Troutwaxer

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• Commented on Do my Laundry
  OGH hasn't said much about that, but Lumley made it clear that the Cthonians were a powerful race, but not deities, and that they both served and were aligned with the Elder Gods....
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  Nyarlahotep doesn't love us, he just wants us for our tasty emotions. If Dagon and Hydra actually have some affection for their people then BLUE HADES is in much better shape than humanity... I think the 'happy' ending in the...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  This sound like a place where, if the series is successful-enough, that you'd take on another writer who's got some "been a Christian" experience* and wants to collaborate with you. You'd lay out the action/adventure side of the plot and...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  If you ever authorize a book of "Stories from the Laundryverse" I definitely want to play!...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  I'm quite aware of the fuckery with Hunter, thanks. His 'crime' isn't being guilty of anything, it's making himself vulnerable to the accusation in such a fundamentally stupid fashion....
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  If you're looking to the real world for inspiration on the next Laundry Files book (or a New Management book) look no further than the whole Hunter Biden business. It's a really whacky tale of the son of an experienced...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  "Stop. So you're saying the Russians have these, uh, Shoggoths, but we don't have any. And even those dumb Arab bastards in Baghdad are working on them. So you're saying we've got a, a Shoggoth gap? A strategic chink in...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  "If Everyman is not Nyarlothotep, what about the Sleeper in the Pyramid et seq? Maybe Everyman really is the lesser evil?" Maybe Everyman is a lesser avatar of Nyarlahotep who's dedicated to bringing forth the greater avatar, but he still...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  Jimmy Buffet died. I wasn't into his music, but I really enjoyed his autobiography....
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  Firefox on Ubuntu, I'm fine....
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  When I was traveling in Indonesia in my youth someone defined tempeh as "not tofu yet." The description still amuses almost forty years later....
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  So you're saying the Ghouls should come out of the tomb closet? Or Deep Ones ask to be recognized as a sentient species by the court, proving Lovecraft right, then go all-out against developers? First, Ruthanna Emrys's books are already...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  No. But I think Star Trek qualifies as Space Opera. (Wagon Train NOT In Space would be Horse Opera, right?)...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  "So I am personally waiting for some ragtag band of misfit science fiction writers to create those ordinary, mainstream stories about mundane people living on a mundane Earth that is mundanely solving all the climate crises in the doable, but...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  I think I'd characterize Star Trek as "Space Opera" rather than MilSF. It doesn't always involved warfare....
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  Interesting question. It might. Or it might require sociopathy to go forward in certain ways, like "I'll push this technology really hard because it will make me lots of money." But that question would certainly be part of the fiction,...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  The interesting story might be this: Someone comes up with a method of both diagnosing and curing sociopathy. How does society look a hundred years later?...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  MAGA - Making Attorney's Get Attorneys... This is what happens when you let your boss pay for your attorney. Will it influence the outcome? Hard to tell, as charges were already fired and a U.S. Prosecutor usually won't file charges...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  You're right about the sample size of one, but Charlie isn't doing science. It's perfectly reasonable for a fiction writer to make the assumption that Earth is near the center of the "Bell Curve" for story purposes without feeling like...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  You're right about Illuminatus,* but on the subject of how aliens will look/behave I think it's most likely that Earth is near the center of the Bell curve in terms of how life evolves. That doesn't mean they'll be remotely...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  Hmmm... How about the "space-aliens are already among us, with unknown, and possibly hostile intentions" trope? I'm also a big fan of the Illuminatus trilogy. I'd love to see a good author do an 'updated' take on that, with all...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  My take on that is "Lincoln is not a lawyer, but an early economist, and can prove beyond the slightest shadow of any doubt that the South's economy is inferior to the North's. The civil war is avoided and slavery...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  It happened a couple times in the real world, I think, in England. Also a book by Paul Theroux covers some of the same territory....
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  You could abandon the "mundane" SF thing long-enough to write something in a classic space-opera universe, complete with FTL, energy shields, sooper-dooper science, etc., including a Captain and /his/her/it's mighty ship! If you ever wanted to give certain tropes a...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  "A heist. Combine it with a Canterbury Tales collection of shorts exploring the backgrounds of the motley crew of esoteric specialties this intricate plan to steal a whole bunch of money requires." Something like Dan Simmon's Hyperion? Something hopeful? Agreed....
• Commented on Pass or Fail
  Oh. And some of the women in the Bible are quite adept at procuring justice for themselves or their people; Tamar and Esther come to mind....
• Commented on Pass or Fail
  If you're looking for men who write knowledgeable, capable women, we could start with... idunno... Shakespeare....
• Commented on Finding true love in the cosmos
  I think evolution eventually converges somewhere between "having useful things" like fins, and efficiency, as in "not having too many fins to manage."...
• Commented on Finding true love in the cosmos
  ("Personal log: It continues. In the last week he has touched me on the arm three times. We do not share a shift together without him openly smiling at me, even when others can see. I do not know how...
• Commented on Go away, Muse, you're drunk (again)
  There's still a problem, however. Science is ultimately more powerful than magic, as it would eventually extend itself to understanding magic. However, if magic can interfere with science, but science can't interfere with magic, then it's obvious to the ordinary...