I'm reading Simon Hawke's "The Whims of Creation" and 50 pages in it's among the dorkiest things I've ever read. There's spaceships, VR, fairies, magic, prophecies, and no physical sex.
The main character is a kid named Ulysses with a leg fetish
The Book Cage: Episode 129
The Whims of Creation
In the third millennium, on a space ark, everyone is sad. Our teen hero Ulysses finds a VR game, and then everything on the station goes fantasy. And our sherpa for this space adventure is Simon Hawke. Are there fairies, elves, and VR pornography? Find out this Friday, 5pm eastern.
HAWKE!
Awesome.
Hawkesome?
A little under an hour until The Whims of Creation by Simon Hawke. Here is your preview
This still seems like it could be solved with pesticide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaAq4Yc5o4g
I dunno, book passage made me think of this
Of course the first thing we do in the preview is zoom in on a naked woman
I hope the author goes into elaborate detail about how her tits move when doing unrealted things
"Alright, who's been fucking the bugs?!"
Damn, that's hot. What a lucky woman.
Well that joke's not going to make any sense since the reply-to line didn't take.
Prepare for book battle! Stations! 4...
BOOK
HELLO, @Brendo !
CAGE
Hi @FancyShark !
Hi, @Velo !
BOOK NERDS ARE GO
I will be in and out a bit this first hour because tech is dumb
But let's goooooooooo!
I'm here until I'm not, which will probably be in 30 minutes
Alright alright alright, lets regret some literacy.
Hi, @Vooster !
Hi, @Flippant Sausage Beyond Oblivion !
Our weekly time to celebrate the lax standards of the publishing industry
Time to begin the process
Hi, @gellaho !
People are so rarely welcomed to their own events
Courtesy is an emergency. We all know this.
Simon Hawke's dissertation of a dedication
Aw
But also wrap it up Hawke we've got space dragons to meet
I didn't know this
And space redheads to woo.
I've read this book. No idea how this quote applies
It's rad
He was drunk on a boat when he got the idea for the book.
Hi, @Ozzie !
Hahahahahh Simon Hawke drawing his own comparisons between the Odyssey and his own book. King shit.
Love that for him.
Nicholas Yermakov reminds us of his heritage
Id rather read this than The Odyssey too.
The hot dog motto
Does this book end with Gagarin's LAST words?
"Russian" the Russian said Russianly
"Hold my vodka, comrade."..........we can only hope.
"Glerp"?
AI and VR, Simon Hawke 1995
Simon Hawke, technoprophet or science fiction writer?
I do not want a machine that makes me experience every user's emotions when I log on. That's how wars start.
This sounds like hell
If thres no dick milking attachment then yes, hell.
Psychocybernetic biochips and LIIIIPS, getting them early
NYSTEEL UPLINK
GET THE TRIFECTA
Good old mastoid bones.
Is a ship still sentient without a real human penis, or does the captain fulfill that function?
Where would sci fi writers be without mastoid bones?
So why are you on discord?
The science checks out
This feels like Hawke is mocking us specifically
The thrust chamber is what Ulysses calls his bedroom
This is a cool spaceship. Powered by laser explosions.
Laser explosions are also environmentally friendly.
The synonyms don't.
Glad the history VR keeps every weird thought that went through this astronaut's head
This seems like a bad plan
Imagine, if you stay in the machine long enough you feel like you have to poop, but your physical body doesnt. GHOST POOPS!
They should stop letting nerds name stuff on mars
I didn't know Neanderthals went straight for the bowels
Might explain why they went extinct
Hi, @GDC !
The captain has never stood on a planet?
Virtch out, bro
I guess "being on land" is something I shouldn't take for granted
Ulysses hasn't
Ennui sets in around age 12. This is accurate.
Feel the excitement of blast-off! Relive the adventure of dodging lasers! Dwell in that weird, long silent moment after the Captain thinks but does not say something racist!
Virtch is terrible slang.
Oh god the generation ark is full of goths
Be cool, bro
Where does this book fit in the Rx continuity?
