Escape Artists

Escape Pod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: eytanz on August 16, 2013, 07:16:45 AM

Title: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: eytanz on August 16, 2013, 07:16:45 AM
EP409: Mantis Wives (http://escapepod.org/2013/08/16/ep409-mantis-wives/)

by Kij Johnson (http://www.kijjohnson.com/)

Read by Heather Bowman Tomlinson

--

“As for the insects, their lives are sustained only by intricate processes of fantastic horror.” —John Wyndham.

Eventually, the mantis women discovered that killing their husbands was not inseparable from the getting of young. Before this, a wife devoured her lover piece by piece during the act of coition: the head (and its shining eyes going dim as she ate); the long green prothorax; the forelegs crisp as straws; the bitter wings. She left for last the metathorax and its pumping legs, the abdomen, and finally the phallus. Mantis women needed nutrients for their pregnancies; their lovers offered this as well as their seed.

It was believed that mantis men would resist their deaths if permitted to choose the manner of their mating; but the women learned to turn elsewhere for nutrients after draining their husbands’ members, and yet the men lingered. And so their ladies continued to kill them, but slowly, in the fashioning of difficult arts. What else could there be between them?


(http://escapepod.org/wp-images/podcast-mini4.gif) Listen to this week’s Escape Pod! (http://traffic.libsyn.com/escapepod/EP409_MantisWives.mp3)
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: flintknapper on August 16, 2013, 06:07:55 PM
Very strange. I am not sure how I feel about this one. Certainly the relationship of the mantis to one another can be considered in some ways a metaphor for any relationship. However, the use of the mantis is a bit of a mystery. Why not spiders? The choice is an interesting one. On one level you have these familiar constructs and then on another the mantis is about as alien as you can get.

Reading was good. The writing was good. However the story as a whole does not invoke strong emotions in me.

Lastly, is it mantis week on escape artists podios? I mean you guys are running one and pseudopod has a giant mantis. Should I expect pod castle has one in store for us too? Maybe a mantis paladin searching for a princess on a dying planet... after all it is sci-fantasy month for them.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Cutter McKay on August 16, 2013, 06:45:46 PM
I'm with flintknapper on this one. Good writing, good reading, but I just didn't get it. Most likely that's a failing on my part more than the author's, but it just went right over my head. I get that there's some implication of it mimicking human relationships, but what exactly Kij was trying to say I have no idea.  :-\

Still, I didn't hate it. I really liked the descriptions of the different ways the females would kill the males, very interesting.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: matweller on August 18, 2013, 03:20:35 PM
I _love_ Kij Johnson.

That has not changed, but I didn't get this one as a standalone piece. I think it's great as a "write a flash section from an insect Kama Sutra" challenge, or maybe as an interlude chapter in a bigger novel about some insectile alien invasion. But I didn't get it when I read it and I don't feel any more comfortable about it having heard it read. I have fully assumed it to be a failing on my part from the beginning. It's not that I don't enjoy the content, it's more that I never feel like I get to know where I am in relation to the story, and that inhibits my enjoyment throughout. But then, I'm simple and feel that way with poetry a lot too.

I do feel a lot better knowing that people were able to glean something from it because I was worried that it would not translate into vocal reading at all.

Oh, Hugo...you have fickle tastes.
Title: Re: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Nny on August 18, 2013, 10:47:35 PM
Haven't listened yet. The title reminds me of Portal 2 where Cave Johnson says something like "the project where we infuse you with mantis DNA has been cancelled. Instead we're doing a new test. Fighting an army of mantis men. So pick up a rifle and follow the yellow line. You'll know when the test starts"
 looking forward to it
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Windup on August 19, 2013, 05:06:59 PM

<<whoosh>>

That's the sound of this whole thing going over my head.  I liked the odd, still-life quality to many of the scenes, and the narration was excellent.  But it didn't really take me anywhere.
Title: Re: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Cutter McKay on August 19, 2013, 05:38:47 PM
The title reminds me of Portal 2 where Cave Johnson says something like "the project where we infuse you with mantis DNA has been cancelled. Instead we're doing a new test. Fighting an army of mantis men. So pick up a rifle and follow the yellow line. You'll know when the test starts"

That made me laugh. Love that game.


