Feb 4 - Syme - Bodily Escape (V, S)

[Syme]

This is the discussion topic for my short story Bodily Escape. Tell me what you think, especially if there were any parts which were confusing or seemed implausible.

[Mandamon]

I didn't really see anything wrong with this. It was short and to the point, and had some good insight into the Poquat species. Now, I will add that without having first read your other short story, I might have been confused jumping straight into this. Standing by itself, I think the reader could probably pick up what was going on a few paragraps in, but might wish for a little longer story fleshing out how the Poquat species works and looks, as described in Sweet Nectar of Memory

As for a story from a wholly un-human viewpoint, as I think about it afterwards (and I did not when I was reading...), Sartaqua has very human reactions, but then what else are you going to do? I struggle with this myself. I do like the Poquat indifference to the body dying, though. That adds an alien flare.

Two other minor things:

1) for a story this short the explanation of the heist in the middle might be a tad long.

2) The fight had a lot of blow-by-blow information. You might be able to cut some and give more of an impression except where certain moves are required for the story.

Overall, very nice, and could easily be submitted to a short story contest somewhere.

[Syme]

Thanks for your critique and glad you liked it.

As for a story from a wholly un-human viewpoint, as I think about it afterwards (and I did not when I was reading...), Sartaqua has very human reactions, but then what else are you going to do?

What specifically struck you as too human behaviour?

[Mandamon]

What specifically struck you as too human behaviour?

Not anything specifically. More my usual (maybe thinking too hard) reaction of seeing anger, lust, greed, hate fear... all the usual human reactions. There weren't any particularly lacking or added, except the lack of attachment to a body. I don't think you necessarily need to change anything. As humans, we react best to human emotions in stories. Do aliens feel the same emotions we do? Probably not something to be addressed in a nine-page story.

[AubreyWrites]

I was confused from the first sentence in the story. I had to go back and retread it a couple times and honestly I am still a little bit confused. As for the descriptions of your creatures (I have not read sweet nectar of memory) do they have hands or pincers or both? Sometimes you use the word hands and other times you use pincers. I think you need to make that distinction a little clearer for those of us who have not read the other story. I was pulled out of the story trying to figure out how they can use swords and axes with pincers???

I also agree with mandamon about this creatures reactions. First of all using the term "people" when referring to your non humans this early in a story lends the reader to thinking that they DO behave more or less according to human behaviors. I.e " That's just what people did."

Second, I did not get the sense that a female mindset was all that different from a male mindset. Is there not much of a difference in this species because of the memory transfer or what?

Does she feel any sense of remorse of struggle or ANYTHING at killing her fellow criminal comrades? At the last second she saves the leader but I am not really sure why. She didn't seem to have a whole lot of compassion a moment before. Why would she have some now?

Overall an intriguing Idea but one that could use a little more development and polish I think.

Check out A Deepness InThe Sky by Vernor Vinge

The way he writes non human species makes them very unique and separate from humans while at them same time making them relatable

Edited February 4, 2013 by AubreyWrites

[Syme]

Not anything specifically. More my usual (maybe thinking too hard) reaction of seeing anger, lust, greed, hate fear... all the usual human reactions. There weren't any particularly lacking or added, except the lack of attachment to a body. I don't think you necessarily need to change anything. As humans, we react best to human emotions in stories. Do aliens feel the same emotions we do? Probably not something to be addressed in a nine-page story.

I tried quite hard to make poquats distinct from humans. I gave them hands, language and intelligence so that they could reach similar levels of sophistication as humans, but tried to avoid all other similarities that cannot adequately be explained by convergent evolution.

Yes, poquats feel anger, lust and fear, but I think those are pretty much universal among animals. It's hard to have a functioning sexually reproducing animal without these emotions.

Not sure where you saw hate in this story. The only thing I could find is in the first sentence where Sartaqua says she hates her body. This isn't real hate, just a strong dislike.

As for greed, I wouldn't even call it an emotion. It's just an overly strong desire for material wealth. Material wealth will seem useful to any intelligent creature not living in some sort of utopia, so striving for it isn't anything human specific.

I was confused from the first sentence in the story. I had to go back and retread it a couple times and honestly I am still a little bit confused.

Sorry for confusing you, that's entirely my fault. A crucial word is missing there. The sentence should read like this:

As yet another male passed me by without a second glance, I was reminded of how much I hated this body.

As for the descriptions of your creatures (I have not read sweet nectar of memory) do they have hands or pincers or both? Sometimes you use the word hands and other times you use pincers. I think you need to make that distinction a little clearer for those of us who have not read the other story. I was pulled out of the story trying to figure out how they can use swords and axes with pincers???

They have both pincers and arms with hands. I thought I was being clear on that, but in rereading the relevant passages, I realised that my wording was more ambiguous than I thought. Thanks for bringing this up.

I also agree with mandamon about this creatures reactions. First of all using the term "people" when referring to your non humans this early in a story lends the reader to thinking that they DO behave more or less according to human behaviors. I.e " That's just what people did."

I don't agree with this. I think it's quite clear that in the context of the story, "people" doesn't mean "human beings".

