Escape Artists
PodCastle => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Ocicat on March 03, 2017, 08:45:28 PM
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PodCastle 458, ARTEMIS RISING: Home Is A House That Loves You (http://podcastle.org/2017/03/03/podcastle-458-artemis-rising-home-is-a-house-that-loves-you/)
by Rachael K. Jones
read by Kate Baker
A PodCastle Original!
Rated PG.
Before the war with Apsides, I wanted to be like my Aunt Martha, who at the age of forty five stepped into an abandoned lot near Aurora’s city center, buried her toes in dirt, stretched up her arms, and became a skyscraper. Her legs were steel girders, earthquake-strong, her fingers long iron spires that caught pigeons and kites. Aunt Martha, 101 floors tall, sides aglitter with splendid floor-to-ceiling windows, family’s pride, city’s pride. When I was sixteen, I’d race up her stairwells whenever we visited, trailing fingers along her textured oak banisters up through offices and ballrooms and apartments of Martha’s design that hummed like beehives and smelled of Sumatran coffee. Martha would creak and shift and whisper back, and I knew she remembered me.
Click here (http://podcastle.org/story-texts/home-is-a-house-that-loves-you-by-rachael-k-jones/) to continue reading.
Rachael K. Jones (https://rckjones.wordpress.com/) grew up in various cities across Europe and North America, picked up (and mostly forgot) six languages, and acquired several degrees in the arts and sciences. Now she writes speculative fiction in Athens, Georgia. Contrary to the rumors, she is probably not a secret android. Her fiction has appeared in dozens of venues, including Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, and PodCastle. Follow her on Twitter @RachaelKJones (https://twitter.com/RachaelKJones?lang=en).
Kate Baker is the Podcast Director and Non-fiction Editor for Clarkesworld Magazine (http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/). She has been very privileged to narrate over 350 short stories/poems for various venues.
She has been nominated for a Parsec Award. Kate won the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine in 2011 and 2013, the British Fantasy Award for Best Magazine in 2014 and the World Fantasy Award for Special Award: Non Professional in 2014 alongside the wonderfully talented editorial staff of Clarkesworld Magazine.
Kate is currently situated in Northern Connecticut with her first fans; her wonderful children. She is currently working as the Director of Operations for SFWA.
(http://escapepod.org/wp-images/podcast-mini4.gif) Listen to this week’s PodCastle! (http://media.rawvoice.com/podcastle/media.libsyn.com/media/podcastle/PC458_HomeIsAHouse.mp3)
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The strange story won me over by the mid point despite my initial resistance. I was left wondering what kind of building I wanted to be and just how satisfying it would be to creak & settle to future generations.
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So good!!!! I made the mistake of listening to this on the way into work and had to sit in my truck, wiping my eyes, before going into the office. The level of familial love and sacrifice that is shown in physical manifestations made my heart swell and ache at the same time. The thought of being able to leave behind a more substantial legacy than a few photos and some heirlooms is a beautiful end to contemplate. This story will stay with me for some time.
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The premise of the story, of people turning into buildings and other constructs, reminded me of Cassandra Khaw's In the Rustle of Pages, PC391. But this story, with its themes of exploitation, war, sacrifice, and self-sacrifice, the sadness of abandoning one's dreams and homeland ties to try to find survival elsewhere, was really moving. I was so glad that the solution at the end made the story bittersweet rather than just tragic, and I hope that even if the people find a new place to settle, some of them will stay with the protagonist in her new form and have some nice adventures with her. (And that made me think of Robin Hobbs' Liveship Traders...) This is a beautiful, moving story that stirs a lot of intriguing speculation.
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The image of the men and women literally sacrificing their bodies and their legacy by turning into roads instead of beloved architecture to get the rest of their people to dubious safety hit me really hard. I started tearing up in earnest right about when the main character was filling her stomach-hold with chocolate and oranges.
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I thought this was going to be a little boring and bland, like the previous human-to-house story. I was wrong. This was much better, more of a driving story, one that drew you in and held your attention, longing for the people to escape to safety. I found myself caught up, hanging on the words as they came forth from my car speakers. Well done.
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This one didn't really work for me. It felt like a thought experiment or the result of a random story prompt generator.
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The premise of the story, of people turning into buildings and other constructs, reminded me of Cassandra Khaw's In the Rustle of Pages, PC391. But this story, with its themes of exploitation, war, sacrifice, and self-sacrifice, the sadness of abandoning one's dreams and homeland ties to try to find survival elsewhere, was really moving. I was so glad that the solution at the end made the story bittersweet rather than just tragic, and I hope that even if the people find a new place to settle, some of them will stay with the protagonist in her new form and have some nice adventures with her. (And that made me think of Robin Hobbs' Liveship Traders...) This is a beautiful, moving story that stirs a lot of intriguing speculation.
I agree, the premise annoyed me as a trope done before, but the execution was different enough to be enjoyable.