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June 1, 2005

No ideas but in pieces
Posted by Patrick at 10:31 AM * 155 comments

David Moles and his cronies know how to put together a literary movement. Moles originally asked:

When, exactly, did “slipstream” stop meaning
a kind of writing which simply makes you feel very strange; the way that living in the late twentieth century makes you feel, if you are a person of a certain sensibility [Bruce Sterling, Catscan 5]
and start meaning stories that
feel a bit like magical realism…[that] make the familiar strange—by taking a familiar context and disturbing it with SFnal / fantastical intrusions [Rich Horton, quoted in Asimov’s]
?

‘Cause that seems to be what it means now. And it’s not cutting it for me.

Wrote Meghan McCarron:
Slipstream, ultimately, is just a wussy term. We should be drawing names less from wishy-washy words (slip, stream) and more from monster trucks (krusher, inferno).
Thus, (excerpts from) Notes Toward an Infernokrusher Manifesto:
Explosion is the new transgression. Demolition is the new deconstruction.
[—Benjamin Rosenbaum]

More than the death of the Reader, Infernokrusher prizes the sudden, violent dismemberment of the Reader

Infernokrusher fiction explodes stagnant genre conventions, e.g., that it’s not okay to have all your characters run over by a monster truck in what would seem to be the middle of the story

While other attitudes to art yearn to communicate truths, to move people, to challenge, or to entertain, infernokrusher art wants to blow stuff up

Redefinitions, subgenres, philosophemes:

slipstream -> proto-infernokrusher fiction
slipstream : infernokrusher :: uniformitarianism : catastrophism
Elemental truth in infernokrusher fiction: Nature crushes stuff too
Religious truth in infernokrusher fiction: God likes to blow stuff up

Deviations and faux-infernokrusher tropes:

infernoes/krushing only as metaphor
infernoes/krushing as resolution rather than violent irruption—trappings, but lacks sensibility

The first Infernokrusher poem:

I blew up the plums
that were in the icebox
and which you were probably saving for breakfast
forgive me
I like fire
[—Dora Goss]

Adds one “Celia”:
Admittedly I am not an innovator or even an early adopter here, but solidly in the consumer realm, but I was under the impression that infernokrush is intended to replace slipstream (and by replace, I of course mean crush into very small pieces). Furthermore, it really goes without saying, though that’s not going to stop me, that by its very nature infernokrush is interstitial, since it’s all about reducing the interstices into very small parts.
It’s good to see the young continuing the great work of literature.
Comments on No ideas but in pieces:
#1 ::: Ray ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 11:05 AM:

I think its an interesting idea, sure, but what I'd rea[comment EXPLODES!!!]

#2 ::: Tiger Spot ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 11:20 AM:

What an awesome poem!

#3 ::: Steven desJardins ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 11:37 AM:

Far superior to my own proposal, "glamourstitial fiction", which is like interstitial fiction but with really pretty head shots.

#4 ::: Christopher ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 11:46 AM:

I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree
crushed beneath the treads of my
flame-spouting bulldozer.

#5 ::: Steve Eley ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 12:06 PM:

I'm proud to say that, in typical slipstream fashion, the Infernokrusher movement has been predated by its own splinter movement, the Infernodairy movement, which reviles Infernokrusher for its shallowness and absolutism and finds deeper truth in the yin/yang bifurcation of violent explosions and milk products.

The first Infernodairy poem, written to protest the eventual rise of the Infernokrusher movement, appeared nearly a year ago in Scalzi's blog:

Some say the world will
end in fire; some say in cheese.
But most likely, fire.

#6 ::: Jonathan Vos Post ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 12:11 PM:

Doesn't Sturgeon get credit for anticipating this movement, thanks to his "Killdozer?", and thus to the first film in this genre's canon? Or is that cannon? Cry havoc, and let slip the infernokrushers of war!

#7 ::: elizabeth bear ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 01:28 PM:

Sturgeon's "Killdozer" is definitely anticipatory of the Infernokrusher movement. I would also mention Roger Zelazny's 1967 short story "Auto-Da-Fe" as a seminal work, along with the 1979 John Ritter movie "Americathon," in which the theme of Man's battle with the infernal machine is revisited as Meatloaf goes mano-a-auto with the last living automobile.

These latter two examples are not true infernokrusher fiction, however, but only proto-infernokrusher, reflecting as they do the awakening of the sensibilities that infernokrusher will later exploit--bot not yet having accepted the inevitability of the KRUSHING AND THE FRAGMENTATION AND THE DEATH.

Ahem.

Sorry about that.

#8 ::: Jesse ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 01:31 PM:

Would that make Evan Dorkin's "Milk and Cheese" seminal influences on the Infernodairy movement?

#9 ::: elizabeth bear ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 01:32 PM:

...and of course, how could we forget Christine?

#10 ::: Christopher Davis ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 01:38 PM:

Does Alan Dean Foster's "Why Johnny Can't Speed" count as proto-infernokrusher or just proto-proto-infernokrusher? (Perhaps it's pseudo-proto-infernokrusher.)

#11 ::: TexAnne ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 01:48 PM:

The Infernokrusher movement has already undergone its own deconstruction, in Waldrop's "Mary Margaret Roadgrader."

#12 ::: Keith ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 02:00 PM:

If we're looking for predecesors, then it all goes back to the Illiad. There's a giant horse and everybody dies or flees in disillusionment.

#13 ::: Celia Marsh ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 02:02 PM:

It’s good to see the young continuing the great work of literature.

I think you meant to say "the work of great literature," right?

#14 ::: adamsj ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 02:03 PM:

Damn! Isn't that a wonderful story? Is Waldrop still writing? That's the only thing I've ever read by him, I think, and it's great!

#15 ::: Rob Thornton ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 02:23 PM:

Quoth the pioneering infernokrusher critics on SCTV: "That blowed up REAL good!"

#16 ::: Christopher Davis ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 02:51 PM:

For that matter, Allen Steele's "Mudzilla's Last Stand" is Giant Robot Infernokrusher.

#17 ::: David Moles ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 03:04 PM:

I have cronies? Don't anybody tell them.

#18 ::: aphrael ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 03:07 PM:

Of course you have cronies, Dave. :)

#19 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 03:28 PM:

Young Celia is perhaps unclear on the hermetic concept of the "Great Work".

MacGregor Mathers, to the white courtesy phone, please.

#20 ::: Jo Walton ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 03:40 PM:

Waldrop's still writing and he's still awesome.

If you check Amazon, you'll find a whole pile of collections, of various shades of availability but unfaltering brilliance. His work is always worth seeking out, quirky and unexpected and well written and thought provoking -- I sputter into incoherence when I think how good it is.

