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Post by kooshmeister on Jan 19, 2022 15:51:46 GMT
 Finally, a Harlan Ellison story I want to read... and of course the self-important prick declared it an old shame and has ensured it was never reprinted. Oh well. Thank goodness for the Internet. The Savage Swarm tells the story of Simon Belkin, a lab assistant who finds himself working for boisterous, alcoholic mad genius Dr. Franklyn Mathou, a man with a serious bug fetish who uses a "germ" in prehistoric air collected via time travel (!) to make ordinary insects grow huge (!!!), for... some reason. But the long and short of it is that after being fired from multiple jobs (first at a private research facility and then a government installation), Mathou cuts all ties with Simon and runs off to the jungle to continue his work, whereupon the US begins being attacked by hordes of giant bugs (starting with Detroit!), and the US military's Colonel Paul Cassidy thinks Simon is the only one who can solve the problem by undertaking a one-man commando mission to track down and assassinate Mathou. I had an entire plot synopsis for this in-progress which was (I think) pretty entertaining and was just reaching what I considered a natural stopping point when I accidentally somehow hit a combination of keys and X-ed out of Firefox, erasing the entirety of what I'd written. .... I don't want to type all that again and I'm not going to it, but I am nevertheless exceptionally irritated that this happened, as it killed my enthusiasm (at least for the time being). So, for now, suffice it to say that I enjoyed the story. |
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Post by Swampirella on Jan 19, 2022 15:54:55 GMT
Thanks for the summary; that goes for any further summaries of this book. They're always enjoyable to read!
Sorry you accidentally lost your original, I think that's happened to all of us at some time & myself (again) just this morning, in an email that thankfully was still quite short. |
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Post by Swan on Jan 19, 2022 16:01:25 GMT
Finally, a Harlan Ellison story I want to read... and of course the self-important prick declared it an old shame and has ensured it was never reprinted. Oh well. Thank goodness for the Internet. The Savage Swarm tells the story of Simon Belkin, a lab assistant who finds himself working for boisterous, alcoholic mad genius Dr. Franklyn Mathou, a man with a serious bug fetish who uses a "germ" in prehistoric air collected via time travel (!) to make ordinary insects grow huge (!!!), for... some reason. But the long and short of it is that after being fired from multiple jobs (first at a private research facility and then a government installation), Mathou cuts all ties with Simon and runs off to the jungle to continue his work, whereupon the US begins being attacked by hordes of giant bugs (starting with Detroit!), and the US military's Colonel Paul Cassidy thinks Simon is the only one who can solve the problem by undertaking a one-man commando mission to track down and assassinate Mathou. I had an entire plot synopsis for this in-progress which was (I think) pretty entertaining and was just reaching what I considered a natural stopping point when I accidentally somehow hit a combination of keys and X-ed out of Firefox, erasing the entirety of what I'd written. .... I don't want to type all that again and I'm not going to it, but I am nevertheless exceptionally irritated that this happened, as it killed my enthusiasm (at least for the time being). So, for now, suffice it to say that I enjoyed the story. If you wrote it in a post on here, then there is an option in settings to save drafts periodically. Edit Profile & Settings Forum Preferences Enable Drafts Saves your posts periodically during creation. Yes No |
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Post by Swampirella on Jan 19, 2022 16:02:58 GMT
I had no idea, thanks for the info, Mr. Swan!
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Post by Swan on Jan 19, 2022 16:04:44 GMT
I had no idea, thanks for the info, Mr. Swan! You can call me Swan. Lotus Blossom. |
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Post by Swampirella on Jan 19, 2022 16:10:39 GMT
I had no idea, thanks for the info, Mr. Swan! You can call me Swan. Lotus Blossom. Ok, I just didn't want to be booted off for being disrespectful  |
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Post by kooshmeister on Jan 19, 2022 17:12:43 GMT
Thanks for the summary; that goes for any further summaries of this book. Well, it's really just a short story. If you wrote it in a post on here, then there is an option in settings to save drafts periodically. Thanks! I'll keep that in mind!  |
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Post by andydecker on Jan 19, 2022 18:05:15 GMT
I had an entire plot synopsis for this in-progress which was (I think) pretty entertaining and was just reaching what I considered a natural stopping point when I accidentally somehow hit a combination of keys and X-ed out of Firefox, erasing the entirety of what I'd written. .... I don't want to type all that again and I'm not going to it, but I am nevertheless exceptionally irritated that this happened, as it killed my enthusiasm (at least for the time being). So, for now, suffice it to say that I enjoyed the story. Thankfully this has never happened to me on this forum - and I also didn't know about the different options for saving stuff here, so thanks Mr. Swan - , as I mostly write longer stuff beforehand in a word-file because I have to eliminate embarrassing misspellings, but it is a constant danger on any Google related blogs where you have to jump through rings before sending it off. Too often the comment just vanish because of some glitch or other. I used to want me to hurl the PC in the next corner. Nowadays I always make a copy of the text so I can start anew. |
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Post by andydecker on Jan 19, 2022 18:08:18 GMT
And a great cover, btw. So 50s it makes you wince. Thanks for posting.
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Post by Swan on Jan 19, 2022 18:25:09 GMT
I had an entire plot synopsis for this in-progress which was (I think) pretty entertaining and was just reaching what I considered a natural stopping point when I accidentally somehow hit a combination of keys and X-ed out of Firefox, erasing the entirety of what I'd written. .... I don't want to type all that again and I'm not going to it, but I am nevertheless exceptionally irritated that this happened, as it killed my enthusiasm (at least for the time being). So, for now, suffice it to say that I enjoyed the story. Thankfully this has never happened to me on this forum - and I also didn't know about the different options for saving stuff here, so thanks Mr. Swan - , as I mostly write longer stuff beforehand in a word-file because I have to eliminate embarrassing misspellings, but it is a constant danger on any Google related blogs where you have to jump through rings before sending it off. Too often the comment just vanish because of some glitch or other. I used to want me to hurl the PC in the next corner. Nowadays I always make a copy of the text so I can start anew. You can call me Swan too, but I won't call you Lotus Blossom. I believe, but haven't tested this, that if you exit the page then it automatically backs up your current text, and asks you if you want to restore the draft when you return to it. |
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