Smellhole Notes.

[TheDukester]

Looking good, fellas ...



(And, BTW, it's awesome that the photographer managed to get so much of the ceiling in, too.)

[Nekhrun]

Yup. Lookin' real sharp.

[DuneFishUK]

"Brian! I bought you a Superstar Jacket!"

[Eyes High]

What happened to 'The Jacket'?!

[Omphalos]

That's a pre-jacket photo. Look at Bobo's hair. It's relatively close to his scalp. And he's not all hunched over with osteo-arthritis and his limbs aren't whithered with age. That's an old pic.

[Eyes High]

What happened to 'The Jacket?!'

Edit to add ... don't know how this post got here after Omph's reply .... I swear I only posted once.

[Ampoliros]

It never fails to amuse me how KJA has the same pose/smirk for practically every photo.

Why did he become an author, he missed his calling: fashion model.

[Ampoliros]

http://sf-fantasy.suvudu.com/2011/03/vi ... erson.html

I might have to go back and watch other videos of the two together, but made an interesting observation while watching this.

I watched the other one whenever one of them was talking.

Brian seemed to be mechanically delivering talking points, ala "We applied the cortical electrodes, but were unable to get a neural response." -Jayne Cobb.

But watch Kevin. Whenever Brian is talking Kevin looks like he's in a panic. They both look like they might have to jump in and cover what the other one says.

After watching Brian when Kev mentions how much they have written in the Dune universe and then the idea of switching series back and forth every year he looks visibly shaken. I wonder if maybe Hellhole was his idea, to get away from Dune.

[Ampoliros]

That's what paperback versions are for!

[TheDukester]

It never fails to amuse me how KJA has the same pose/smirk for practically every photo.

A follow-up thought: does Kevin J. actually have teeth?

I'm not sure I've ever seen them in a photo ... he's always got his chicken-lips pressed tight together (and, as Amp notes, usually curled into his trademark smirk).

[Ampoliros]

Smellhole Notes Pt 2.
recap: NAH! refers to Tiber Not Adolph Hitler! Adolphus. I changed Sophie (MILF to MFLF) Blue is a direct quote, otherwise its paraphrased.

Pg 19
- cargo-ships are basically inside out heighliners.
-Antonia (Ant) “waited in both anticipation & dread. Almost there. Almost free."

Pg 20
-surface water visible from space (yet scuba gear is considered of no use…)
-Lava flows visible from space…
-Ant is 19 and self-sufficient.
-“They had a very nice home with a large kitchen, a pool… and a well-tuned piano” Her old family lived in a McMansion?

Pg 21
-Jako (the ripper?) was very smothering in his love for Ant, making her run

Pg 22
-Fernando (F!) “We’re about to start a great adventure!”
-4 day journey…from? Means either 2 days or 4 days by stringliner to Sonjeera. ALL stringliner traffic has to go through Sonjeera, because of the hub.

Pg 24
-Vincent is or was a criminal, exiled to Hellhole, but not as a convict? (court showed mercy?)

Pg 25
-F! is Optimistic!
-Propaganda says NAH! Is a monster that enslaved his crews and tortured civilians…
-Vincent hasn’t heard these rumors…says probably just stories
-Reader knows they are just stories yet this comes up way to many times.
-Diadem officials are pushy smug elitists
-official Inspector rides in passenger compartment.

Pg 26
-Hellhole is a dumping ground for criminals & undesirables
-Vincent never imagined he’d be grouped with them.
-religious group doesn’t invite “stragglers” to join them. (Why would they?)
-Vincent and F! choose not to sign in, F! thinks they might miss an opportunity…
-hitch a ride into town in a flatbed truck w/ businessmen
-buildings in town are squat and built to resist threats.

Pg 27
-Vincent stole a piece of art from his boss, got caught after selling it b/c the original sculptor for some reason tracks all sales of her art. Used money to buy experimental procedure for his dad, dad dies.

Pg 28
-“Police baffled” that the thief only stole 1 piece of art.
-artist holds a grudge against Vincent b/c he stole her art (which she had sold to someone else).
-[iirc traditionally, art that is stolen has its value and fame go up…]
-court shows mercy so instead of exile to Hellhole as a criminal, he’s just exiled to Hellhole as a civilian…

Pg 30
-“Committees and offices were created solely to give impressive sounding titles to nobles so they would not feel useless. Lawmakers formed childish alliances to oppose her policies—not because they believed that opposing her made them appear powerful”

Pg31
-Diadem Michella Duchenet (DMD) is “spry and agile” despite her age
-seemingly convinced she will outlive the other nobles.
-Constellation is not a hereditary monarchy. DMD thinks the people who created that law are ‘naïve’ yet she knows her daughter is worthless. (She is, as you’ll see)
-reminds nobles she’s been elected for life "For Life!"

