Escape Artists

Escape Pod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Russell Nash on January 10, 2009, 12:54:32 PM

Title: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Russell Nash on January 10, 2009, 12:54:32 PM
EP186: Chrysalis (http://escapepod.org/2009/01/09/ep186-chrysalis/)

By Mary Robinette Kowal (http://maryrobinettekowal.com/).
Read by Cunning Minx (of Polyamory Weekly (http://polyweekly.com/)).

Sponsored by CONTAGIOUS (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307406318?ie=UTF8&tag=escapepod-20&creativeASIN=0307406318), by Scott Sigler.

People ask me if I ever get involved with the subjects of my documentaries. I have a difficult time imagining that they would ask my male colleagues the same question, but they seem to expect women to be more emotional. In response, I tend to grit my teeth and answer very patiently with another question. How could I do my job if I were part of the story? Only by maintaining a sacred distance could I have any hope of understanding someone’s life. A documentarian records, but does not participate.

Rated G. Contains alien emotional drama.

(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/41BP5PcLR4L._SL500_AA240_.jpg) (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307406318?ie=UTF8&tag=escapepod-20&creativeASIN=0307406318)

(http://escapepod.org/wp-images/podcast-mini4.gif)
Listen to this week’s Escape Pod! (http://media.rawvoice.com/escapepod/media.libsyn.com/media/escapepod/EP186_Chrysalis.mp3)
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: MacArthurBug on January 10, 2009, 03:33:56 PM
Very- strange and interestin. I, too, have felt like an outsider looking in (honestly, what geek hasn't?) during many times of my life. I understand the dilemma, and the question WAS asked well. I didn't love all the charactors drawn for this story, but I enjoyed the story. The reading was amazing. Minx has such a nice voice.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: contra on January 10, 2009, 08:33:47 PM
I liked it.  However the moment she then chose to get involved and change the story, she turned into Louis Theroux for some reason on my mind.
Good story.  didn't move me emotionally, but I enjoyed it greatly.

I don't know how I feel about documentary makers staying as observers.  The act and nature of the observation changes what is happening anyway.  So then trying to be an outside force and not effect the thing you have already changed and watch it like that, seems like it does miss the point a little.
But documenting things is important, and if you have to change it to do that, so be it.  Its better to change it than watch it without it knowing at all or against it's will.

Anyway.  I liked it.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: eytanz on January 11, 2009, 01:47:00 PM
I had a hard time getting into it - I found the beginning very slow, both in the pacing of events, and of the necessary information for me to understand what was going on. Maybe my mind wasn't entirely on the story or something. Once we hit the point where the treatise was hidden, though, things picked up a lot, and I started caring about the story and enjoying it. I don't think this will ever be a favourite of mine, but it's not bad.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Talia on January 11, 2009, 02:59:34 PM
I had a hard time getting into it - I found the beginning very slow, both in the pacing of events, and of the necessary information for me to understand what was going on. Maybe my mind wasn't entirely on the story or something. Once we hit the point where the treatise was hidden, though, things picked up a lot, and I started caring about the story and enjoying it.

You know, I had the 100% IDENTICAL reaction. I guess it wasn't just me! hehe.

Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: TristanPEJ on January 11, 2009, 03:05:48 PM
Yeah I have to say it didn't grab me.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Raving_Lunatic on January 11, 2009, 06:32:05 PM
Had to give this a couple of tries, because the beginning didn't grab me, but I eventually found it to be a pretty fulfilling story. Interesting plotline, and a new angle on it which made it more interesting for me. Didn't make me think too much, but at one point I went off on a tangent about whether anyone would want to "erase their brain" or just die.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Zathras on January 11, 2009, 08:20:36 PM
I really liked this story.  It didn't really feel like it went anywhere.  I don't have a problem with that, just sayin'.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: nojoda on January 12, 2009, 05:28:01 AM
I loved this episode.  I am an anthropologist and this is an issue that I face all the time. I usually fall on the side of getting involved after all that fourth wall really doesn't exist.  This podcast will be required listening in my classes
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Void Munashii on January 12, 2009, 03:57:18 PM
  Like others, I had a hard time getting into this story; way too many made-up words at the start, and I think the fact that Minx sounded like she may have done her recording in a washroom was distracting me as well. Once the story got going though, I really liked it.

  I've loved good documentaries since I was in high school, and I have always wondered how someone puts aside what should be a natural inclination to help other people for the sake of maintaining a professional distance; how a crew can stand there and watch someone do something to endanger themselves and others without interfereing. Maybe that is why I liked this story over all.

