EP458: If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love

[benjaminjb]

I read this story when it came up for Hugo voting, and it fell really flat for me. It has no plot, no character arc, and steals its structure from a children's book. It seems to be nothing more than a violent revenge fantasy against bigots, and the way the author threw in every kind of epithet she could felt emotionally manipulative, as if she's just trying to get as many people as possible to take the bigots' attacks personally so they can share in the joy of bloody retaliation.

Everyone's free to have their own opinion--oh, how I've gnashed my teeth over Hugo noms before remembering that truth.

But I think you miss a step when you say "It seems to be nothing more than a violent revenge fantasy against bigots"; that step is the fact that the violent revenge fantasy sours very quickly into the reality of revenge, the reality that people of all sorts leave behind loved ones whose hearts may break over their loss.

In that way, it seems more like a condemnation of bloody retaliation; and if we momentarily thrill to that retaliation, then we also get a momentary shock when we realize what that thrilling bloody retaliation would lead to.

Rather, a really delicious revenge fantasy would go something like: "And that guy who called me gay was secretly gay the whole time! Now we live in Tampa with our son."

[SpareInch]

A rather larger Nit Pick is that if you are right, and the victim is referred to as Shemale because he is Trans, then surely the attackers would have only known this because the victim was either TRULY Shemale, i.e. a Pre Op M to F Transsexual, or because they Read their victim as a Transvestite, even though En Femme. If this is so, If The Victim was M to F Trans, then the proper pronoun should be SHE.

True, The Victim could have been F to M Trans, but then the Shemale comment makes no sense. I have never heard of anyone having F to M "Bottom" Surgery, i.e. Hysterectomy and Penis Construction, but not the "Top" Surgery, i.e. Double Mastectomy.

In short, as a Trans piece, I find this story badly researched.

I suspect it's rather realistic for (possibly transphobic*) bigots to not care about the proper terminology while beating someone up.

*Well, OK. The fact that they're using "shemale" as an insult basically means that they're transphobic as well as homophobic, racist, etc. The question is whether their attack is motivated by transphobia or if that's just something they think is humiliating.

I was actually replying to another post rather than commenting on the story, and my pronoun nit pick referred to the narrator making it clear that her love was male. I don't think it is a Trans story, as it happens, just a bunch of what we Brits call Wankers beating someone up for being 'Not one of Us.'

As like as not it was his accent and erudition which got the 'My Love' character into trouble, since he was an academic, after all. Some people feel belittled by education in others. No idea why, since some of the stupidest people I ever met had more letters after their names than in them.

Hmm... Looks like I've commented on the story now, notwithstanding it giving me a desperate urge to go and brush my teeth by about two minutes in.

Too cutesy and sugary in style for my taste.

And yes, I do realise that that only counterpoints the subject matter, but it still wasn't my thing.

[RDNinja]

But I think you miss a step when you say "It seems to be nothing more than a violent revenge fantasy against bigots"; that step is the fact that the violent revenge fantasy sours very quickly into the reality of revenge, the reality that people of all sorts leave behind loved ones whose hearts may break over their loss.

In that way, it seems more like a condemnation of bloody retaliation; and if we momentarily thrill to that retaliation, then we also get a momentary shock when we realize what that thrilling bloody retaliation would lead to.

So the moral of the story is "Murder is bad"? Seems a bit obvious, but clearly some people never learn it, so you've got me there.

But even with a paragraph of backpedling from pure revenge fantasy, it still has no plot or characterization. Literally NOTHING HAPPENS in this "story". The narrator daydreams about dinosaurs while her fiancee lies in a coma. No one has any goals, takes any actions, encounters any resistance, or overcomes any obstacles. The characters were nothing but formless blobs of suffering presented to be sympathized with.

[Varda]

So the moral of the story is "Murder is bad"? Seems a bit obvious, but clearly some people never learn it, so you've got me there.

But even with a paragraph of backpedling from pure revenge fantasy, it still has no plot or characterization. Literally NOTHING HAPPENS in this "story". The narrator daydreams about dinosaurs while her fiancee lies in a coma. No one has any goals, takes any actions, encounters any resistance, or overcomes any obstacles. The characters were nothing but formless blobs of suffering presented to be sympathized with.