<<whoosh>>

That's the sound of this whole thing going over my head.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one still scratching my head here.  :-\
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Max e^{i pi} on August 19, 2013, 05:45:58 PM
At first I was   :-\
But then I was  ???

Hugo, what were you thinking?
I'm going out on a limb here and going to answer that with: "I didn't understand it, and nobody I knows understands it. But this is a good writer, so it's probably good art. I'll nominate that."
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: SF.Fangirl on August 22, 2013, 01:30:06 AM
It starts with a quote from John Wyndham.  Awesome.

And this bit to end the second paragraph "...but the women learned to turn elsewhere for nutrients after draining their husbands’ members, and yet the men lingered. And so their ladies continued to kill them, but slowly, in the fashioning of difficult arts. What else could there be between them?" was amusing.

This story was beautifully written and feels very arty and literary.  I actually did enjoy listening to it while being horrified at the descriptions of violence.  I certainly didn't get it, but at least it was short enough that it ended before my patience ran out.  I'm not sure I would vote for this story, though.  There had to be some better, true sci fi out there this year.  I'm a traditionalist and prefer plot, characters, and actual science fiction over a lyrical but head scratching bit of prose.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Devoted135 on August 22, 2013, 03:27:32 AM
a lyrical but head scratching bit of prose.

I couldn't have put it better myself. Like others, I found this to be a beautifully written, utterly mystifying piece that I hesitate to even call a story. Prose or poetry prose seems to fit more comfortably. Sometimes the Hugos confuse me. :P
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: chemistryguy on August 22, 2013, 04:15:22 PM
Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about!

I'm not going to claim to understand everything in this one, but whatever metaphors were too obtuse for my conscious brain must've latched right onto my subconscious.  Damn!  It was totally alien and yet so familiar at the same time.

I don't know about all you all, but when something this original and well written comes along, I don't question it.  I applaud it.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Cutter McKay on August 22, 2013, 04:43:12 PM
I don't know about all you all, but when something this original and well written comes along, I don't question it.  I applaud it.

Oh I applaud the writing of this piece. It's beautiful and evocative. However, I prefer my stories to be, well... stories. Like Devoted135 said, this is much more poetry than story. I like at least something resembling a plot, even if that plot is buried deep and I have to dig for a while to figure it out. But with this, as far as I can tell, there is no plot. And I'm not the only one saying so.

I mean, obviously it has some merit, it got nominated for a Hugo. But I can't help but think this is a case of the Emperor's Clothes. Nobody really gets it, but it's so beautifully written that we assume there must be something to it and we'll just pretend to get it and hope that others do as well.  :-\
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: evrgrn_monster on August 23, 2013, 03:07:09 AM
I was trying so hard to understand this piece. I am so glad I was not the only one left going, "Waaaaaaah?"

To be frank, I do not enjoy works that are so lofty and cryptic that practically no one gets the point of it. If this was a poem, that would be one thing, but short stories are a completely different animal, in my opinion. Although this was pretty, it was pretty in the way that a Fabergé egg is; obviously made with care and a practiced hand, beautiful to look at, but having no real substance. I prefer the meatier stories, the ones with an actual story to tell; one I can really make an omelette out of, if that makes any sense.

...

I just made my self super hungry.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: InfiniteMonkey on August 23, 2013, 06:06:13 AM
Yeah, yeah, I'm late.


