Escape Artists
PodCastle => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Ocicat on August 30, 2011, 05:17:33 PM
-
PodCastle 172: Doors (http://podcastle.org/2011/08/30/podcastle-172-doors/)
by Rajan Khanna (http://www.rajankhanna.com/)
Read by David O. Engelstad (http://davidoengelstad.blogspot.com/)
Originally published in GUD (http://www.gudmagazine.com/) (Greatest Uncommon Denominator).
You will never find this world in a book. It is spelled out on the walls of bathrooms, in janitor’s closets and bomb shelters, in the scrawl on an alley wall. But only if you know where to look. There are maybe a hundred people across the world who do.
From the moment you find your first tag, you become a collector. Some people collect figurines or stamps or comic books, you collect locations. You’re a gambling addict in a million dollar game, a pothead with a giant brick of BC’s Finest, a sexaholic at a gang bang.
I used to be into sex. Like really kinky shit. You could tie me up and beat me with a riding crop and I’d be as happy as a pig in shit. Because in those moments, when someone was treating me like an object, I could switch off from bills and mortgages and loans and fucking laundry. Push it to one side and let the pain wash it away.
Fuck S&M, Traveling is better. Fuck meditation, Traveling is better. God help me, fuck sex.
Traveling is better.
Rated R: Contains explicit language.
Want the summer to keep rolling on? Check out Marshal Latham’s Journey Into…Podcast (http://journeyintopodcast.blogspot.com/)!
-
Wow, I really loved this one. I was absorbed from the very beginning and felt a strange sense of sadness at the end that I didn't have a notebook full of phone numbers and Door locations. I wish I knew how to activate tags, but I don't think I'm going to go around touching the walls of public bathrooms, so I'm probably not going to accidentally stumble through a Door.
-
Wow!
Awesome ep. I have done quite a lot of travelling in the last 12 months and I know exactly how the MC feels. OK, i did it by conventional methods, so getting from place to place was often more of a drag than the best bit! Meeting new people, spending time in completely new places, chatting about our experiences with other travelers over a drink. Awesome. Ok there were downsides, like the loneliness and stress of being on your own and alone in a completely alien place, missing friends, family and loved one, missing home, but they were worth it. I'd love to be able to use Doors to get around the world, to be able to get from one side of the planet to another in a heart beat. Worth the price? We'll that's the conundrum of this story. Is it all worth it? The MC seems to think so, but we see what it does to his friend.
-
"For a good time, Call Dave Thompson and Ann Leckie at Podcastle!"
This reminded me of the doors in another PK Dick movie (as it were) "The Adjustment Bureau" and in the SciFi short series "The Lost Room". SO much easier to travel by magic door.
-
"For a good time, Call Dave Thompson, Anna Schwind, Ann Leckie, and Peter Wood at Podcastle!"
Fixed that for you :)
-
I loved the idea. I remember when "Mighty Max" became a cartoon, and they had to come up with an explanation for why this random kid in a red hat kept showing up in such bizarre locations (as in the toy playsets. "Mighty Max" was a male equivalent for Polly Pocket, with hand-sized spiders or wolf heads that opened into mad scientists lairs or dungeons.) Anyway, the TV show decided that there was a system of ancient portals lying around, and the red hat was the token that opened them. Whoever possessed the hat was the "Mighty One," and was obliged to go around and solve problems due to being the only person who could get there in time. There was a talking owl for some reason, and a big badass swordsman. It was oddly entertaining.
Anyway, this was a good story, and good stories rarely have much one can say about them other than "yay." So "yay."
(Also, since when is name-dropping ME considered good advertising for a podcast? :-P I like "Journey Into..." though; it's fun and, importantly, short. Hopefully it carries on.)
-
This reminded me of the 2008 movie, Jumper. Which, I must admit, I rather liked the idea of moving from place to place, a sort of teleportation.
Both stories seem to pair up the romance of travel with our love for the fantastical. This is a key part of what makes them intriguing to the audience.
