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vvatchword · 9 months ago

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Reading BioShock: Rapture (Part 3: The Prologue’s Prologue)

<- Part 2: John Shirley and the Front Matter || Back to the Beginning || Part 4: Going Down ->

And so I begin with the prologue—at long last.

Oddly, despite the trash fire that is everything else, it starts out perfectly fine:

Sullivan, chief of security, found the Great Man standing in front of the enormous window in his corporate office. The boss was silhouetted against city lights. The only other illumination was from a green-shaded lamp on the big glass-topped desk across the room, so that the Great Man was mostly in shadow, hands in the pockets of his crisply tailored suit jacket as he gazed broodingly out at the skyline. It was eight o’clock, and Chief Sullivan, a tired middle-aged man in a rain-dampened suit, badly wanted to go home, kick off his shoes, and listen to the fight on the radio.

Mmmm. Mmmmmmmm

I do like this

I have talked much shit but this is a good start. This is how a BioShock story should start: with The Man Upstairs Himself, Andrew Ryan. Chief Sullivan’s POV—displayed here in third person-limited—is a great choice as well. It leaves Ryan a little more mysterious and less defined, which I like. I think that keeping a character like Ryan mysterious is more akin to the dialogue we’d get during gameplay. We can’t see Ryan’s interior self; we see what he chooses to present to us. And if we have any flaws as human beings, it’s that we assume people are more put together than they actually are, so this is an excellent choice. Don’t ever give your reader a sense of his weakness. Just show him rollin (we hatin)

The two top paragraphs give an excellent sense of his standing and wealth (a chief of security at his beck and call from his ritzy upstairs office somewhere on Fifth Avenue, NYC). There are some factual and historical elements here worth looking up revolving around the locale: what kind of skyline you could see from what part of Fifth Avenue, mostly. For example, what’s the best area of the city to choose so Ryan isn’t just looking out his window at another window? Simultaneously, not every skyscraper or building on Fifth Avenue is going to be ideal for both business and skygazing.

That said, this is relatively simple to handwave away with just the barest knowledge of the area (Sachs! Fifth Avenue!), and I don’t know what kinds of businesses or buildings were typically present. At least this sounds right. (Note from Future Me: do not trust him. He is a hack. He didn’t even use Wikipedia. NOT EVEN WIKIPEDIA)

All of this dialogue is going on during a Dark and Stormy Night, so I spy a little of BioShock’s inherent camp as well, and I approve. Characterization is shown through a combination of body language and inner desires. We have a great feel for Sullivan as a workaday man and his awe of Ryan works perfectly. Very nice. Mwah.

What did I hate about this? This is fine. I mean, I guess it’s a little over-the-top on description, and there’s an ugly little adverb in there, but that’s not so bad. It’s not so ugly that it’s awkward.

Coincidentally, I heard that Ken Levine worked on some pieces for the novel. Several articles mention a “foreword.” Others mention that he was supposed to write a prologue and an epilogue. However, he’s not mentioned as a cowriter, and my version—a first-edition paperback—doesn’t have a foreword. We’ll have to presume everything is John Shirley until it is confirmed otherwise.

Yet sometimes it seemed the tycoon was casting about for a friend he could take to heart.

Oh.

No,,,,

noooooo, no. No,,,,,,,,,

Wrong. Bad. Wrong. Incorrect.

Showing versus Telling

This story goes from letting the mood and dialogue speak for itself to Telling almost immediately. For a brief, blissful second you’re really leaning into Chief Sullivan and then Andrew “Friendship Is Magic” Ryan happens in paragraph three. It’s like Shirley said, “SHIT, I forgot to mention he’s lonely,” and instead of finding a good place to show it, he just shoved a paragraph in there. “There! Done!” slams back wild turkey

So. Showing versus Telling. Writers yell about this a lot, especially the mantra: “Don’t Tell! Show!”

In other words, show the character feeling lonely. Don’t outright say he’s lonely.

Now, Telling has got its uses, whatever anyone says. That said, when it comes to character growth, you try everything in your power not to “Tell.”

