Aphelion

My word, what an interesting setting!<br><br><br>It makes my brainpan feel rather addled--I haven't come up with anything this original in a long time... I'm quite jealous.<br><br>I have to ask--what was the inspiration for this? Given the text, I'd have to guess tequila, but I'd love to know the real answer.<br><br><br>Top marks on world building. The clinic feels like a real place, although it is not described in much detail. Also, since Ursula cannot stand the smell of the new patient, clearly more of the senses have been brought into play, and I like that. (I missed when her olfactory input was turned back on that she could have noticed the smell in the couches, however.)<br><br>I wondered why Ursula could be fixed up in most other ways, but not in her short term memory, but it did help make her interesting. <br><br>The plot was rather simple: rude patient arrives, receives treatment, and escapes justice before skedaddling, and then everything goes back to the way it was. This simplicity was, in my opinion, the only real drawback to this story. By that I mean, it was such a good setting, it seemed a shame to have such a simple plot play out in front of it, as if the story couldn't reach it's whole potential that way.<br><br>Now, if this was a setting for a series of stories... That would be something to write home about, and I hope Greg doesn't abandon such a grand setting. It cries out to be visited again.<br><br>Hmm... an Al Majius series, an Al Rice series, and a Munsfeld clinic series, too? You can almost hear Cary diving under his desk… :)<br><br>Nate<br>

Hmm. I suspect the influence of Red Dwarf and / or Douglas (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy).<br><br>From the sound of it, Usula's hippocampus has deteriorated, so the mechanism through which she can learn and remember new things is shot. Memories in her artificially augmented long term storage are safe, but nothing new can be recorded -- current experience fades quickly, like a phone number you remember just long enough to dial. Viz. the movie Memento for an even more disorienting take on this problem.<br><br>The title, I would guess, might be a Philip K. Dick tribute (from We Can Remember it for You Wholesale). Come to think of it, the style and overall effect of this is rather reminiscent of some of Dick's work; after a few pages, you start to feel a bit 'floaty', disconnected from what passes for reality around here.<br><br>As with 'Wingles and Wafoons', a death- or death-like penalty is meted out for less-than-mortal sins. You'd think these stories were set in Texas when Dubya was Governor! (Oops. Is that Homeland Security pounding on my door? What are they doing in Canada?)<br><br>Robert M.<br><br>

Well, I didn't write it with the intention of producing a series, but it's funny you should say that, because on writing it, I also thought that it made a good setting for a series of episodical stories, not only because it is an interesting setting, but, as you mention, things go back to 'normal' between events and there is a huge timespan over which stuff can happen.

<br>Not only that, but in true "ship show" tradition, new characters and storylines can literally walk in through the door at any time. It's a place that was known throughout the galaxy. Surely there are more people out there than Gus who need fixing up. Think a space-based but deranged ER or St. Elsewhere (did they have that one in Oz?).<br><br>Nate

Then there were the Sector General stories by James White (although this would be more like a cross between the current TV series Nip/Tuck (about plastic surgeons in LaLa land), Scrubs (frequently goofy interns doing their residency under a very competent but humorously abusive mentor), and Deep Space Nine / Babylon Five). The characters who never learn anything from their experiences (but have a good excuse) would be a new angle, of course.<br><br>Robert M.

... I suppose someone with a hippopotamus brain might have trouble learning and remembering things. :-(

<br><br>Don't be silly. The Hippo Campus is the site where most of the buildings of Hippotamus University are located. What with the underfunding of public post-secondary education in North America, it has been deteriorating for many years (obviously impairing the learning process on a grand scale).<br><br>Robert M.<br>

... This reminded me a bit of early 1970s sci-fi. Don't ask me what that means cuz I don't know. But I think of that Bruce Dern flick and greenhouse space ship and that weird-ass TV show about the space Ark and those two people wandering its near empty and speaking to the old dude in the monitor ("Can I be of assistance?") Anybody remember that? Anybody? Bueller?
...
Dan E.

<br>The movie was the 'classic', Silent Running, with music by the great Peter Schickele(sp?), a.k.a. P.D.Q. Bach, and effects by Douglas Trumbull (who worked on Star Wars Ep. IV, back when it was just Star Wars). Trumbull also did the effects (such as they were) for the TV series, The Starlost ... The promo for The Starlost that ran at TorCon II actually used footage from Silent Running.<br><br>The Starlost was the subject of a satirical novel called The Starcrossed, by Ben Bova, who was nominally the science advisor for the show, and more than one rant by Harlan Ellison, who wrote the pilot script (Phoenix Without Ashes, a Hugo winner) and then saw the series become what it became ...<br><br>Man, Canadian sf TV production has come a long way from The Starlost ... we've had Andromeda (occasionally cool) and Earth: Final Conflict (likewise), the earlier seasons of The X-Files, and we now have Stargate: SG-1, The Dead Zone, and Smallville all shooting up here. (We've also had Mutant X, Lexx, and a few others I'd just as soon forget about, but so far we haven't been guilty of much in the way of 'reality' shows.)<br><br>Thus endeth the major digression. We now return you to our regularly scheduled thread, 'Greg sure writes weird stuff', already in progress.<br><br>Robert M.