Escape Artists
Escape Pod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Russell Nash on September 27, 2007, 08:14:44 AM
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EP125: End Game (http://escapepod.org/2007/09/27/ep125-end-game)
By Nancy Kress (http://www.sff.net/people/nankress).
Read by Stephen Eley.
First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction (http://www.asimovs.com/), April 2007.
“What exactly happened in the seventh grade?” I found myself intensely curious, which I covered by staring at the board and making a move.
He told me, still unembarrassed, in exhaustive detail. Then he added, “It should be possible to adjust brain chemicals to eliminate the static. To unclutter the mind. It should!”
“Well,” I said, dropping from insight to my more usual sarcasm, “maybe you’ll do it at Harvard, if you don’t get sidetracked by some weird shit like ballet or model railroads.”
“Checkmate,” Allen said.
Rated R. Contains profanity, sexual innuendo, and chess-related violence.
Referenced Sites:
2007 Podcast & New Media Expo (http://www.newmediaexpo.com/)
California Brunch Meetup 9/30/07 (http://escapepod.org/2007/09/26/meetup-near-la/)
Better Late Than Never (http://bl8tn.net/) (Stardust review (http://betterl8thannevr.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=252570))
(http://escapepod.org/wp-images/podcast-mini4.gif)
Listen to this week’s Escape Pod! (http://escapepod.org/podpress_trac/web/244/0/EP125_EndGame.mp3)
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I thought this was a great story. I was actually sad when the narrator started having marital problems.
One thing I didn't get...how did everyone else get the "syndrome"?
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One thing I didn't get...how did everyone else get the "syndrome"?
Basic fluid transfer. It was in the saliva.
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Oh....I'm so stupid. ???
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I really like these Nancy Kress stories.
IND doesn't stand for initial new drug though, it stands for investigational new drug.
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This is another story
that I liked.
I think that is
two in a row.
The concept of total focus;
its benefits and dangers
is thought provoking.
For a short story
it covered all the basis it could.
I could see it being
expanded into a novel
where the weaknesses of the
short attention span culture
in the USA could be
explored more and exposed.
I like the idea of allowing
your mind to wonder.
Allowing the world to
show itself to you.
That is why I do not
own a television.
It steals your
time and imagination.
Two other thoughts.
I wish that Allen was
a more rounded individual and
not the "total nerd" stereotype.
(DIE NERD - stereotype - DIE)
It would have made
the friendship deeper and
his loss to his discovery feel greater.
I liked Steve Eley's reading
of this story.
The characters' voices and
the transitions were
more natural and relaxed
than in some other stories.
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I really like these Nancy Kress stories.
IND doesn't stand for initial new drug though, it stands for investigational new drug.
It was what the charactor figured out. We don't know if the charactor was wrong or if Ms.Kress was wrong.
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I wish that Allen was a more rounded individual and not the "total nerd" stereotype. (DIE NERD - stereotype - DIE) It would have made the friendship deeper and his loss to his discovery feel greater.
He didn't really care about Allen and I think it would have made the story too sappy if he did. His lost came from his losing his wife and knowing he was going that way himself.
Ironically I think he became single minded about not being single minded.
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Fantastic story. It had me the whole time -- I never lost my attention once. Solid reading, too!
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This is another one to go on my favorites list, as almost all of Ms. Kress' are. I would love to see where this will go for that world in five or ten years, when almost everyone has this disease/cure. But what I most liked about what this story implicated was its ethics. Was it right for Allen to give the girl the drug before testing was complete? Was it even right for him to give it to himself when he didn't know if it might somehow spread (as it ended up doing)?
Story: 9 out of 10 Reading: 10 out of 10
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I really like these Nancy Kress stories.
IND doesn't stand for initial new drug though, it stands for investigational new drug.
It was what the charactor figured out. We don't know if the charactor was wrong or if Ms.Kress was wrong.
It doesn't really matter, but there are no indications that he "found out" wrong. IND can stand for whatever you want though I guess- so can USA for that matter. Doesn't make the story any less amazing- The error just surprised me, she clearly does a great deal of research.
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Dont take my statick away!
thare will be nothing left!!
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I liked this as well. As is the case with much of Ms. Kress's work, I read it as a parable. I see it being about the risks of trying to perfect the human mind without fully understanding it in the first place, the importance of seemingly unimportant ideas in defining who we are and about the dangers of too narrow a focus.
One thing that bothered me a bit is that one could read into the story a bit of what I hope is an unintended message against treating attention deficit disorder. Having different background thoughts is all well and good until they interfere with ones ability to focus on the important thoughts in ones head. I know that it isn't in the story, but people who already mistakenly believe that you're turning a kid into a zombie by giving him medication to help cope with a real mental illness.
My only other nitpick was the character not trying to share his wife's interest in roses as a way of trying to connect with her. I'd see this as more a flaw in his personality than in the writing, however. It would have been nice to see just so we can get an idea of whether or not there's anybody left in there or if her self is truly gone (as an aside, the folks at radiolab did a great show on the definition of self. It is available for free download on their website). Otherwise, I liked the characterization. The way people fall into old roles when meeting old acquaintances rang especially true for me. I'm also glad that Nancy didn't spell out why the scientist was jealous of his old friend.
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(as an aside, the folks at radiolab did a great show on the definition of self. It is available for free download on their website).
Really great show. Here's the link (http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/). They also podcast the show. Well worth checking out.
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Pawn to King 4?? You don't play chess, do you, Steve?
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One thing that bothered me a bit is that one could read into the story a bit of what I hope is an unintended message against treating attention deficit disorder. Having different background thoughts is all well and good until they interfere with ones ability to focus on the important thoughts in ones head. I know that it isn't in the story, but people who already mistakenly believe that you're turning a kid into a zombie by giving him medication to help cope with a real mental illness.
This will be slightly off-topic, but I feel I should chime in here, since this happens to be a subject that's sort of important to me. I suffer from (adult) attention deficit disorder. I also have a friend who worked at a lab researching ADHD. I know a lot about it, both from a scientific point of view and from a personal point of view.