This phrase. “Casting about for a friend.” Why is this here. Where did this come from. How does it feel. It literally pops out of nowhere, inspired by nothing. (Equally important is that every subject leads seamlessly into the next.)

Does Ryan seem like he needs a friend? Is that the main point of the scene? No, the point of the scene is Ryan’s political stance and forceful personality. You don’t need to explain every fucking theme at once, it’s okay. Like maybe start with the forceful Big Boss shit and then Ryan goes home and he’s like :( boy it sure is lonely round these parts.

In fact, that would be a great contrast, wouldn’t it?

Imagine this: a scene of the big bad boss man ordering his chief of security to beat the shit out of some strikers in Kentucky. Then show him getting into a nice car by himself. Show him eating dinner at a nice restaurant across from an empty chair, surrounded by diners who all have friends and beloveds at hand. (Show this against a mirror or window. He is not even looking at his reflection.) Show him leaving by himself; he heads to his fine penthouse apartment by himself. Show his driver and doorman as nonentities. Show him surrounded by quiet servants who quietly serve him and quietly leave until he’s sitting by himself with a glass of merlot. Maybe he has a newspaper or a radio sitting next to him. Emphasize that silence and the vast spaces around him.

If you must explicitly mention loneliness, I’d recommend Ryan talking like no one’s on his level. He probably thinks he’s too good for other people, and it’s possible his autism/BPD/trauma is so powerful that he’s on a separate plane of existence. Most Randian Ubermensch are.

Another issue with “Telling” is that it tends to flatten characters out. They become grocery lists of traits. And Ryan should not ever, ever be flattened. He should rise above you like a thunderhead. Do not steal his mystique—that’s literally the most important facet of his character. I’m sure there’s a way to “Tell” that he’s lonely, but this is not the right place or time, and this sounds like he’s a little girl listing all alone in a playground instead of a big bad boss man who sends strikebreakers to fuck people up.

I’m Sorry to Report to You

Ryan asks Sullivan for his two reports.

“Let’s have the report on the strikes first, get it out of the way. The other one…” He shook his head. “That’ll be like hiding from a hurricane in a cellar. We’ll have to dig the cellar first, so to speak…”

what

I’m assuming this line means, “A cellar is inadequate for a hurricane. Therefore I need to build a cellar for the oncoming hurricane.” Which makes. No goddamn sense.

But I also have no experience with hurricanes. To make certain I was not missing some finer point, I went to a friend who has lived in the hurricane lands and asked her questions.

watchword — Today at 6:22 PM FRIEND. I have a hurricane question for you. "That'll be like hiding from a hurricane in a cellar." What does that mean to you To me, it implies that a cellar wouldn't be enough. Admittedly, I've never lived in hurricane country

Salty — Today at 6:23 PM It's very silly, tbh Hurricanes are multi-day affairs And usually we don't have cellars in hurricane country

watchword — Today at 6:23 PM Is this a saying that you know of? Guess where I read it

Salty — Today at 6:23 PM LOL It's not a saying I know, but I can guess that someone confused a tornado with a hurricane

watchword — Today at 6:24 PM I have always gone into cellars for tornadoes what the fuck

Salty — Today at 6:24 PM Hurricanes are like big multi-day thunderstorms, and usually on the coast, the water table is too high to have a cellar or basement

(I found out all of this under two minutes john)

Long story short, this sentence does not make any goddamn sense and it’s the second thing that Andrew Ryan says.

Sullivan wondered what he meant by that cellar remark, but he let it go.

NO. Sullivan do not let him go. Ask him what the fuck that even means. Sullivan? You must kill him sullivan

Instead of killing him, Sullivan tells him about strikes.

“The strikes—they’re still going on at the Kentucky mines and the Mississippi refinery.”

Okay there are two jarring problems here.

First is the specificity. Consider this: these are two adult men, both professionals, both competent in their respective fields, and they are speaking about a situation that has been ongoing for a while. This is a report that Ryan expects, and the implication is that there have been others.

One would expect for Sullivan to have a far more specific insight into the situation—perhaps big players on all sides, perhaps a list of demands from the strikers, perhaps some talk about national, state, or city politics or site layout and all the ways they affect progress. Moreover, when strikes occur, they are often referred to by the name of the city and company they’re part of, and it makes sense that Ryan would have an idea of his facilities and where they are in the country.

