have ruined the experience because it wasn’t old enough? Maybe if I take a George R. R. Martin novel and put it in the book cellar, and pull it out again in several generations, it will have become literature, perfectly aged and fetching a handsome price from literature connoisseurs who will riffle the pages, sniff the binding, and read only a paragraph at a time so as not to be overwhelmed by the power of the prose between the covers."

Original post:  http://www.diabolicalplots.com/?p=155



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Reply #126 on: February 25, 2010, 08:08:29 PM
I think the comparison to "Narrative of a Beast's Life" is apt, and the reasoning sound.  I, too, read this one and said, "So why did this need to be actual aliens?"  It would have been MORE impressive, not less, if we were reading about real treasures and real ancient cultures here on Earth instead of hyperbolic miles-high monuments and exaggeratedly long-lived dynasties.



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Reply #127 on: February 27, 2010, 02:20:10 AM
On its own terms, this story was very well-written and engaging.

However, I must admit I really dislike the trope where humans/Earthlings represent The West (Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand) and nonhumans/extraterrestrials represent The Other (the whole rest of the world).  I'm willing to forgive when it's done really well, but I still groan inwardly whenever I encounter it.

To me, that's what this story has in common with "Narrative of a Beast's Life".  Also maybe with the EP story "Tk’tk’tk", though that one was cool and well-written enough that I'm willing to forgive.  I think Star Trek writers used this trope a lot too, maybe unconsciously.

"The meteor formed a crater, vampires crawling out of the crater." -  The Lyttle Lytton contest