From: DL20@lafibm.lafayette.edu (DL20)
Newsgroups: alt.prose
Subject: Re: In Defense of Contact [was Re: Contact (1-3)]
Date: 30 Jul 92 23:16:48 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University
Originator: news@lafcol

"In Defense of Contact?"  I wasn't aware I was attacking it.  :-)  In
all seriousness, though, if that's how I came across, I apologize.  I
rather enjoyed the story and found it VERY readable.  The last thing on
my mind was attacking it.

In article <28JUL199211393959@zeus.tamu.edu> mfc1493@zeus.tamu.edu (Ratboy) writes:
>>>      My knees began to feel weak and a throbbing started in my head.
>>> Was I drugged? Chemicals? I grabbed the edge of one of the tables to steady
>>> myself.
>>>      The woman walked towards me with concern on her face.
>>>      A high-pitched scream suddenly rang through those ancient metal
>>> walls. She stopped and listened, her eyes wide with fright.
>>>      I was even weaker. I fell down.
>>>      She came running to my side.
>>>      All around us, the lights went out.
>>>      So did I.
>>
>>Why?  I don't think this is ever really explained.
>
>I got the impression that it was from the drugs he'd been injected with. He
>wouldn't just wake up and be perky, would he? Especially not after that long.

Sorry, I should have been clearer.  I was wondering what caused the
power failure, not his fainting spell.

>>>      Carly was horrified at what I found and she drained the cocoon of the lif
>>> fluid. The little girl's body slumped to the bottom. I helped Carly open the
>>> front and we carefully pulled the girl out. She was dead; Carly studied the
>>> readouts on the cocoon and decided the hibernation fluid had been contaminated
>>> I stared at the girl's body. No arms. I felt a strange, numbing fear run
>>> through my blood, a feeling that I was glimpsing something that I had no right
>>> to see, something that would inevitably bring me to my death.
>>
>>So what we have here is a plant affiliated some way with the CIA in
>>which little children are being brutally and savagely experimented on.
>>We also have a foreshadowing of Michael's (I think that's his name)
>>discovery that he himself is an android, awakened some fifty years after
>>he was stolen from his body.
>>     Some questions spring to mind, such as why was the CIA involved in
>>this sort of thing?  How did the FBI get wind of it?  What happened when
>>one branch of the government started fighting the efforts of another
>>branch?
>
>What you want is another story entirely. Granted, it would be an interesting
>story, but let this story be what it is: a love story in a futuristic setting.

Ah.  This is where we part our ways, methinks.  I think the story I saw
as being told is far more interesting than the love story.  If the
intent is to have a love story and I have misread it, the beginning
needs to be altered in some way to keep the reader from expecting a
sci-fi story.  Or (more preferably) the mysteries raised in the first
part need to be continued as a subplot throughout the rest of the
story.

>I would have been more suspicious at first too. But, you are underestimating the
>power of a good love story. Everything has been done...overdone. It's the way
>you handle the situation, the atmosphere, the syntax, the language... There are
>only 12 different plots anyway...

Really?  12?  I didn't think there were that many.  :-)
     Again, I suppose this is a matter of our different tastes.  A love
story does not appeal to me as much as the sci-fi story I felt I was
reading when I first read "Contact."

>>>      I saw a long assembly line. There were rows and rows of maintenance
>>>  droids,too many to count, stationed at intervals along the impossibly long
>>>  treadmill.
>>> The treadmill was covered with blood.
>>>      Carly was standing there smiling. I turned to her and asked, horrified,
>>> what was going on.
>>>      "43-90-87 Jazebro," she said with a smile.
>>
>>Seems to me that this should build up his suspicions of Carly; his
>>subconcious is trying to warn him that Carly is behind this mess
>>somehow.  I would continue with this.  Rather than revealing her to
>>be an android with memories of a little girl, why not have her be a
>>CIA agent who had her psyche transplanted into an android with the
>>goal of becoming immortal?
>
>That would change the story entirely. Again, trying to make another story out
>of the one written here.