I think both the moral and action of the story could be summed up as, "A woman struggles to come to terms with the senseless violence visited upon someone she loves." It's about internal pain and conflict, which is perfectly legitimate grounds for storytelling. While I understand it's not to everyone's taste, I hardly thing it's fair to classify this type of story as somehow less legitimate than more traditional types of storytelling.

To put it another way, one thing I deeply admire about many of the best short story masters of our time (including Swirsky, and people like Kij Johnson) is their ability to make haiku-like use of relatively few simple words to pack a huge emotional punch. Sometimes less is more, and for many readers, the sparseness of Hemingway is more emotionally rich and resonant than the wordiness of Dickens. Such is the case with this story. If it's not your thing, that's okay, but no need to write off other readers' enjoyment of minimalist storytelling if it didn't connect for you.

[benjaminjb]

So the moral of the story is "Murder is bad"? Seems a bit obvious, but clearly some people never learn it, so you've got me there.

But even with a paragraph of backpedling from pure revenge fantasy, it still has no plot or characterization. Literally NOTHING HAPPENS in this "story". The narrator daydreams about dinosaurs while her fiancee lies in a coma. No one has any goals, takes any actions, encounters any resistance, or overcomes any obstacles. The characters were nothing but formless blobs of suffering presented to be sympathized with.

I thought about listing all the stories and books that you might want to steer clear of--god, nothing really important happens in James Joyce's Ulysses, it's just about a guy wandering around a city!; way to go, Uncle Tom's Cabin, could you find a more obvious message than slavery is bad!?; boo, John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar, you totally stole your structure from John Dos Passos!

But sarcasm may not be the best welcome to the EA Forum (and judging by the fact that you have 2 posts, you seem new here). So: Welcome!

I'm glad to hear alternate opinions and hopefully in the future can hear more about what you like. As Varda noted, this sort of story isn't to everyone's taste. The story isn't full of exciting episodes--someone is attacked (off-screen) and their love resorts to fantasy as a way to deal with their loss. If you don't like this particular story, maybe the next will be more to your liking.

And in times of artistic annoyance, I always like this cartoon.

[RDNinja]

Sorry, I didn't mean to come off like I was attacking other peoples' enjoyment of this piece; if you like it, really, good for you. I'm just trying to articulate why what apparently worked for you and others felt trite and shallow to me.

And yes, I'm new to the forums because I've only just worked though my backlog of podcasts to the point that I can comment while the conversation is still going on. Maybe I'll go comment on last week's story so I can get some positive thoughts on the record :-)

[Unblinking]

My thoughts on the story I posted in my Hugo short story review:

This story starts out with the whimsical hypothetical in the title, as spoken by a woman to a friend she loves dearly, and continues on to give real life reasons why she is pondering this whimsy.

The characters read as real once the story got to the story, but I found all the hypotheticals more irritating than entertaining or illuminating.  If A, then B. If B, then C.  If C, then D.  A story this short shouldn’t feel too long, but to me it did.  Eventually the story gets to the actual story behind the hypotheticals, but by that time I was just impatient for it to be over.

I can see why the story has such a following.  It has a strong emotional core.  But IMO, that core reveals itself too late, when the story text is more than half over.  If I had found the pre-emotional content at all entertaining, then it could've worked wonderfully for me, but as it was my progression of reaction was: flat flat flat annoyed annoyed annoyed EMOTIONALCLIMAX!

The neverending string of hypothetical statements does seem reminiscent of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.  But for me it put me more in mind of a string of car insurance commercials that have run in recent years that start with something like "If you choose a cut-rate car insurance company, then X" and string along hypotheticals until something ridiculous and clearly bad happens like apes taking over the world or something (I don't recall any of the details of the commercials, just the string of hypotheticals structure) and then ends with the conclusion: "Don't let apes take over the world.  Buy our car insurance".  Which I generally just found annoying for logic reasons, because many of the steps are not things that I would personally do, so the whole thing falls apart at its weakest link and the commercials weren't good enough to make up for that annoyance.

I was also generally unhappy with the Hugo Short Story category this year because it only had 4 stories (because of the minimum 5% vote rule that I think needs to be cut) and 2 of those stories were apparently not speculative, including this one.    And 3 of the stories just fell flat for me.

My vote for the category went:
1.  The Water that Falls on You From Nowhere.
2.  No Award.

