Smellhole Notes.

[SandRider]

as I first started reading Amp's notes, a few things flew thru the non-analytical reptilian part of my mind:
I sort of scanned the Hellhole chapter, but didn't really think too hard about it and soon forgot all of it entirely;
it would have never occurred to me to go back over it in detail and try to comprehend and annotate the differences
between what Keith apparently thought he was saying versus what he actually said in publication ...

(this, I believe, is the Primary Fail of his own lack of Editing, the level of intelligence of his "proof-readers", and
the general unconcern of the ROT/Gorge folk - I think he has the story he's trying to tell in his mind, blurts it out
into the Machine, and never goes back to check his details, or if some uncorrected error unravels the entire thing ...

these people are, in fact, publishing first drafts ... and they are apparently not very good first drafts in the first place ...)

as with the McDune, I am certainly glad that some people do actually read and post about Keith's walking-talking-stories,
because I'm not going to read them, and as I just said, the excerpts I do read, I'm not going to think about too hard ...
this is my defense to the "how can you hate them w/o reading them?" pretard argument number whichever -
I trust the opinion and veracity of you folks that do this - from past experience, you have Credibility on this subject,
with me personally, built up over time;

again, all this was reptile-brain musing, flashing in less than a second or so ....

motivation - The SandChigger's academic mind-set + his cultivated pleasure with mocking Keith has created a hobby for him,
and the internet has allowed him a form of social contact with more-normal members of the species while he is living in a land
populated by insane aliens ... plus, he is a mean-minded bastard and Keith is an un-ending source of Stupidity & Fail,
coupled with an amazing hubris & willful ignorance of Reality (classic definition of "shitheel", BTW); people like Keith are
the reason mocking was invented ...

and right behind that, I realized that Amp works for booksellers ... one of the Corporate Franchise booksellers, I believe ?
his days are spent with books, new books, old books, people looking for books, people wanting opinions on books ...
he watches the browsing habits of the book-buying public, observes their reactions and personal conversations with
each other as they pick up a book and turn to their friends ... & etc.

maybe the word is "gravitas" ... all of us here have some interest in Frank's Dune, some have interest in Frank as a
literary & historical figure, most have some interest in "Science Fiction" as a genre, and most are well above average
public intelligence ... we all have personal opinions and comments on the topics discussed here, but some pigs are more
equal than others, due to our vocations, or education, or life experiences ....

[big-time sidebar]
and this sietch IS a functioning democracy coupled with a benevolent-dictatorship for police action - meaning we all
recognize Freakzilla as naib and are honor-bound to respect his Wishes & Desires (this is because he has proven himself,
over time, to be worthy of this Respect) and accept the Hammer-fist of Omphalos, because this is an ordered-society
of a type, and some police-action is always necessary; and as with Freak, Omph has proven over time to be a fair and
just moderator, with measured judgment ...

[sidebar_f'instance] I did not and do not agree with the banning and casting-out of the Sloe Man. I believe an important
and valued piece of our sietch-culture was lost with his going; others may & do disagree, this is a personal thing for me;
I enjoyed Sloey very much and miss him greatly ... but the decision was not mine to make, and again, I am honor-bound
to accept the Judgment; I donot agree with banning of any type, to include St. Hypatia & Arnoldo the Poison-dwarf .. I
would rather have them here and spouting non-sense; however, I am also a Fan of Anarchy, and I realize that not everyone
could contain themselves to witty & clever & sharp retorts, and the responses to these two would eventually, if not
automatically, devolve into "FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING FUCK", which would not be conducive to fruitful discussion; and
while my argument rests of the ability of the Hammer-fist to delete and purge posts (to which I am also fundamentally
opposed) I am not the moderator - it would not be my responsibility to perform the time-consuming task of dealing
with a case like The Swordmaster, after his melt-down, or whatever happened to him .... I understand Omph's
decision there ... as a policy, I am unhappy with it, but as a realistic measure, I have to support it ... [/sidebar]
[/big-time sidebar]

the preceding was ancillary observation on the structure of the sietch,
and on the evolution of our shared sietch-culture only to propose that
Ampoliros be allotted a contained space, here or @TAU, for the archiving
of his various notes ... with a personal caveat :

that the notes be edited to tone down and/or purge the snarky comments;
as a post, they are entertaining - as a serious "criticism" they detract from
the "gravitas"; I believe that Ampoliros, from his vocation and experience,
is a "more equal pig" in this arena; I would like to see him hone his
"Literary Criticism" skills to a professional level, and I'd like to give him
privileged space to do so...

[Ampoliros]

I agree, my notes are written in more of a "sci-fi snob" method than a professional critique. Generally the notes are my initial reactions to the reading and written as the story progresses. While I use them as a steam valve they could easily be honed through thoughtful editing (sans Transformers DVD) which I am willing to do.

what Keith apparently thought he was saying versus what he actually said in publication ...

This x2. Its obvious that there is much that KJA had to have considered while writing, but totally fails to carry it into the story. things that would be added through editing or rewriting. I'd love to get my hands on a first draft and a finished product to compare how much actually gets changed. Right now my working theory is that Smellhole is nothing more than the things KJA wanted to add to Dune but couldn't for one reason or another. The only reason I'm bothering to read it and take notes is because it is essentially another BH & KJA Dune movement.

