Escape Artists
Escape Pod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: eytanz on September 21, 2013, 06:52:30 PM
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EP414: Knowing (http://escapepod.org/2013/09/21/ep414-knowing/)
by Matt Wallace (http://matt-wallace.com/)
Read by Mat Weller (http://matweller.com/)
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A grey pallor hung heavy over the landscape. Heaven’s fire had long gone out, leaving the sky a cold hearth. The ashen soot that covered it might once have been the burning ember of eons, but now its livid color irradiated the early dawn. It soaked every molecule of air like a pale leaden necrosis, existing independently of the season, fostering neither cold nor heat.
A caravan of old cars rambled through the grey morning, balding tires rolling over the broken disrepair of State Highway 24. Chrysler Imperials and winged hatchback Newports, Chevy Chevelles and Novas and flatbed El Caminos, Dodge Darts and Coronets, Ford Fairlanes and Falcons, Lincoln Comets and Continentals, Olds Eighty-Eights and Cutlass Supremes; early 1960’s vintages, all. They traveled toward Oneonta, the Northern New York town whose name was taken from the Iroquois word for a place of meeting.
The Earth’s reclamation of its wilderness in post-nuclear North America continued. Lush foliage blurred as the cars headed deep into the rural upstate, creating rich green wraiths in their murky windows that danced and swooped and curved. The lead car, a Dodge Charger that outshined the rest by miles, would reach Gilboa around breakfast time.
There the wind blew warm through the world’s oldest forest. There they’d been called.
(http://escapepod.org/wp-images/podcast-mini4.gif) Listen to this week’s Escape Pod! (http://hhttp://traffic.libsyn.com/escapepod/EP414_Knowing.mp3)
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So... What *was* the answer?
I have two theories of what it could've been - either that the only god is Satan or that there is none.
Any other ideas?
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The - excellently read - story reminded me of Mike Carey's Lucifer Morningstar http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer_(DC_Comics)
but I don't think that the answer is that there is only the Devil. I think the answer is More along Nitzsche's proclaiming that 'God is Dead' - or never was - and more maybe that we are / create our own gods.
Which doesn't exclaim why the physical earth is falling apart but maybe that is a metaphor, too.
Any better ideas? Anyone?
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You'll know when we get it right because the universe will breakdown when enough hear it. I think the question should be, was it right to have told everyone.
I thought it might be that they were in purgatory and heaven & hell destroyed each other we existed as part of our decaying will. It must be something as bad for both sides or they'd have used it to destroy us hairless apes.
Maybe it's that the Pastafarians are correct or that 60s flares were our as good as it was going to get.
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This story left me asking myself a variation on an age-old question: What is the difference between fantasy and science fiction?
I think I've garnered an understanding that there can often be overlaps, especially when Clarke's Laws come into play ('any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic') but even then, there's usually some sort of tie-in that I can use to make the connection. For example, the Dragon Riders of Pern started out as a pretty straightforward fantasy that ended up being exactly the opposite, a science fiction saga involving interstellar colonization, genetic engineering, psionic talents, time travel, etc. On the surface, it looked like basic sword & sorcery-class escapist fantasy, but when I got to a certain point, I realized I had been led down the garden path.
By the standards above, what does that say for Robert Heinlein's 'Job: A Comedy of Justice'? It's also classified as science fiction, but it has the same hidden element that I can't follow to differentiate it from fantasy.
Clearly, this is something of a personal failing on my part and rather than sit in a corner scratching my head perplexidly over it, I throw myself upon the collective brains of the community. Help this one get the answer to that most basic of comprehension questions in this regard: What am I missing?
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How about science fantasy?
This was a slight tongue in cheek point about there being hybrids, I then saw
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fantasy (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fantasy)
And it's on the internet, so must be true! :P
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Well I must say this little ditty tickled my fancy when, in the second paragraph, I realized I had owned, co-owned or driven all of the cars listed. Then, suddenly with barely time to put nostalgia back in the cupboard, I found myself locked in a room with some sort of Christopher Moorish character on steroids and I must admit the sensation was quite pleasurable riding me to the end with no negative residue or complaints.
