Thursday, March 17, 2016

… And I Show You How Deep the Rabbit Hole Goes, by Scott Alexander

NOVELLA cover image
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(SF Humor) Eight magic pills, each with a different ability. Eight people who take those pills. And a whole universe to try to save. (6,538 words)

Rating: 3, Average
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"… And I Show You How Deep the Rabbit Hole Goes," by was published by , .

Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)

Pro: First we learn that most of the different abilities aren't as great as they seem. We realize how the different people who took these pills are linked together. Once they have a goal (saving the universe, no less) it all comes together.

The surprise ending, that Brute Strength really was the answer, is both amusing and foreshadowed.

Con: Lots of loose ends in this one. What was the point of the attempt to talk to God? Why kill off the green-pill guy? And the blue-pill woman seems woefully underused while the pink-pill woman is way overused--trivializing some of the tasks.

2 comments (may contain spoilers):

  1. I loved this story dearly (and blogged about it!).

    It's all about taking an absurd premise, and making logical extrapolations from it. Over and over and over, and each one makes you go "Ooooh, cool" and "That's hilarious," both at the same time. It's the basic SF-nal "What If...?", applied mercilessly and to great comic effect.

    It's also just a really fun story to read. I hooked a whole bunch of my friends into reading it by going, "Just read the first paragraph, it's really good," and then you do, and you get the idea of writing a story for each pill. And that's fun, so you go ahead and read a few more.

    And then you see he's done all the pills, and there's an Act II, and you're going, "Huh, but what's he going to do now--". And he just keeps going and going, to ever-more-incredible conclusions.

    And it's really really fun :P

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  2. Well, I'd certainly post a link to it if any of my friends were to post that picture on Facebook again. :-)

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