Featured Post - Ninja Writer's Story Club - Week 3

Tideline by Elizabeth Bear

Featured Post - This will stay on top of the page for a week - scroll down for newer content.

Last Week you people didn't participate at all .  .  . at least read the story and say Yay or Nay,  . . . Okay?

This week we're going to go to one of the best, innovative authors writing today: Elizabeth Bear.  Her story, Tideline, is nominated for the Hugo Award alongside last week's story by Michael Swanwick.

Chalcedony wasn’t built for crying. She didn’t have it in her, not unless her tears were cold tapered-glass droplets annealed by the inferno heat that had crippled her.

Such tears as that might slide down her skin over melted sensors to plink unfeeling on the sand. And if they had, she would have scooped them up, with all the other battered pretties, and added them to the wealth of trash jewels that swung from the nets reinforcing her battered carapace.

read the rest . . .

CAUTION - as usual with the Story Club, the comments are going to contain spoilers.

Edited to add:  That it's a perfectly valid response to stop reading it.  If you try to read it and it just isn't interesting or you can't get past the first couple pages - then by all means, stop and let us know.  That's the sign of a story that doesn't resonate or has problems.

Featured Post - This will stay on top of the page for a week - scroll down for newer content.

Last Week you people didn't participate at all .  .  . at least read the story and say Yay or Nay,  . . . Okay?

This week we're going to go to one of the best, innovative authors writing today: Elizabeth Bear.  Her story, Tideline, is nominated for the Hugo Award alongside last week's story by Michael Swanwick.

Chalcedony wasn’t built for crying. She didn’t have it in her, not unless her tears were cold tapered-glass droplets annealed by the inferno heat that had crippled her.

Such tears as that might slide down her skin over melted sensors to plink unfeeling on the sand. And if they had, she would have scooped them up, with all the other battered pretties, and added them to the wealth of trash jewels that swung from the nets reinforcing her battered carapace.

read the rest . . .

CAUTION - as usual with the Story Club, the comments are going to contain spoilers.

Edited to add:  That it's a perfectly valid response to stop reading it.  If you try to read it and it just isn't interesting or you can't get past the first couple pages - then by all means, stop and let us know.  That's the sign of a story that doesn't resonate or has problems.

Comments

[a rose is a rose]

i'll read this one, i promise. the prior one, i got to page two and stopped. seemed to me he was just tryin' way too hard.

[CV Rick]

Just to let y'all know

That it's a perfectly valid response to stop reading it. If you try to read it and it just isn't interesting or you can't get past the first couple pages - then by all means, stop and let us know. That's the sign of a story that doesn't resonate or has problems.

[jane]

Okay, I read last week's story just now. I liked it well enough; I like detective stories. I didn't love the part about not knowing what a haint is or the other types of people, what they are, but I was okay with that part of it overall.

The resolution was a little... whatever. I mean, you can lay out a crime and then make up any solution based on some made-up characteristics of creature we can't begin to guess about. Even though I rarely guess the end of a story (book, movie... I'm always the one going "Shit! Those were dead people???"), I think I like it when I find (retrospectively) the clues to the solution. The only clue here was there are a some creatures with certain powers basic humans don't have, implying maybe on some other powers the reader doesn't know about.

Don't mean to complain, but that's my only beef. Overall I liked this story, good writing, tone, atmosphere. I'd read more by this author.

Okay, now on to this week's story.

Sorry to comment on last week's story here; hope I'm not confusing anyone.

[Cele]

Where I couldn't get through last week's story this week was interesting. A large part of last week's problem for me was the language. I hate when a story is so jampacked full of new or esoteric words that I am rereading to or treading water to understand.

In Tideline I wasn't hooked immediately, but that changed by the end of page two. The concept of a nuturing war machine was too good to resist. I love the dynamic of Chalcedony working to finish her goals before her personal ending, a machine knowing her fate and continueing on to finish in time. A self sufficent machine having to depend on a child, and a child coming to love a machine, being taught, and nutured by that machine. And the machine knowing something needs to remember and care for it to have not been a futile waste.

I enjoyed this story, the concept, and the apocalyptic view.

[Success Warrior]

Just so you know, I read it this time. Still thinking about it.

[CV Rick]

I'm ashamed to admit this, but despite hearing all these good things about Elizabeth Bear, this is the first story of hers I've read and if this is a typical example of her work, count me as a fan. It's complete and hopeful. It's dark and apocalyptic. It's Omega and Alpha - the end of one era and the beginning of another.

I agree with you, Cele. This story is much easier to traverse because it grabs you and carries you along in storytelling ease. The Swanwick story was more of an effort, still good but in my opinion not on the same level as this beautiful tale.

However, I didn't think the opening lines were all that interesting, because I was disoriented.

Lyda?? The opening - good or not?

[Success Warrior]

The only reason that I made it past the first couple of paragraphs was because I wanted to report in that I had read it. They were confusing enough that even after reading them a couple of times, I would have just given up.

After that, it moved along quite well. The feeling that I was left with was that I had just read the first chapter of a book. It left me curious to know what happens next.

[CV Rick]

I agree, Success Warrior, while it's Chalcedony's tale at first and it's the end of her story there's a whole wide range of things that can now happen to Belvedere as he journeys into the world looking for good people. It is the prologue to a cool novel, but also the short story of the end of an era.

