Revue 2: This Letter I Got From Time Warner Cable

March 2014 Dear Valued Customer: Recently, Time Warner Cable announced plans to merge with Comcast, forming an industry-leading technology and media company dedicated to delivering great customer experiences. Above all, this merger will benefit you, our customers. Our two companies have been behind many of the innovative services that you enjoy every day—digital cable TV, high-speed Internet, DVRs, Video On Demand and WiFi in the home and on-the-go—to name just a few. The combined company will innovate faster and deploy even better products and features, including a superior video guide, faster Broadband Internet speeds and even more WiFi access points so you can access the Internet wherever you go. We expect the merger to close around the end of 2014. In the meantime, all of us at Time Warner Cable remain committed to providing you with great TV, ultra-fast Internet, rock solid phone service and innovative home security and monitoring. And we will continue to make significant investments to improve reliability and to enhance our customer service. We are very excited about the promise of this combination for you, our customers. We’ll keep you posted as things evolve in the coming months. As always, thank you for choosing Time Warner Cable. Sincerely,

Robert D. Marcus Chairman and Chief Executive Officer WHOA, SNAPDRAGONS! This is some kind of awesome story! Firstly, let me say that, despite its brevity, this story is exactly as long as it needs to be. A story doesn't have to be a whole 5,800 words to tell a tale! And this story succeeds resoundingly at this humble length! There is a story about Hemingway winning a bet that he couldn't tell a story in only six words. He answered with "For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn." This has the remarkable quality of evoking emotion and interest in the audience, because it allows the them to extrapolate the various details of the story themselves, while still conveying a lot of information, making it not only a complete story, but also a very personal experience. The coolest way to say, "Now leave me the hell alone," probably ever. Source: http://www.americanlegends.com/authors/images/hemingway.jpg Likewise, "This Letter I Got From Time Warner Cable" succeeds on similar levels, conjuring images and details without explicitly stating them. The reader can almost see the bags under the eyes of the Robert D. Marcus character as he sits alone, his chair leather and brand new and his computer screen blindingly bright in the darkened room. He plunks at the keys with fingers made fat and soft from easy living, knowing exactly what he has to say, but feeling a piece of his soul ripped out with each word he types. A man who has been brought up being told exactly what success means, and that success equates to happiness. Why then, does he feel so... empty? He has lied to his "valued" customers before. Hell, he's done it with a smile on his face! "That's what it takes to be successful," he'd thought. "That's what it takes to be happy." He pours another glass of twenty year old scotch, hoping the smokey taste will drive these introspective demons from his mind. The last line, "As always, thank you for choosing Time Warner Cable," cuts into you. You can almost feel the Robert D. Marcus character sob hopelessly as "thank you" appears on the screen. So many lies. So many. Had it been worth the price? Where was his promised reward? Perhaps in the inevitable movie, he could be played by this man. I feel like the hair suits the character. He has the outward, "sincere" smile under the dead, soulless eyes down pat. Source: http://ir.timewarnercable.com/files/Rob%20Marcus_w.%20jacket.jpg I admit to having a certain love of epistolary stories. That is, stories written as documents, letters, newspaper clippings, etc. Stories such as Stephen King's Carrie, or Saul Bellow's Herzog are examples of the style. Although letters are not as big a part of modern life as they once were, they still feel real to us in a way that traditional narration never can. Perhaps it is the physicality of letters. Regardless, the format seems to... connect stories to the real world. It grounds them, if you will. Here, we have an example of a surprising and wonderful use of the format! The unique nature of the contents, though they strain incredulity to the extreme (Comcast / Time Warner have "great customer experiences," "remain committed to providing you with great TV, ultra-fast Internet, rock solid phone service and innovative home security and monitoring," and other such nonsense) are actually brought down to the level of "willing suspension of disbelief" by the grounding nature of this letter format, which allows the true tale to shine through the fantastical haze. And it is brilliantly written, with an absolutely riveting cold opening: "Recently, Time Warner Cable announced plans to merge with Comcast." It immediately conveys an atmosphere of grim despair over the whole piece, as we are forced to imagine as a world highly reliant on the Internet is forced to watch in horror as the two largest providers merge into the country's largest and most sinister monopoly, now free of even the most feeble reason to provide a service at a reasonable cost and with anything resembling customer service or reliability. It'd be worse than the $70 Internet that I have from Time Warner costing between $12.50 and $25 in the UK from Virgin... except 20Mbps faster AND it includes phone. Now that'd be a nightmare. To be ripped off and fucked over that badly? It'd be friggin' criminal! Man, fiction is scary sometimes. Imagine if Time Warner were free to just name their price! Source: http://store.virginmedia.com/broadband.html Let's think about that bleak scenario for a moment. Like Orwell's 1984, here fiction allows us to contemplate an utterly horrific world from a thankfully distant viewpoint. Imagine if Comcast and Time Warner Cable, two companies already far too large and far too monopolistic in many regions of the United States were to merge... what would there be for them to compete with? Google Fiber? I guess? If you live in Kansas City? Mobile Broadband? I guess? If you want to strain a system that cannot physically handle a high total data load? DSL or dial-up? If you don't need your business to compete in a worldwide market? Bleak stuff. Evocative. The author is perhaps even a bit too dramatic and heavy-handed in their portrayal of a dark future here, but it does work. Then... moving on from that... it's just lie after lie, told through the soul-wrenching fingers of our Roebrt D. Marcus character, a man who has it all, and still wants more... and doesn't... cannot understand why he is dead inside. My God, it is just such well-realized fiction. ...I'm sorry?  What? WHAT? WHAT. What do you mean, this isn't fiction?! Impossible! T-This would make a bigger monopoly than Standard Oil! The United States would fall into laughably uncompetitive telecom obsolescence! WE WOULD PAY EVEN MORE FOR SLOW INTERNET! WHAT DO YOU FRIGGIN' MEAN ROBERT D. MARCUS IS A REAL GUY?! AND HE'S GETTING EIGHTY MILLION DOLLARS FOR THIS?! My God. This world is disgusting. ... ... ... /cue laugh track?