Between this and "Immersion" (about which I don't know what to say), I'm really looking forward to the end of awards month, and perhaps a return to stories that have plots and narratives. I agree with most others. It was well written, though to what point is hard to say.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Max e^{i pi} on August 23, 2013, 06:50:36 AM
I'm really looking forward to the end of awards month, and perhaps a return to stories that have plots and narratives.
Yeah... now that you mention it, it does seem like all award "stories" lack all the essential elements of a story. Why is that?
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Gamercow on August 23, 2013, 03:04:32 PM
I'm really looking forward to the end of awards month, and perhaps a return to stories that have plots and narratives.
Yeah... now that you mention it, it does seem like all award "stories" lack all the essential elements of a story. Why is that?

They get nominated because they are "edgy" and/or "different", and/or "controversial". 

As for this story, about all I'm going to say about it is that for me, it was the literary equivalent of performance art.  The literary equal of a guy standing on stage screeching like a seagull for 2 hours.  The only praise I can give it is "it was short".  This is "Spar" all over again, yet worse.  Blugh. 
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: chemistryguy on August 23, 2013, 05:01:25 PM
I'm really looking forward to the end of awards month, and perhaps a return to stories that have plots and narratives.
Yeah... now that you mention it, it does seem like all award "stories" lack all the essential elements of a story. Why is that?

They get nominated because they are "edgy" and/or "different", and/or "controversial".  

As for this story, about all I'm going to say about it is that for me, it was the literary equivalent of performance art.  The literary equal of a guy standing on stage screeching like a seagull for 2 hours.  The only praise I can give it is "it was short".  This is "Spar" all over again, yet worse.  Blugh.  

We can argue about whether this one has the required elements to make it a story or whether that one fits into fantasy or scifi or horror, but in the end those are just the nuts and bolts that I personally feel are the least interesting.  Maybe that's because I write very little.  The fact that it has been nominated makes little to no difference on my admiration of this one.

Does it have a plot?  Not in the tradition sense, no, but there's a story here.  If this is a bit too edgy for some, then I feel you're missing out.  I'll be carrying this one with me long after droves of more story-ish stories have faded away.

Oh, and comparing this to a screeching guy on a stage is hitting a bit below the belt.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: eytanz on August 23, 2013, 05:15:09 PM
Yeah... now that you mention it, it does seem like all award "stories" lack all the essential elements of a story. Why is that?

They get nominated because they are "edgy" and/or "different", and/or "controversial". 

The Hugo nominations are not selected by some sort of committee, they are selected by the general public. If the public is voting for these stories, it's because for a large enough percentage of the membership they are effective. If you're not one of that group, that's fine - there's no expectation that every story would be to everyone's tastes - but it may be worthwhile to treat other peoples' tastes with respect. So cut it out with the scare quotes, everyone, please.

That said, there certainly is a pattern in Hugo voting in recent years where nominated stories are either extremely traditional in themes and structure (e.g. "Mono No Aware") or extremely non-traditional (e.g. this one). I do wonder at the causes for that.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: DKT on August 23, 2013, 09:06:49 PM
Yeah... now that you mention it, it does seem like all award "stories" lack all the essential elements of a story. Why is that?

They get nominated because they are "edgy" and/or "different", and/or "controversial". 

The Hugo nominations are not selected by some sort of committee, they are selected by the general public. If the public is voting for these stories, it's because for a large enough percentage of the membership they are effective. If you're not one of that group, that's fine - there's no expectation that every story would be to everyone's tastes - but it may be worthwhile to treat other peoples' tastes with respect. So cut it out with the scare quotes, everyone, please.

That said, there certainly is a pattern in Hugo voting in recent years where nominated stories are either extremely traditional in themes and structure (e.g. "Mono No Aware") or extremely non-traditional (e.g. this one). I do wonder at the causes for that.

I think it's a schism in fandom to a large degree. (And schisms in fandom, from my limited experience and visibility, are pretty traditional.) Some people really adore the more traditional structure and theme type stories, other people like those that are more experimental. But like you said, I think you can trace it back at least to as long as I've been listening to EA.

