Escape Artists
Escape Pod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Russell Nash on June 13, 2008, 10:36:33 AM
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EP162: God Juice (http://escapepod.org/2008/06/12/ep162-god-juice/)
By M.K. Hobson (http://www.demimonde.com/).
Read by Christiana Ellis (of Christiana’s Shallow Thoughts (http://shallowthoughts.libsyn.com/)).
First appeared in Polyphony 6 (http://www.wheatlandpress.com/polyphony/index.html), ed. Deborah Layne and Jay Lake.
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“I wish to give you the opportunity to purchase a very valuable artifact from the great age of Ja’ardi civilization,” he said. “We stole it from a rival tribe, who revered it as possessing divine powers. I am prepared to offer it to you at a very reasonable price.”
I rolled my eyes. If I had a nickel for every time someone tried to sell me an artifact with divine powers … Zhee must have seen the eyeroll, for he hastened to add:
“It is reputed to bestow upon its owner the ability to create flowing rivers of God Juice.”
I tilted my head slightly to see if some sense might roll downhill from his words. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” I said, sucking on the wedge of flesh-colored fruit, “But isn’t God Juice the stuff that caused your civilization to collapse?”
Zhee shifted, scratching the back of his head. “Well … yes.”
Rated R. Contains strong language and sexual tomfoolery.
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Listen to this week’s Escape Pod! (http://media.rawvoice.com/escapepod/media.libsyn.com/media/escapepod/EP162_GodJuice.mp3)
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It grew on me.
I didn't like the story at first; the setting, the character, her voice, and even the narration. But as I got comfortable with the story and got a few laughs out of it, I started to enjoy it more. The reader found her voice, there was more dialogue and more humor, and the story got more exciting.
The story itself was fairly straightforward -- no real twists, no real new ground covered, but then, in an adventure story, do you really WANT new ground, or do you just want adventure? I think the author did a good job building the universe without getting into a lot of exposition.
I feel like there were unanswered questions about Trumbull's luck -- was it her material empathy that led to that, or her brush with God Juice, or what?
Am I the only person who, when I hear something along the lines of "like what we did to our planet 1000 years ago", I cringe at the social-consciousness-forcedness of it? Or am I sensitized to it because I work in news.
Anyway, not my favorite story, not my favorite type of story, but it wasn't bad.
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I loved the reading on this!!! And, in my opinion, it saved what would have otherwise been a lukewarm story. Am I the only one that thought of World of Warcraft's Draenei race when listening to Christiana's accents?
As for the story itself, it was okay, but suffers from a rather weak and rushed ending. I like that the protagonist heroine was very gritty and believably hard-boiled. The setting was raw and the world was nicely developed. The whole "God Juice saves the planet" thing at the end just sounded too magically sweeping to me.
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I loved the reading on this!!! And, in my opinion, it saved what would have otherwise been a lukewarm story. Am I the only one that thought of World of Warcraft's Draenei race when listening to Christiana's accents?
As for the story itself, it was okay, but suffers from a rather weak and rushed ending. I like that the protagonist heroine was very gritty and believably hard-boiled. The setting was raw and the world was nicely developed. The whole "God Juice saves the planet" thing at the end just sounded too magically sweeping to me.
I second yicheng's comments. I'd like to add that it was jarring having such a strong woman (a freakin' Amazon!) melt down so quickly for Zhee at the end. And having Zhee go from being an anthropology-apprentice man-whore to sage, God-juice-wielding savior of the planet: a bit too abrupt to believe the protagonist's sudden and complete faith in him.
Overall, I loved this story, though. A tad slow to start, and quick to end, but excellent writing and a great narration!
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I loved the reading on this!!! And, in my opinion, it saved what would have otherwise been a lukewarm story. Am I the only one that thought of World of Warcraft's Draenei race when listening to Christiana's accents?
Maybe not, but having never played WoW, I can't say I'm with you on this. :)
Not one of the best stories I've heard on EP, but I enjoyed the ride.
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The story was okay, enjoyable but not anything special. I liked the narrator, I think she did a fair bit to add to the experience.
I listened to a previous podcast here about a man-whore who spent all his time rubbing his excretions into food not too long ago and combined with this one I'd like to ask for a moratorium on stories about people lapping up each other's fluids for awhile. Seems like hookers are the last people you should be drinking the juices of. Big yuck factor.
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It's good to know that far in the future, the Texas Hold Em fad will still be around.
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Not a bad little adventure yarn. I compliment the reader for this piece.
