(no subject)

[skygiants]

A friend recced me Julie Czernada's A Thousand Words for Stranger! It is SO SPACE OPERA. My favorite part about this book is how the human love interest is an dashing older space captain named CAPTAIN MORGAN who owns a spaceship called -- wait for it -- THE SILVER FOX. I laughed at this for about twenty minutes straight. Hey there, George Clooney!

Meanwhile the heroine is an AMNESIAC SPACE PRINCESS from a species of TELEPATHIC ALIENS who is running around trying to avoid the various people hunting for her, including:

- a TRADE FEDERATION, who want her because they think she can somehow prove the telepathic aliens are breaking Space Trade rules
- an EVIL ALIEN LIZARD PIRATE, who wants her so he can sell her off to a MYSTERIOUS EVIL TELEPATHIC ALIEN
- ALL OF HER ALIEN TELEPATHIC RELATIVES, who are like "we gave our telepathic space princess amnesia for Reasons and THEN WE LOST HER shit shit shit shit"

There's an overarching meta-plot to do with how, like, telepathic aliens hook up by having psychic battles that usually end up with the dude dead, and because they're all getting increasingly more superpowered they have accidentally doomed themselves into death as a sub-species, and Julie Czernada is a biologist so I'm willing to believe that this makes sense. I don't know, I'm not a biologist. Anyway though it is all clearly less relevant than Captain Morgan and his Amnesiac Telepathic Space Princess running through grimy spaceports and battling evil alien lizard pirates and having loyal Chewbacca-esque cockroach alien friends who are willing to drop their entire careers to help our sympathetic human protagonists and spending a lot of time staring angstily into each other's eyes.

So that was perfectly enjoyable but even all that is WAY LESS IMPORTANT than the short story which was packed at the end of the book, which I almost didn't read, which would have been a TERRIBLE MISTAKE because this short story is AMAZING.


ALIEN ARCHAEOLOGIST: Man, we lost the human member of our team so I guess SOMEONE has to take charge his archaeology ruin-hunting dog. FINE. Whatever. Ugh, dogs. So sloppy, so gross, so constantly affectionate.
A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT: *occurs*
ALIEN ARCHAEOLOGIST: omg this dog saved my life! also, he's adorable. omg. Dogs. DOGS. Dogs are amazing. MUCH LOVE. VERY AFFECTION.
DOG: *dies tragically*
ALIEN ARCHAEOLOGIST: HELLO EARTH EMBASSY I WOULD LIKE ANOTHER DOG PLEASE
EARTH EMBASSY: We are very sorry but we have a policy of not giving out dogs.
ALIEN ARCHAEOLOGIST: But. But. BUT PUPPY.
EARTH EMBASSY: No, you don't understand, like, humans are pretty useless? But dogs are useful and everyone loves them? So we NEVER give out dogs to aliens because otherwise no one would ever invite humans to the space parties EVER AGAIN. Sorry, dude.
ALIEN ARCHAEOLOGIST: ...
EARTH EMBASSY: We're very sorry. We do understand. Dogs are pretty great.
ALIEN ARCHAEOLOGIST: Well ... after this terrible accident, we do have an opening on our space archaeology team, so .... if I can't have a dog, then can we have a human?
EARTH EMBASSY: Wait, you actually want a human on your team? No one ever wants a human on their team!
ALIEN ARCHAEOLOGIST: Well, humans are probably kind of like dogs, right?
EARTH EMBASSY: ....

AND THAT'S HOW HUMANS JOINED THE REST OF THE UNIVERSE. I'm not even a dog person and I find this amazingly plausible.

Comments

[thewickedlady]

Ahaha *adds sample to kindle* I mean, who WOULDN'T put their life and career on hold for a friend they haven't talked to in ages that falls into Space Port with an Alien Amnesiac Telepathic Space Princess?? (I wouldn't 'cause I'm the worst at Forwarding Plot)

I've gotten it down to only 40ish samples of STUFF TO READ on my kindle! :D?

