Smellhole Notes.

[Ampoliros]

When I'm done with the notes I'll post a more reasonable, less "tl;dr" review and my version of the appendices.

[SadisticCynic]

I'm just about managing to get through it. It's enlightening to see someone go through a book in detail like this. Despite how shameful an admission it is, I'm certain I am not observant enough to catch some of this stuff on my own, even in Kevin's work.

[Ampoliros]

And our epic continues:

Pg 136
-Vince and F! set out after "a two-day-long workshop during which they were bombarded with one-liners and divine snippets from a balding, hackish wannabe in a jacket.... sorry, got a bit off track when i read "two-day-long workshop".

-"a two-day-long workshop during which they were bombarded with details about seismic activity, volcanic eruptions, dust clouds, toxic gas, plumes vented from underground reservoirs, pernicious parasites, and fungal infections...Possible storms fell into several categories: thunderstorms, windstorms, lightning, hail, freak snowstorms, and tornadoes, in addition to exotic smoke storms and static outbursts, colloquially called growlers...and those were the known hazards.

-I'd just tell them to hide in the vineyard if they see something scary, but hey, I already ruined the suspense by telling you that no one dies or gets injured by a storm in the entire book. Pretty CGI background.

-F! foreshadows! Vince: "We haven't found anything yet." "We will." because of course these two idiots are the ones who will find the alien civilization. Oops, did I ruin it for you?
-To be fair, like Christophe, Vincent is a character that actually points out flaws with whats going on in an intelligent manner. As a result of being surrounded by idiots, he is going to die a horrible death.
-sorry, I'll stop dropping spoilers.

Pg 139
-"Geometrical-hail showers". ??
-F! gets beaned in the head with a rather large shard. Since he's already a F!'n moron, no damage done.
-They hide in a fabric tent from the hail storm.
-Right next to the Trakmaster vehicle that they use to explore...
-Oh wait, the tent has a "resilient overhang" which they hope will hold against the storm. It does. (At this point, my Mage/Cleric looked at the DM and said. "I disbelieve! The storms are obviously an illusion." I must have failed my save, so I just pulled out my portable vineyard)

Pg 141
-F! claims to see a big scary monster-predator beasty. "Unbelievable! We're all alone out here in a wild environment, and the General gives us nothing to defend ourselves with? What was he thinking?"
-You have a big truck. Run it over if its that bad. Or hide in the tent, if it can survive a 'geometric hailstorm' then a big cat-lizard can't do shit.

Chapter 22
-we're introduced to the Tug-fuck couple. I'm not going to look up their names.
Because all they do is run a tug and fuck.

I'm totally serious.

Chapter 23
Blah Blah Blah..Diadem

Pg 150
-Stringlines have been around for about 60-70 years, based on the age of the Diadem.
-I'm pretty sure that somewhere else they mention that the tech has been around for 200 years.
-Elsewhere its also mentioned that the Diadem's power comes from control of the stringlines.
-but here, for at least a paragraph, they've only been around since the Diadem was 20.

Pg 151

-Diadem throws a private dinner for two with The Black Lord.
-The Black Lord wears black.
-The Diadem serves MFLF's wine. TBL: "It tastes...rough"

Pg 153

-"Shiploads of Constellation inspectors...swarmed through the mines"
-they find "countless supposed safety violations" and blame Christoph's own inspectors as being incompetent.

-for some reason, Louis is sent to his home planet for formal "reading of the charges" although the trial will be back on Sonjeera afterwards.

blah blah blah Keanu wringing her hands for 5 pages about Louis being arrested for incompetence. Yeah, a long KJA chapter about a moron bitching and moaning.

