#2 Psychodrome
Arkady O'Toole is back! Now that the telepathic ambimorphs have escaped the Fire Islands, how will our psychos O'Toole and Rudy Breck (the Special Service Hybreed) deal with the situation? By playing in Psychodrome, of course! Simon Hawke will deliver his latest masterpiece this Friday, 5pm eastern, in Psychodrome 2: The Shapechanger Scenario
there have been many fine covers
this may be the finest
@Brockway Prove to me that you aren't a shapeshifting snake by pinning this please
It's a wild one
The back is pretty good too
AMBIMORPHS
Brockway
pinned
a message
to this channel. See all
pinned messages
.
It was literally one guy. And this is all happening because he sucked at diplomacy.
I have done thissss
Brockway do you ever get inspired by these books to stop trying so hard to write good and just do a tone of coke and write about laser tag love triangles
It would probably be a sound business strategy thirty years ago
Yeah this is key - this was a sound business model until like 2002
There's a reason Simon Hawke's output severe diminished in that time
I am not even looking at it necessarily as a business thing at this point... more like... a muse
I still think Peter David was trying to get fired from writing Photon but just had the misfortune of writing in a time where there was no way to make something too batshit
We both know enough about Ambimorphs to say this proves nothing
You can catch up on Psychodrome here: https://www.gellaho.com/books/87-psychodrome
One hour until Psychodrome 2: The Shapechanger Scenario. Your preview involves SNAKESSSSS
How do fangs become hydraulic?
no idea
Thank you, Neal McPheeters
Time to begin
Watch out for those paranoids
Kill! That! Snake!
I wonder if Hawke has been getting therapy
I love Hawke's summaries
Yeah, I wrote that and it all fits together perfectly
Considering what happens in his later work, I doubt it
I bet Stone loves that the first thing the MC remembers about her is her porn career
Nice to get all the summaries out of the way early at least!
Now we can get right into the plot
He'll write a paragraph like this that just goes in 8 different directions
ADHD didn't really start getting diagnosed until the 90s
This is a lot
"You don't underthtand me, Dad. I'm a thnake and a badath"
You really feel the tension when he describes one as a pussycat
Pussycat's all have lion's manes, right?
You know, like those housecats with manes. We've all seen them. I'm not crazy, you are.
Damn, sniped by the shark.
Yours was more descriptive
O'Toole ducks into a club
They stopped sleeping on their stomachs because it sounded like someone left something heavy on a piano key
This is primo Hawke here. Compelling world-building that will be ignored for awkward fucking and lip-moistening.
And sooooooo much Nysteel
O'Toole: tactical genius
It's tougher to riff than most Hawke, though. He seems to put more care into this
"That'th right, O'Toole. We thuckered you."
The first rule of urban combat is be cornered and outnumbered and ambushed
I wonder why people don't have snake teeth
"Attack and attack hard" as he starts furiously masturbating
Keep in mind they Matrix learned everything about war and stuff into his head, I think?
I love how much of a fuck up this dude is
We are 5 pages in and he's spent two of them getting bashed against a wall
This is what makes it tougher to riff. This guy is a doofus just enough to be likable
Mmmm, salsa
This book reminds me more of The Mandalorian. Awesome but also really dumb and ridiculous
Yes, but I do like your impression of snakeguy ending up with a lisp instead of the intended trailing -ss on every word.
SNAKE ATTACK
This guy must lose his shit whenever he watches The Jungle Book
I love that this super secret government guy expects this lottery winner to be a navy seal
"We're training for snakes?!"
"Look at the cover!"
"Goddammit son, you won the lottery to be on a gameshow! WHY AREN'T YOU BETTER AT THIS??"
Did he freeze or was he completely wrapped up by a snake? That seems like an important distinction. He did beat three other guys first.
He does say he froze with horror, but you make a good point
High hybrid cat-man commando, at your service
"Dude, I smoked a bang, got kitty eyes, tripped on a blinky light"
Gold, pure gold
Grade A Hawke right here
@icy spicy jakesy is missing out on his nature quest
No notes, Mr. Hawke. Only mace
It's a bold move to fantasize about a woman when you know your thoughts are being broadcast to everyone
I feel very uncomfortable right now.
Classic flirtation
"Says here she prescribes castration"
Breck this happens with every woman O'Toole meets. This is a Hawke book
She'll be a corpse by the epilogue
"completely humorless" broad doesn't even like it when she gets sexually harassed
pssh. Women, amirite?
Gettin' to where you can't sexually harass anybody
They had this exact same character in Steele and they ended up blackmailing her with a secret sex tape
jesus
She was a forty year old version, who eventually sold everyone out to an evil senator
Oh, well if she's forty then go ahead
If I remember correctly, she ended up surviving which is a minor miracle
Skipping over several pages of summary
Or make them hot
Sounds like they need to work on making leggy robots
If people are demolishing your wait staff, you may want to work on your service standards
Umm...Does Hawke have a new gig as a daily comic artist?
