REVIEWS: End Of Month Reviews #98 - February 2012 [Spoilers]
Saxon Brenton
saxonbrenton at hotmail.com
Fri Apr 13 17:41:50 PDT 2012
[REVIEWS] End Of Month Reviews #98 - February 2012 [Spoilers]
Reviewed This Issue:
Bite-Sized Tales of the LNH v20 #5 [LNH20]
Kung-Fu Holmes [LNH20]
Lady Lawful and Doctor Developer #27 Special [ASH] {HCC27}
LNH20 Comics Presents #10-13 [LNH20]
Menace #1 [LNH20]
Nudist Man: Origins [LNH20]
One Day At A Time: The Chronicles Of Mike Kittyman #23 [MISC]
SW10: Superhuman World 2011: The Element of
Surprise [SW10] {HCC27}
Ultimate Mercenary #6 [LNH/LNH20/FWVI/4W/RACCies]
Worse Than The Disease [ASH]
Also Posted:
The Element Of Surprise [ASH] {HCC27}
Looniverse Y #10 [LNHY/LNH/LNH20] {HCC27}
Seeing If I Can Post Man: The Dark Poster Returns [LNH]
SW10: Powernaut #6-9 [SW10]
Team Xero #16 [MISC] {HCC27}
[ Anal-Retentive Archive Kid walked through the Legion of
Net.Heroes Headquarters to the Plot Device Room. It was locked, of
course.
[ Now, there had been a time when it would be locked to keep
Easily-Discovered Man Lite out. Because it housed the Legion's
membership status board, you see, and after the continuity snarls
in the early issues of _The Adventures of Easily-Discovered Man_ there
was no freaking way they were going to let EDMLite anywhere near
something that told you exactly where every single LNH member was.
[ These days it was also locked to exclude Anal-Retentive Archive
Kid as well.
[ ARAK paused just outside the Plot Device Room, feeling an
uncharacteristic wave of weariness and regret overtake him. Easily-
Discovered Man Lite. Ever since the Writers had decamped en mass to
the LNH20 imprint, Lite and Deja Dude were the only other Writer
Characters in the LNH classic setting apart from himself who were still
active and being written by their original creators.
[ He dismissed the thought; now was not the time for angst.
Nevertheless, he continued to stare blankly past the door.
[ And then Anal-Retentive Archive Kid thought: No.
[ And Anal-Retentive Archive Kid thought: That's not angst.
That's apathy using angst as an excuse.
[ And then Anal-Retentive Archive Kid - for who overthinking
something was not necessarily a flaw - thought: Oh, you cunning Beast.
You've got more than one trick up your sleeve.
[ He squared his shoulders, then unlocked the door by tapping
Ultimate Ninja's pass code into the touchpad and stepped inside. ]
The theme for the 27th High Concept Challenge was 'The Element of
Surprise'
Spoilers below:
=====
[ The Apathy Beast roamed through the text, snuffling and growling
at the intrusion into its territory.
[ (All text was its territory, all story was an intrusion.)
[ It stalked up to the review of _Bite-Sized Tales of the LNH
v20_ #5 and started gnawing bloody great chunks out of it. ]
Bite-Sized Tales of the LNH v20 #5
'I Never Metafiction I Didn't Like'
A Legion of Net.Heroes 20 [LNH20] series
by Adrian J. McClure
Well well. Right off the bat, a problem. Not a particularly
troublesome problem, of course, but still. As the continuity note
introducing this post explains, Adrian created this series as
an anthology for one-shot short stories,
and retroactively included a number of
small LNH20 stories as the first four
issues, including 'Kung-Fu Holmes'
(which I want to also touch upon,
briefly) as issue 4. So, which
order to write them up with in
the EoMR? Decisions decisions.
Well, no, not really. I'm
belabouring light work for the pur-
pose of humour. I'll format them under
the original titles they were posted as, and
leave any retroactive organisation for the purposes of internal
continuity and the publishing of a hypothetical trade etherback.
