Escape Artists
PodCastle => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Talia on June 14, 2016, 06:04:06 PM
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PodCastle 420: The Bee Tamer’s Final Performance (http://podcastle.org/2016/06/14/podcastle-420-the-bee-tamers-final-performance/)
by Aidan Doyle
read by Amanda Fitzwater
A PodCastle original!
After my attempt to escape the circus fleet fails, the clowns imprison me in the hold of the asylum ship, along with the other performers who believe they aren’t real.
My legs are shackled and I sit next to a slug juggler and a fortune caller. The slug juggler’s hands move in an unceasing blur as he keeps half a dozen painted sea slugs spinning in a swirl of impossible reds and midnight sea blues.
The fortune caller looks at me with her mist-filled crystal ball eyes. “When you are ready, I will call your fortune.”
Before I have a chance to reply, I hear the low hum of bees. Black boots appear on the ladder leading to the deck.
Rated PG-13.
Aidan Doyle (http://www.aidandoyle.net/) is an Australian writer and computer programmer. He has visited more than 90 countries and his experiences include teaching English in Japan, interviewing ninjas in Bolivia, and going ten-pin bowling in North Korea. His stories have appeared in Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and Fireside.
Amanda (AJ) Fitzwater (http://pickledthink.blogspot.com/) is a dragon zipped precariously into a human meat suit from Christchurch, New Zealand. A graduate of Clarion 2014, her short fiction has appeared in Shimmer Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Crossed Genres Magazines, and other venues of repute. She won the Sir Julius Vogel Award 2015 for Best New Talent. She has performed spells and incantations across all the Escape Artists podcasts.
(http://escapepod.org/wp-images/podcast-mini4.gif) Listen to this week’s PodCastle! (http://media.rawvoice.com/podcastle/media.libsyn.com/media/podcastle/PC420_Beetamers.mp3)
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Weird. Interesting. I would be interested in a story having less to do with bees and more to do with this bizarre theology/world view, and also regarding why circus troupes are traveling on ships. So very curious about this world.
(Brevity/abruptness brought to you by enormous amounts of post-knee-surgery pain killers)
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Thank you for giving me my first Podcastle inspired nightmare. Clowns! Full of bees! Ahhh!
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Bee filled clowns.
(double checks he's not listening to Pseudopod ;-)
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I looooved this one so much. So many weirdnesses. Bee-filled clowns alone are worth the story, but there are a lot of other interesting bits too.
I find it interesting that the bees say "Tell us you are the one we love" rather than saying a more straightforward "Tell us WE are the one YOU love". Why do the bees want to be told who the bees love? Is it that they still believe on some level that they are part of a story, but that without a storyteller they are nothing, so it feels very important to them to have a storyteller, even if that storyteller is coerced?
Anyway, super weird, super fun, I am glad to have heard it.
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I find it interesting that the bees say "Tell us you are the one we love" rather than saying a more straightforward "Tell us WE are the one YOU love". Why do the bees want to be told who the bees love? Is it that they still believe on some level that they are part of a story, but that without a storyteller they are nothing, so it feels very important to them to have a storyteller, even if that storyteller is coerced?
I think they are asking her to confirm/accept that she is the Love Interest.
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I loved the world building in this story. It reminded me of Railsea, though it was completely different (does that make sense?).
I think I need to listen again though because I was very confused about one major thing. The bees love eating clowns so they stuff the dead whale with clowns. But the clowns are stuffed with bees. So do they stuff the whale with clowns until they've eaten the clowns insides then used the husks of the clowns to move around? Did I get that completely wrong?
I would really love to read the Book of Circus!
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I find it interesting that the bees say "Tell us you are the one we love" rather than saying a more straightforward "Tell us WE are the one YOU love". Why do the bees want to be told who the bees love? Is it that they still believe on some level that they are part of a story, but that without a storyteller they are nothing, so it feels very important to them to have a storyteller, even if that storyteller is coerced?
I think they are asking her to confirm/accept that she is the Love Interest.
That was my take too. And, I liked that the bees asked it that way. It was another delightful demented twist to this truly twisted story.
I would really love to read the Book of Circus!
Oh, me too!! (Even though what is written within likely would cause me to go mad...)
This was great. The first Aidan Doyle story I ever read was Inksucker (CoW Ep. 31, narrated by me (http://www.castofwonders.org/2012/03/episode-31-inksucker-by-aidan-doyle/)) and I have a feeling that The Book of Circus is in that bookstore somewhere. It would likely take a few days to find it, but...it is there somewhere.
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I think I need to listen again though because I was very confused about one major thing. The bees love eating clowns so they stuff the dead whale with clowns. But the clowns are stuffed with bees. So do they stuff the whale with clowns until they've eaten the clowns insides then used the husks of the clowns to move around? Did I get that completely wrong?
It's kind of like a Turducken.
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What am I for?
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Ack! So on the one hand I love the conceit of the girl refusing to play her role and all the characters (including the bees) being quite aware they are in a story. On the other hand, clowns filled with bees!! :o :o
So demented and brilliant.