REVIEW: End of Month Reviews #79 - July 2010 [spoilers]
Saxon Brenton
saxonbrenton at hotmail.com
Mon Aug 30 20:32:32 PDT 2010
[REVIEW] End of Month Reviews #79 - July 2010 [spoilers]
Reviewed This Issue:
Derek Radner's Private Journal #6 [ASH] {high concept 11}
Journey Into # 13 [8Fold] {high concept 11}
Legion of Net.Heroes Volume 2 #37 [LNH] {high concept 11}
Also posted:
Legion of Net.Heroes Volume 2 #38 [NTB/LNH/ELSE] {high concept 11}
Lifetrap [ASH] {high concept 11}
What? They're *all* entries for High Concept Challenge?
(High Concept round 11 was themed 'death traps', by the way. You
can tell that this was put forward by the writer of Doctor Developer,
can't you?)
I'm flying off to Melbourne on Wednesday for Aussiecon 4 - the 2010
world science fiction convention. I note with amusement that there's only
one item that is important enough to be repeated: 'Build a Lego Dalek'
(once for the kids and once for adults) which is a fan fundraiser event.
Meanwhile, I'm still indulging my schadenfreude by watching federal
politicians squirm as they try to come to terms with the hung parliament
result from the Australian national election two weekends ago.
Spoilers below:
====
Derek Radner's Private Journal #6
'Deathtraps'
An Academy of Super-Heroes [ASH] series {high concept 11}
by Dave Van Domelen
If I recall correctly I've pointed out on a previous occasion that
the conclusions reached in _Derek Radner's Private Journal_ couldn't
necessarily be trusted, simply because Derek's logic was sometimes warped
by his own immense ego. In this case I also have to disagree with the
conclusions, but this time simply because I have a slightly different
definition of deathtrap. The taxonomy that Dvandom outlines is a
perfectly reasonable definition based on the conventions of pulp
adventures and four-colour superheroes, and makes a distinction between
booby traps (instant kill) and deathtraps (slow enough for the victim to
see what's happening, feel fear, and perhaps be able to solve the puzzle
of how to escape).
Nevertheless my immediate reaction upon reading that was to
disagree, and then reflect upon why I was disagreeing and realise that
my gut reaction was to use a broader, more colloquial meaning of
'deathrap'. For example, a building that's a fire hazard can be called
a deathtrap. This was at least in part my motivation for my own deathtrap
story in _LNHv2_ #38 (involving a deliberate magical effect that kills
instantly anyone using a firearm in a way that the creator defines as
'wrong' (and, incidentally, was derived from an old character defence
idea I developed once in a roleplaying game)).
But as I say, that's a minor definitional issue based on how much
you rely on genre conventions. Once you accept the premise, it's fine.
Perhaps more to point, how typical of Derek - whose own ego and flair
for attention-grabbing prompted him to style himself as a costumed super-
villain - to zero in on the melodramatic, showy aspects of deathtraps.
Journey Into # 13
'The Five Graph Trap!'
An Eightfold [8Fold] series {high concept 11}
by Tom Russell
Well, that's unusual. A supervillain who in his more... I'm not
sure whether to call them 'more lucid moments' or 'less psychopathic
moments'... recognises that his solutions to the world's problems are
just as much a threat to the world as the problems themselves.
I'll split this discussion into two halves. First is the style,
which in some ways can be considered to be in contrast to the substance.
It's bouncy and fun, and is used to describe a world of four-colour
heroes and villains. Take, for example, the opening lines:
| A year ago, Shaka Zoom took over the world for the third time. His
| rule lasted nearly two whole days-- surprisingly long in the world
| domination game
which is more-or-less the standard piece of writerly trickery for
implying a world beyond the one that is directly described - a world
where insane and amazing things are performed by superhumans every day.
You would have seen it before in places like the _Astro City_ comics or
novels like _Soon I Will be Invincible_.
A minor quibble is that the often long and elaborate sentence
structure that is used to reflect Shaka Zoom's thought processes is - in
places - overly elaborate. Now, in the discussion thread that followed
in the wake of this story's posting it became clear that I wouldn't know
what the proper definition of a 'run-on sentence' was if it came up and
bit me. I will cheerfully accept that these sentences have the proper
punctuation to be grammatically legitimate. Nevertheless, it remains
the case that when I initially read the first paragraph I had to go back
and re-read to make sense of it. It's legible once the reader knows
what to expect, but it's confusing when first encountered. Just a minor
something to be aware of.
Finally there's the main point of the story: Shaka Zoom's plan to
neutralise himself. To lock himself away in such a manner that he cannot
escape, and to be clever enough now to keep himself from later out-
thinking the trap he's set himself. But at the risk of going all
grimdark, the obvious question is: if you think you're such a threat to
the world, then why don't you just kill yourself? Well, to be fair that
issue was dealt with: he can't bear to end his own life. That's fine,
lots of people share the same visceral reaction. But as a super genius
there are also options like: synthesise the stereotypical 'cure for mad
genius' that gets used in a number of mad science webcomics. Well,
maybe that type of 'self maiming' of yourself comes too close to suicide
to be feasible.
Now, the point here isn't really to iterate all the possible ways
of neutralising oneself as a threat. Rather, what occurs to me here is
something that's probably incidental to what Tom was intending when he
wrote the story. (Probably) quite by accident we have a piece of
characterisation that goes to the major flaw of a lot of supervillains:
a self-centredness that allows them to take extreme ideological steps
with others (such as taking over the world) while being unable to take
the same steps with regards to themselves.
Legion of Net.Heroes Volume 2 #37
'Death Trap'
A Legion of Net.Heroes [LNH] series {high concept 11}
by Martin Phipps
You know, Deja Dude is *soooo* lucky that he's the one writing the
story. Normally doing something like creating a death trap and putting
people inside it to see how they react and then showing up to explain
you evil scheme is the mark of a villain. (Staying outside the story
marks you a writer, which is much safer and allows you the option of not
being lumbered with things like Idiot Plots unless you actually want to.)
Fortunately the characters soon recognise his plotting style and just go,
"Oh, it's just Deja Dude. He'll just turn up and rescue us from this
crazy situation he's dumped us in this issue." The worst thing that can
happen is that it's embarrassing because for the most part it's correct
(as Catalyst Lass points out), rather than something that would have
incited the Legionnaires to go gang up on him in a Fight Scene.
----------
Saxon Brenton University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au
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