New Fiction, "Meet the New Boss" Options

[Patrick Goodman]

Okay, in the spirit of my recent bout of cleaning things out and bringing them to the public, I've found a piece of web fiction that Elissa Carey and I wrote a number of years back in support of Year of the Comet. Things conspired against us and it never got published, but I recently rediscovered it. I then cleaned it up a little bit, received authorial permission from Elissa to release it, and, well, here it is.

Enjoy. Questions, comments, or criticisms, please leave them here...but be polite about it, if you please.

[Kerenshara]

Inspirational idea. Given what's going on at CGL, I doubt we'll see much new fiction in the immediate future (and I haven't heard anything on the DS Mag in a while either). I wonder if I should try to clean up some of what I've been playing with and just toss it up myself.

[Patrick Goodman]

I do what I can; I'm basically a positive person, or at least I try to be. My typical response to a lot of crap flying through the air is to find positive things to do in order to make that crap go away. Witness the Infected height/weight thread, and this one. In the not too distant future, I'm going to actually put that proposal up for discussion like I said I would back in the CGL Spec Pt. 3 thread; I've just had other stuff going on.

[Kerenshara]

I don't have anything like web-hosting that would stand up to people downloading my prose. You wouldn't have space available, would you? For all my pretentions of wanting to make money from writing, I just love to write, especially for the 6^th World, and to share it with people.

[Patrick Goodman]

Drop me a PM or an email; I'm sure we can work something out.

That said: You haven't told me if you like it or not. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Kerenshara]

I got just far enough in to realize what I was looking at. Sadly, I'm stealing time between tasks at work, so I can't actually just sit and take my time reading it.

I'm thinking printing the thing out and reading it on "lunch" when I can be relatively certain Management won't jander by and drop something in my lap or a junior co-worker won't materialize out of the Astral with a question or problem that needs my urgent attention.

[LurkerOutThere]

Hmmmmmm a quandary, I really despise the subject matter the story isn't bad in spite of that but it might have worked better as a straight peace of fiction or re-telling without the shadowtalk interplay. The immortal elf hour also snaps my suspension of disbelief that they'd let their VR meetings be violated twice.

I'm trying not to be too harsh Patrick and please understand that most of my annoyance is with the storyline choices themselves but so much this is "LOOKIT HOW IMPORTANT GHOST WALKER IS" a little later "Look at all the pople who are scared of ghost walker" it's the Worf affect but done with immortal elves.

[Patrick Goodman]

Hmmmmmm a quandary,

We aim to please.

I really despise the subject matter the story isn't bad in spite of that but it might have worked better as a straight peace of fiction or re-telling without the shadowtalk interplay. The immortal elf hour also snaps my suspension of disbelief that they'd let their VR meetings be violated twice.

I don't tend to agree, obviously; I rather like "Beyond the Veil" and had other plans for things in that vein had things gone differently for me in life.

As for the IE/dragon convo being violated twice: It had already happened twice before, in Aztlan and in Dunkelzahn's Will. Then it took whoever was doing it (and we don't know who it is, or why, though I personally suspect an inside job, with a proto-AI on the team doing it) another five or six years to penetrate again. I don't think it's too often...your mileage, obviously, varies from my own. It's not canon, so it's not something you have to worry about.

It can be taken for granted that they don't like it, but what are you/they going to do? Sometimes there's just someone better than you out there.

I'm trying not to be too harsh Patrick and please understand that most of my annoyance is with the storyline choices themselves but so much this is "LOOKIT HOW IMPORTANT GHOST WALKER IS" a little later "Look at all the pople who are scared of ghost walker" it's the Worf affect but done with immortal elves.

The Worf effect? I've been a Star Trek fan for my entire life, and I guess I've managed to dodge this one. What's the Worf effect?

And that said...there was a lot that was planned for Ghostwalker, Year of the Comet, and Survival of the Fittest that didn't come to fruition. Some of that would have made Ghostwalker a lot more mysterious and a lot more worthy of being feared. As it was, there was a lot of leaking of information by people violating their NDAs. there were product plan changes, whole lines of books never appeared because FASA closed and FanPro took over. Sad state of affairs.