-
As others have pointed out, nothing too innovative or original here with the mechanics of the Door portals. But just like a good apple pie is no less delicious just because it isn't innovative or original, this story was very delicious, too.
I'm tempted to stop scribbling my buddy's phone number in toilet stalls and using my own - maybe one of the travelers will find ME!
-
Great story, paired with a great narration. :) The concept was intruiging, and all of the relationships were really believable.
One nitpick though: While I am convinced that the MC and all the rest of the travelers believe that the doors are worth the price, I'm still not convinced that traveling via the doors is all that the MC says it is (how can it possibly be such a rush that it's worth 7 months off your life each time, plus a horrible death at the end??). He spent a lot of time telling us that it was awesome, but never once said why it was so great. Or did I miss something?
-
I liked the story right up until the end which I felt was rather unsatisfactory and didn't really go anywhere (no pun intended, well maybe a bit). OK so the MC has the address of the door in New Jersey but the real drama and tension would be what happens when he goes to Brodie with the information. That could go any number of ways and I don't think the ending that just leaves us to decide what happens next is good enough.
One of the best things about this story though was the description of an addiction in a new setting. Seems humans can turn anything into a vice given time.
Good narration from David O. Englestad. Given his other narration is he the go to guy for vaguely scatalogical based stories? ;)
-
I'm tempted to stop scribbling my buddy's phone number in toilet stalls and using my own - maybe one of the travelers will find ME!
I thought we were putting Ocicat and Scattercat's numbers on walls? ;-)
-
Well... I'm gonna go against the flow. I found this one curiously uninteresting and bloodless. The central idea seemed... not sure of the right word... underdone? half-realised? wasted, even? Don't know, but quite unsatisfying. And did not like any of the characters, nor did I feel sympathy for them. An oddly flat story.
-
..........did not like any of the characters, nor did I feel sympathy for them. And oddly flat story.
That is an interesting point about sympathy. The main character is basically an addict and the only "redeeming" feature of his character is that he wants to get his friend a final fix which is probably not the most noble of actions.
Do you need to sympathise with a main character to enjoy a story? I think as long as they are believable it's not always necessary in a short story, but in a novel it would be too much to bear for long.
-
This was my first podcastle story to listen to! Found it searching stitcher. Not only did I love the story, but for me it is a metaphor for my life with my smartphone. Podcasts lead to discovering more podcast radio that I had no idea existed. I used to be limited to my local NPR line up, now I'm discovering a whole new world of doors into online radio! I no longer panic that I've run out of radiolab or this american life episodes! I fall asleep traveling through a new narrative nearly every night (much to the annoyance of my husband). At least I know it isnt taking any years off my life.
On~on
debzilla
-
Do you need to sympathise with a main character to enjoy a story? I think as long as they are believable it's not always necessary in a short story, but in a novel it would be too much to bear for long.
Since I read this I've been racking my brains for a story I liked where I didn't sympathise with the characters.
I can't think of one.
In fact, thinking of discussions elsewhere on the boards here, I'll give up on a book if I don't care what happens to the characters.
-
This reminded me of the 2008 movie, Jumper. Which, I must admit, I rather liked the idea of moving from place to place, a sort of teleportation.
Both stories seem to pair up the romance of travel with our love for the fantastical. This is a key part of what makes them intriguing to the audience.
My thoughts precisely.
But I was also thinking of the doors that we see in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. In fact, in that first jump I thought maybe the protagonist had made it through to a different world.
Also, for a good time send an email to <redacted>(AT)<redacted>(DOT)com or look for us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Myspace.
-
I really liked this one right up until the end. I feel robbed actually... I wanted to hear how the MC grabbed Brody, stole him out of the hospital and raced to some stank ass restroom for that one final trip. The ending felt like a "dine and ditch" to me, leaving me hanging.
