Escape Artists
PodCastle => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Talia on July 04, 2012, 04:49:07 PM
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PodCastle 215, Giant Episode: Ours Is the Prettiest (http://podcastle.org/2012/07/04/podcastle-215-giant-episode-ours-is-the-prettiest/)
by Nalo Hopkinson (http://nalohopkinson.com/).
Read by Nalo Hopkinson (http://nalohopkinson.com/).
Originally appeared in Welcome to Bordertown edited by Holly Black and Ellen Kushner. You can find out more about Bordertown here (http://bordertownseries.com/index.html).
The camel bus had a black banner draped around it. The lettering on it was made to look ike bones, and read “We Dead Awaken.” Through the windows we could see the musicians, all of them wearing funereal black suits, including top hats tricked out with black lace veils. Even the musicians were playin’ mas’. It was a brass band, instruments shouting out the melody to a song I almost recognized.
Today was Jou’vert; the daylong free-for-all we were pleased to call a “parade” ushered in the week of bacchanalia that was Bordertown’s more or less annual Jamboree. Word had gone around town that thi year’s theme was “jazz funeral.” I was dressed as a Catrina from the Dia de los Muertos — a gorgeous femme skeleton in sultry widow’s weeds, complete with a massive picture hat.
I suppressed a sneeze; my sinuses were tingling. Juju breeze for true, blowing a withcy front of magic from the Realm into Bordertown. Juju weather always made things in Bordertown especially…interesting.
Rated R for language, sex.
(http://escapepod.org/wp-images/podcast-mini4.gif) Listen to this week’s PodCastle! (http://media.rawvoice.com/podcastle/media.libsyn.com/media/podcastle/PC215_OursIsThePrettiest.mp3)
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Another Welcome to Bordertown story? I'm starting to wonder if that whole anthology will end up being reprinted here.
This story was cut from the same cloth as the other Welcome to Bordertown stories that have run at Escape Artists. Which is to say, it seemed like they hinted at an interesting larger world, the characters seemed authentic enough to feel like real people, but I found myself completely without tension. I was tempted to turn it off shortly into the story because nothing of interest to me was happening, but I wanted to give Nalo a fair shake, and I wasn't sure that I was doing that because I'd immediately groaned when I heard it was another Bordertown story, so I listened on. But, still by 3/4 of the way through I just wasn't really interested. For the most part it seemed to be a description of a party, with the main attempt at tension seeming to be whether one character was born in the World or not. I didn't particularly care where they were born, so that didn't do much for me.
Nalo's voice is certainly easy on the ears, though. Even though I didn't get much from the story, it was enjoyable listening to her voice.
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Another Welcome to Bordertown story? I'm starting to wonder if that whole anthology will end up being reprinted here.
Yes please.
I read the story when it came out, I didn't quite resonate with it. Read aloud I found it much more vivid and I got some nuances of the narrator that I missed before. Especially her need to control everything around her.
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huh. I enjoy the Bordertown stories, so I hope you keep 'em coming!
Anyway, I liked this one just fine. It did take a while to get into the groove of the narration for me though. Ms. Hopkinson's accent wasn't the impediment, it was the speed in which she read that was the hindrance for me. However, as I was driving, I realized that I was missing key points but I was interested enough to give it another try. So I did, after reading the opening pages in Welcome To Bordertown (I had only previously downloaded a sample, but this made me go get the whole book.)
Once I realized that there were flashbacks, I was able to understand what was going on. Boy, is that a party I want to go to! One year for Halloween, a bunch of my friends and I all went to Salem, MA for the weekend. That was a blast and a half, and the closest I can think of to compare to the celebration in "Ours Is The Prettiest."
I am left wondering what exactly Beti and her brother/cousin/betrothed really ARE though. The description of the dancing Beti as a whirling dervish made me picture the metamorphosed and spinning creature as such, but I don't think that's the way I'm supposed to see it.
Either way, damn it, now I want buttery battered fried green bananas.
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After listening to Nalo's reading I'd have to say that I now rank this story of one of my favourites in the Welcome to Bordertown collection. It really does a service to the wider setting by featuring some characters who are outside of the Eurocentric, Hetero background that most of the other Bordertown protagonists belong to.
I always thought it was a little awkward that people of presumably all sorts of cultures from the real world managed to break though into a semi-mythical world to find that the magical peoples there only really came from European fairy tales, which is why this story scratched at in itch for me.