Yeah, it was supposed to be "Look how scary Ghostwalker is." He was supposed to be. Doesn't work as well 10 years on, I suppose, but that's what we've got. I'm sorry you don't like the piece, but I've learned that not everybody likes everything. Who knew?

[Ol' Scratch]

The Worf Effect represents a villain's demonstration of its power by picking up the biggest, baddest good guy around and throwing him around just to show how much of a badass he really is. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, that was often Worf.

[LurkerOutThere]

True my use of it may not have been entirely accurate but that is the general gist, Patrick I'm not beating up on your work just for the sake of doing so, my own biases against IE/GD's and Ghostwalker in particular aside I wanted to give my actual thoughts after reading it.

[Patrick Goodman]

And I'm happy to hear them; you're civil about it. I don't consider what you're doing bashing, FWIW. I just found myself in the slightly odd position of defending artistic choices Elissa and I made eight or nine years ago. Same defense I would have to make back then, too, so it's not a big deal.

And GW had pretty much used everyone in Denver as a rag doll in the weeks leading up to this press conference we covered, so pretty much everyone got to be Worf somewhere along the line. Why not the IEs?

When I first came up with the story, I wanted to cover the Denver/GW thing from a different angle and do a little foreshadowing of some ideas for Survival of the Fittest when it was a multi-product story arc and not just a single book. I showed it to Elissa because she'd done a lot of the GW stuff in Year of the Comet, and she did a lot of nice things with the draft, so we bounced it back and forth for a while.

The bit about who Ghostwalker really is/was wasn't ever supposed to be made public, so we were able at the time to make a few really off-the-beaten-path idea references, and if they didn't pan out...well, red herrings are fun, too.

[fistandantilus4....]

I like Earthdawn, so not surprisingly, I like the connections drawn. I would have liked to see more of GW, because it seemed to me as if he came in with a big bang, and then mostly sat there. You had Survival of the Fittest, but that quickly became The Hestaby Show, and stole some of the fire from GW, even though he was the one that kicked it off. So yeah, I like seeing more of him. Also like the intro of Nicholas Whitebird, although I would have liked to see more of him. He was always interesting to me.

[Nemo]

That Story would identify Hecate as Alachia. I think, the "Behinde the Veil" - episode needs a work-over. Some of the participants sound out of Charakter.

[fistandantilus4....]

Alachia was supposed to be Hecate because of posting from IIRC Loose Alliances and her conversation with Elijah. Were some of the others like Guardian, Jungle cat, or Usmondo ever clearly established?

[fistandantilus4....]

Alachia was supposed to be Hecate because of posting from IIRC Loose Alliances and her conversation with Elijah. Were some of the others like Guardian, Jungle cat, or Usmondo ever clearly established?

[Angelone]

I liked it, although I only have a few Earthdawn books so I don't quite get the whole connection thing. I liked the fact that it was a press conference and peoples reaction to it.

Who or what is "the Hunter"?

[fistandantilus4....]

I think that would be Verjigorm, the Hunter of Great Dragons. An Earthdawn reference, so it makes sense that crew would be talking about it. He/it had a habit of corrupting dragons to his/its purpose.

[Patrick Goodman]

Guardian was my creation, and he still might show up. I'd hate to spoil anything that I might actually get to use, so I think I'll refrain from discussing him at this point in time.

Hecate has been identified as Alachia for...well, for a long time. I think we'd (at least behind the scenes) determined that even before Elissa and I came up with this. (The bit about her flower garden, by the way, was Elissa's, and I thought it was just a perfect touch, doubly so when I consider the lame crap I'd had in there in the first draft. Elissa's contributions made this a much better piece, IMO.)

The Hunter...that was another bit that Elissa and I came up with, trying to come up with some sort of mythology to cover why GW had been away so long. And to put the Tirs on notice, too. There's an outside chance that this, too, might get to see the light of day one of these days, so I think I'll stop there.

[Patrick Goodman]

No, I can safely say that it (the Hunter) wasn't Verjigorm, F4. Thanks for playing, though.

[hermit]

Nice. Thanks for sharing!

[KnightRunner]

Thank you for sharing Patrick. I also enjoy SR fiction, even if was never entered into canon.