In this story Fearless Leader and January Frost discuss the
meta- fictional state of the LNH20 universe. Oh,
how could I resist a story like that? Well, I
helped to inspire it, so I guess it's
partly my fault. ;-)
In what is essentially a question and
answer session the two of them outline
what they refer to as the 'metafictional theory of
reality'. At base this is the notion that comedy and drama
are the two major forces that define superheroic reality; an
idea that's been ported over from the LNH classic imprint. Their
discussion goes a bit further, positing that the complex interplay
of these forces generates a variety of genre tropes, and
the extent to which people being... well, 'forced' may or
may not be too strong a word... to conform to those tropes have free
will. The discussion concludes with the pithy summary that the forces
of comedy and drama are simultaneously making the world more random
and structured (drama to give the universe form, and comedy to
give it movement? If so, then there's another idea from LNH
classic), meaning it's simultaneously undergoing 'Cerebus
Syndrome' and 'Reverse Cerebus Syndrome'. And then, to keep
the whole thing from being a dry infodump, it's capped with the
appearance of a literal reverse Cerberus, a dog with three bodies
connected by one head.
Actually, despite that last line of mine and the misgivings
expressed by Adrian in the end notes, the story isn't just 'a
big metafictional infodump'. Yes, it's overwhelmingly
an infodump. How- ever it also weaves in bits of
characterisation and descriptions of backhistory. I liked
it, but then I would. Other people with have different
reactions, but it's made the token effort to be a piece of fiction in
its own right. (Which does create one interesting effect
that I noticed only now as I come to type up this
review entry: The infodump aspect is obviously
meant to be a guide on how the Looniverse-20
setting works. But because the information is
expressed in a conversation as speculation,
it's very suggestive rather than declarative in
nature. It's only when it gets to the end notes and
Adrian makes the statement that at this point only the
immigrants from the LNH classic setting are aware of the
Writers that we get a firm statement on how this information
should actually be handled.)
[ Anal-Retentive Archive Kid arrived. He had kitted himself out
in a lambent armour, a defensive suit of hard light hologram and force-
fields, plus some other bits a pieces of weaponry that he thought might
be useful.
[ The Apathy Beast spotted him, snarled and began to stalk towards
him. ARAK fiddled with the controls of a timeindex manipulator,
intending to slow the Beast's passage of time to a crawl and thereby
remove any advantage of speed the creature had.
[ This made no change that ARAK could see. .oO( Interesting, )
thought ARAK, unable to stop himself being analytical even in the face
of approaching danger. .oO( These readings show that it's resisting the
temporal drag. Huh. And here everyone thought it only had emotional
manipulating powers. Okay, let's try lagging it as well. ) ARAK
activated another device, and between the two effects everything else
in the area began to move incredibly slowly. . . ]
Kung- Fu Holmes
A Legion of Net. Heroes20 [LNH20] special
by Tom Russell
As already noted, this has been retroactively declared
to be _Bite- Sized Tales of the LNH v20_ #4 .
The main thing that struck me about this post is
that it's more of a vignette than a fully fledged
story. I mean, it's a story in the sense that it
has a problem to be resolved, but that's done in the
most cursory of ways, via the use of Mr Ellipsis's
powers to elide around events. For the most part it's
a post that introduces (or re- introduces, in the case
of Mr Ellipsis, who was originally called Mr Elision in
his LNH appearances ) new characters to the LNH20 setting .
That makes it more like the character introduction posts
that dominated the original LNH waaay back when it was
starting out on the newsgroup rec. arts. comics in the
early 1990s . Back when everything was either what we
now call chaotic add- on posts, or simply throwing mud
at the wall and seeing what stuck . Before people
started writing structured net. comic series with ongoing
storylines.
Of course, chaotic add- on cascades and one- shot
stories posted as random inspiration struck someone never
really went away . Nevertheless, I'm wondering if the
current state of effective near blank slate of the LNH20
setting makes it particularly amenable to this type of
introductory post . Regardless of whether or not introductory
posts become more common now in the LNH20 than they
were in the second decade of the LNH , is it the
case that they'll be useful in the elimination rounds
of the great demolition derby, as new characters struggle
to find a place as a high profile member of the
revised Legion?
Is it the case that - whether consciously or not -
the LNH20 writers are ( or should be ) searching for the
iconic character of the next Cheesecake- Eater Lad? Or is
that just me searching for a metaphor to round out an
EoMR entry?
Ah well . So, plot wise, Kung- Fu Holmes, Counter-
Clipper, C'Mon and Mr Ellipsis rescue kittens from a
multi- sided attack.