Pg 32
-“white Marblene floor”
-so many fakish names for things that can be called by their real name
-calling marble “marblene” doesn’t make it more sciencey fictioney.
-Lord de Carre is summoned, doesn’t show up: nobles laugh that he’s “not so secretly” boinking the princess. (Cause he is…and he’s one of 3 characters in the book so worthless they should have been shot immediately), no representative, no proxy, ignores duties.
-we don’t need to be told that “The Black Lord” wears black every time we see him because we KNOW that’s why he’s called “The Black Lord”… Because you tell us this practically EVERY time.
-They are right though, deCarre is a shit noble who should be stripped of his office & holdings.
-WHY DOES THIS BECOME A MAJOR PLOT. TAKE HIS HOLDINGS NOW.

Pg 34
-3 pages of nobles bickering. It’s not intriguing, at all. It sets up for THE MYSTERIOUS ASSASSIN to kill nobles without anyone getting suspicious.

Pg 36
-DMD is more worried about the affair than about the mismanagement of the mines. Seriously…

Pg 37
-Still no evidence that life on Hellhole is actually hard. They have “not only what she ordered at great cost but metric tons of goods to be sold at profit”
-Surprise inspector “very annoyed” that it’s not a surprise. But he’s not at all suspicious of how.

Pg 37
-Inspectors are basically tax inspectors determining the amount of ‘tribute’ they need to send
-first mention of the Wine created from Sophie (MFLF)’s vineyards, “too coarse for DMD"
-“send a few cases” she sure is making a lot of wine…
-“novelty to be sold at a good price”.

Pg38
-trout seedlings Devon:“we can go fishing soon!”...MFLF: ”I’m so sorry I never took you fishing…”
(I thought the water needed to be filtered and was full of parasites…oh well, can’t be more polluted than our own oceans…)
-“Goats survive here better than most animals”, provide meat, milk and cheese
-this actually makes sense. Goats are hardy and can eat pretty much anything. I’ll give this a rare +1. Of course, we never actually see the goats nor hear about them ever again. We do hear later about the other meat producing animals they keep…
-more rootstock arrives so she can add Riesling to her category.

Here’s about 2mins worth of research on Riesling…

the character of Riesling wines is clearly influenced by the wine's place of origin…the delicate nature of the Riesling grape requires special handling during harvesting to avoid crushing or bruising the skin. Without this care, the broken skins could leak tannin into the juice, giving a markedly coarse taste and throwing off balance the Riesling’s range of flavours and aromas.
-wikipedia

If, at this point, you are still unsure why I bother to mention the vineyards, don’t worry, I will bring it up again.

Pg 39
-semi-defense of vineyards: “if she watered, fertilized, and protected them from the harsh weather”
-NAH! Likes the idea of wine being made on Hellhole as it is a symbol of civilization.
-Religious fanatic group. (actually, in Hellhole, while many characters are tolerant of religious people, each religious group is made out to be weird at best and sociopaths at worst.)
-“This isn’t like a shopping mall on Sonjeera, Mr. Carey. Although our manufacturing gets better every year, most of the big items still come in by stringline, and half the time we don’t get what we asked or paid for”. Of course this is said, but never shown. Quite the opposite in fact…(Pg 37)“not only what she ordered at great cost but metric tons of goods to be sold at profit”

Pg 40
-First mention of this: “’All Arrivals to the planet are asked to put in one year of community service, to support the colony.’” But, it’s not enforced. “They simply didn’t know how difficult this planet could be.”
-Still, MFLF sells the fanatics equipment: “further argument was useless—someone else would sell these people the equipment if she didn’t.”
-“Three refurbished trakmasters and a minimal setup to give his isolated camp at least some chance of survival.”
-from above: -“This isn’t like a shopping mall on Sonjeera, Mr Carey. Although our manufacturing gets better every year, most of the big items still come in by stringline, and half the time we don’t get what we asked or paid for”. Yeah, they are so hard up for useful equipment that she can spare selling 3 vehicles to a group she pretty much believes is heading off to their deaths.
-MFLF : “’Good Luck!’ (Religious Wacko) refused to accept even that with good grace.”
-MFLF decides to send someone out to check on them “in a few weeks”

Pg 42
-no one gives the new arrivals a second glance. They didn’t check in so they don’t know about:
“’All Arrivals to the planet are asked to put in one year of community service, to support the colony.’”
-but it’s not mentioned to these characters for a few more chapters anyway.
-“Towering greenhouse domes protect large scale crops – waist-high domes serve as flower-gardens…a way of defying the bleakness of Hellhole.”

