[FFML] Review of Drunkard's Walk II

[Bob Schroeck]

Firstly, my apologies for taking so long to reply; it's been a
nasty, hectic week for me.

Now, onto the specifics...

William Lathan wrote:
> With all the talk about Drunkard's Walk V going around, I decided to
> take a peek at the whole series.  Naturally, I started at the very
> beginning, DW2.

And may I say, wow and thank you.  That's a powerfully positive
review for a fic that's four years finished.

> 5.  The overall characterization of Looney.  Throughout the whole
> series Loony is portrayed NOT as a "Superhuman" but as a "superHUMAN."
>  He makes mistakes, he stumbles both mentally and morally.  Then he
> gets up, dusts himself off and tries again.

This was very much one of the deliberate goals I had in writing the
story.  I started writing it in the era of the big self-insert
stories -- some of which had very big Mary Sue characters as their
leads.  I designed the story to invert and avert many of the usual
properties of the self-insert lead character, and this was just one
of the things that seemed appropriate in that light.

> 4.  The way he manages to go into Looney Toon's history without ever
> actually going into it.  This guy can turn a phrase so well that he
> can give us an entire flashback scene without ever having to WRITE the
> durn thing.

Again, thank you.  Another deliberate stylistic choice here -- I
wanted to give flavor and sense without throwing useless detail
at the reader.  It also dovetailed into one of my rules for
writing in general, which is "don't tell everything right away."

> 3.  The endless psychological twists and turns.  Nobody is completely
> in the right and nobody is completely in the wrong.  Throughout the
> series, you start to realize that every viewpoint you're treated to is
> at some point, justified.  Sure what Madigan's actions are wrong,
> anybody would know that,  but by the time she's done it all, you can't
> help but feel sorry for her.

I don't think I ever really justified Madigan's early actions,
pre-Doug, although to be sure she does regret them by the end of
the story.  But yes, once again, this was a deliberate theme --
partly to skewer the typical SI "I'm always right" behavior, and
partly to set up the twist you were so impressed with.

> 2.  The idea that someone could consider the Knight Sabers' mission as
> wrong and possibly evil.  Don't laugh, don't scoff.  Looney Toon's
> harangue at Sylia is very compelling.  Which could explain why the
> Knight Sabers' take it so personally.  

Precisely.  It is all a matter of viewpoint, and Doug doesn't come
to the BGC world with the automatic assumption that the Sabers are
heroes like, say, Twister or Legion did.  And given that his world
is far more liberal about the rights of AIs and artificial beings,
he has assumptions of his own that collide violently with the
preconceptions of both the Sabers and the readers.

> 1.  The Plot Twist at the end proves once and for all that Robert M.
> Schroeck is actually a pen name for M. Night Shyamalan.  Saying any
> more would be spoiling it.

Shyamalan around 1999 or 2000, hopefully.  Not the current one, who's
flailing about looking for that stunning originality that launched
his career.

Seriously, that's a high complement.  Thank you.

-- Bob

===========================================================================
Robert M. Schroeck        rms at eclipse.net       http://www.eclipse.net/~rms
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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