What really invested me in this one is all the times where I've been in public restrooms/ fitting rooms/ cramped out of the way places and I've always been drawn to the weird graffiti and short messages that show up. Sometimes you see the weirdest little doodles or pictures while you are pretending you are somewhere else. Maybe thats what struck a cord--the wanting to be somewhere, anywhere else while ignoring everything going on around you. I've always been tempted to add my little stamp on fitting rooms and public toilets just for the hell of it, but its really just sort of a crappy thing to do because eventually SOMEONE has to clean up the mess.
-
I enjoyed this one. At first it was a bit iffy when I thought it might be one of those second-person POV stories, and given the length, I didn't think it could sustain that POV for that long. Luckily, it quickly shifted and held my interest all the way to the end.
-
At first it was a bit iffy when I thought it might be one of those second-person POV stories
Oh, good, it wasn't just me, then. I had pretty much the same reaction.
-
At first it was a bit iffy when I thought it might be one of those second-person POV stories
Oh, good, it wasn't just me, then. I had pretty much the same reaction.
Me too.
Also the constant switching of POV from second to first and back confused me, until I realized that part of the story was him telling me (the listener) what happened, and part was a sort of guidebook for Travelers.
I bet that in print (or pixels) it's a lot less confusing. I'm trying to think of a way to make it less confusing in audio but drawing a blank.
-
Yeah, I liked this one. Good example how a good story doesn't have to be plot driven. Yes, there was the "I need to find a door for my friend in New Jersey so he can kill himself going through it" but the whole concept of going through the doors itself was an adventure. I especially liked the scene where he emerges in a room underground with no obvious exit. Apparently not all the taggers are as benign as he thinks.
-
Also the constant switching of POV from second to first and back confused me,
Well, it didn't seem 'constant' to me, just one section that probably seemed longer than it actually was because I was over-sensitized to 2nd person narration from the previous episode (whose POV, as I explained in its thread, I accepted at the time, but which did saturate me for 2nd-person for a while).
I bet that in print (or pixels) it's a lot less confusing. I'm trying to think of a way to make it less confusing in audio but drawing a blank.
When people actually talk that way in real life, misunderstandings are a lot rarer (except in sitcoms). Part of that is context and part of it is pronunciation. In this case, we had the context, so, while I primed for, and therefore leery of, 2nd person, I also did suspect that it was exposition in a conversational style, which, of course, it turned out to be*.
What we didn't have was the pronunciation aspect. When we talk like that, we don't carefully pronounce all the pronouns, as in: "You know how when you talk in 2nd person but you don't really mean it as a literal 2nd person description but are, rather, using it to illustrate a hypothetical situation that the person you're talking to may or may not actually have ever been in, but you hope they can at least imagine?"
Instead, we say "Y' know how when y' talk in 2nd person...". I think that if the narrator had done this, or even been closer to it, most of us would have understood the hypotheticality of it right away. That said, I did like the narration. This was an aspect that might have helped the listener, is all.
*Is there a word for that? Some case or tense or whatever?
-
I liked this one, but it did seem a little...incomplete. Loved the concept, and it is no surprise, as humans have a deeply embedded wanderlust/urge to explore. I think it was well done, but maybe that the author didn't really know what to do with the concept, and had to put a drapery of story on top of the cool concept. I felt the same thing when I saw the movie Fanboys, also a road trip movie. I liked the movie, but the whole reason behind the trip seemed propped on.
-
Great idea, and to my mind a very compelling story. Got me curious about the addiction aspect. The process obviously affects the body; does it alter the brain as well? Is the addiction physical in addition to mental? Obviously there will be no scientific studies to the point, but it's fun to wonder. :)
-
Great idea, and to my mind a very compelling story. Got me curious about the addiction aspect. The process obviously affects the body; does it alter the brain as well? Is the addiction physical in addition to mental? Obviously there will be no scientific studies to the point, but it's fun to wonder. :)
That's an interesting point about addiction in general. There are substances that alter the brain and induce a physical dependence by their affects on the body like alcohol, tobacco, heroin or travelling through "Doors", then there are those that induce a psychological dependence that needn't be substances but could be activities like gambling, sex or travelling through "Doors". So I guess it could be either.
