IC EZ reading club: current pick = "The Swords" by Robert Aickman

clubs
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@“yeso”#p81028 I took this passage to be her re-affirming the official narrative for outward appearances while knowing that he was in fact an agent. I could be misreading though

It is an affirmation of the official narrative, but it does also affirm she was a "diligent researcher," and could not find evidence that he was a sleeper agent. I thought that that was the point of narrating that "she knew what she needed to be true," and that just based on how it was widely speculated, perhaps combined with how the simulation seems to be designed in such a way as to simulate being able to dictate the reality of that person. Like, yes, it relays a plausible narrative of how he was recruited and in contact with the Kremlin and simulates the narrative that Corley had covered his tracks well and so there would only be decisive evidence if the Kremlin kept records. But if this simulated consciousness is supposed to at least simulate a conversation with a person, it must have some degree of input from the designer as to what is "true" or not. I did think there was the implication that, as the biographer, Essie took some degree of authorship over that truth, as well.

I dunno. It was a weird moment in the story. Taking the depth of the simulation as presented by the story at face value at least to me seems to cause all of these problems with the speculative portrayal of simulated consciousnesses of real people. What makes the simulation simulate a confession and invent a plausible narrative, immediately after saying the real Corley didn't admit to it? Is the standard of evidence for a human lower than the standard of evidence for an algorithm?

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@“Gaagaagiins”#p81040 What makes the simulation simulate a confession and invent a plausible narrative, immediately after saying the real Corley didn’t admit to it?

This is a good and insightful question. I think I understand why you found this aspect of the story distasteful. Walton kinda plays dirty in making this reveal - the rules presented to us change. First Corley is an independent consciousness capable of reaching his own conclusions, then not so much in the end. This is communicated to the reader simply: Corley wakes up, he thinks, etc... There are a couple parentheticals calling out the totally synthetic nature of those actions, but by the time Essie and him are talking, I start assuming Essie is treating him as an independent consciousness because he is. She treats him as something with actual autonomy but in actuality programmed him as a Soviet agent, as well as his likelihood to help her cause. I think this is a cheap trick, but it works in service of what I read as a major theme of this story: all history is invented, and truth is always relative.

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Oh, the fact that Essie had like, a failure to convince the AI she programmed makes the trick of the reveal even cheaper, I feel. I can kind of hand wave it away. Like, back then Essie wasn‘t herself fully committed to her political values, or still too closely aligned with her own ideas of objective truth to “go all the way” and just program into the AI what she wanted. There’s kind of support for that reading in the text, but eehhhh.

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I don‘t get it, I’ll have to reread those passages. Probably down to taste but this is partially why I‘m not crazy about present tense narratives at least in this story, bc it’s hard to pin down what the author's statements are and what are artifacts belonging just to the character. Then again that blur is part of the point

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I‘m a little late to the party here, but I figured I’d jump in.

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@“RubySunrise”#p80911 What’s the point of the short scene between Essie and her publisher?

I like the bit about the importance of getting the movements right for the simulations. The publisher is like who cares, they're just talking heads, but Essie reminds him that bodies and brains have a lot of intimate connections. I think this lent a little bit of veracity or believability to the simulations; I mean, sure, you could fake the movements as well, but the idea that that would even be considered added some substance to the concept.

I think also it's just to give us a flavor of what regular people are like in this world, people who don't share Essie's ideals. Stanley was actually a pretty funny character.

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@“RubySunrise”#p80911 What do you make of this projection of the future? Are there any particular details that stood out to you?

The description of Essie's fashion was very funny but cool to me.

The idea that a book (a biography would a BBC filmmaker, no less) could be a big deal even if it came with a simulation is kind of quaint to me. If these simulations existed and society was as crappy as he described it, I imagine people would be using simulations in the most low-quality, dopamine-heavy way just to get some quick pleasure in between rounds of work and anxiety (I'm thinking erotic uses or very base entertainment, etc.). So basically kind of like right now.

