Smellhole Notes.

[Ampoliros]

Lets just say some people deal with information that support their arguments in a rational way, some deal with it in a irrational way.

And some people are just batshit crazy. No one wants those people in their corner. Not even KJA.

[Kojiro]

now I am going to suggest someone create a sockpuppet and go post this blatant example
of gay-bashing on a militant gay-rights forum, without Amp's reservations, but in a shrill
and hysterical voice ... also include the part about the women in all of Keith's books
begging for sex ...

the kicker will be: going on and on about Fleer obviously being a
portmanteau of "flaming" and "queer" .... also: of course the gay character
got killed off .... just like the slutty teenager is the first to die in slasher flicks ...

extra credit if you sign the post "James C. Harwood" ...

No, if I wanted to start a shitstorm with Hellhole, I know exactly whose attention I would bring this too. Luckily, I'm not that evil.

Please, tell me. I am that evil.

[Ampoliros]

Its best to let sleeping tigers lie; its enough to know what could be done, without unleashing it.

And as I said, I don't believe the passage was intentionally derogatory, It's just more proof that no one edits or proof-reads these books with a lick of common sense.

[SandRider]

as I said, I don't believe the passage was intentionally derogatory

that's what makes stirring up shit like this funny ...

[SandChigger]

I haven't read Dreamer, but I've read passages where Brian said some stuff about his brother's sexuality that was about as ignorant as it gets, not technically homophobic, just a lack of understanding (not saying he isn't homophobic, just that what I read didn't prove it). He said something about FH being a bad dad causing Bruce to experiment with drugs and homosexuality, something along those lines anyways.

I haven't read the book through cover-to-cover (even yet), but I remember the passage you're talking about. Yesterday afternoon, when I was looking to see if there was something on when & how Bruce had died, I came across this, which struck me as somewhat odd. Brian's describing organizing invitations & mailing out the fifty tickets FH received for the Seattle premier of the Dune movie (emphasis added)...

On the afternoon of Tuesday, December 11, 1984, Jan and I picked up Penny and her husband Ron at the airport, then met Dad in his hotel suite at the Four Seasons Olympic Hotel in Seattle. My brother and his gay lover were already there when we arrived. Dad looked natty in his thirty-five-year-old tuxedo, with a frilled white shirt and a black bow tie. Gold cufflinks glimmered at the sleeves. (pp.472-3)

That "and his gay lover" just strikes me as completely unnecessary and gratuitously insensitive, if not downright insulting to the reader: he's already told you that his brother is gay. Therefore any normally competent reader of English will assume that the lover is also gay. Right? Because he hasn't given you any hint or reason to think Bruce is "experimenting" again. ("Are you gay?" "No, but my boyfriend is!" Ba-DOOM-pah!) "...his bisexual lover" would make sense if the topic were Bruce's love life or current relationship status, etc. (and the lover were really bisexual), but in the actual context, it's completely fucking irrelevant. "My brother and his lover" would have been perfectly sufficient. The fact that Brian mentions it like that at all just seems weird.

You'd think he'd be a little bit more sensitive now, considering that his daughter Julie has married a woman.

I'm not really sure how a straight person can experiment with homosexuality - I'd think maybe one attempt would be enough to convince someone never to do it again unless they are in fact gay/bi!

I think the way he put it was something like, convinced that FH hated (or didn't love) him, Bruce was experimenting with drugs and homosexuality. Because, you know, the two things are so closely related. And because homosexuality is a result of an physically absent or emotionally distant/cold father. x 2.

I think he's probably just incredibly ignorant. I mean, come on, he's not much of a people person to begin with, now is he?

[A Thing of Eternity]

That gay lover thing could be him being insensitive, or just an incompetant writer who doesn't realize the word "gay" is redundant there.

[SandChigger]

Incompetent writer?!

But, dude, we're talking Brian Phucking Herbert here! Son of Frank Herbert, and a best selling-author in his own right! Dude?!

[Nekhrun]

The guy's a jerk.

[merkin muffley]

That gay lover thing could be him being insensitive, or just an incompetant writer who doesn't realize the word "gay" is redundant there.

This would not be the first time Brian Herbert has used an unnecessary adjective.

I would submit that he's not a writer at all.

[Robspierre]

The special forces continue their passive/aggressive tactics. I posted an example of how vineyard's could of been realistically written using real world example. Naturally the assholes voted it not useful for the discussion. People really are fucking blind sheep.

Rob

[Ampoliros]

Dizzyjam is in the hizzouse!

[TheDukester]

"Rebecca picked me up at the airport—a very happy sight—and we got back to our house by 12:30, whereupon we immediately unpacked the suitcase and sorted the laundry."