For at least a large amount of people suffering from ADHD, the problem is *not* too much background thoughts. The problem is too little. There have been studies that show that brain activity associated with attention is like a wave - for all humans, it goes up and down on its own. And there is a thershold below which, if the attention drops, you can no longer maintain it. However -and forgive me for oversimplifying the neuroscience since I'm working from memory here - for most people, there's also a constant backdrop of "static", to use the story's term, that keeps it active. So, say your attention level drifts from 0 to 1, and that it has to be over 0.5 for you to keep attention. For people without ADHD, there's static running at level 0.4. So, their brain is really covering the range of 0.4-1.4, and they very rarely lose attention.
One hypothesis, which seems to match my own experience, for the cause of ADHD is that ADHD sufferers have *less* background static going on. So, the wave drops below "attention" a lot more. And the mechanism for dealing with this is hyperactivity - in essence, it's the brain's attempt to generate more static in order to be able to keep up with attention.
I can tell you that my experience fits with this. I cannot listen to someone, for instance, unless I'm also moving. If I'm sitting still I can't concentrate. I got through lectures - both undergrad and grad school - by brining in computer games to class. If I'm playing a game - ideally a platform game or something like zuma, which requires mostly motor responses but doesn't require puzzle-solving - my ability to understand what other people are saying goes *way* up. If I want to read something, I walk. If I need to write papers, I turn on the TV in the background. I need to introduce static, because it augments my attention, not takes away from it.
I don't know if this is true of all people with ADHD, but it's certainly true for me.
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This story had me from the very beginning to the very end. Brilliant!
I really like Nancy Kress' ability to hold a bare idea up to the light and examine it in an interesting way. She did this with happiness in Ej Es, and now with single-mindedness in this story. Each story got me thinking a bit about what it means to be human, and what the important things in life are.
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well done.
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Ok, after my treatise on ADHD above, let me get to story feedback ;) -
Anyway, I'll echo the general sentiment of thinking this was a very good story. I didn't exactly enjoy it - but that's more because it touched on some raw nerves in my life at the moment, and is not a reflection on the story quality.
I found the similarities to last week's story interesting, in that they both shared a "villian" who thinks he's fixing the world but really is just imposing his own obsessions on others, and a protagonist who's an unwitting accomplice to some degree. There's plenty of differences as well, and it certainly didn't feel like the same story, but I definitely felt that there's a common thread.
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Thanks for lesson, eytanz. One way I've heard ADHD described (and would describe it myself) is having a television that won't stay tuned to one channel but keeps drifting back and forth. There's also a radio in the room which won't stay tuned to one channel either. The result is that it's hard to hold on to one stream of thought. It could feel like trying to hold on to a slippery fish in a rapidly flowing river while all the other fish are bumping up against you. And yes, I know that's probably even worse than just calling it "static" and being done with it. Please understand that I wasn't trying to trivialize or misrepresent ADD; I simply thought that the story could be read in a manner that would do so.
As far as the story goes, I'm not quite sure I saw the scientist as a villain. Misguided, perhaps, but what he was trying to do wasn't really about him. I saw his unleashing a plague that could destroy much of what is special about the human race as more an unintended consequence to a kind of poorly informed altruism than anything I'd think of as villainy. To me this is more interersting than having a bad man who is bad for no reason save the furthering of the plot. In my opinion, for exanple, the biggest flaw in the Lord of the Rings trilogy is that Sauron is never developed as a character and doesn't have anything that seems to approach rational motivation.
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To me this is more interesting than having a bad man who is bad for no reason save the furthering of the plot. In my opinion, for example, the biggest flaw in the Lord of the Rings trilogy is that Sauron is never developed as a character and doesn't have anything that seems to approach rational motivation.
Sauron's character is developed, somewhat at least, in some of Tolkien's other works [The Silmarillion, for example]. By the time of the LOTR, Sauron no longer represents a rational being, but one entirely consumed with evil and beyond redemption. Reason has no part in his motivations; he is motivated entirely by hate, envy, wrath, and the like. Makes him less of an interesting character in the LOTR, but there are many other villians in the story who are interesting.
From what I have read, Tolkien does a much better job developing Melkor's character [Sauron's master and corrupter, also known as Morgoth].
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The story was better than "okay" but not one of my favourites.
I think I was more taken by Steve's opening comments, especially the bit about "podcasting is so new that it's easy to be an expert".
I know whatcha mean. Whenever some new kind of equipment shows up at my workplace, whoever happens to open the carton and installs it is automatically deemed to be the resident expert on it and is expected to tutor the other employees in its care and feeding.
I imagine though, a comparison more like what you probably had in mind would be the first TV producers coming from a film background, or the first radio producers having only theatrical and music hall shows as a jumping off point. Whoever got anything done at all at the beginning became the experts, at least until the medium started to catch on and it required a bit more effort and involvement to keep the expert status. I guess the difficulty in being an expert begins when a lot of money starts changing hands.
I was going to say something about being able to recognize and exploit "emergent game play" in a new medium, but I hadn't quite worked out how it was going to be relevant without dragging things way off-topic.
Back to the story. It was interesting to consider "clear thinking" as a kind of addiction. I will give Nancy Kress points for that.
One thing I didn't get...how did everyone else get the "syndrome"?
Basic fluid transfer. It was in the saliva.
Um... I didn't think that. I assumed that they either obtained some of the drug, or learned how to make the drug themselves, or came up with some kind of mental discipline technique. Otherwise, why didn't Jeff "catch it" from Karen? Still, the bit about Allen's "slobbering" on the glass and messy eating habits at the dinner party does seem like a bit of a "Chekov's gun".
I must confess that every time one of the characters used the word "static", I was taken out of the story for a minute or so, and I had to rewind it a bit. When people say that there is "static on the line" or that the "radio is full of static", what they really mean is "noisy". Static does not cause continuous noise unless you are constantly charging and discharging something (like with a Van de Graaff generator). It does not cause constant noise in another system, like an electronic medium. There. I got it out.
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Basic fluid transfer. It was in the saliva.
Um... I didn't think that. I assumed that they either obtained some of the drug, or learned how to make the drug themselves, or came up with some kind of mental discipline technique. Otherwise, why didn't Jeff "catch it" from Karen? Still, the bit about Allen's "slobbering" on the glass and messy eating habits at the dinner party does seem like a bit of a "Chekov's gun".
Also the bit about chess-girl putting her fingers in her mouth then touching the pieces - which is probably how someone ended up able to beat her (he contracted it from her), and the woman who was able to master meditation got it (her husband was a chess-player, who must have got it from the girl and transmitted it to her). And Jess *did* catch it from Karen, that's the whole point of the ending. Possibly, different people are just affected at different rates.