It's also interesting to note that this year, only three stories were nominated. That's not because it was a lack of people voting for short stories - it's because these three stories each had more 5% of the nominations, and none of the other stories did, possibly because so many of the other stories split the rest of the votes.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: adrianh on August 24, 2013, 10:49:14 AM
Quote
Some people really adore the more traditional structure and theme type stories, other people like those that are more experimental

And some people, and I stick myself in this category, like and dislike both types depending on whether the story does anything for them ;-)

To buck the trend... I liked this story.

It set me thinking about sex, love, relationships, power and dominance (as did Spar). For me there was a pretty strong narrative direction in the tale from the progression and type of relationships / practices described. I admit I do have a soft spot for stories with this kind of repetitive folklore-ish structure.

In addition, as others have pointed out, it was a beautifully crafted piece of writing. 

I like stories that linger and make me think. This did both.

(I'm also somewhat confused by several commentators who seem to associate poetry with lack of plot... Gilgamesh? Odyssey? Aeneid? etc. etc.)
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Dem on August 24, 2013, 12:48:18 PM
I can see why people are wondering how this can be a short story at all, never mind a nominated one, but there's an increasing trend in, admittedly literary, short story writing to give weight to the process rather than the outcome. In other words, the interest becomes less the 'whodunnit' than the 'how or why dunnit' - or even what got dun at all. Some of these I find utterly deadly - a kind of self indulgent lyrical rumination on ordinariness, but others are jaw-dropping in their expansiveness of concept. To me, this is one of the latter because of the layers of understanding from the superficial chomping away on insectoid mates down to the social and physiological evolution that underpins its redundancy but does not stop the male mantises engaging willingly in their own torture and death. For me, that's why this is a nominee - its depth and conceptual originality.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Devoted135 on August 24, 2013, 04:11:23 PM
(I'm also somewhat confused by several commentators who seem to associate poetry with lack of plot... Gilgamesh? Odyssey? Aeneid? etc. etc.)

I would argue that while poetry clearly can have plot, it doesn't have to feature a plot. However, I suppose I'm a bit of a traditionalist when I say that IMHO one requirement to be called a story is the work must contain a plot.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: flintknapper on August 24, 2013, 06:07:40 PM
As I said at the beginning of the thread, this story did not invoke any strong reaction from me, but I am digging all the comments.

Realistically, I do not think this story has a chance at wining against the other two nominated stories, but all the same, if it inspires a discussion about story telling and genre fiction it must be doing something right. It was also really well written, even if you didn't like it, you have to admit the author did a great job fleshing out the mantis relationship.

For my part, I think Liu should win, but that is probably my fanboy coming through because I have been gravitating towards his writing recently.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Max e^{i pi} on August 25, 2013, 07:16:21 AM
(...) but all the same, if it inspires a discussion about story telling and genre fiction it must be doing something right.
Not necessarily.
If I were to come up to you and your friends at a con, punch you in the gut, slap your friends in the face and steal someone's purse while chanting "Your fandom sucks, my fandom is better" (not that any of the above is something I'd be likely to do) it would perhaps inspire a discussion about your fandom and mine, comparing and contrasting them, but I did nothing right.
Not that I feel punched in the gut or slapped in the face by this story. But having something as respectable as the Hugo Awards present me with this piece of fiction (I'm not sure what to call it, a story? a poem? concatenated blog posts?) saying that a significant percentage of the Hugo membership liked it enough to get it nominated for one of the most prestigious genre fiction awards in the world as a short story, that hurts.
Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, and nobody should have to have anybody else's opinion forced upon them, but this is really borderline here. This, in your opinion, is the best short story written this year?! Really?! I really am tempted to think that people voted for this to try and impress other people. "What, you don't understand it? How non-open-minded of you. The imagery wasn't powerful for you? It didn't move you to tears or other emotional outbursts? You must be a robot." Sort of like the posers you find in art galleries (not all people in all art galleries are posers. Some people in some art galleries are). Pretending to like things they don't understand so that other people will like them.
Now, I know that that was harsh and probably offensive to several people, but there is a trend here in Hugo nominations, and it doesn't look like the Hugo Awards of ten or twenty years ago./me shrugs
Maybe that makes me old. Maybe that makes me set in my ways.
I'll tell you what it does make me: someone who knows what he likes in genre fiction, and apparently it is not what the Hugo Awards like.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: eytanz on August 25, 2013, 09:58:34 AM
Now, I know that that was harsh and probably offensive to several people, but there is a trend here in Hugo nominations, and it doesn't look like the Hugo Awards of ten or twenty years ago.