[ Anal-Retentive Archive Kid killed the slow-down effects. He had
noticed that they were starting to hinder the Apathy Beast's progress.
But only at incredibly high levels of power and only at the point were
it was being a burden to himself as well. It had been like moving
through treacle.
[ .oO( Not an effective strategy, ) he thought. .oO( Still, Dr
Stomper should find the data interesting. )
[ The Apathy Beast charged. ARAK used the armour to leapt over the
Beast and out of immediate danger.
[ However, he landed hard, leaving impact prints and cracking the
text. ]
Lady Lawful and Doctor Developer #27 Special
An Academy of Super Heroes [ASH] series {HCC27}
by Andrew Burton
Mmff. You know, at times like this I get disgruntled because I'm
pretty sure that I'm going to be repeating, in one form or another,
assessments that I've given before. But anyway, I enjoy this
series for the characteris- ion. Indeed, I'm almost jealous of
the seemingly effortless way that Andy handles his character-
isation. Which is kind of belabouring the point, because in
the unlikely event that any long- time readers haven't consciously
noticed it yet, characterisation is the main point to this series.
No, really. Go back and look at past issues. Only very rarely are
there actual superheroic fight scenes, or even confrontations. Most
of the stories involve simple domestic incidents, usually expressed
in terms of the love story/ soap opera of Lady Lawful and Doctor
Developer's relat- ionship. It's engagingly written, with the
dynamic that Jen- nifer being kind and Cameron is
adork- able. I'm guessing that is much the same reaction from the
rest of the RACC readership, since _Lady Lawful and Doctor Developer_
is quite pop- ular when it comes out. For example, this story won
the 27th High Concept Chall- enge by a comfortable margin.
However the flip side of this that it does make me wonder how
Andy would handle the plotting of an ext- ended sequence or even a
storyline. A pity that _The Reverse Engineers_ series hasn't progressed,
since it seemed to configured for that type of storytelling, whereas
_LL&DD_ seems to be vignettes.
In this case, the plot is quite simply that Jennifer (Lady Lawful)
is volun- teering as a presenter at the Halloween session of the local
science and industry museum where she works in her non-costumed day
job, when Cameron (Doctor Developer) wanders in with nothing
better to do for entertainment that even- ing. Since this
is set early in his post-supervillain career, he doesn't know
her secret id- entity and doesn't recognise her, and Jennifer
gets an evening watching how he interacts with children as he
assists her with the pres- entation of super- hero science.
[ The Apathy Beast launched itself after Anal-Retentive Archive Kid.
In return Anal-Retentive Archive Kid used a x-ray laser cannon to shoot
at the Apathy Beast, leaving scorch marks all over the place. ]
LNH20 Comics Presents #10-13 [LNH20]
'Switch Play' ; 'The Assassination Squad' ;
'Chaos Reigns' and 'The Floating City'
A Legion of Net.Heroes 20 [LNH20] series
by Andrew Perron, Martin Phipps,
Adrian J. McClure, and Martin Phipps
The plot continues. ## In part ## 10 the Espionage Squad is
introduced, and after a b ## it of a ## distraction from a fight with
the Swords of Penitent Aut ## hority in ## the Vatican vaults, retrieve
*a* Spoon. Next the Recove ## ry Man mak ## es arrangements with
Ultivac to assemble an Assas ## sination Sq ## uad to kill the returned
Googlemesh in accordance with ## the Recovery ## Man's agreement with
the dragon in the LNH-HQ's bas ## ement, and th ## en attacks Google-
mesh and the just-happens-to-be ## -there-at-the-t ## ime Generation 2.0,
while Fearless Leader, January ## Frost and Doc N ## ostalgia
interview the Cranium ## for LNH ## membership.
In part 12 the p ## ower put ## out by the Spoon of Destiny and
the Retcon Ball causes ## the city ## of Net.ropolis to float into the
air, as well as being ## revealed ## as what's causing Doc Nostalgia
to be in two places at ## once. The ## three members making up the LNH
leadership also debate ## admitting t ## he Cranium, and there's some
backhistory about Doc No ## stalgia’s a ## nimosity to the original
Cranium and how that car ## ries through ## to the fifth and current
clone of the Cranium. Th ## en the team ## at the museum face the
reality warping powers of ## Mister Morris ## on.
