Comments on: An Introduction to "Mathralon"

By: David Louis Edelman

David Louis Edelman — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:09:58 +0000

Brian: Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the story, and links are always appreciated.

By: Brian Smith

Brian Smith — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:16:04 +0000

Hi David,
Congratulations on this excellent story! I read it last night and just had to stop and think for a few minutes at the end. It really conveys the “we are cogs in the machine” idea SO well, it’s quite frightening in the perspective that it gives you. I was especially hooked by the “negotiation” passage where the accountants show The Books to the miners, crying poor, and that they can’t possibly spend another dime making the miner’s lives better. In light of the current turmoil, where we’re told we must spend $700B (on top of the money already spent) to bail out companies stuffed with overpaid executives, this really struck home.

I hope Mathralon gets much wider distribution (it should be read in economics classes, for a start!) and I congratulate you on making it free! I’m going to link to it from my blog and facebook, hopefully get the word out

By: Matt Mitchell

Matt Mitchell — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:36:00 +0000

Haven’t read the story yet, but you get props for having the most prominent name on the cover of the book! I’m thinking, “So that’s why he’s a three-name author, he gets more visibility even though his name isn’t on top!”

Seriously, I’m looking forward to reading the story.

By: David Louis Edelman

David Louis Edelman — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:09:55 +0000

Matt and I fought in the war together. You know, the war on Christmas.

By: Matt Jarpe

Matt Jarpe — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:55:40 +0000

Oh, I’m familiar with Dave’s work.

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 06:59:01 +0000

Do .. you guys know each other?

By: David Louis Edelman

David Louis Edelman — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 04:48:40 +0000

Oh, I get it, you’re too “literary” for Terminator robots. Don’t want to soil your soft, liberal arts educated hands with traditional genre tropes.

Well, if I really wanted to soil my hands, I could have written some kind of cliched thing about rock stars in outer space. You know, throw in some cyberpunk pretensions and pepper it with lyrics to fake rock songs. But you know, that’s been done to death.

By: Matt Jarpe

Matt Jarpe — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 04:02:04 +0000

evil Terminator robots? Are you frickin’ kidding me?

Oh, I get it, you’re too “literary” for Terminator robots. Don’t want to soil your soft, liberal arts educated hands with traditional genre tropes. Well, I believe Margaret Attwood and Jeanette Winterson are keeping a chair for you over in the “we don’t write science fiction” club. Buh-bye.

Oh, almost forgot: Because that makes everything cool.

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:50:25 +0000

Great story, David.

; what countries need is a good administration.

Eh. Good administrators tend to want to get things done. This is fine as long as their program agrees with yours. It’s not so good when they get things done that you don’t agree with.

What we need is a capable, lazy administration. One that can get things done if they really need to be, but otherwise is content to let the machine run itself.

By: George Pedrosa

George Pedrosa — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:00:41 +0000

Haven’t had the time to read the story yet, but I already think the idea is really clever. A futuristic dystopia with a market run by computer programs? Great idea. It’s fun (and refreshing) to realize that, as far as your writing has come, you seem more interested in the economic side of fictional futures than in alien wars and cybernetic apocalypses.

I consider myself a sort of pragmatic anarchist. If, in my country, a candidate would appear and reveal himself to be a good administrator, who would stay in his office and do his work as well as the average worker, I’d be more than happy to vote for him. Leaders are for people with low self-esteem and an interest in avoiding personal responsibilities; what countries need is a good administration.