And a new pen name?
Keep an eye open for glorifications of Bach
I don't think that's going to happen
Harley Davidson? Hawke knows Jackson!
This section is marvelous
Liiiiiiiiiiiipppppppssss
Champagne is best when brought from a bedroom and presumably warm
Appropriate lip action in another room
I've bookmarked all the lip action in this book to keep @gellaho honest
He's hit them all so far
I assume she's now going to turn into a snake
"Waaaaaaiiittt, she said she was fatter than this"
It must be an imposter!
No love handles?! Succubus!
How'd you guess
Fuckin' Ambiimmoorrphhhhh!!!!
"Do you thtill find me thekthy?"
Hold on I need to do a text search for "hydraulic fang" in this book
Seriously, talking with giant artificial fangs has got to be like talking right after getting braces
I wish you hadn't killed it
"Yeah, I have been doing a great job."
Nysteel, baby!
The finger-claws are still awesome
Oh, you thought you were brave and insightful? Psych!
Is that a joke or does 'contact' have a different meaning in the future?
No, no sssnakes here.
I don't know what it is, but seeing that in light mode makes the statement look so much more cursed.
The real her sent him a feeling of paranoia through his psychocybernetic biochip
You know, that classic move
"Make him feel uneasy. It's just like a phone call."
I'm weak willed and simple minded, a perfect test subject
Hawke is trying so hard not to have Breck be the MC
A dark black void, womb, same diff
Hawke and his mother do not get along
Seems like this would make things nearly impossible
"So even one piece gets lost and the whole thing dies, or we have to kill every piece?"
"Shapeshifters? Bo-ring!"
Wait, can we go back to "wrestle with the devil"?
don't worry about it
people are doing that all the time
challenging the devil to fiddle duels, etc
I'm not sure he ever actually comes to a great conclusion on how they die
Hives of creatures that can reproduce via fission. And we were eating them?
"Hey, I just discovered this planet, what should I call it?"
Maybe it's a Greenland/Iceland naming thing and it's actually really nice
"I was thinking Satan's Asshole, but that might be too crude?"
"I like it, but let's save it for the planet of exploding metal hooks"
Great place
The cacti bleed? Metal but also what the hell?
What do you expect to happen after you shoot them?
Wait, so the hivemind shapeshifters have hydraulics in their faces? Did I miss something?
The shapeshifter was pretending to be a cyberpunk. Cyberpunks are apparently cyborg furries
I forgot he actually tied this planet back to the previous book
Did they ever mention how space travel works? What this book's warp speed or whatever is?
Yeah, in the last book
I guess this is a different combine. https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Draconis_Combine
And yes, I did find that by looking at my archive and searching for "boring"
Seems like an ambimorph is about
The future is bleak
How much use are you going to get out of people sitting and watching TV?
Unfortunately Shaq is in another castle. I did run into a wise goat who told me that everything is cool though
Wouldn't 'use or be used' be more fitting in the context of those other statements?
"This planet is a real shit hole, and humans are destroying the shit hole with our pollution"
So far I'm on Team Ambimorph.
New Jersey burn!
That joke landed better on Futurama.
Higgins Alert! @icy spicy jakesy we have a hippie Higgins
He began explaining "near" and "far"
as opposed to a CIA beaurocrat
Meet Higgins's waifu
Wait, horse mane hair but mountain lion grace? Hawke's making a chimera
Or possibly a hippogriff.
Simon Hawke muses on the nature of man and humanoid aliens
"In other words: nevermind. Thanks for your time."
If Higgins was living in the present day he'd be really into having an Asian wife.
O'Toole's already been there
He'd make sure everyone knew it too
Simon Hawke muses on the nature of God
You're not insecure?! You spent half of the first book saying you had Russian priests telling you the world was horror!
So much of this book is O'Toole musing to himself, or O'Toole and Breck musing together
These are honestly about a good explanation for the proliferation of humanoid aliens as Star Trek ever gave
True
Hot aliens, baby
Higgins has Tawny Fever.
I don't think I blame him.
ThunderCats!
I wonder how much Hawke making O'Toole a unusual combination of ethnicities is taken from Manuel Garcia O'Kelly Davis from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
"Imagine Japanese but with a lot of hch sounds"
I love Breck
Hawke doing his damnedest to not use the phrase 'space elf'.
In this universe, the only action available to women is eye-widening
Don't forget being ogled!
