Date: 18 Sep 2013 01:30 Title: The Play at the Plate
So we see a crude bit of leisure time in the ISS Defiant and we get to see a bit of that strange sport Mirror Baseball. I like how using none regular front row characters you built on the mirror universe brutal state.
Miller/Madden/Ramirez interaction does seem believable for them in that universe in that position. And Ramirez clearly reminded Miller what would happen if he got caught playing the field behind Hoshi back does seem right. However it also seems a bit of a friendly thing to do and I’m left wondering if the reason that Ramirez point it out, was he intends to chase Madden himself while Miller wonders the corridors reflect on the fact Hoshi is blocking the scoring plate.
Author's Response:
Hoshi's dangerous, and they all know it, but they're also a bit afraid of what would happen if she was gone. These are people who have lived through one transition (her coming to power), so they know that it means chaos.
I hadn't thought of Ramirez being interested in Madden, but that's an interesting explanation for why he's warning Miller off. It's still a hazard for Ramirez to be with Madden, but nowhere near as much of an issue for Miller to do so.
It's a stupid thing for Miller to do, and he faces consequences in the HG Wells short story (it's in Clockworks), Escape.
Thank you for reading.
Date: 18 Sep 2013 01:20 Title: Brown
Ha! Love that the Mice have overtaken the ISS Defiant and Hoshi isn’t quite the top dog she like to think of herself as.
That was a surprisingly fun story set in the MU, I like how the continual just make do attitude of the Terrans as they watch their own back, means the rodents have managed to colonies much of the ship.
Then just when it seems something going to be done about it Hoshi runs her mouth off and the two people who overhear it, find they have no reason to do it and every reason to get a little pay back by doing a poor job.
O I bet Hoshi had a fit when she discover her plush towels were damaged.
Author's Response:
The towels are damaged and there are little skritching sounds all night long, and shapes skittering in the shadows. Eek!
Thank you for reading.
Date: 18 Sep 2013 01:09 Title: The High Cost of Dissidence
Well having read the full reversal it’s interest to see the true story behind that house fire in the Mirror Universe. I think you manage to capture the oppression and bleakness of living under the Terra totalitarian state. How everything can disappear with just one statement and how little choice the average person has.
I think you manage to give all four characters depth and believability, so that even by the end of this short story we care about their deaths on their own terms and not in a political prisoner camp or on the streets. Ending with the Terra media spin on the events just add to the heavy feel that even stands against the Empire can be white washed out.
Author's Response:
Yep, it's all propaganda and lies, all the tools of the totalitarian state.
Many thanks for reading (and I didn't know you'd read Reversal, too!).
Date: 12 May 2013 06:06 Title: Brown
Well, Hoshi finally had karama come back to bite her, didn't she? Not entirely the way I suspected this story was going to turn out initially. I was thinking the creatures breeding were something horrible ... space faring monsters, some sort of brood of parasites, but there were mice of all things!
I really liked the interplay between Aidan and Chip. Both guys seem to be in sucky spots and Hoshi is not making life easy for them. Hoshi contiues to be a major bitch in this story and is using her body as leverage, yet again. One day that's going to get her into some serious trouble.
Entertaining read.
Author's Response:
Thank you! They are friends in both universes.
In ours, they run Movie Night and hang out together. And on the other side of the pond, they bond over dealing with Hoshi.
Date: 12 May 2013 04:43 Title: The High Cost of Dissidence
In a word: Sad.
In two words: Very sad.
Wow. I knew the Terran Empire was brutal but I didn't think they were so brutal that suicide, with your children of all people, would be preferable to living a shitty life. I know Pete screwed up and I honestly kinda hated him for it, because it's not as though he was new at this. You never be critical of the Empire. So seeing him go didn't hurt.
Seeing that bright little life that was Charlotte go did. Man, in the short space you had here, you really made me like that kid. She was exhuberant. She was happy. She was bouncy. All fun, it seemed. I would have very much liked to seen if she could have maintained some of that out on the streets ... but she wasn't given the chance.
I don't agree with what the parents did here. I know their lives were going to hell but they weren't dead yet. There was still the faintest bit of hope but packing it in, dooming the children to death because you couldn't deal with the harsh reality that was coming ... didn't sit well with me.
The story hit hard. Well done.
Author's Response:
Wow, thank you - you're very kind.
Charlotte is Lili O'Day's counterpart. Life is, as you can see, very, very different.
As Thomas Hobbes said, it's short, brutal and nasty.
A lot of people see the MU as being a big, campy life. I don't. I see it as tarted-up totalitarianism. This is a big part of why Doug, for me, is such an important character. He maintains a degree of morality (although he perpetrates plenty of what we would consider to be crimes) that the others, for the most part, don't.