He had me from the first paragraph. I love the change in voice; it conjures Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, with its tent revival techno-jargon.
The subject is fitting for following in Stephenson's wake, too-- not only can the collective power of the blogosphere change your image, it can actually change history, if its being manipulated by a master PR axe-man.
The idea is fascinating, and I think it's executed well, here.
I wasn't enchanted right away-- Mama Iris and reluctant Karla seemed like cardboard characters, people we've seen in a thousand different stories. Gruff, tuff, caring Mama Iris; tough, smart, put-upon-by-society, orphan Karla.
But the concept of picture-brides, pointed at in the italicized intro was intriguing enough to keep me going through the exposition in the first scene.
And after that, this story becomes worth it very, very quickly. It has its clunky bits-- any time the aliens speak to each other in alien-ese, for example. But those bits are brief, and surrounded by a lush and intriguing world populated with vivid characters.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
I haven't gotten around to reading any of episode 12 yet -- thanks for the reminder. Seems like there is always so much more reading time in winter than in spring/summer.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
When I know I'm not going to be able to sit at the computer and read the mag, I print out a story or two to take along with me wherever I'm being busy.
Yep-- IGMS also has a print button. Sweet!
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Hmm.. I came back over to this side of the forum, and was shocked when it showed NOTHING - no threads, etc. I thought you have taken it all away.
But then I realized my settings said "show topics from the last 5 days" and there apparently have been none. I had to change it to 30 days.
But it keeps reverting to 5 (since that's probably how I have it set for the other sides of the forum).
Scott, you're going to have to post every single day to keep the forum active and showing! Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Alas-- that's what my blog is for.
Which I haven't updated in about a week...
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 12050) on :
Farmgirl, I think if you select the "my profile" link up under the New Topic and Post Reply buttons, you will go to a page that gives you a link to "Edit Profile." That link should take you to a page that has "Default Topic View" near the bottom of the page that will allow you to change the "show topics" setting to any number of days, including "show all topics."
Of course, that will probably change for the whole forum, but what the heck, anyway, right?
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Yeah - I had turned it down to only topics from 5 days awhile back when I was mostly posting from home dial-up, and only wanted the barest of things to try to load.
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