Author Topic: Pseudopod 109: In the Coils of the Serpent  (Read 14590 times)

Millenium_King

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Reply #25 on: June 30, 2010, 09:57:05 PM
WARNING: THE BELOW IS JUST MY OPINION

Sorry to double-post, but I wanted to editorialize for a minute: one of the biggest things that bugged me about this story, and turned me off to it immediately, was the opening dialog "hook."  I hate dialog that just floats out there in the beginning of a story.  Steel Beach starts with a similarly ridiculous line ("The penis is obsolete!") - it's just designed to rope the reader in.

Now, there is nothing wrong with a strong "hook" for an opening line (read "Dagon" by HPL for example) - but I hate it when it's done in dialog.  That sort of technique works fine in film; The Godfather, for example, opens with the line "I believe in America" delivered via voice-over on a black screen.  It works in The Godfather because, despite the absence of visual information, we can tell the speaker is male, old and Italian - and probably not a native english speaker.  So much information conveyed by one little sentence.  But in written form, it falls flat on its face: the 1st line of this story is just for shock value and is delivered without any prior establishment of who is saying it, and where he or she is.  Films are successful because of their ability to convey large amounts of information swiftly - written stories cannot succeed on the same merits as films.  A stronger opening would have been something subjective, from the point of view of the character perhaps reflecting on the case from a future perspective (Lovecraft is master of this - read "The Whisperer in Darkness" for a strong example).

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Reply #26 on: July 01, 2010, 01:59:19 PM
I know for a fact there's an X-Files episode about a psychic who has visions by touching objects and the "they drowned out of water" feels so very, very, very familiar that I am SURE I've seen it before somewhere.

Psychics having visions by touching objects was not made up by the X-Files either.  Stephen King's The Dead Zone comes to mind, which also spawned a TV series.  And I've seen it in a variety of other places that aren't coming specifically into mind.  I think it might be rooted in some traditions of magic that go way back, but I don't know that specifically.  I'm not saying you should like this story, I'm just saying that pretty much all of the ideas on the X-Files were in turn taken from somewhere else.  There are original ideas out there, but not as many as one might think.  It's okay to use an idea seen somewhere else, it's all in how you use it.



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Reply #27 on: July 01, 2010, 02:24:52 PM
Ah, "psychometry" is the word I was looking for.  It's not as old a concept as I suspected, but it's still quite old, according to Wikipedia having been coined 160 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychometry_(paranormal)

I think I first came across the concept in a D&D-style choose your own adventure book when I was in grade school.  When you set up your character at the beginning you could choose any one of a set of magical disciplines--the magical equivalent of psychometry was one of them.  It was quite handy, though I had more fun with the summoning of elementals.  :D



Millenium_King

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Reply #28 on: July 01, 2010, 03:54:07 PM
That's true - but the criticism that this episode came across as an X-Files ripoff still stands.  In my opinion, both the concepts and the execution were unoriginal.

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Fenrix

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Reply #29 on: July 01, 2010, 08:20:05 PM
That's true - but the criticism that this episode came across as an X-Files ripoff still stands.  In my opinion, both the concepts and the execution were unoriginal.

X-Files is a ripoff of the Twilight Zone with the bolted-on lame excuse of trying to weave in some meta-plot. Nothing can be original to a jaded consumer.

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Millenium_King

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Reply #30 on: July 01, 2010, 09:24:34 PM
This may be a little off-topic, but...

While I agree, the X-Files wasn't a total ripoff of the Twilight Zone: both are real products of their respective eras.  The Twilight Zone was crammed with American jingoism and cold-war paranoia - while the X-Files pursued a more Gen-X cynicism and distrust of traditional values and government.

Both were not original in subject matter, but were original in their perspective on it.

Back to the story...  This story did not offer an original perspective on an old idea.  That's why I was bored with it.

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Reply #31 on: July 02, 2010, 01:52:25 PM
Back to the story...  This story did not offer an original perspective on an old idea.  That's why I was bored with it.

Fair enough.  I just thought it worth pointing out that few ideas are original, X-Files least of all (though I did like the show).  It's sort of like the "Simpsons did it!" argument.  If you avoided every plot that has occurred on The Simpsons, well, there wouldn't be much left.



Fenrix

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Reply #32 on: July 03, 2010, 06:58:28 PM
MK, you read the words, but missed the point. Bless your heart. I get the impression that you're jaded and have oversaturated yourself. I hope your search for happiness and satisfaction goes well.

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Talia

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Reply #33 on: July 03, 2010, 08:48:09 PM
Bless your heart.

Heheh. Are you an American southerner, by any chance? :p



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Reply #34 on: July 04, 2010, 04:26:45 AM
In all fairness, this is a pretty weak story.  It relies very heavily on cliches and doesn't rise above its monster-of-the-week cop-show roots.  I don't really get the sense that it was trying to, and certainly not everything has to be a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, but it's a very workaday story.  I think the comparison to an unimpressive X-Files episode is apt.  (Or a filler episode of Buffy.  Really, any supernatural conflict show with an overplot that needed to kill an hour every now and then with something neither deep nor memorable.)  There's a boilerplate cop and a boilerplate monster, they fight, and Good wins.  Hooray.

Heck, most people couldn't even figure out the setting.  If that's not a sign that a story isn't working all that hard, then I don't know what is.



Millenium_King

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Reply #35 on: July 06, 2010, 09:04:49 PM
MK, you read the words, but missed the point. Bless your heart. I get the impression that you're jaded and have oversaturated yourself. I hope your search for happiness and satisfaction goes well.

1.  "Jaded and oversaturated?" Maybe.  If you'll notice, I've been tearing through the entire PP archives.  But I've always been a difficult critic to please.

2. "Happiness?"  Well - no offense to PP - but I doubt I'll find lifelong happiness and fulfillment in a short story.  But, I have found more than a few which I've liked immensely.  I am compiling a "Top 10" list.  It's not done, but you can see it here:  http://ankorsabat.blogspot.com/

Bless your heart too!

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