Technically emos
Found one
oh wait I just got what virtch means
That's awful
If you don't have flying buttresses you're technically sparkling emo
Must be a movie day in school
Man discovers ironic detachment. Peers rightly agree this is dumb
(joke was for previous passage)
"No, but we can tell you he wasn't fantasizing about his wife"
Ulysses thinks of his father as "Peter Buckland" apparently
Because you're the only student who hasn't join the HIVE, Ulysses. And HIVE already has a 5.0 GPA
NEEEEEEERRRDDDD
Double nerds
In the future they get rid of the restriction where parent teachers aren't allowed to have their own kid in the class
Simon brings in the legs
Fuck you
The point of school is to endure school, you teen hack
God damn Space Holden Caulfield
Smug ass teen thinks he has the whole system figured out
Boring
I hope he gets hit by a Space Taxi
Why the hell are they wasting time reading books when they can pretty clearly just input experiences directly into the brain?
Chunky softness and dark, insolent eyes
State funding
Do they take penmanship classes too?
"peasant's cheeks"
Hawke you get back here and explain what the fuck you mean
Maybe you want to come over to my place after class and watch some VR porn of us having sex instead of studying together?
Ulysses was the golden example of an Aryan nobleblood and then he had a poor fat swarthy friend (no judgement)
For the social development that comes with watching TV together.
WE STAN A CHET
Living in a giant hamster ball
Imagine a flat surface, and then you're done, Ulysses
This isn't rocket science, Ulysses
Dude, FOV has to be a setting in the headsets. Just look it up.
Get recycled
Good news, Riley, you have the option of being "indoors"
"Fine. Then when we reach a habitable world, see that I am made into a bench."
Your first thought when experiencing attraction is grandchildren, obviously
"Oh baby, do you want to make grandkids?"
They can do that in space
Riley suggests some deep fakes
Wait, the hot girls name is Kruikshank?
Very uplifted to learn there are at least fifty years left of earth being a habitable planet.
I hope Riley gets eaten by a space pixie
"Dude, its such a hassle to hose out the VR pod afterward, and it smells like a fuck pit, everyone knows what you did."
If you rearrange the letters, her name is Sharkkunik. Which isn't any saner, but it does have the word "shark"
I'm off! I may come back later! No promises!
Something does happen to him. It's weird
Later, @Vooster !
Choose your Chosen Choice
I hope it isn't something good
Riley might be our Chet, in which case he is going to bang a dragon, a succubus, and probably a god
Mac is the local arranged marriage pervert
Simon Hawke lived in Santa Fe at the time. Not sure why I'm mentioning it now
Good to know that agave survives into the future.
Smart nanalloy
It's no nysteel
They grow it in Maine.
Grandma metal.
Guaranteed to have at least 20% grandma content in each square foot.
Nonnasense.
But then, what ever is?
Moody boy requires Counseling
They did say people would be recycled
"Nonnasense. One ping only."
That being capitalized isn't ominous at all
Everything is beige in the future
Beige. The color of adventure.
In my day people on generation ships just got exiled to the ghost decks when they got uppity and became cannibal mutants.
Just listening to Paint it Black as I turn the whole house ebony
Mac has an inferiority complex about the COC, excuse me, CAC database
MAC, meet CAC. We'd like to stalk my crush, who's stacked.
Mac must be the default name of the computer
This computer sucks
Oh, and suicide's up
Well yeah, it would be if we were living In The Hilarious Tradition of Douglas Adams
#suicideohno
Ulysses has some interesting ideas
Okay this is actually pretty much a vision of how computers are behaving in the near future. Annoying and obstructive. If Mac says "PUSSY IN BIO!" or starts talking about finance.......
Simon wrote some of those. It was real rough
Simon wrote Hitchhiker knockcoffs?
Until the third book, which was mostly Simon complaining about how he got screwed on book deals and teaching
He tried his hand at genre comedy
I tried taking a drink every time I noticed a Pratchett bit done worse, and almost died
Anyway, a more pleasant topic: suicide statistics
It's called tact, Riley
Check out these depression stats, dude
ADVENTURE!
Not sure why we aren't counting the "early recycling" in the suicide stats, but
Early recycling is mandatory, i imagine.