#22 ::: Jed Hartman ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 04:08 PM:

Continuing the Waldrop aside, if anyone hasn't read "Mary Margaret Road-Grader," you can read it by following that link. (We reprinted it at Strange Horizons a few years ago.) It's the one that starts out "It was the time of the Sun Dance and the Big Tractor Pull."

#23 ::: Senseless ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 05:09 PM:

And here I was thinking a Slipstream was a Interstellar highway...

#24 ::: Marilee ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 05:43 PM:

Both Waldrop & Steele will be at this year's Capclave (our host & hostess will be Fan GoHs).

http://www.wsfa.org/capc05/

I've never met Howard before, but Allen's easy to talk to.

#25 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 05:47 PM:

We would be happy to be "Fan GoHs," but that's not what either the website or the printed flyers say.

#26 ::: Sister Howitzer of Patience ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 07:01 PM:

Howard Waldrop is also easy to talk to. Actually, easy to listen to, since you'll be laughing too hard to be able to say much.

I note that the UU Jihad compliments and confirms the Infernokrusher movement, demonstrating that the movement has a viability in synch with the times.

#27 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 07:33 PM:

Good to see your pixels, Sis.

#28 ::: funnermentalist ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 08:04 PM:

Jay, surely the thing of the future.
It made me, and I can't even write one sentence of proper english, do this piece of Inferno-Krusher-Cosplay-Slash-Fanfic:

TinkyWinky ... <BOOM>
Dipsy ... <BOOM>
LaaLaa ... <BOOM>
Poooo ... <BOOM>

#29 ::: Xopher (Christopher Hatton) ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 08:41 PM:

We would be happy to be "Fan GoHs," but that's not what either the website or the printed flyers say.

Eh? What's that you say? You want portraits painted with a palette brush or something?

Oh, Fan GoHs!

Never mind.

#30 ::: julia ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 09:30 PM:

might a friendly mundane ask what slipstream does mean? I'm at sea here.

#31 ::: Mary Kay ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2005, 09:41 PM:

MKK smiles happily and grabs some popcorn. She loves watching things blow up REAL GOOD.

MKK

#32 ::: Bruce Arthurs ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 02:11 AM:

Huh, synchronicity in action. I was musing a few days ago that, if I were to start a new fiction magazine, a peachy-keen title would be "DETONATION: Explosive New Fiction".

(Not a musing likely to ever transmute into reality, alas, barring some unexpected windfall to pay off the mortgage and other mundane obligations.)

#33 ::: James Wallis ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 09:01 AM:

Infernokrusher...I take it that any allusion to fiction published by Games Workshop, and in particular its short-story magazine Inferno, is entirely accidental and not a cheap slam at a successful young publisher you don't work for?

#34 ::: sundre ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 09:06 AM:

My first, second, and third thoughts on proto-infernokrusher: some segments of Bill Watterson's work may well qualify.

#35 ::: Dave ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 09:25 AM:

I would like to retroactively nominate Death Race 2000 as the seminal work and entitled to a 'Splody(tm) award for best use of destruction in a major Infernokrusher picture for 1975.

Without this artistic piece outlining the need for science fiction to emprace death and destruction as key features in art, we wouldn't have the movement we have today.

#36 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 09:47 AM:

I thought "slipstream" was the place behind somebody who's moving, where their aerodynamic drag is less. For instance, birds travel in a "V" formation because each is flying in the slipstream of the other to save energy by cutting down on aerodynamic drag.

In bicycle racing there is jockeying for position in terms of who lets who ride in ther slipstream.

So maybe "slipstream" writing would be when you try to get in on the coat-tails of another writer.

#37 ::: Steve Eley ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 10:16 AM:

James Wallis wrote:
Infernokrusher...I take it that any allusion to fiction published by Games Workshop, and in particular its short-story magazine Inferno, is entirely accidental and not a cheap slam at a successful young publisher you don't work for?

Did you name your magazine after a monster truck?

Some people seem to have a genuine enthusiasm for taking offense at things.

#38 ::: Adam Rice ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 10:37 AM:

Shit. I just got back from Burning Flipside. Infernokrusher is neither fiction nor a joke. It's a way of life for some people.

I like fire too, and ask no forgiveness.

#39 ::: Jon ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 10:52 AM:

Isn't infernokrusher sensibility just Chuck Palahniuk in bib overalls?

#40 ::: Greg London ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 10:54 AM:

slipstream is what happens when you try to cross a small river and the rocks are smooth and wet and you lose your balance.

#41 ::: Larry Brennan ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 10:54 AM:

Death Race 2000 sure, but Rollerball also came out in 1975 and had an unmistakable pre-protoinfernokrusher sensibility.

#42 ::: adamsj ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 11:14 AM:

So what about the Rollerball remake? Heresy or revelation?

#43 ::: James Wallis ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 12:08 PM:

Steve Eley wrote:
Did you name your magazine after a monster truck?

Not my magazine, though I do own shares in Games Workshop. (It's a publicly quoted company. Turns over in excess of £100m a year.)

Just, you know, it's a magazine that publishes SF/F (and outsells Interzone)... and if I was to write a manifesto for, say, the 'Locuspuller' movement for more SF/F revolving around cheap badly-written sex there might be an eyebrow or two raised.

#44 ::: Kathryn Cramer ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 12:43 PM:

In answer to Moles's initial question, it seems to me that the notion of Slipstream has always been entangled with literary class anxiety and that Slipstream has always tended in the direction of the kinds of literature that are like us but that get more respect, hence the tendency in the direction of such things as magic realism. (Can we have our Nobel Prize in Literature now?)

#45 ::: David Moles ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 01:25 PM:

Mr. Wallis, I mean this in the best possible way, but you're completely off the rails. Doubly so because:

(1) when we coined the term we, as far as I know, had no awareness of Inferno [something I'll do my best to remedy if I have a chance to stop by the London Forbidden Planet on the way to Glasgow this summer], and because

(2) the Infernokrusher movement is about fiction that's fucking brilliant, not cheap badly-written anything.

#46 ::: David Moles ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 01:26 PM:

And yeah, Kathryn, I suspect there's at least a little reverse class anxiety involved here. :)

#47 ::: Sandy ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 01:54 PM:

Do you think there's a market for T-shirts that say "Sue Dante?"

In the meantime, I'm trying to figure out what the other half of Robosaurus slashfic is.

. . .was there a line back there somewhere?

#48 ::: Sandy ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 01:58 PM:

Argh! inability to fix my tags after the fact. . . CRUSH DESTROY IGNITE BLAST REFORM.

link that should have been in there and wasn't

#49 ::: John M. Ford ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 02:11 PM:

Do you think there's a market for T-shirts that say "Sue Dante?"