The answer? Come on people... it was encoded in the demons spew.
"We, humanity as represented in the story, are all a bunch of _____."
Hint: 5 letters, plural, and the one profane outburst my wife forbids in front of the children, quite popular in Britain.
3 Diablo Pentagrams to the author
4 Biker Unicorns to the narrator
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Cheers -- MitD
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We apologize for the inconvenience.
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Ok, not looking at the other posts just now because I'm in the midst of listening, but I gotta say....
Matt, "industrial winch" sounds a lot like "industrial wench" here. Bit of a different meaning...
(edit - nor should "Twain" be twine. I mean, the author of Huck Finn isn't Mark Twine, it he?)
Just sayin'
;)
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Ok, now that I've finished it and had a while to think about it, I think the following:
It's interesting that both Escape Pod and Podcastle had stories this week start in post-war hellscapes.
Sorry, this story did not pass the scratch test for Science Fiction. It's got a demon right there in the beginning and then it goes on to mix it up with the Pope, with nary a naturalistic explanation in sight. Not Science Fiction. (Heinlein's Job is classified as SF because he's a science fiction grandmaster, and where else are you gonna put him?)
But that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. I especially liked the hilariously foulmouthed demon. Though I would have rated the story stronger than it is, just for that. Of course, I also just finished the second Sandman Slim novel.
And while I, too, loved the scene Alisdair mentions in Kingdom of Heaven, I have to say that more than anything else what it reminded me of was the famous Monty Python sketch "The Funniest Joke in the World", with a joke so funny that it kills - literally - on contact. The Answer is much like that. Anything the author would offer would not compare with whatever your imagination can conjure. And in many ways, the Answer is a McGuffin. The Answer isn't important, it's important what one does with it.
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Ok, not looking at the other posts just now because I'm in the midst of listening, but I gotta say....
Matt, "industrial winch" sounds a lot like "industrial wench" here. Bit of a different meaning...
(edit - nor should "Twain" be twine. I mean, the author of Huck Finn isn't Mark Twine, it he?)
Just sayin'
;)
Read the text. I read what the author wrote.
http://escapepod.org/2013/09/21/ep414-knowing/ (http://escapepod.org/2013/09/21/ep414-knowing/)
I actually had to re-record "wench" because the first time I thought it was a typo. The second time I assumed either there was something I didn't know going on, or it was the author's error -- either way, I did what I was told.
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Read the text. I read what the author wrote.
I stand corrected. My apologies.
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Ok, not looking at the other posts just now because I'm in the midst of listening, but I gotta say....
Matt, "industrial winch" sounds a lot like "industrial wench" here. Bit of a different meaning...
(edit - nor should "Twain" be twine. I mean, the author of Huck Finn isn't Mark Twine, it he?)
Just sayin'
;)
Glad you said that then I didn't have to :-)
Also, never mind the PG 13 guidance, how about a 'don't be eating your lunch' suggestion?!
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Read the text. I read what the author wrote.
I stand corrected. My apologies.
You're not wrong, no need to apologize. I just didn't have time to verify with the author and in a pinch I side with the printed word.
As it happens, I agree with you. I would almost believe that 'twine' could be a variation of 'twain', although I can't find mention of that anywhere and it would be kinda ironic since 'twine' is almost an antonym of 'twain'.
I believe 'wench' is just wrong, but I've been burned making that judgement call before too.
The good news is that my studio computer is back in shape now [thanks, everybody for not being too harsh about the audio quality of recording on my Blue Mikey] so if I can find time to verify these with the author, I'll re-record in better quality.
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As it happens, I agree with you. I would almost believe that 'twine' could be a variation of 'twain', although I can't find mention of that anywhere and it would be kinda ironic since 'twine' is almost an antonym of 'twain'.
I believe 'wench' is just wrong, but I've been burned making that judgement call before too.