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Thanks for lesson, eytanz. One way I've heard ADHD described (and would describe it myself) is having a television that won't stay tuned to one channel but keeps drifting back and forth. There's also a radio in the room which won't stay tuned to one channel either. The result is that it's hard to hold on to one stream of thought. It could feel like trying to hold on to a slippery fish in a rapidly flowing river while all the other fish are bumping up against you. And yes, I know that's probably even worse than just calling it "static" and being done with it. Please understand that I wasn't trying to trivialize or misrepresent ADD; I simply thought that the story could be read in a manner that would do so.
Oh, I didn't think you were trivializing it, I was just clarifying how it is for me. The television that won't stay tuned but keeps drifting is an apt analogy; the thing is - at least for me, I don't know if this is true of all people with ADHD - is that the reason my attention shifts is not that there are a lot of different thoughts in my head at once, but rather that thoughts come at a sequence, one after the other. Individual threads of thought are pretty elusive on their own. The reason that multitasking helps me concentrate is because having two threads at once sort of combines to make a "heavier" thought process, which is easier to hang on to.
It's sort of like Stochastic resonance in visual processing - there's a fascinating article about it at http://www.umsl.edu/~neurodyn/assets/pdf/VisualSR.pdf. The figure one page 1 illustrates the way it is, especially the three lower boxes - without any noise at all (leftmost box), it is very difficult to recognize the image. Add some noise (middle box), and suddenly the image becomes a lot clearer. Too much noise (right box) and the system is overloaded; the image becomes impossible to recognize.
For me, thinking is like that. If I just try to think about one thing, it's really difficult. Thinking about two or three things at once is a lot easier. More than that is a mess.
If this correct, then the story is simply wrong in its science - turn off the rest of the noise, and you basically give your chess player attention disorder. She won't become a better chess player - she'll become someone who can't keep her mind on anything at all.
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There are times for me when I might be trying to solve a problem (or just remember something) without success. If I just forget about it for a while (could be hours, days) as likely as not I'll come up with a solution in a sudden flash, possibly while I'm driving, or watching TV, or even in the middle of a conversation. If not a solution, then a totally fresh direction to attack it from.
I mostly see something like it happen when I'm working on a cryptic crossword puzzle, and I'll be beating my brains to solve one word. I can put it down, pick it up a week later and look at it, and as soon as I read the clue again I'll think "well, duh! it's [whatever]!" and write it in.
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I liked this a lot better than Kress's last EP story. For one thing, it was shorter and about 1000% easier (at least for me) to follow. Short SF, I think, works well when it's only about a few people, not about a wide cast of characters. This story really just had four: Alan, Lucy, Jeff, and Karen. And that's all it needed.
The ability to concentrate is both prized and derided -- if you can't concentrate, you can't get things done in one go; if you can concentrate, you lose the effect of the static. The wisdom is in knowing when to concentrate to the exclusion of other things and when to allow the static to fuzz your brain. Kind of like in "The Scar" (Mieville); Uther Doul needs to know when to turn on the Possible Sword, and when to just use it as a regular sword. (The comparison makes sense to me.)
The reading was good, though I felt like Jeff's voice changed back and forth a little in the story.
Nice little window into the Gallaghers where "I did that thing she likes and I don't". That more than anything proved that the two of them were having problems -- that he has to deign to do something she likes as some sort of reward? I think the marriage might have been in trouble sooner than Kress made us aware of. But then, good literature makes you think about that stuff.
It's like this quote I read -- I'll try to dig it up; it's on my other computer -- but it basically says writers shouldn't forget that their characters have lives, and after the 300 or 400 pages of the book are over, the reader must understand that the characters are going to go back to those lives, or that their lives will continue.
Finally, I really liked the ending, that Jeff was fighting against Alan's technique, and Kress did a really great job describing the static.
In short: "It was good. I liked it."
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Wow, that was really good. And... scary.
I've always been wary of using drugs to try to get people to think "the right way" - be it treating ADHD, or depression, or whatnot. I recognize that it might be what many people need to function, and I don't hold it against them... it's just that looking at history so many great artwork and other accomplishments were done by people who today would be diagnosed and treated in an attempt to make them like everyone else. In this story, someone is trying to take normal people and make their brains work in a less normal way - and that's not any better.
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I always enjoy stories about attention spans as I
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OK, putting my Sensible Replying Trousers on...
That was a great story and, for me, a possible reason for why Pseudopod could be shut down, as Ms Kress's last two stories for Escape Pod have moved and scared me more than pretty much anything over there. As with 'Ej-Es' this story packs one hell of a punch in it's final minutes, not only as the narrator's wife loses interest in dealing with their marital problems due to the effect of the drug on her, but then the panic of the husband trying to make sure he's got enough static, almost as though he were... obsessed with seeking out distraction. Now that's real horror.
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An OK story. A bit slow.
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I've always been wary of using drugs to try to get people to think "the right way" - be it treating ADHD, or depression, or whatnot. I recognize that it might be what many people need to function, and I don't hold it against them... it's just that looking at history so many great artwork and other accomplishments were done by people who today would be diagnosed and treated in an attempt to make them like everyone else. In this story, someone is trying to take normal people and make their brains work in a less normal way - and that's not any better.
I don't quite agree with this. In some ways I think it represents the stigma some people have about the treatment of mental illness; that the use of psychotropic drugs makes one less oneself by changing the mind. Some people have said quite the opposite; that treating depression or schizophrenia or ADHD has made them more able to be themselves and be creative and productive by removing barriers to clear thinking. In some ways I find it sad that treatment of the mind is viewed this way. One would never, for instance, lament that diabetics are being robbed of their individuality by being given insulin just so they could metabolize sugars "like everyone else."
I thought about this story today while I was listening to another podcast; this one about autism (An episode of Speaking of Faith -- I seem like an advertisement for public radio this week. You can find it at SpeakingOfFaith.org). The idea of intense focus on one train of thought while ignoring social interaction seems to be a common feature of autism. One interesting thing is that the very loving parents of an autistic boy who they consider to be happy and well adjusted still said, when asked, that they would consider it a disability. It doesn't mean that his thinking is fundamentally bad or wrong, but that he faces great challenges and needs certain support in dealing with them.