Either way, damn it, now I want buttery battered fried green bananas.
Me too dammit, good plantain is hard to find :P
https://www.google.com/search?q=fried+plantains&hl=en&prmd=imvnse&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=dAj6T8dUztrRBeL41K0H&ved=0CEUQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=643 (https://www.google.com/search?q=fried+plantains&hl=en&prmd=imvnse&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=dAj6T8dUztrRBeL41K0H&ved=0CEUQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=643)
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I know that we are only supposed to be gushing praise, but...
Unblinking summed it up well. I didn't care about the question "where is that character born"? I agree, most of the Bordertown stories are poor. If a writer doesn't have enough to develop their own story, giving them a poorly constructed world isn't going to help, except to get published on a site that has a sad penchant for the boring Bordertown.
It would help to learn to observe the world. Stilt walkers don't bounce, they glide -stop, glide - stop. Learn to really look at a stilt walker before you are going to slow down your story to describe one, and you will learn to more fully observe people. Or was that just to describer a character's breasts? We don't really care what a character looks like, we want to know how the character feels.
There were a lot of unimportant ideas just thrown in an not developed. Example "The mad hunt" that hunts for the doomed in broad day light. Okay, build a story around that and make us care about a character who is being hunted, or develop the idea, but just putting it and then going on to the next partly developed idea is a waste of time.
danooli is right. the reading was too fast. Also, the narration was poor. We have all heard Jamaican accents, but we have also heard them with clear enunciation. Read more slowly and focus on giving the ending consonants their full stop. Ending vowels can be linked, do not clip off an ending consonant to link a previous vowel.
Altogether, not a strong study of people, or any interesting or thought provoking ideas. Was the incest supposed to be so "crazy" we would overlook the lack of plot? Being non hetero, non European does not make it automatically non boring, but they might be crutches to deflect constructive criticism. Being counter culture gives you a ready made audience. Break out of that rut to let your voice run free. Stop trying to impress people with how different you are. First, not different, second, being weird is not different, third, you have have to be different to be better, but being different doesn't make you better, and being different for the sake of being different will prevent you from being better.
Since escape artists started paying per word, it seems the stories have started to get longer and in large part, of lower quality.
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I know that we are only supposed to be gushing praise
You're not supposed to be gushing praise. Most people who comment on the stories here are quite happy to criticise. You'll note that of the four posts made before your own, two were negative.
What you may wish to consider doing, though, is to drop the attitude. At the moment almost everything of value you have to say (and I do think you are saying stuff of value) is being drowned out by your insistence on being a jerk while saying it.
Since escape artists started paying per word, it seems the stories have started to get longer and in large part, of lower quality
Podcastle does not pay per word, and never has. The only Escape Artists podcast to pay per word is Escape Pod.
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"Jerk" really? Do you have a definition of that?
Do you call everyone you disagree with a "jerk"?
Are you proud of calling me a "jerk"?
Do you feel that a wrong has been committed and that by attempting to brand me as a "jerk" people will praise your bravery in righting a wrong?
What was the statement that wounded you so?
If the only defense of this story is to attempt to denigrate a criticizer, should the story have been run the first time?
Did you think this was a special story? Did you feel that was going to bring some kind of change? Was it when people discussed it as a pedestrian attempt at making an interesting story by trying to make it fantastic that you were upset?
One rarely insults someone if they are wrong, so I appreciate your acceptance of my comments. I am surprised you made an actual acknowledgement of the comments.
If this story was not paid by the word, why was it a Giant episode. Not much happened and there was little character development.
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Moderator
Alright everybody, settle down.
Story criticism is of course welcome, personal insults are not. In addition, story criticism should be in a constructive light, and not mean-spirited. Thomas, I do think you were coming close to that line in your original post. Eytanz, you're not doing so great either.
Everyone should go review The One Rule (http://forum.escapeartists.net/index.php?topic=3289.0).
Moderator out
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Yeah, very sorry here. I was tired when I posted that last night and I really shouldn't have resorted to a personal insult. My sincere apologies to ThomasTheAttoney and everyone else here.
For what it's worth, I haven't listened to the episode, I was responding to the tone of ThomasTheAttoney's current and past posts, not the content (except for the mistaken assumption as to paying by word).