The good news is that my studio computer is back in shape now [thanks, everybody for not being too harsh about the audio quality of recording on my Blue Mikey] so if I can find time to verify these with the author, I'll re-record in better quality.
Or he could just write a story about an industrial wench. Might prove interesting.
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...especially one you have to secure to the bed of a truck and has the power to rend a demon in twine.
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'Dread the passage of Jesus, for he does not return'
Ok, has no one noticed the startling similarities to a Nick Cave song?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr7o_UFzrzY
From "Songs in the key of X" and is very strange and I think is deeply entwined with this story. Or is it so obvious I am overstating? Maybe I'm hallucinating the connection?
Very well done story. In feel it was almost like James Blish's Black Easter/Day after Judgement. I really liked it.
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I liked the demon a lot, some of the most colorful swearing I've ever heard. I didn't like much else, though. It seemed too much like a story a middle-schooler would write, where they say "He did this" & "He did that" for five pages til you get to the end and they make the big reveal that "He" was whoever-he-was the whole time! Isn't that shocking? I dunno. I don't mean to gripe, from the prose it's clear to me this isn't Wallace's first rodeo, I just really hate that device where something is hinted at the whole story. After a certain point, you're no longer even in suspense, you just want the reveal already so you can get on with the story.
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This story left me asking myself a variation on an age-old question: What is the difference between fantasy and science fiction?
I think I've garnered an understanding that there can often be overlaps, especially when Clarke's Laws come into play ('any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic') but even then, there's usually some sort of tie-in that I can use to make the connection. For example, the Dragon Riders of Pern started out as a pretty straightforward fantasy that ended up being exactly the opposite, a science fiction saga involving interstellar colonization, genetic engineering, psionic talents, time travel, etc. On the surface, it looked like basic sword & sorcery-class escapist fantasy, but when I got to a certain point, I realized I had been led down the garden path.
By the standards above, what does that say for Robert Heinlein's 'Job: A Comedy of Justice'? It's also classified as science fiction, but it has the same hidden element that I can't follow to differentiate it from fantasy.
Clearly, this is something of a personal failing on my part and rather than sit in a corner scratching my head perplexidly over it, I throw myself upon the collective brains of the community. Help this one get the answer to that most basic of comprehension questions in this regard: What am I missing?
I have to admit, this one "broke" my usual answer (borrowed from Orson Scott Card): "Science fiction has rivets, fantasy has trees."
Here, we had a tree and demon right there in the beginning, but it also had an industrial winch (wench, whatever. Big machine with a motor and a spool. And rivets. Almost certainly lots of rivets...) Not to mention the survival sphere thingy at the end.
More to the point, both religious/magical/mythic explanations AND scientific ones were employed. Though the "big stuff" tended to magical, while science-like explanations were reserved for minor points.
I suppose if you held a gun to my head and said, "Science fiction or fantasy?" I'd say, "Fantasy."
Well, no. I'd probably actually say: "Whoa, you are taking all this classification stuff WAAAAYYYY too seriously. Let's just put the gun down and enjoy the story, shall we?"
Which is what I'm actually saying... ;)
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I don't mean to gripe, from the prose it's clear to me this isn't Wallace's first rodeo, I just really hate that device where something is hinted at the whole story. After a certain point, you're no longer even in suspense, you just want the reveal already so you can get on with the story.
Yeah, I went all the way through that until I reached the point where I decided that "The Answer" was like the contents of the briefcase in "Pulp Fiction" -- the unseen thing that drives the action but is never revealed. A true MacGuffin.
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And finally, to second a point made in the podcast: If you haven't done so, go listen to "The Failed Cities Monologues." It is one of the most absolutely amazing things I've ever heard come out of my iPod. It's a common plot developed through multiple points of view in a future dystopia. Structurally innovative, well-written, brilliantly produced, with terrific narrators.
Here's the iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-failed-cities-monologues/id219621168
Podio Books: http://podiobooks.com/title/the-failed-cities-monologues/
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Here is the 'answer' in the latin and the lyrics to the Nick Cave song. Maybe there isn't a connection?