The romance! The passion!

[SandRider]

I think the neutral phrase would've been "my brother & his partner" ...

but Brian's almost my age, and if'n he don't tread the backstreets and alleyways
of Modern North American "Culture", he may not've realized that ... so to the
super-sensitive, (like the Sisters of perpetual indulgence, say) emphasizing
the description of Bruce's partner as "his gay lover" could seem to be homophobic ...
atleast, if I were posting as James C. Harwood on the sister's website, and making a
case that both Keith and Brian Herbert are Disapprovers of Homosexuality,
that'd be the way I'd play it ....

it may be kinda subtly, passively-aggressive, maybe even sorta unconscious ...
Brian might just not be hip enough to realize the phrase is potentially offensive ...

I'll add too, that one of my favorite calling-names is "cocksuckers",
which has nothing to do with oral sex given or received by any gender;
it's just one of those names my generation grew up calling people ...

(I think South Park cleared up this WHOLE cultural misunderstanding in
"The F-word" episode ... "Just because someone's gay doesn't mean they're
a fag. Dude, that's just wrong.")

and I seem to recall issuing a general statement to all homosexuals on the board,
whether actually gay, or pretending to be gay, or in the closet, or whatever,
that I had just then realized how often I did in fact use the name "cocksucker"
and apologised if had caused offense; I believe ChaniLuv told me to STFU and
wash my pecker off ...

so .... leaving tehKJA out of it (because he so OBVIOUSLY a homophobe)
what about Brian Herbert? I think there is surely some uncomfortableness
about the issue ... because of Bruce ? was he embarrassed by Bruce, and his
social activist doings, which brought the Herbert name into the gay rights debates
of the late 70s & early 80s ?

had Bruce not been gay, or not been a gay activist, would Brian's opinions be different?
(from whatever these may be now ?)

I'll tell you, I don't care; the cocksucker's put his pecker in a raccoon trap - his own words
can be twisted and used against him to get another group of people hatin' on him, and that
is all that matters ...

[SandChigger]

I think the neutral phrase would've been "my brother & his partner" ...

Oh, right. Partner. I always forget that one.

When did that become widespread? DoD was written before 2003.

Either way, it still fits with him being out of touch and ignorant.

[Ampoliros]

Chapter 37
Pg 221 -Vince pitches his self-erecting tent again.

-F! goes into a coma then wakes up, with a new friend. Seems like he absorbed Zairic, the "spiritual General"(not a messiah!) of the Xayans from the slickwater pool. Slickwater is the liquid medium which contains all of their memories and culture.
-Vince thinks F! is scamming him, even though Zairic doesn't speak in exclamation points. F! still does!
- They decide to head back and tell NAH! what they found.

Chapter 38
-Devon squirms when he finally gets Ant's shirt off to play doctor, putting "Multi-salve" on her Ultra-beetle bites.
-They decide to take the alien artifact they found at the religious fanatic camp back to NAH!

Chapter 39
Pg 231 "(Bishop Fenring) had slipped into (Louis') cell and subdued him easily; in the process he had made de Carre's death look like a suicide...Killing de Carre had been messy, and (Bishop Fenring) had to scrub himself in a long hot shower and discard the clothes he had worn before he felt clean again, but the job was done--as ordered. It was his job."

-Man, i sure am glad that they don't have any forensic scientists or half decent law enforcement in this universe. Or do they mean Bishop felt messy after killing him?

-THE MYSTERIOUS ASSASSIN FAMILY kills 2 feuding nobles, with just enough time between the kills for someone to be led to believe one was in retaliation for the other. They kill them in methods that each respective noble had threatened publicly in the previous chapters. "He was glad he wore gloves...found a private hiding place outside, and cleaned himself, scrubbing with disinfectant rags and disposing of them."

-(Margot): "Dressed as a man, she posed as a fellow customer in the seedy pleasure districts that Azio Tazaar was known to frequent...At any time after the correct hour, (Margot) would find the opportunity to apply a few drops of highly penetrating toxin to any patch of exposed skin on Lord Azio. She didn't need much, and seconds later the bearded Tazaar patriarch would be writhing and screaming in an alley."




Chapter 40

-Keanu pines for 3 pages, then starts to admit to herself that she played a part in Louis undoing. In way of apology, she decides to seek out Christophe...

Chapter 41
-PA2 and Goler the conman talk about taxes. He takes her side against the DMD. She starts to think he's not a bad guy. Like I said there is a LOT of padding in this book.