Second, I did not get the sense that a female mindset was all that different from a male mindset. Is there not much of a difference in this species because of the memory transfer or what?

Yes, there are no significant differences between the sexes outside of reproduction and mating behaviour and the memory transfer additionally lessens the differences. Most poquats have memories of being either sex, so gender is not a central part of their identity.

Does she feel any sense of remorse of struggle or ANYTHING at killing her fellow criminal comrades? At the last second she saves the leader but I am not really sure why. She didn't seem to have a whole lot of compassion a moment before. Why would she have some now?

Poquats don't feel compassion and are largely amoral. It's quite hard to show this in a story without any humans involved. After all, how can Sartaqua as the POV character remark upon her lack of morality or compassion when she doesn't even know those concepts. I tried to solve this problem by her not showing any signs of a conscience and in how offhandedly she kills someone who worked together with her.

As for why she let Quatrop transfer his memories to her: It didn't cost her anything (only the one transferring needs sugar) and she gained new memories and experiences for free.

Check out A Deepness InThe Sky by Vernor Vinge

The way he writes non human species makes them very unique and separate from humans while at them same time making them relatable

I downloaded the free sample on my Kindle and tried to read it, but I couldn't really get into it.

It also seems to be from the perspective of humans, which is very different from what I'm doing in this story.

Edited February 5, 2013 by Syme

[AubreyWrites]

I don't agree with this. I think it's quite clear that in the context of the story, "people" doesn't mean "human beings".

Yes but that is a very human thing to say. of course "people" can refer to more than humans but when you throw that word around combined with human colloquialisms and human like mannerisms, instead of making them separate but relate-able it can diminish the distinction you are trying to convey to the reader.

I downloaded the free sample on my Kindle and tried to read it, but I couldn't really get into it.

It also seems to be from the perspective of humans, which is very different from what I'm doing in this story.

He writes from several different PoV's including humans. Honestly the story is pretty slow to get going- you're half way through the book before any real action starts. The reason I suggested it is because the way he writes completely non-humaniod species (They're more like hibernating spiders) that are right about early 20th century level of tech. Over the course of several chapters he makes it clear how very different they are from humans but still are relateable in emotions and motivations that are relevant to humans. I wasn't suggesting his style of writing so much as taking note of the way he develops his non human species.

maybe check it out at the library so you don't have to buy it.

.....so this is really weird- I don't know if you follow Brandon's podcast writing excuses. I swear I hadn't listened to it until just a few minutes ago but in this week's episode he actually references Vernor Vinge with relation to aliens.

Edited February 5, 2013 by AubreyWrites

[Mandamon]

.....so this is really weird- I don't know if you follow Brandon's podcast writing excuses. I swear I hadn't listened to it until just a few minutes ago but in this week's episode he actually references Vernor Vinge with relation to aliens.

Haven't listened to the latest episode, but they mention Vinge quite often on the podcast. I'm currently reading A Fire Upon the Deep (on their recommendation), which deals with several alien species, and various emotions or lack thereof. Very interesting. In particular, there is one species that is a group-mind personality (one conciousness made of several individuals) which is very well done.

...just remembered, there's another race with no (natural) short term memory. Provides some interesting conversations with humans.

Edited February 5, 2013 by Mandamon

[cjhuitt]

I'm obviously late to this, but am catching some older stories between reading the newer ones.

 

I won't cover the previous discussion, but I did know about the poquats from your previous story, so I had at least that much information going in.

 

The first paragraph made me wonder if they change names when they change bodies?  I thought it was confusing, but my impression from Nectar was that they continued as the same consciousness in serial bodies, which I took to mean the same name and everything.

 

Combining the name change with the end of the story, it makes me wonder if every body transfer doesn't involve a merging of consciousness?  That would be interesting, but raise a lot of background questions that probably don't apply directly to this story.

 

Finishing my previous thought about the first paragraph, I'd like a bit more detail about what in particular of the new body seemed attractive. It's a short story, so it can't go too far, but a little more description could probably work.

 

In the interests of story space, you might want to consider cutting the intermediate approach at mating, with the rude gesture.

 

When she copulates, Sartaqua mentions the experience was unfamiliar due to the number of years.  This brings up more interesting questions about the amount of memories that are kept around, etc., which I'm not sure the story has time to go into.  I'd like to know more, but at this point in the story perhaps those questions shouldn't be raised.

 

I got slightly confused between patroqs and Quatrop.

 

"Blind" Tarprato stumbles onto the road... was his blindness mentioned before?  Is he really blind?  If so, how would he be able to communicate when so much is done with signing?  For example, the female guard berating him.

 

"On and on the memories flowed, faster and faster until at last all his memories were inside me and all my memories were in my new body." This sentence confused me for a bit.  It's an interesting way of expressing what happened, but in the plain text of the story I don't know if it conveys everything properly.  If you want to have some fun, considering trying to get your software to place both those sentences in the same line simultaneously.  I'm thinking something similar to how the aliens spoke in Embassytown -- or, if you haven't read it, it was formatted kind of like a fraction, only with different but related words or sentences above and below the line.