-Oh, okay, they use biodomes to protect ‘large scale crops’ my bad. I guess they covered this…

Pg 43
-Vince and F! pass by more weird religious buildings including a lemur and a turtle cult.
-Vince suggests they go back and check in. “Fernando made a raspberry sound”. F! loves the raspberry sound. That and ! marked sentences are his trademark. And utter stupidity…
-They run into Ant, who says they all “Must have fell through the cracks”. So she didn’t check in either.

Pg 44
-A siren goes off, warning of an approaching storm! A Growler! That’s Hellholese for a static lightning storm that is ultra-bad!

Pg 46
-“Ever increasing bolts of static discharged across the buildings…Behind them, whip-lightning skittered across the street, etching black lines of melted dust. The bolts strafed and danced along the side of the warehouse building. Just in time, (MFLF) sealed the hatch shut with a spray of sparks.” Damn, they aren’t kidding about how vicious those storms are. Good thing no one leaves anything outside… Wait, how did MFLF seal a door "with a spray of sparks"?
-MFLF asks why they have no survival training. She’s shocked to hear that they didn’t receive any survival training during orientation. They tell her “Once we got off the passenger pod, we’ve been left to fend for ourselves.” MFLF facepalms:”Unbelievable! The General’s going to hear about this.” They say all they got was a brochure about opportunities and MFLF tells them its all propaganda BS. No one mentions anything about maybe having a kiosk or a greeter on this planet to tell new arrivals about 1 year labor agreements and storms that cook the ground…

Pg 47
-MFLF says “’This building acts as a Faraday Cage.’” I’m hoping she means all of the buildings do that.
-asks them if they have someplace to go after the storm. Doesn’t mention 1-year contract…

Pg 48
-NAH! Is happy that the inspector is scared of the storm.

Pg 49
-“Wearing a full uniform and all his rebellion medals, the General surprised the spy…”
-wait…. From Pg 2: “though he sported no medals or decorations. The General refused to let his men present him with accolades until they had actually won.” Which is from right before the last battle, where he surrenders, which means they didn’t win.
-The spy is (B)Ishop (B)Heers (B.B. Fenring.)
-“After the stringling hauler docked, I spotted a suspicious amount of orbital activity, Administrator. None of the previous inspectors made note of your advanced surface-to-orbit capability…(NAH!:)Because the previous inspectors were all fools who could either be fooled or bribed outright.”
-Man, I sure hope he isn’t building what we already know he’s building…with all those resources he has. I’m sure I shouldn’t guess that it’s on the far side of the planet, I mean, we already saw them fall for that once, and hey, KJA has a frikkin Physics degree! I’m sure he’s covered all the bases…

Pg 50
-Hallholme has lots of satellites. To monitor the harsh weather! Certainly not worth investigating…
-More on the Growler storm: “Surface-to-Sky bursts tore up the landscape, exploding little craters in the dirt." Man, I’m glad they put everything under those biodomes…
-Hey, has anyone thought about maybe harnessing these storms for electrical power? You know, maybe set up some lightning rods and… what? No? Yeah I guess that’s still too much of a science fiction…

Pg 51
-NAH!’s house and administration building is “Several kilometers” from the town. As they arrive the storm catches up: “The large rustic manor house had gables, a shaded porch, and numerous wide windows flanked by armored shutters…His loyal men had insisted on creating a worthy residence for their revered commander…’Welcome to my estate. I’ve named it Elba—for obvious reasons.” Yeah…GROAN. “No one in the Constellation bothered with ancient Earth military history”; except for the guy who was just sent out here and suggests that St. Helena would have been a better name.
-Don’t worry about the estate, we learn later that it’s ‘shielded’.