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Being non hetero, non European does not make it automatically non boring, but they might be crutches to deflect constructive criticism. Being counter culture gives you a ready made audience. Break out of that rut to let your voice run free. Stop trying to impress people with how different you are. First, not different, second, being weird is not different, third, you have have to be different to be better, but being different doesn't make you better, and being different for the sake of being different will prevent you from being better.
I'm not knocking Nalo Hopkinson for writing a story from a different perspective. I welcome the different perspective, as a different POV can render a familiar setting in an entirely new light. Beyond that, I've heard many people, editors, readers, and writers alike, say that they want to read more stories from non-Eurocentric perspectives, so it makes sense for those stories to be published, there is demand for them.
But there was nothing about the story that made me think that she wrote it with the primary purpose of making it sellable by making it non-Eurocentric. Unless I heard it from her own mouth, I'd assume that she was trying to write the best damned story that she could write. The fact that it was purchased for this anthology means that the editors (both of whom I have respect for from reading their prior editing) at least thought she did a good job at it.
That doesn't change the fact that I didn't really care for the story, nor for the other Bordertown stories that have run here so far. But I am willing to give the writer, and the editors of that anthology and this podcast the benefit of the doubt that they are all trying to write/pick the best stories for their personal definitions of "best". Sometimes that definition will coincide with mine, and sometimes it won't.
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Some Bordertown stories have been nice. Others have been meh. This one was interesting and engaging. It did not need to be a Bordertown story, though.
I'm weird, probably. Reading shared-world stories by professional authors leaves me often with the same feeling as reading fanfiction. The writing, the storytelling can be good, even excellent. But the writer is not able to take full control of the situation -- or elsewise, the writer causes the shared world to fragment into mutually incompatible ostraca.
Like much of Nalo Hopkinsons work, I liked this. Moreover, she made the characters come through -- not all authors reading their own work manage that.
Thank you, talent and staff both.
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The song in this one, by the way, has become a (not so terrible) ear worm :D
do you hear, my sissie-oh?
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I'm frankly NOT a tremendous fan of the Bordertown series - which probably creates a bit of a negative feedback loop. I sometimes feel like I'm missing something important, not having gotten on the train earlier.
That doesn't mean I can't like them, though, and I certainly liked this one. Mostly, though, it wasn't because of the nature of the story, that I took to be a statement about abusive relationships, but rather the joyous authentic Caribbean narration of the author. Which made a nice change from the European stuff (ok, maybe not after the week before). Really, it was completely entrancing, in any sense of that word.
And Dave... did you mean Ellis Island instead of "Stanton" Island? ;)
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And Dave... did you mean Ellis Island instead of "Stanton" Island? ;)
HA! Yes. Danooli had let me know about the very same error - and I was just about to apologize for letting my California show. (Particularly after just rereading Chabon's Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and also reading to my daughter a couple series in the American Girl books.)
Sorry, all!
(FWIW, I can do a decent rendition of President Whitmore speech toward the end of ID4 right along with Bill Pullman...)
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And Dave... did you mean Ellis Island instead of "Stanton" Island? ;)
I'm certain he must have had Dreadnaught Stanton, from M.K. Hobson's Veneficas Americana series on his mind when he recorded that.
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If this story was not paid by the word, why was it a Giant episode.
Because it was longer than the usual stories PodCastle runs, and PodCastle likes to label those stories with the "Giant" tag?
I mean, look, if you're really that upset about PodCastle paying by the word, I don't know what to tell you (http://podcastle.org/guidelines/). It's not true and never has been true. (Although it might be true in the future, funds willing.)
More to the point, when markets start paying by the word, stories tend to get shorter, not longer. The way fiction writing mostly works (if you're not Neil Gaiman or Peter S. Beagle or someone) is that you send your story in to the slush pile, and the submissions editors decide whether it's good enough to run. We (in the sense of editors in general) don't have, like, contracted content providers who get paid per word after they complete their mandatory writing for the day. Authors can't boost profits just by writing unnecessary words; the authors are completely independent agents who write their stories in isolation and then we pick the ones we like best. It's *against* our interests to select longer stories because we have limited funds with which to purchase fiction and long stories cost more. The only reason for an editor to select a story is if they think that particular story is a good one, and long stories have to be more impressive than usual because you're using up more of your purchasing power without getting more than one new story out of it.