Did the Hugo awards ten or twenty years ago look like the Hugo awards ten or twenty years prior?

Tastes evolve, fashions in literature, whether it is genre literature or not, come and go. That's the way of the world, and it always has been. It may mean that you no longer have the Hugos to look forward to as a guide for what to read, but it's far better for the field as a whole to keep changing than for it to stagnate and nominate the same type of stories for twenty years.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: adrianh on August 25, 2013, 01:16:39 PM
Quote
I really am tempted to think that people voted for this to try and impress other people.

Or maybe, just maybe, different folk have different tastes. It's allowed y'know ;-) Throwing in your  Hugo's vote is not really a fantastic tool for impressing folk!

I personally find Hugo nominations interesting - because there are no rules on what qualifies. It's based purely on what Worldcon folk like. It marches to a different beat to other awards - and that's always fun. I know it's brought a bunch of stuff to my attention that I would otherwise have missed. Some of it I even liked!

Me - I liked this story. Of the Hugo nominations I've read this year this is probably my fave so far.

I also like golden age SF. I also like a bunch of the new-wave stuff from the 70's. I also like things like Greg Egan's more recent novels which are closer to spec-physics than spec-fiction. I also (god forbid!) like a lot of non-specfic.

Casting aspersions on the motivations of folk just because they like something you don't seems a tad mean spirited to me…
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Gamercow on August 26, 2013, 08:39:32 PM
After some thought, I feel towards this story the same way I feel towards the growing trend of deconstructed cuisine.  I think people like them both because they are different, stark, and make you look at something in a different manner.  Those people are completely entitled to their opinion, I'm not saying anyone is wrong.

That said, I'm entitled to my opinion as well, and like most deconstructed cuisine, I found this deconstructed sci-fi story to be sorely lacking. 
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: zoanon on August 27, 2013, 03:41:54 PM
I loved this
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Leslianne on August 31, 2013, 11:31:23 PM
I haven't listened to this one yet, but I read the story when it first came out and loved it. I'm a little surprised by how many people seem to feel like they didn't get it. I feel like maybe people are looking for something more complicated than they need to. This one sentence pretty much sums it up for me:

"...but the women learned to turn elsewhere for nutrients after draining their husbands’ members, and yet the men lingered. And so their ladies continued to kill them, but slowly, in the fashioning of difficult arts. What else could there be between them?"

Because they never questioned the fundamental nature of the relationship between mantis man and mantis woman, everything they built afterwards was an extrapolation of unnecessary cruelty. Obviously they were creative, but they could never get outside their paradigm enough to make anything better than the original, unexamined premise. (And then: implied knowing look at humans)

Or that's my take on it, anyway.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Dem on September 01, 2013, 08:34:04 AM
I haven't listened to this one yet, but I read the story when it first came out and loved it. I'm a little surprised by how many people seem to feel like they didn't get it. I feel like maybe people are looking for something more complicated than they need to. This one sentence pretty much sums it up for me:

"...but the women learned to turn elsewhere for nutrients after draining their husbands’ members, and yet the men lingered. And so their ladies continued to kill them, but slowly, in the fashioning of difficult arts. What else could there be between them?"

Because they never questioned the fundamental nature of the relationship between mantis man and mantis woman, everything they built afterwards was an extrapolation of unnecessary cruelty. Obviously they were creative, but they could never get outside their paradigm enough to make anything better than the original, unexamined premise. (And then: implied knowing look at humans)

Or that's my take on it, anyway.