As for the IE conversations..... I always thought that it would be fun to see a conspiracy theoreticians article, where nutjobs tried to explain these "strange" conversation. Sometimes accidentally get them right, but not enough for the theories to hang together.

[hermit]

Oh yes, that would be real fun to write, I imagine - or read, for plebeians like myself.

A conversation like the free forum of Tir Tairngire book (whioch, on a side note, DOES deal with conspiracy theories around elves and dragons), part of a "misc. from JackPoint" book, maybe, in the spirit of NAGRL?

[Kerenshara]

That said: You haven't told me if you like it or not. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Well, first off, the events referenced herein are from a period of time when I was separated from the 6^th World's latest developments by lack of proximity (Amazon wasn't around and the local gamestores were nigh-useless) and lack of resources (when opportunity presented itself, I wound up without the means to secure the items). It is a hole I never got around to fully repairing, sadly, so I am having to watch from the perspective of the second- and third-hand distilations included in the later products.

Second, I never really got into EarthDawn. Lots of reasons, but I just never did, so I'm probably missing a drekload of context.

That being said, it was very interesting, and I felt, well crafted. It was a compelling story, for me. Unfortunately, your formatting choices made it unnecessarily difficult to keep things separated. Honest to [diety], I would have killed for different colors to keep descriptives, inserted commentary, actual dialog and naration separate. A few times I had to "double back" and that spoiled some of the effect I think you were aiming for.

Seriously, overall I like it a great deal. As you said, it DOES delve a bit into one of two "nether" times in the 6^th World timeline. (They interestingly correspond with license hand-offs.) I especially liked the feel of the interplay between the reporter and the cameraperson: I really did feel there were two genuine slags freezing their hoops off and worried for their lives. Ok, the whole prayer thing seemed a bit heavy handed, but I think that was a side effect of how you chose/had to format the descriptives, but the attendant dialog was very supportive, so it wasn't a complete negative. The second part was a lot less gripping for me, I think, because of my shortcomings in some of the deep lore and context, but it felt a lot more like a chat-board flame-fest than a meeting between powerful individuals who have known each other for millenia. Again, I got your narative point, but the thing could use a LOT of re-work to get the full punch I think you were aiming for.

A+ for effort, A for style, A for storytelling generally, overall effect on the first section I'd give a B- due to the "format" issues you got stuck with, otherwise I'd give it an A-. Second part, as presented, D+; You'd have lost people who hadn't ever heard of the 6^th World utterly. I think you've got a really great story kernel there, but the second half needs a lot of work before it's going to be up in the same league as the first.

You asked for honest input. That's mine. Your actual kilometerage will vary greatly, of course. I actually would like to see more of the first part, so that should tell you something. (Seemed a little abruptly cut-off, at least from what I'd hope for. I'm not talking about GW's departure; He's a GREAT Dragon, so as they say "anywhere he wants". A bit more of the press conference from his proxy, on the other hand, would have been pretty wiz.)

That sort of what you were looking for?

[hermit]

it felt a lot more like a chat-board flame-fest than a meeting between powerful individuals who have known each other for millenia.

The fun thing about SR immortals is, though, they actually ae like this. Except for some very rare and usually dead examples, most of the immortals, particularily the non-dragons, tend to be petty, single-minded, selfish and utterly lacking vision. They're entangled in a complex webs of petty and not so petty likes and dislikes towards one another, and playing a game of power that often has disasterous consequences.

In a book you might want to read (Worlds without end, one part of a three-parter trilogy witht he first two being set in Earthdawn), we get to see things from the inside of one, and it's one of the better examples of a biased and unreliable narrator I know (not intending to spoiler). And Aina is one of the less fucked up immortal elves.

The book should be available at a reasonable price via Amazon's secondhand offers, as should be the books missing in your collection. It's how I've been completing mine for some time now. You can even find rare things like the first matrix book there.

[Angelone]

Anyone want to shed any light on where Ghostwalker was. I know it was the metaplanes and he buzzed by some fixers who's name I forgot's (Mother?) personal hellplane. He brought the shedim with him so it wasn't the land of milk and honey. Although they could have come from said hellplane. How'd he get here? why was he there? Was he banished for eatting one too many burritos? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/twirl.gif) minds want to know.