What Are You Reading Wednesday

What am I reading? Nothing you need to.

This book was dumb.

It was incredibly dumb.

It was the sort of dumb that at first was vaguely amusing and then you realize, OMG this is BEYOND STUPID! (And then secretly keep reading because it. is. just. so. damn. dumb. ) It's like a verbal trainwreck (with bad grammar.)

This is what you sometimes (often?) get with self-published free novellas from Amazon -- stuff that would make even a badficcer cringe.

And it was fanfic that made it so damn funny to me. This was badfic sci-fi that devolved (within the first or second chapter) into ye olde Fanfic Trope: Alien Sex Pollen

I could explain the plot, but the trope pretty much covers it.

The only interesting bit was how I thought that the whole history of the planet could be used (in a far better book) as a sexist dystopia of 'nice guy syndrome' (I sort of cheer for their now-extinct females who decided to stop reproducing with the men because they were biologically coerced into 'lifebonds' (Hence, ye olde fanfic trope). This bond not only ensured reproduction but would KILL YOU if you left your partner.  Ever.   (Albeit, it would kill the dude too, so it was equal opportunity in that respect.)

Okay, the species is now going extinct (apparently cloning only works for so many generations) but hiding this info, then springing it post hormonely-induced (hence 'pollen') 'bonding' on unsuspecting compatible species?  Well...     The critiquing path not taken and the sole Earth female in the story who, when told about it, announced "That's rape. I don't care how you dress it up to try to make it 'sweet'.  That's still rape"  were the only intriguing bits about what is in fact a trite, stupid, naively sexist novel. (Unfortunately, the "That's rape' Earth girl protest was just to hang a lantern on the consent issues in order to handwave it as "it's ALIEN BIOLOGY!"  and not reeeeeeaaaaly meant to be taken seriously.  ... Right.   It's a bad book)

I said this was a terribly silly, dumb, stupid book, didn't I?  So, rather than give the book any hits, I'll link a different, equally silly but intentionally so, light-as-air sci-fi read (that is also free).

John Scalzi's 'Agent to the Stars'   I read this one months and months ago and kept expecting a 'twist' where everything went dark.  It never went dark.  The aliens do not decide to serve man on a platter or take over the earth.  They do win an Oscar, however.

(The conceit is that the aliens realize that to human eyes [and noses] they are very unattractive, and having followed Earths TV and radio transmissions for quite a while now, they realize that this could lead to a rather poor first introduction.  However, they're kind of desperate for a place to move and are the last remainders of their species,  so rather than contacting any of Earth's leaders to make an introduction, they contact a Hollywood PR firm to help craft and choreograph their 'arrival' to the human race.  You can see where there's potential to go dark or satirical, but it's really just a light frothy read.

Heh!

Heh, to this bit of Entertainment Weekly's review of this week's "Finding Carter" (an episode I have not actually watched but I'll read a synopsis on my lunchbreak).:

...It’s despicable, but I personally can’t hate him too much because he’ll always be Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, Rogue Demon Hunter, to me. For those of you not obsessive about the Whedonverse, though, I imagine there’s a lot of David hate happening.

So it's not just me. :)