Chefelf.com Night Life: Fir - Viewing Profile

Ahh, just the brain-wrenching excercise to get a weekend rolling. But is it just my post-May Day cephalic impotence or did this review have more verbal twists and turns than usual? I had to listen to it three times instead of the usual two just to get the sentences basically straight, and I'm still left curious about a few phrases I can't seem to decrypt.

Not that I'm complaining, the fourth go still had me breaking into nervous giggles. The time's never wasted, either; ZP is such a lovely lead brick of healthy education, sneakily injected through the nose while the victim's distracted by habanero lemonade poured down the optic nerve. Where it burns just right.

But now I seriously need to go and try to shake off the dreadful ZP contagion by grunting monosyllables for half an hour so I can start to communicate with real people again.

--A carve-by deity

PS. The ungamer guidance section? Sweet Yahtzee, you know we love you best since your shrapnel surprises never target our favourite pasttimes.

Thanks for the read. I've written a thesis on the topic for you to save time not reading, in return.

I feel that this story was by nature a mix of animation/comic with prose. Some of the best things about it you couldn't have done with pictures, unless you go for truly extensive talk-bubbling which is justifiable cause for authorcide in many civilized countries. But I also think some of the worst things about it would have fit right in with pictures, moving or still. Particularly the witty dialogue sections with little in between referred to earlier.

Don't get me wrong. Whenever a *comic* writer tries to do something witty with prose splashes, I pull my hair and empathetically wish they'd pick a genre and stick with it already (expressed with a "GRRAAAGGHH!" ). Comics are supposed to be about the visual element; for book-reading, I prefer continuous black neat text on white without distractions. On the other hand I notice that a mix of talk-bubblish dialogue with prose doesn't bother me half as much. It feels a bit like they're the draft for parts where the story's just not quite finished yet. I'm used to it like I'm used to having strange relatives, since it's the format I occasionally dream in.

I don't know any of the characters from before either, sorry. Hence it was a bit difficult to keep track of who was who - except for Hole, who my imagination bonded with immediately. I've seen enough invisible or partially invisible people gags in comics to last a lifetime, but putting one in prose made my brain twist in a quite pleasurable way. I'd like to read more of this curious gesturing.

Despite the personality tracking challenge, I think the main reason why I liked Trilby and the Ghost more wasn't the lower character count as such, but that I was granted access into Trilby's head and his motivations. With Crates of Babies, most of the time I'm just an outsider listening to other people chattering. It makes me feel all lonely and dejected.

This is also something that seems to keep me turned off many scifi-ey stories; many of them focus on waving around big banners of technology speculation (possibly combined with politics ripped off from history and/or 1984) and treating even the main characters as mere inconvenient statists in the story. It's the scifi heritage; if you start talking about mushy stuff like minds and feelings, you're either heading straight for the murky depths of scifi-fantasy or wake up tomorrow as Greg Egan. But reading samples of the traditional approach leaves me fumbling for a mind to connect to.

Lastly, I've gotten a distinct impression that ass-kissing does not bring happiness to Yahtzee's life, but I also feel a responsibility to underline what I like so that people don't randomly just stop doing it. For me the highlights for this one were 1) the contrary to popular belief educative tidbit - nice choice for teaser, too, even though it didn't get processed before I saw it in context; 2) moment of dimensional confusion among planet-dwellers (I could also hear them thinking, which made me all warm and snug); and 3) the practical limitations of Hole's gesticulation combined with the "I suddenly have the opportunity to make this situation about a million times worse and by God I'm going to take it" gem.

As for future writing votes, I watched the Youtube video tribute to 'Cadabath' (The Tall Man) linked to back last August and it made me ache for something/anything strange to read revolving around the concept. (In a format gentle to us ignorants, preferrably.) I'm new; I don't know yet if something of the sort's already hidden in the parts of the features collection I haven't read, but I just know I'll be thirsty for more even if the entire Don't Mention Panties Game series is already dedicated to this jolly entity.

--A drive-by critic