Chapter 42
Pg 242
-Elba has "Well-trimmed native groundcover" They actually use the word native!
-Devon and Ant have returned, they tell the story about the beetles: "The beetles must be breeding like crazy. Could be an increasing problem." No, they don't attack the vineyard.
-They give NAH! the alien artifact. "It looked like a sealed case, or an egg..." Well hey, right now you're thinking what I was thinking: GET RID OF IT! IT LOOKS LIKE AN EGG! THE BEETLES ARE GOING TO HATCH OUT AND KILL EVERYO....wait, they have like 4 major characters in this room. I'm sure they are quite safe. Yeah, nothing happens and the egg-ifact isn't mentioned again.

Chapter 43
-Christophe arrives on Hellhole, and everyone snubs him. Especially NAH! who makes him wait outside Elba all day then refuses to see him at all until the sun goes down. Then they talk about being defeated. Then NAH! hires him to clean out the air vents.

Chapter 44
-DMD is playing "sonic ball" which is basically basketball-polo on giraffe-horse hybrids called a 'Horp': "Because horps could manage tremendous speeds even across the short distances of the sonic ballfield..."
-She and Keanu argue some more.
-The horp jostled, anxious to be out on the playing field, but (DMD) savagely yanked the bit and slapped the creature into submission. What a mean old bitch. How old was she again? Are we ever going to get any kind of description of Keanu at all? No?

Chapter 45
-Vince and F!Z. return to talk to NAH! Vince is worried that F!'s scam artist history might hurt them.
-F!Z. tells NAH! that there is a secret bunker of alien artifacts and 4 aliens in stasis "deep in the most secure mountain range"
Pg 258
-"'It will require a significant excavation effort'"
-"'Will it be worth the expense and effort to dig into the heart of a mountain? That is something you'll have to decide.'"

Chapter 46
-NAH! is worried that more people might drown in the slickwater pool after what happened to Renny.
-Xayan buildings are held together with telemancy, so they all fell apart when the Xayan's died.

Pg 261
-NAH! has bodyguards to defend against assassins, but DMD won't sent assassins to kill him because that would be "political suicide".
-"three ATV's crossed the ridge, rumbling pell-mell into the valley."

pell-mell also pell·mell (plml)
adv.
1. In a jumbled, confused manner; helter-skelter.
2. In frantic disorderly haste; headlong

I mean it does work...kinda....if they are rednecks trying to get themselves killed on ATV. They were even out hunting and bagged a Xayan herd animal.

Pg 262
-NAH!: "We've been studying and terraforming this world for a decade..."
-Ha Ha Amp In your face! See, TERRAFORMING. Which makes it okay for a vineyard!
-No, the vineyards were only half-assed because of the soil, which they already mentioned they'd have to change. The real problem is the storms. WEATHER: SEE STORMS. No Consideration.
-Nyah, terraforming means changing the weather too.
-Really? They still get hit by them, which means the storms are still a problem.

Why am I arguing with myself...

NAH! decides to expend the resources and effort to dig up the alien museum. Man, Rustic! Damn!

Chapter 47
-One of DMD's competent spies tells Goler that Capt Jack Solo has a secret FTL black market.
Pg 265
-"Goler remembered that Buktu did have plenty of hydrogen ices drenched by solar radiation. Walfor might manufacture his own fuel."

-Seriously. I think Ultra-spice just had an orgasm.
-May I remind you that one of the Authors has a BA in Physics. Not Chemistry.
-Hydrogen freezes at -452 Fahrenheit (in liquid helium) DUDE, THAT'S ALMOST THE SAME TEMPERATURE THAT PAPER FREEZES!
-Buktu is inhabited. Not so much if it has plenty of areas where the temperature maintains -452 degrees when the sun is out.
-Comparison: Vostok, Antarctica's coldest temperature on record: -128 F.

You know, when you read up on new trendy fuels that are being developed, you might want to read the article and not the headline before you publish something that makes you look like a smarmy idiot. GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND. I SPENT 30 SECONDS RESEARCHING THIS.

Oh, and frozen hydrogen is a rocket fuel. I suggest you read AOTE's well written article on how ROCKETS CAN'T GO FTL.

PHYSICS DEGREE!

Chapter 48
Pg 269
-NAH! and MFLF on a date! Awww!
-They have "Hellhole Cabernet, even as a novelty vintage...'It'll go well with our steaks.' "
-It could be me, but this sounds exactly like KJA talking about one of his own dates with 'beccers.
-As if on que: "Though the vegetable yield from the greenhouse domes exceeded expectations, the process of raising cattle from imported embryos posed many difficulties: Grazing land had to be cleared and fertilized, pasturage planted with enough grass to sustain a herd. Native weeds infiltrated the hay; some weeds sickened the livestock, while others just made the meat taste foul. Barn shelters had to be sturdy against the myriad storms, and the cattle had to remain close enough that they could get inside when the weather turned.
Given the many far more efficient ways of creating protein, raising beef as a colony food source made no economic sense...But it wasn't only about digestible calories, MFLF knew; one bite of a a good filet proved that to anyone with taste buds.
Armand Tillerman, one of the few local ranchers who had managed to keep his herd alive, occasionally slaughtered a steer and delivered the best cuts to Adolphus"

For your consideration. I could say more, but why?

