posted
By the same rationale that BelladonnaOrchid used to guess me (I think), I'm going to guess Tresopax. It's not really Tres's writing style, but this piece is so careful that the author obviously went over and over it. And the theme does point to someone who considers religion.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:The writing is overall pretty tight, but I'd like to see a bit more clumsiness, more emotion, more humanity in the character, since most of us are, at least to some extent, clumsy, emotional, and human.
See, to me, Tao's apparent agility and lack of warmth or emotion is precisely what makes the character so interesting. It seems to me that the author is intentionally emphasizing these characteristics, most likely for the purpose of making the character, and thus the viewpoint, alien. I think it works quite well.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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I wasn't sure if I was officially guessed or not either, but if it mattered I would have asked for clarification. It's not me.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
btw Tom,thanks for the complement, but I'm not passably familar with anime. In fact I'm mostly unfamiliar. I think I've watched total of five half hour anime segments on TV. There was the one that Steve made me watch because there's a super-corgi on the spaceship that I liked though, it turned really wierd about halfway through. But whoever did the corgi, knew the personality to a T!
posted
I think this author might be female, so on that note I'm going to guess kwsni. I still really like this piece. Whoever wrote it needs to post the rest of it after he/she is guessed!
For the record I guessed Maethoriell and was wrong. You didn't put her on the list of incorrectly guessed.
Posts: 981 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Its tight, mature, focused. I don't have anything to critique about it. Instead I'll give a guess of Bob, who is also know to be occasionally mature, focused, and tight.
posted
This is about as different as possible from celia's sample from the last game. Thus, I guess celia.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
OK, I have a theory. Whoever that is currently the author has a vested interest in keeping the thread moving, right? S/he is probably constantly refreshing the thread in the hope of reading new and flattering comments. If there hasn't been a post in a while, he or she might get impatient and unable to resist bumping the thread to attract more attention. Based on this rationale, I'm going to guess Beatnix19, who has the post after the first somewhat longer time intervall. Also, the comments he provide regarding e.g. suspended animation may suggest a familiarity with the backstory that goes beyond what can be deduced from the sample.
Posts: 896 | Registered: Feb 2001
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quote:See, to me, Tao's apparent agility and lack of warmth or emotion is precisely what makes the character so interesting. It seems to me that the author is intentionally emphasizing these characteristics, most likely for the purpose of making the character, and thus the viewpoint, alien. I think it works quite well.
I definately agree!
And based on Tristan's reasoning I'm going to guess...
posted
Okay, now that I read this again, I am going to take back one thing I said. I said the excerpt lacked warmth of character, but I was in a horrid mood yesterday and wasn't feeling like warming up to anything. Sorry to whoever it was who posted this excellent excerpt. It wasn't you; it was me. *goes back to working on a million projects*
Posts: 1903 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
All right, I'm onto my second guess. Based on the tone and style of his(?) posts, and after extensive trawling through other threads, I'm putting in a vote for asQmh
Posts: 466 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Is anyone else a little awed by the ninety people who sent in excerpts.
The first snag I hit was speech and language. Somehow he could name things without having experienced them, maybe some a priori knowledge. I mean, if tao is just coming into the world, and we are seeing this from his perspective, there should be all sorts of, well, sorting problems.
Arms, legs, masculinity, all presuppose that he has a version of the world that he is comparing this one too. Unless these ideas were hardwired into him before he was plugged in. If I were the author, I'd have the awakening like a psychodelic dream, where everything is one thing, and the robot picks up distinctions between objects, and object permanance through interacting with the world.
Cold? What does he know of temperature, or how does he seperate temperature from the thing. Bare feet, what does he know about feet usually being shod. You don't have to answer all of any of these questions, I just there should be genuine befuddlement of the phenoma of waking up. I mean, I can't remember being birthed, but I can't imagine being able to make sense of the sensory information that was bombarding me at the time. Come to think of it, the only things I was probably able to understand were appetites. _________
I do like how you've gotten past Wittgenstein's problem of language acqusition by just having him be able to speak. You have just made a profound epistemological statement.
