Author Topic: Pseudopod 058: Among Their Bright Eyes  (Read 12228 times)

Bdoomed

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on: October 05, 2007, 08:33:34 PM
Pseudopod 058: Among Their Bright Eyes

By Alaya Dawn Johnson

Read by The Word Whore

They worship him. Or, perhaps more accurately, they are afraid of him. They keep him in one of their shelters, where he sits rigidly day after day, surrounded by the tiny, shriveled heads of their enemies. His dull, open eyes–two different shades of brown–stare at nothing. His stolen lungs do not breathe, his pilfered heart does not pound. Yet his crudely stitched patchwork skin does not rot any further–the monster has stopped, but he is not dead.

I despise him for being so pityingly self-assured, so brave. He descended to the darkness, but I still chased the lightning, wishing I could stop even while that surreal light coursed through my body. He says that Christians are supposed to love their creator, but how could I love mine? I am an abomination, a wild assembly of wasted, fetid things–a whore of borrowed parts. How could I want this life? And yet, how can I end it?



Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

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Listener

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Reply #1 on: October 08, 2007, 01:11:51 PM
Let me just say I love Word Whore's voice.  It's perfect for reading stories.  If she were to ever read erotica (and maybe she has), no listener would avoid reaching orgasm along with the characters.

But her voice takes me away from the story.  I just like to listen to it.  She could probably read the phone book and I'd still listen.

The story... eh... not bad, not great.  A little confusing to me, but maybe because (a) as I said, WW's voice carries me away and (b) I've never really been interested in the Frankenstein mythos.  Vivid and well written to be sure, but not my thing.  And the eye thing sort of blew past me... like... okay... I don't get it... well, I get it, but the whole bright eyes vs dark eyes thing didn't do it for me.

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Jim

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Reply #2 on: October 09, 2007, 01:24:00 PM
I liked the story for its surreal, fairy-tale quality. It was wonderfully read.

I actually do appreciate the flesh golem mythos, and I think this story does a nice job of presenting it in an original way.

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jabonko

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Reply #3 on: October 11, 2007, 06:27:13 PM
This is my first post, and first time listening to PseudoPod.

The story wasn't the kind that I would usually read on my own, but I figured it was as good a place to start as any for a first-time listener.  I, too, found the story a bit difficult to follow and didn't find the thematic eye elements that interesting either.  Oh well.

The one drawback to the episode that I found was a strange variation in volume, as if the reader were leaning forward and back while reading.  It didn't detract too much, but was noticeable.



The Word Whore

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Reply #4 on: October 11, 2007, 07:22:57 PM
Let me just say I love Word Whore's voice.  It's perfect for reading stories.  If she were to ever read erotica (and maybe she has), no listener would avoid reaching orgasm along with the characters...

Thank you so much. If I can find a way to fund such a project, nothing would make me happier than to bring that to... fruition;)

I liked this story, but found myself yearning for the author to dig/delve a little deeper/darker (would have prefered more exploration of the bloodlust/hunger).  I too found the "eyes" vein a bit thin... not that I found it confusing, just not strong enough to sew it all up and earn a place in the title.


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Loz

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Reply #5 on: October 12, 2007, 07:32:40 PM
Wow, I really enjoyed both the story and the reading, I'm not sure I agree that Frankenstein needs a sequel but if it did, then this might as well be it. I'm always fascinated by stories where the main character can feel themselves dying/shutting down, so I suppose that's what piques my interest here.



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Reply #6 on: October 13, 2007, 01:49:58 AM
Whoa- wierd to hear Word Whore reading a really good story.  I kept expecting her to stop in the middle and start talking about hermaphrodites.   ;D  Great job though



Loz

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Reply #7 on: October 13, 2007, 09:57:39 AM
Heh, it's a bit like hearing 'General E. Lee' on 'Air Out My Shorts' a few months ago and learning how much he self-edits his behaviour when doing 'Escape Pod'  ;D



The Word Whore

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Reply #8 on: October 13, 2007, 04:43:04 PM
Heh, it's a bit like hearing 'General E. Lee' on 'Air Out My Shorts' a few months ago and learning how much he self-edits his behaviour when doing 'Escape Pod'  ;D

Wait 'til you hear aoms #88...
The General has many layers   :o

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Bdoomed

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Reply #9 on: October 14, 2007, 07:55:50 AM
now yer just teasin us!

anyways, loved the story, loved the reading
i also didnt really get the eyes thing, but the rest of the story was great (cept for the plot hole from not understanding the eyes thing... what was so bad about seeing her eyes?  whyd she attack Copy because of it?)

also, having not yet read Frankenstein (shoot me.), was the beginning 'monologue?' a quote from the book?