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Great choice of readers. If you liked Christiana in this, check out Space Casey.
The story was good. Not great, but good. No complaints.
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It was an ok light story. The thing that popped out at me most was that I thought it was really out of character for the protagonist to throw her hand in the poker game. I mean, her god-juice stud was still going to be around later, wasn't he?
By the way, where was this sexual tomfoolery we were promised? I didn't see any, which made me sad. :(
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I think everyone's already voiced my thoughts on the story. All I can add is "ooooh, sick burn!" regarding Steve's closing jab at The Kingdom of Crystal Skull.
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A bit of a let down from M.K. Hobson's other stories on Podcastle, IMO. It had the feeling like it was part of a series, and not the best part, either. But it kept me entertained and interested, so I can't complain too much.
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Am I the only person who, when I hear something along the lines of "like what we did to our planet 1000 years ago", I cringe at the social-consciousness-forcedness of it? Or am I sensitized to it because I work in news.
I thought it was part of the reversed "Great White Hunter and His Noble Native Assistant" trope that the author played for laughs throughout the story. Instead of a Moment of Silence for a Great Lost Civilization it was, "Oh yeah, us, too..." At least that's how I heard it.
I think you only get to blame "working in news" as the source of your sensitivity if you're working for Bill O'Riley.... ::)
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I liked this story a lot. OK, it didn't have profound concepts relating to the human condition or thought-provoking insights, but it was one of the funniest things I've heard in a while. Sort of Allan Quatermain played backwards by Sigourney Weaver and sponsored by The Poker Channel.
As to the ending, I didn't think she was actually all that convinced God-Juice Boy was going to "use his power wisely" (why should he be different?) as it was a way to show how crushed out on him she was.
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I thought this was an ok story, the first part wasnt very good but it got a little better later on, my main problem was the reading, a really good reader or just someone who seemed to care could have done much for the story instead all of the weaknesses came to the front.
My one word review : Meh
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I think the narrator's reading gained a lot of strength when she hit on the characters' individual voices. The story was light and funny, in a drained dust-bowl cowgirl kind of way. And it got me thinking, no one really talks about aging amazons who play poker and run pawn shops. Original. I like that. Some of the details also cracked me up. "Shit-brown eyes" at the end of a string of praising descriptions, and the "gold covered hockey puck"... They emphasized the main character, and how, no matter what was going on, she still thought of things in simple, down-to-earth terms.
The ending was a little weak, a little predictable, but I can forgive that since the rest of it kept me smiling.
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I liked this story. But it was a ripoff of one of Ray Bradbury's stories and it wouldn't have been sci-fi if our heroine had two bewbies instead of three bewbies. ;)
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I don't know if I felt more like I was listening to a story written in retaliation to the latest Raiders as Steve inferred or someone's writing assignment after a long weekend of watching World Poker Tour and the Naked Archaeologist.
The reading was good and the story had flow... substance not so much. As with others the ending just landed. Maybe the word limit was reached in the writing assignment, I'm not sure.
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I liked this story. But it was a ripoff of one of Ray Bradbury's stories and it wouldn't have been sci-fi if our heroine had two bewbies instead of three bewbies. ;)
I believe our heroine had two. The slut on the bordello flyer had three.
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I liked this story. But it was a ripoff of one of Ray Bradbury's stories and it wouldn't have been sci-fi if our heroine had two bewbies instead of three bewbies. ;)
I believe our heroine had two. The slut on the bordello flyer had three.
Doh! My dog must have been barking during that part.
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I feel I must object to the statement where one of the characters was said to have a Belgian accent. In no way was this accent Belgian at all, more like Slavic. I think some effort should have been made to find out what a Belgian accent is like. There are both Flemish Belgian and Walloon Belgian accents. Flemish accents are similar to South African, while Walloon accents are very similar to French.
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Yeah, that's often a problem when the person reading a story isn't able to accurately reproduce a called-for accent. I don't know if there's a good solution, other than having Steve send all prospective EP readers for several months of intensive training with voice coaches in any appropriate country or region.
I would applaud such a move, if it wasn't patently ridiculous. At the very least, it would prevent things like Wichita Rutherford's reading of Head of State, in which one character laments that everyone will think him too obviously Russian, while simultaneously sounding like he's never left Tennessee. That took me out of the story, somewhat.
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Oh yeah, I thought the Shallow Thought at the end was good, too.
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I should not have liked this story, but I did. I quite liked the aging Amazon heroine, and the narration. Very entertaining, with odd little twists here and there, and a soupçon of Noir.
