How to Talk to Girls at Parties, from The Hugo nominees - overall discussion

[eytanz]

5. How to Talk to Girls at Parties - ... It also had some idiot plot: It was obvious from the first sentence that the girls were not human, but the boys somehow managed to remain oblivious. 

If this story was on EP we could debate this in its thread, but since it isn't I'll say it here - I don't think this discrepency is a flaw in the story; I chalked it up to the "old memories" nature of the story and the difference between the narrator in the present, where he knows the truth, to his past self as a boy who is too caught up in his own awkwardness to actually notice what's going on. Also, I'd say that the way the boy reacted - not immediately jumping to a fantastic explanation and just assuming he's not properly understanding something or that the girls are being weird - is exactly how someone in his situation would react.

For me, this story reminded me of my own awkward days as a teenager - and well into my twenties - learning to relate to women. In my case, none of the girls I met were ever the physical manifestation of a self-replicating, genocidal alien meme/poem, but some were just as fantastic, in a somewhat different way.

The reason I didn't rank this story higher is because, well, it doesn't really go anywhere. It's captures a moment and a feeling beautifully, but it doesn't have a real plot, and thus was less satisfying to me than Impossible Dreams and House Beyond Your Sky which have both, in their own ways.

[Russell Nash]

If this story was on EP we could debate this in its thread, but since it isn't I'll say it here

There's no reason for it not to have a thread.

[eytanz]

Good point. Thanks for moving my post

[Listener]

5. How to Talk to Girls at Parties - ... It also had some idiot plot: It was obvious from the first sentence that the girls were not human, but the boys somehow managed to remain oblivious. 

If this story was on EP we could debate this in its thread, but since it isn't I'll say it here - I don't think this discrepency is a flaw in the story; I chalked it up to the "old memories" nature of the story and the difference between the narrator in the present, where he knows the truth, to his past self as a boy who is too caught up in his own awkwardness to actually notice what's going on. Also, I'd say that the way the boy reacted - not immediately jumping to a fantastic explanation and just assuming he's not properly understanding something or that the girls are being weird - is exactly how someone in his situation would react.

I think that the tone of the story was more important than the SF factors.  We've all had moments we look back on fondly where something happened that we can't quite understand or remember 100% correctly.  For this guy, it happened to involve alien babes.  It's one of those private memories that he wouldn't necessarily tell a lot of people, but as he's the narrator, it feels like he's telling the story for himself and we just happen to be able to hear it.

[oddpod]

i liked it

[DKT]

I read this story in Fragile Things and then listened to it on Gaiman's website after finding out it wasn't going to be on Escape Pod. 

I was thinking about it again today while listening to some music and it hit me, this story is about as close as you can get prose-wise to putting on a cd that makes you feel something (usually something nostalgic -- maybe something that causes you to remember friends or a certain event).  I still stand by my ordering of who I'd vote for in the Hugos, but this story has grown on me.

[Loz]

In a way I think it's a good thing that Steve was unable to get it for Escape Pod, unless he'd managed to get Neil to read it (or I suppose, pass along his reading of the story) as I don't think anyone else would have got it quite right. It's much of a piece with the other 'autobiographical' work that Neil has written (in quotes because it's a mix of stuff and situations from his childhood with fantastical elements mixed in) it reminded me of 'Violent Cases' and 'Mr Punch', two brilliant longer form pieces, with art by the mighty Dave McKean.

It uses a device, I'm not quite sure how to describe it, false cluelessness?, where the narrator is less aware of what is going on around him, in Mr Punch the narrator is remembering his childhood and doesn't understand the web of adult relationships going on around him and, though an adult now, refuses to editorialise on what he understands now that he didn't then. I know this sort of thing irritates my friends who aren't or who have fallen out with Gaiman's prose work now he doesn't write comics so much. To me, the conceit of the story wouldn't have worked if it hadn't been Neil reading it, but to whoever it was who said the narrator should have worked out what was going on straight away, are you saying that you've always been completely aware of what's going on around you every second of the day and have never been distracted at all by the prospect of a glimpse of metaphorical stocking?