Revue 1: TAKEN BY THE T-REX

What can one say about dinosaur sex that hasn't already been said?

No. No no. Let me start over.

Ahem.

Shakespeare once said "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." And let me tell you about great thrusti-

Mmmm... no.

Source: Amazon

Where does one begin with such a masterpiece?

The title, surely? So much dramatic power captured in only four words! "TAKEN BY THE T-REX." Boldly it asserts itself, neither ashamed to proclaim itself in all capital letters, nor coy about the unabashed carnality within. It conveys a brash sense of both pride and confidence, unhesitatingly carrying us on its broad, capital letters into a tale for the ages! This is surely the best thing about this cover!

Ah, but to jump to that conclusion would do a disservice to the magnificence of the cover itself! One might be tempted to depict the actual environment or events or characters that occur within its pages, but that way lies folly! True art is cryptic. Opaque. Woman in Princess Leia bikini with jeans on, relaxing casually on her side, while a poorly Photoshopped, plastic Tyrannosaurid looms in the background, grinning like a frat boy, PLUS lens flare over stock photo? Perplexing choices! Puzzling choices! Perfect choices! There were no jeans in caveman times. There was no shampoo or makeup in caveman times. For that matter, there were no T. rex in caveman times! And Princess Leia bikini technology was not sufficiently advanced in caveman times to the extent depicted here. There is no sense to be found in this cover image, except the sense that you make of it for YOURSELF. It CHALLENGES the viewer. True art. We are in for a treat with this read, no doubt at all about it!

Before we dive in, let's take a quick look at the synopsis.

"Warning: This is a tale of beast sex. This story was written to unlock your darkest fantasies and innermost desires. It is not for the faint of heart and is not your mother's erotica. All of the sexual descriptions found in this book are very explicit in nature. It's not suitable for someone under 18 years of age. Read at your own risk. 

Drin is her tribe’s chief huntress; she lives for the thrill of the hunt. Men and sex hold no allure for her, as Drin has never found a partner to satisfy her. When a T-Rex descends upon her village, destroying it, Drin demands that the tribe’s hunters go in search of the beast and slaughter it. Opting for safety instead of revenge, the tribe moves to a new location, hoping that the big beast won’t follow them.


It does.


Drin taunts the beast, giving her tribes mates time to flee. As she runs, leading it through a gauntlet of traps, the thrill of the hunt soars through her blood, leaving her wet with desire. When the angry T-Rex corners the huntress in a box canyon, it seems more interested in her wet womanhood than in her flesh.