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On the story, honestly, I'm just kind of meh. I'm one of the more-common-than-I-thought crowd that finds the Bordertown stories middling at best. Not sure if it's the effect of the shared world or the particular fae/reality tropes or what, but they've all left me a little cold. And I often enjoy shared-world fiction. (The Thieves World books, the Wild Cards series, the Forgotten Realms novels...)
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Not sure if it's the effect of the shared world or the particular fae/reality tropes or what, but they've all left me a little cold. And I often enjoy shared-world fiction. (The Thieves World books, the Wild Cards series, the Forgotten Realms novels...)
For me at least, I don't think it's shared world, or the fae/reality tropes. For me it's just that so far none of them have provided me tension. Things happen, and then the words stop, but never am I eager to hear what happens next like I am with some other stories. I don't know if that's just the kind of stories these editors prefer, or the particular authors that we've seen have that tendency, I'm not sure.
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The only reason for an editor to select a story is if they think that particular story is a good one, and long stories have to be more impressive than usual because you're using up more of your purchasing power without getting more than one new story out of it.
And fiction podcast, even more so. Even if the pay is the same for two stories, a story which is much longer will take more effort to record and produce.
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I guess I'm usually in the upper-middle for Bordertown stories, in that I neither dislike them nor gush at them on sight. :P I loved the lilting tones of the narrator's voice and really enjoyed letting her take me along on a ride through the more Caribbean streets of Bordertown. Both the characters and the setting felt very authentic, and a welcome diversion from the usual Euro-centric flavors. For me, this was a poem expanded into a story, and I'm really glad that the author read it because I'm not sure any of the current PodCastle readers could have brought it to life in the same way.
Speaking to Unblinking's criticism, for me the tension didn't come from the question of where Beti was born but rather from the question of who was she hiding from and why should Gladstone be the one who is afraid. There were enough hints along the way that I believed Beti was not human, and my curiosity as to what Beti therefore was kept me listening.
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This is the second story in which the excellence of the narration has kept me listening even though I was getting bored.
I don't know why I don't like these bordertown stories, but I don't. Maybe it's because the writers spend too much time enjoying the scenery and not enough in developing a great story.
Oh well. It was at least good in places. The waiter's pitch made it worth the listen on its own.
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It is really interesting to read everyone's thoughts on this. Not what I expected to read, but I guess I'm not here often. I don't post much, but I logged on today just to comment on how much I loved this story. To be fair, I've loved all the Bordertown stories read so far. I think I like the mysteries of how the rules of very different realms bend at their meeting and seeing how the characters react or adjust to the unreliability of the laws that were their norm before they moved to the Border. That idea of mystery is probably also what I loved about this story in particular. I felt like there was a lot I didn't know about this specific world, since it based on a culture very different from mine, but there were just enough that I could follow to keep me in the story and just enough I didn't quite get to keep me interested and teach me (or at least suggest) something I didn't know before. I'm guessing there is a fair amount I missed, but hurrah for a story so different from other stories I've listened to recently. I loved all the color and life, the music and dance and costumes, how passion burned both bright and dark, hearing the differences and similarities in language and cadence from what is familiar to me, and hearing it so beautifully read (IMO).
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It's bizarre to me that people found there to be no tension - for me there was tension all the way through. The percieved threat of whatsherface (I'm bad with names :P), the half-elf up with the temper, catching up to Betty & beating her up. Which as it turns out may or may not have been due to an unreliable narrator. I found that an intriguing twist. Something about the story reminded me of 'Sinners and Saints...(etc)' by N.K. Jemisin - maybe its just the whole story had a very Mardi Gras/New Orleans feel about it.
Six and a half thumbs up from me.
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Chalk me up with the others whose reaction was "meh" to this story. Don't get me wrong, I liked the narration, and I thought it was quite well written. But I just can't get into these Bordertown stories for some reason. I think it's a function of form: in the audio format I just get too confused. I had the same problem with the Rowan Gentlemen: I was just unable to figure out what exactly was going on. Maybe if I read the text I'd have a better idea.
Maybe I need to get the proper background, and read some of the Welcome to Bordertown stories. I might get more out of it then.
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I don't know why I don't like these bordertown stories, but I don't. Maybe it's because the writers spend too much time enjoying the scenery and not enough in developing a great story.