Anyway, that's my two cents. Thanks for listening.
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Great story, great writing, great reading.
For those interested in the idea of total focus, I recommend Vernor Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky."
It's always seemed to me that there should be some way of letting autistic people put their unique skills to use.
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Pawn to King 4?? You don't play chess, do you, Steve?
I do play chess. Badly, but with pleasure. And yeah, I start with pawn to king four just like almost everyone else.
So what's your move?
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Pawn to King 4?? You don't play chess, do you, Steve?
I do play chess. Badly, but with pleasure. And yeah, I start with pawn to king four just like almost everyone else.
So what's your move?
Nothing against the move...
Just didn't think any chessplayer still uses the old Descriptive chess notation (Pawn to King 4 or 1.P-K4) instead of the algebraic chess notation (1.e4). Guess I was wrong ;-)
I play d4 (P-Q4), by the way...
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One thing I didn't get...how did everyone else get the "syndrome"?
Basic fluid transfer. It was in the saliva.
The way I saw it the drug was slipped into the food during the dinner. Why else would he have agreed to come to dinner?
I thought everyone else got it was because it was provided to them. They all seemed motivated individuals who would want to shut off the "static".
I like the "viral" transmission idea better. It's scarier. I don't think it was well conveyed though. This is my biggest gripe about the story. Overall I have to agree with almost everyone else that this was a pretty decent story. Some of the medical terminology was pretty exhaustive and confusing, but I think that was the point. It was just a little frustrating to see such detail in how the drug worked, but the transmission (or lack thereof) left totally blank.
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I like the "viral" transmission idea better. It's scarier. I don't think it was well conveyed though. This is my biggest gripe about the story. Overall I have to agree with almost everyone else that this was a pretty decent story. Some of the medical terminology was pretty exhaustive and confusing, but I think that was the point. It was just a little frustrating to see such detail in how the drug worked, but the transmission (or lack thereof) left totally blank.
One additional reason for me to prefer thinking about the effect as a virus rather than a drug is the way Karen gets affected - only one contact makes her have all the symptoms. No chemical-based drug works that way - with anti-ADHD drugs, for instance, there are two types: the long term type, which you need to take for weeks before you notice a difference, and the short-acting type, which influences you right away and wears off within a few hours.
Viruses, on the other hand, affect you after a single contact, remain persistent, and can become more and more severe, since the whole nature of a virus is that what the initial infection does is turn the body into a virus-producing machine. Obviously, this is the way the single-mindedness affected Karen (and presumably Jeff) - she was exposed to it once, and it got worse and worse. And if the body can produce the virus on its own, then it's a small leap to make to deduce that it's possible to infect others.
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As far as the story goes, I'm not quite sure I saw the scientist as a villain. Misguided, perhaps, but what he was trying to do wasn't really about him. I saw his unleashing a plague that could destroy much of what is special about the human race as more an unintended consequence to a kind of poorly informed altruism than anything I'd think of as villainy.
Villainy is as villainy does. Alan may have seen himself as a hero, but so do most villains. What makes them villainous is the way that they affect others as they pursue their goals, and what Alan does here will destroy humanity as surely as any Orbital Death Ray or nuclear armageddon.
Alan's crucial mistake, I think, is that he assumed that what was going on in his head was going on in everyone else's. Yes, everyone has "static" (to use Kress's term), but for most people that's a good thing, as the story shows. Alan seems to have been mentally ill from the very beginning; his static was stronger than other people's, and it combined with an equally unhealthy obsessive-compulsiveness. Or perhaps it was purely his OCD that drove him to try to eliminate his static, seeing it as an imperfection in the natural order of his mind.
The story was well-written, and it gripped me throughout, but by the time I reached the end I was hating it. It hits way, way too close to home for me. My deepest fear has always been contracting some form of mental illness that would disconnect me from either my capacity to reason or my capacity to love, both of which I cling to as essential, defining aspects of who I am. If I discovered that I had Alzheimer's I would probably dedicate the rest of my life to doing humanitarian work in war zones, just so that I'd have a better chance of getting killed before the disease took away what mattered to me. The fact that the main character loses his wife and is inevitably going to lose himself goes way beyond depressing and actually makes me angry. I don't dispute for a minute that the ending fits the story, but it's not the sort of story I can take any pleasure from listening to.
(Interestingly enough, I didn't have the same visceral reaction to the Mike Reznick story where the man gave himself the neurodegenerative illness that his wife was suffering from. Probably because, in that case, they didn't lose their ability to love, which is ultimately more important than the ability to reason.)
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I really enjoyed this story especially as an extreme example of the pitfalls of single mindedness. One thing I kept thinking of in the story was the concept of eliminating static and its similarities with some meditation practices. I have been a long time practitioner of meditation, though I admit inconsistent, which has led me to read a number of guides on meditation some of which address quieting the minds "static".
While the elimination of static or at least the management of static is a goal of some meditation practices I would think that even a Buddhist monk would consider this to be the opposite of being awake. Perhaps the real key to this concept is that the main character is fighting single mindedness as well, but thanks to his acute awareness of the problem he establishes a balance that most others do not?
The idea of actively maintaining balance in life could easily be applied to most peoples daily life as well I think.
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One thing I didn't get...how did everyone else get the "syndrome"?
Basic fluid transfer. It was in the saliva.
The way I saw it the drug was slipped into the food during the dinner. Why else would he have agreed to come to dinner?
He mentioned looking at the mess Alan left on the table. Alan had been a total slob with food falling out of his mouth. He guessed that his wife got it from clesning up the mess.
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I can really relate to eytanz adding static techniques. I could never really focus on homework unless I had the TV on. So I would watch Star Trek and let the homework fade into the background. I never understood how, but I got it as correct as I could figure out how even devoting my full attention to it. I also used to love to set out by the runways while all the FedEx planes were landing and read. It was the best reading I ever done. I have never been tested but I might have ADHD. Back in the 70's and early 80's they called it hyper. And the cure was to beat it out of a child, which worked well on my hyperness.
The story was entertaining. The reading, as always with Mr. Eley, really brought the story to life and engaged the listener.
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One thing I didn't get...how did everyone else get the "syndrome"?
Basic fluid transfer. It was in the saliva.