Words: 5,800"

WHOA, SNAPDRAGONS! This synopsis comes out guns blazing! "Warning: this is a tale of beast sex." Sure, 0 out of 768 people found that same comment helpful in my Amazon review of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, but I feel like here, it might be even more appropriate! Really, they could have ended the synopsis there, because between the title and "Warning: this is a tale of beast sex," I feel they have successfully conveyed the basic plot of the story, but had they done so, oh foolish me, then the synopsis may have failed to entice readers unaware of its much deeper plot threads which run concurrently and through the otherwise already emotionally layered main plotline. A village slaughtered! Revenge denied! People moving, but then finding out that their new neighborhood as just as many T. rex as their last one (One. The same one.)! Asexulaity! Heroic sacrifice! Odd physiological responses to stressful stimuli! VERY CONFUSED REPTILIAN ETHOLOGY! IT'S ALL IN THIS BOOK, FOLKS.

WHOA. After THAT synopsis, we need a bucket of cold water thrown over our heads, because who among you isn't now PUMPED?! Fortunately, statistics are always useful for steadying our adrenaline levels, and the synopsis thoughtfully inserts a final word count at the end, so that we return to a level emotional state before we begin the book itself. It cleanses the palate, so to speak. Genius.

There are no chapters in this book. The bold innovators of this tale eschew such convention. Instead, immediately after the copyright page, we are greeted with "Smashed bodies and pieces of bodies littered the valley floor as the small band of hunters looked down on the devastation which the big lizard had wrought."

Whoa. Are you feelin' hot yet?

Erotic tension aside, I know what you are thinking here. Let's face it, we're all thinking it.

"Biplane, dinosaurs aren't lizards!"

"See?"

Source: modified from Wikipedia

Hahaha SLOOOOOW down there, science kids! Now, I love taxonomy as much as the next guy, but BITCH PLS. These are CAVEMEN. And cavemen don't know shit about taxonomy! I personally find it rather encouraging to see an author able to get inside the head of their characters as much as this! It's like we're seeing the world through another set of eyes!

"But, Biplane, what about the fact that cavemen and dinosaurs lived millions of years apart...?"
Sorry. Not actually listening anymore.

Now, it may be "non-traditional" to start your 5,800 word erotica with a scene of gory slaughter, including a scene where your plucky, sexy heroine cries and screams over the eviscerated body of her mother ("Her legs had been savagely bitten off and eaten, allowing blood to splash across the crushed walls of her home. One of her mother's hands had been bitten off and was gone completely."), but WE AREN'T PLAYING BY YOUR RULES HERE, EROTICA.

SO. HOT.

Now, of course, there are some rules that must be followed. In any good erotica, it is essential to build chemistry between the two characters of the central romance, in order to make the romance all the more believable. It is not uncommon for the antagonist of an erotica to be the love interest of the protagonist, and this story plays beautifully off of that particular literary quirk, establishing as literal an antagonistic relationship as possible. The old "You slaughtered my family, I will dedicate myself to destroying you... but what is this strange yearning in my loins?" trope. Will their hate grow into love? LET'S READ ON.

Establishing a distance from the love interest is common in love stories. The distance may be literal or figurative, for example a character's love interest may be somewhere far away, or they may be of a much higher, much more unobtainable social standing. This not only defines the nature of the journey the protagonist must take, but the distance also serves to... well... romanticize the romantic target. Familiarity breeds contempt after all. Just how charming is Prince Charming if you get to know him?

Answer: charming as fuck.

Source: modified from original by Pearson Scott Foresman

Here, the distance is both literal and figurative. Drin, our protagonist, is kept from the T. rex she strongly desires revenge against by both the pressures of society, who vote to vacate their lands rather than hunt the beast ("'Drin has good thought for killing big lizard. Srie also has good thought in saying we can't fight big lizard. We are small, he is big. We can't win."), as well as the literal distance kept between them by the dinosaur itself, as it disappears from her life for some time. There may also be some biological distance between them in that one of them is a cavewoman and one of them is a dinosaur. Not sure.

Nevertheless, the T. rex remains the central focus of all of Drin's thoughts. Her hate turns to obsession. And obsession is the blurry gray line between hate and love.

In the ensuing two months' time, while the other members of her tribe move on and begin their lives again, Drin spends her time constructing elaborate dinosaur traps in the jungle near her new home... in the faint hope of seeing him again. The one she keeps dreaming about. The one she thinks about. The one dinosaur that bit her mother in half and also is the closest thing she has to a relationship. WILL SHE EVER SEE HIM AGAIN?

But let's take a moment to step back and examine our protagonist here. Who is she, really? And what is her place in this world of utopian caveman democracy and marauding, extinct slaughter machines made of flesh and stamina? Just who IS Drin?