"Time jesum transuentum et non revertentum"
We were called to the forest... when we went down.
A wind blew warm and eloquent
We were searching for the secrets of the universe...
And we rounded up demons and forced them to tell us what it all meant
We tied 'em to trees and broke them down one by one
And on a scrap of paper, they wrote these words...
And as we read them, the sun broke through the trees...
"Dread the passage of Jesus, for he will not return."
Then we headed back to our world and left the forest behind...
Our hearts singin' with all the knowledge of love.
Then somewhere, somehow, we lost the message along the way...
And when we got home, we bought ourselves a house.
And we bought a car that we did not use...
And we bought a cage and two singing birds...
And at night we'd sit and listen to the canary's song.
For we'd both run right out of words...
Now the stars, they are all angled wrong...
And the sun and the moon refuse to burn
But I remember a message in a demon's hand
Dread the passage of Jesus for he does not return...
...he does not return...
...he does not return...
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What was the answer? Go back and re-read Arthur C. Clarke's "The Nine Billion Names of God". Am I showing my age yet? :)
I liked this one. The Answer never being revealed, but, as has been said, it's not the Answer that is important; it's what we do with that information. And seriously, given the number of falunatics (to coin a word) of all stripes, isn't the outcome quite believable? Except maybe for the physical manifestations in the world, but maybe even those were intended to have all been man-made.
Beware!
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Perhaps it's simply due to the influence of the current flash contest, but this felt like a giant riddle story to me. If the point is to present a study on how humans would react to a devastating "answer", then I'm disappointed with the broad strokes that were used and would have preferred a more nuanced approach. If the point was "a devastating answer will destroy the world", then I feel that not including the "answer" was a cop-out. At least Douglas Adams had the guts to make up an answer instead of leaving the audience hanging. :-\
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I believe I have a problem. I will be still asking Why? :)
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"...and wearing an apron the color of dead flowers"
But what kind of flowers?
I also was quite intrigued by an industrial wench with the power to convert a demon into string. Oh well.
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Why do people who know nothing about religion insist on telling us what it's all about? Alasdair? Matt? I was already bored of the "religion causes war" (or religion == war) fallacy many years ago.
Other than that, this bit of blatant "supernatural horror" masquerading as SF by the vague reference to nukes, didn't seem to do anything much. And also:
It seemed too much like a story a middle-schooler would write, where they say "He did this" & "He did that" for five pages til you get to the end and they make the big reveal that "He" was whoever-he-was the whole time! Isn't that shocking? I dunno.
Felt like that to me, too.
Oh well, I guess it just wasn't for me.
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Oh, what with my brain being broken by the flower colored apron I forgot to actually comment on the story.
I found it entertaining, but not a story I'd want to hear/read again or explore more of that world.
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"Why do people who know nothing about religion insist on telling us what it's all about? Alasdair? Matt? I was already bored of the "religion causes war" (or religion == war) fallacy many years ago."
I was confirmed into the Catholic Church aged 12. I've been active in multiple stripes of Christianity and other religions my entire life.
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Oh, what with my brain being broken by the flower colored apron I forgot to actually comment on the story.
I found it entertaining, but not a story I'd want to hear/read again or explore more of that world.
That's good. It seems to have dissolved.
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What was the deal with Meta I get that it had all holy knowledge uploaded into his/her brain but what brought out the second gender?
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I'm with the majority of the other listener's on this piece. It was quite cryptic, and frankly, flew right over my head. I think the characters had interesting quirks, with the gold-medal level cursing of the demon, the drug addicted priest, the dual gendered ally, and of course the "baby" Pope. It seemed like the story relied too heavily on these characters though, and not enough on the narrative itself, which I thought was a lot of violence without much actual movement.
I liked the ending of this well enough, though. I thought the somewhat calm ending was an interesting choice.