The way I saw it the drug was slipped into the food during the dinner. Why else would he have agreed to come to dinner?
He mentioned looking at the mess Alan left on the table. Alan had been a total slob with food falling out of his mouth. He guessed that his wife got it from clesning up the mess.
Looking back and reading this forum I understand how it can be seen as a virus, but I don't think that's the only explanation.
I wonder how one selects what item they are going to fixate on. He didn't seem to have any paticular interest in running prior, but once he was exposed he began to have an interest in running shoes. That would be horrible to be obsessed with something you really weren't interested in. It would be like me suddenly renting all the old episodes of "The Hills" or some such crap and watching them over and over. It sounds like how I would describe hell...
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It sounds like how I would describe hell...
Maybe that's the point? :)
I have a sneaky feeling I'd be obsessing over either Babylon 5 or M*A*S*H if it happened to me. Or playing some stupid computer game. *shudder*
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I really enjoyed this story especially as an extreme example of the pitfalls of single mindedness.
Indeed. After listening I spent awhile pondering the lives and happyness of people who are really dedicated to their One True Passion, vs. people like myself, who spread themselves on dozens of different interests and passtimes. I sometimes think of what I could accomplish if I really narrowed my focus down, but of couse I think I'm happier the way I am. And happyness is more important to me than accomplishments. But to each his own... life has whatever meaning you give it, and for many their accomplishments are their sole reason for living.
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I sometimes think of what I could accomplish if I really narrowed my focus down, but of couse I think I'm happier the way I am.
Same here! I can't focus on only one thing and when I have really tried to do so I have been miserable and less capable of doing good work on that "One" thing. I for one need all the other interests in order to really do anything interesting in my most favorite activities. Perhaps a continuation of that story would be that many would become worse at doing a single thing simply because there was no other influences/interests in their life.
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Ah! I think this explains why I can't stop thinking about Ej-Es...
Another fascinating and thought provoking idea well executed by Ms. Kress. Thanks Steve!
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I wonder how one selects what item they are going to fixate on. He didn't seem to have any paticular interest in running prior, but once he was exposed he began to have an interest in running shoes. That would be horrible to be obsessed with something you really weren't interested in.
Well, while you can't help but become obsessed, it does seem that it does go along with your interests, Alan fixates on his science, the girl on chess, the wife on her flowers and the narrator on... not being obsessed on one thing, if we are supposed to assume that he has caught the disease by the end of the story (which I base on the fact that he's becoming more and more extreme in his day to day activities and not trying to do anything to help his wife). They don't seem particularly happy or unhappy, presumably because emotions would count as static.
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Hey! The first story that I've read before hearing it on EP (yeah, spot the magazine subscriber slight newb).
I'm feeling a bit "bashed over the head" by Nancy Kress at the moment - Just read "Fountain of Age" and "By Fools Like Me" in concurrent Asimovs. "Nano Comes to Clifford Falls" was one of the first EPs I listened to, leaving an impact in my Media History. She seems to be everywhere.
I don't deny her talent in parable telling, but I find her multiple outlooks for humanity so grim. Sure, I'm a cynic - there are days I'm bashing my head on the desk at the stupidity of humanity - but I've always felt our science is way too advanced to let a "one sided event" not be balanced by the other side of the science equation. The same with our cultural, religious and societal resources. We're not about to allow ourselves to degenerate back to the state of Medieval Days/Primative Man just coz we screwed up our environment/economy.
Part of the reason I came to EP was to experience new SF&F. I don't deny that the "core" writers are good - they're in this little circle for a reason. But I'd like to hear more variety when it comes to writers. I honestly thought "Oh crikey, not another lecture on the failings of humanity from Ms Kress" when I saw this week's offering.
So yah...moar varyetee plzktnx.
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Just didn't think any chessplayer still uses the old Descriptive chess notation (Pawn to King 4 or 1.P-K4) instead of the algebraic chess notation (1.e4). Guess I was wrong ;-)
This is one of those things that I think will never die because it's become pervasive among the general public. When I learned chess notation 20 years ago, the old-skool system was considered totally archaic. I have never seen any chess player use anything other than algebraic notation.* Yet I don't remember ever seeing algebraic notation used in fiction, because "Pawn to King 4" conveys chessness to the non-chessplaying population.
My theory: chess is used as a metaphor in fiction primarily by non-chessplayers as "mood music". (This much makes sense. Even a story written by chessplayers for a chessplaying audience can't make 32...g6 33 Nf6+! meaningful without a diagram.) To them, the music sounds better with a less geeky notation. But only non-players could romanticize chess as much. These are the authors who portray two players locked in a titanic struggle... that immediately collapses with white checkmating black in a single move, that black didn't see coming. Players never resign, and there's never a sense of a cornered player desperately searching for a way out of a protracted, crushing end-game.
To drag this comment back on-topic (before I sound too obsessional about chess misrepresentation), I thought the end-game metaphor worked well in this story. The narrator knew what his end would be, he knew that it had been settled by a move that he had overlooked a long time ago, and he knew that all he had left were a few small gestures that would only drag things out a bit longer, but he wasn't the type to resign until all his options were gone. That's a realistic chess end-game.
* Addendum: Wikipedia says that descriptive notation was still "sporadically used as recently as the 1980s or 1990s". Hmm.
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Part of the reason I came to EP was to experience new SF&F. I don't deny that the "core" writers are good - they're in this little circle for a reason. But I'd like to hear more variety when it comes to writers. I honestly thought "Oh crikey, not another lecture on the failings of humanity from Ms Kress" when I saw this week's offering.
So yah...moar varyetee plzktnx.
There are 125 stories and a bunch of flash, and only a small number are by Ms. Kress. I think you won't have any problem finding a "varyetee" if you look.
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You are correct.
EP is not my only source for fiction - as I said, there's a core select of writers who turn up in the major magazines all the time. When you start getting "bunches" of this core in every outlet you consume, is does tend to make the industry seem a little insular.
I'm going to go away and do a little counting/statistic. Be back soon.
*edit* ok, back with my counting :)
Since I started listening to EP in July 2006 there have been 43 individual writers featured.
