25 Comments on “Two Notes of Passing Interest”

1. Go you. I love it when authors make something ridiculous integral the plot.

   If you can force me to take pig crap seriously, it improves my readerly enjoyment.

2. But Toomey’s ‘A World Of Trouble’ is likely to retain the guano title for a long time yet.

3. So, was it in response to a commission for a pig-crap anthology (or generic animal-waste), or was it something you (like the pig) just had to get out of your system?

4. Pig crap playing a critical role, farts crucial to the plot, yeah I’m sensing a trend here.

5. I was going to say that Sheffield’s “The Deimos Plague” might be in the running, but I realised that it didn’t really involve pig crap explicitly (the protagonist was living in a spaceship hold with a couple of pigs during a long trip from Earth to Mars, so the pig crap is strongly *implied*).

6. Mmm…pig towers…

7. Let me guess, it’s set in North Carolina.
   Pig crap is a major pollutant around here.

8. Or is it for a way a la Beyond Thunderdome to use in synthetic fuel?

9. I’ve always wondered if authors challenge each other to put ridiculous elements into stories. Like, “I’ll bet you a case of good wine that you can’t sell a short story that involves a steampunk, unicorn love robot.” Does that kind of thing ever happen?

10. Sounds promising. The pig crap scene in Cryptonomicon had me laughing so hard it hurt. Very therapeutic.

11. You know, normally I wouldn’t challenge you on something like this, but I’m willing to bet that my pig crap story has a higher relative incidence of feces related plot twists than yours.

    Granted, you may have an edge because yours is a novella, but even so, I think I could take you.

12. Isn’t pig crap supposed to be the cause of global warming, or the miracle fuel for the future, or both?

13. (As in the one episode of South Park where they realize that the Simpsons have already done everything) Homer’s pig crap silo has already been on the big screen.

14. “Not s#!t… ENERGYYYYY!!!!”

    I love that line. Don’t ask me why.

    Something tells me we’ll be paying some attention to that whole concept in our fairly near future, too.

15. I had trouble understanding this post until I realized you meant ‘pig crap’ literally.

16. Since we’ve gone all scatological today, have you seen the story about the inflatable dog crap that got away?

    You can read a version of the story here.

17. Pig crap: the new cowbell. Quick, alert Christopher Walken!

18. I once wrote a sketch for a class that involved the injudicious use of a large quantity of pig shit … but that’s Crusaders for you. It was also, by necessity, used off-stage. :-(

19. I enjoyed Mary Robinette Kowal’s pig crap story. It has raised the bar for tales in which pig crap is pivotal. I look forward to your tale of pig excrement, John.

    (LOL — I mean, that, actually. “This Little Pig” made me go “Aw!” out loud.)

20. So this is for the “Dirty Jobs: The SF Anthology”? What’s Mike Rowe really like?

    Regards,
    Jack Tingle

21. I have just completed a novella which may just have the highest concentration of pig crap of any story ever written in the science fiction genre.

    Well, you already used up all the sheep dip.

22. Charlie and Mary, all due respect, but are you sure you want to make claims like this without having reviewed the collected work of Philip Jose Farmer? :)

23. And, er, um, by Charlie I of course mean John.

    I’ve been doing that all evening. Is it a flu symptom I just never had, or what?

24. Bruce@22

    Well, to be fair, you expect a lot of pig crap with a Farmer…

25. Sure, you may have pig crap. But does your story have enough dinosaurs? Or sodomy?

    After all, we don’t want any weird stuff in our skiffy, hugo-boy.