Only if the wearers want to spend lots of time answering questions about when her next album is coming out, does her truck really have an 8-track that plays UMDs, and if it's true she was a teen groupie for the Dixie Flatline. (After . . . well, you know.)

#50 ::: David Moles ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 02:34 PM:

Robosaurus/Mechagodzilla?

#51 ::: John M. Ford ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 02:38 PM:

Robosaurus/Mechagodzilla?

Now that's slash.

#52 ::: Magenta Griffith ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 02:51 PM:

Mr. Ford, I am going to have to finish the work day with images of giant lizard monsters humping, running through what's left of my brain. (And I'm not sure if that comma should be there after humping, but it didn't make sense without it.)

#53 ::: Kathryn Cramer ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 03:06 PM:

little reverse class anxiety

Yeh, I had picked up on that.

#54 ::: Kathryn Cramer ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 03:08 PM:

Also, perhaps I should have written "Nobel Prize in Lit-Richer," since that better described the subtext I was getting at.

#55 ::: Chaz ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 04:16 PM:

THE INFERNOKRUSHER PARADOX

THE TRADITIONAL FORMS must be BURNED to MAKE ROOM for BRILLIANT INNOVATION

AND YET

THE INNOVATIVE IMPULSE must be SMASHED to PRESERVE our GLORIOUS TRADITION

how are we to resolve this?


SUCKA!

THERE IS NO PARADOX!!!
(now you must die)


THE TRIPLE-BARRELED BLACK SPIKY GRENADELAUNCHER CHAINSAW FLAMETHROWER OF INFERNOKRUSHER CLARIFIES SIMPLIFIES PURIFIES AND CLEANSES US OF ALL DOUBT!

#56 ::: Chaz ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 04:18 PM:

oh, and yeah,

SEX

#57 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 04:40 PM:

James Wallis, I hadn't been particularly aware of Inferno myself, but I now associate it with lameness. Doubtless this is unfair of me. I shall have to get a look at an issue, and so amend my opinion.

#58 ::: Marilee ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 07:18 PM:

Hmmm, you're right, Patrick. (Of course, the flyer also has Electrolite separate -- I emailed Mike and he said he'd have it fixed on the website.) I specifically remember the announcement that you were going to be Fan GoHs, though. Ah, if I use the web archives thingy, I find Keith Lynch's original page where you're listed as FGoHs:

http://web.archive.org/web/20041013120601/http://www.wsfa.org/capc05/

Keith dropped off the concom (was webmaster) because they were using a Yahoo group and he's sure his spam will increase if he joins. I don't know who's doing the website now and if the change was accidental or new policy.

#59 ::: Jon H ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 10:03 PM:

I seem to recall a seminal InfernoKrusher work by Heinlein, called "And He Built A High-Torque, Two-Shaft, Rotary Shear Shredder".

As I recall the story it goes something like this: an architect builds an interesting house, and invites friends over to see it. Except the house is actually a giant shredder. During a tour of the house, a small tremor causes the shredder to power on, and all the people die shrieking in agony, reduced to bloody strands of tissue and chunks of gristle. Which then catches on fire.

#60 ::: Julia Jones ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 10:23 PM:

Can I have some soap and water for my mind, please? I'd like to be able to sleep soundly tonight, and this thread has decreased the chances of that in *ever* so many ways...

#61 ::: Larry Brennan ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 11:04 PM:

Jon H: ...Which then catches on fire.

And explodes.

#62 ::: Georgiana ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2005, 11:52 PM:

I'm about to start a massive rewrite of a script I wrote a few years ago. It starts off with my 8-year-old protagonist crawling along wearing this weird gear as he escapes from his summer daycare. When I first wrote that scene I thought I should have him blow the whole place up because every movie needs some explosions and some lovely fire and it would have really shown his distaste for the place.

Now I see that I should have absolutely listened to my instincts.

#63 ::: Jonathan Vos Post ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 12:52 AM:

Georgiana:

"It starts off with my 8-year-old protagonist crawling along wearing this weird gear as he escapes from his summer daycare."

Didn't that get done in the Simpsons episode “A Streetcar Named Marge,” where Marge is forced to sequester Maggie in daycare while Marge rehearses for a community theater production. Maggie ends up at the “Ayn Rand School for Tots,” and in a spoof of The Great Escape?

I'm thinking Bruce Willis as Homer, Angelina Jolie as Marge, Brad Pitt as Bart, Tarantino directing, and John Fox or Drew Jiritano for pyrotechnic Special Effects. I think that the Ayn Rand School for Tots gets dynamited as in The Fountainhead. Boom!

Or how about "Kindergarten Cop" meets "The Terminator?"

#64 ::: Jon H ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 01:30 AM:

"When I first wrote that scene I thought I should have him blow the whole place up because every movie needs some explosions and some lovely fire and it would have really shown his distaste for the place."

I hate to contradict the One True Way of InfernoKrusher, but instead of blowing the whole place up, maybe something like blowing up the toilets.

An 8 year old would probably consider a poopsplosion to be the optimal sendoff.

#65 ::: Paula Lieberman ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 03:06 AM:


This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a wimperer.

And there there is that issue of the terminal-ogy....

d, rlh

#66 ::: Charlie Stross ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 09:55 AM:

Can I just say how much I like this new Movement? (And I want to claim "Iron Sunrise" as an early example coz in the first two chapters it does blow shit up real good.)

Incidentally, I think we lucked out on this one. Back in 2003 it took the combined weight of Gardner Dozois, Michael Swanwick, and Nellie the Elephant to press Cory Doctorow into conceding that maybe he'd be sending the wrong signal if he named the new movement "Nerdcore".

#67 ::: Nix ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 11:02 AM:

Not only does "Iron Sunrise" blow stuff up, it *describes* it. In great detail, and I fel this is important. Any work of art can mention big explosions in passing: infernokrusher art must *revel* in it.

I'm not sure about the krusher aspect, though: "Iron Sunrise" certainly manages the `inferno' part, but it's more a work of infernoplasma, or perhaps infernovaporation. You need, I think, more Giant Krushing Engines with Huge Teeth of Steel and Depleted Uranium for the krusher part.

(Perhaps the ReMastered could have Giant Krushing Engine specialists, or something, and invade worlds by long and patient subversion *and* Merciless Acts of Krushing decorated with big explosions.)

#68 ::: Charlie Stross ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 11:11 AM:

Scribble, scribble ...

Am making notes towards the next space opera. I was planning on doing one about Space Pyrates, although they were coming out unaccountably gray and John Major -like on account of all the double-entry bookkeeping to which that profession is prone; maybe if I add a Monster Truck drag, or two ...?

(How big can you make a Monster Truck, anyways? Hmm.)