I don't think I have yet found a Rachel Swirsky story that I liked.  I think I might be missing the gene for it or something--they never seem to invoke the response in me that they are apparently meant to.

[wintermute]

But for me it put me more in mind of a string of car insurance commercials that have run in recent years that start with something like "If you choose a cut-rate car insurance company, then X" and string along hypotheticals until something ridiculous and clearly bad happens like apes taking over the world or something (I don't recall any of the details of the commercials, just the string of hypotheticals structure) and then ends with the conclusion: "Don't let apes take over the world.  Buy our car insurance".  Which I generally just found annoying for logic reasons, because many of the steps are not things that I would personally do, so the whole thing falls apart at its weakest link and the commercials weren't good enough to make up for that annoyance.

Do you mean these ones? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxvNHE50-XE

[Unblinking]

But for me it put me more in mind of a string of car insurance commercials that have run in recent years that start with something like "If you choose a cut-rate car insurance company, then X" and string along hypotheticals until something ridiculous and clearly bad happens like apes taking over the world or something (I don't recall any of the details of the commercials, just the string of hypotheticals structure) and then ends with the conclusion: "Don't let apes take over the world.  Buy our car insurance".  Which I generally just found annoying for logic reasons, because many of the steps are not things that I would personally do, so the whole thing falls apart at its weakest link and the commercials weren't good enough to make up for that annoyance.

Do you mean these ones? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxvNHE50-XE

Ah yes!  No wonder I failed to find it searching, it's a cable company not car insurance.  "Don't chase butterflies into something highly illegal.   Get rid of cable and upgrade to DirecTV."

[Talia]

Ha. I enjoy those commercials. I should probably listen to this episode post-haste.

[matweller]

But for me it put me more in mind of a string of car insurance commercials that have run in recent years that start with something like "If you choose a cut-rate car insurance company, then X" and string along hypotheticals until something ridiculous and clearly bad happens like apes taking over the world or something (I don't recall any of the details of the commercials, just the string of hypotheticals structure) and then ends with the conclusion: "Don't let apes take over the world.  Buy our car insurance".  Which I generally just found annoying for logic reasons, because many of the steps are not things that I would personally do, so the whole thing falls apart at its weakest link and the commercials weren't good enough to make up for that annoyance.

Do you mean these ones? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxvNHE50-XE

or maybe these: http://budlight.whipnet.com





okay, I knew you didn't mean those, but one popped up in my iTunes the other day and made me laugh enough that I had to download them all.</conversation_derail>

[ElectricPaladin]

He should have been a dinosaur. Damnit, this episode punched me right in the feels. I think I need a feelectomy. Ouch.

[Moon_Goddess]

Wow, I'm working thru backlog of stories, I had to come comment on this

I think I might be the first to say this, but I enjoyed the story BEFORE it kicked me in the gut, but then again i enjoyed those directv commercials

I appreciated that the gut punch was crafted to be vague and apply to as many people as possible.    And damn was it a gut punch to me personally.

[Myrealana]

About halfway through, I was thinking this was OK. Silly, kinda nice, but not deserving of a Hugo nomination.

And then it got real. I was literally crying during the second half.

Wow, that was amazing. Well done Ms Swirsky.

That was my experience, exactly.

I was listening, thinking Hmm, she turned If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, et al, into a short story about a man becoming a dinosaur, and then, WHAM! My jaw dropped. I stared at my iPod in horror, then in tears.

Really, I don't care if it qualifies as SciFi or Fantasy or what. I was blown away by the emotional impact achieved by taking the whimsical notion and tone of a children's story and turning it around so abruptly.

[luka datas]

If he was a dinosaur..? Perhaps they would have taken self defense training or not gone strolling into a dangerous environment that gave no indication that it was a safe harbour in the first place. Taking the logic nowhere - venues that serve alcohol are places where violence is known to occur so why go there if you can't defend yourself unless it's to pretend that you can defend yourself and impress your girlfriend who hopefully isn't also a child and therefore should know better. But here a melodramatic impression of events past is clearly the more blameless reality to live in for the victims.

[eytanz]

If he was a dinosaur..? Perhaps they would have taken self defense training or not gone strolling into a dangerous environment that gave no indication that it was a safe harbour in the first place. Taking the logic nowhere - venues that serve alcohol are places where violence is known to occur so why go there if you can't defend yourself unless it's to pretend that you can defend yourself and impress your girlfriend who hopefully isn't also a child and therefore should know better. But here a melodramatic impression of events past is clearly the more blameless reality to live in for the victims.

