So, I didn't know it was by Jon Bois, but I suspected as much. Jon Bois is the only reason to go to sbnation. Sometimes who the author is matters.

Sure, I'll give anything Jon Bois makes a fair shot. Three years ago he wrote [url=https://www.sbnation.com/2014/11/26/7281129/radioshack-eulogy-stories]this for sbnation about Radio Shack[/url] and it's one of the most incredible retrospectives on life before your career takes off that I'd ever read.

Reading this - 17776 - now.

And BY THE WAY, you miss a lot of stuff on mobile, which is where I first tried to read it. So I forgive myself for my earlier take because on a desktop, you get the Youtube video that talks about how this has something to do with football. So the second section isn't coming out of nowhere, there's context for it.

[quote="Ice Cream Jonsey"]The first chapter that I read was brilliant.[/quote]

The first chapter that I read was clipart.

[quote="Ice Cream Jonsey"]It could only take place on the web, the use of calendars to show the passage of time was amazing, it was well-written, it crafted an interesting mystery. Loved it.[/quote]

Dude, the first chapter is literally just clipart with some dopey dialogue that sets up twenty-some odd pages of screeching autism and youtube videos that attempt to highlight some higher meaning blah blah blah it was all trite.

If somebody pointed a gun at my head and told me to read it over again, I would spit in their face.

What a sec, back the fuck up. What has pinback recommended that you don't care for? Virtually every game he's ever recommended on Caltrops has been great. I'm having doubts! The first doubts of my marriage!!

[quote="Ice Cream Jonsey"]Whoa! I am NOT saying it was shit. Let me walk that back. The first chapter that I read was brilliant. It could only take place on the web, the use of calendars to show the passage of time was amazing, it was well-written, it crafted an interesting mystery. Loved it.[/quote]
That's wrong. It's a bunch of animes-level "OMG they didn't say anything the story must be SO DEEP!" BOOL. CHIT.

I bail on books in the beginning all the time. The story doesn't grab me, why waste my time hate-reading?

Actual books don't waste my time with 20 seconds of flicking a scroll wheel to see what is happening. They write the goddamn sentences one after the other. The terrible color choices and the inability of some art-school fag to pick fonts that even REMOTELY relate to the year is just the turd icing on a shit cake.

This is what dumb people think smart story-telling is. This does not surprise me from pinback, as ALMOST all of his recommendations have been crap, and who is currently stuck in some sophomore-level "What if reality like... ISN'T REAL... maaaaan?" drug-trip.

Also holy shit, I really expected after that first continue it'd be like 1 or 2 more of those bits. You're telling me someone wrote a TWENTY-FIVE CHAPTER web-shit graphic 'novel'? And published it on a fucking shit sports-blog? Do you think they told him he could have that instead of an intern stipend and he SCREAMED "YESS!!!!" before they could even finish the sentence?

I skimmed 385 pages of Paul's 'book', and I'd go back to that over even glancing at this pile of shit again.

[quote="Tdarcos"]It's not consistent. The first time I looked at it "April '47" happened on a Tuesday, hasn't happened since 1547 and won't happen until an unknown century after 3947.

The second time April '47 starts on a Friday.[/quote]

I only read the first chapter and still I know that you got everything about the story wrong. Your ability to be wrong about things is a national treasure, and I am saying that as a compliment, not an attack. It makes you special, and I thank you for it.

[quote="Billy Mays"][quote="pinback"]You fucking tools got to the beginning of the second page and said "TOTAL GARBAGE, FUCK THIS."[/quote]

You don't need to get defensive because The Happiness Engine and ICJ called you out for white knighting some internet blowhard.

I agree with ICJ, The Happiness Engine, and I guess Tdarcos on whatever the hell he was talking about: the story was kind of shit.[/quote]

Whoa! I am NOT saying it was shit. Let me walk that back. The first chapter that I read was brilliant. It could only take place on the web, the use of calendars to show the passage of time was amazing, it was well-written, it crafted an interesting mystery. Loved it.