Of them:
Mike Resnick has had 5 stories (28/9/06, 30/11/06, 8/2/07. 12/4/07, 14/6/07)
Nancy Kress has had 4 stories (12/10/06, 23/11/06, 26/7/07, 27/9/07)
Robert Silverberg has had 3 stories (28/12/06, 15/2/06, 5/7/07)
Pete Butler has had 3 stories (7/9/06, 3/5/07, 7/6/07)
Tobias Buckwell has had 3 stories (3/8/06, 31/8/06, 14/12/06)
Mur Lafferty, Jeffry DeRago, Tim Pratt, Stephen Deadman, Kevin J Anderson, David Barr Kirtley, James Trimarco, Kay Kenyon, Ramona Louise Wheeler, and Heather Lindsley have all had 2 stories.
Looking at the evidence, you think I'd be saying "There's too much Mike Resnick!" However, I have no problems being bashed over the head with optimism ;)
I don't mind multiple stories from same author, so long as they're spread out over a matter of months. 4-6 months ideal.
For example, Tobias Buckwell had two stories within the month of August 2006; Nancy Kress' stories have been within 5 weeks and 8 weeks of each other respectively; Kay Kenyon had two stories within the month of Feb 2007; Mike Resnick's stories this year have been within 2 months of each other.
Let me riterate - I am not bagging, bitching or bashing. I am merely making the point that EP combined with other outlets for these authors tend to make subjective "clumps". I'm not asking Steve to be in the pockets of other outlets to check who's publishing on a monthly basis, just that their stories are spread out more evenly, further apart (barring special months eg: Hugos etc).
Thanks for listening to me ramble.
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Just didn't think any chessplayer still uses the old Descriptive chess notation (Pawn to King 4 or 1.P-K4) instead of the algebraic chess notation (1.e4). Guess I was wrong ;-)
My theory: chess is used as a metaphor in fiction primarily by non-chessplayers as "mood music". (This much makes sense. Even a story written by chessplayers for a chessplaying audience can't make 32...g6 33 Nf6+! meaningful without a diagram.) To them, the music sounds better with a less geeky notation. But only non-players could romanticize chess as much. These are the authors who portray two players locked in a titanic struggle... that immediately collapses with white checkmating black in a single move, that black didn't see coming. Players never resign, and there's never a sense of a cornered player desperately searching for a way out of a protracted, crushing end-game.
Sorry to be off topic, but this reminded me of the portrayal of poker in movies and TV. We're supposed to think some guy is a poker genius because he takes the pot with a full house. A poker genius would take the pot with a pair of deuces. And I don't even play poker.
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There was also superfocus in Greg Egan's novel Permutation City. People had downloaded themselves into a virtual reality and were basically living forever. One guy programmed his own personality to become obsessed with something random for hundreds of years at a time. He would spend weeks at in his workshop making thousands and thousands of table legs and no tables. Then one day he throws them all away and starts practicing the violin.
In this case he absolutely loved working on what he was obsessed with. The zombie-like nature of the focused in "End Game" implies that they are unhappy, but I've seen my musician friends become unresponsive zombies when they are playing.
In most stories when people are promised that they would be happier if they would just submit to some kind of treatment, we know it's obviously a bad idea. Like the Borg or Scientologists. But what if it's not, and how would you know the difference beforehand? I guess in these two cases the treatment involves surrendering your individuality, which we (westerners, anyway) find abhorrent in itself. Although they lose much of their personality, the focused in "End Game" still seem to be individuals.
I'm not really arguing in favor of being super focused. Just throwing these thoughts out there.
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Part of the reason I came to EP was to experience new SF&F. I don't deny that the "core" writers are good - they're in this little circle for a reason. But I'd like to hear more variety when it comes to writers. I honestly thought "Oh crikey, not another lecture on the failings of humanity from Ms Kress" when I saw this week's offering.
So yah...moar varyetee plzktnx.
I agree. I love seeing a Nancy Kress or Resnick piece is up, but I REALLY get excited when it's a story from someone I've never heard of. It's exciting to have no idea what I'm in store for, and I like that Steve has good taste so I know it probablly won't be a dud. In general I think EP brings a good deal of diversity to the table and I love that, but the more new names/styles and ideas the better!
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Great story. Because the condition can make one focus on a subject or task, can it make one focus on a person or an organization? I'm thinking of 'Fatal Attraction' to the extreme, or perhaps a cult that incorporates the drug into its brainwashing procedure.
Regarding chess notation, algebraic notation (e4) is much more commonly used than descriptive notation (P-K4); however descriptive notation is still understood by most chess players, and even preferred by a few. Some chess players slip in and out of algebraic and descriptive notation when describing lines to someone else, much the same way a group of bilinguals may slip in and out of the two languages within a single conversation.
As a chess player, I thought the chess references in the story were well done. The openings referred to were real, and the short discussion of ELO ratings was accurate. I appreciate that the author took the time to make sure the details were correct. Many times chess references are done badly in fiction, with obvious mistakes made such as the board being set up incorrectly.
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Great story. Because the condition can make one focus on a subject or task, can it make one focus on a person or an organization? I'm thinking of 'Fatal Attraction' to the extreme, or perhaps a cult that incorporates the drug into its brainwashing procedure.
To mention Greg Egan twice in one thread, something like this (and its major pitfall) was explored as a minor plot point in his novel Quarantine.
(I usually find that if I have an idea for a science fiction story that seems interesting and novel to me, it doesn't take long to rule it out as already explored better by Asimov, Niven or Egan (in that order). :( )
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My thanks to Nancy Kress.
Not just because she wrote a thought provoking story with a fresh new twist on the "life improving science - that gets out of hand and leads to our demise" theme.
No, I also thank her because she has allowed me to use the following geek signature file and have it hold even the slightest chance of relevancy.
Thanks Ms. Kress.
Oh, and I was always too easily distracted to destroy the world. Somehow, it keeps getting bumped to the very bottom of my to do list. ;)
Gary
- National Winner, 41st Annual Westinghouse Science Talent Search.
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Just didn't think any chessplayer still uses the old Descriptive chess notation (Pawn to King 4 or 1.P-K4) instead of the algebraic chess notation (1.e4). Guess I was wrong ;-)
Heh. Fair enough; I thought you were trying to tell me it wasn't valid or comprehensible. The reason I said it that way, BTW, was only because it sounded better in the "It's story time..." context than "e2 e4."
I play d4 (P-Q4), by the way...
Isn't that d5 if you're playing black?