Long story short, proper names would be rattled off left and right, stakes and states would be presupposed or mentioned offhand, and both Ryan and Sullivan would know what they were immediately.

Second, the phrasing is so juvenile that it’s cringe-worthy. This sounds like what a high-school student thinks that businessfolk sound like. “They’re still going on” is such a nothing sentence. Under what circumstances? Sullivan would know what circumstances and he’d start out right where they left off the last time.

If I put myself in my CEO shoes, “they’re still going on” is not something I’d wait up to hear. I’d be like bitch I know, have they been able to ship the scabs in? How about the Elizabethtown situation? How many more did that Pinkerton bastard say he needed? All right. How much? He said he could do it with $XXXX; why hasn’t he managed it? Did they at least take care of that Mulligan man? Why not? jesus christ is everyone a fucking Red-tit-sucking bastard? What do you mean the mayor wants a payoff? What is this, Ukraine?

Except I’d not say “Ukraine,” I’d go look up first-hand accounts and experiences with famously corrupt governments in the Soviet bloc between years 1930 and 1946 that Ryan may have had personal experience with and just replace “Ukraine” with some important city somewhere with a tiny off-hand note that makes it sound like Ryan knows his shit. I probably wouldn’t swear that much, either—Ryan is classy until he’s been pushed to the edge.

But this is just a first draft, too. This is just me making shit up in literally 10 seconds. You come in later and you smooth that shit out. You look up where mines are located in Kentucky, where refineries were most likely to be located in Mississippi, and you might look up what kind of products they make and staff they’d employ at those locations in 1945. Look for pictures and firsthand accounts of related strikes at the time and double-check if the Pinkertons were even still a thing in 1945. Extrapolate, steal, remix, and you’re golden.

Also? This is wartime. Not only was production a completely different monster, businesses were under the heel of the US government at this time. Interesting historical note: most unions had pledged not to strike. In 1943, coal miners were like fuck you, pay me, and a strike began. The government responded by nationalizing all coal mines and threatening to send in troops as strikebreakers. When nationalization and the threat of violence didn’t work, President Roosevelt’s next response was to fucking criminalize striking in war plants or nationalized industries.

Did the coal miners care?

lol no

And so labor gains were made during an unlikely period.

I found this out in 30 seconds of searching from a quality source at the US Archives. Usually I look for at least two separate accounts of the same event just to make sure I haven’t stumbled on some goofery, as well as read documents both primary and otherwise, but if you’re short on time, a .gov website does nicely.

Why Are You Like This Again

Technically, Shirley is overcoming a problem here: he needs to communicate the kind of person that Andrew Ryan is, what Ryan is like in business, and Ryan’s political viewpoints. He doesn’t want to get locked up in meaningless minutiae. Of course, rattling off exact names is a great way to bluff your way out of a situation like this—to look like everything is business as usual, and imply you know more than you do. Despite writing more books than the Bible, Shirley does not know how to do this.

This is that pandering to the lowest-common denominator that I was telling you about. Shirley cannot trust the reader to know anything about the time period, the work of a company president (I’m not using “CEO” because this term was coined in 1984—neat), or anything beyond the most basic comprehension of wartime, unions, and strikes.

I just realized that Shirley is also the lowest-common denominator so good news for all the low-coms out there.

There’s a simple solution, of course: have the strikes be brand new. Then Sullivan would have to share explicit details about what’s going on, since Ryan would be equally new to the situation. There would still be some shorthand in their speech to experiences they’ve had outside of this one, but it would be easy this way. Then you can mention everything by name (“Our mines in Martin County!”) for the benefit of the reader.

The eagle-eyed reader will have noted: yes, that would be easy! but it would also take work. What if u are tired. What if u r unmotivate. Wat if

rather toke

puff puff

Of course, there are ways to ease the reader into these subjects. We’re approaching this work as a standalone, remember? This is one of the strengths of literature—the ability to explain complex subjects in-narrative by bouncing off of other intangible subjects.