(http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h172/Crychon/Misc%20Stuff/DaleCooperThumbsUpcopy.jpg) (http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h172/Crychon/Misc%20Stuff/DaleCooperThumbsUpcopy.jpg)
Yeah, that's often a problem when the person reading a story isn't able to accurately reproduce a called-for accent. I don't know if there's a good solution, other than having Steve send all prospective EP readers for several months of intensive training with voice coaches in any appropriate country or region.
Failing that, this might be a good place to start: The Speech Accent Archive, at http://accent.gmu.edu/
It's a collection of recordings (909 of them, to date) of people from all over the world reciting the same paragraph in English, no matter what their first language is. Browse by native language, or by geographical region. You can find out if you're at least in the ballpark.
Here's the text that they read:
Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station.
It gets kind of surreal hearing it a dozen or more times.
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I feel I must object to the statement where one of the characters was said to have a Belgian accent. In no way was this accent Belgian at all, more like Slavic. I think some effort should have been made to find out what a Belgian accent is like. There are both Flemish Belgian and Walloon Belgian accents. Flemish accents are similar to South African, while Walloon accents are very similar to French.
for all you know she could have tried a Belgian accent and was simply not able to do it. some people cant occilate their voice as much as others. Give Ms. Ellis a break :) (sorry if its Mrs. but i like the sound of Ms. better haha) i dont think a story should be ruined just because the accent wasnt nailed. if you were reading it and didnt know a belgian accent, chances are you'd substitute whatever accent in your mind while reading it, and maybe... MAYBE... find out afterwards.
anyways, i enjoyed the story. I found it odd that poker is still around in the far distant future on another planet... but i can let these things slide. for a moment, i was thinking the whore who took out the whip (pronounced whhhhhip :)) was going to go all dominatrix for added sexual weirdness, and i was put off by the prospect. but the fact that she was just saving Trumbull made me relieved haha.
the addition of the licking of the armpit seemed unnecessary, more like an excuse to have sex mixed with sci fi and future and aliens reinforced...
and the constant use of "said juice from said artifact" and "one might do what one pleases for ones own one-ness" annoyed me a little bit, but seemed to be a ... (loss of wording... damn cant think of it) property? (no) of her everyday speech pattern (my IPU, i cant think of how to say it right! someone please correct me... you get what i'm saying tho right?)
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The story was, while not boring, completely forgettable.
There were a number of flaws, and I was just never sold on the world. So, it's essentially Las Vegas, set on an alien world for no good reason. They messed up the biosphere, so it's only of interest to archeologists and... gamblers? You mean people take interstellar space-flights here to just for casinos that look and sound exactly like old Earth ones? I know this is a fluff piece, but come on! Not buying the setting makes loosing yourself in the story a lot harder.
The character was pretty good though, and there were a number of chuckles.
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I should not have liked this story, but I did. I quite liked the aging Amazon heroine, and the narration. Very entertaining, with odd little twists here and there, and a soupçon of Noir.
(http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h172/Crychon/Misc%20Stuff/DaleCooperThumbsUpcopy.jpg) (http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h172/Crychon/Misc%20Stuff/DaleCooperThumbsUpcopy.jpg)
Two Kyle MacLachlans up? That's a new rating system for me. *grin*
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and the constant use of "said juice from said artifact" and "one might do what one pleases for ones own one-ness" annoyed me a little bit, but seemed to be a ... (loss of wording... damn cant think of it) property? (no) of her everyday speech pattern (my IPU, i cant think of how to say it right! someone please correct me... you get what i'm saying tho right?)
I actually liked that bit of it. I like to play with language when I'm writing for humorous effect, and I appreciated it in the story.
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So, if I'm understanding the heroine's motivations correctly, having lots of money and a spirit for adventure, and now coming into possession of an artifact that can give her god-like powers (when combined with a native man), she:
A. Firms up the boobies.
B. Gives the artifact to the guy to fix and repair his world, apparently having no more interest in god-like powers.
Now, I'm not criticizing the motivation, or the thought that using your powers as a fountain of youth wouldn't be the first thing I'd do, too, but why doesn't the story end with the heroine and the native walking -- arm over shoulder -- into the sunset, saying, Casablanca style, "With my brains and your sweaty pits, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship"?
The heroine is adventurous, forward-thinking, and bold. Her story should be a tale that begins with sagging rump and ends with taut bod.
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Two Kyle MacLachlans up? That's a new rating system for me. *grin*
Two out of how many?