I liked that the story spelled Essie's convictions out clearly to make it followable, but she did seem a little bit simplistic in her views and too optimistic about how to get it done, like a high schooler learning about Socialism for the first time. The author seems to have her target the most low hanging fruit (student debt, class system)...Idk, I mean she's probably not wrong, that's probably how the future is going to be, but it seems too safe of a bet.

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@“RubySunrise”#p80911 What does this story say about notions of truth? Did any of it resonate with you?

The gist I got was all about the subjectivity of truth and history and the way those are used by the present. I believe the story more or less directly says that this simulation is sort of like his own consciousness now, so to what extent he's like the original Matthew is unclear and honestly somewhat ancillary to Essie's mission for him. It's an interesting ambiguity that I enjoyed.

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@“rearnakedwindow”#p81768 I’m a little late to the party here, but I figured I’d jump in.

I'm glad you did!

Your reflection on the body movements reminded me that I also love that part of the story. It's a detail that feels true while also maintaining mystery (we don't yet understand the depth of brain/body connection).

Regarding a biography being a big deal, I read this in two different ways. Either it is a reflection of Essie's idealism- it's not a great shot but it's the best one she can take and she knows it- or it's a reflection of that societies voracious content appetite. Like, maybe these simulations have made books and specifically biographies huge.

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@Gaagaagiins go ahead and pick the next entry

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@“yeso”#p81872 I got a story in mind, I'll think of some questions today

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**CW - Arachnophobia, brief description of gore** :

"[Hairy Legs And All](https://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/hairy-legs-and-all/)" - by Stephen Graham Jones

A particularly short and snappy one, only about 1500 words.

Discussion Prompts:

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    Why do you think the author used sentence structure/punctuation/italicization in this way? Did you like or dislike it?

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    What do you think about the way tonal elements such as humour, horror, and tragedy are employed?

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    Is this a story in which something did happen, or did not happen?

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    [“IC EZ reading club: current pick = "Sleeper" Jo Walton”,“IC EZ reading club: current pick = "Hairy Legs and All" Stephen Graham Jones”]

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    folks we have another selection

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    Awesome! I missed the last selection, sadly, so I‘m excited for this one. I’ve actually known Stephen for over a decade! Been very fun to watch him develop into a bestselling author.

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    @“edward”#p82052 that's awesome. next time you talk to him, please let him know that i really enjoyed The Only Good Indians.

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    @“edward”#p82052 Awesome! I missed the last selection, sadly, so I’m excited for this one. I’ve actually known Stephen for over a decade! Been very fun to watch him develop into a bestselling author.

    Oh wow!! Ever neat!! _Mapping the Interior_ is a unique and intense little book... I really ought to read more of his stuff.

    Actually, what I really wanted to pick was [_Attack of the 50 Foot Indian](https://www.scribd.com/book/455487114/Attack-of-the-50-Foot-Indian),_ but I couldn't find even a legally gray copy available online. @yeso , can we bend the requirement for a legal online copy if we get personal permission from the author? (I'm kidding)

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    @“Gaagaagiins”#p82054

    One of the nice things about Stephen is that he's written a lot of different kinds of books, though most of them are horror or horror adjacent.

    Want something more experimental and literary? His three FC2 books are probably what you want! (Ledfeather is my favorite of his books - I'm in the wikipedia page!)
    Want some serial killer goodness? All the Beautiful Sinners or The Least of my Scars are right there!
    Want something that's kinda sorta memoir but also a novel? Growing Up Dead in Texas!
    Want werewolves? Mongrels is awesome (my second favorite of his books - was even an early reader for this and made it into the acknowledgements)
    He's done supernatural horror, zombies, even a book about videogames and suicide (that's also hilarious!), and a metafictional trilogy of slasher movies written as a screenplay), and a few others.

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    @“Gaagaagiins”#p82022

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    Why do you think the author used sentence structure/punctuation/italicization in this way? Did you like or dislike it?

    I'm a long time italics hater, so I could do without that, since I think it's not needed. Italics are _never_ needed!
    But I'm a sucker for long sentences. I love them. Love the way this wraps around, spiraling frantically outward and then collapsing inward to those final two sentence fragments.

    So I'm into it. Feel it fits the story here. The sort of maniacal internal monologue of a panic mixing with the very real experiences of nostalgia that are sometimes locked in dumb stuff, like a shoe or whatever.