Pg 163
-MFLF is worried about the religious fanatics. So she sends her son Devon (I haven't mentioned him because he's that important) and Ant. (BTW Devon and Ant will soon be a couple. I spared you the courting because its KJA)
-"and if they do need supplies, provide them at no charge. I've made enough profit from those people already"
-Yeah, you know, I'm mostly liberal, so I don't have much problem with giving a helping hand to those who need it. But you know, you're supposed to be on a harsh planet with little resources and these guys shirked the '1-year service agreement' that supposedly keeps the settlement maintained. But, hey, since that's all a crock of shit, go ahead and send them supplies, since you're already about 80% sure they are dead.

Pg 165
-I highlighted the "But"s there since KJA starts two paragraphs in a row with "But". But I figured I could get away with it in an unprofessional, amateur critique if his editor let it slide for a published manuscript.

-"They had no way of knowing exactly which path the group had taken, but it was clear where they were going."
-No matter how you read that line it makes as much sense as a cataract on an anal probe. Since:
-They are headed to the impact crater; Devon says that's a favorite location for all the religious fanatics.
-"Sooner or later, we'll probably have to pave a road out there. My mother would like to make it a toll-way."
-Devon tells a story about a clothes-eating fungus that left an entire settlement naked.

Chapter 27
-Col Muttonchops reminisces, again, differently...
Pg 168
-"Hallholme should have despised his enemy, the man who had singlehandedly led the most destructive campaign in the history of the Constellation." (and failed...)
Pg 169
-Hallholme is paying tribute to the fallen soldiers at the rebellion graveyard.

Reason #3 why I didn't believe the earlier story Col. Muttonchops had told about a traitor shooting him in the head:

Pg 170
-"And the deception had worked.
Hallholme had not, in truth, placed any of the hostages aboard his warships..."

I would assume that his crew would know that it was a deception, since he didn't have any of them packed on board the ship. So why then would one of them 'do the right thing' if he knows the civilians aren't really in danger? Did he really think Col. Muttonchops would fake using the civilians as human shields, only to kill them for real down on the planet? And why would he tell his son a completely different story?

Pg 172
-NAH has given and will keep his word not to leave Hellhole. So he has all the other rebel leaders come to him, using fake excuses, like "a death in the family, private management retreats...some even admitted to going to Sonjeera"
-I wonder how many references to the "Superstars Writers Seminars" Brian and the editors had to edit out of this manuscript.
-I especially like the fake excuse of a death in the family. But hey, since there is no security at all anywhere and the Diadem has only one operative that is worth half a damn I guess we'll have to let it slide.
-Biodomes can't grow decent coffee. It's too "watery". But hot damn, you should try the static roasted wine she makes...
-NAH! wears buisness attire rather than his rebel uniform to the meeting of rebels because "the General preferred not to remind these planetary administrators about his past." Good move, because you don't want to remind them how much of an utter fail you are at military leadership.

Pg 174
-"Despite rumors his guests might have heard about the rustic conditions on Hellhole, they would not feel deprived during the meeting." sigh...
-NAH! shows the rebel leaders a chart of his NEW SURPRISE SECRET STRINGLINE HUB!!!!!
-"If an outsider were to discover this chart, (NAH!) would have to kill them to protect the secret" What if they are packed into a military warship as a human shield and they see the chart, would you kill them then? No?
-But man, where would he hide such a structure? I mean it has to be in orbit. Hey, lets hide it in the planetary shadow! NO ONE EVERY LOOKS THERE. GAWD DAMN THAT'S CLEVER.

Welcome to Amp's Fantasy Interview! Hey, KJA, you have a Physics BA, right?

"Yeah!"

You know that planets move right?

"Of Course..snicker"

And these stringline hubs are geosynchronous?

" "

That means they stay in one point in orbit, directly over the dropzone

"Yeah, of course, that's what they do so the Upboxes and Downboxes work."

And the stringlines are basically like the railroads

"Yeah, they are supposed to be like the old west, the railroads cut through the wilderness and were a symbol of civilization against a bleak backdrop."

...

"Like Hellhole."

