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jackhttp://www.tor.com/stories/2013/02/the-water-that-falls-on-you-from-nowhere
The Water That Falls on You From Nowhere is one of the hugo nominated short stories. It's about the family problems of a man, his other half, and his chinese-american family, in a world where water falls on you from nowhere whenever you lie.
What I liked about it is that it embraced a bold premise that most authors wouldn't have thought of, that this water suddenly appeared. And it didn't waste a lot of time making up implausible excuses for where it came from, but dwelled on the characters interactions in this world.
I liked that it touched briefly on the limits of the water -- it can be cold and intense enough to be dangerous, but not usually; evasions and near-lies come close to triggering it, bigger lies get more water. Equivocations produce an unbearable urge to clarify. Enough that you know what you need to know for the rest of the story, but not enough that you're inclined to nitpick. I thought that was a very good example of how to do worldbuilding, without too much or too little worldbuilding.
However, it seemed to miss out a lot of obvious questions like, imagine how much criminal trials would change if you can just ask if someone's guilty? And you have to have mats and towels everywhere. How much politics would change if you know everyone is going to keep their oaths to the letter and not fudge. How much advertising, medical research, teaching, would all change if no-one could equivocate. The novel The Truth Machine, dealt with a lot of those questions, not perfectly, but more than most other books I've read. I think it's fine that TWTFOYFN deals with family life not public life, but it seemed like a hole to me -- I'd have been happier if there was some throw-away line justifying my head-canon, either that things massively changed, but without going into detail, or that it could be fudged in some way that made it unhelpful for premeditated lies.
I liked the family life story, it was engaging and a bit moving, many of the little details added up well.
I felt it fell a little flat that the family story was resolved without the water being massively influential, it felt like each was a background to the other, but they didn't have to be in the same story. Or did I miss something?
The Water That Falls on You From Nowhere is one of the hugo nominated short stories. It's about the family problems of a man, his other half, and his chinese-american family, in a world where water falls on you from nowhere whenever you lie.
What I liked about it is that it embraced a bold premise that most authors wouldn't have thought of, that this water suddenly appeared. And it didn't waste a lot of time making up implausible excuses for where it came from, but dwelled on the characters interactions in this world.
I liked that it touched briefly on the limits of the water -- it can be cold and intense enough to be dangerous, but not usually; evasions and near-lies come close to triggering it, bigger lies get more water. Equivocations produce an unbearable urge to clarify. Enough that you know what you need to know for the rest of the story, but not enough that you're inclined to nitpick. I thought that was a very good example of how to do worldbuilding, without too much or too little worldbuilding.
However, it seemed to miss out a lot of obvious questions like, imagine how much criminal trials would change if you can just ask if someone's guilty? And you have to have mats and towels everywhere. How much politics would change if you know everyone is going to keep their oaths to the letter and not fudge. How much advertising, medical research, teaching, would all change if no-one could equivocate. The novel The Truth Machine, dealt with a lot of those questions, not perfectly, but more than most other books I've read. I think it's fine that TWTFOYFN deals with family life not public life, but it seemed like a hole to me -- I'd have been happier if there was some throw-away line justifying my head-canon, either that things massively changed, but without going into detail, or that it could be fudged in some way that made it unhelpful for premeditated lies.
I liked the family life story, it was engaging and a bit moving, many of the little details added up well.
I felt it fell a little flat that the family story was resolved without the water being massively influential, it felt like each was a background to the other, but they didn't have to be in the same story. Or did I miss something?
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Date: 2014-07-16 03:19 pm (UTC)Maybe. I don't think it's completely implausible, but it sort of jars me out of the story that what I expected to be a major revolutionary shift had been completely unnoticed. A throw away half-sentence like "politicians started issuing major press releases in text" or "it wasn't clear if it was going to affect the political order" might have defused the problem, just to show stuff was going on, prominent in the press, but no-one was taking it seriously yet, would have made the story seem a lot more interesting to me.
it enables Matt to admit to himself how much he actually loves Gus and is committed to Gus - which he wasn't really admitting to himself
That's a really good point. I think I'd been assuming he would obviously figure that out -- even if he was scared of ever saying it, that sooner or later there'd be a prospect of losing Matt and he'd realise that couldn't let him go, even if he couldn't verbalise that. But I may be too optimistic or too unobservant of human nature, I know lots of couples do drift along with one party never able to get themselves together enough to make a serious commitment, and sometimes drift apart again. (Especially if he can't shake the idea his sister his selling that his parents will never approve.) I'm not sure it's sufficiently clear, but maybe it was important, I'm not sure...