Pg 52
-Although they work in what is probably the most secure building on the planet NAH! generously allows his “servants and security guards, and part-time staff” to return to their families in town “several kilometers” (Pg 51) away when they receive a weather report of an incoming storm.
-apparently its no secret that there was an alien civilization on Hellhole, the only sentient one ever discovered. Okay, well I’m assuming it’s no secret because he has obviously alien artifacts sitting in his trophy room, but then, no one asks about them, so maybe all the inspectors assume they are just more of that psychotic artist’s sculptures. He even has a standing bounty on any new ones discovered but all of DMD’s spies never report it.

Pg 53
-Again with the ‘Better to steal fanboy cream quotes then make up something original’: “Better to rule on Hellhole than to serve on Sonjeera.” Again, KJA, this was a quote from the Devil. And you have your hero saying it.

Pg 54
-“The General ran the fledgling colony like a military operation. He inventoried his personnel and their skills, mapped out the path to survival, kept a careful database of foodstuffs, seed stock, machinery.” Not anymore I guess.
-“Immediately laying out the grid…NAH! dispatched scouts to explore resources—aquifers, metal deposits, native vegetation that could be processed into something useful, minerals and building stone.” Damn, what a hellhole!
-a mysterious benefactor sent them supplies to survive the first year.
-“DMD must have been extremely frustrated!”(That they survived) So frustrated she didn’t send in the Nostromo and just nuke the site from orbit, to be sure.

Pg 55
-Elba is shielded
-(B)Ishop finds another set of records! In a hidden directory named St. Helena! I’ll give you 3 guesses as to what the password is, and its not Napoleon or Dynamite.

Pg 56 -Good thing NAH! took the precautions of setting up those fake records in case DMD sent a competent inspector. Good thing the Inspector is so happy he gets to raise your taxes that he doesn’t even bother to ask to actually inspect the new mining and resource sites NAH!’s been exploring. He’s smart enough to just take NAH!’s word they none of them really panned out. But he’s still gonna raise your taxes.

Pg 57 -having “fully complied” with the inspector, NAH! threatens to throw him out in the storm. “With a blast of wind and a crackle of blown dust, he revealed the full force of the bombastic holocaust outside. Thanks to the storm, they couldn’t even see the bright lights of Michella Town.” Maybe also because its “Several kilometers” away.

Pg 58 -“’If you would do this to me then you are indeed a monster.’ ‘Exactly as your history books portray me…Anyone who would abandon a person to such a hostile place is indeed a monster. Wait…That’s exactly what DMD did to me and my followers.” Wait…that’s exactly how we made snotty clever points in High School!

At this point, I’m pretty sure NAH! is insane.

[Omphalos]

A fool who can be fooled, huh? Sounds pretty painful.

[SandChigger]

Bombastic holocaust?

Did he actually write that?



Let's get together and buy him a dictionary. Stupid fucking hack.

And is the password... Josephine?

Or Waterloo?

OH GOD... THE LAUGHTER!!! IT BURNS! IT BURNS!!!

[Serkanner]

Man, that is horrific. I guess the password is Bonaparte.

[Ampoliros]

And is the password... Josephine?

[Serkanner]

And is the password... Josephine?

... of course.

[Ampoliros]

But don't worry, those are the "red herring" documents placed to fool an inspector that might be looking too deeply...

as for the "Don't send me to Hellhole" poster:

-They are never shown to be short on supplies. Ever. Not once does someone say: "Sorry General, but we just don't have the supplies to do that." When you see what his actual plan is and the scale on which it exists you will facepalm.

-Not one person actually dies to a storm in the book. We're told that the original settlers had trouble with them, but not one Person, Goat, Lemur cult, cattle ranch, wheat field, or vineyard ever takes lethal damage from a storm.

-Also seems to be a pretty temperate climate for a planet still reeling from an asteroid impact that wiped out 99% of life on the planet. That tends to cause...what's that? an Ice Age? Well we're told that Ice-weather equipment is considered useless. So I'm guessing they aren't to worried about an Ice Age either.

-You know, now that I think of it, I think they might have mentioned what the temperature was like once in the whole book. Enough that I don't remember what the climate was even supposed to be like. And I was reading it with a highlighter.

[Serkanner]

But don't worry, those are the "red herring" documents placed to fool an inspector that might be looking too deeply...

as for the "Don't send me to Hellhole" poster:

-They are never shown to be short on supplies. Ever. Not once does someone say: "Sorry General, but we just don't have the supplies to do that." When you see what his actual plan is and the scale on which it exists you will facepalm.