So a stringliner comes through at the wrong time of day, and

"Well they would stop obviously, before they ran into the planet"

Of course, which would put them on the other side of the planet

"Yeah"

Where the secret stringline hub is?

"um"

Moving on. So these stringline ships can detect the nodes and hubs moving at...ultrafast speeds...

"Yeah, you see the Iperion markers give off a Quantam signinture, this is all speculative hard science fiction by the way, so the stringliners follow the markers like breadcrumbs, or a railroad track."

So they can probably detect multiple nodes ahead, to make sure they are on the track?

"...Sure, so they can stay on the track, and detect the hub with enough time to slow down and stop."

But not the secret nodes or hub.

"...."
"Well, no...."
" 'cause..."
"It's in the planetary shadow..."

One last question, can you confirm or deny the accusation by a..."Sand-drider"... that you are in fact a massive shitheel?

"...You said the 501st were going to be here to protect me..."

Yeah, apparently Sandrider thought they were shitheels too and he and TheDukester took em out back, so...yeah, I'll call you a cab.

Oh, and my lawyer advised me to tell you to leave through the side exit with your jacket over your head since the rest of the OH are waiting outside the front with eggs and bricks. Hey before you go, could I get you to sign something for me?


Sure, whats that?

Just a Dune sign I took to the Colbert rally...

[SadisticCynic]

Also, NAH! is starting to sound like Admiral Daala...

[Ampoliros]

I wouldn't be surprised to find out he slept his way to the top. With Grand Moff Tarkin.

[Kojiro]

A military strategist KJA clearly is not.

[SandRider]

Despite how shameful an admission it is, I'm certain I am not observant enough to catch some of this stuff on my own, even in Kevin's work.

I'm sorta the same way; depends on what it is I'm reading, and what prejudices I bring to the table ...

f'instance, the Civil War Historian equivalent to tehKJA is an asshole named William C. Davis. (for fun, Amp, take a look at your history
section and tell me how many titles on The War your store currently has by this hack)(also tell me which Shelby Foote books are in
stock and how many of McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom")(also, and remember this, the guy to recommend is David Eicher -
The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War, Simon & Schuster 2001, is simply stunning - every engagement of the war
is covered, even the smallest run-in, with the perfect balance of detail & situation to make each totally understandable; he covers the
battle at Cabin Creek, in the Indian Territory, one of the most minor incidents in the war, in two concise paragraphs that give all the
who's and why's detail; he does not over-analyze the big fights, and the maps are great - altho kinda hefty, the big softback is 1K
pages, if there was one book that covers it all, with balance, it's this one ...)

Willie Davis wants to be Shelby Foote sooooo bad, except of course, Shelby was a Southerner, and altho no-one has ever been
more honest and straightforward about the Confederacy's faults and merits, Willie Davis' people fought for the Union, and they won, so
Willie must be better, right ?

Wilie is a hack, a numbers hack, like tehKJA ... his stupidest book to date is "Look Away! A Political History of the Confederacy",
which is 50% rehash & expansion on irrelevant (and sometime erroneous) details from a previous, co-authored book on the general
history of The War, and 50% direct fucking copy-pasta from that book ...

it's a pretty well accepted theory of history, as well as sometimes really, really obvious, that Jefferson Davis' respect for and personal
friendship with Braxton Bragg caused him to not only retain Bragg after the disaster at Stones' River, but to promote him, and continue
to promote him, even tho Bragg had proven to be unable to effectively command more than a regiment; the more troublesome part, tho,
was that Davis not only entertained Bragg's bitching about other general officers (and most, if not all, of the time, Bragg was clearly in
the wrong) but being swayed by him ... the facts are that Bragg held a personal grudge against Joe Johnston and used his influence
with Davis to undermine Davis' confidence in Johnston; Johnston himself was a no-bullshit kind of man, who had no time for Bragg's
whisperings, paid them no heed, and thus was baffled and eventually angered by the tone of communication coming to him from Davis
later in The War ...