I don't know where you live or what bars you frequent, but I've been going to places that serve alcohol my entire adult life and have never participated in, or even witnessed, violence in any of them (I have witnessed violence elsewhere, but that's not relevant).

[Scattercat]

No, it's okay, Eytan.  As we all know, in reality, the universe is predicated on fairness, and nothing bad ever happens unless you specifically do something to provoke it, since the inherent safety settings will ensure that only pleasant things happen to individuals who follow all the rules.  It's only reasonable to expect fiction to conform to those same principles.

[luka datas]

I didn't actually address this one so I will answer your criticisms of my take on it.

Where I live there are a collection of bars that are renowned for the violence that takes place in and around them and every Friday and Saturday night there are several people going to hospital because they have been assaulted and yet these people are invariably amazed that such a thing could happen to them.  I'm not saying that the people who are beating them up aren't animals at all. They absolutely are and they do tend to roll up every petty disappointment they have into a fist and throw it at whoever is unlucky enough to get in their way. All I'm saying is that sometimes and in a lot of cases an ounce of not being in their way is worth a pound of not getting pounded.

[Scattercat]

Obviously those were the bars in the story, then.  Weird that you and the author live in the exact same place and have the exact same lived experiences.

[Varda]

See, Scattercat, the problem here is our definition of "bar". Where I live "bar" is actually short for "barbarian den", and while alcohol may or may not be served (it varies), everyone knows their main function is providing a space for people to have violent fights. This is an extremely well-known function; it's advertized at the door, everyone signs a consent form before the first haymaker is thrown, and generally we all have a great time knocking out each other's teeth and breaking pool cues over each other's head. Just good ol' fashioned fun. So it really is a person's own fault if they're upset about getting the beat down, because they signed a consent form which was clearly explained to them before they entered, and now they just want to spoil everyone else's fun because they can't take a little hospitalization and possible death.

The only exception is that local ordinances prohibit attacking dinosaurs in these facilities. Absolutely illegal and completely frowned-upon. So that's what this story's about.

[luka datas]

Thankyou Varda. It is true that bars rarely get sued for the violence that occurs in them. Regardless of the frequency of violent acts that take place in them.

[Unblinking]

The only exception is that local ordinances prohibit attacking dinosaurs in these facilities. Absolutely illegal and completely frowned-upon. So that's what this story's about.

Of course!  That's because if you kill a velociraptor, you could be killing the LAST velociraptor.  There are, on the other hand, plenty of people cluttering up all corners of the planet, so a human killed violently here and there really just helps Mother Earth by easing the strain on her resources.  So if you do get disemboweled by a velociraptor in a bar fight after honorably refusing to throw a punch, as you're bleeding out on the floor and trying to hold your intestines in, you can smile beatifically in the knowledge that you've not only performed one perfect act that day, but two.




....What were we talking about again?  I may have meandered off the conversational thread.

[evrgrn_monster]

Listening to this story has finally inspired me to get off my butt and get back here onto the forums, if only because I need to do something besides cry.

Pretty much everything that I would say about it has been said, but I don't think I'm wasting my time by coming on to say that I really enjoyed it. I remember the previous story from this author, "My Heart is a Quadratic Equation," which I wasn't a fan of, so hearing that this was from her did not excite me.

However, this was just beautiful. Heartbreaking, and pretty much perfect. The best thing, for me, was how short it was. The author knew exactly how long this piece needed to be, and finished it off right when my tears really got going.

Love stories that really grab you and make you feel. Thanks, EscapePod!

[Unblinking]

I remember the previous story from this author, "My Heart is a Quadratic Equation," which I wasn't a fan of, so hearing that this was from her did not excite me.

"My Heart is a Quadratic Equation" was written by Shane Halbach.  This story, "If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love" was written by Rachel Swirsky.

[matweller]

I remember the previous story from this author, "My Heart is a Quadratic Equation," which I wasn't a fan of, so hearing that this was from her did not excite me.

"My Heart is a Quadratic Equation" was written by Shane Halbach.  This story, "If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love" was written by Rachel Swirsky.

They were both read beautifully by one of the hottest nerd girls to walk the planet, though.