Then in part 13, Goog ## lemesh sends ## away Generation 2.0 to
safety while he faces the ## Assassination ## Squad on his own, and
the children return to the ## LNH-HQ to upda ## te Fearless Leader on
the situation. The Espiona ## ge Squad arrive ## and realise that they
aren't the only ones to poss ## ess a Spoon. A ## nd Brian the pizza
delivery guy is transported ## somewhere by wha ## t is presumably a
third Spoon. ##
Pant pant pant. ##
It's all perfectly dement ## ed stuff, but I'll just make quick
note on the need to explain th ## ings. Much of the story is depicted
in conventional show-don't-tell ## form. However, in a cascade you get
a proliferation of plot threads ## and sometimes you need info dumps to
explain what's going on. This is ## particularly the case when you get a
continuity ## snarl, as happened ## here with Doc Nostalgia being in two
places at ## once.
Actua ## lly, the Doc Nostalgia situation highlights another
interestin ## g aspect of this. It's becoming almost a default situation
for the LNH ## leadership trio to be discussing some matter. It doesn't
happen all ## the time, but many, perhaps even most, of their appear-
ances in bo ## th this series and elsewhere have been in this format.
Now, there's ## nothing wrong with this, but I find it telling and
amusing that ## when Doc Nostalgia has already been said to be off
leading the ## team at the museum, that the... cliche of the leadership
discussing ma ## tters is so strong that the various Writers automatic-
ally assume t ## hat Doc Nostalgia must be present for those discussions
as well.
[ The Apathy Beast seemed to be only moderately singed. It leapt
upon him, forcing the laser from ARAK's hands. The armour kept ARAK
from being crushed under its weight, and the strength enhancing servos
allowed him to grapple with it. The two of them rolled about, kicking
and punching and clawing at each other. ]
Menace #1
'Cat Among The Pigeons' part 1
by Lalo Martins and May B.
A Legion of Net.Heroes 20 [LNH20] series
Obligatory administrivia: May B. is a new writer to RACC. That
means she'll be tied up and sacrificed to the volcano at the newbie
award in next year's RACCies... Oh, wait, hold up... Lalo, am I
correct in thinking that May was the same May Fonseca who edited some
of the early issues of your _58.5_ maxiseries? Hurm. Hey, Anal-
Retentive Archive Kid! Can I have a ruling on this, please? Is she
excluded because of past participation due to editorial input?
[ Anal-Retentive Archive Kid looks up from where he has the Apathy
Beast by the throat and is punching it repeatedly in the face, while
it tries to snap at his hands with its blood flecked jaws. "No.
Despite the phenomenon of both ghost-writing by subcontractors and of
rewriting by editors, the rules covering the 'Best New Writer' award
indicate that the author named in the indicia of the story will be
deemed wholly responsible for a specific work of fiction, although they
may, at their discretion, nominate a second for the purposes of any
duels of honour that may result... Arghhh!!!" he concluded, as the
Apathy Beast bit down on the hard light force field of his armour
encasing his forearm. "Sunnava b*tch!" ARAK growled. He knew the
automated medisystems of the armour would be pumping happy drugs to
keep him from going into shock, and aerosol synthetic flesh-foam to
plug any wounds. He rolled onto his back and used the strength
magnifiers of the armour to kick the Beast off of him. It landed with
a crash in the review, breaking off a large chunk of review text,
causing it to dangle by only a thin remaining shred of a sentence. ]
This story is nominally stars Pantra, who has been assigned to
find and bring in a team of superhumans who were involved in a major
stuff-up and who have gone to ground. It's set early on, during the
invasion by the alien tomatoes known as the Lycopersions (up until
now this
invasion
has so far
only been
mentioned
as tantalising
backhistory
over in the
'Spoon of
Destiny'
cascade in
_LNH20 Comics
Presents_).
And the people she's hunting down are... Well, they seem to be
some of Lalo's New Misfits characters from his LNH classic maxiseries
_58.5_ in the late noughties. On a purely technical level I find this
interesting, since pretty much all of the major characters are imports
from the LNH classic setting - but I haven't been paying enough
attention to the backhistory discussions on the lnh-authors mailing
list to know which ones (if any) have been transported across from the
original setting, and which ones are their LNH20 counterparts. And keep
in mind that 'transported across' could involve some quite complicated
mechanics, far more so than an individual just being dumped in another
universe as... say... Ultimate Mercenary has been in his story episodes.