Your reader doesn’t have to know everything, but the dialogue should be immediately understandable to them by context alone. And it’s totally doable! I’ve done it! Because you have to do it with all subjects when you’re writing, not just historical concepts! If you’re a writer you’ve probably done it without thinking about it!

Basically, you lead the reader in with easy concepts, then build on that simple foundation with more and more complex ideas. It takes some work and thought, but it’s also fun and interesting and is a great educational opportunity for both you and your reader. I can’t believe I’m writing this

Touchy-Feely

Here’s the problem.

I said in the last installment that I suspected I’d see quick, undigested concepts. I did not guess that Shirley would opt to do NOTHING. No research, not even badly. He didn’t even look at a map. He’s almost purely visual, and in the worst way: he bases his scenes on how he feels about the 20,000 movies he’s seen and conflated in his brain.

I now suspect that he is the kind of writer one is in childhood: the kind who writes solely by feeling. This can be done, and can be done well, but it is also hit-and-miss because you’re not sure WHY you’re doing what you’re doing. This probably explains why he could win an award: because he wrote with his whole dong at some point, took for granted he would be Great Forever, and got complacent.

Because Shirley isn’t here to write about a concept. No, he doesn’t have a concept to explain at all. He writes blindly, with his little feelers bipping and bopping all over. He is a pillbug with Microsoft Word and an internet connection.

Black Butterflies is in two parts: eight stories set in "This World" (what we call reality) and eight stories set in "That World" (where the door swings open into the realm of the surreal, the supernatural). In "This World" we meet a middle-class white woman who turns a mugging by two black youngsters into her chance to pursue glory as a criminal; a cop who knows his partner is guilty of murdering his wife; two hustlers who throw a sadistic and drug-infested party at the expense of their bound and unwilling host (believe it or not, it's hilarious); "a girl who died from cum"; and two bike messengers whose fate is to join hundreds of other people in a freak accident so... —Summary of Black Butterflies by John Shirley on Amazon

This seems pretty cool, actually. I might actually rea

wait

she died from what

Well now I’m definitely reading it. Although I’d bet money it’s edgy 90s bullshit.

You Should Be Ashamed

Shirley just wanted an approximation of Business Men having a Business Talk. He doesn’t take a step back and say, “Ah! I should know what an oil tycoon might talk about to his chief of security in midcentury America. In which case: I should know how the oil business works, I should know what a security officer does, I should know what company presidents do in case of a strike… oh, and I need to introduce some themes: the loneliness of being a great man, the kinds of people Andrew Ryan would surround himself with, Andrew Ryan’s politics…”

In his mind, he sees that scene he’s seen a hundred times before—the one where the lackey has not done enough, and then the Big Businessman says, “You’ve let me down, lackey!” And the Lackey, satisfactorily stung, murmurs: “I will do better, sir.”

But he doesn’t know why he needs it, so it all comes across as nonsense. It’s just the random babbling of a theme generator. This is like AI writing. I mean if you care that little just go into a book published in like, 1940, and steal the dialogue out of that. Nobody reads anyway, just be a bastard, jesus christ. I mean I’ll still hate you but…

I can’t believe this is where I’m at right now: debating myself whether it’s more or less ethical that he did nothing because he didn’t care or was too lazy to steal. I suppose it’s possible that he’s not lazy, just incompetent, but that’s even worse somehow.

He was paid. He was paid to do this. This is ultimate “have the confidence of a mediocre white man” energy.

Long story short, you don’t have to care terribly much to do this right. I did all of the research above in less than an hour, and it’s been a minute since I’ve read up on wartime industry. I’d be embarrassed to end it there, but there are little ways to cut corners that don’t make you look like a fucking jerk.

At this moment, I feel like I can say, with absolute confidence, with curled lip and disdainful eye, that this wasn’t done right. It wasn’t even done. Shirley didn’t do even a modicum of research. Not even to look up a couple of random towns in a couple of random states. Not even to straight-up invent them.

I’ll just say it: pathetic.

Parasite Expectations

If I spent any time going over all of the dialogue here, I’d end up sharing the contents of the entire page, and I think that is frowned upon in copyright law. However, if I told you everything was wrong, would you believe me? All of the same problems apply: juvenile speech patterns, a lack of specificity everywhere that matters, and constant Telling.

