Author Topic: March 2019: EP670 - EP673 Artemis Rising Stories  (Read 3970 times)

divs

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on: March 22, 2019, 10:54:59 PM
Welcome to Artemis Rising Month!

Escape Pod 670: The Scent of Lions (Artemis Rising)


Author : Tara Campbell
Narrator : Sandra Espinoza
Host : S. Kay Nash
Audio Producer : Summer Brooks
Artist : Yuumei

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“Congratulations, Mrs. Costa,” chirped the young Life Center nurse. “You’re ready to go home! Here’s your shield.”

Maria raised the infant in her arms high enough for the nurse to slip the slim, silver band around her waist.

“Let’s check the charge.” The nurse stepped back and smiled, nodding for Maria to switch on her shield. Maria shifted little Leon to free up a hand, causing her bag to slip off her shoulder.

“Oops, you don’t want to lose that,” cautioned the nurse, looping the strap back in place. She’d just rattled off the contents of the WellBaby Bag to Maria a moment ago: a blanket and hat, formula (to be used only “if all else fails”), diapers, home vaccination kit, a full power infant shield, and an emergency replacement shield.

The nurse stepped back and pushed her pink infospecs up the bridge of her nose. “Okay, try again.”


Listen to this episode!


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Escape Pod 671: Octonet (Artemis Rising)

Author : Keyan Bowes
Narrator : S.B. Divya
Host : Izzy Wasserstein
Audio Producer : Adam Pracht
Artist : Yuumei

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Sometimes at night when my mind is calm, I think I hear the octopuses. Around the world, the great network of molluscan philosophers.

Listen to this episode!


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Escape Pod 672: She Knits the Universe a Pink Angora Sweater (Artemis Rising)

Author : Bo Balder
Narrator : Stephanie Malia Morris
Host : Lisa Yaszek
Audio Producer : Summer Brooks
Artist : Yuumei

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Aulis shuts out the frenetic buzz of the arena where she’s competing for an Oikotekt placement in the space navy. Only an Oikotekt, a person of powerful imagination, can hold onto a picture of the universe as it is supposed to be against the reality-altering presence of the Katabiotic aliens.


Listen to this episode!

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Escape Pod 673: Optimizing the Verified Good (Artemis Rising)

Author : Effie Seiberg
Narrator : Trendane Sparks
Host : Laura Pearlman
Audio Producer : Summer Brooks
Artist : Yuumei

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The little cleanerbot whirrs as it crisscrosses the arena, sucking up the robot dust with the vacuum chute on its right and picking up strewn robot parts with the multi-hinged arm on its front. The arm is strong – it can pick up parts that are larger than the entire cleanerbot, and fling them up into the little cart that trundles behind it.


Listen to this episode!


« Last Edit: April 12, 2019, 05:10:10 PM by divs »



skeletondragon

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Reply #1 on: March 23, 2019, 04:03:26 PM
Re: Pink Angora Sweater
I have conflicting feelings about describing space opera by women as "nurturing" or "collaborative". Should more space opera be nurturing and collaborative? Yes, of course. Are women often the only writers willing to write these stories? Yeah, for now. But these adjectives make me have horrifying flashbacks to fundamentalist religious rationalizations for why all women really want to be mothers and should be restricted to support positions in the leadership hierarchy.

Generally, the solution is just to have a broader spectrum of stories by and about women, so that each one doesn't need to meet everyone's conflicting standards. And indeed, I've enjoyed most of the stories in this year's Artemis Rising so far. This one rubbed me the wrong way though - it centers around a kind of femininity that I mostly associate with clueless white heterosexual feminists who don't really examine the ways they benefit when their preferences and choices "just happen" to align with traditional Western ideas of suitable feminine behavior and pursuits.

Not that I think the story is necessarily bad or without merit. I'm clearly bringing a lot of baggage that makes it hard for me to appreciate it.



Father Beast

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Reply #2 on: March 27, 2019, 10:52:14 AM
Do you ever have that time where you think you know where the story is going, and it goes some other way, and the way it went is so much lamer than what you thought would happen, that you can't help but be disappointed?

That Happened to me with Pink Angora Sweater.

