"Carnival" Review - Not by me :p

[razorsmile]

Some dude did a pretty good review of Carnival covering the two or three issues I had with it (the Little Lad That Could, for one). There's lots of ROT13 but finding a translator shouldn't be difficult. Of course, if you're particularly Transcendent (or patient anyway), you can probably do it in your head

Comments

[matociquala]

Heh. Spoken like a true not-writer. There's a perfectly good handwave there (kid does not actually hack anything; he just repurposes their own hack) and anyway, he saves me having to add another character who would have detracted from the core of the book. Besides, didn't you know any fourteen year old kids who were hacking Ma Bell when you were in high school? (I used to know a phreak who could *whistle* phone access codes.)

The plot is just there to give the characters something to do between angst, anyway. ;-)

(There's a completely stupid plot patch in Scardown that I can't believe nobody has bitched about, but I just didn't have enough room to spend the six months a thing would have realistically taken.)

[razorsmile]

Took you long enough :p

On further reading, I took it as similar to the fight scene between Protector-Teela and the Louis Wu/Speaker-to-Animals*; Teela, while their tactical superior, was rooting for her opponents the whole way. Same with Kii.

As for knowing crazy-talented kids, Ma Bell was something I read about in old foreign magazines -- but I did know a kid who assembled a functioning AC out of a plastic Coca-Cola crate and repurposed Sega controllers to work on Nintendo systems :)

(Re: Scardown

Having only read it once (and not bought - my secret's out!), I can only remember one scene that might fit: Jenny bleeding into the water?)

*i have a feeling you're not a big Niven fan, humour me

[matociquala]

Yeah, that's one of the stupid scenes. But at least it's in-character stupid, not narrative stupid. (There's a scene in Carnival I think is stupid too, but I couldn't figure out a way around it. I'm not saying which one, though. But man, it's stupid.)

Yeah, ou caught me. Kii is rooting for the monkeys. Kii is pretty much doing everything he can to help out the monkeys. Every POV character in the book is a race traitor of some sort.

...Okay, that's a pretty smart kid. We should introduce him to my phone phreak. *g*

[razorsmile]

Every POV character in the book is a race traitor of some sort.

Yep, I got that :D

*is pleased*

There's a scene in Carnival I think is stupid too, but I couldn't figure out a way around it. I'm not saying which one, though. But man, it's stupid.

Sheeeeee-it, now you gon' make me read it again ...

...Okay, that's a pretty smart kid. We should introduce him to my phone phreak. *g*

Come to think of it, those were two different kids; one was a Korean expatriate, the other was considerably blacker than myself.