EP157: A Small Room in Koboldtown

[DKT]

I think Steve is getting a little loose with the ratings lately. PG? Really? What do you have to do to get an R these days?    My 10 year old was excited about another PG installment - I had to tell him I didn't think he was going to like this one.

  Well, there wasn't any cursing, and no one died and stayed that way. The racism themes were a bit beyond the understanding of the average child, but I do not know that I would give it an R rating... maybe a PG-13 though.

Actually, there was cursing.  I remember someone saying "fuck" at least twice.  Both times I thought it was funny.  But I can understand why a parent might not want their 10 year-old to listen. 

[Biscuit]

I found the narration of this story to be both frustrating to understand and delightful to listen to, if such is possible.

In agreement. I know I'm going to sound like an awful hypocrite, but I had to bug out at about the 5 minute mark. The narrator has a lovely voice, and he did the accents well, but TOO well. I got completely lost between the different characters.

I also remember trying to read this story when it was in Asimovs, and found the world building didn't suit me. The politics/legal exposition in a voodoo setting just didn't do it for me, and it's one of the few Asimovs stories in years that I've put down.

[Void Munashii]

I think Steve is getting a little loose with the ratings lately. PG? Really? What do you have to do to get an R these days?    My 10 year old was excited about another PG installment - I had to tell him I didn't think he was going to like this one.

  Well, there wasn't any cursing, and no one died and stayed that way. The racism themes were a bit beyond the understanding of the average child, but I do not know that I would give it an R rating... maybe a PG-13 though.

Actually, there was cursing.  I remember someone saying "fuck" at least twice.  Both times I thought it was funny.  But I can understand why a parent might not want their 10 year-old to listen. 

  Okay, I don't remember hearing that, but then my memory is not-so-great. In that case, it definitely should have been PG-13, if not R.

[contra]

Ok. 

This story didn't catch me.  I don't know wny.  I could say I've never been a massive fan of mystery or detective stories... but then I'd be a liar; I love them.  I don't know.  I listen to this story twice just to see if there was something I was missing. 
Maybe there is.  I can't pull on any single 9or multiple) factors I didn't like. 

I just didnt pull me into it.  Maybe next time *shrug*

[JoeFitz]

Don't take this as a criticism, but I think the reader here is almost too good for certain texts. The variety of voices occasionally became confusing. I think that was the fault of the text, not the reader.

The story was okay (a little too much "Murder She Wrote") but the setting was quite well done. It reminded of a few other stories on the PodCasts and they were all positive echoes.

[Windup]

Like others, I struggled a great deal with the narration on this one.  I'm not sure if the filtering on the councilman's voice got better toward the end, or I just got better at understanding it.  Either way, the voices and accents were more of a struggle for me than a help.

I liked the world-building aspect of the story, and probably would have enjoyed the mystery aspect more if I'd found it easier to follow.

[ajames]

I don't have much to add about the story that others haven't already said - I liked it well enough.

The narrator of this story has my respect. Yes, I struggled with understanding what was being said, especially in the beginning of the story. But then I went back and read the blurb of text on the website. No easy task to read that professionally. Words and phrases like "haint politician" and "Fane of Darkness" are going to throw some people when read out loud, whereas reading them on the page let's you know immediately that you didn't mishear or misread, it's just an unfamiliar word or phrase. "Nkisi nkonde" rolled off the narrator's tongue, and when he spoke of the neighborhoods of "Beluthahatchie" and "Diddy-Wah-Diddy" I was right there in the story. So put me in with the "both frustrated and enamored with the reading" group.

I did think the production quality was off.

As for the rating - I definitely noticed the cursing, and in my opinion this should have been included in the rating blurb. Or is the blurb just meant to be clever and fun and not informative as to the rating chosen?

"Rated PG. Contains dark, seedy places and dark, seedy characters, only a few of them alive."

"Rated PG. Contains cursing, some gore, and implied drug use and violence."