-Not one person actually dies to a storm in the book. We're told that the original settlers had trouble with them, but not one Person, Goat, Lemur cult, cattle ranch, wheat field, or vineyard ever takes lethal damage from a storm.

-Also seems to be a pretty temperate climate for a planet still reeling from an asteroid impact that wiped out 99% of life on the planet. That tends to cause...what's that? an Ice Age? Well we're told that Ice-weather equipment is considered useless. So I'm guessing they aren't to worried about an Ice Age either.

-You know, now that I think of it, I think they might have mentioned what the temperature was like once in the whole book. Enough that I don't remember what the climate was even supposed to be like. And I was reading it with a highlighter.

Sounds actually like quite a nice place to live.

[Sev]

Serkanner is right - compared to the hells that are Pandora and Dosadi, Hallholme sounds positively idyllic.

I've just had a 'look inside' thanks to Amazon at chapter 2 and immediately there's this facepalm moment:

Hallholme rotated slowly beneath her, exposing patches of water, empty continents, and finally the inhabited section, not far from the concentric ripples of the impact scar itself

The planet's got empty continents, so the colonists settle right next to the asteroid impact point...

[D Pope]

Have any of the characters gone there of their own free will? Not the cults and not the people who're hiding. I remember hearing something about Hardy Pioneer Types choosing to go because they're tough- another broken promise?







Haters, all-o-ya!




It's an uncomfotable place to live! To be sent there is a punishment!

[Ampoliros]

Well think of it this way

Hellhole is:

1 part Dune, without the consequences and depth or harsh environment.
1 part Firefly, without the witty banter and deep, lovable characters, and any real hardship.
1 part Tea Party Uprising. (by this I mean that the majority of the complaints against the 'corrupt' government are that they are evil and that they tax too much without representation. And they are evil, and corrupt. The cause of the first rebellion was second-born nobles retaliating after the most powerful families conspire to kill them off even though they've already stripped them of inheritance rights. As per usual, there is a groundswell of support for the 'wronged' nobles against the richer more powerful nobles. Did we mention that NAH! is a noble who voluntarily gave up his inheritance rights then fought a rebellion when he wanted them back? No? Oh, well its because the rebellion was against the evil corrupt government run by a mean old lady that plays sonic-polo. Who taxes too much.)

Stringline space travel is a direct metaphor to the railroads, except that one person controls all the rights to them, and they all have to go through the same hub.

Really, you need to think of these things like backdrop settings on a green-screen, because that's all they are, and they rarely if ever actually matter in the action of the moment. the best visualization is to find a video where the background is obviously CGI or a sound-stage, like the Dune miniseries where the sand suddenly ends at one point and becomes a flat background with all the shadows reversed and all the actors are having to react to things that will be added in in post production, so that some pull it off, and some are obviously just yelling at some hidden object off screen.

patches of water, empty continents,

If it has patches of open water, then wouldn't it be a pangea, with one large continent? (I know it has more to do with plates than oceans, but still...)

Also, the open scar has lava visible from space. and smoke storms are a problem. But luckily we never have to deal or even mention earthquakes, volcanoes, or the resulting ash clouds which would cause...an ice age.

[Ampoliros]

I think KJA sees Adolphus as some kind of Jean-Luc Picard - heroic, well-respected commander of a ship/fleet, who will never compromise the lives of civilians for any cause. But maybe he can't figure out how that would actually work in a combat situation.

HBJ

No, Captain 'Packard' shows up later and dies heroically.

I'm kidding.


about the 'heroically' part.

[Eyes High]

...
-

Pg 30
-“Committees and offices were created solely to give impressive sounding titles to nobles so they would not feel useless. Lawmakers formed childish alliances to oppose her policies—not because they believed that opposing her made them appear powerful”...

Maybe if I read it in content it would make more sense but as it reads now that makes absolute NO SENSE TO ME

...
....

Pg 36
-DMD is more worried about the affair than about the mismanagement of the mines. Seriously…

I might could see some people like that

...

Pg 46
-“... Just in time, (MFLF) sealed the hatch shut with a spray of sparks.”

A welding torch?

....

Pg 51
-... “…’Welcome to my estate. I’ve named it Elba—for obvious reasons.” ...

So backwards Able? Does that mean it isn't able to stand up to the elements?

[Kojiro]

Wow, Hellhole sounds relatively cushy. It makes me want to live there.

I guess it was named by settlers from Hell, Michigan.

[Ampoliros]

The Elba/St Helena/Josephine things are all references to Napoleon Bonaparte.