BEWARE! For The Last Fifteen Commentators -
Who glibly insulted me by pointing out my 'spelling mistake' are now nothing more than radioactive vapour. I dunno. Perhaps I'd have more Comments if I didn't keep using the Remote Nuclear Detonator. Art!
There's the 'S'. the cape and the very large room
Yes, here is Ol' Supes FOS, which is his holiday chalet-cum-hermitage for when the stress and strains of saving Hom. Sap. on a regular basis get too much. Located in an unspecified 'polar waste', it's very unlikely to be the Siberian tundra, as the Sinister's took a very dim view of the Man of Steel, especially since this name clashed with one of their own, 'That Little Sod With The Moustache' a.k.a. Stalin. Plus Tsar Putin would break out in hives if he discovered that Supes was living on his doorstep.
Egad! Is this for real?
(Plus Dimya doesn't have that much hair anymore)
ANYWAY this is by way of a non sequiteur, since I have rather lagged behind in presenting you with a detailed continual breakdown of "Escape Room", for which I apologise, although only a bit. If you recall we'd done The Hot Room, The Cold Room, The Upside Down Room and we now move onto The Medical Room. Beware, for there will be SPOILERS! Art!
SPOILERS, remember?
This room re-creates the four survivor's own medical experiences whilst recuperating in hospital, and since their fifth member died only a minute ago, how did the Gamesmaster know who would survive? Plot hole much?
In a frankly ludicrous stretch of reasoning, three of them try to get free by using an ECG machine, which winds up killing Mike. Our Plucky Black Shy Geeky Brainy Slight Heroine, on the other hand, has a complete mental breakdown and decides to smash all the remote cameras in the room, because - Well, just because. The two surviving males escape whilst she succumbs to poisonous gas that fills the room ...
Duh! Of course she doesn't. With all the cameras knocked out, the sinister minions who enter the room in hazmat suits are totally unprepared for her using an oxygen mask to survive, ambush and disable them and then run off with a gun one was carrying. Tellingly, one of them remarks to the other that it would only take 20 minutes to clear the room - THEY DID NOT EXPECT ANY SURVIVORS. This is important, so put a pin it it.
You can come out from behind the settee now, the nasty spoilery man has gone.
OR HAVE I!
No, really, I have.
DARTH VADER IS LUKE SKYWALKER'S FATHER!
Ha! Bet you didn't expect that, did you! That'll get more than a few raised - what? What did you say? Everyone's known about it since the Eighties?
Conrad clearly not as well-informed as he thought
Motley, bring me a mallet - I am going to play Whack-a-Mole with the Remote Nuclear Detonator until my ire wears off.
Meanwhile, Back In North Africa Seventy-Nine Years Ago
Yes! More selected pictures from "The War Illustrated", that fortnightly magazine from the Second Unpleasantness. I have pointed out that the articles within tended to be at least several weeks old, in order to avoid the opposition from being able to glean any useful data from them. This issue is the first of 1943, where the Axis are now well and truly on the back foot. Art!
You have to put in a picture of the Eastern Front every so often or Dimya gets sniffy and offended. Here Ruffian soldiers patrol past a suspiciously handy burning panzer - a Mark III I believe.
"Tormentor" Time!
We sail a little close to the wind with this extract. I shall remove the vulgarisms, yet the lascviciousness remains, so you may have to close your eyes.
‘’Cos
I’ve got a big ****,’ said the student, proudly.
‘No, you are a big ****,’ replied Louis.
‘And the employer is a piano bar in the gay village.’ The student looked cross. ‘No, no, too late, you’ve been taken on. Dress code is pink shirt and denim
shorts. Get mincing.’
The student muttered an insult
under his breath.
‘Shall we try again? Why should an employer take you on?’
‘Dunno,’ muttered the sulky
student, annoyed that his sexuality had been brought into question.
‘Good reply! I like that reply!’ beamed Louis. ‘What can you show an employer when you
actually get an interview? An
interesting collection of tattooes from the Young Offenders Institution? That’s not going to cut any ice with them.’
‘Why’re you picking on me?’
complained the student.
‘I’m not. At present you’re not just unemployed, you’re
unemployable, and I mean you all, not just you in particular, matey. If you can pass this course it shows that you
can apply yourself and you get a qualification.
Employers love qualifications.’
That begged the question, and of
course another student took the bait.
‘Why should I work! I can make more money robbing car stereos and
dealing blow in a day than I can working for a month.’
Louis folded his arms and shook
his head.
‘Why are you here? No, I do
mean you in particular this time.
Because you got caught. Do you
honestly think that the police just forget about you once you get
sentenced? No. They will take a close interest in you from
now on, especially since you’re so blatant about never getting a job. Ergo, any money you make is from crime. Makes things nice and easy for them.’
The student sneered his
expressive disbelief, only to start wondering within minutes if the ******* Giving Lectures didn’t have a point about making the fed’s job easy for them.
'Young Offender Institutions', let me tell you, are prisons for those under 18 - or was it 21? - and having a room, a bed, three square meals a day in dryness and warmth is frequently a step up for the offenders.
"To The Lake"
Conrad is now up to Episode Seven, and our protagonists - most of them - have made it to the lake in question.
To be slightly spoilery, let it be noted that the police and army become nothing more than bandits and murderers in uniform only a few days into the plague crisis; they are shown as being utterly ruthless, unscrupulous killers, quite willing to mow down unarmed civilians. Because, one presumes, there is only so much food and so many medicines to go around. Conrad quite surprised that Dimya allowed such a bleak portrayal to be permitted, but then he was probably off planning to bully a minor country into giving up all their cheese. Art!
Yes there are cliffhangers
Finally -
I have picked up "Revelation Space" again, a modern space opera by Alistair Reynolds, which I have definitely read before, except it has to be possibly twenty years ago. The only two bits I recall are a hidden pun that tweaks the lyrics to a song by Yes, and a vague recollection about a world composed of neutronium. I think. It's also one of those novels where one has to keep reading or you'll literally lose the plot. So - heading for another read once this is posted. Art!
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