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Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Listener

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Reply #10 on: October 15, 2007, 06:03:07 PM
Let me just say I love Word Whore's voice.  It's perfect for reading stories.  If she were to ever read erotica (and maybe she has), no listener would avoid reaching orgasm along with the characters...

Thank you so much. If I can find a way to fund such a project, nothing would make me happier than to bring that to... fruition;)

Well, if you do, let me know; I have a bunch of stories in that vein that I'd love to submit.  Some of them even involve submission.  (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

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Reply #11 on: October 15, 2007, 07:19:19 PM
Oh Word Whore and your divine voice. <3 Soooo ditto on the erotica thing.

I too didn't really get the bright eyes thing -- maybe it's something continued from the original novel? But not enough time was spent developing it regardless. I should probably reread the original and then come back to this story, because I feel like there's a lot I'm missing by not remembering it well enough.

I enjoyed Kapi more than the narrating character.

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Loz

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Reply #12 on: October 16, 2007, 08:23:15 AM
It's been quite a while since I last read Frankenstein but I don't remember there being anything in that about eyes, it may just be the general 'eyes are windows to the soul' thing and the question of, whether being life created by man denies them God's grace, can something without a soul be good... I'm going to have to go back and listen to the story again, though with the Word Whore's narration that's hardly a chore  ;D



wakela

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Reply #13 on: November 13, 2007, 12:55:38 AM
Loved the story.  Perfect reading.  Even though this story isn't scary like I want my PsPods to be, it was one of my favorites.  But I have read Frankenstein several times, so maybe that's the difference. 

I don't remember eyes being a particularly potent theme in Frankenstein, but I did think they worked in this story.  It made sense to me that The Bride would be obsessed with eyes since hers were most likely dull and horrible, and everyone else's were white and clear.  Though I agree that they didn't seem to be what the story was really about, so maybe the title wasn't the best.

I did find some references to eyes from the Frankenstein novel:

When The Monster first wakes up:
Quote
It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs...His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

Dr. Frank flees is creation in horror.  Later, he wakes up to find it in his bedroom:
Quote
I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch— the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me.

Throughout the book The Monster obsesses about how horrible he looks and how he is shunned by society and his own creator.  It made sense to me that his wife would feel the same way.

This story put me in a very rich, strange, disturbing world.  Patchwork bodies that don't rot, a soulless God, human sacrifice, whatever the hell Copy was, ugly sex, a wife who is also a sister ("you have his eyes").  So many SF and horror stories I read try to explain too much.  Maybe the writer is impressed with the reasons why everything happens and he wants to tell us.  But this story left much of the detail in shadow, and I find myself wondering what's back there. 

Great story, great reading




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Reply #14 on: November 23, 2007, 10:26:52 PM
whatever the hell Copy was
Interesting statement. I'm curious whether Kapi was a source of horror in herself in this story to many people. Are intersex people inherently scary or something?

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Planish

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Reply #15 on: November 28, 2007, 02:22:02 AM
 ??? I kept thinking the first two minutes or so were supposed to be exposition, but I couldn't follow the significance of the words. So, I spent most of the rest of the story reviewing the beginning in the light of what happened later. Very distracting.

I wasn't sure for a long time if Kapi/Copy was another manufactured person, or what. With a name that sounded like "copy", I was thinking "duplicate" or "clone" or something. It reminded me of the robot version of Maria in Metropolis, one of whose names was "Parody".

The business with the eyes didn't work for me either.

WW's reading was great though, once I got over what sounded like clipping on the lower frequencies.
« Last Edit: November 28, 2007, 02:26:12 AM by Planish »

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DarkKnightJRK

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Reply #16 on: November 29, 2007, 08:24:00 AM
The only thing that bothered me was the creation of the female creature. I'm pretty sure I remember reading in the book that Frankenstein aborted the girl before life was struck into her. Unless there's a bit explaining that in the story that I missed (like others mentioned, it's really easy to just get lost in Word Whore's voice), that's a pretty big change.

I wasn't sure for a long time if Kapi/Copy was another manufactured person, or what. With a name that sounded like "copy", I was thinking "duplicate" or "clone" or something. It reminded me of the robot version of Maria in Metropolis, one of whose names was "Parody".

I'm pretty sure Copy was just a girl in the villiage the creature and the girl rule over...well, more then a girl, really...:o



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Reply #17 on: October 02, 2009, 06:45:07 PM
I thought the premise was really intriguing, with Frankenstein's Monster's legacy, but I had trouble following it.  This could very well be because I have not read the original, something which I really ought to do some time soon.