[SandRider]

so Willie takes this and stretches it in two opposing ways, over and over again, in everything he writes,
his books, other people's books, the coffee-table photo books he now does a lot of, because Shelby's
dead, McPherson's become too much of a political hot-potato and hasn't written a new book of original
content in years, Ed Bearss never did write much and you can't get him off the Vicksburg field for more
than a few hours, anyway .... William C. Davis is the "current name" in Civil War history ....

and he sucks; he's a hack, and a plagiaristic hack to boot ... there has never been any "new" ideas in any of his writings,
there no evidence he's ever done any research on anything, except other people's books, mostly Shelby's on the Confederacy
and Bruce Catton's for the Union (but he re-writes alot of Shelby's stuff, after all, the South lost ...)

Willie lays the entire defeat of the Confederacy at the feet of Davis, primarily over the one thing I just mentioned,
his ear for Genl Bragg .... which is kinda like saying Hunter S. Thomson died because his heart stopped beating; a
"contributing factor", maybe, but not the real point ... but he also stretches the discord between Johnston and Davis
into some insupportable conjecture; and then he somehow makes the flip and blames things on Johnston, for not
doing as Davis had instructed, even tho he has said before that Davis' judgment was suspect and cost the South
The War ...

and some Historians seem to have to have a scapegoat, some one to hang all the blame on; for Willie, it is Joe Johnston,
who, if you only read Willie's books, must've been the worst, most inept commander since Col. Klink. (in the same vein,
the author Wiley Sword has a huge hate-on for John Bell Hood, and has wrote the only book I know of devoted solely
to Hood and the Last Trip to Tennessee in November, 1864; (that would be Spring Hill, the battle at Franklin, and the
final destruction of the Army of Tennessee at the fortifications at Nashville) Sword continually paints Hood as angry,
insane, on drugs, vengeful, &etc.; which may or may not be true, and a case can be made against John Bell Hood for
some decisions that were kinda questionable and resulted in the destruction of one of the last two armies of the
Confederacy, but Sword just goes waaaay fucking overboard, on every page - point here is that when some one
starts to opine that John Bell Hood was doped up and pissed off at his men at Franklin, I know who's book he's been
a-readin....

[SandRider]

so the point to all this, and there is one, is that ... wait ... what ?


oh yeah ....

no, there's no point at all here, whatsoever ....

carry on, then ...

[SandChigger]

For the love of the Maker, tell me you made up the nekkid fungus thing....

[Ampoliros]

lol, well, I know we have McPherson's book, iirc its a modeled title, which means the computer automatically orders another if we sell one. I know we have some Foote as well, but I'm not sure of the titles.

Its amazing the osmosis you get from working in a bookstore. I have people come in and ask about a book and I know if we have it and where it should be, and more often than not I have no idea where that info came from.

I mean, I don't read Civil War history, never been a buff of that era, but you said McPherson and I knew what the fuckin cover looked like. Foote I know by reputation. Davis, well I'm sure we have some of his books, but I don't know which.

[Ampoliros]

For the love of the Maker, tell me you made up the nekkid fungus thing....

Okay okay you got me on that one. where's that cookie picture...oh here it is:

Pg 166
-"He told her about a burgeoning native mold that had grown in one independent settlement consuming all artificial fabrics, leaving the baffled group to rush naked back to Helltown in embarrassed desperation."

Also might add this one: "Vincent pitched their self-erecting tent..." (Pg 138)

or "She wore a flattering but deceptively practical dress and had taken great care with her appearance." (Pg 174)

Next time one of you guys take your lady out, be sure to describe her like that. Get one of your kids to film the reaction.

[SandChigger]

Apologies for doubting you!

[Hunchback Jack]

-But man, where would he hide such a structure? I mean it has to be in orbit. Hey, lets hide it in the planetary shadow! NO ONE EVERY LOOKS THERE. GAWD DAMN THAT'S CLEVER.