Looks like a pretty good take, to me :)
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Joshua A.C. Newman on September 03, 2013, 05:02:35 PM
Yeah, it sure looks like youunderstand the story. I don't see what's not to get.

I haven't listened to this one yet, but I read the story when it first came out and loved it. I'm a little surprised by how many people seem to feel like they didn't get it. I feel like maybe people are looking for something more complicated than they need to. This one sentence pretty much sums it up for me:

"...but the women learned to turn elsewhere for nutrients after draining their husbands’ members, and yet the men lingered. And so their ladies continued to kill them, but slowly, in the fashioning of difficult arts. What else could there be between them?"

Because they never questioned the fundamental nature of the relationship between mantis man and mantis woman, everything they built afterwards was an extrapolation of unnecessary cruelty. Obviously they were creative, but they could never get outside their paradigm enough to make anything better than the original, unexamined premise. (And then: implied knowing look at humans)

Or that's my take on it, anyway.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Leslianne on September 04, 2013, 09:45:34 AM
I don't mean to come off as "oh, it's so easy and if you don't get it you're a dope", and I'm very sorry if I have. It's just been my experience that a lot of people have internalized this idea that if you can't write a five page essay about a story or a poem, then you don't understand it- even if you have a pretty good one or two sentence idea what it's about.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: matweller on September 04, 2013, 01:34:03 PM
I don't think anybody doesn't understand what this piece is in a macro sense. I think some of us just don't think there's a more detailed message in there for us without some point of reference. Sometimes "I don't get it" is a synonym for "this is just not for me, but I don't dislike it to the point where I want to be rude, so I'll assume the responsibility for not enjoying it."

For me, it was like the way a lot of people feel about Wes Anderson movies -- it's there; parts of it are beautiful; but I'm not sure why it's there; and I'm not going to spend hours trying to decipher it on the chance that I may find out it's literary performance art and therefore my effort was in vain.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: InfiniteMonkey on September 04, 2013, 02:18:11 PM
For me, it was like the way a lot of people feel about Wes Anderson movies -- it's there; parts of it are beautiful; but I'm not sure why it's there; and I'm not going to spend hours trying to decipher it on the chance that I may find out it's literary performance art and therefore my effort was in vain.

(You and me both, pal...)

I understood all that was being said. What I didn't understand was what the story was. There were a lot of interesting and beautiful vignettes that in the end just didn't amount to much.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Cheshire_Snark on September 04, 2013, 02:52:52 PM
This was interesting because it reminded me I'd heard a debunk of female mantises automatically eating their mates -- so I liked that the story took a "sometimes they do, sometimes they don't" approach, right down to the males still offering themselves as food - rather like the situation (as far as it is understood at the moment) in real life (e.g. http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/mantis1.asp)

I get a bit twitchy when I see the "female of the species is deadlier than the male" trope trotted out in stories that can be interpreted as metaphors for relationships; this one handled it differently than I had expected.

I agree with a lot of the other commenters on the lack of plot in the story. It reminds me a lot of setups in some of the golden age sci fi novels, where the description of the fantastical world is almost the story in itself (unfortunately the only example I can think of off the top of my head is the in-world creation of the fantasy world by the author character in Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin). Stories without individual actors can work; I think this one did as it showed the development of the system over time. I can't say I would re-listen, but it was an interesting accompaniment to my chores for the day.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: FireTurtle on September 04, 2013, 09:19:00 PM
I both loved and hated it, sometimes simultaneously. I thought I was getting a trip on a regular path and instead I was on a piece of flotsam on a swift river and just had to hang on for the ride. It was an interesting ride, and beautiful in its own weird way. In evaluating its value as a piece of narrative science fiction, the best I can say is that it was interesting and it definitely made me look a narratives with fresh eyes. I will not take plot for granted, I will not take plot for granted, I will not take plot for granted.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: TheArchivist on September 06, 2013, 03:13:21 PM
No, this nominee didn't do anything for me either! What was it? Some incoherent mix of biologist's field notes and random concept jottings, munged together by a pathological anthropomorphist, as far as I could see.
Why was it nominated? Probably just purely for being too darned unconventional to work.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Dem on September 06, 2013, 06:08:01 PM
No, this nominee didn't do anything for me either! What was it? Some incoherent mix of biologist's field notes and random concept jottings, munged together by a pathological anthropomorphist, as far as I could see.
Why was it nominated? Probably just purely for being too darned unconventional to work.
Well, nothing judgmental there, then  :D
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Scattercat on September 11, 2013, 04:04:49 AM
Holy zeitgeist, people.  "I don't like this story," I can understand, albeit sadly, because this was absolutely amazing.  But where did all this hostility come from?  "I don't like this, therefore anyone who says they do is lying in order to look smart."  What kind of crazy moon-logic is that?