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Two Kyle MacLachlans up? That's a new rating system for me. *grin*
Two out of how many?
It has always been my understanding that there is no theoretical maximum to the number of Kyle MacLachlans.
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Two Kyle MacLachlans up? That's a new rating system for me. *grin*
Two out of how many?
It has always been my understanding that there is no theoretical maximum to the number of Kyle MacLachlans.
Well, there are 29 McLachlans in a Prochnow, and 17 Prochnows makes a single Stewart, so that may help your math a little.
Bonus points to anyone who gets the numeric and unit reference mashup.
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Well, there are 29 McLachlans in a Prochnow, and 17 Prochnows makes a single Stewart, so that may help your math a little.
Bonus points to anyone who gets the numeric and unit reference mashup.
Other than the "Dune" movie connection for the names, and the numbers being the tenth and seventh prime numbers, I got nuttin' yet. ???
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After listening to the story, and thinking back to Steve's intro, I decided that the first half of the story was actually quite a lot better than the second half. Not that the second half was bad, but, as pointed out, things wrapped up awfully neatly awfully fast and both the protagonist and Zee seemed to have undergone a rather abrupt earnestness injection.
Still, an enjoyable adventure story.
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I liked this story. But it was a ripoff of one of Ray Bradbury's stories and it wouldn't have been sci-fi if our heroine had two bewbies instead of three bewbies. ;)
I believe our heroine had two. The slut on the bordello flyer had three.
I believe said slut was actually one of the rotating displays on said herione's t-shirt, which may be where the confusion came in... :o
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I liked this story. But it was a ripoff of one of Ray Bradbury's stories and it wouldn't have been sci-fi if our heroine had two bewbies instead of three bewbies. ;)
I believe our heroine had two. The slut on the bordello flyer had three.
I believe said slut was actually one of the rotating displays on said herione's t-shirt, which may be where the confusion came in... :o
Right, I believe you are correct. I just remember a three-titted slut on some bordello advertisement; the precise nature of the advertisment had escaped me.
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Well, there are 29 McLachlans in a Prochnow, and 17 Prochnows makes a single Stewart, so that may help your math a little.
Bonus points to anyone who gets the numeric and unit reference mashup.
Other than the "Dune" movie connection for the names, and the numbers being the tenth and seventh prime numbers, I got nuttin' yet. ???
"Dune" is correct. The other is technically true, but not what I was aiming for. Keep guessing... :)
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Failing that, this might be a good place to start: The Speech Accent Archive, at http://accent.gmu.edu/
Whoa, that site is awesome. Thanks for sharing.
I loved the story- it had me cracking up. The line about the controlling father who was a brain wired to a computer was priceless.
I thought the read really brought it to life too. It's subjective of course, but I've heard accents that were spot on that still distracted me from the story. If it works in the context of everything it doesn't bother me if it's not perfect- as long as it's not really bad.
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Well, there are 29 McLachlans in a Prochnow, and 17 Prochnows makes a single Stewart, so that may help your math a little.
Bonus points to anyone who gets the numeric and unit reference mashup.
Other than the "Dune" movie connection for the names, and the numbers being the tenth and seventh prime numbers, I got nuttin' yet. ???
"Dune" is correct. The other is technically true, but not what I was aiming for. Keep guessing... :)
Hmmm... so a Stewart would be a Patrick Stewart (a.k.a. Gurney Halleck)?
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Well, there are 29 McLachlans in a Prochnow, and 17 Prochnows makes a single Stewart, so that may help your math a little.
Bonus points to anyone who gets the numeric and unit reference mashup.
Other than the "Dune" movie connection for the names, and the numbers being the tenth and seventh prime numbers, I got nuttin' yet. ???
"Dune" is correct. The other is technically true, but not what I was aiming for. Keep guessing... :)
Hmmm... so a Stewart would be a Patrick Stewart (a.k.a. Gurney Halleck)?
Yep. But the other part (the numbers) has nothing to do with "Dune".
Here's a hint to the other part:
7/13, 7/21
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So, if I'm understanding the heroine's motivations correctly, having lots of money and a spirit for adventure, and now coming into possession of an artifact that can give her god-like powers (when combined with a native man), she:
A. Firms up the boobies.
B. Gives the artifact to the guy to fix and repair his world, apparently having no more interest in god-like powers.
That seemed to fit very well with what I understood of the narrator's character. She was someone who had been extremely successful partly through knowing her limits, accepting them and making the most of what she had. (I should listen to the story again and try to find references to back this up, but I'm not sure I'd find any. It's more an impression I got from her unflinchingly realistic appraisal of various situations, which seemed to extend to herself.) I would expect her reaction to be that god-like powers are for gods, and she didn't want anything to do with them.