Sometimes that is not necessarily a bad thing.  When I post stories to
alt.prose or another electronic forum, I occasionally find the ideas of
my readers worth pursuing.  At times a new story grows out of the old
one, or even replaces it.

>Haven't you ever been struck so vehemently by someone
>that you loose a partial grip on reason?                               .

I tried this once, but she hit my jaw so hard I saw stars for an hour
and couldn't eat for the next week.  She has a tremendous left hook,
and has since gone on to become a professional fighter.

>That is assuming that the chemicals, technology, etc. is that of today. I
>don't recall any specific years being mentioned (and I could be wrong) but
>the chemical could have been one that stopped the aging process, like the
>hibernation fluid that kept the children's corpses from degenerating.

I suppose that's possible, but Michael never made any mention of
climbing out of a cocoon of any sort.  The impression I had was that
he had been lying on that table for fifty years and suddenly awoke.
     Regarding the date: we are told it was the late twenty-first
century.  Can't remember the exact date, but Michael had "fallen
asleep" fifty years previously.  2038 springs to mind for some reason.

>>     And is there any signicance to "Jazebro?"  It's shown up as a
>>type of android and as a handgun.  Personally, I can't see the
>>connection.
>
>There are a lot of things in this world that the characters and the reader don't
>know. Somethings may be too technical, some just foreign, and the characters
>*are* having severe memoruy trouble.

All this is true, but some significance seems to have been attached to
the word "Jazebro," especially since it is one of the last words in
Michael's dream back at the installation.  Remember?  Carly looks up
(in his dream) and says "Jazebro" along with a bunch of numbers.
     Given the significance the word has, I would think it would become
apparent at some point in the story, but so far it hasn't.

>>     Nor can I think of why the CIA would keep that stuff in a locker
>>where he or some other trouble maker could find it.
>
>Carly is the only one from the CIA left...

She wasn't fifty years ago when Michael was caught.

>The third part was as good as the first two, if not better. It was crucial to
>the story that *I* was reading. For the one you wanted--maybe not. Plus, I
>didn't (and don't) beleive that Michael was an android. Otherwise, why would
>he care that Carly was?

He finally decides he DOESN'T care.  And he doesn't quite realize that
he is an android; it's a growing suspicion he has.  The reader is left
to pick up on that herself, except for the very blatant hint in part
three.

Reasons for thinking Michael to be an android:

1) He was asleep for fifty years.  A human in that time would waste
   away or be killed by one of the robots.
2) He has a spotty memory.  Carly said that she has the memories of a
   young girl, but admits that the memories are blurred.  Michael's
   memories are blurred in much the same way.
3) He survives a HUGE fall in a steel ATV.  A human body would have
   been turned to jelly on impact, but both he and Carly survived
   with what amounted to minor, treatable injuries.  He was certainly
   well enough to get up and leave the hospital.  Heck, he even
   threatened Fansworth while he was IN the hospital.

>Well, what you wanted was a sci-fi story with details about who, what, where,
>when, and how...and why. What is written is a love story, between a human
>and an android, in a sci-fi setting. Sure the other story would have been good,
>but so was this one. Very good.

The fact that we each have radically different ideas about what this
story is supposed to be indicates (to me at least) that some reworking
is needed.  The beginning seemed, to me, to suggest a sci-fi story, not
just a sci-fi setting.  If "Contact" is indeed to be a love story, the
beginning needs to be either altered to show this, or the questions it
raises about Michael, et. al. need to be picked up as a subplot.  As it
is, they seem to have been forgotten as soon as Michael and Carly leave
the installation.

>Forwarding through the stories seems pointless to me. Why do you subscribe to
>it if you're not going to read them? There are many good stories posted here.

Not all stories appeal to me.  I skim through what's posted, and if the
beginning of something appeals to me, I continue reading.  And when I
find something as good as "Contact," I say, "Wow, that's a good story
with some effort put into it" and I do what I would like done--I send
the writer my reactions to the story and suggestions on how I would
improve it.