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Chefelf's review of... the cat who (might) walk through walls

#1 User is offline   J m HofMarN Icon

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Posted 14 March 2005 - 06:41 AM

This review cracked me up, but it raised a lot more questions than it did laughter. In reading Chef's reviews of bad movies you dont get so confused because they only have an hour and a half and a five year old could tell an hour and a half long story without producing too many inconsistencies. This one however seems to me like a random diatribe by some street preacher. I have the following questions:

What time period are they in? Why do they have enough money to rent a space ship but not an appartment? Why is the author making such an effort to make us think that he believes rape and such things are wrong when clearly he's a sex maniac? What does the first part of the story have to do with the last part? Are any events in this book at all related? Couldn't you just read the end and be left with the same sense of general confusion you'd get from reading the whole thing? I think the best way to sum it up is with these classified adds I made for the characters.

Gwen-Hazel: Great great grandmother seeks stubborn arrogant male for night time computer screen romance.
Turn ons: dead guys and pancakes.
Turn offs: Free lunches
My ideal mate must enjoy writing at computer, solving (or not solving) mysteries, sexual innuendo, enslaving random guys in my appartment, foot grafting and not killing kittens.
Prefered Pets: A banzai tree named Tree-san.


Richard Ames: Doctor of something seeks hundreds of years older woman for rubbing cheese in heating ducts.
likes: Brontosaurus steak.
dislikes: Waffles
My girl has to enjoy freeing the moon, writing childrens books, having psychic links with computers, and bringing forth offspring who will seduce me.
Prefered pets: A kitten named Pixel who dosnt know that walking through walls is impossible.

If you wish to know more about these two swingin singles click this link.

Chefelf's review

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#2 User is offline   Chefelf Icon

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Posted 14 March 2005 - 09:57 AM

Wow, I didn't think anyone would ACTUALLY read all that. wink.gif

Let's see if I can't clear a few things up...

QUOTE (J m HofMarN @ Mar 14 2005, 06:41 AM)
What time period are they in?


A better question would be: What time period AREN'T they in? THey bounce around a lot but the book starts out circa 2155 or so (I think).

QUOTE (J m HofMarN @ Mar 14 2005, 06:41 AM)
Why do they have enough money to rent a space ship but not an appartment?


Maybe I was unclear. They are on the run from the moderator of this space station that they live on because Richard is framed for a murder he didn't commit. So they are fleeing rather than just kinda joyriding.

QUOTE (J m HofMarN @ Mar 14 2005, 06:41 AM)
Why is the author making such an effort to make us think that he believes rape and such things are wrong when clearly he's a sex maniac?


That's a difficult one. The author DOES think rape is wrong but he just has some very, very unorthodox views on sex. He has created characters in this book (and many others) that are extremely open on sex to the point that wild orgies can take place and include mother-father, daughter-father, son-mother, brother-sister sexual experiences. The strange thing is that Heinlein is SO open about it that, as the reader, it doesn't seem nearly as creepy as it probably sounds now. I remember someone describing Heinlein's sexual ideas to me (before I'd read any of his books) and thinking that it sounded pretty disgusting. Somehow he makes it work in his writing.

It's still pretty freaky though.

QUOTE (J m HofMarN @ Mar 14 2005, 06:41 AM)
What does the first part of the story have to do with the last part?


Nothing at all. That's probably the book's largest problem. There is no real plot at all and the events of the beginning don't effect the events that follow or the ending of the book at all.

QUOTE (J m HofMarN @ Mar 14 2005, 06:41 AM)
Are any events in this book at all related?


Barely.

QUOTE (J m HofMarN @ Mar 14 2005, 06:41 AM)
Couldn't you just read the end and be left with the same sense of general confusion you'd get from reading the whole thing?


I think so. I can't see why not. Book One and Book Two don't seem to have any sort of relationship to Book Three. The only thing they do is build the characters of Richard and Gwen.

I think you did a pretty good job with the character classifieds. Except I think Richard likes waffles.
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#3 User is offline   Chyld Icon

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Posted 14 March 2005 - 12:37 PM

All I managed to catch was that maybe the title was misleading. My cat's not even walked through a single wall, no matter how fucked up I get...
When you lose your calm, you feed your anger.