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If a spaghetti-Western had demons in it, I think it would look a lot like this. It was kind of a character-driven piece with lot of characters and not much...um other stuff. Just a veneer of plot pasted over a bunch of interesting people(Demons, they are people too!). Great swearing.
An aside: The swearing is almost as good as a neurosurgeon I work with (he is my baseline for all feats of swearing). He is round-faced and friendly as Santa Claus. But, if he is working on someone's spine and sees a drop of blood...my god. It is amazing. I have been known to volunteer to work with him just on the off chance I'll get new material. ;D
As far as wench vs winch. Its a dialect thing. Now, I spell winch as winch. But, if you ask us when I'm out at the ranch with my Dad for the thing spelled winch? We'd both say wench. Wench, wench, wench. I got all nostalgic for the ranching days of my youth when I heard that. Now, my Dad (bless him), also adds an unfortunate "t" to the end of chess when he says it aloud, so I am not saying us ranching folks is always in the right. You haven't lived until your father has asked you to go play "chest". :o
Anyhow, loved the characters, really really really hated the not knowing bit of things. Once I realized that there would be no reveal, I had fantasies of doing horrible things to the author to get him to confess what was on the paper. Horrible things involving wenches.
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i want to learn more about these characters and the world they live in
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I have downloaded "The Failed Cities Monologues." This is not helping my podcast backlog ;)
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I don't mean to gripe, from the prose it's clear to me this isn't Wallace's first rodeo, I just really hate that device where something is hinted at the whole story. After a certain point, you're no longer even in suspense, you just want the reveal already so you can get on with the story.
Yeah, I went all the way through that until I reached the point where I decided that "The Answer" was like the contents of the briefcase in "Pulp Fiction" -- the unseen thing that drives the action but is never revealed. A true MacGuffin.
Yeah. That's my feeling. I didn't enjoy the story that much, but I kept going for the reveal which never came so it left me frustrated.
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So is this science fiction or fantasy? I ask not to gripe, but because I couldn't figure out what the heck was going on in the story and knowing the genre might help me.
If it is sci fi, then I speculate that the answer is that they are in the matrix - a virtual world - hence all the destruction (not just fighting) when the secret is revealed.
Also felt like the author was poking fun at the Catholic church; although, he didn't treat any other religion so great either.
It was too confusing to be fun and I just kept listening for the revelation of the answer which never came so this ended just being frustrating.
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i think the point was that it didnt matter what the answer was just the fact that it was an immutable truth and thats what caused the world to end
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I enjoyed this one, it was unique(to me), interesting, and entertaining. The misery and darkness of the world was intriguing, and while I didn't understand parts, they were not integral to the overall understanding of the story as a whole.
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And finally, to second a point made in the podcast: If you haven't done so, go listen to "The Failed Cities Monologues." It is one of the most absolutely amazing things I've ever heard come out of my iPod. It's a common plot developed through multiple points of view in a future dystopia. Structurally innovative, well-written, brilliantly produced, with terrific narrators.
Here's the iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-failed-cities-monologues/id219621168
Podio Books: http://podiobooks.com/title/the-failed-cities-monologues/
+1
This might be my very favorite podcast novel, because it told the story in such an innovative way - one that's best experienced by listening to it. (Though I doubt Matt would complain if you bought the text version (http://www.amazon.com/Failed-Cities-Definitive-Edition-ebook/dp/B00A743J7A) of it from him!)
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And finally, to second a point made in the podcast: If you haven't done so, go listen to "The Failed Cities Monologues." It is one of the most absolutely amazing things I've ever heard come out of my iPod. It's a common plot developed through multiple points of view in a future dystopia. Structurally innovative, well-written, brilliantly produced, with terrific narrators.
Here's the iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-failed-cities-monologues/id219621168
Podio Books: http://podiobooks.com/title/the-failed-cities-monologues/
+1
This might be my very favorite podcast novel, because it told the story in such an innovative way - one that's best experienced by listening to it. (Though I doubt Matt would complain if you bought the text version (http://www.amazon.com/Failed-Cities-Definitive-Edition-ebook/dp/B00A743J7A) of it from him!)
