Hands to the sky cryin', "Why, oh why?"
'Cause I need to watch things die
From a distance
Vicariously, I live while the whole world dies
Thanks to Rosie, Stygian Blue, and Zipzipskins for reviewing this piece. Here we go.
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Thanks to Rosie, Stygian Blue, and Zipzipskins for reviewing this piece. Here we go.
This is incredible. I always love the contrast of space-opera universe and simple pastoral life, IDK why, but it really does it for me. A ringworld still has tavern-keepers and wheat fields; this is how it should be. +1 for "a story about the simple life of a fruit farmer", just like the hub said to write.
You outdid yourself again, Dinner. Gorgeous work. Your prose is smooth and crisp as a summer-heart, and your work reflects true pain of artificial seeds and reliance on genetic companies to make a region — or a planet, in this case — and what those companies would do could they plague life itself, salting barren the entire ecosystem for their pockets. The apples I want to try myself — they would be so good. And the note about the seeds being gold — what excellent metaphor, and what excellent irony. And what excellent truth, for I believe, too, that investors would enjoy it if seeds were made faux gold to better lure customers for novelty and to make them feel like royalty. What joy in this work, too, these little moments of hope or peace. Your Immortal Empire continues, and this adds so much humanity to the evil. Further depths, deep as the icebergs' scraping-paths along the ocean floor, an insane tangled web of scrawl that reads the passage of time and heat over eons. Beautiful work, and I love, love the ring-world you made. It feels so real. Excellent, this is, and hearty, this is, and delicious, this is. It tastes as your apple does: rich, savoury, sweet, crisp, wet, bursting with memories.
Well done. This is my favourite of yours yet.
-Styg
What is life if not the contrast between what has been and what will become?
so rich, so warm, so painful, so beautiful. i said this in crit but your style and pacing make every sentence pull into the next. one steps into the limpid stream of your writing and is borne along so swiftly yet smoothly that the concept of arriving at the destination ceases to be of concern: you will bring us there when it is time and no sooner, and we will enjoy every inch of the transit. your messaging and thematic content, too: clear, incisive, brilliant. all of this, wrapped up in a universe which is so lived-in that i inhabit it myself as i read. excellent fiction transports; the best fiction transcends.
+1.
Din, I am blown away . This is one of my favorite pieces of short fiction I have ever read. Truly masterful writing on so many levels. I really resonated with your potent and timely message. Well done!
-Vi
Stop spending obsence amounts of time on food, that's my bit. Once again, you succeed with masterful vision to create a world and work I want to immerse myself in. Your dedication to the craft is admirable and I envy your talent and skill.
Mayhaps I'm even living through you vicariously…
I watch the yonder hills
See foodwrenches toil in dust
Let their cacophonous calls
Rend our bodies to rust
As sure as the red sun rises, Din-Bidor writes good pieces that stir the soul and provoke the mind into deep thought. At the beginning of this story, I though it uncharacteristically bright, only for it to dive into the grit and pain that I know, love, and expect from your pieces. Interrupted or foiled vengeance has always been one of my favorite subversive tropes, and you pull it off wonderfully. You weave the text together like the roots of an ancient apple tree, planting the seeds of contemplation in the minds of readers. Your writing is raw and beautiful and I continue to look up to it.
Apple-bright +1.
Personal ComboCon Reading Progress: #14
I love it! This piece consistently surprised me, setting up tropes I'm familiar with then snaking around them to deliver a consistently satisfying narrative. The unexpected genuine bar scene, the subversion of clone killing, still killing at the end, and more was just so enjoyable to read. I especially enjoyed the depth you added to the reasons for Cyril's murder of his original copy, connecting it to the created viruses is just so cool and makes perfect sense.
Some people probably would've shied away from going all in on it, but you threw yourself into the apples being the main core (heh) of the conflict, which made everything feel so real. Sometimes something simple really means that much to someone. A honeycrisp +1 for you sir
(I have to wonder what area outside of the Immortal Empire this takes place in lol)
Really, really good. Well-paced, well-balanced. Like ch00 said, the contrast of low-level farming life and this grand context of plagues and stellar war is really interesting, and you underline it with a really engaging personal character story. I think the natural end to this story would've been our protagonist walking away from Cyril, and I was kind of surprised you didn't take it there — it's a complicated ending to what was, before that, a relatively simple arc, and I respect you not shying away from taking that kind of risk. The language is really evocative, engaging, and you pack a lot of philosophical and emotional contemplation into a not-very-long piece. Good stuff, like seeing more straight-scifi from you.
Solid stuff. I've always been a fan of more down-to-earth stories, and the farming background here, together with the space-fantasy setting create a wonderful contrast that really allows the story of the hunter and the hunted to develop real nice. The prose itself is obviously excellent, but really enjoyed the simplicity of the progression; from the tasting of the apple down to the proper introduction of the plot, down to the several twists, it all just comes together to create a really solid short story that tells a very interesting story, form both sides of it too. The ending is also really interesting; I liked how grand it all feels, sort of like watching a movie, actually, in the way it all comes to fruition.
Would love to write something with this kind of setting; really liked it. +1~
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