Less Is More v4
Now resigned to a readership of me, my cat and some fish
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#4 User is offline   J m HofMarN Icon

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Posted 14 March 2005 - 05:02 PM

Oh come on Chefelf, I read your writings as if they were the bible. That is to say that I skim through them looking for things I can wildly misinterpret. So who's up for some gay bashing in the name of Chefelf?

Hmmm, well those answers do make me a little less confused. As for book one and two developing the characters they only seem to get more confusing, the fact that Gwen is immortal for example. Perhaps the author figured this would make her more interesting in some way. It didn't.

She's still just a piece of luggage for the hero to drag around for no apparent reason, just like Bill and Tree San, who at the moment is my favorite character from the book. As for the other characters it seems they're being introduced very much like the characters in the Starwars prequels. "Things appear to be going just fine for Jedi knight Richard Ames, but wait! Here comes the fiendish Lazarus Long and a Rabbi with no legs! What could happen now???"

As for the cat problem I really get the impression that it was supposed to be a metaphor at first, but then the author just decided that he didnt have time to draw such a comparison and so he threw in a cat and told the reader it could walk through walls. That would explain the fact that the cat (I actually got the impression that it was a kitten and not a cat) that the kitten never really does anything at all having to do with anything. Regardless, it really is unforgiveable that the author could not devote one page to writing about this cat/kitten actually walking through walls.

But what's this at the end of your post? Ah, finally, something to debate. I can really picture literary scholars arguing over whether the main character did or did not like waffles and the moral implications of his breakfast choices. For my part I am on the side that says he dislikes waffles. He CLEARLY asks for brontosaurus steak, even though in a later chapter dinosaur meat is said to be dtought and tasteless, I think that it could still be considered as being better than waffles.

It's sad that the most interesting debate spawned by this book is about waffles.

By the way, I would suggest that you rate this book for Loathesomness of Hero, Boobs, Mentions of rape and guys kicked in the crotch, but then I realized that there was no villain to have joie de vivre.

This post has been edited by J m HofMarN: 14 March 2005 - 05:30 PM

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I don't know about you but I have never advocated that homosexuals, for any reason, be cut out of their mother's womb and thrown into a bin.
- Deucaon toes a hard line on gay fetus rights.
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#5 User is offline   Chefelf Icon

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Posted 15 March 2005 - 08:41 AM

The amazing thing is that the follow up book to this one (not really a sequel), To Sail Beyond the Sunset, heavily features the same cat,Pixel. In this book the cat is CONSTANTLY walking through walls. It makes me wonder if he mixed up the two books' titles before publishing.
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#6 User is offline   SimeSublime Icon

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Posted 15 March 2005 - 09:03 AM

You say this author is famous? I've never heard of him. Then again, I've never heard of a lot of people.

edit: And he clearly likes waffles. Who doesn't like waffles?

This post has been edited by SimeSublime: 15 March 2005 - 09:03 AM

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#7 User is offline   Chefelf Icon

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Posted 15 March 2005 - 09:43 AM

Sure he's famous. He's one of the great Sci Fi authors of the twentieth century.

Several unsuccessful movies have been made based on his books: Starship Troopers, The Puppet Masters, "The Red Planet", to name a few (i.e. all). wink.gif
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#8 User is offline   Laura Icon

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Posted 15 March 2005 - 11:00 PM

I've read <i>The Door into Summer</i>, which I really liked (he somehow made the creepiness factor of the main character kind of being in love with a 12-year-old girl work, ish, by having him and the girl go into stasis at different times, so that when they woke up 50 years later, he was still in his 20s and she was 18). I've also read <i>Have Spacesuit, Will Travel</i>. I don't remember the romance in that one but I remember there was one. Possibly with a girl who appeared to be young but was actually old? Can't recall.

Oh, and I read Starship Troopers. There's a lot in that book about how corporal punishment is great. Don't remember the plot, though.

This post has been edited by Laura: 15 March 2005 - 11:01 PM

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#9 User is offline   J m HofMarN Icon

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Posted 16 March 2005 - 01:23 AM

This guy seems to have a thing with twelve year old girls... I'm really glad they omitted that part from the movie of Starship Troopers.