Lord knows I don't like some stuff and can't understand how people enjoy it.  ("The Human Centipede," I'm looking at you.)  But it doesn't inspire anger in me.  (Okay, "Fight Club" did because I saw immediately that dudebro anarchists would start worshiping Tyler Durden, who is an appalling person to worship or even listen to.  The minds behind it have since claimed satire, which I am willing to grant them gratis but which does not wholly assuage my irritation and resentment that they made me listen to Tyler Durden for two hours.  And "Inglorious Basterds," because Tarantino basically made a giant fuck you to his fans, and assumed that we were all his fans, which we were not, that we all enjoyed violence qua violence, which I do not, and that we wouldn't notice that he called the people who laughed and cheered at the foregoing movie Hitler, which while I was kind of appalled that people were cheering and laughing was, I felt, deeply unfair and inappropriate.  But I digress.  Rather badly, at that.)

I just get weirded out the way literary stuff seems to bring out the pitchforks in genre fans.  (Not just SF fans, though it's probably most virulent here.)  Just because someone is doing something a little weird, a little experimental, and a little pretentious (and I mean that in the best way, Ms. Johnson, if you're reading; I suspect you might understand what I mean by that), that does not mean that you have to insist that it's valueless, that it's not a story, and that all professed enjoyment of it is feigned.

Perhaps I am taking it a bit personally.  This story made me grin wildly when I heard it, and it made me immediately want to share it with others because it was delirious and insightful and subtle and crooked-thinking and acid-sharp.  Then I come here (where reading the entire thread is my job now) and get people telling me that I'm lying if I say I liked it, that I just want to "look smart," that no one in their right minds could possibly extract joy and meaning from this piece.  And I'm just torn between "sucks to your asthma" and crying because no one loves me.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Dem on September 11, 2013, 08:58:12 AM
And here's another thing: consider that liking or not liking something may have nothing to do with its value as a piece of literature (or art or music or any other thing where skill, or lack of it, meets subjectivity and preference.)
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: TheArchivist on September 11, 2013, 09:07:34 AM
I apologize if I have caused insult to anyone here. I wrote only of how this story came across to me, and I would be the first to defend anyone's right to find great literature in what appears to me to be random, incoherent or simply dull. It is, after all, what most of the "mainstream literary" prize committees have been doing for as long as I've been alive :(
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Max e^{i pi} on September 15, 2013, 01:41:07 PM
Feedback on feedback.
Nathan, I don't have anything against lit majors. I have a few in my family and several as friends. And I love them all.
I'm just a little.... disappointed about this year's Hugo nominees. I had expected better, but the short stories were not to my taste.
I'm sorry if I came off as offensive, abrasive and harsh.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Darwinist on October 15, 2013, 12:42:42 AM
No, this nominee didn't do anything for me either! What was it? Some incoherent mix of biologist's field notes and random concept jottings, munged together by a pathological anthropomorphist, as far as I could see.
Why was it nominated? Probably just purely for being too darned unconventional to work.