Oh! And a new problem rears its lopsided head: weird fucking tangents. There is a random aside to the shoulder padding in Ryan’s jacket for no reason. I think it’s supposed to give you a material sense of the different era? It’s weird though, and it occurs after unrelated dialogue. It’s akin to those novels where the character gets out of bed and looks in the mirror at her blue orbs.

Note to would-be historical novelists: read midcentury novels and note what jumps out at you as old. Everything sounds pretty much the same as today except no one has computers or cell phones, and there’s some problem-solving that revolves around that, but all you have to do is confer with the Olds in your life if you’re uncertain. Every now and then someone mentions snapping a garter or there’s a random mention of typewriters or talking to a phone operator. Oh, and everyone wears a hat. And it’s rarely a specific hat, it’s just “hat.” Because usually people don’t think twice about the mundane bullshit they have to do until they have to do it, and knowing when to be specific is its own art.

Just fucking read ok. Don’t be a Shirley. He clearly hasn’t read anything in his life.

Buzzwords

After Sullivan shares the poor man’s version of a “But I twied to stwikebweak them, Mr. Wyan,” Ryan says at one point:

“Have you been out there in person? Did you go to Kentucky—or Mississippi, Chief? Hm? You need not await permission from me to take personal action—not on this!"

What is Sullivan supposed to fucking do, run out there and start beating people with a stick?

A new misfortune has arisen: now it’s clear to me that Shirley doesn’t know what Sullivan’s job entails.

I could tell you how this kind of research works but at this point I’m just fucking horrified. This is unbelievable. If you don’t know what a job is like, research it. Have you done it? Oh of course not, you’re a lazy-ass bastard and you have more confidence than capability. But let’s say you give a shit!

Now take your little notepad out, write down all the details you can’t answer, list them in order of importance, and then research them. That’s how it works. There are people on AO3 taking college classes to understand sign language or research historical periods for fanfiction only 20 people will ever read. Tor and 2K paid this man to regurgitate half-baked movie sequences that he couldn’t be arsed to look at a map for.

And it’s even worse than that, somehow. He didn’t just not research. He didn’t even make something up! He didn’t say to himself, “What does a security officer do? Uhhh from my extensive viewings of Die Hard:” and then just invent shit. He just did nothing.

Not only is this nothing like real life, this isn’t a scene as it would exist in a film. It’s merely film-like. It’s the undigested impression of a sequence. It’s the shadow on the cave wall. It’s the writer equivalent of nearsightedness.

Now, if Shirley had been specific, we would be able to say exactly what Sullivan ought to do. But we have no idea what is even happening. Shirley should have asked how strikes work, and what kinds of things a security officer with no moral compass might get up to, and what kinds of vengeance a tycoon might wreak, among many other things. But Shirley does not know. Nor does he care. And besides, it’s just so much fucking work and he’s got to go Geezer Scream at a dive bar for the dead.

Most importantly, this dialogue doesn’t reflect well on Sullivan and it doesn’t reflect well on Ryan. They are not only pretending to be a Chief of Security and a company president, they are pretending to be human beings. Also, both of them now look weak as balls. I am confident I could beat both of them to death at the same time with my bare fists and I am a bag of juice.

Ryan continues:

“Unions… they had their own little army in Russia—they called them Workers Militias. Do you know who these strikers are? They are agents of the Reds, Sullivan! Soviet agents! And what is it they demand? Why, better wages and work conditions.”

I had a history class too. Did this guy share literally anything that he hadn’t heard offhand once? Has he ever opened a book just to learn something?

In any case. This. This is where I knew I was going to hate this book forever. This paragraph sounds like a joke. Is this what Shirley thinks satire is? I’m going to kill myself.

This is the paragraph that settled the back cover summary’s authorship for me. This is the paragraph where I realized, “John Shirley does not understand Objectivism or Andrew Ryan, nor the appeal of either.”

Perhaps this is a great place to work in another aside. Do you like asides? No? Fuck you.