I offer a gigantic, sweeping generalisation: perhaps it's people who were in the first wave of the Bordertown phenomenon who enjoy it most. Thinking of the older shared-world series Thieves World (Robert Asprin et al), I invested a lot of reading time in the series and so know the shared characters, world and political situations quite well. At the time it was (to me) a fresh and new idea so I embraced it with enthusiasm. Therefore, a story set in that universe tends to be richer because of my background knowledge.
Bordertown I'd never heard of before stories appeared in Escape Artist 'casts so I know relatively little about the world and therefore I experience the stories as stand-alones rather than part of a whole. I was going to say that the whole Bordertown idea premise is hoary and dull (to me) but I wonder what I'd think of a Thieves World story if I came to it uninformed? A baldly-stated summary of the Sanctuary premise would possibly sound just as dull.
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I offer a gigantic, sweeping generalisation: perhaps it's people who were in the first wave of the Bordertown phenomenon who enjoy it most.
I would agree with that.
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When you think of the fourth of July, what comes to mind?
Two things: My sister's birthday and the fact that it takes a world superpower to celebrate your own independence two days late.
I heard the title of the story come up, along with lots of artifacts and background noise.
I'll try listening to it again later, when I'm not jogging and can really concentrate on what I'm hearing so I can edit out the random noise.
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I offer a gigantic, sweeping generalisation: perhaps it's people who were in the first wave of the Bordertown phenomenon who enjoy it most.
I would agree with that.
Makes sense to me.
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I offer a gigantic, sweeping generalisation: perhaps it's people who were in the first wave of the Bordertown phenomenon who enjoy it most.
I don't know about this...mostly because I was a B-town newbie when Welcome to Bordertown came out, and I ate it all up. I do wish there was some way we could run the titular story of the anthology (alas, it clocks in at over 20,000 words and thus is way too long for us to feature here) because it was the most fun thing I'd read in a long time. For a newbie, it was a great introduction to this world, although I don't think it's a necessary one.
That said, as a generalization, it seems to work for quite a few of the other posters :)
Another Welcome to Bordertown story? I'm starting to wonder if that whole anthology will end up being reprinted here.
This is only the second story we've featured from Welcome to Bordertown, so...we'd still have a pretty long ways to go before we got to reprinting the whole thing (which I think clocks in at 22 stories and poems). Currently, we have not bought any others.
(Yes, EP also featured one. No, we didn't actually plan that out or have a conversation with Mur about it - that whole happy accidents thing again. But I think the same point applies.)
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(Yes, EP also featured one. No, we didn't actually plan that out or have a conversation with Mur about it - that whole happy accidents thing again. But I think the same point applies.)
Ah, my mistake. I often don't remember which EA cast a particular story ran on. Especially for stories like that one which exist explicitly in a boundary that mix SF and fantasy. I was thinking all 3 of them ran here.
Anyway... I'll give any story published by EA a fair chance, but I'll be very skeptical of Bordertown stories after hearing these three.
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I very much enjoyed the experience of this story, the language and culture was very lush. There were bits and pieces I recognized and many I didn't which is always a pleasant surprise. I come at this having not been particularly fond of the Bordertown stories but I think had this been my first experience I might have liked the others more, in that I'd look deeper for the same kinds of references this made. One example in this story was reference to The Wild Hunt, now I'm sure some consider it kind of cheating to make a rather quick reference to a weighty topic like that and have the influence the story but I thought it was well placed. Very curious in the midst of the Caribbean celebration, and considering whatever Bette might have been and the few second bowing scene suggests it was a reference to her, to me at least.
I think perhaps tension isn't the right word for the pieces of Bordertown I've enjoyed, its more curiosity. There are plenty of tropes as people often mention, but I find myself at least interested in what sort of life living among the tropes leads to.
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Like several others here, I enjoyed the experience of listening to Nalo Hopkinson read out her story far more than I enjoyed the actual story. It's not that the story was bad, it just wasn't particularly interesting for most of its length. I thought that the only really interesting bit was the arrival of Gladstone towards the end and her confrontation with the narrator, which was cut short by the arrival of Betty's brother. To be honest, I found the entire plot strand to do with Betty and her secret, from her introduction until its resolution, entirely without interesting. It was the side characters and the sights and sounds of this story that made me stick with it.
As for the larger setting, I don't hate Bordertown stories by any means, but I think that I've decided that the setting itself detracts from the stories. Almost everything I ever enjoyed in a Bordertown story I enjoyed *despite* the setting, not because of it.