It could involve people having some or even most of their back history
being copy'n'pasted, meaning that they have retroactively always been
there - something that off the top of my head has been done at least
three times before in various old LNH series.
This last point is more than me nitpicking on old LNH trivia, since
the New Misfits characters (if that's what they are (still) calling
themselves) are described as having been involved in major stuff-up and
as a result have gone to ground. The same thing happened in _58.5_. So,
big question, is it the same event that's been copy'n'pasted over? Or
have they been careless enough to make a similar mistake again?
Let's talk about characterisation. The New Misfits scene is mainly
plot setup, but Pantra gets a bit of characterisation that emphasises
that she's a cat. Not just the through the use of lolcats jargon, but
the way she's cruel even when she's being friendly. She plays with
people, in the teasing way cats do with their prey. However on top of
that is the added dimension of suffering from attention deficit disorder
(or as TV Tropes would describe it, Attention Deficit... Oh, Shiny!).
This creates an interesting question. Is Pantra's playfulness (and, yes,
cruelty) an innate and standalone personality trait, or an act to cover
her inability to focus?
[ Anal-Retenetive Archive launched a disintegrator attack which
landed square against the Apathy Beast... and seemed to have no effect
other than to obliterate the review that it was standing on. ]
Nudist Man: Ori.i ; ~ .
: . .. . ..
' . ;
*
.
. .
[ ARAK boggled. Was the creature really that tough? Or did it
have a specific invulnerability to disintegration? He had been able
to bloody its face when he had been punching it... Ah! Of course!
It was the Apathy Beast. It damped down energy, usually creative
energy in others. But it made sense that it would be resistant to
energy attacks. That was why the disintegrator and the laser cannon
had done less damage that physical damage.
[ Ohhh, crap. That meant an extended fight scene of hand-to-hand
melee. Anal-Retentive Archive Kid was suddenly really glad he had
chosen to use the lambent armour. He reached for a sword, but the
Apathy Beast was upon him again. They scuffled, breaking more text in
the process. ]
One Day At A Time: The Chronicles Of Mike Kittyman #23
'Names Are Hard'
A Miscellaneous [MISC] series
by James Mason
And speaking of cats, here's
another of James' cat themed series.
Okay, yes, it's got an ensemble cast,
but when the initial title gains a sub-
title 'The Chronicles of Mike Kittyman' at
issue 19 then you can see which direction thi-
ngs are heading.
The cast itself stabilised long ago, so
it's no longer the case that the protagonists
are making spectacles of themselves as they
flail about, trying to come to terms with
their superpowered situation. Instead,
for the most part the regulars are now
playing straight men to the weirdness
of various situations that they en-
counter as a team. (Well, for the
most part. Sir Greg's impulsiv-
eness gets a highlight in this
issue when she acts protectively
towards Mike.) And of course
this continues to be suppl-
emented by the creative use
of sound effects, as well
as the Announcer's continued
and only-mostly-successful
attempts to get on top of
his job.
In this issue the groups
drops off one villain at the police
station (Carlotta Zanzibar, captured
last issue), and is promptly confronted
by the return of 'that guy who tried to rob
that bank once' (Steve Henkelbert). But the
newcomer that the group gets to boggle at is the
obsessive compulsive Sgt Charles T. Carver, who they
meet when the army arrives to take the miscreants into
custody. That said, the Arch Mage's question that if the
authorities can't keep Henkelbert in prison then how will
they hold Zanzibar is not only pertinent, but becomes
more so if Carver is in charge of a prisoner transp-
ortation. Expect more slapstick comedy to ensue.
[ In the scuffle ARAK finally managed to get ahold of the sword. He
couldn't simply activate it, since it wasn't built in to the armour. It
was an honest-to-goodness vorpal sword. He'd taken care to make sure
that once in place it couldn't be knocked from his hand, but he still
had to get it there first.