This would be more ominous if Hawke had explained what Choosing meant
What, I can't access the therapy files? What gives!
Most recycling just ends up in a landfill anyway
THRILLING DEPRESSION!
Shacking up
DAMN YOU, PATIENT CONFIDENTIALITY
Ah, thank you
Hardy Boys IX: Mystery in Space
Space HIPAA strikes again
Excellent point, numbnuts
This is like reading a sci fi account of a college student becoming aware of normal things for the first time and getting their mind blown.
Ulysses discovers selection bias
"A whole four people killed themselves last year!"
Statements a real person would love to make.
We're a long way off from "there are fantasy creatures in space"
It's quite literally suicide
More people die putting things in their butt than die from suicide in this book.
When there are only 100,000 on the ship probably not great
"People killed themselves, and if you really think about it that could be suicide."
God I hope Riley dies
Four in one year is fine, just grow more tube babies.
Don't :HotDan: me, Riley suggested making deep fake VR porn of their friend
Get the food needles
You'd try suicide first, right?
Hahahahha they went from talking about suicide stats to wanting to try suicide.
Asking why there really says a lot
Oh shit that guy from the Seanbaby books was right?!
"Parents, talk to your kids about suicides. Because if you don't, Riley will."
Huh imagine that, experiencing mock death might be bad for your mental health.
Stealing medical files is hot, right?
So is this kid gonna like meet a space dragon soon or........just keep preparing for his student council meeting?
Well it's theft, and theft is crime, and crime is sexy and cool, so yes
That's going to be the password, sure
Hahahahah
I hope this ship crashes
I bet he gets in in three tries or less.
Meanwhile, his mom overlooks the crops
Crop mom, crop mom!
the corn is her real children.
"I love you most, Corn Son."
I'm not sure being compulsive leads to being detail-oriented
"You're so much better than Ulysses, Corn."
It does, but only for very specific things
Sonja why are you wasting precious compute by making the AI show you its work
She's not going to trust her corn to some computer
BEEP boop, son needs optimal time
Well she fucked that up
Because every woman is psychologically prepared to raise a child when they have one
The old fashioned way
Why would any woman subject themselves to fuckin
Dont ask me, I dont know either, ma'am.
This is going to be a classic "Parent works too hard to spend time with her suicide-statistic nerd son" trope
I hope his mom gets really into suicide statistics and he starts hating them because suicide statistics arent cool anymore.
She's going to feed herself into the corn-chipper
"Honey, could we... you know... have sex maybe?"
This is just The Happening but in space
Peter, even if you were the first man to ever suggest that, you are not the first man to ever suggest that
So........this is the no fuckin ship, huh? Proabbly a reason they were sent off into space to die.
Can't imagine what the depression statistics are about
Bunch of space puritans
I doubt he's even the first man to suggest that with her
Unemployment probably.
The miracle of life
Whats the point of even doing monogamy if theres no fucking?
Shut the fuck up and get in the corn-chipper, Peter
"Schedule personal time with him during the formative years of his life'
I mean youd think theyd just let the computers remix genetic samples and raise the tube babies comunally.
Ulysses's personality makes sense now
Or go nuts with it. Make an amalgam of people. Make an Akira flesh mound that sings opera
I get it, if I was expected to spend time with Ulysses I too would choose the sweet embrace of the recycler
Not the marjoram!
His mom runs her arm thru the corn husker every week just to feel something.
Namely she feels corn-husked
"You're the only one that understands me, bulk vegetable"
Don't need the sassy computers
These computers are awful assy about doing their jobs.
shut them off and steer the ship into the nearest sun
Why would you want a computer program that not only can fuck up, but also makes passive aggressive excuses about it?
I mean...
ENHANCE
Yeah, they're sassy
AKA Hard reboot
Lady your corn is haunted
ENHANCE FAIRIES
This means that everything is recorded in incredibly high definition but the normal display is like a 90s VHS
Also hell yeah space fae.
They're all watching on 13 inch CRTs.
Coming to eat your fucking marjoram.
Into the thresher it goes
God damn it, Sonja, have you been birthing fae?
BEEP boop, practical jokes are not productive
Frank talk about depression: NOT EVEN ONCE