Underlying both those are changes in brain chemistry and according to Wikipedia:
The American Society of Addiction Medicine begins their definition of addiction by describing it as "a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction)
I hadn't considered the physical cause and assumed it was an addiction based psychological dependence. It probably says something about me (and my lack of understanding of the issues) but I have more sympathy for the MC if it was a physical addiction from the Doors.
-
This story is about as close to perfect as I've yet to hear on Podcastle. Great narration plus great story that really nails something elusive in Podcastle stories: The actual sense of fantasy.
No, not the publishing genre of fantasy. There's plenty of that. I mean the wish-fulfillment "I-wish-I-could-do-that-who-cares-about-negative-consequences" daydreaming FANTASY.
I'm sure it had problems in there somewhere, but I didn't notice them while I was listening. It was good and satisfying and escapist. Thanks.
-
Wow, I enjoyed this one so much it got me to come on and post. This is my new favorite story.
-
I enjoyed it . . . right up until the end. Perhaps unfortunately, I was listening to the story while running an errand, and had to pause to check out at the cashier; when I started it up again, it turned out I'd paused about one minute before the end of the tale. That probably didn't help with my feeling of "uh, what? Why is the ending music already playing?"
I wanted to know more about the woman who built the trap to get a big list of tags. I wanted to see the final journey with Brody. I would have been okay with not getting either of those things, except that I don't feel like the story reached any particular moment of climax in place of them. Which could be all metaphorical 'n stuff -- there's the bit in the story about how the doors have made the narrator constantly more interested in moving on than enjoying his destination -- but me, I like to arrive somewhere.
There were a lot of lines that made me grin as I walked through the grocery store, though, so on the whole I did enjoy it.
-
I very much liked this story. it sucked me in with these "door jumps". the only fault i had was the ending. it was just left to open.
-
I very much liked this story. it sucked me in with these "door jumps". the only fault i had was the ending. it was just left to open.
I choose to interpret that as intentional and not a typo.
Yes, the ending was left as a door that we must open.
-
I enjoyed the story, and also the construction of its writing -- I like well-used repetition.
However, there were some things that were repeated too many times, too close together. And there's a lot more to being tied up and beaten than riding crops, Mr. Main Character. Just saying.
-
I like the occasional "idea" story and this was a pretty good one. Most of it's about the explanation of the concept, and talking about different details of it. And as long as those details are interesting enough it strings you along, as you wonder "Could these exist in our world?" "what would I do if I found out how to do this?". Yeah, it was relatively lacking in conflict, but I enjoyed it well enough.
That being said, I think it could've done with a bit more conflict. Sure, he's looking for a particular door for his friend to go through, but that's not really a conflict for our narrator. He wants to go through Doors, and going through Doors is how he finds new doors, so he accomplishes both. Even when he's trapped there's not really any conflict to speak of. He's been stuck in there for whole minutes, he calls the one number he finds on the wall (because we all know how well cell phones work when you're in a cave, right?). The woman tells him her terms (giving her his list) and those terms do not harm him in any way; he agrees and she lets him go. In addition, he gets exactly what he wants from her just by asking.
I didn't mind it ending before we see the friend cross through, because there wouldn't be much to see there. It just would've been nice if it had a bit of conflict to really make it complete. But I enjoyed it anyway.
-
Oh, one thing I forgot to mention. My misunderstanding of some of the details left the moment of getting stuck in the cave even more lacking in conflict than it should have been. Perhaps I was thinking of "doors" too literally, but I assumed that they were two-way. So it took me a while to realize that he was actually stuck in that cave unless he got outside help. I just thought that he typically chose not to go back through the same way because re-traveling the same rate wouldn't be as satisfying. So I kept wondering why he didn't just go back in the reverse direction. Finally, when he called the number, I realized that wasn't an option.
But nobody else seemed to have that problem, so I think that I must've spaced out and just missed an important detail.