Even more importantly, the God Juice wouldn't belong to her. One shot at it for a quick youth treatment is an earned reward for obtaining the puck and figuring out how to use it. She deserved that. Any future use of the God Juice would be in Zhee's gift, for him to bestow or withhold as he saw fit. Being the kept woman of a rich husband doesn't strike me as remotely palatable for her. I think it's a lesson she's been taught eight times...
Anyway, my biggest concern was when the introductory scene seemed to go on a long time but the story itself was long enough that it didn't overbalance it. And the wry tone of voice, the absurd set-ups and the repeated choice of the most farcical resolution to any given incident made the piece ultimately irresistible -- not nourishing for the soul, perhaps, but a very tasty treat.
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If Escape Pod exists to give us fun stories, then I think this one delivered. I had a good time listening to it, and it's probably my favorite reading of all the stuff we've from Christiana Ellis.
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I was a huge fan of this story; maybe not so much for the story itself, but because I simply loved the protagonist. She wasn't like the humorless-yet-sexy femme fatales that usually end up in this kind of story. She was big, fat, funny, and old. Although it wasn't completely unique, it was still very interesting.
Plus, the narration lended itself well to the characters.
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Pretty good tale. Like liked especially the voice actor whose intonation was spot on. The info dump at the beginning was somewhat tedious, but was dispensed with fairly quickly. That is about my only grief with "God Juice". Good fun.
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I'm fairly new to the whole podcast experience and I've really been enjoying the stories I've been listening to on Escape Pod.
I just had to comment about EP162: God Juice. I loved the protagonist in this story. I'm a middle-aged woman and I thought the author hit the nail on the head with her characterization of the aging Amazon. The narration was perfect too. Keep up the good work!
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I liked most of this story, especially the main character's internal monologue. I disliked the fall into Romance and the neat bow of an ending. Wouldn't any member of Zhee's people do? Why not the lady from Madame Lustbucket or the dealer?
I agree with the comments above that our Amazon would not have thrown a huge poker pot for a roll in the hay that could have taken place a few minutes later. At a 140+ and what 8 husbands, to end with a feeling that what our sexy, savvy, rich Amazon really wants is a good screw from Lawrence of Arabia in a tent after getting the guy high on mystic power so he becomes a God full of God Juice (ew!) seemed a little bit jarring.
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I liked most of this story, especially the main character's internal monologue. I disliked the fall into Romance and the neat bow of an ending. Wouldn't any member of Zhee's people do? Why not the lady from Madame Lustbucket or the dealer?
No, I think she stated in the end that only some of the species will, who have a particular genetic trait. Of course, that makes the whole premise a huge coincidence - she happened to fall in the arms of exactly the right person in exactly the right time - but I have a feeling that's deliberate.
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and the constant use of "said juice from said artifact" and "one might do what one pleases for ones own one-ness" annoyed me a little bit, but seemed to be a ... (loss of wording... damn cant think of it) property? (no) of her everyday speech pattern (my IPU, i cant think of how to say it right! someone please correct me... you get what i'm saying tho right?)
You aren't the only one this bothered. It drove me nuts. Once, or maybe twice is okay. This was overused in this story and really drove me nuts. It reminds me of my high school english teacher who would always mark me down for use of the "ambiguous you". He made us write like this story and I hated it. It just sounds un-natural.
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Kind of fun adventure, but I found the main character annoying and uninteresting. And the obligatory environmental message a little tired. Not enough interesting science fictiony stuff.
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I liked this story. But it was a ripoff of one of Ray Bradbury's stories and it wouldn't have been sci-fi if our heroine had two bewbies instead of three bewbies. ;)
I believe our heroine had two. The slut on the bordello flyer had three.
Doh! My dog must have been barking during that part.
He was talking... and telling you to look at the cool zeppelin! :P
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This story was okay. The protagonist was sometimes funny, but mostly she got on my nerves. It's fine to have an aging Amazon protagonist, but it just seemed like that was ALL she talked about sometimes. And someone upthread pointed out that it's weird to take interstellar trips to a gambling planet that mimics Las Vegas in pretty much every way. I could've done without the sweat-licking, especially so soon after hearing the other story about the man-whore with the tasty body fluids--yick.
Most of all, I just thought it was too long. If it were about half this length I think I wouldn't have had time to pick nits, but I was just waiting for it to get to the point.