The Inflatable Dalek's Read-Along Eugenesis Thread.

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inflatable dalek
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Post by inflatable dalek »

dubbilex wrote:Yeah, but the fact that the Spinisters all look the same makes it impossible to argue they're unrelated. Neither Quark's appearance in the Eugenesis comic prologue or his description in the novel are anything like MTMTE Quark's. Nor does he change into a microscope. He's not a scientist. The only thing they share is a name, and that name's just a pre-existing word in the English language. Ditto all that for Fulcrum. Rung, I'll grant you, but he was just a blink-and-you'll-miss-it name drop, more reference than character.
I'd forgotten he was in the prequel-comic, other than that I don't think Quark was described in the book though was he?
I'm referring to moments like this: "Death’s Head wrenched the Decepticon’s arm from its socket. It dissolved the moment it hit the
water. ‘Now we’re even, yes?’" I can't picture how that would work if Galvatron's still in a Pretender shell.
Yeah, whilst I think Denyer is probably right about the intent it could have been phrased better.

My personal nit-pick is it's not very consistent over whether the Transformers are using human dates (which is fine as a translation conversion) or Cybertronian. Switching between "Cycles" and the Georgian calender makes Prime having a clue what Nightbeat means when he says it's 2012 seem really odd.

Denyer wrote: 2007. It's also in the 2001 book. On that note, IIRC (I can dig back into email if really wanted) there are minor differences between the print edition and those files.
I wish you people would stop pointing out things I missed, it's making me look like I don't know what I'm talking about. :0
Will take snaps of the original foreword, etc. if of any interest.
That would be awesomes.
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Post by Denyer »

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Housewife2000
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Post by Housewife2000 »

Having just finished reading this over the last month, I concur with the general thoughts here - Eugenesis is a fantastic collection of scenes and moments, but doesn't quite hold together as a whole novel. It takes a long time to get going, particularly as the opening Quintesson attacks are hugely similar to their plan in Space Pirates. Plus the sidelining of Rodimus, Galvatron and Magnus seems an odd choice. And the P.R.I.M.U.S scene is total expository nonsense. But that aside, Roberts can write incredibly engaging prose and characters.

My feeling is that with the title "Eugenesis" and big origin reveal, the story really should have included more of a quest / mystery for one of the leads that led them to unpicking this alternate genesis story, rather it being infodumped on two minor characters near the end in a way that has no effect on the plot. It's almost as if Roberts became more interested in writing the war (which he does brilliantly) than following a plot about mythic beginnings.

Fascinating stuff though. Thanks for hosting it here.
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inflatable dalek
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Denyer wrote:Image Image Image Image Image
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Awesomeness.
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Post by Death's Head »

A few replies to catch up to now the heady day-to-day drinking of Christmas and New Year has somewhat ended. Sorry if I've forgotten anything!
Well there you go. Because of you, instead of writing fan fiction Roberts had to go off and get an official job on the franchise where he's had to endure the love of millions (mainly me).

I hope you're happy with yourself.
It was a bloody good issue as well :(

It's all worked out, though, eh?
Every time Eugenesis comes up in a thread, someone will mention Globequake sooner or later. That's really one I have to read as well at some point because it seems to be regarded on the same level (indeed, IIRC I've seen a couple of people say its better).
It's got to be online somewhere. It might be worth asking in the Hub Forum as I recall there was a file containing, well, everything doing the rounds a while back.

To be fair there's a hell of a lot of good quality stuff in TMUK outside of Eugenesis. Even now when I go back and read some of them I'm taken by the breadth of ideas in there, not to mention the experiments with format and style. At one point Martin McVay produced a 'choose-your-own-adventure' story, coded in HTML. Then there was "Decepti-Kombat", which tried to build a coherent plot out of the childish concept of 'these chaps are going to beat the crap out of each other'. I still find myself dipping back into a lot of them these days.

(I won't keep recommending stories, though, because I will be here all day.)
Ah, interesting. Thank you! Out of curiosity, what was the name of the story that established all that? (And it's too bad that the typo listing Hound among the birthers muddies the waters.)
That was the work of Martin McVay. While the whole story of the Nightstalkers etc is first established in "Transformers: The Untold Story" the nanobot element isn't revealed until "The Illusion of Truth", though memory may be playing tricks on me. Needless to say, all excellent.
ou know, it's a shame no one ever did detailed annotations for the book, showing all the little references and connections to other stories, both Marvel publications and fanfics. Even as someone who found the book merely "okay" -- though with moments that truly shined -- I'd kill for something like that. I think its because the story's sheer intricacy and eye for detail is so impressive that you can't help but marvel at it, and knowing all the connections would just let you appreciate that quality all the more.
That's what the Underbase articles on it should be, really. It's quite a mammoth undertaking, though, so you can understand why no one's really done it. Most of us could barely keep our own stories fully annotated!

Though, if I'm really bored one day...
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Post by Cliffjumper »

http://counter-x.net/Globequake.zip for quick, cheerful download and complete disregard of netiquette (I'll delete in a day or two).

http://www.theunderbase.co.uk/fiction/s ... rkness.pdf is a personal fave and works relatively well as a standalone.

Dalek, did me and/or the Big D send you the disc with a load of stuff on it?
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Top notch, downloaded.

I think I should have a disc somewhere, but I've so many piled up in wacky comedy style. Watching Shada yesterday it hit me I live in Professor Chronotis' study.

Random tangent, but I've just started re-reading the Bond books due to Casino Royale's 60th birthday and was originally going to do it with the digital versions Denyer sent me a while ago, but decided to go with the actual books at the last second. And I was glad I did as I'd have gone years without realising that the "Ian Fleming Centenary" boxset of all the original books I brought a mere four years ago is now falling apart due to the cheap card used. No wonder it was so reduced.

So there you go kids. Ebooks are the future.
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
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