[TheDukester]

Why am I arguing with myself...

Careful, Amp. That's one of the warning signs of a KJA Stupidity Overload.

Take a day off, maybe ... ?

[Kojiro]

How many pages is this book again? I mean, really... 48 chapters and they haven't broken the 300 mark yet? I know chapters can be any length the author deems, but this is becoming pathetic.

[Ampoliros]

532 pages in the ARC, pgs 15-517 broken into 102 chapters . 3 Appendices and a Glossary.

So ~5 pages a chapter.

[Kojiro]

[SandChigger]

Chapter 46
-NAH! is worried that more people might drown in the slickwater pool after what happened to Renny.
-Xayan buildings are held together with telemancy, so they all fell apart when the Xayan's died.

With telewhatsit? Telemancy?

The art of divination using... a television? Telephone? Teleholo Ultraviewer?

Fucking. Linguistically challenged. Moron.

But at least we now have a clue as to why the slickwater might have killed Renny: he wasn't compatible with the mancy pool, being a nancy boy! Incompatible nasals!

Maker knows it sticks in my nose.

(Btw, any clue as to how "Xayan" is pronounced? ZAY-un? KSAY-un? )

[SandRider]

I stopped reading @ pitching the self-erecting tent ....


combined with the http://www.spendingmoneymakesmeauthentic.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; thing from my last post,
I think I've got a poster to make before we go to San Marco this weekend ...



ooooo, and I think Imma be really racist & offensive, too ...

Federals done liberated your nigras ?
Quartermaster wagon just done dropped
all your cargo on the ground & drove off ?
Conscripts givin' you the Stink-Eye again ?
Don't fret, Major, you'll be sleepin' like a pickaninny
in no time atall once you pitch the self-erecting tent
from Southern Gentlemen's Supplies !!

[Ampoliros]

Telemancy is Ultra-telekinesis, which the Mayans...sorry Xayans perform. The more there are of them, the more powerful it is. Humans that absorb a Xayan Telemancer through the slickwater can do it to! It also allows them to speak telepathically, since they have one mouth for eating, and another vestigial mouth for not-speaking.

So yeah, Xaya-Hellhole-Hallholme is really just Rossak.

I'm also entertaining the idea, and SC you might show this to Teg: Xayan seems close to Xenu, and you have millions of trapped souls looking for new bodies to posses and lots of volcano imagery...

And like I said earlier, they are very persistent about asking more humans to come join with them, so they can achieve critical telemancy mass and transcend to ala'ru (spoken as if you are having a spiritual orgasm) where they shed their mortal bodies and become pure energy.

and uh...nice little ditty there Sandrider.

[SandChigger]

Telemancy is Ultra-telekinesis, which the Mayans...sorry Xayans perform.

So, basically, this is another KJA word-usage/coinage fuck-up. He obviously thinks the -mancy morpheme means some kind of magic, instead of just a way of fortune-telling or foreseeing the future.

I'm also entertaining the idea, and SC you might show this to Teg: Xayan seems close to Xenu, and you have millions of trapped souls looking for new bodies to posses and lots of volcano imagery...

SWEET!

Even if KJA isn't really a $cientologist himself, it's obvious he doesn't mind stealing from Elron.

[Sev]

Almost a review of this on Adam Roberts' reading blog (he's a British SF writer for anyone who doesn't know) -

So I did consider reading this one. But then I decided against it. Standing there in my local bookshop, I read the first page, closed the cover and put it back on the shelf.

So, I can't offer an assessment of this book's overall quality, I'm afraid. Maybe, in the immortal words of Will Self, it turns into Tolstoy on p.2. Somehow I doubt it, though.

[Kojiro]

Telemancy is Ultra-telekinesis, which the Mayans...sorry Xayans perform. The more there are of them, the more powerful it is. Humans that absorb a Xayan Telemancer through the slickwater can do it to! It also allows them to speak telepathically, since they have one mouth for eating, and another vestigial mouth for not-speaking.

So yeah, Xaya-Hellhole-Hallholme is really just Rossak.

I'm also entertaining the idea, and SC you might show this to Teg: Xayan seems close to Xenu, and you have millions of trapped souls looking for new bodies to posses and lots of volcano imagery...

....