Its going to be really hard not being snarky with KJA's logic though. I mean come on how do you not deconstruct 'ultrafast' as 'fanboy cream signifier' or a 'buyafuckingthesaurusalreadyism'?

[Hunchback Jack]

Not just a thesaurus - a dictionary. Even allowing for poetic license etc., sometimes he just plain uses words incorrectly.

Perhaps only lazy, unprofessional, prima donna, critical darlings need to worry about the actual meanings of words, though. A professional like Keith doesn't let them get in the way of meeting a deadline.

(And I second SR's suggestion about having an Amp zone somewhere, if Amp is willing to continue critiquing Hellhole. Would comments be allowed?)

HBJ

[Ampoliros]

Oh I'm definitely going to finish my notes on Smellhole of Dune as soon as it comes out. Trying now to find an ARC but since they are random distribution I don't know if anyone in the area got one.

I wouldn't bother with Terrible Incognition or Saggy Suns even though I'm sure KJA pilfered Dune for those works.
Smellhole just seems to be such a Direct Rip-off that I'm including it in the Dune works of the Hack.

[Ampoliros]

-----------------------------------
> Purchase Details
> -----------------------------------
>
> Description: Hellhole - Brian Herbert & Kevin Anderson ARC , Item# 290539076412
> Qty: 1
> Unit Price: $4.50 USD
> Total: $4.50 USD

[SandChigger]

You get what you pay for!

Worth every other penny!

[Kojiro]

What's sad is I kind of wish books were that cheap again.

[Ampoliros]

Well I've started in on it. So far pretty drab with a lot of characters who are completely defined by their 1-word or distinct punctuation personalities

The best single line I've encountered so far is this:

"Committees and offices were created solely to give impressive-sounding titles to nobles so they would not feel useless."

I also thought this was interesting, on the back in the marketing details it mentions:

"Extensive Print Advertising in science fiction/fantasy and military publications"

[Kojiro]

Ah... irony.

[TheDukester]

Spanky and Bobo begin their World Domination Tour ...

... in separate locations.

http://kjablog.com/?p=1580" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(Anyone want to bet that Bobo's "escort" has been told to keep an accurate count on the alcohol ... )

[Ampoliros]

[Lawliet]

LOL.

[chanilover]

Is that Brian on the left? Nice to see Jabecca sharing her lunch on the table there.

[Freakzilla]

[Ampoliros]

Thanks Freak, more than you know. That lit up my day! Gotta love Spinal Tap.


I mean, I don't really enjoy relentlessly mocking the Hack, but I can't let that damn vineyard go. (its actually vineyards plural, they weren't planning on building a second one, just expanding to an new type of grape.)

Anyway, "Behold, as a wild ass in the desert, go I forth to my work."

[Freakzilla]

I exist only to serve.

[SandChigger]

A vineyard? Grapes of wrath, perhaps?

[merkin muffley]

Spinal Tap rules. And KJA/BH are using that same title without irony.

[TheDukester]

" ... yes, Tor Books would have paid for a nice sit-down lunch, but we didn’t want to take the time ..."

LAWL! Thanks for reading every word here, Keith.

This is a direct counter to all the riffing we did on the Paul/Jessica tours, specifically to how cut-rate and cheap they seemed.

http://kjablog.com/?p=1589" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Freakzilla]

Our books go to eleven.

[Serkanner]

Now, what I did all day were “drop-by” signings—not formal events, just stopping into the store to meet the staff and autograph the books they had on hand.

In other words ... he wasn't invited in the first place.

[SandRider]

I wonder, at how many of those places the kids had no fucking idea who he was,
assumed he was insane, and called the mall police ?

[Tleszer]

That, SR, would have been awesome.

[TheDukester]

Amazon sales rank: "#19,470 in Books."

Hmmm ... just a bit slow out of the gate, there, Keith ...

[Ampoliros]

Well if its anything like the book, then its already seen its burst of speed.

I'll also add, for those who don't actively join us but love to mine this for ammo, that I found a passage in the book that was actually 'well done' and in such a different voice that I'm pretty sure it came from Brian rather than KJA. (It was a philosophical passage and iirc that's Brian's department.)

By well done I mean it revealed that someone had stopped and thought about what they were writing, rather than just committing verbal masturbation into a microphone. It dealt with the meaning and consequence behind the new alien human hybrids vs individuality rather than just byzantine blustering of their awesome psychic powers.

I'm also wondering if KJA actually put his gift of repetition to work for him because the persistence that the aliens have in asking humans to become their hosts is downright creepy uncle disturbing. At least it gives him an excuse to bring in his trademarked superpowers.

That almost cancels out the half-assed justification for having wheat fields. (They grow ultrafast. That's a little joke, they don't actually say ultrafast there. Still, the justification for the wheat fields surviving on Hellhole is that they grow fast.)

Also this book has so much repetition it bears an actual exploration of the ratio of new material to repetition. I'm not exaggerating when I say that probably close to 10% of this book is repetition. That's 51-52 pages worth of material out of a 500+ page book. (Not counting the appendices. Did I mention the book has appendices? And a glossary. Hey, all epic tales need appendices. Yeah, but not like Dune.)