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Yeah, very sorry here. I was tired when I posted that last night and I really shouldn't have resorted to a personal insult. My sincere apologies to ThomasTheAttoney and everyone else here.
For what it's worth, I haven't listened to the episode, I was responding to the tone of ThomasTheAttoney's current and past posts, not the content (except for the mistaken assumption as to paying by word).
Not much of an apology, more like self praise:
1st, you give yourself permission to attempt to insult me because you were tired.
2nd, you state that you did not know what you were talking about as if it was a good thing.
3rd, you give yourself permission again to attempt to insult me because you decided I deserved it for other posts, and, by righting past wrongs with your attempted insult, find yourself quite the hero.
4th, you forgive yourself with "even if you are right, I decide I don't like your tone."
Perhaps you would like to attempt an actual apology. On the web you will find the elements of a sincere apology. This might be an opportunity for personal growth.
Also, Occicant, do not split the baby. When you castigate me for receiving the insult, you encourage the insulter.
Read around the web about forums. When "can't we all just get along" posts outweigh topic discussion and posting arguments, the forum loses energy and fails. With such poor fare as this episode, a forum which relies on donations would be well served to embrace any energy.
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Yeah, very sorry here. I was tired when I posted that last night and I really shouldn't have resorted to a personal insult. My sincere apologies to ThomasTheAttoney and everyone else here.
For what it's worth, I haven't listened to the episode, I was responding to the tone of ThomasTheAttoney's current and past posts, not the content (except for the mistaken assumption as to paying by word).
Not much of an apology, more like self praise:
1st, you give yourself permission to attempt to insult me because you were tired.
2nd, you state that you did not know what you were talking about as if it was a good thing.
3rd, you give yourself permission again to attempt to insult me because you decided I deserved it for other posts, and, by righting past wrongs with your attempted insult, find yourself quite the hero.
4th, you forgive yourself with "even if you are right, I decide I don't like your tone."
Perhaps you would like to attempt an actual apology. On the web you will find the elements of a sincere apology. This might be an opportunity for personal growth.
Also, Occicant, do not split the baby. When you castigate me for receiving the insult, you encourage the insulter.
Read around the web about forums. When "can't we all just get along" posts outweigh topic discussion and posting arguments, the forum loses energy and fails. With such poor fare as this episode, a forum which relies on donations would be well served to embrace any energy.
Are we reading different posts? Because that sounded completely sincere to me. I even went back to see if You'd clipped part of the post out. I really cannot possibly imagine how you could ask for something more sincere outside of groveling. o.O
RE: "can't we all just get along" posts - That's the thing about these forums, though. There are VERY rarely cases where we need to post about "can't we all just get along." People tend to be civil. Unfortunately, because it is the internet, sometimes people do come across more gruffly than intended, that's when the moderators step in to nudge the conversation back in the right direction.
PodCastle/Escape Artists listeners are a diverse bunch with diverse tastes. This has been proven time and time again. Sometimes you may not like an episode, it happens. I'm pretty sure I've never seen a single episode ever that pleased EVERYONE. I happened to enjoy this. Others did too. Not to your tastes? That's OK, check back next week.
But meanwhile, we just ask for kindness. Keep in mind that even if you didn't personally enjoy the story, real work and effort went into both writing and producing the episode. It doesn't do anyone any good to be derogatory.
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"But meanwhile, we just ask for kindness. Keep in mind that even if you didn't personally enjoy the story, real work and effort went into both writing and producing the episode. It doesn't do anyone any good to be derogatory."
Thank you, Talia. You're absolutely right, there's rarely, if any, trouble on these boards and, having spent time around boards which were literally a rolling argument that's a very welcome change.
Also, and this is a plea from the behind the mike staff, please, please bear what Talia said in mind before commenting. Every single author works hard on these stories but they're not alone. Our narrator, our audio producers, our slush wranglers, our editors and our hosts are all normal people who do this job because they love it. When the forum does go negative, six times out of ten, it goes negative at one of us and that's incredibly hard to deal with. So, please, and this is a general statement, aimed at no one, please bear in mind that we're a company run by people, not robots. If you've got a problem with something bring it up and we'll talk about it. If you're complaining to show us how clever you are, as several people have done in the past AT me, then do us all a favor and please don't bother.