[ Finally it was done. ARAK swiped with the sword, and missed,
carving the next piece of text in twain. ]
SW10: Superhuman World 2011: The Element of Surprise [SW10]
'The Element of Surprise'
A Superhuman World [SW10] series {HCC27}
by Scott Eiler
The plot in short: The
Council of Black Mages is di-
spleased with the tinkering wi-
th Earth's orbit that Ellipsis
has carried out, and prepares to
confront him on their terms (with
magically incited natural disasters)
rather than on his terms (with scienc-
e (although I get the impression that
maybe mad science based technology would
be a better description where Ellipsis is
involved)). The story depicts a meeting of
the Council as the situation is discussed,
and as the member Gaio Matrix (secretly an ex-
traterrestrial observer) steers the resolutions
in the direction that he wants.
The structure of the story allows for the sum-
mary of past events, and Scott uses that to his advan-
tage as the Council ruminates on the situation and what
they dislike about it. There is a lot of references/url
links to past stories here. Now, I'm fine with that (it
would be hypocritical of me to complain about info-dumps and
continuity porn, after all). However it does occur to me that
apart from some cursory characterisation of Gaio in the form of
his anticipatory gloating, that the story is very much in the form
of a prologue for future stories. This, in turn, ties in with the
use of the 'The Element of Surprise' theme, as Gaio reviews the upsur-
ge in volcanism and concludes that Ellipsis and his followers will be
caught off guard.
[ A chunk of text fell down and hit the ground immediately in front
of the Apathy Beast. ]
caught off guard.
[ It caused no harm, but briefly distracted the Beast. ARAK used
the armour to leap over the Beast, and began hacking at its flank. The
Beast twisted and rammed at ARAK, trying to squish ARAK. The armour
protected him. The text wasn't so lucky. ]
Ultimate Mercenary #6
'Crossing the Streams'
A Legion of Net.Heroes [LNH] (mostly)
miniseries
by Adrian J. McClure
This is an example of Adrian
trying to tie up loose ends with his
old series in an attempt to explain
how the character of Ultimate
Mercenary made his way to the LNH20
setting. It's heavily metafictive.
Not only were the original issues
metafictive, but Adrian has chosen
to explain the several-years-long
hiatus between issues in metafictive
terms, using the concept of the major
characters having all been stuck in
Limbo. The character of Masterplan
Lad is metafictive, because although
he is a Joseph Campbell style wise
old mentor, it's made explicit that
part of his task is to lead Ultimate
Mercenary not just to enlightenment,
but also to the correct storyline.
Certainly the major villain is meta-
fictive, because the whole concept
of the Crossover Queen is based on
the idea of manipulating stories to
suit her purposes. And at the centre
of it all is Ultimate Mercenary,
whose nature is more satirical that
metafictive (the whole son of a clone
of a clone of a clone of a son of a
fan thing).
I think this contrast is express-
ed in the qualitative difference of
the way the characters get to snark
about the failure of the Authors that
brought them to the situation that
characters find themselves in. Every-
one gets a least a short offhanded
jibe. However Ultimate Mercenary’s
brief fourth-wall breaking comment are
limited to things like his rhetorical
question about whether a story this
slow is being written by George R.R.
Martin. By contrast the Crossover
Queen gets to exposit about the death
of usenet at length and indeed build
an entire villainous plot on it. More
pertinently, Masterplan Lad gets an
impassioned speech that both rejects
the Crossover Queen and denounce the
formation on a new LNH imprint. And
tellingly, Adrian gives all these
characters valid points of view, which
makes the drama and tension of their
interaction all the more palpable.
(I have a half-baked but amusing
vision of Masterplan Lad roaming
around the LNH20 setting acting as an
antihero, trying to undermine the
setting purely because he sees it as
the product of a villainous scheme
and therefore illegitimate.)
[ Finally ARAK managed to get a free swing. He faked a dodge, and
then swung. One swipe wasn't enough. The Apathy Beast rounded on him,
but ARAK had found his groove, ARAK and fell into a pattern of bouncing
about on the balls of his feet, his speed and desterity heightened by
the armour. He dodged about, hacking at its hamstrings and also leaving
slices in the text. ]
Worse Than The Disease
An Academy of Super-Heroes [ASH] one-shot {HCC27}
by Dave Van Domelen
Aaannnd for a final segue, here's another tory with a major
purpose to exp- lain away an old plot problem. In this case it
doesn't use meta- fictive terms. Dr Sheng, for all his brilliance,
hasn't made the dis- covery that Tym Twysted did, and doesn't
realise he's fictional. Nevertheless, from the ASH set- ting's view-
point there was the plot dangler about the similarity bet- ween
humanity and the alien Santari, and whether anyone on Earth would
know about the link, and this sets out to exa- mine the subject.
