Comments on: Professor Madblood and the Lovelace Affair: October 4-9, 2004 https://narbonic.com/comic/october-4-9-2004/ By Shaenon K. Garrity Wed, 01 Oct 2025 20:20:52 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 By: Jane https://narbonic.com/comic/october-4-9-2004/#comment-17174 Wed, 01 Oct 2025 20:20:52 +0000 http://narbonic.com/?p=3565#comment-17174 The villain in “Robota” (a collaboration with Star Wars visual artist Doug Chiang) was literally the main character’s ex whom he dumped for getting older and infertile, and his “reward” at the end is immortality and a new, younger girlfriend. You can really smell the Mormon on that.

]]> By: linkhyrule5 https://narbonic.com/comic/october-4-9-2004/#comment-16926 Wed, 07 Dec 2022 23:53:25 +0000 http://narbonic.com/?p=3565#comment-16926 I see I continue to be the only person on the internet who actually liked Children of the Mind. I mean, sure, it was wonky space magic, but wonky space magic was established the moment the buggers turned out to have FTL telepathy. And I still use the “Outside and back In” formulation of teleportation-plus-reality-warping in my own settings.

I have nothing good to say about his politics, but Card’s stories were fine, fite me :<.

]]> By: Mental Mouse https://narbonic.com/comic/october-4-9-2004/#comment-16544 Mon, 04 Sep 2017 11:25:38 +0000 http://narbonic.com/?p=3565#comment-16544 OSC himself said that he only wrote “Ender’s Game” so that he could write “Speaker For The Dead” and have it make sense to people. Incidentally, IIRC “Jane” was literally a dangling hyperspatial plot thread from “Ender’s Game”.

I gave up on that series after Children of the Mind, and if he’d done any more of Alvin series after Crystal City, I wouldn’t have bothered with those either. Then the Rabid/Sad Puppy attack happened, and I lost all remaining interest in the author.

]]> By: Adam Underfoot (unnatural20) https://narbonic.com/comic/october-4-9-2004/#comment-11315 Wed, 08 Jul 2015 21:36:42 +0000 http://narbonic.com/?p=3565#comment-11315 I suppose that is breaking the fourth wall. I do that.

]]> By: Johnn Reynolds (sleepyjohn) https://narbonic.com/comic/october-4-9-2004/#comment-11314 Wed, 08 Jul 2015 21:36:41 +0000 http://narbonic.com/?p=3565#comment-11314 No “breaking the fourth wall” count?

And this is the woman who slips mutagenic compounds into his coffee when she’s in a good mood…

]]> By: Ed Gedeon (eddurd) https://narbonic.com/comic/october-4-9-2004/#comment-11313 Wed, 08 Jul 2015 21:36:40 +0000 http://narbonic.com/?p=3565#comment-11313 (TUNE: “The Girl That I Marry”, Irving Berlin)

The girl that I met in an online chat,
Is someone I know, yes, I’m sure of that!
This girl that seems so right,
Is the same that I game with on Thursday night!
She’s smart, with computers she’s got a knack,
She’s funny and cute, got an awesome rack!
We’re role-playing, dragons slaying,
All her curves have my nerves badly fraying!
I hope to do “that” with
The girl that I chat with
Online!

]]> By: Leon Arnott (l) https://narbonic.com/comic/october-4-9-2004/#comment-11312 Wed, 08 Jul 2015 21:36:39 +0000 http://narbonic.com/?p=3565#comment-11312 Saturday:

Helen is definitely playing the Peppermint Patty to Dave’s Charlie Brown here. It’s actually kind of sad.

Off-panel head inserts: 22;

]]> By: John Campbell (jcampbel) https://narbonic.com/comic/october-4-9-2004/#comment-11311 Wed, 08 Jul 2015 21:36:38 +0000 http://narbonic.com/?p=3565#comment-11311 Also, I note that Lovelace doesn’t seem to agree with the boss’s platform preferences.

]]> By: John Campbell (jcampbel) https://narbonic.com/comic/october-4-9-2004/#comment-11310 Wed, 08 Jul 2015 21:36:37 +0000 http://narbonic.com/?p=3565#comment-11310 I didn’t like Ender’s Shadow, because the idea that two people as smart as Ender and Bean were alleged to be could spend so much time hearing two totally different conversations when they talked to each other shattered my suspension of disbelief.

The rest of that tangent was pretty decent, though I recall that I never actually bothered picking up the last one. (Though I’ve heard that that’s where Hot Soup gets to be awesome.)

But why are we talking about OSC when Shaenon mentioned Pinkwater? Yobgorgle had a much more formative effect on my psyche than Ender’s Game ever did. A quarter-century later, I still weird out my lady and other Rochester-dwelling friends with references to bits of their city that are likely entirely fictional and certainly completely insane.

]]> By: Andy Wetmore (efogoto) https://narbonic.com/comic/october-4-9-2004/#comment-11309 Wed, 08 Jul 2015 21:36:36 +0000 http://narbonic.com/?p=3565#comment-11309 Anytime someone mentions whiny protagonist, I think Tommy Covenant. He took merely whiny and made it epic.

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