__________
I like terse opening. It should be. The robot's thoughts shouldn't be long and eloquent because that presupposes being able to make sense of the world.
I should guess. Bright, young, tightly-edited, fledgling rookie writer that nobody would confuse for a pro. I'd guess Irami, but I know I didn't do it. I'll go with Fileted.
posted
"Is anyone else a little awed by the ninety people who sent in excerpts."
As I understand it, that guess-from list also contains the name of anyone who has actually guessed, regardless of whether or not they've submitted anything. Apparently the REAL list is much smaller, but dkw prefers to give us a huge field of blanks as misdirection.
------
As a side note, I feel that Irami's suggestion -- that you spend more time on Tao's growing awareness of the world -- is only useful if you intend to make that a plot point. Otherwise, the mere hint of such a development suffices, as far as I'm concerned, as it would be a distracting digression if it's just an ancillary character trait.
It's possible to say that he becomes aware of masculinity -- if masculinity is something that's particularly relevant to him -- without describing every detail of the process.
posted
The close POV at the beginning (which I liked), gets lost in the dialogue.
This definitely feels inspired by anime-- the Oriental names, the cinematic feel. . . maybe just the names.
Although arrival, birth, etc, are all hinted at, we never get to experience just HOW new these things are to Tao. This may just be a shortcoming of having only excerpts-- but he gained knowledge of himself and his surroundings far too quickly for my taste.
How did he know he was masculine, and the voice feminine?
It is a bit too simple, IMO to just throw out, 'His sense of identity coalesced still further. . .' Cheating! howls I.
Only about a third of the people on the list actually submitted something. I'm thinking of pruning it for the next round. (Hear that, slackers? Get your submission in now or you're off the list!)
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Erm, dkw, have you sent out confirmation emails to everyone who submitted excerpts?
Ok, going on the theory that the author is male, intelligent, and deliberately using red-herring elements, I guess Papa Moose.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
It reads a bit like an anime` feature. It just doesn't grab me in the least, it's just kind of cold and plastic feeling. Of course, that could very well be the intent of the writer.
While I have no idea who wrote it, I'm going to randomly pick the most Japanese sounding name that hasn't been picked yet...
Teshi
And for some reason, my name's not on the choose from list.
posted
Continuing with the general theme of intelligent males, I'll guess sndrake. This is and excellant piece.
Posts: 981 | Registered: Aug 2003
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I think I saw someone else mention this, but the selection does look overedited to me. I can't place why exactly. Something about the punctuation, maybe. Or the word coalesced, which doesn't really seem very natural to me.
The other thing that bothered me about this was the use of the word texture. I understand what the author means, but it just doesn't sound like the right word to me.
Oh, and I had to read "hopped into a crouch" a couple times before I realized what the author was saying. Probably my fault, though.
Edit: I forgot to guess. Sorry, but I don't think I'll be much help with moving this game along. Every name I looked at on the list left me saying "nah... doesn't sound like them." I'll go with Gottmordor, mostly because I don't know his style enough to say it's not him.
posted
I don't have the energy to make another guess. So I'll look at the list of people not guessed yet, pick someone randomly, and then come up with a rationale: I'll guess solo because it sounds like a male author and because this character seems to be alone since there's no one else in the room. (Get it, solo, alone?)
Posts: 981 | Registered: Aug 2003
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My computer is broken, so I probably won't be posting much for a couple days. If no one's got it by the next time I log on, I'll give hints.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I'm guessing Brinestone, because if it was then he did some masterful misdirection.
Plus, according to his profile, he's an editor. This piece seems like something an editor (or if not, someone who has been edited a lot of times) would write: it is pared down, and each word (with perhaps, the exception of crot - i mean, crouch) has been chosen carefully.
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
You know, if I stare at the word Girl for too long, it starts to look really weird.
Edit: I just realised I have absolutely no excuse. I saw a photo on foobonic of you two at your wedding. Not only is Brinestone definately a woman but she's a very pretty one at that!
posted
Someone who earlier today was mistaken for a member of the opposite gender perhaps ought not throw stones, imogina. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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