#69 ::: BSD ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 11:16 AM:

Back in 2003 it took the combined weight of Gardner Dozois, Michael Swanwick, and Nellie the Elephant to press Cory Doctorow into conceding that maybe he'd be sending the wrong signal if he named the new movement "Nerdcore".

Well, that would be an overloading of aterm already used. Nerdcore Hiphop.

#70 ::: David Moles ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 11:21 AM:

The opening of Iron Sunrise is, indeed one of the best explosions in all of science fiction.

#71 ::: Jonathan Vos Post ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 11:32 AM:

Charlie Stross:

"(How big can you make a Monster Truck, anyways? Hmm.)"

Take 4 Ringworlds as wheels. Insert shiny neutronium-plated hubcaps. Red Dwarfs (dwarves?) for brake-lights. Pulsar headlights. Now, for the fuzzy dice hanging in the cab...

#72 ::: Dan Blum ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 11:34 AM:
How big can you make a Monster Truck, anyways? Hmm.

I seem to recall that Howard Chaykin's American Flagg had some that were the size of large industrial plants.

However, I think that if you have to ask "how big?," you're thinking too small.

#73 ::: Tim Akers ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 12:48 PM:

I think I'm actually going to write a story like this. Already have the title: Fine Red Mist is the new Black.

#74 ::: David Moles ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 01:06 PM:

I believe pink mist is the technical term.

#75 ::: David Moles ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 01:10 PM:

Oh, and Nix, it's worth pointing out that the explosion in Sunrise is, in fact, caused by crushing.

#76 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 02:06 PM:

Do you think the Mythbusters are part of the Movement?

#77 ::: John M. Ford ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 02:21 PM:

In the realm of Maximum Size for Teratrucks, one could start with the wonderful flatbed transporters that hauled Saturn Vs out to the pad. They were extremely slow, of course, but that was only because they had fragile stuff on them that we cared about.

There's a flatbed transporter system -- saw it on a Honking Big Machines documentary long ago, and have forgotten the maker -- that consists of flat decks with motors and fully articulated wheels below. The trick is that these can be plugged together in any desired configuration and controlled as if they were a single element (what us train guys call "multiple-unit control"). There would doubtless be some control lag in a skiffily big assembly, but nothing that mad science couldn't fix.

Hm. Combining vehicles. Maybe a fleet of Real Big rigid airships, with internal corridors, that can link up in midsky, Gerry Anderson-fashion. (Anderson's fascination with aircraft that are supposed to come apart is probably one of the key id-monsters haunting aircraft designers.)

A number of years ago Harry Harrison did a set of three books collectively called something like "Wheelworld," about a planet, where, at long intervals, the habitable zone went all funny and the entire population had to load their asses and their oxen into gigantic you-know-whats, powered by the cities' nuclear plants.

#78 ::: Charlie Stross ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 02:43 PM:

John, the Saturn V crawler is still in use today -- they converted it to haul the Shuttle. (The Russians, being more sensible, just used railroad tracks and a launcher/erector on the pad. Spoilsports.) The combo transporters are also pretty big when you bolt them together, though. (And I've heard rumours about Airbus building a new Guppified Airbus based on a 340 hull to carry the wing sections of the A380 in place of the barges they currently use -- would a Guppy ten feet longer than a Boeing 747-400 count?)

Still. It occurs to me that the real use for a monster truck is on a planet with an insufficiently long day where you want to build a surface-to-orbit elevator. The elevator's groundside end needs to crawl, of course. Around the equator. All umpty-several million tons of it.

#79 ::: Dan Blum ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 02:53 PM:
A number of years ago Harry Harrison did a set of three books collectively called something like "Wheelworld," about a planet, where, at long intervals, the habitable zone went all funny and the entire population had to load their asses and their oxen into gigantic you-know-whats, powered by the cities' nuclear plants.

The books were Homeworld, Wheelworld, and Starworld, collectively known (to the SFBC, anyway) as To the Stars.

#80 ::: Jon H ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 03:07 PM:

I think this ought to be the mascot of the InfernoKrusher movement.

The Saturn V crawler is probably comparable in size, but this has a massive toothed digging wheel, in addition to the house-crushing treads.

It'd look nice as a logotype on the spines of books in an InfernoKrusher imprint.

#81 ::: Xopher (Christopher Hatton) ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 03:19 PM:

Red Dwarfs (dwarves?)

Dwarfs. Unless they're ruddy-bearded Tolkien creations.

Someone was ranting, on a much inferior site, that the proper plural of 'roof' was 'rooves'! I essentially asked her what Bizarro world she'd wandered in from.

I bet she thinks the singular of 'grooves' is 'groof' too.

#82 ::: John M. Ford ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 03:36 PM:

It'd look nice as a logotype on the spines of books in an InfernoKrusher imprint.

It'd look even better as a powered model with the novel packed inside the cabin. It could have, say, a Sony Aibo-level brain, and a programmable attack instinct. Hold a foiled and embossed cover up to the CCD, and Igor go kill.

"Literary excellence through superior horsepower."

#83 ::: Jackmormon ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 03:52 PM:

Yes, that is certainly a manifesto, and so much more manifest than that almost polite Mundane manifesto! The krushing makes me so happy.

#85 ::: Mary Kay ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 03:57 PM:

No, really. I really really love you guys. No place else has so many fun, twisted, sick, and demented people. Well, except maybe Worldcon.

MKK

#86 ::: Anton P. Nym ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 04:39 PM:

I, for one, welcome our new Infernokrusher overlords as they put us to work in their infernally-deep pulp mines. (Or do you strip mine pulp? Yeah, strip mines... you get cooler machinery that way...)

In fact, I now feel a burning need to go work on "Still Life with Chainsaw and Flamethrower"...

#87 ::: Sandy ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 04:58 PM:

Mr. Wallis has missed a great resource in angering this community such that it must KRUSH and destroy.

I mean, what is Warhammer 40K if not an Infernokrusher template, an unstoppable vision of space orks and chainsaw hands and cybernetic monster trucks?

"In the grim future of Hello Kitty, there is only war."

...oops...wrong link.

#88 ::: Sandy ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 05:00 PM:

Mr. Wallis has missed a great resource in angering this community such that it must KRUSH and destroy.

I mean, what is Warhammer 40K if not an Infernokrusher template, an unstoppable vision of space orks and chainsaw hands?

"In the grim future of Hello Kitty, there is only war."

...oops...wrong link.

#89 ::: Dan Blum ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 05:07 PM:
I mean, what is Warhammer 40K if not an Infernokrusher template, an unstoppable vision of space orks and chainsaw hands?

It's also incredibly naff, and gives crazed adolescent power fantasies a bad name? Or is this a trick question?

#90 ::: Dave Schwartz ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 05:48 PM:

I think this ought to be the mascot of the InfernoKrusher movement.