Aside #330,80085,5420695.52

So! Back in the day there was this commentator for Fox News called Charles Krauthammer. He was a legitimately intelligent and capable man and a Pulitzer Prize winner. Fox would set him on a panel with three babies and it was like night and day. The babies with their perfumed cheeks and platinum blow-outs would share their shower thoughts, which were mostly buzzwords and half-digested anger.

Then Krauthammer would start speaking and you felt like there was a miscarriage of justice. How did these three other losers get on this panel? Send them back to fucking preschool. He had this vision of cause and effect over time that the babies were too young and poorly-educated to see. He was connecting dots to universes only he could show you. Like are there more of this man? If there were, leftists would be in trouble.

Conservatives loved this guy because they all suffer from this niggling terror they are all actually very dumb, and it wounds them that intelligentsia tend toward liberal doctrines. But if Krauthammer was smart that meant they were actually smart! (this is its own stupid bullshit but it’s all they have. god bless them. having your head permanently stuck up your ass is difficult work)

I thought about going back to listen to some old Fox News shit for this but I decided to pull a Shirley. I am forced to listen to Fox News every day now and I can’t stand it. It’s probably not what I remember. I liked Krauthammer back when I was a conservative, but I have also been an idiot for most of my life. It is probable that I still am. An idiot, I mean. Look at me NOW. Picking up pennies, gasping for breath in an airtight room, writing this shit for three people and about 10,000 bots. Feed this shit into your AI algorithm and get fucked.

Now.

This Andrew Ryan is spouting shower thoughts. This is not Krauthammer behavior. It’s not even Randian behavior—and like it or not, she was intelligent, in her own way.

But Shirley’s Andrew Ryan is not an intelligent man. This is not a Pulitzer Prize winner. You can tell because all he utters are buzzwords, and the buzzwords are expected to do all the heavy lifting.

Does BioShock’s Andrew Ryan utter buzzwords? Sure, to expand on concepts. Look at some of his dialogue from the game:

Gregory, don't come whining to me about market forces. And don't expect me to punish citizens for showing a little initiative. If you don't like what Fontaine is doing, well, I suggest you find a way to offer a better product. —“Offer a Better Product,” BioShock

What is the buzzword? ��Market forces.” Ryan mentions the market forces, then builds on his ideas of what ideal market forces are. This is also a great baseline for his character. He hates Frank Fontaine. He has known Fontaine is bad news for a long time. He will not stop Fontaine for his success alone.

On the surface, the Parasite expects the doctor to heal them for free, the farmer to feed them out of charity. How little they differ from the pervert who prowls the streets, looking for a victim he can ravish for his grotesque amusement. —“Parasite Expectations,” BioShock

What is the buzzword? “Parasite.” “Parasite” has a specific meaning in Objectivist parlance, as well as BioShock's, and it’s something that Ken Levine built on over time.

Your first thought when you heard this, as a sane person, was to reject it. Levine knew you would reject it. He wants you to hit that cognitive dissonance and wriggle in your seat. He wants you to think.

This audio diary is an expansion on the concept of the parasite. What other parasites are in game, literally and figuratively? What is parasitic behavior? Is this really parasitic behavior? What are the differences between your definitions of “parasitic” and Andrew Ryan’s?

Just because I hate you, here is some shit from Atlas Shrugged:

“Who is John Galt?” The light was ebbing, and Eddie Willers could not distinguish the bum’s face. The bum had said it simply, without expression. But from the sunset far at the end of the street, yellow glints caught his eyes, and the eyes looked straight at Eddie Willers, mocking and still—as if the question had been addressed to the causeless uneasiness within him. “Why did you say that?” asked Eddie Willers, his voice tense. —Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

Throughout Atlas Shrugged, Rand uses “John Galt” as a touchstone. She creates a buzzword, and she expands on it over and over and over. There are over 500,000 words of expansion in this shit. She does not tell you why it’s important. She introduces a sensation of unease and hints that the name is everything.

She does not do as Shirley does here:

“[Buzzword]… they had their own little army in Russia—they called them [Buzzword]. Do you know who these [buzzword] are? They are agents of the [buzzword], Sullivan! [Buzzwords]! And what is it they demand? Why, [buzzwords] and [buzzwords].”