I share your opinion. 
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: LaShawn on October 24, 2013, 04:27:38 PM
Coming in super late. I had read this one as well as listen because at first I didn't get it either. But there were some images that stuck with me that were beautiful and horrible at the same time. The female drilling the hole in the male's hand and making him do things, for instance. And the last art, where the female and male chooses to die together. Wow. That got me thinking about human nature, which can be just as cruel and just as sad and just as lovely. So I read it again, much slower this time, and I think I get it.

But it's still a slice. A small taste. If I had known about it earlier, I wouldn't have nominated it, because there are others out there that are just as devastating that are more fleshed out. But I still loved this one. So ::shrug::.


Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Unblinking on October 30, 2013, 03:03:26 PM
I reviewed this as part of my Hugo nominee review run this year, so I'll copy that review over:

Mantis Wives by Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld, August 2012)
Eventually, the mantis women discovered that killing their husbands was not inseparable from the getting of young… It was believed that mantis men would resist their deaths if permitted to choose the manner of their mating; but the women learned to turn elsewhere for nutrients after draining their husbands’ members, and yet the men lingered. And so their ladies continued to kill them, but slowly, in the fashioning of difficult arts. What else could there be between them?

This excerpt from the first section of the story pretty much sums it up.  The rest of it is the same, but more so.  It’s written like a lovingly-written Kama Sutra style book for Mantis Wives to read to think of new ways to torture their husbands to death. That is all it is.  No characters.  No plot.  Just descriptions of torture written as if they were descriptions of sex.  That’s not a story. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not a story.

This is one of those nominees that really frustrates me because I don’t understand what anyone could see in it it, let alone the minimum 5% of the nominating population picking this as one of their 5 favorite short stories of the year.  I have no idea what people found appealing about this.  If you are reading this and you liked it, perhaps you could leave me a comment and clue me in.


I find that's often my reaction to Kij's stories, that I just don't get what they're trying to do.  Award-nominated stories I tend to pick on even more so than I pick on your average story, so reading it as a Hugo nominee probably didn't help.

I did vote for the Hugos, and in the Short Story category I voted:
1.  Immersion
2.  Mono No Aware
3.  No Award
The "No Award" in place 3 means that I would rather the Hugos gave the award to nobody at all than to give it to "Mantis Wives".

The fact that only 3 stories made it into this category seems both good and bad.  Good because it means that the votes were more spread out, perhaps meaning that more awesome stories were actually available than in recent years.  Bad because I'd like more to choose from--none of the 3 were amazing to me.  Immersion was good.  Mono No Aware was okay.  This one I hated.  I would've liked to see some of my other favorites from the year get nominated, like The Three Feats of Agani.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: CryptoMe on January 10, 2014, 06:50:10 AM
Sigh. I just don't get Kij Johnson at all. Again, I feel like this was a story written for Kij's enjoyment, not mine, and that left me feeling side-lined, frustrated, and put off, all at the same time. I have to agree with Gamercow; this was Spar all over again for me too. 
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Myrealana on January 16, 2014, 04:02:35 PM
Sigh. I just don't get Kij Johnson at all.
I'm so gald I'm not the only one. With all the awards and nominations, I was beginning to think I was the only person left who just doesn't get her.

I did like "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss" which was the first Kij Johnson story I read, but this one, "Spar" - which I completely detested, "Ponies" and others just make me cringe.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: hardware on February 25, 2014, 02:14:30 PM
I loved this. I don't understand the tendency to freak out as soon as a story doesn't adhere to an extremely narrow template of plot, character and setting. Sure, if all stories were like this, I would hate it. But this one is not just brilliantly written, but also fun and wicked. My favorite among this years nominees.
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: Unblinking on February 27, 2014, 03:07:06 PM
I don't understand the tendency to freak out as soon as a story doesn't adhere to an extremely narrow template of plot, character and setting.

"freak out" might be an overstatement.  :)
Title: Re: EP409: Mantis Wives
Post by: eytanz on February 27, 2014, 03:32:55 PM
Ok, let's all keep the discussion to aspects of the episode, and not start a meta-discussion about how people react to episodes on the forums. If someone wants to start that discussion, please go to the metachat board.