In any case: e4 x d5
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I play d4 (P-Q4), by the way...
Isn't that d5 if you're playing black?
In any case: e4 x d5
Ah, I thought you meant to ask what I play as white. But let's make this a game ;-)
You played
1.e4
I play
1. ... c5
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On second thought, let's make this a community game.
I started a thread here (http://forum.escapeartists.info/index.php?topic=1105.0)
Everybody who is interested can make a move and we'll see what kind of chess game results from this.
And if Steve or anybody else would like to play a correspondence game via the forums against me 1-on-1 I would only be too happy to oblige ;-)
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An interesting study on noise (in the signal-noise sense of End Game) in the functioning of the brain came out this summer. Here's a write-up [http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/noisy-brain-0604.html] from MIT. In behavioral neuroscience, there is a growing body of work supporting the idea that "noise" is actually one of the primary ways neural networks (and the brain) learn. In this respect, a treatment/drug that cuts the noise would also cut most meaningful brain activity!
Strong, believable characters, and interesting conflicts make this yet another Kress story I thank Steve for selecting. Also, I don't understand the concerns over repeat-authors on EP: a good story is a good story. It's not like this is the fourth crap story from a frequently-crappy author. Why complain about hearing another good story from a good author?
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Wow, that was really good. And... scary.
I've always been wary of using drugs to try to get people to think "the right way" - be it treating ADHD, or depression, or whatnot. I recognize that it might be what many people need to function, and I don't hold it against them... it's just that looking at history so many great artwork and other accomplishments were done by people who today would be diagnosed and treated in an attempt to make them like everyone else. In this story, someone is trying to take normal people and make their brains work in a less normal way - and that's not any better.
I would argue that those who suffer from depression and other mental illnesses and contribute great works of art or other accomplishments do so in spite of their illness, not because of it. I'm also not so sure that treating mental illnesses is an attempt to make sufferers 'like everyone else'. I think most of the time it is an attempt to alleviate real suffering caused by a real illness.
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It's always seemed to me that there should be some way of letting autistic people put their unique skills to use.
Some people with autism have put their unique skill to use. Temple Grandin, for one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin)
I also remember reading a book, I believe it was 'Robert Wilson and Friends', that told of the theater/performance artist Robert Wilson and how he incorporated text from a young man with autism [Christopher Knowles] into some of his performances.
There are many other examples.
Fictionally of course there is the wonderful use Tom Cruise's character had Dustin Hoffman's character put his autistic-savant talents to in 'Rain Man', too.
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Strong, believable characters, and interesting conflicts make this yet another Kress story I thank Steve for selecting. Also, I don't understand the concerns over repeat-authors on EP: a good story is a good story. It's not like this is the fourth crap story from a frequently-crappy author. Why complain about hearing another good story from a good author?
I agree - Steve chooses very strong writers.
However, my concern is that some writers have...hmmm, the word I'm looking for is not "agenda", more a common theme. They can write good stories within that theme. I've always felt that the best writers take one theme, explore it for one story, then challenge themselves and move on to another theme.
Ms Kress' theme, in all of her stories I've heard and read, is "the end of life as we know it through science gone bad". I'd be pleased to hear other stories from her career that explore other ideas.
Here's an example particular to me - I am a HUGE Anne McCaffrey fan. She will always be my favourite writer - I will always love her Pern and Crystal Singer books. However, I didn't have the same connection to series like the "PTB", "Freedom" and "Acorna" books because there was a feeling of sameness in her themes (female freedom fighters, lost worlds in search of redemption).
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When I heard "...wrote ej-es..." my thought was "ugh". But I really liked this one. Not so preachy, a little dark. It would actually be kind of liberating to be "infected" with a one track mind. As a work-at-home illustrator & mom of two elementary school kids, "static" is my constant companion!
OK, after reading through the comments, I had to edit mine. "Nano comes to Clifford Falls" was one of my very favorite EP stories, but I think a lot of that had to do with the narrator. But "ej-es"...
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Ej-es was one of my top 3 fav episodes out of all 120 or so I've heard. Yay for different opionions!
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However, my concern is that some writers have...hmmm, the word I'm looking for is not "agenda", more a common theme. They can write good stories within that theme. I've always felt that the best writers take one theme, explore it for one story, then challenge themselves and move on to another theme.
Ms Kress' theme, in all of her stories I've heard and read, is "the end of life as we know it through science gone bad". I'd be pleased to hear other stories from her career that explore other ideas.
I think most writers have a point of view, and that probably comes across in the themes of their stories. I find that most writers I think of have common themes running through most of their work. I'm not sure that I agree with you about Kress's theme. I see her writing more about the unforseen effects of science - both positive and negative - on society and relationships. I value her writing because she has a very sharp eye for how normal people react to the abnormal and a strong feel for how interpersonal relationships work. While this story is a cautionary tale, I wouldn't necessarilly consider the creation of the Sleepless in her trilogy beginning with Beggars in Spain to be science gone bad per se. I saw it as science with lots of unseen ramifications, on both the pro and con levels. That's just my two cents, of course.
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I think most writers have a point of view, and that probably comes across in the themes of their stories. I find that most writers I think of have common themes running through most of their work. I'm not sure that I agree with you about Kress's theme. I see her writing more about the unforseen effects of science - both positive and negative - on society and relationships. I value her writing because she has a very sharp eye for how normal people react to the abnormal and a strong feel for how interpersonal relationships work. While this story is a cautionary tale, I wouldn't necessarilly consider the creation of the Sleepless in her trilogy beginning with Beggars in Spain to be science gone bad per se. I saw it as science with lots of unseen ramifications, on both the pro and con levels. That's just my two cents, of course.
Czhorat, I'm so glad you said this. I agree with you: obviously the author has a point of view. However, often what people see as the theme may have more to do with their own point of view than with the author's. We all bring ourselves to what we read. I, like you, did not see "science gone bad" as the overriding theme of either this piece, "Ej-Es", "Nano comes to Clifford Falls" (which I didn't care for, btw) or the one about the sisters (whose title escapes me at the moment). It's not that I think "science gone bad" isn't a theme in her work, but I don't think it's the overriding message, nor the sharp-sticked point other commenters seem to make of it. I (like you) was also thinking of Beggars in Spain as a counterexample to people's insistence that Kress' futures are invariably dystopian.