"?"

Source: modified from Amazon

The answer, friends, is that Drin is us. Or rather, we are Drin. You see, it is a common literary trope to make the protagonist of a story a "blank slate" as it were, to better allow the reader to project him or herself onto that character. To make that character's journey their own journey. I applaud the boldness of the Christie Sims / Alara Branwen author tag-team in making the assumption, nay the canny prediction, that of course we as readers would secretly desire to be a woman who is ravaged by a dinosaur! And her journey is our journey, friends. She feels as we feel. Mother dead? "Sad." Revenge proposal democratically shot down? "Angry." Dinosaur phallus? "Strangely aroused." It's like she's in our heads!

The other characters in the book are Srie, an older middle aged woman and the oldest surviving member of the tribe, and the previously quoted Grul, and each is a representation of societal forces. BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY.

Srie represents the place of wisdom in society. She is, if you will, the mind. Grul, conversely, represents the physical. Srie's decision to vote in the utopian caveman democracy in favor of leaving instead of revenge-killing is based not on emotion (ANGRY! WANT KILL!), though she does make allusions to her sadness. No, her true motivations are purely a calculated risk management decision! You see, Srie knows that the beast might follow them, and she knows that killing it would bring her people some closure, but she also knows that they cannot kill a Tyrannosaurus without losing several tribe members. And she is willing to risk the possible danger of being followed in favor of the certainty of losing several valuable lives. Her decision is wrong, ultimately, but it is nonetheless logical.

Grul is not a thinker. He also argues in favor of leaving instead of hunting, but his reasoning is very different: "We are small, he is big. We can't win." It is the tactile world that holds the most value to Grul. He understands what he can see and touch, and "big" and "small" are easier concepts for him than trapmaking and tactics.

One could further extend the metaphor that they represent a sort of social yin and yang: ultimately of one mind, for better or worse, but for different reasons and in different ways. Whereas Drin is the dissident that will always exist in any society, going against the general flow, Srie and Grul represent those caught up in the flow, who, for reasons purely individual, have nevertheless adopted a stance allowing  them to function in society and thus in turn allowing society to function ("I don't like this, but it is for the best," or, "This is the way it has to be, because this is the way it is.").

Sociology is something that is often surprisingly missing in erotica, and thankfully, this book is there to scratch that much-neglected itch!

Plus, the two of them totally bang! Sadly, most of it is "off-screen," but they still totally do it!

So anyway. The hunters return to find the village slaughtered. Srie and Grul vote against Drin's proposal to hunt the tyrannosaur in favor of moving away. Several months pass, and the villagers begin to laugh at and mock Drin for her obsession with the T. rex, beginning to believe it will never trouble them again.

Then it troubles them again.

Drin is busy standing dramatically in the rain when she spots the monster! Charging at the village! OH NO!

This. This is the moment. The moment she has so often dreamt of. The moment she has obsessed over. The moment they told her could never come. This is the moment she sees... him.

And, as she lures (LURES!) the dinosaur away from her fleeing people, into her trap-filled woodland gauntlet of pain (kinky!), she finds herself increasingly, surprisingly, incredibly aroused! Each near brush with death or near-fatal wound serves only to fuel the FIRES burning within her sexually awakening body! Until finally...!

She is cornered!

He has her right where he wants her... and it turns out he does indeed want her! The pheremones of her lust trigger a... big erection reaction in him!

Now. Science kids. You might chime in with your many valid but stupid complaints, like, "No one gets aroused when they are afraid for their life!" and "Wait a minute... why would human pheremones trigger a sexual response in a dinosaur?" and "Hold on... did he not smell any other women when he was destroying the town before? What makes her so special?" and "Wait. Dinosaurs didn't have penises. They had a shared reproductive and excretory vent called a cloaca, which, during reproduction, is pressed up against the mate's cloaca in an act known as a 'cloacal kiss,' during which the male sex cells are absorbed or injected into the female, much like modern day reptiles and birds."

Oh science kids... haha. You sure are crazy. Ignore them everyone! Anyway, on with the... it's over?! We missed it?! AND NOW GRUL IS DEAD, THE T. REX HAS LEFT AND DRIN RETURNS TO HER VILLAGE WITH A SEXUAL HUNGER THAT MUST BE SATED?!

WHAT THE HELL, SCIENCE KIDS? LOOK WHAT YOU MADE US MISS! NOW THE DAMN BOOK IS OVER!