I'll bite; what the heck is that thing?

#91 ::: Anton P. Nym ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 06:15 PM:

I'll bite; what the heck is that thing?

I think it's some kind of mining machine.

I also think it's GORGEOUS. I WANT one. I sneer at paltry Sport Utility Vehicles; I can consume eons of fossil-fuel deposition with this thing JUST BY PICKING UP GROCERIES!

And I could KRUSH all those annoying cars between me and the supermarket doors, too. KRUSH them into an INFERNO of twisted metal! YEAH!

(Do they take Visa?)

#92 ::: Peter Erwin ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 06:37 PM:

I'd just like to point out that Charlie Stross was already thinking quite specifically about Monster Trucks in SF contexts, even before these infernokrusher parvenus came along.

You see, earlier today I was reading his story "Elector" (from the September 2004 Asimov's), and I came across the following in the "FAQ memeplex":

"Money exists, and is used for the usual range of goods and services, but the basics -- food, water, air, power, off-the-shelf clothing, housing, historical entertainment, and monster trucks -- are free."

Even after the Singularity, there will be Monster Trucks.

#93 ::: gaukler ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 07:23 PM:

I believe it is a coal mining excavator. There is a shallow coal seam running through Germany that is excavated with a similar machine. Whole villages are removed from its path, and then rebuilt after it has passed, leaving no scars in the countryside.
mark

#94 ::: Jon H ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 09:03 PM:

Gaukler is correct. I think its proper name is "Bagger 288".

It just occurred to me that, having seen Return of the Sith last night, nothing in that film gave me the sense of wonder and awe which this mining machine gives me.

#95 ::: Bill Blum ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 09:24 PM:

You are not a beautiful or unique monster truck.

#96 ::: Jon H ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 09:28 PM:

"You are not a beautiful or unique monster truck."


On the Internet, nobody knows you're a Transformer.

#97 ::: gaukler ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 09:48 PM:

Here is a night photo or two of this rather large machine: BIG MACHINE
mark

#98 ::: Mary Dell ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2005, 11:31 PM:

Maybe the definition of slipstream has drifted because Sterling's original definition, as quoted here anyway, is so vague as to be meaningless.

#99 ::: sundre ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 12:15 AM:

Jon H: really? I saw Sith last night. I don't think I'd have enjoyed it nearly as much without the revelations of Infernokrusher. I was able to ignore most of the wonky dialogue and concentrate on the shiny bits.

#100 ::: AJ ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 01:26 AM:

"Two paths diverged in a wood, and I-
I rode my bike off the path
That was awesome!"

--Robert Fire

This is entirely too much fun. Can someone help me figure out where irony ends and sincerity begins?


#101 ::: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 01:59 AM:

AJ writes:

This is entirely too much fun. Can someone help me figure out where irony ends and sincerity begins?

It may be twenty years before the boundary is apparent. Such is the way of literary movements. It's a risk you take when you jump into one.

Turning to another matter, Road & Track reviewed the Shuttle crawler a long time ago.

#102 ::: Jonathan Vos Post ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 03:13 AM:

Excerpt from
Most Voyager Fails To Incite Wonder, SciFiWeekly Letters:

Once upon a time, Star Trek meant solid writing, character development, and there was hardly a single episode that didn't provoke some serious "Yeah, what if?" on the part of the viewer.... Now, though, it seems that Trek episodes are for sale to the highest bidder. I (thankfully) missed the most recent episode (the wrestle-fest), I wish I'd missed "Virtuoso" (Robert Picardo deserved better), and now there's discussion about a MONSTER-TRUCK episode?

Rick Berman and Paramount must think the fans are as stupid as the storyline writers who came up with these ideas. I can see it now: A series of Titan-sized MONSTER-TRUCK are turning some planet's ecosystem into earthen road kill, and it'll be up to Seven of Nine to figure out whether to a) remotely slash their tires, b) transport sugar into their fuel tanks, or c) get Neelix to grow enough jumbo-sized bananas to make exhaust-pipe stuffers.

... With ideas like what we've been seeing, it's no wonder that the majority of the series is taken up by episodes that have all the punch of a flat tire (monster-size, of course).

Bruce Lane
kyrrin@bluefeathertech.com

Oh, Brucie, baby, your complaint is SO pre-Manifesto!

#103 ::: Jonathan Vos Post ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 03:27 AM:

And what was the point of the following film, with them having neglected to hire a SFWA member who adheres to The Manifesto? I mean, we KNOW that Billy Bob Thornton can do Sci-Fi!

"Wakin' Up in Reno," a potential debacle (or delight) starring Billy Bob Thornton, Charlize Theron, Patrick Swayze and Natasha Richardson as two trashy couples who travel to Reno to see a monster truck show. Yes, that really is the premise. And the director, Jordan Brady, disturbingly lists his CV credits as having played "Frat Guy" on "Dream On" and "Teen Boy" on "Baywatch...."

Baywatch could have been so much better if they just blew lots of stuff up, and maybe had the robot shark from Jaws, maybe with frickin' machine-guns strapped on...

#104 ::: Jonathan Vos Post ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 03:38 AM:

And for the Christian Right:

Jesus: The Monster Truck

This would be so cool if Satan took the bait, and manifested his baddest Monster Truck, for a Demolition Derby with Jesus. I mean, that dude with horns and hooves knows monsters, right? And the exhaust pipe could belch sulfur fumes, heck, it could burn a slurry of sulfur in nitromethane. Emperor Bush could fly over in Air Force One, escorted by the Blue Angels, and Satan would like shoot missiles at them, or maybe be flying AF1, doing a Bin Laden voice imitation to crack up his buddy Bush and annoy Ashcroft. And the heavy metal soundtrack alone would be, like, awesome! Crank it up to 11, dude! Or maybe 13. Or, I know, set the amp on 666! And then there would be, you know, Armageddon, which has an infinite amount of stuff blown up, and burning to a crisp, and all, while guys like me are Left Behind...

#105 ::: Hal Duncan ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 10:19 AM:

Actually, for the benefit of the Christian Right, I'm already working on my cut-up and fold-in of the Book of Revelations. See, there's a point in it where some angel says, a pox on he who adds any words to this book, and on he who takes any words away from this book (or words to that effect). Says nothing about tearing the goddamn text into little bitty phrases and putting them back together in a different order so Satan wins.

BWAH HA HA HA HA HA!

#106 ::: Dave Schwartz ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 11:34 AM:

Maybe the definition of slipstream has drifted because Sterling's original definition, as quoted here anyway, is so vague as to be meaningless.

Not to be serious or anything, Mary, but that's one of the things we were discussing in David's original thread. Er, before we demolished it.

