Athene Reads Tom Kratman's "Big Boys Don't Cry" (Keith Laumer is rolling over in his grave)

Nope, fuck this book.

*leaves*

 

Fuck, fine.

Big Boys Don't Cry is a story of a Bolo named Magnolia that is disabled in combat and has a series of increasingly terrible flashbacks of its life, because Kratman is convinced he can do non-linear writing. Which is ridiculous of course, since he's demonstrated he can't write. At 79 pages it somehow feels like the longest book ever written and took me months to finish. Which I did (like an idiot) because I bought it (like an idiot) for no adequately defined reason that could ever justify it.

Now while this was written as a Bolo book, the people who decided Road to Damascus was printable do have some standards. So, Kratman rewrote it after it languished in containment on his website for a decade and published it under Vox Day's publisher, thus inflicting it on an unsuspecting world.

The first chapter introduces us to Magnolia on her last mission.

CLUNK, went Kratman's writing.

Horrendous redundancy, Political Tourette's, zero flow and the unending horror of Kratman trying to write as a woman, which becomes excruciating.

Christ, did you escape from what a writer in the 50s imagines a woman is like?

My mom was born in the actual 1930s and doesn't talk or act like this. She can't stop talking about all the asses that got kicked during her life or who needs to currently get their ass kicked. She'd be talking about how her boys were more combat effective and fun to be around.

Plus nobody would ever tell her they love her cooking.

Space Bears can smell the Menstruation

Fuck off.

"My Bolos are teh bestest."

He made her a Mk XXXVII

He also does that retarded "Excursus" shit despite the book being thinner than his dick.

*wanking motion*

It wouldn't be a Kratman book without UN hate and bitterness about his career!

This isn't even the worst of the actual masturbation in the book though.

So blah blah blah, the Bolos (which he calls 'Ratha' for retarded reasons) get ambushed in a valley

Thanks Yogi Berra.

The combat is boring as shit of course. There's no flavor or flow to it, and Kratman keeps trying to throw in "Neat" stuff.

That sounds like a discernible pattern to me. You just discerned it. It has been discerned.



Its also in desperate need of punching up in later drafts, though my suggestion as far as a rewrite goes would instead be "Ctrl-A, Delete, Ctrl-S".

Oh hey, I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be me. Awesome. This one doesn't even die or fiddle kids.

I told my mom about him making me a pedophile and killing me a ton. Despite knowing nothing about internet culture she said I should accept his concession. He can't very well claim I didn't bother him now can he!

They would be dead lady. Because you decided the best way to fight your way out of an ambush was to put your back against a wall in the kill zone, because Kratman loves to turtle.

So they take her to the breakers to take apart for scrap.

Thank you Sgt Exposition.

We get a string of extremely meh to bad combat sequences that have no relevance to the plot as Maggie remembers her combat history in random order but try to show that the human government becomes mustache twirlingly evil in really inconsistent ways.

Finally we get to one with some relevance.

Well then she's not convinced that only a patriarchal conspiracy killed her career now is she Kratman?

Also great reference to her being a "modern woman" in your sci-fi book and just vomiting misogyny. She bans Hijabs because Feminism and this leads to a world wide revolt that has to be put down with Kratman's typical favored tactics only its evil space liberals so like, its bad now?

They grab hundreds of civilians after a terrorist bombing, detain them near Maggie and then override her manually when she objects to killing helpless civilians. Remembering that time she was forced to murder the helpless causes her to have a flashback inside a flashback to her "birth" and training.

YOU LEAVE MULAN THE FUCK OUT OF THIS KRATMAN!

"Oh no, not again" said some Petunia's.

So we finally get to the meat of Kratman's story and the remaining third of the story.

Basically Kratman read Hyperion went "Wow, FORCE training is cool" then ripped it off for Bolos only it makes zero sense.

Where is the god damn ground when we need it.

This makes zero sense! Like seriously, look at this shit:

This is just a continuation of Kratman's masturbatory fantasy that he is the best trainer of warfighters in existence and whatever inane shit he thinks up is suddenly The Best Idea.

And speaking of fucking masturbation!

We almost went a book without jerking off to Nazi's, that was a close one.

Oh but it gets worse!

[Trouble Brewing]

Oh I can feel your horror growing dear reader but there are no brakes on this train.

Yes. You just read that the tank derives sexual pleasure from killing and just had an orgasm. Kratman just wrote a Nazi blowing his load at killing Russians. This is actual bond villain shit you sick, sick little man.

Arrgggghhhh! WHY?!

It blows its load too early and gets knocked out and the programmer lets it burn to death all night.

I think you can get effective soldiers without making them literally get off on killing.

Like, is this guy supposed to be a villain? The narrative seems to kind of go with him that this is what makes Bolos effective. He has it fight a battleship so it can get off on "Glory" and it time skips ahead:

Implying direct descent between SS tankers and modern US Military. Fantastic. Kindly fuck thyself!

Wow.

WOW.

Now you know how Mrs Kratman feels buddy.

I mean, this is basically just Kratman talking here given how I've noted that his depictions of violence in ADCP come off sexual even when dicks aren't involved.

Your use of sexual pleasure not only makes everything sexual, its the skeeviest I've felt reading a book.

See like, Kratman has this guy like, be right since Maggie is supposed to be a hero tank and he comments that she's operating according to protocol and is particularly effective because of how much she gets off on it.

