Questions asked late into the night...

[elfs]

Question #1: Is it worth lousy art and a silly story line to watch lots and lots of girl-on-girl liplocking? 'Cause that's the dilemma I'm given by Simoun. This show does not hold back; in the first episode, every major character, all female, gives something between a peck and some serious spit-swappin' to her equally feminine copilot. This is not Kashimashi or Kannazuki no Miko, where we had to wait for the last episode just to get the cute kiss payoff. We're startin' lacivious and stayin' there.

Question #2: Once upon a time, I read an absolutely fabulous series of books. Recently, I went and reread some of them, and discovered that they'd been replaced by cheesy 50 skiffy with really bad characterization. No, they weren't rewritten, it was just that my memories of the good old days were better than the actual books. So, is it worth my time to write Lucky Starr and the Leathermen of Diemos? Or, better yet, to start on Caprice Starr, Space Rangerette, a "Lucky Starr's Cuter Sister" series?

Meanwhile, still wrapping my head around the title Zombie Ninja Daleks on a Plane. Don't ask.

Oh, and I made great headway into a story that happens about a year before Fragile Dream. It's got a "big deal" event that I can use as the working counterpoint to my cute subplot I mentioned a few days ago, and I've already got the first chapter, 1800 words or so, of Misuko meeting the, uh, villain. And 800 or so of Linia meeting her plot complication, but I think that's all fishhead.

Comments

Apocalyptic Cyborg Sex

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Elf,

Completely off-topic, but I thought you might enjoy this political rant:
http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/slipperiest-slope-as-you-all-know.html
(Along the lines of the "Rough Gay Wolf Sex" ad that got posted ~1 1/2 years ago).

Fafblog has some pretty amusing satire, and this last one was quite good.

-Malthus

[bolindbergh]

"Caprice"? That would be a reference to Lucky's special Mars-granted power, yes?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was just brainstorming a riff off the word "luck," but now that you mention it, that would make an interesting mashup.

[halloranelder.livejournal.com]

Lucky Starr and the Leathermen of Diemos

I don't know about anyone else, but I'd certainly read it.

[kengr]

I suspect Asimov would have been amused by Caprice Starr. Now that he's dead, the current copyright holders are less apt to be amused.

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

It actually should be Lucky Starr and the Leathermen of Uranus.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I was hoping to create geek resonance with the notion of the Leather Goddesses of Phobos. "You see a woman doing a disgusting thing with a disgusting thing." "You're not sure what they're doing but it involves surgical tubing, a 55 gallon drum of lubricant, and a yak." Classic!

Lucky Starr....memories!

[(Anonymous)]

Oh wow... I have the entire Lucky Starr series in paperback in my stack somewhere. But I knew when I was reading them for the first time that they were 50's kitsch! I would definitely read Caprice Starr - but they'd have to be good :)

Joshua Sasmor
http://people.setonhill.edu/sasmor

Re: Lucky Starr....memories!

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Ever since the idea hit me, it has gotten worse. Among the ideas to play with is that Caprice is not David Starr's distant niece, she's his clone; Caprice is dispatched to Mars to investigate interplanetary sex slavery only to discover that the market is in robots and the Science Council's reaction is "in that case, we don't care," and finally that the Science Council, with its cross-border non-governmetal offices and its massive exchanges of capital between private and public institutions, is so rife with opportunities for and actual instances of corruption that it cannot be saved; and finally, that the natives of Mars that David never saw are, in fact, non-three-law AIs and are quite ready to defend themselves against those upstart Humans and their ridiculously restrained robots. Somewhere in there, "Lucky Starr and the Leathermen of Phobos" gets told as a flashback. In the final volume, David and Caprice team up to overthrow the Science Council, make peace with the Martians, and revise Terra's relationship to Sirius.

Re: Lucky Starr....memories!

[bolindbergh]

Is there room for at least one evil female Starr clone somewhere in the story?

Re: Lucky Starr....memories!

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Ohhh... Do Not Tempt The Writer In Evil Mode! Grief, now what shall I do?

Re: Lucky Starr....memories!

[elfs.livejournal.com]

"Nice gun," the woman who called herself Clarice said, waving it at Caprice. Caprice stared at her, racking her brains. Where has she seen that face before? She knew this woman, but she could not remember from where. "It's unpowered! Chemical bullets only! Stars, you're such a romantic. Just like David. Such a character." She leaned so close Caprice could smell her perfume. "You don't get it, do you? I'm the evil twin."

It clicked. Of course Caprice knew that face. It was the one that she saw every day in the mirror. "No," she whispered. "It can't be."

"Did you really think they only made one of you?"

Re: Lucky Starr....memories!

[bolindbergh]

Caprice could smell her perfume... which was indubitably loaded with tailored pheromones.