#107 ::: Larry Brennan ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 11:43 AM:

Hal Duncan: See, there's a point in it where some angel says, a pox on he who adds any words to this book, and on he who takes any words away from this book (or words to that effect).

Well, shouldn't the pages be contaminated with antrhax or smallpox or something, then? Sheesh - the angel did say a pox. Gotta give them kiddies literal scriptural truth, or they might grow up to be biologists or something similarly ungodly.

#108 ::: Xopher (Christopher Hatton) ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 12:06 PM:

I say burn it. Burn it all!

#109 ::: Jonathan Vos Post ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 03:22 PM:

A Tank of One's Own

It's part Return of the Jedi sail barge, part 19th-century battleship. "The goal was to make something tanklike, relatively inscrutable, and slightly menacing," says Neal Ormond, who spent three months building what he calls the JL421 Badonkadonk after studying design at Stanford. The 1,000-pound 'donk (hip hop slang for "bodacious backside") can hit 40 mph and holds a crew of five, flamethrower optional. Ormand, who now runs a graphic and Web design firm in Palo Alto, is offering the vehicle for sale on Amazon.com in the Everything Else category. No sale yet. "The people who would be willing to spend $20,000 on it are usually not the people who have $20,000," he suspects. But the producers of Wildboyz, the spinoff of MTV's Jackass, caught wind of the Donk and plan to use it in an upcoming episode. Sounds more entertaining than Revenge of the Sith.

- Tom Vanderbilt

#110 ::: Marilee ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 03:46 PM:

Jon H, having read ML and then settled down to the news last night, I was surprised by pictures of the same machine on NBC Nightly News. It was in a bit about scam coal mining which is here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8088541/

And it looks like it will show you a video of the machine working in the picture on that page, but I'm not willing to install all the MSN crap to do it.

#111 ::: Marilee ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 03:52 PM:

I've always liked trucks. There's a street in our city which is mostly car dealers (and the city is planning to change that to residential/office) and Battlefield Ford has a lot with these really cute little dump trucks. I can't afford one, don't have anything to do with it, probably couldn't get up in it, but I stop by every now and then (usually with a convenient child) to look at them.

#112 ::: Anton P. Nym (aka Steve) ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 04:25 PM:

And it looks like it will show you a video of the machine working in the picture on that page, but I'm not willing to install all the MSN crap to do it.

Not much of it, alas, just a brief glimpse of the rotary scoop in action.

I would like to offer this photograph from c.1990 in Hamilton as a possible alternative trope to the "Monster Truck" in infernokrushing. Simulated delivery of incendiary ordnance by vintage aircraft, thereby INFERNOing and KRUSHing hapless steel drums with squib-ignited kerosene to the thrum of radial or rotary engines, should also qualify.

#113 ::: Larry Brennan ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 04:45 PM:

Here's the perfect chair for readining infernokrusher lit.

#114 ::: Eb Oesch ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 06:08 PM:

A tree explodes in the forest
but there is no one left to hear it
It's too much for human ears anyway
only scientific notation
can do it justice
Perfect in itself
undistorted by human conception
it -- Hey you! Buzz off!
Give a bomb some privacy, willya?
Go read something else.

--

Where light meets death
the witnesses lie
If they weren't vaporized
they weren't really there

#115 ::: Georgiana ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 06:58 PM:

This is great! I spent most of last evening talking to a friend and tossing around dialogue for an infernokrusher radio play about Satan having a bad day and trying to figure out how to work in the whole Jesus at the pawn shop motif. Now I see that we are all really tapped into the infernokrusher collective unconscious and we're grooving on the whole Jesus/Satan/Monster Truck possibilities together. Sweet!

#116 ::: Jon H ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 08:21 PM:

JvP writes: "This would be so cool if Satan took the bait, and manifested his baddest Monster Truck, for a Demolition Derby with Jesus."

Have you ever seen the movie "The Car", where the Devil manifests as a badass black car with black tinted windows, that drives through houses and stuff?

At the end, it goes over a cliff (stupid Devil!) and the ensuing cataclysmic fireball is shown assuming a devil-like face shape.

#117 ::: Michael Turyn ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2005, 09:29 PM:

Michael O'Donoghue once wrote the guide, "How to Write Good", in which the most significant trick was to run everyone over with a truck when all else fails.

In "American Flagg", they worked their way up to a truck the size of Chicago...which then proceeded to crash into Chicago (leaving Reuben stuck in Russia at the mercy of the daughter of the international mædia mogul Rupert Khan), showing that Howard Chaykin can write really good when he cares to.

#118 ::: Bruce Arthurs ::: (view all by) ::: June 05, 2005, 01:12 AM:

JVP wrote:
"Wakin' Up in Reno," a potential debacle (or delight) starring Billy Bob Thornton, Charlize Theron, Patrick Swayze and Natasha Richardson as two trashy couples who travel to Reno to see a monster truck show. Yes, that really is the premise.

Along similar lines: "Steelyard Blues" with Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, and Peter Boyle. Sutherland plays an obsessed demolition-derby fan and driver, whose goal is to smash up one of every model of car, and only has one left to make his list complete.

Do Keith Laumer's Bolos fall into infernokrusher territory? How about Hell Tanner's vehicle in "Damnation Alley"? (The original Zelazny novella -- NOT the movie -- it hopefully goes without saying.)

#119 ::: Paula Lieberman ::: (view all by) ::: June 05, 2005, 02:19 AM:

Theme of giant mining machines: You're so vein.

=======

Plastic Jesus, plastic Jesus,
Sitting on the dashboard of our monster trucker...

#120 ::: Greg Horn ::: (view all by) ::: June 05, 2005, 02:50 AM:

I like it. INFERNOKRUSHER may be what finally gets me into science fiction, like volcanoes did with geology with that special eruptive way of theirs.
Although not on a planet-sized monster truck scale the folks at survival research labs at least have a start with robots, fire, and destruction.

#121 ::: Greg Horn ::: (view all by) ::: June 05, 2005, 03:11 AM:

Until you have your own giant robot flamethrower fists to crush and burn, this may have to do, and this, and this, and this.

#123 ::: Charlie Stross ::: (view all by) ::: June 05, 2005, 07:17 PM:

Of course, the movement's anthem would have to be "Jesus built my Hot-Rod", by Ministry.

#124 ::: Jon H ::: (view all by) ::: June 05, 2005, 09:07 PM:

The ultimate InfernoKrusher event would be to have the Bagger 288 run rampant in the boneyard, assuming all the airplanes in the boneyard were fueled up and lightly armed beforehand.

#125 ::: Charlie Stross ::: (view all by) ::: June 06, 2005, 10:48 AM:

I was thinking more along the lines of a Disaster Area concert.

Let's see ...