Like, this is monstrous but the narrative is like "Nah, dude is right. Tanks need murder boners".

Ok, this is a believable motiva-

HOOO GOD.

Alright, based on internal logic (She gets sexual pleasure from killing), the order to make her kill against her will and overriding her to force her to do so is absolutely rape.

WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU WRITE THIS THOUGH?

Jesus tap dancing Christ, what the fuck is wrong with you? This is absolutely because you wrote her as a woman and so she needs to have been raped and sexually violated in order for her to be outraged against her masters. Even though earlier:

See right here? Women can have just this motivation too Kratman. It seriously didn't need her being forced to kill civilians also be rape because she's a woman.

You are the first Kratman female character with actual agency at the end Congrats!

#KillAllMen

The book ends there thank fuck. The combat is bad, there are no good characters, Kratman can't write a woman to save his life, borked structured, sexualized killing because jesus christ why? Its a terrible Novella that you can tell why Baen wouldn't even touch this shit with a ten foot pole. Kratman managed to find something they won't publish.


If anyone at all decides to buy this shit: At least thrown money at me too.

(But seriously don't buy this book, its terrible. )

 

Athene.

Athene pls stop.

Athen y ur doing dis to u.

EDIT: Wow, Kratman manages to surprise me. And, like, I am not someone who is ignorant of what goes on in the dark recesses of the net.

 

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Amazing.

 

*reads*
BY THE EMPEROR'S GOLDEN SHITTER!

 

Tom Kratman's "Big Boys Don't Cry" (but Keith Laumer is right now).

Also, given that Baen has published literal Tea Party propaganda, and I'm not even talking about their sci-fi, managing to create something they won't publish is amazing.

 

It's actually called "Big Boys Don't Cry"?

 

Wait, a Bolo novel where the Bolo intentionally turns on innocent people?

 

Also, orgasming nazi tank. Just...Why? It sounds like something that a Slaneeshi army would field, or something that a particularly gruesome piece of bizzarro fiction would throw at you...But here it is, and it is the protagonist, and...

....Are we supposed to sympathize with it?

That's...Like, the least worrisome thing about this book.

 

Big boys might not cry, but they do touch little boys and get disowned.

 

I've got a tear in my eye...

 

I can't handle all this terrible writing.

I mean, if Kratman having written it wasn't a huge hint, if having it published by the same people who do Vox Day's printing wasn't enough of a dead giveaway, there's nothing that says terrible quite like that second quote.

Fuck me, I do believe Kratman's managed to top himselfwrite more of the same shit with a different, less self-inserty protagonist!

 

Tank rape? That's not something I expected to encounter when I got out of bed this morning.

 

Like, man what? I'm 26 and what is this?

I don't know why I'm shocked.

I am also convinced that this is a cry for help.

 

Wow, that is, well, special. This in particular, though;

just seems pathetic, even by his standards. Not trying to take away from the crazy of the rest, but that specifically really comes off as lazy, patronising and insulting, below and behind even Kratman's usual standards for those things.

EDIT - I mean, training officer Psychopath was apparently able to talk the POV Bolo into associating murder with pleasure, but couldn't be bothered working with another to help resolve what's apparently a fairly serious issue. Was he trying to make his author-avatar look like a neglectful incompetent?

 

...Dear god

I'm an atheist. That said... this man needs Jesus.

 

Big Boys Don't Cry: A story about an orgasming Nazi scifi tank that is raped by the evil liberals. Why is that a sentence that I can truthfully type?

Also, I realize that it was just a throwaway line taking his usual shit on Athene, but my brain is kind of stuck on the fact that the AI tanks are apparently not only capable of gender differential, but capable of developing gender dysphoria (and presumably similar mental issues). That sounds something along the lines of a thousand times more interesting than the rest of this little turdnugget.

 

Not to mention, it seems like the kind of thing that a competent training officer should be helping the AI work through; y'know, rather than teaching another the purity of orgasm via killing.

 

I do love the pointless snippet about the gender undecided Not-Bolo that was never integrated into the unit for that reason. Because of course, the important part about an army-stomping mass-destruction murder-tank is whether it's a boy or a girl. Your biases aren't showing at all, Mr. Kratman.

It's not even a good diss because the implication is that Not-Bolos are allowed to choose their own gender rather than it being assigned to them. So I guess Kratman's super awesome Nazi robo army is totally okay with transsexuals then?

 

Hey if Shockz happens to be on this thread, is SAO better or worse than this?

EDIT: Also could the author write a 40K novel?

 

IIRC Ironically the book that Kratman took the training via VR sims of historical battles (Hyperion) from also has a protagonist who gets off sexually on blood shed and battle. It is not treated as a good thing.

 

SAO has horrible implications but most of that comes from author and genre constraints and poor writing skill, not intent.

Kratman's work is actively trying to be so neoconservative it nauseates actual neo-nazis.


Baen, for it's faults, is a professional publishing house with editorial standards. Low ones to be sure, given they publish Fratowski and Travis (S. Taylor) but they are a business that functions and makes money.

What company published this, again, and does it even make a profit on sales?

 

Well I did a little digging. Apparently they're a Finnish publisher called Castalia House.

Tolkien, Chesterton and Kratman. I trust you can all see the connection.