  Aside from my comment about the echoey quality of the sound, I did really like Minx's reading of the story. She captured the characters and their voices quite well.

  And I do want to hear his rave mix tape.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Darwinist on January 13, 2009, 05:00:50 AM
I liked it.  At first I had it had a hard time keeping my attention, but by the end I was hooked.  Good reading by Minx.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Talia on January 13, 2009, 05:11:34 AM
you know the echoey audio bothered me at first too, but by the end, I realized I didnt even notice it anymore.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Raving_Lunatic on January 13, 2009, 05:19:14 PM
I thought the same. Right now I'm listening to a 64 kbps compressed Audiobook (Contagious by Sigler if you must know) and at first, the transistion from Kid A in FLAC to the hell that is 64kbps killed my ears. But now I barely notice. I felt the same about the episode.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Peter Tupper on January 13, 2009, 06:48:24 PM
I work as a journalist, so ordinarily I would have said, "Don't get involved. Be impartial. This is a job, nothing personal. You've got the sabotage on tape anyway, so it will all come out in the final cut."

But, my blood heated when I read about her stealing the treatise and putting it in the compost bin (presumably to be destroyed.) I do a lot of work trying to find old historical documents, and it makes me sick when I think of all the history that has been destroyed and lost forever. E.g. Sir Richard Francis Burton's wife destroyed many of his papers and manuscripts after he died, and large quantities of Henry Spencer Ashbee's massive library of Victorian pornography were burnt by librarians. The thought of my own work, however modest, being lost and forgotten cuts at me. Not to mention the personal betrayal, however well intentioned.

This is particularly interesting with beings who lose their personal memories when they change, and are dependent on external means of record keeping for personal continuity.

A well-written story, well read.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Poppydragon on January 13, 2009, 07:15:18 PM
Not so sure about this one, really well read but the story itself didn't really engage me enough to care about the characters
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Hatton on January 13, 2009, 08:34:52 PM
This is particularly interesting with beings who lose their personal memories when they change, and are dependent on external means of record keeping for personal continuity.

A well-written story, well read.
Agreed - kept my attention throughout. 

The phrase that this story left me thinking of was, "What he doesn't know won't hurt him."
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: stePH on January 14, 2009, 03:37:17 AM
  I've loved good documentaries since I was in high school, and I have always wondered how someone puts aside what should be a natural inclination to help other people for the sake of maintaining a professional distance; how a crew can stand there and watch someone do something to endanger themselves and others without interfereing. Maybe that is why I liked this story over all.

I didn't think much of the story, but it put me in mind of a French Belgian film called Man Bites Dog (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103905/), in which a documentary film crew follow a serial killer, at first just chronicling his activities but later actively helping him.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: slothflyer on January 14, 2009, 05:05:31 PM
first of all. I thought the happy ending was a total cop out.

secondly, slug aliens are gross, and I had such vivid pictures in my mind of silk coughing out of his mouth.

third, I think every time a documentary is made, the truth is affected and changed by the documentarian, whether they want to or not.  It is made obvious in the fact that the giant slug monsters are constantly aware of the documentor and they talk to her from time to time.  It's like watching "reality television" everything is changed by the existence of the camera.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: stePH on January 15, 2009, 01:36:40 AM
first of all. I thought the happy ending was a total cop out.

secondly, slug aliens are gross, and I had such vivid pictures in my mind of silk coughing out of his mouth.

third, I think every time a documentary is made, the truth is affected and changed by the documentarian, whether they want to or not.  It is made obvious in the fact that the giant slug monsters are constantly aware of the documentor and they talk to her from time to time.  It's like watching "reality television" everything is changed by the existence of the camera.

There's something very quantum mechanics about it all  :P
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: deadjellyfish on January 16, 2009, 01:10:34 AM
Like everyone else, I wasn't really riveted by this story.  I haven't really seen this theme of the struggle to decide whether to get involved with one's subject as a documentarian dealt with much in fiction and while its nice to see something new, but I felt little attachment to the characters.  This is strange because our main character's struggle is with the fact that she feels attached to her subjects so much as to get involved with their lives.  I also felt the happy ending was a bit of a cop-out and didn't emphasize the point of the story.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Russell Nash on January 16, 2009, 09:16:35 AM
I don't really know how I feel about it or how I would have liked it better, but the opening annoyed me quite a bit.  In the opening she says, it's only because she's a women that people ask her how she keeps her distance.  Then in the story she totally fails to keep her distance. 