For a floor show, hand the keys to the Bagger 288 to Mark Pauline (Survival Research Laboratories) and, of course, run riot in the boneyard.

The band's synth section consists of one instrument: the Large Hot Pipe Organ. That's all it takes. The concert has to happen in Nevada so that Los Alamos National Laboratory can provide percussion. For lighting, we'll invite Dave Caulkins to stage his delayed Millennium Meteor Fireworks Project (warning: PDF).

I'm still looking for a bass guitar big enough to stand beside this lot, but I figure we can probably make it work if we can just get hold of six surface-to-orbit elevators.

NB: how much of the biosphere will be left standing after this concert is anyone's guess.

#126 ::: Julia Jones ::: (view all by) ::: June 06, 2005, 01:00 PM:

I missed this thread for several days, so I'm not sure if anyone's yet posted the following Monster Truck Porn:

http://www.fys.ku.dk/~mdn/hamers.htm
(second photo down)

#127 ::: Georgiana ::: (view all by) ::: June 07, 2005, 11:23 AM:

Dance Dance Immolation has got to be the definitive InfernoKrusher party game.

#128 ::: Jonathan Velocity-Weapon Post ::: (view all by) ::: June 09, 2005, 09:53 AM:

The Rods from God
Are kinetic-energy weapons the future of space warfare?
by Michael Goldfarb
06/08/2005 12:00:00 AM

BY CHANCE, the same day that Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith was released in theaters across the country, the world learned of the Bush administration's plans to weaponize space. So while critics speculated about the parallels between the Evil Empire and the Bush administration, pundits debated the merits of "space superiority"--the allies it would alienate, the treaties it would violate, the billions it would cost. The irony was not lost on Teresa Hitchens, vice president of the Center for Defense Information, whose insistence that the world would not "accept the U.S. developing something they see as the death star," was carried in the pages of the New York Times.

[Now, the HOTRODS from God, that would really kick ass! That Sith thingie wimped out, because nothing here on good ol' Terra Firma got stomped.]

The GBU-28 was designed to destroy underground bunkers, but there have been doubts about whether it can actually penetrate Iran's buried facilities. Pike says they would--"like a hot knife through butter"--and that this misperception may have been intentionally fostered: "to lull the mullahs into a false sense of security. THE RODS may indeed be more science fiction than science....

[Now you're talking Infernokrusher! I say lull them mullah towelheads and penetrate them bunkers like a hot knife through butter -- and let's have some extreme close-ups of exactly what that hot knife does to some of those so-called "students" who kept 'murcans captive for 444 days. If MY finger was on the button of a Red White & Blue Deathstar, you can bet that I'd start ticking off checkboxes on this little list I got of losers itchin' to be snuffed.]

#129 ::: steve what does this button do creagh ::: (view all by) ::: June 13, 2005, 03:40 AM:

nothing new .....
T.S.Eliot - the Waste Land:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a
KZAPPABBBOOOWAAACHCHCRRRBLUMMMNNGGGKRSHTGRRRDNGGG

#130 ::: Larry Brennan ::: (view all by) ::: June 14, 2005, 10:45 PM:

Hey, an InfernoKrusher birthday cake Make a wish!

#131 ::: ben lehman ::: (view all by) ::: June 14, 2005, 11:53 PM:

cherry blossoms fall
I breath the sweet, cool breezes
your head is on fire.

the seeds you sow
will now blow up
explosively

#132 ::: James D. Macdonald ::: (view all by) ::: June 15, 2005, 01:09 AM:

Higglety pigglety
Alfred B. Nobel sat
Munched on a sausage and
Drank whiskey neat.

Never expecting that
Trinitrotoluene
Soon would make dynamite
Near obsolete.

#133 ::: Jordin Kare ::: (view all by) ::: June 15, 2005, 03:40 AM:

The band's synth section consists of one instrument: the Large Hot Pipe Organ. That's all it takes. The concert has to happen in Nevada so that Los Alamos National Laboratory can provide percussion.

That's for the 2012 Overture, right?

Back when I was doing pulsed laser propulsion work, there was a paper that calculated the sound output from a launch: 1 megajoule laser pulses ablating ice at 100 Hz. Something like 113 dB SPL at 10 km from the vehicle. I did suggest making the pulse rate variable so we could use it as the bass line in a rock concert....

#134 ::: Anton P. Nym (aka Steve) ::: (view all by) ::: June 15, 2005, 09:47 AM:

Infernokrusher
Puts trinitrotoluene
In the middle line.

Explosive endings are
faux-Infernokrusher tropes
And are deprecated.

Infernokrusher
puts the "cannon" in "canon"
for haiku stylings.

Who needs seasonal
references? There is no
season without "boom".

#135 ::: Casey Bennetto ::: (view all by) ::: June 15, 2005, 11:18 AM:

Let no man weep, no woman cry in fear;
the sun is just the flame to scorch the day.
The fire burns to beat the dark away.
Let's step behind this submachinegun here.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat,
rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat,
rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat,
rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat,
rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat,
rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.

#136 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: June 15, 2005, 12:37 PM:

Brek e ke kek ko ex?

#137 ::: Greg London ::: (view all by) ::: June 15, 2005, 01:41 PM:

a bugblatter beast
is a ravenous creature
keep a towel close

#138 ::: Patrick Connors ::: (view all by) ::: June 15, 2005, 06:09 PM:

I begin to percieve the attraction of the Berserkers.

(Berserkers of Saberhagen would be a good name for an Infernokrusher rock band...)

#139 ::: Jonathan Vos Post ::: (view all by) ::: June 15, 2005, 06:15 PM:

Jordin Kare:

The proposal that I submitted to you (through Talandic Research) in the pulse laser propulsion work, with the "solid fuel" ablation propellant mixed with proper lengths of optical fiber to get the optimal temperature gradient, had its nonlinear wave equations strongly praised by Edward Teller, you told me, just before you told me that the funding had collapsed. Can you get me something in writing about that? And what followup there was to the technology that I invented and disclosed in that proposal?

#140 ::: John M. Ford ::: (view all by) ::: June 15, 2005, 08:23 PM:

[From Verona Total Breakdown (Liebestod), a forgotten early Infernokrusher work by Bill "Hoist This Petard" Shakespeare . . .

Ro-Mo. Your windows are still mirrored; taunt me not,
But show your colors, dare to challenge me,
These lips are two shaped charges, primed and hot,
That wait the go-code for delivery.
J-Cap. The flag is to the deadly, not the loud,
Yet aim as well as posing show in this;
The worthy throwdown’s always to the proud,
And hammer down is how the hard girls kiss.
Ro-Mo. My draft is stopped; I struggle toward the clutch.
J-Cap. And would a charge of nitrous make thee run?
Ro-Mo. Too much; but what else is there but too much?
Let me take arms, and elevate the gun.
J-Cap.Small arms but hint what demolitions say.
Ro-Mo.Then, gunner, gimme one round.
J-Cap.On the way.