The format is the very specialised infodump of the villainous
gloat. Dr Sheng is old school, you see. So, the Santari nobleman
Agrap Cas'r comes to Dr Sheng to employ him to sol- ve the riddle
of the Santari org- an transplant rejection problem. However Dr
Sheng has already b- een employed by another member of House Cas'r
to trap and kill Agrap. Once Dr Sheng has Agrap paralysed, he takes
the opport- unity to explain that he's already solved the mystery
Agrap was int- erested in, but has no intension of releasing the
information. Then Agrap dies.
From a techni- cal standpoint Dvandom uses the routine of
varying the text of the infodump to keep it interesting. The
dialogue is intersper- sed with descriptions of physical actions,
emotional reactions, and titbits of characteris- ation.
[ The Apathy Beast took the better part of valour and scarped. This
involved a fast but limping retreat, favouring one leg. Despite this
apparent victory Anal-Retentive Archive Kid wasn't feeling particularly
triumphant. He would've loved to indulge in the belief that he had
scared the thing off, but the creature was at least somewhat intelligent.
That meant that it may have simply made a strategic withdrawal. The
difference being that an animal could be scared off in a territorial
duel, but a thinking being could withdraw with the specific intention of
returning at a better time.
[ Twitter appeared, moving in with super speed. "Hey wow. Will you
look at this mess," she said, gazing around the mess in a particularly
sightseer-ish way. Then, "Wendle! Crap! Lemme call a doctor," she
squeaked when she finally noticed him, and vanished.
[ Anal-Retentive Archive Kid was starting to hurt. Either he was
beginning to come down off the adrenalin high, or the drugs that the
lambent armour had been pumping into his system were beginning to wear
off, or he'd aggravated the wounds to the point that the drugs were no
longer effective. He glanced at the hand that had been bitten by the
Beast, half expecting it to be badly mangled. It wasn't. Well, not
uch. The armour had constricted about the limb automatically to hold
it still, but by looking close he could see that it was broken.
Moreover, beneath the soft glow of the armour he thought he saw the skin
darkening from extensive bruising. He grinned mirthlessly. heh. At
least it had kept the limb from being bitten off entirely.
[ He tried to stand up. Whereupon he discovered that he wasn't up
to it. His body decided to sit down again and have a little rest. Which
was bad. He reached for a communicator in order to call some medical
help, then remembered that Twitter had already left to get help. Then
he decided to call for help anyway.
[ Twitter reappeared. "Organic Lass is on her way. You'll be fine.
You idiot!" She punched him in the face. "Ow! Argh!" she cried,
massaging her hand thathe'd just punched into the armour's transparent
helmet carapace.
[ "Be careful," he admonished her.
[ "Why didn’t you be careful? What did you think you were doing?
Why didn't you get someone to help?"
[ "There's never anyone around to call on," he explained in a
reasonable tone. Or what he hoped was a reasonable tone. He was feeling
kind of woozy. "The Writers always contrive for there to be only as many
people as they need to drive the plot. You know that."
[ She gave him an exasperated look. "Yes. Now turn off that
armour."
[ "And let you punch me in the face again? No thank you. Now get
me a sterile container to store some of this gore," he said, holding up
a blood cover arm.
[ "Someone blows their nose and you want to get a sample of it,"
she quoted from Ghostbusters. She flickered for a fraction of a second,
but now she had the requested plastic container. "Why are you wanting
to get samples? Do you want to blood match it?"
[ ARAK grinned. "Cell samples. DNA. Dr Stomper will love this."
He realised that Twitter was staring at him. "What? If I can't kill
it, then I can at least help Dr Stomper find a cure. If Dr Net.ropolis
can fiddle with it's DNA to increase the potence of its apathy powers
[_Saviours of the Net_ #9a 'What Do Deus Ex Machinas Dream Of?' -
Footnote Girl, then we can do something to fix it." ]
Character credits:
Anal-Retentive Archive Kid created by Saxon Brenton.
Twitter created by Rob Rogers.
The Apathy Beast identified (not created) by persons unknown,
and almost certainly Free For Use - if you're feeling brave enough to
try to handle it...
----------
Saxon Brenton University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au
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