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    What do you think about the way tonal elements such as humour, horror, and tragedy are employed?

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    For me, this isn't really a horror story, though that may have to do with my biases against horror more broadly. But I think he's jsut using horror as a vehicle, riding shotgun with a story about lost hope. And humor is always the way to get the reader to follow you where you want them to go. But this isn't the kind of laugh out loud funny, but the smile inwardly kind of funny.

    I'm two ways about the ending, which holds the tragedy. In some ways, he's kind of was-all-a-dreaming it, but I think it points this more away from horror. Or, at least towards a different kind of horror. Not of monsters or even spiders, but of the horror of choices not made, the life we wanted to live going unlived, the very mundane and human horror of regret and time and love lost.

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    Is this a story in which something did happen, or did not happen?

    I guess this gets into what I just said above. Something did happen, it's jsut it didn't happen right now, but some number of summers gone.

    To me, the sensation he's capturing here is the way a sound or a color or the flashing image of something on your periphery can send you spiraling back through time to a moment of intense beauty or regret, to a moment you wish could last forever. But it only lasted that instant. And that instant is months, years, decades gone. But a splinter of it remains inside you and stabs just as painful no matter how much time has gone by.

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    @“Gaagaagiins”#p82022 Why do you think the author used sentence structure/punctuation/italicization in this way? Did you like or dislike it?

    I got the impression of a rush of thoughts variably committed to by strong emotion so I think it was effective

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    @“Gaagaagiins”#p82022 What do you think about the way tonal elements such as humour, horror, and tragedy are employed?

    agree with Edward that it’s not horror it’s regular fiction. Don’t know about anyone else but my day to day thoughts are usually a flux of funny stuff, feeling good, feeling bad, etc so I thought the story was skillfully done in portraying that

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    @“Gaagaagiins”#p82022 Is this a story in which something did happen, or did not happen?

    I don’t feel confident answering this question, though I guess if it didn’t happen, meaning the narrator wasn’t able to “hit reset” or whatever, I don’t think it’s a big deal if they did have some panicked thoughts about life without Sid. It’s just panic when confronted with the visceral fear of death, right? I’m not sure there’s much more to it than that at least within the text we have

    Also just as an item of trivia we had a guy at the hospital the other day here for a brown recluse bite and his hand is extremely fucked up, it’s real gnarly. He’ll survive of course but it basically melted a good portion of the muscles around his thumb and index finger

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    @“yeso”#p82145

    Confirms my belief that spiders are just actual monsters.

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    I don’t feel confident answering this question, though I guess if it didn’t happen, meaning the narrator wasn’t able to “hit reset” or whatever, I don’t think it’s a big deal if they did have some panicked thoughts about life without Sid. It’s just panic when confronted with the visceral fear of death, right? I’m not sure there’s much more to it than that at least within the text we have

    I think what I always like about stories like this is just the humility of them. Like, we often associate stories worth telling with big moments of drama or violence or love, but I think the power of moments is more how people actually experience life.

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    @“edward”#p82165 Like, we often associate stories worth telling with big moments of drama or violence or love, but I think the power of moments is more how people actually experience life.

    The experience of life part is a big reason why I like your buddy's writing. It's also a quality I associate with Tolstoy. I love the feeling of narration that really feels like it's holistically from a character's perspective, down to the minutae of just being a person, doing people things, idle thoughts and mundane things like the way a character picks at a button on their clothes or something, that really puts you in the character's mind.

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    @“Gaagaagiins”#p82224

    Definitely!

    What most surprised me when I started reading a lot of commercial fiction is how much more emphasis is put here. Like, I always hear people talk about SFF stories as just being like action movies, but I often think there's a lot more attention to the mundanity of life in those stories. It's just they then surround it with the fun shit, like monsters and wizards.

    I just reread Lord of the Rings for the first time in about twenty years and, man, there's a whole lot of hanging out in those books! But that simple, humble stuff gets you seep inside the characters.

    If you can make us care about characters when the stakes are low, we'll care a whole lot when the stakes get high.