But wait, that makes no sen ...

Ah, I see you're way ahead of me. But seriously? That's how they hide it?

But a satellite *can't* be in geosynchronous orbit around a planet and stay in the planetary shadow unless the planet's period of rotation equals its period of revolution (ie its day equals its year). And in that case, I don't know how far from the planet the satellite's orbit would have to be to be geostationary. Pretty damn far. Unless the planet revolves around its sun like a motherfucker, in which case, trying to rendezvous with the satellite is going to be tricky.

And how do these "railroads" deal with the fact that the planet revolves around the sun, anyway? I mean ...

(Okay, I think "this doesn't make sense" pretty much covers it. as does your interview).

You were joking about this, weren't you, Amp? WEREN'T YOU????

HBJ

[Kojiro]

"This is not the satellite you're looking for."

[SandRider]

"pitching my self-erecting tent" would be fucking genius if it came from me in a story from the Spring encampments,
but I have to wonder if Keith even thought of it that way ...

also, explain to me again the dropbox-inbox-stringline thing, I wasn't paying attention -
I thought the "stringliner" thing was Keith's foldspace/FTL crossin-the-galaxy device ...

what you were describing in the interview sound a lot like Arthur Clarke's space elevator ...

in fact, it sounds exactly like Arthur Clarke's space elevator ...


and the point I never got to earlier in the evening was that Amp is reading tehKJA with the intention of catching the foolishness,
which is how I read Willie Davis ... Amp expects to find stupid on every page, and is not disappointed; but as you said,
most of the time, I'm not reading that closely or connecting those dots on the first go-round, when reading fiction ... I used
to enjoy reading Stephen King alot, at the time I enjoyed his style and would just eat up one of his books ... and later, much
later, something would sneak back into my mind that said wait. that didn't make a lick of sense.; but it didn't ruin the
enjoyment of the read at the time (The Stand is a good example, I read it twice and just loved it; after the third time some of
the big-ass holes in the over-all plot got my attention ...)

but Keith is just so bad, I can't get past some of the sample chapters he's posted; some of the paragraphs quoted here I can't
even finish; I can only take a few of the sample sentences Amp is de-constructing in this thread at a time ...

also, earlier today, I think it was, I actually read thru the last 5 posts on Keith's blahg, so I ain't gonna be no more good for awhile ...

[Ampoliros]

For myself, enjoyment of a book is based off immersion. If a book pulls me in to where I go minutes or even hours where I don't remember the world around me, then that's a damn good immersion. The Name of the Wind. Dune. A Canticle for Lebowitz. Iain Banks' Culture series. Those are books where I can swim for hours without hitting a rock. Are they perfect? no. Nothing is flawless. As my old English history professor put it: God gets a 100, the best you can get is 99. (His grading scale was actually very well done and extremely fair, to the detriment of college freshmen with no attention span.)

I can walk on the surface of a KJA book and not get the soles of my feet wet. That's how often it breaks my immersion. So much so that I actually keep track of the times my feet do get wet. For Hellhole that was one time in over 600 pages.

He said what? You're hiding your ultimate secret here? Why not there? Where no one will look and they need it more? You have a Physics Degree? Can they take it back?

Physics aside, Hellhole as the location for the rebel world's first stringline hub is basically the Dramatic choice, but in all practicality it is by far the worst choice. There are two other planets that make exponentially more sense to be the locations for these hubs. As one of the Amazon reviews mentioned, it would be nice to have a map of the Constellation and Deep Zones.

But that means details, and you can't dictahike a map into a microphone.

[Ampoliros]

Ah by planetary shadow I mean the sensor shadow created by a giant orb of rock which makes it a perfect place to hide things.

The dropboxes/upboxes aren't very well explained except they imply that they are geosynchronous. At one point someone touches a dropbox and it is warm to the touch, it had just landed, and if in fact they drop straight down I'd love to know what they use as a heat sink...or maybe i have my physics backwards here. if the angle is too steep you burn up and too shallow you bounce off correct?