Or to put it another way, as no less a luminary then Wil Wheaton put it, please don't be a dick.
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Some Bordertown stories have been nice. Others have been meh. This one was interesting and engaging. It did not need to be a Bordertown story, though.
Agreed.
Overall the story was pretty well-told, although yes the thing with the Mad Hunt was a little off-putting and weird. I'm not really of a mind that a story is written from a non-Caucasian or non-hetero viewpoint just to be sold, but I've noticed that stories like that DO get bought. Not that Ms Hopkinson wrote the story that way for that reason -- I'm sure most writers don't -- but it happens. The non-Caucasian viewpoint made it more exotic and interesting, to be sure, at least to someone like me whose experiences with people not like me are generally limited to Hispanic folks as opposed to Caribbean ones.
I'm not sure if anyone else uses Bluetooth, but certain narrations hit certain tones that cause a fuzz or overload in the speakers, and Ms Hopkinson's voice (as well as Wilson's and occasionally Dave's) hit those tones. It made it hard to listen to the story. Not PC's fault, but has anyone else experienced this? Any ideas on how to correct the car's sound levels to fix it?
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RE: "can't we all just get along" posts - That's the thing about these forums, though. There are VERY rarely cases where we need to post about "can't we all just get along." People tend to be civil. Unfortunately, because it is the internet, sometimes people do come across more gruffly than intended, that's when the moderators step in to nudge the conversation back in the right direction.
The moderators here are my heroes. I've peeked into a few other forums, sometimes even hung around for a little bit, but this is the only one that I have spent any large amount of time at, posting on every episode thread. Part of that is because the EA casts provide some of the best audio work, in terms of story selection, narration, intros and outros, that I can find. But another large part of that is that the moderators moderate exactly how they should. Honest criticism, whether positive or negative, is welcomed and there are many intelligent folk around here who will debate you civilly no matter what you say. Negative criticism is not crushed like it is on some forums (which to me defeats the purpose of story discussion to disallow negative counterpoints). But when the criticism starts to be about people instead of stories, they step in promptly and try to get the thread back on topic, which to me makes me feel like everyone is welcome as long as they can act civilly.
Or to put it another way, as no less a luminary then Wil Wheaton put it, please don't be a dick.
Great advice.
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Jumping on the bandwagon to say that this is my favorite corner of the internet, no holds barred. The amazing thing is that we do get along, even when we strongly disagree, and if anything that encourages more interesting, more intelligent conversation. We respect each other, and we Have Fun!
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I didn't care for the first Bordertown story, but I enjoyed this one. This one made Bordertown come alive for me. I love the city/carnivale aspect of it. And Oh my goodness Neville! Honey! Is he real? Can I meet him? I want to flounce with him down the north side. I want to drink tea with him. I want him to be my new best friend!
The only thing I had a problem with was the reveal of Gladstone being a physical abuser. If Gladstone was a man, would the MC still remain friends her? I found the advice she gave Betty to "lay low" until Gladstone calmed down extremely troubling. If she was a man--there would be no way the MC would tell her to lay low. She'd be telling her to run--even before they started dating. But the more I think about it, the more it gets complicated. You got the MC who's watching out for Gladstone's lovers, but she's a former lover herself, and furthermore, it appears she's *still* in love with Gladstone. This reminds me of the graphic novel Wet Moon in terms of lesbian drama.
It took me a while to get used to Nalo's voice, but once I did, I was sucked in. And her language. Ahhhh... Good job in having her narrate the story. I'm still grinning at the slight fangirlish squeal she gave "a pitchy-patchy crew!" I'm going to find a way to add that to my repetoire of words.
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I liked the narration, as no one knows better then the author what her slang is supposed to sound like. In addition, no one knows better what her songs are supposed to sound like. Not saying that EA should consider changing the general policy against authors reading their own stuff. If you have suffered through anything that Stephen King has narrated, then you can really appreciate this policy.
And Oh my goodness Neville! Honey! Is he real? Can I meet him? I want to flounce with him down the north side. I want to drink tea with him. I want him to be my new best friend!
He was a pretty awesome character, and really made the restaurant live so much more than the rest of the settings. I would love to try the tea, and anything but the scones.
I found it an odd choice that the story ended on a close up shot of him covering his one hoofed foot. I'd be interested to see how he felt about shoe shopping. Does it hurt to buy really expensive shoes if you only get to wear one?