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I don't know about you but I have never advocated that homosexuals, for any reason, be cut out of their mother's womb and thrown into a bin.
- Deucaon toes a hard line on gay fetus rights.
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#10 User is offline   Chefelf Icon

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Posted 16 March 2005 - 10:05 AM

QUOTE (Laura @ Mar 15 2005, 11:00 PM)
I've read <i>The Door into Summer</i>, which I really liked (he somehow made the creepiness factor of the main character kind of being in love with a 12-year-old girl work, ish, by having him and the girl go into stasis at different times, so that when they woke up 50 years later, he was still in his 20s and she was 18). I've also read <i>Have Spacesuit, Will Travel</i>. I don't remember the romance in that one but I remember there was one. Possibly with a girl who appeared to be young but was actually old? Can't recall.

Oh, and I read Starship Troopers. There's a lot in that book about how corporal punishment is great. Don't remember the plot, though.


There is ALWAYS a part where there's a girl/guy who is really old but appears really young. He's obsessed with rejuvination and people living forever. I can't say I blame him... it's a good thing to fantasize about.

And there is almost always a part with creepy/inappropriate sexual conduct. Somehow, though, he always seems to make it work. There is a scene in To Sail Beyond the Sunset where he pushes it a little too far. The main character finds her two children in bed having sex (brother and sister) and she crawls into bed with them, naked. Then she embraces them and talks with them and they're all naked in bed together. Even though no sex takes places, that part kinda freaked me out.
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#11 User is offline   Rory Icon

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Posted 22 March 2005 - 08:22 PM

I read "Citezen of the Galaxy," which was pretty good, though I can't recall any strange sexual practices. The beggining was a little shaky, but the bits about the kid being on different space ships and shooting missiles using the guidance of very complex math were top notch. The ending was kind of a cliffhanger, if by cliffhanger you mean that the reader is assured that some day, through a combination of hard work and following the paper trail of stocks and bonds, the main character will discover how the slavers get paid, and then cut their funding using his contacts and maybe a little help from the law!
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#12 User is offline   Laura Icon

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Posted 22 March 2005 - 11:38 PM

I think his kids' books have less sex stuff. "Maximillian Jones, Star Adventurer!" or whatever (which is what I read when you read CotG) didn't.
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#13 User is offline   J m HofMarN Icon

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Posted 23 March 2005 - 04:32 AM

This guy was allowed to write children's books...? Somehow that just strikes me as wrong. You can write books about happy dogs having adventures through time, and you can write books where twelve year olds seduce their great grandmothers boyfriend, but you should not do both. It would be like Anne Rice writing a childrens book:

"And then Lestat did some very naughty things to the nun and so she killed herself. Lestat felt very bad about doing naughty things to the nun so he decided he would kill himself too. Lestat went out to the dessert and it was very dark until the sun came up. "Hello!" said the sun. "Hello!" said Lestat. Then Lestat felt very bad, because the sun was cooking his flesh! The moral of the story is don't do naughty things with nuns!"

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I don't know about you but I have never advocated that homosexuals, for any reason, be cut out of their mother's womb and thrown into a bin.
- Deucaon toes a hard line on gay fetus rights.
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#14 User is offline   Laura Icon

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Posted 23 March 2005 - 08:14 AM

Okay, okay, okay: There wasn't ANY sex stuff in the kids books. Just science fiction stuff. It was very pure and clean and adventuresome.

Anyway, by "kids books" I don't mean, like, picture books. They were chapter books aimed at, you know, 12-15-year-olds. YA, dude. YA.

This post has been edited by Laura: 23 March 2005 - 08:15 AM

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#15 User is offline   J m HofMarN Icon

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Posted 23 March 2005 - 07:19 PM

Oh ok that makes me feel a bit better. I think it would be really funny for a parent to come home while reading the sex scene in To Sail Beyond the Sunset and discover that their preschooler was reading a book by the same author. Well, funny for me, horrifying for the parent.

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I don't know about you but I have never advocated that homosexuals, for any reason, be cut out of their mother's womb and thrown into a bin.
- Deucaon toes a hard line on gay fetus rights.
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