Personally, I see the major theme as "guns don't kill people, people do" only s/guns/techs. I also see a pattern of unintended consequences as a major recurring motif in her work (a motif that I enjoy in fiction). I think there's textual evidence for both of my assertions in the work, but I wouldn't presume to say either was Kress' central point when she wrote the pieces. That's just what I got out of what she wrote.
As general commentary, I must say I'm a little tired of the autistic/asperger's person as focal character in recent SF, though I've read a number of pieces where it was very well done ("Inappropriate Behavior" by Pat Murphy comes to mind), but I'm assuming it's a phase and this too will pass before it drives me to distraction. I'm also a bit done with the India/Nepal stuff viewed through the western lens (Ian McDonald comes to mind, though he's not alone in this sandbox), but that's neither here nor there.
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I agree. I love seeing a Nancy Kress or Resnick piece is up, but I REALLY get excited when it's a story from someone I've never heard of. It's exciting to have no idea what I'm in store for, and I like that Steve has good taste so I know it probablly won't be a dud. In general I think EP brings a good deal of diversity to the table and I love that, but the more new names/styles and ideas the better!
I'd like to second (or third) this sentiment. Although I love the stories from well-established authors, the ones that really stay with me (and my hard drive) are the ones by people I'd never read before (some people I'd heard good things about, but hadn't gone the extra step of reading their stuff). Among the authors Escape Pod has introduced me to are: Sarah Prineas, Greg Van Eekhout (though maybe I'd already read his "Tales from the City of Seams" when I heard his "Airedale" here...I can't recall), Samantha Henderson and Sue Burke. I also discovered some great new authors (such as Rachel Swirsky, Ann Leckie, Cat Rambo and Katherine Sparrow) through the Escape Pod Flash Contest. I know it's not Escape Pod's stated goal to bring new authors to me, but I love it best when it does. My amazing new authors itch doesn't get scratched a lot of other places, and I'm happy when it does here, especially since, as goatkeeper says, Steve's picks on less-widely-read authors are more often hits than misses for me.
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EP125: End Game (http://escapepod.org/2007/09/27/ep125-end-game)
By Nancy Kress (http://www.sff.net/people/nankress).
Read by Stephen Eley.
First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction (http://www.asimovs.com/), April 2007.
Really good story, edge of the seat job, kind of reminded me of a Tv SciFi show I saw last year, cant remember the name, about this guy who discovered violence in the world, was a virus, and discovered a cure for it, and dumped the cure in the drinking water everywhere, after a year, he discovered it also caused something like Alzheimers, and the whole world died.
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The is a well written story. The plot is believable and the characters seem real. I think the conversation with Alan while playing chess, although it gives us some depth to the characters, was unnecessary. I believe, IMHO, that it would have been better to have give more detail at the reunion, maybe even a quick flash back, to them playing chess showing that they had a relationship, but oterwise I don't think that it added enough to the story to have been given the time it was given.
Otherwise I had no problems with this piece.
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Wow, never thought of the 'down' side of having more focus (something I lack big time.) Still, I think it would be help me to take a leeetle bitsy blue 'focus' pill :)
Was also a great story for me, and interesting timing, as I have started to add many 'force focus' type applications to my computer (Macminder, Think, TimeOut, PageAddict, etc). Sometimes I really would like the option of being distracted *taken away* from me by force...but this adds a new thoughtful twist to that desire.
Thanks again!
-Leif
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I enjoyed this one quite a lot. Strong characters, an intriguing premise, and a spooky ending made for a great story. I would have liked more development about how the formula was developed and transmitted, but the brief treatment did not take away from the impact of the story.
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I listened to this story again today on my way to work (because I got bored with Fred/wilma)
I really like this story. I think it says more about human vs robot qualities than Fred/Wilma.
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This story was a bit like a chameleon. At first I thought it about a mad scientist who would "tidy up" everyone's brain. Then I thought it was about chess as a metaphor for focus. Then I thought it was about contrasting the relationships of our protagonist with a) his ever more estranged wife and b) his mad scientist friend. Then I thought it was really about chess again, but I was pretty sure that was a ruse. And at last I find that it really is about the mad scientist who would "tidy up" everyone's brain!
The ending was profound. I hated that such gains to our society were to come at such cost!
This story reminds me of The Giving Plague (http://forum.escapeartists.info/index.php?topic=926.0), but I would rather altruism than autistic single minded focus. It also reminds me of Ej-Es (http://forum.escapeartists.info/index.php?topic=966.msg14472;topicseen#msg14472): would you rather be smart or happy?
As the story rolled along, I found myself wondering whether the "static" of our thoughts was in some way analogous to a computer OS having multiple concurrent threads. While thinking multiple thoughts at the same time allows us to get distracted, doesn't it also open us up to multiple inputs, any of which could contain the key to our main thought at the time? I am thinking about driving or playing a computer game. We do have a sense of focus, but we need the ability to manage multiple inputs at the same time in order to perform either task well.
Off on another tangent, I find distinct pleasure when I can engage myself separately on two levels at the same time. Driving while running through some programming task in my brain: running both tasks at the same time engages completely different aspects of my concentration and seems to allow both to run smoothly. Physical work while listening to a podcast. Both are engaging tasks by themselves, and both seem to engage completely separate parts of my body, allowing the other to go ahead and do its thing!
Anyway, what was I talking about?
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This one had a lot interesting ideas. Particularly that huge scientific advancements could be made by these individuals, but they'd be unable to do anything else. Hyper-specialization to the point that even basic activities like hygiene are left by the wayside in favor of productivity. Depth over breadth, that is.
These guys kind of reminded me of Leonard of Quirm in Pratchett's Discworld series (very much a Leonardo Da Vinci parallel). If you lock him in a room with paper and a pen and some supplies, and by lunchtime he'll have some fantastic invention, a new kind of vehicle or something, and then in the margins of the papers he has doodled some kind of super-catapault that can launch larger rocks faster than ever before--"it's all just an exercise on the use of leverage, of course." he might say. "It wouldn't be of any real use in real life."
I went to school with some of these guys. Some engineering students are very much this way.
Unfortunately, I felt it was too similar to Stephen King's "The End of the Whole Mess." I'm assuming the ideas spawned separately from the zeitgeist, and though they're not identical, they're probably at least fraternal siblings.