[Sugar]

Read Tideline and it was good. The concept didn't hook me, but the words did.

[jane]

I liked Tideline a lot.

Poor Chalcedony, we hardly knew ye.

:(

[CV Rick]

The words hooked you, Sugar? Was that because it made the robot's motives understandable and sympathetic or was it Belvedere's survival and rise to destiny interesting?

I agree, Jane. Definitely a bittersweet conclusion. I'd put this in the dark and depressing category - - but some of the best stories are.

[Lyda Morehouse]

Sorry to come in late to this. I forgot to check in on Friday. I just read Tideline. The opening SUCKED. It made no sense and, once again if the by-line Elizabeth Bear not been on it and you hadn't recommended it, I would have quit.

And what a shame that would have been.

By the time I got to the end, I had tears in my eyes. I have to admit, I have a weakness for this kind of non-human, adoptive parent stories. Eleanor Arnason does this in "Knapsack Poems" as does Scott Westerfeld in EVOLUTION'S DARLING. Though both are kind of weird, I found them deeply compelling, much as I found this one.

[Lyda Morehouse]

Oh, and Rick, depressing? Really?

Maybe this is why I don't get it when people point fingers at science fiction and shout "dark and depressing"! To me the end of Tideline was hopeful. Chalcedony finished her mourning necklaces, and her comrades will be remembered through the work of "Sir" Belevedere's quest. She died, but not in vain. Even the dog survived. This story was INCREDIBLY hopeful. I should live with as much purpose and kindness as the war-machine Chalcedony!

[CV Rick]

It was hopeful - from the perspective of the story to come. But Chalcedony's self-sacrifice is a tear-jerker . . . and that's sad, a bit dark. I'm sure if some of your other Wyrdsmither's popped over to this blog and read the story they'd be put off by the tone and declare it "typical" of the genre, dismissing it out of hand for making them feel bad about themselves. Or whatever.

[Lyda Morehouse]

I ended up posting about this story over at SF Novelists:

http://www.sfnovelists.com/2008/04/22/darkness-defined-sf-vs-fantasy-redux/

The bits that apply to this discussion are:

(Except it's not self-sacrifice, because):
------
Bear does an excellent job of letting us know that Chalcedony’s time is limited. We are shown at the very beginning how damaged and old she is. Her death is not unexpected, what she does with the time she has left is what’s surprising… and inspiring.

What is even more hopeful to me, is that Bear’s story shows how ordinary actions — raising a child — can lead to extraordinary results.

In my opinion, anyone who reads “Tideline” as “dark and depressing,” isn’t reading between the lines enough.
-----

Although I know of whom you refer, Rick, and you're probably right.

[a rose is a rose]

man, i LOVED this one. i wasn't confused at all. i DID have to re-read the first two sentences though. i loved chalcedony's being female (and not being a slut kinda sexy voiced kinda USUAL female bot type), being something of a quasimoto (i am guessing that's misspelled), being a survivor of one hurdle yet knowing she was not going to make it past the NEXT hurdle. i loved her loyalty HER HONOR (not just making the beaded necklaces for the memories of her platoon BUT making sure her enemies were buried properly). how lovely is it to remember your buds? wicked lovely is what i say. whether you have skin and blood OR metal and claws and lasers.

oh and you must know i cried as well. mostly cause i knew i'd never meet her

[CV Rick]

Lyda, that's great - I hope someone from there decides to jump in on the story discussion here.

Whenever you have a great story of redemption and rebirth, provided it's not a light comedy, doesn't the story have to involve some kind of pain and loss - the more serious the loss the more rewarding the redemption.

Chalcedony acts so unexpected because she's a machine and we've been conditioned to think of machines that for one to strive for such a simple remembrance ritual and in the process do things that are so human, like protecting and raising a child and respecting the dead as Rose pointed out, but without any gush or nod toward programming, conditioning or Artificial Intelligence. It's a simple tale that goes so deep.

It's my favorite so far - but we've only read two in the category.

Rose, I'm very glad you read it. It's a good story with promise and hope.

[Lyda Morehouse]

It's my favorite so far, too. I wanted to add that someone over at SF Novelists, Sandra, pointed out that people might struggle with SF because of the necessity to "read between the lines" as I put it, in order to appreciate the non-darkness of "Tideline."

I think she has a point. I often tell my students that science fiction is the one genre where you can get away, as a writer, with being subtle. Science fiction readers have often been trained to read with a more careful eye. They tend to roll with strangeness a lot longer than readers unfamiliar with the genre and they will scour the text for clues about the world, culture, and character in a way that "mainstream" readers won't have the patience for.

Science fiction, like fine wine and dark roast coffee, is an aquired taste. However, I can see how that might fall into the category of "too smart" for some people, and not translate into a lot of big sales numbers.

[CV Rick]

"fall into the category of "too smart" for some people, and not translate into a lot of big sales numbers."

Sad, but true.

[kuri]

I liked it. I wouldn't call it dark or depressing at all. Bittersweet, yes, or sad but hopeful, but not dark.

I found it fascinating that a machine -- and a "war machine" at that -- passed along humane values to a child. And I like the way the story itself reveres storytelling. What is a culture, after all, if not a collection of stories?

[CV Rick]

Bittersweet . . . I like that a lot. And I think you hit on the major theme of the story, Kuri - storytelling as a way to learn morality and as a way to remember those who are important - storytelling as culture.