Sunday, May 19, 2024

Spaghettified monkey

I’ve just finished M. D. Thalmann’s novella Europa Affair, which is absolutely terrible. It ends on a synchronistically interesting note, though, as the character Peter, who is a genetically enhanced baboon, activates an app called Monkey-B-2, which results in his “spaghettification.” What exactly that means is not really clear, as the writing is so atrocious, but it obviously ties in with William Wright’s monkey named Spaghetti.

3 comments:

Francis Berger said...

My son was fascinated by black holes when he a little tyke, until he discovered that those venturing too near to one would be spahettified. The term refers to the tidal forces of black holes; that is the horizontal stretching and horizontal compression of objects nearing black holes into very long and thin shapes, like spaghetti.

With that in mind, this book sounds like it could slip into the "so bad it's good" category.

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

That’s my only context for spaghettification, too, so I don’t get how it was caused by a software app. It resulted time ceasing to exist for the baboon, and its malevolence being spread throughout the universe.

There are definitely “so bad it’s good” aspects to the book, but only if you have the stomach for extremely graphic gross-out violence.

Francis Berger said...

I've just noticed that I should have written vertical stretching. In any case, how a software app could possibly generate such tidal forces is quite inconceivable, even within the framework of "out there" science fiction.

I have too many "too good it is good" books lined up on my to-read list to consider giving this one a go in the near future, but if the mood to read something outlandish and gross strikes me, I could give it a whirl. Truth is, I haven't read too many stories featuring genetically enhanced baboons, so there is that.

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