I second that. Hopefully people are buying other media from the stories and authors we feature if they like them. I'm not rich at all, but whenever I can I buy copies of stories I've heard new media stars podcast. I've got Rossi, Sigler, Hutchins and more on my bookshelf -- some I've never read, I just wanted to give a couple bucks to someone who entertained me for a while.
<ThinlyVeiledPitch>
That's why I make monthly donations to podcasts like EP. The authors get paid for their work at a better rate than they would with any traditional form of publishing, and the show gets paid for bringing those works to me. I get to choose what's that worth vs. what I can afford -- so many great wins!
</ThinlyVeiledPitch>
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I wasn't a huge fan of this. It seemed like there was too much going on and I had a hard time following, I'm still not sure what the ending meant. Perhaps I should listen again but I just don't feel particularly interested from what I did follow. I agree the swearing was fun. :)
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This was great, I regretted reaching my destination because I had to pause the story temporarily.
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Not a fan of this one. It's all about the Macguffin, about which I never particularly cared. One trouble with basing a story from which madness and chaos will certaiinly ensue is that you can never actually reveal what it is without proving the claim false. That element just felt so entirely fake that all of the rest of it was just a caricature rather than having any belief in the story. And it just kept going on.
I've also listened to the Failed City Monologues. It was a cool idea, but I wasn't as enamored by it as most others seem to be. It had some neat ideas but it seemed like there was very little movement in your average episode.
http://www.diabolicalplots.com/?p=2554
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I'm afraid to say that this one was did not work for me. Not because of the lack of the reveal, but because, like Unblinking, I didn't find enough in it to care about. It was all a bit over the top, with most characters being rather cartoonish. It was tough to take it seriously at all, but it was far too self-serious to be a fun romp.
What I did really appreciate was Alasdair's outro. I often find that I'm happy to listen to 30 minutes of a story that doesn't do much for me in order to be able to listen to him talk about his take on its themes for 3-4 minutes afterwards, and this was definitely one of those cases.
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Here is the Answer:
"Heresy NIN"
He sewed his eyes shut because he is afraid to see
He tries to tell me what I put inside of me
He's got the answers to ease my curiosity
He dreamed a god up and called it Christianity
Your god is dead and no one cares
If there is a hell I'll see you there
He flexed his muscles to keep his flock of sheep in line
He made a virus that would kill off all the swine
His perfect kingdom of killing, suffering and pain
Demands devotion atrocities done in his name
Your god is dead and no one cares
If there is a hell I'll see you there
Your god is dead and no one cares
If there is a hell I'll see you there
Drowning in his own hypocrisy
And if there is a hell I'll see you there
Burning with your god in humility
Will you die for this?
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This one was oddly a big old 'meh' for me.
I say "oddly" because my main beef with escape pod is not that it doesn't run enough science fiction, but that it doesn't run enough stories. Preferring tales of bonding, introspection and angst over stories where stuff actually happens. Well stuff happens here in spades but it still didn't feel like a proper story.
All the characters had huge quirks but none made a jot of difference to the way they acted and while the universe died it appeared to do so only to act as a backdrop for the main protagonist to sit on the porch and espouse some home-spun philosophy on the importance of doing right by your people.
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Yup. Didn't care for this one either. Aside form the (in my opinion) stupid attempt at mind games (no, what do *you* think the Answer is?...), the story was just too disjointed for me, a jumble of characters who had almost nothing to do with each other. As a result, I found it confusing and hard to follow. In fact, on my first attempt to listen to this, I wasn't sure if I had actually heard 3 separate stories (and I had only gotten 1/2 way through at that point). In short, didn't work for me.
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While I didn't get too much out of the story itself, I enjoyed the atmosphere and the tense surrealism it created. This was clearly an unhinged world where almost anything could and did happen. But yeah, the whole thing about the truth being too much to handle didn't feel very original, and the characters certainly never rose above pawn-status.