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Reply #18 on: November 22, 2009, 04:44:43 AM
I will echo that the reading on this one was phenomenal, but the story wasn't my style. I found Waiting Up for Father to be a better representation of what I'm looking for in a flesh golem story.

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Reply #19 on: August 06, 2010, 10:39:30 PM
Apologies if my reviews seem terse and unfair today - maybe I'm in a bad mood or something.  This one gets another big thumbs down from me.  Again, I pressed "next" (even faster than when I listened to "Fever.").

When the story started, I was like "Hell yeah!  That's how you do it!  I'm invested in the narrator already! - and, oh... crap...  aren't these lines from Frankenstein?"  Once the story itself started, I found my interest flagging at an exponential rate.  Again, this felt like a good example of how to try to be immersive, but to succeed only in being vague.  I got the feeling that the narrator was a golem or something (or a monster, like Frankenstein's) but I just couldn't deal with the vague description and all the damn pronouns!!! Don't you things have names?!

Likewise: the concept of golems being energized by lightning strikes...  Has anyone every played Promethean: the Created?  This story felt like it was stolen directly from that game (also published in 2006).

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Reply #20 on: August 09, 2010, 01:58:03 PM
Likewise: the concept of golems being energized by lightning strikes...  Has anyone every played Promethean: the Created?  This story felt like it was stolen directly from that game (also published in 2006).

I'm pretty sure Mary Shelley had the idea before The Created did (Frankenstein's Monster is a flesh golem).   :D  So if you're going to complain about lack of originality because of lightning golem animation, I'd think the complaint would have to cover that game too.



Millenium_King

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Reply #21 on: August 09, 2010, 06:03:28 PM
Likewise: the concept of golems being energized by lightning strikes...  Has anyone every played Promethean: the Created?  This story felt like it was stolen directly from that game (also published in 2006).

I'm pretty sure Mary Shelley had the idea before The Created did (Frankenstein's Monster is a flesh golem).   :D  So if you're going to complain about lack of originality because of lightning golem animation, I'd think the complaint would have to cover that game too.

I should have been more explicit: In Frankenstein the monster is brought to life by lightning, but in this story it seems to be implied that the already animated golems seek out lightning to "energize" themselves or "recharge their batteries."  That is not a part of the original Frankenstein mythos, but is present in The Created.  It's similar to how most vampire stories these days borrow concepts from The Masquerade (which itself borrowed from Interview with the Vampire) rather than Dracula.

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Reply #22 on: August 10, 2010, 01:28:50 PM
I should have been more explicit: In Frankenstein the monster is brought to life by lightning, but in this story it seems to be implied that the already animated golems seek out lightning to "energize" themselves or "recharge their batteries."  That is not a part of the original Frankenstein mythos, but is present in The Created.  It's similar to how most vampire stories these days borrow concepts from The Masquerade (which itself borrowed from Interview with the Vampire) rather than Dracula.

I don't think it's a big jump in logic from Frankenstein, though.  Even stars will burn out eventually if they run out of fuel.  If Frankenstein's monster doesn't gain energy from eating, then it must get it's energy from somewhere else.  Since it was originally animated by lightning, it's not a leap of logic to guess it's needs another zap to get going again.  I'd say that conclusion can be reached very easily with just a bit of thought from the original Shelley work, so I don't think it's fair to claim they stole it from an intermediate medium, when both of the modern ones likely just extrapolated from Shelley's work.



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Reply #23 on: August 10, 2010, 04:06:55 PM
I don't think it's a big jump in logic from Frankenstein, though.  Even stars will burn out eventually if they run out of fuel.  If Frankenstein's monster doesn't gain energy from eating, then it must get it's energy from somewhere else.  Since it was originally animated by lightning, it's not a leap of logic to guess it's needs another zap to get going again.  I'd say that conclusion can be reached very easily with just a bit of thought from the original Shelley work, so I don't think it's fair to claim they stole it from an intermediate medium, when both of the modern ones likely just extrapolated from Shelley's work.

I don't think it's much of a leap in logic either; I was just wondering aloud since the concepts were so similar...

Also, in the original story, doesn't the monster eat?  I don't remember him being much different than a regular person except with more strength and endurance.

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Unblinking

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Reply #24 on: August 10, 2010, 04:48:24 PM
Also, in the original story, doesn't the monster eat?  I don't remember him being much different than a regular person except with more strength and endurance.

I've actually never read it before, so I was just jumping to conclusions.  It's possible that the monster eats.