Is the author saying that only a woman would have done the right thing?  Only a woman would have been weak enough to get involved?  I just don't know why it was there.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: eytanz on January 16, 2009, 10:01:37 AM
I don't really know how I feel about it or how I would have liked it better, but the opening annoyed me quite a bit.  In the opening she says, it's only because she's a women that people ask her how she keeps her distance.  Then in the story she totally fails to keep her distance. 

Is the author saying that only a woman would have done the right thing?  Only a woman would have been weak enough to get involved?  I just don't know why it was there.

That is an excellent point. My impression is that the author intended that to be a rationalle for the character's dilemma - she feels she has something to prove. However, as you point out, the end result is it seems like the author is trying to support the stereotype.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: JoeFitz on January 16, 2009, 04:30:27 PM
That is an excellent point. My impression is that the author intended that to be a rationalle for the character's dilemma - she feels she has something to prove. However, as you point out, the end result is it seems like the author is trying to support the stereotype.

For me, when I heard that statement, I knew the narrator was going to get involved. I felt the "gender card" was unnecessary distraction to the story. It perplexed me, as well, that there was little explanation for using a gendered pronoun for the couple, which raises the whole universal language issue.

What might have happened if she had not substituted the tape? Wouldn't that have happened to others? Why were humans doing the documentaries anyway? Maybe the subject picked a human woman believing she would get involved despite instructions?

Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Mary Robinette Kowal on January 24, 2009, 03:30:24 AM
I've been reading the comments with great interest.  There's a saying in theater, "If it's not on the page, it's not on the stage" and a couple of the comments have made that really resonate in my head.

I just wanted to explain Vanessa's statement at the beginning about how people wouldn't have asked her male colleagues if they got involved.  Honestly, it is there for the purely technical reason of letting people know her gender.  Without Cunning Minx's voice, people who read the story on paper were bothered because they kept trying to figure out if she was male or female.

However, having read the previous two comments, I'm totally like, "Holy crap! That's a completely valid way to read it."  Just because it wasn't my intention doesn't save me.  As I said, this is completely fascinating.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Listener on January 24, 2009, 03:10:57 PM
Reading was fine. I stopped noticing the echo about five minutes in.

The story was a little hackneyed, IMO. The moment I hear about a documentarian, I already know she's (or he's) going to somehow insert herself into the action and then agonize about the decision. I would rather the main character have been a human mathematician working with Guroth; I think we could've had the same amount of tension, and I think the author could've found a way for her to learn that the female (I forget her name) had put the treatise in the compost pile.

Overall in SF I feel we have too many stories that involve an outsider's view of an alien society. I think we could have stronger SF if we had a story immersing itself in an alien society/mindset without that human overlay. I've got a story in that vein that I've been working on in fits and starts. Because this story was about a documentarian, we got more information about the aliens, but toward the end it seemed as though the author was getting a little lazy, saying things like "nodded" and "fingers". She could've gotten away with it by saying "The thousands of protrusions on Guroth's underside, which I'd come to think of as fingers over the past few months, were vibrating like mad as he tried to control his anger." Stuff like that.

Not a bad story, but I think there was a fair bit of room for improvement.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Russell Nash on January 24, 2009, 05:09:23 PM
I've been reading the comments with great interest.  There's a saying in theater, "If it's not on the page, it's not on the stage" and a couple of the comments have made that really resonate in my head.

I just wanted to explain Vanessa's statement at the beginning about how people wouldn't have asked her male colleagues if they got involved.  Honestly, it is there for the purely technical reason of letting people know her gender.  Without Cunning Minx's voice, people who read the story on paper were bothered because they kept trying to figure out if she was male or female.

However, having read the previous two comments, I'm totally like, "Holy crap! That's a completely valid way to read it."  Just because it wasn't my intention doesn't save me.  As I said, this is completely fascinating.

Hi Mary,

We love it here when the author takes the time to come by and respond to our comments.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Mary Robinette Kowal on January 25, 2009, 01:16:41 AM
Oh good.  I was worried that it would be intrusive.  I'm happy to answer questions, but equally happy to just watch you all talk about the story. It's a rare opportunity for me to hear this many people respond.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Russell Nash on January 25, 2009, 09:23:15 AM
Oh good.  I was worried that it would be intrusive.  I'm happy to answer questions, but equally happy to just watch you all talk about the story. It's a rare opportunity for me to hear this many people respond.

Well, I hope you have thick skin.  Our folks are respectful, but they do speak their minds, and they are very critical.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Bdoomed on January 25, 2009, 09:46:04 AM
just listened,
although the story was pretty predictable, the situation the documentarian was in is no less challenging.  There is also a lot to be said about the young working so the old can play, very cool idea!
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: ChiliFan on January 26, 2009, 05:38:54 AM
I thought I should say that after listening to this story twice, I still don't really understand what it was about. I'm looking forward to the next episode of Escape Pod and I hope there will soon be an announcement of when this might be.

Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: wakela on January 30, 2009, 01:18:09 PM
Did anyone else's head to a little backflip when the Ms Kowal started off as an observer to our discussion and then decided to get involved thereby possibly changing the discussion?   ;)
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Russell Nash on January 30, 2009, 01:43:10 PM
Did anyone else's head to a little backflip when the Ms Kowal started off as an observer to our discussion and then decided to get involved thereby possibly changing the discussion?   ;)


Bravo!  Good observation.
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: ChiliFan on February 05, 2009, 07:32:36 AM
Did anyone else's head to a little backflip when the Ms Kowal started off as an observer to our discussion and then decided to get involved thereby possibly changing the discussion?   ;)

Not really. I'm just waiting for her to explain what the story was actually about, then I'll be happy!  ;D



Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Planish on February 11, 2009, 06:52:13 PM
I just wanted to explain Vanessa's statement at the beginning about how people wouldn't have asked her male colleagues if they got involved.  Honestly, it is there for the purely technical reason of letting people know her gender.  Without Cunning Minx's voice, people who read the story on paper were bothered because they kept trying to figure out if she was male or female.
It did accomplish that, no problem there.

What I began to wonder though, by the end, was whether or not the documentarian was human or not. I started out assuming that she was, but (unless I wasn't paying close enough attention) I don't think it's made clear either way.

I'm not sure it even makes a difference, but I would think that being a human would help her to maintain a distance from the subjects, so I'm inclined to believe that she was. Otherwise, what's the point in making the subjects so un-human?
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Ersatz Coffee on February 12, 2009, 04:37:48 PM
I thought this was one of the best stories for a while. What gave the aliens a real sense of alien-ness was not silk-spitting and thousands of 'fingers', but the fact that they live their lives backwards, so to speak - get all the work out of the way in the first stage of life, then afterwards devote themselves to leisure. It's an interesting idea.

It strikes me it's not just a simple reversal of the human pattern, however - the play of our childhood is in many ways part of our education (at the very least, our social education). With these creatures there must be a sort of childhood/adolescence during which they accumulate the necessary knowledge & experience to be able to undertake their 'work'. So really their next stage is more of a retirement than a childhood.

On a broader level, the work vs family life theme is something a lot of us can relate to!
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: zZzacha on February 15, 2009, 05:56:35 PM
This story was great fun to listen to! Only the beginning... It just didn't grip me, had to rewind a few times before I started getting into the story. There was just a bit too much unfamiliar information in the first minutes, which needed my full attention. Being who I am, I can never ever give anything my _full_ attention, so I had to rewind over and over because I kept missing words or part of a sentence and then I was completely lost again. To me, the story had a very difficult start and I noticed that more listeners had that problem.

I was, however, very glad that I kept on going! The story was great and interesting. It did touch a few nice anthropologists' issues, issues that would also apply to embedded journalists and such.

As for the aliens, I agree with Bdoomed: a very cool idea, that the young were working so the old can play. What would humanity be like, if we started doing that today? End of humanity, I predict ;P
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Planish on February 15, 2009, 09:03:53 PM
There is also a lot to be said about the young working so the old can play, very cool idea!

I took that to mean "the young work so that their older selves can play". Possibly that's different from what you were thinking. ;)
Title: Re: EP186: Chrysalis
Post by: Unblinking on May 20, 2010, 02:04:21 PM
I had likes and dislikes for this one.

I liked the reversal of age roles, where the young are the hardworking and the researchers replaced by their devil-may-care ne'er-do-well elders, and the anxiety one feels when you're approaching the rite of passage and know you'll be giving up your life's work.  Full-scale metamorphasis is common in insects, but it's interesting to see how thinking beings react to it.  When you come out of the cocoon you know you'll basically be a different person--you can choose to see this as the death of one person and the birth of another, or just as personality growth.  If one sees it as the former, that would be terrifying, and his mate's reassurances about the future can't do much to comfort him because she's not the same person she was before the change.

Also, the documentarian's dilemma was an interesting one, though it's a little predictable that she's going to interfere at some point.  In her shoes, I think I would have too.

My dislikes:  the beginning was way too slow, throwing too many alien details at me that I just got lost, and inundating with camera angle info which is in character but really dull to me.  Once it got to the real dilemma and I understood what was going on then it went pretty smoothly.