Near the front of the book there is an omg tension cliffhanger (PUN ) when the new arrivals are in a dropbox and it lurches then starts falling towards the planet.

There are no elevators, it seems like the boxes are basically railroad cars with thrusters. Plenty of shuttles and misc. ships as well.

Dammit stop waking me up at 2am and makin me think.

[D Pope]

I know it's a silly question BUT...
Didn't you mention earlier that there were upboxes and downboxes with this newly added dumpbox?
I'm imagining a landing area littered with 'downboxes' and only a few 'upboxes' left because they're all in orbit.
Perhaps there's a factory on an iron asteroid making downboxes with its twin on the surface making upboxes?
I'm sure i'm misunderstanding, the difference must be where the box is, right? Since we're talking 14evin here, I had to ask.

[Sev]

Is a down box only a downbox when it's up, once it's down it's an upbox? Which would mean an upbox is only an upbox when it's down, once it's up it's a downbox?

[D Pope]

That's what I meant with where the box is, that would make a twisted sort of sense.
Upboxes and/or downboxes implies that there's a difference, that there's a box for each specific job- leading to a lot of litter. If this is the case, Hellhole is well supplied indeed.


Once an upbox is up, it's done its job and can't do it again unless it goes down, and the name implies that going down exceeds it design capability. I'm sure that not even the hacks are this stupid, well, I had to ask, anyway.


Must be steady work, running the box factory. "We keep about a hundred downboxes in orbit at any given time, try not to let the minimum get below forty. Some scab tried to open a downbox recycling factory here but he died from a fall caused when a cloth eating fungus got into his hammock... heh heh."

[Ampoliros]

I think it only describes where the box is at the moment or what its about to do.


Also, as a side note, B. Conway has taken up my discussion of the vineyards on Amazon. I'd prefer he be left to his own devices there, perhaps if the discussion remains civil it will last long enough for him to see my point about them.

If you want a discussion to raid, check this out:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/2 ... _and_Storm

Scroll down to see some classic preeq arguments. Do you think I should have maybe warned the guy that I've been doing this since the new books came out?

Oh, and someone correct me if I was wrong about the whole STL Butlerian Jihad thing.

[SandChigger]

Also, as a side note, B. Conway has taken up my discussion of the vineyards on Amazon. I'd prefer he be left to his own devices there, perhaps if the discussion remains civil it will last long enough for him to see my point about them.

Waste of time if you ask me, but whatever.

Oh, and someone correct me if I was wrong about the whole STL Butlerian Jihad thing.

They had FTL in the Legends trilogy before space-folding. I don't recall whether the propulsion for the Omnius probes is mentioned either way, but since one of the probes soon ends up on Arrakis and gets ett by a sandworm after zapping a proto-Fremen, I'd say it's a safe bet that the probes had FTL, too.

The way the light speed issue ties in with the probes & Ommy/Rasmy rebirth arc is that the SIGNAL sent out from Corrin can only travel at light speed, therefore limiting the distance the new machine empire can be from Sigma Draconis to just a few thousand light years and placing it firmly within the Old Imperium. (Unless KJA pulls a "the signal fell into a wormhole" deus-ex-arsina!)

There was also that bullshit about the machine fleet in Sadworms using "lightspeed engines", whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean. (KJA evidently thought it meant FTL.) If Omnius wasn't afraid of spacefolding, the machines could have appeared over every human planet and wiped out the entire species in one swell FOOP!

But then the book would have been over WAY too soon.

[Ampoliros]

AH iirc now, they used rocket propulsion and claimed it was FTL. Which is impossible.

[SandChigger]

Yep. The accelerating up and into FTL is bullshit. (Surprising that Mr Physics Degree doesn't know that.)

(But soft, lest this topic get Thang's engines going! )