Higgins is very much like the person you've described
It's a Hawke trademark that deep into book 2 of a series he goes on a long sidebar telling the reader something they already know (i.e. Breck rules)
That’s not an action
True, but it happens enough that it seems like it could be a hobby
Women also have throwing themselves at O'Toole
They have a lot more going on
I'm not sure I'm going to get to it, but it gets fucking wild
This wife thing really isn't working out for Higgins
Seriously this isn't a bit I almost died
I love that this writer is like “the same prejudices exist in the opposite direction on my fictional planet” and feels like that justifies it
Is anyone else thinking Higgins made all this up to explain why he can't satisfy his wife?
This totally makes up for O'Toole's child bride in book 1!
One of my favorite things to do is identify a sci fi author's weird sexual hangups by the reproductive habits of the aliens they invent.
You know how you marry orphans?
This would only be written before the internet. Today we know this scene gave away way more than Hawke intended.
Well, we'll see
CPS has Hawke on a list
Hell yeah
"I , Higgins, see nothing weird about this"
I know guests appreciate it when the first thing I talk about after welcoming them in is a heavily detailed explanation of my sex practices and history
I’m still in a spotty service area or I’d be following along more
Oh, it's endless
Well, not the sex part. He only did that once
"Um, Higgins? Can we maybe get a glass of water or sit down?"
Simon Hawke makes me understand why @Illithid Can Suck My Nuts Javo hates worldbuilding so much.
Malone's ride has wifi I think
This is important, but don't make any assumptions about where this is going
It’s not necessarily weird…it actually makes more sense in terms of family continuation if the line is traced by mothers. Parentage disputes are a lot more clear if you can say “no, I remember this kid bursting free”
I was talking more about the "acting as wife and mother" part
Hahaha please don't summon a Javo world building argument into our nice Hawke night
"Copyright Simon Hawke 1998. This in no way resembles any human religion"
Oh yeah, I think everyone (except for the most sober and exceptional among us) eventually confronts that. Acting as a “parental” when your partner is wildin out
It is, however, another Moon is a Harsh Mistress similarity.
Hot damn, he managed to steer it back to the main plot
Sort of
Hawke is kind of a lunatic but is not a terrible author
He somehow keeps the pacing halfway on track even with the random essays on human nature, God, alien sexuality, etc.
Wait is this the shapeshifter planet? Are there two races on this planet, one of which we decided were okay to eat?
It's legit impressive
(Not counting the 40 pages of recap that Gellaho skipped)
The nomads are native
But he still found his way back!
And I think the only native sentient race
I can't see why an angry man would try to sabotage a plant
That was Draconis from the other book. But the shapeshifters escaped from that planet, and they are on Purgatory to investigate if shapeshifters have made it there
And they've already infiltrated the local religion. That's impressive.
Teach them their gods are delicious and the problem solves itself
This guy really has his head on straight
Worked for Christianity.
The sad thing is this is one of Cavanaugh's good moods
They get Cavanaugh all riled up and then just leave
I do appreciate the pro-labor sentiment, though.
There's a running bet on how high they can get his blood pressure
If Cavanaugh gets off on proving things, he should have majored in math.
They go to a bar and things go about as well as can be expected
Better back off, guys. Otherwise Higgins will start telling you about his wife's sex life
In case you hadn't figured it out, this is Simon Hawke's western
I'll tell you one thing though, this is a great joke
Liiiips... and ambimorph attack
I appreciate that every woman that's thrown herself at O'Toole so far is doing so to murder him
It doesn't last long
Make sure to turn into tiny insects before attacking
Which would actually be a much better strategy up close than 'cat'
Simon Hawke continues to have a bizarre understanding of what a sled is
Maybe he means 'skiff'?
Demonstrated by the ineffectiveness of our protagonist's attack.
Higgins decides extreme sports are a great idea at this point
"I have sex with lions! I fear nothing!"
Then they crash
But it couldn't possibly have anything to do with that stunt, no sir
"Worth it!"
Cut to a cactus looking down the smoking barrel of a rifle. "Damn. So close"
Time to walk in the desert
I wonder if Higgins told his wife what happened to the humans her race is a clear allegory of?
Simon Hawke really wants you to know how pathetic his protagonist is
Hell yeah lip action
It's amazing this is the same guy that wrote Steele
"They're not a disease, they're a disease"
"But we ate them..."
In Jagged Steele (his masterpiece) there is a character very similar to O'Toole named Tracy
Kind of weird the guy on the not Ambimorph planet would be so knowledgeable and enthusiastic about Ambimorphs.
I think he is a scientist that studies aliens
I thought he was a manager?
Maybe O’Toole eats some stripper pussy soon too
Simon Hawke muses on urban life
Luckily there's a lot less of the Irish/Russian thing
And gets weirdly horny about it
that's his move
He kept up with that bit so hard for like half of the first book and then just totally dropped it
kinda
Maybe he talked to an Irish person