#141 ::: the Other michael ::: (view all by) ::: June 23, 2005, 01:09 PM:

Greg Bear's collected-novells "Strength of Stones" features a theocratic planet of mobile cities. While the mobility relies on the organic cities breaking down into modular parts and waddling about, the original (?) paperback cover featured much-much cooler spiky monster-truck cities. Newer covers are just so much boringness.

If anything should be used as a justification of building Monster Trucks "religion" is certainly an interesting excuse.

The Tzar Battle Tank (click on "The Tzar Tank" -- it won't direct-link) was an early not-really-successfull-nor-put-into-production weaponic version of the Monster Truck that was 10m high.

#142 ::: the Other michael ::: (view all by) ::: June 23, 2005, 01:15 PM:

And does "The Space Child's Mother Goose" have any InfernoKrusher sentiments?

The Hydrogen Dog and the Cobalt Cat
Side by side in the Armoury sat.
Nobody thought about fusion or fission,
Everyone spoke of their peacetime mission,
Till somebody came and opened the door,
There they were, in a neutron fog,
The Codrogen Cat and the Hybalt Dog;
They mushroomed up with a terrible roar-
And Nobody Never was there-No more.

Frederick Winsor in The Space Child's Mother Goose (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1958).


Hrm. Nary a vehicle, and this direction would tend to imply that all nuclear-apocalypse fiction is includable. Nevertheless, magnificent explosions in children's lit is an interesting side-line.

#143 ::: handdrummer ::: (view all by) ::: June 23, 2005, 04:19 PM:

This Is Just Decay
by Walter Carlos Williams

Planetary death
caused
by nuclear
explosions

brought by
infernocrusher
monster
trucks of doom

along
galactic roadways
filled
with your fire

#144 ::: rm ::: (view all by) ::: June 24, 2005, 04:59 PM:

Since it's still alive . . .

Infernokrusher e. e. cummings pastiche, followed by a true proto-IK cummings original (if you pay attention to line 12).


i(a

bo
mb
fa
ll

s)
nfe
r

nokrush!!!

------------------------------------------

the boys i mean are not refined

the boys i mean are not refined
they go with girls who buck and bite
they do not give a fuck for luck
they hump them thirteen times a night

one hangs a hat upon her tit
one carves a cross on her behind
they do not give a shit for wit
the boys i mean are not refined

they come with girls who bite and buck
who cannot read and cannot write
who laugh like they would fall apart
and masturbate with dynamite

the boys i mean are not refined
they cannot chat of that and this
they do not give a fart for art
they kill like you would take a piss

they speak whatever's on their mind
they do whatever's in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance

#145 ::: Georgiana ::: (view all by) ::: June 24, 2005, 06:28 PM:

W00t! Here is my very first opportunity to officially review an InfernoKrusher novel, which just happened to be Cory Doctorow's Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

rm - that line sounds exceedingly painful.

#146 ::: rm ::: (view all by) ::: June 25, 2005, 04:21 PM:

Sorry, I forgot about the editorial policy on profanity here. I would never write profanity in my own voice anyway, but will quote it in literature. I know part of the reason for the policy is to keep the site safe from automated blockers, and they don't know how to read words in context . . . so sorry if I caused any inconvenience.

#147 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: June 25, 2005, 05:12 PM:

We have an editorial policy on profanity?

My own policy consists of trying not to shock Jim Macdonald.

#148 ::: James D. Macdonald ::: (view all by) ::: June 25, 2005, 05:22 PM:

My own policy consists of trying not to shock Jim Macdonald.


The author of What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor looks at you in amazement.

#149 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: June 25, 2005, 05:33 PM:

Not because you don't know the words, but because you look so distressed when you hear me saying them.

#150 ::: John M. Ford ::: (view all by) ::: June 25, 2005, 07:55 PM:

DO WHILE SAILOR[DRUNK] = TRUE
PUT SAILOR --> LONGBOAT
RETURN

#151 ::: rm ::: (view all by) ::: June 26, 2005, 12:18 AM:

Maybe I was thinking of somewhere else, I dunno.

My favorite line of that is "Put 'im in bed with the captain's daughter . . ."

#152 ::: Anna Feruglio Dal Dan ::: (view all by) ::: June 26, 2005, 12:47 AM:

I once missed the chance to translate Kadrey's "Goodbye Houston Street Goodbye", which seems to me in hindsight a quintessentially InfernoKrusher story. I will also point out that there is a definite Infernokrusher element in most of the New Scots. We have Charlie, of course, but Banks also Blows Stuff Up Real Good and also Krushes it at the first available opportunity (I particularly like to remember the five-mile long Megaship sent on a collision course with an Orbital side wall). Brookmyre also blows stuff up pretty well although constrained by the limitations of not writing SF, but hey, he manages to tow an oil drill platform in the Firth of Forth just to blow it up and he even blows up a dam. That's pretty good for somebody who doesn't get to play with space-based megastructures, although I can't help noticing the unforgivable absence of Giant Robots in his fiction.

I'm very glad of this new movement. It's really helping me to overcome my despicable tendency to produce only Quiet Mood Pieces About Gardening, With An Happy Ending, which was Clarion's worst legacy on my writing. I also used to produce really moody and angsty Space Opera before, but I say no to that! Or, in the traditional toast of Italian science fiction (well, mine, at least): Death and Destruction to the Entire Universe!

#153 ::: Jon Meltzer ::: (view all by) ::: June 26, 2005, 05:22 PM:

I eagerly await the Infernokrusher panel at this year's Readercon.

#154 ::: John Emerson ::: (view all by) ::: July 03, 2005, 10:30 PM:

IT'S BEEN DONE!

If I were fire, I'd burn up the world;
if I were storm, I'd raise a giant swell
and drown it all; if I were God I'd hurl
this rat's-ass circus all the way to hell.
If I were pope, how happy I would be!
I'd cheat the Christians blind and suck their blood.
To serve as emperor I might agree,
so I could chop off everybody's head.
If I were Death, I'd go to see my dad —
of course with mother I would do the same.
If I were Life, I'd run from them like mad.
If I were Cecco, as indeed I am,
I'd take the lovely and the lively dames
and leave for you the ugly and the sad.


From the Italian of Cecco Angiolieri (Siennese, c.1258–1312).

A free translation, but not more violent than the original.

http://www.monadnock.net/translations/it_fire.html

#155 ::: peter ::: (view all by) ::: May 16, 2007, 11:32 AM:

how is it that people who can't
outwit a duck in a blind
think that they can
outwit a man in iran?

(c) atrimpi 2007

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