When I went to the second chapter, it did a thing that irked my particular evaluative patterns. I am totally 100% in when it comes to not knowing what is going on in a story, but if a second thread is introduced, I do like to see the author spend some time explaining what is what. Otherwise it seems extremely masturbatory to me. "Hey, read my book! OK, now read my totally unrelated book!"

I am sure that I will sit down at my computer and read the entire thing, and I am sure that it will be awesome, as bruce and pinback have good taste in things.

I WILL say that it's an awful big ask for people to go to fucking www.sbnation.com, home of literally the world's worst sportswriting, except for all those other sites. But none of you guys have the unique relationship that I do with that piece of shit site.

[quote="pinback"]You people ARE the shit you complain about.[/quote]

"SB Nation story that opens with acid trip in two successive, unrelated chapters a work of genius, says man claiming that Eric Clapton is shit."

[quote="pinback"]You fucking tools got to the beginning of the second page and said "TOTAL GARBAGE, FUCK THIS."[/quote]

You don't need to get defensive because The Happiness Engine and ICJ called you out for white knighting some internet blowhard.

I agree with ICJ, The Happiness Engine, and I guess Tdarcos on whatever the hell he was talking about: the story was kind of shit.

It's not consistent. The first time I looked at it "April '47" happened on a Tuesday, hasn't happened since 1547 and won't happen until an unknown century after 3947.

The second time April '47 starts on a Friday.

The one who can't reply for 217 days one-way is on a different planet. Out of our solar system. The distance is 3.4 trillion miles. About 1/5 the way to Alpha Centauri, I think.

One last one, for the road. I went to read some INTERNET COMMENTS, and almost to a one they said "I dunno, I read the first page, looked dumb, there's 60 seconds I won't get back."

One of them said he read the first page AND THE LAST PAGE. "I didn't read the middle but it seemed lame."

I'll add you two to that pile.

[quote="The Happiness Engine"]I can't even believe after all that shit he has the gall to add 'continue'.[/quote]

By the way, this is the part that I really don't get. Yes, it says "continue" at the bottom. The first page is chapter 1. There are 25 chapters. There is a "continue" button at the bottom of each of them.

Do you dickheads read the first page of a story, say "there's MORE? GET REAL" and throw it away?

What is going on here? I really don't get this.

Or everyone just loves to complain and call everything crap. I thought that's what Caltrops was for, though.

I don't... what?

It's a multifaceted story. It's all one story. One perfectly cohesive story. A pretty goddamn interesting one, too, extraordinarily well told.

You fucking tools got to the beginning of the second page and said "TOTAL GARBAGE, FUCK THIS."

Maybe he'll tweet his next story.

You people ARE the shit you complain about.

I am with The Happiness Engine. I enjoyed the first bit that I saw. I am willing to go with an author for one mystery where we have no context.

Then he or she completely changed the setting for the second one. Nah.

I don't understand that opinion.

Holy fuck I've never seen anything so utterly self absorbed and terrible, and I'm the Foremost Expert on Paul's 'novels'.

I can't even believe after all that shit he has the gall to add 'continue'.

This can totally win a Hugo because that's actually a made-up award. Chuck Tingle won last year because Men's Rights.


Fuck... I need a drink.

Okay, now I am done.

Absolutely magnificent.

DUDE.

Still not all the way through. And I'm pretty sure it doesn't know where you are, it just happens to feature Murfreesboro, Tennessee. REPRAZEEEENT

I don't know how far into it I am, but two questions come to mind:

1. Does it figure out where you are and change the details like that, or does everyone see "Murfreesboro, TN" as the two players' hometown?

2. This is the greatest thing of the year?

That was a statement, not a question, but I said I had two questions.

https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football/chapter-1

I ... have no idea.

It's about football the same way [i]Moby Dick[/i] is about whaling.

It's a meditation about human reaction to immortality. Narrated by Pioneer Nine.

I....I can't even.

But I think it's brilliant and it better be nominated for a 2018 Hugo.

Bruce