Since we had already seen that the artistry of two competing artists can interact with each other, and the protagonist was already thinking of how they should be working together instead of against each other, I was hoping for some awesome description of how her knitting and his poetry combined in a manner that was beyond what either of them could do individually. I had no idea how that could be done, but I waited for it.

Instead I got a disaster that happens right in the climax of her personal story, for no reason, and her pulling it all together by force of will. I was disappointed.

I'm ok with subverting my expectations, but please subvert my expectations with something more awesome than I expected. Not something lamer.



Moritz

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Reply #3 on: March 28, 2019, 08:57:04 AM
I just listened to The Scent of Lions, which was weird because we just brought our baby daughter home 4 weeks ago.  :o



Fenrix

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Reply #4 on: April 04, 2019, 11:45:26 PM
So far, Lions was nice and tense, but I really dug Octonet.

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


Fenrix

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Reply #5 on: April 11, 2019, 12:30:52 AM
I enjoyed both Pink Angora Sweater and Optimizing the Verified Good.

For Pink Angora Sweater, I really liked Lisa Yaszek's commentary. I'm really enjoying digging into THE FUTURE IS FEMALE! that she edited, and I'm looking forward to discussing that in my book club. I would take caution before dismissing any of her commentary. Lisa has made me re-evaluate a number of my preconceived notions including big bug stories that pre-date the atomic age, as well as the concept that women in science fiction is a new trend. Women have been consuming more speculative fiction for a long time -- long enough that the pulps changed the format and size of their magazines to be more appealing to women and portable in their purses. I wonder if the larger issue is more one of erasure.

That said, my favorite space + knitting story is still "Bring the Moon to Me" because the eldritch math angle pushes my buttons more. http://pseudopod.org/2017/04/13/pseudopod-538-flash-on-the-borderlands-xxxvii-higher-beings-command/

Also, I listened to this back to back with an adjacent Toasted Cake story: http://toastedcake.com/2019/02/toasted-cake-210-plain-jane-learns-to-knit-wormholes-by-wendy-nikel.html

And I appreciated the commentary for Verified Good that also pointed to Toasted Cake.  :) And cat commentary is always welcome. Someone should make a Catscast so we can get more of that. As to the story, Effie consistently writes delightful anthropomorphized things that are still distinctly not humans. I'd love to read Effie's take on connected/autonomous vehicles. Is there one out there that anyone can point me to?

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


Cyber Spirit

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Reply #6 on: May 02, 2019, 02:05:37 AM
I really enjoyed all the stories  in this Artemis Rising season, but I think my favorite two were "Optimizing the Verified Good" and "Octonet".  I liked the philosophical considerations in "Optimizing..." and how the robots negotiated their way to an optimal ending point.  It made me think about more societal considerations and how we deal with problems and the issues that go along with that.  "Octonet" was pretty mind-blowing to me-- lot of really big ideas with a lot of heart, and it had octopuses using cell phones--  I mean how cool, right?



effie

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Reply #7 on: October 20, 2019, 08:39:16 AM
Fenrix, thanks for the kind words! I don't have any fiction out about connected/autonomous cars, but now I feel like I ought to write some :) I bet they'll have some strong thoughts about where they're sent all day!

And Cyber Spirit, Octonet was SUCH A GOOD STORY OMG.

--Effie
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CryptoMe

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Reply #8 on: December 23, 2019, 03:34:56 AM
The Scent of Lions: I liked this story. It was a horrible, horrible world, but totally believable in light of the stupidity that is going on in some parts of the world with regard to female reproductive rights.



CryptoMe

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Reply #9 on: December 30, 2019, 08:11:36 PM
Octonet: This was such fun! Great ideas, great world building, realistic portrayal of various human egos, and octopi with techno gadgets. What could be better?

She Knits the Universe a Pink Angora Sweater: So, some of the imagery in this one was a bit too abstract for me to follow at time (and I'm a knitter, so that's not the problem). That said, I actually really liked the fact that the MC's personal story was hijacked by the alien attack. That's very realistic - life happens while you are making plans and all that. I didn't really understand how she saved the day (remember, lost in the abstract imagery), but I like that she somehow pulled it off.

Optimizing the Verified Good: I too like anthropomorphized robot stories and this one was particularly good. I love how the author gets us rooting for the cleaner robot and his quest to make things hurt less (I wish more people actually felt this way, about everything). Really well done.