Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire

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"Hook Agonistes" is available now!

I am very pleased to announce that "Hook Agonistes" has been printed in the latest issue of Subterranean Magazine, and is available to read here:

http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2013/hook_agonistes_by_jay_lake_and_seanan_mcguire

This novella is a collaboration between myself and Jay Lake. It is about loss, and identity, and longing to go home. It is about an animatronic Captain Hook, doing his best to shepherd the last remains of the human race. It is about dreams.

"The difficulty with steering by stars is that stars are by their very nature ghosts; they died long before we ever saw their light. When you choose a star to steer by, you are casting yourself as the lead character in a ghost story. It's far better to create stars of your own, set them in the heavens, and steer by the light of something living."

—Michael Lowry III, founder of Lowryland

"All stories are ghost stories."

—Jas of Lowryland

Welcome to Lowryland. This post also serves as your discussion thread, should you want to comment on the story itself; there will be spoilers.
Tags: fairy tale remix, good things, publishing news, short fiction
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  • 29 comments
it was a lovely story and i did _not_ see the end coming. heartbreaking, in such a good and satisfying way (if that makes sense?)
It does, and I'm so glad that you enjoyed it.

taldragon

3 years ago

seanan_mcguire

3 years ago

Lovely.
Thank you.
I was expecting all the feels. Got a quiet wistful sadness. Thank you
You are very welcome.
Thanks Seanan... You made me cry. :-)
Sorry!
I loved the way the quotes were woven through the story, the commentary on what it means to have religion, Pan and Hook as symbols, Jas's final revelation... all of it. Great stuff.
Thank you.
Heartful, heart-full, beautiful, and heart-breaking. I love the meditations in the story about story and narrative, and feel deeply for poor Jas. I agree that it is deeply unfair that those who created him didn't give him the gift of tears, and it's perfect that they did not.
Oh, yay.
Well, that was depressing. Well written, mind you.
Thank you.
I got to a certain point where I was fairly sure the interjections in Jas' mind were a shell program of some kind, but I also really wasn't sure if it was put there by his creators, other humans, himself, or their captors.

A bittersweet end, to be sure.
Agreed.
Thank you for writing it; it's powerful.
I was thrilled to get to work with Jay.
User jaylake referenced to your post from [links] Link salad feels froggy and foggy and faint saying: [...] entire genome on the internet. A television interview with me. "Hook Agonistes" is available now! [...]
Eep. So sad.

I loved the echoes of stories through the story.

Especially Jas who was in all ways truncated, and who led his guests to the promised land and who would never see it. (Though... does Jas' view point disappear? Or is it subsumed?)
He is gone. :(

teal_cuttlefish

September 10 2013, 06:55:08 UTC 3 years ago Edited:  September 10 2013, 07:00:44 UTC

The story was compelling, I read through it fairly quickly, and swore at the computer screen. Had it been in a paper magazine, I'd have thrown it. And then picked it up gently and dusted it off. The story was compelling and drew me into itself thoroughly. I too suspected the interjecting thoughts were some kind of shell program, but the ending caught me, hard. I cried while announcing I hate to cry, blowing my nose. Hubby was a bit confused by me. After about 20-30 minutes I settled back down. I haven't been that profoundly affected by a story in a long time.

I tried to spoiler the next comment, but I couldn't get it to work. Don't read further if you want to read the story. it kills the ending.

Jas's memories will be intact within the smarter machine, but he/his viewpoint won't get to see the end of the story, because he was simply a subroutine. And the convolutions Lowry went through to build in safeguards and plan for everything -- such madness and brilliance. Lots of questions about Lowry and his megalomania.

I don't generally read post-apocalyptic fiction because everything is so hopeless. This...wasn't hopeless. But the hope hurt so. He was no soulless machine.

Seanan: I apologize for the multiple post. First the prewritten HTML was a pain, then I had to make something make sense. I will not fix any more typos.
Hah, ironically I just poked through it very slowly for two days. (Disclaimer: I am a speed reader, so that is saying something for me.)

I did suspect where it was going, so good for me...but poor Jas anyway.

You always gotta watch out for those immaculate conception kids. Slippery little suckers.

This seems like an...awfully long-range plan they have going here if it's been hundreds of years and they still haven't been rescued yet, though. Kind of makes me wonder how well that's going for them. Or maybe they only just set off the beacon now, I'm not sure exactly.

teal_cuttlefish

3 years ago

seanan_mcguire

3 years ago

Just got around to reading this. Great story, with a lot of beauty, depth, and layers. I'd begun to suspect that Hook was playing both sides, and keeping himself in the dark.

I was left with several questions that I wish had answers, like:

Was Hook's name (i.e. "Jas") meant to be a clue about his dual nature? (I noticed at the end that his name was James minus the "Me".)

What was the other Hook reprogramming Mr Grin to do, exactly? Was it just meant to be something that would distract Jas enough to let Hook take control?

Was Pan's birth really a virgin birth? My first guess would be that somehow Hook had something to do with it, but if so I can't see how he had the biomedical knowledge necessary to implant an embryo in Anniehall (I didn't get the sense from the quoted Lowryland protocols that the Enhanced Entertainers were programmed with that level of advanced knowledge), and I can't see how he had the resources necessary to perform such an operation.

What led Hook to suspect that the destruction of Earth was a ruse created by the Taushin?

Anyway, a bit late with this, so I guess I don't really expect answers, but hey, the story got my mind a-wondering.
Some of these are questions that were intentionally left unanswered. :) But you're right about both Jas (as a name) and Mr. Grin.