Using a single word or phrase to carry a world of meaning is a fucking privilege, not a right. You must earn it. And if Ayn Rand is kicking your ass you need to rethink your work strategy.

Did You Want the Second Report or

Ryan wants that second report:

“And—the other report? It’s true, isn’t it?” “Both cities are almost entirely destroyed. One bomb apiece.” … “Our man in the State Department smuggled this out for us.”

And then Sullivan gets him some nice glossy photographs. thanks sullivan. u could have killed him sullivan. this could have been short sullivan

This is a rare case of John Shirley doing research.

First of all, photos of nuclear destruction didn’t get out for some time. You can confirm this by looking at the front pages of newspapers. Reporting on the disasters occurred nearly simultaneously in the Western world, but newspapers of the day didn’t have images—Japan was closed to outsiders—so they used drawings and stock art to depict related subjects (the pilots responsible and the plane used, for example) or what they thought the destruction might be like (by quick artistic rendition) or political comics (“fuck u because Pearl Harbor”). Immediate images of the destruction do exist, but it took them a while to get out, and there was also some good old-fashioned censorship (USA! USA!). If you want a good jumping-off point, the Wikipedia article shares a few bite-sized nuggets.

Secondly, reports of radiation sickness—and concepts of atomization itself—were not really in the public consciousness at this point. Nor were they reported until at least a month later.

So yeah, it makes sense that if Ryan wanted to see real pictures and get information he could trust, he’d lean on his power and prestige to get them—it's a great illustration of both, as well. But none of this is explained or implied in any effective way, and I was already deeply suspicious of Shirley, so my very first thought was, “You mean………. the second report…….. was the fucking newspaper”

The part of this that irks me is how many times Andrew Ryan turns to Sullivan for his opinion. I feel like this is wrong and I can’t put a finger on it. I truly don't think he'd ask Sullivan for his opinion except in a hypothetical sense, and I don't think he'd broadcast his mood. My idea of Andrew Ryan is as someone who is extremely controlled. But BSR's Ryan is unpleasantly soft and too obviously unsettled. Why does he care?

I ask this because Randian Ubermensch do not give a single shit about what anyone ever thinks, ever. This is not to say that we should strip Ryan’s humanity away like Rand does, but there’s a way to do it effectively. I know this is true because Ken Levine did it and because I have been the kind of person who understands this particular brain rot.

In any case: this gives us a literal date for this sequence. It would have to be after August 9, 1945, when Hiroshima was wiped off the map, and before images got out (I didn’t look ahead far enough to see who got first dibs because that's not my job). So why wasn’t an exact date given on the front page? Because the first page just says “1945.” Why not “August 10, 1945” or “August 1945”? Like if you’re giving the date give the whole-ass date. Are you afraid of commitment john shirley

Before we go on, look at this. LOOK AT THIS

The Great Man held the glossy photographs to the window so he could make them out in the twinkling light of the skyline.

Shirley is so sold to this image of a silhouette against a skyline that he makes Andrew Ryan try to look at pictures with the light from someone else’s window 17 miles away.

THERE’S A LAMP RIGHT BEHIND HIM. THERE’S A LAMP. DO YOU REMEMBER THE FUCKING LA

I Have to Stop Now

I have been trying to keep these posts under 3,000 words. Every single one has hit 6,000. There is something remarkably cursed about all of this.

I think I’ll start stretching out and covering larger swathes of text eventually. We’re basically setting a baseline: for what kind of writer John Shirley is, for what kinds of flaws he is cursed by, for what kind of work he’s willing to do or cognizant of or whatever.

Look guys. I’m on page 3. It’ll get less dense from here on out. I promise.

At least I am getting a foot up on my own research, right?

right?

kill me

<- Part 2: John Shirley and the Front Matter || Back to the Beginning || Part 4: Going Down ->

#bioshock #bioshock rapture #andrew ryan #writing #rants #essays #objectivism #atlas shrugged #vvatchword #this is a long post gentlefolks #click it and it will evaporate your timeline #u have been warned #vv reading #'the first scene u see should not be the one where u have given up'#long post

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