[skygiants]

ONLY A TERRIBLE FRIEND, obviously. What does it matter if you have a flourishing and highly regarded restaurant to take care of? (I was really worried about what was happening to Alien Friend's five-star space restaurant during the course of this plot!)

:O :O :O PROGRESS. That's exciting!

[jinian]

Julie Czerneda's biology does not make as much sense as one would hope, though it's better than a lot of what's out there.

[skygiants]

I got very excited because the introduction talked about her inspirations for this book while doing biological research! Then there was way less biology than I expected from that introduction ... but, I mean, I enjoyed it anyway, and it is not like I would have known enough to appreciate more biology-ish biology anyway.

[luzula]

Ahaha, the dog thing is hilarious.

[skygiants]

IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. Yes, let's leverage our only natural asset: super cute pets!

[damselfish]

because they're all getting increasingly more superpowered they have accidentally doomed themselves into death as a sub-species, and Julie Czernada is a biologist so I'm willing to believe that this makes sense

Given that there are species where extreme sexually selective traits are occurring that could easily kill off the species, so I'll buy it in a SFF book. It falls apart in that: we're talking a sentient species, extreme traits tends to happen to males via displays*--e.g., sexually selected traits are so burdensome that under other/changed circumstances they could be incompatible with life (say, the introduction of a predator or decreased food sources among birds of paradise), it's weird that the men die but the women are exhibiting the trait selected for, and I find myself curious how this "more powerful" thing occurs because it's kind of like "we'll breed two PhDs together and make smart babies."

...Gee now I can't stop thinking about it. Damn.

I am also not a biologist, though.

Also your recaps are so much fun they are sometimes more fun than the books.

*I mean you also have species where males are burdened by traits they use in fighting each other! It may be the wording that this isn't where my mind went reading this though....

[skygiants]

Yeah, the intro talks about her research with species where extreme sexually selective traits actually damages the chance of species survival, so I think that was her inspiration for the book. Uh, the actual way it works here is that women are usually stronger telepaths than men, men are drawn to telepathic women, and reproduction involves a TELEPATHIC SMASH in which the men either are strong enough to survive or they unfortunately die, to everyone's regret. But DEATH did not used to happen when everyone was less telepathic, just some telepathic ego-bruising, but since the species has been effectively selecting for MORE TELEPATHIC POWER everybody got too strong and now MATING-RELATED DEATH is happening a lot and becoming a huge problem, so there's, like, a council dedicated to matchmaking up ladies with dudes who will probably not suffer MATING-RELATED DEATH SYNDROME.

Also women don't become capable of bearing children at all until they have had a successful telepathic mating ritual? And I think it's a mating for life thing, although I'm not one hundred percent sure about that. So part of space princess' problem is that she is TOO STRONG to hook up with any of her dude contemporaries since if she tries they will all suffer MATING-RELATED DEATH SYNDROME. (This is not actually what it's called but I think it's what I'm calling it from now on.) Anyway the fact that women are becoming too strong to safely hook up with anybody is also a problem for projected long-term species survival.

[hokuton_punch]

... oh yes, this sounds like a thing I need in my life. ESPECIALLY THE SHORT STORY.

[skygiants]

THE SHORT STORY IS SO GREAT. Like, at first I was dubious, but then I got to the end and I was like THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER.

[opusculasedfera]

I didn't like this one as much, but I LOVE Czerneda's Survival (and the two sequels.) It is also very space opera, featuring a lady scientist who just wants to be left alone to study salmon and instead is dragged into Exciting Adventures by an alien academic who thinks her biology papers are the dreamiest. There is more bizarre biology whose accuracy I cannot speak to, but I was willing to roll with it for lots of women being scientists and best friends and teaming up together (/with a large crew of other academics featuring much human and alien diversity) for science and/or world-saving. Fewer psychics, but more alien archeology!

[alias_sqbr]

That sounds amazing! *adds to cart*

[skygiants]

Oh wow, that sounds AWESOME. Totally going to have to hunt it down! Thank you!

[metaphortunate]

I must check these out.

[skygiants]

I was charmed!