The second choice is boring, but at least I'm better prepared to determine if my child should listen to the story with me the first time, and I'll know what questions my child might have upon listening to the story. Isn't that one of the two main reasons for having a rating system in the first place?

 

[Planish]

I liked the setting, characters, and the accents.
I had to rewind at about a minute or so after they got to the crime scene because I lost track of who was who (or what), eg. totally missing the first time around that Toussaint was a haint himself. Then I enjoyed it much better.

What I don't forgive the author for is not revealing from the get-go that a boggart (or at least his boggarts) were capable of ripping out their own hearts and coming to life again when it is replaced. ... Which would give away the ending ... which makes the premise a doomed one.
Having the hero figure out the business with the missing fennel was fair (to the audience), but the heart thing was not, in spite of the hint about how tough boggarts were even after sustaining mortal injuries.

[mudguts]

I wasn't a big fan of the story.  I liked the premise of a Sci-Fi / Fantasy mixed in with a mystery but this had a predictable plot and not enough twists or background on the characters.  Perhaps if there were more stories exploring this universe like there are with the 'superhero' stories then I could get into it.

There wasn't enough explanation of all the characters powers / abilities.  I found myself losing track of who was talking to who and I was focusing on the story fairly intently.

I enjoy mysteries but if I wanted to hear one, I'd buy an Ellery Queen magazine.

Overall, I'd rate it a 4.5 / 10

[FNH]

Two word review : "Totally engaging"

[corporatewhore]

The narrator did a great job with the story. The only problem I had was getting his deep voice to be audible over the humming that fills the bus on my morning commute.

The mystery aspect of the story really didn't grab me. The characters, setting, theme, style and prose had me hooked.

[tpi]

I had to give up on this story. There was some kind of small audio problem, a slight echo or something like that, the reading was fast, and there were those accents. As non-english speaker I usually can handle one or two of that kind of "defects" when I am listening, but all three... maybe if I wouldn't be driving my car at the same time, and if I could concentrate totally for the listening I might have been able to follow the strory. But in that case it is so much easier and faster just to read the story.   

[Rain]

This is probably the first Escape Pod where i had trouble understanding what was being said, i will give it a another shot but there is clearly a big problem with the reading

[Myst]

I think there have been others set in the same apparent universe over the last couple of years in the same magazine.  Or else Haints are some old mythological creature that has suddenly started appearing lately in fiction by multiple authors.

I usually get half way through a story before I realize that it's a continuation/sequel to a story from months ago (unless it's spelled out in an intro).

Haint is a corruption of the word haunt. Used in the southern USA and some Caribbean islands.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/haint

As for the story itself I liked it. The setting sucked me in. I could feel the cools mists as the swamp fogs licked against my arms, and smell the organic scent of a decaying city plopped down in a ancient bog. I put the clues together about as fast as our hero did. So the explanation of whodunit was a happy vindication.   

[Listener]

I think Steve is getting a little loose with the ratings lately. PG? Really? What do you have to do to get an R these days?    My 10 year old was excited about another PG installment - I had to tell him I didn't think he was going to like this one.

  Well, there wasn't any cursing, and no one died and stayed that way. The racism themes were a bit beyond the understanding of the average child, but I do not know that I would give it an R rating... maybe a PG-13 though.

Actually, there was cursing.  I remember someone saying "fuck" at least twice.  Both times I thought it was funny.  But I can understand why a parent might not want their 10 year-old to listen. 

Interesting side note: the only reason "Garden State" was rated R, according to Zach Braff, is that the word "fuck" was used twice.  The MPAA allows one "fuck" if you want a PG-13.

I'm not Roseanne, your guide to the world of facts.

[DKT]

I think Steve is getting a little loose with the ratings lately. PG? Really? What do you have to do to get an R these days?    My 10 year old was excited about another PG installment - I had to tell him I didn't think he was going to like this one.

  Well, there wasn't any cursing, and no one died and stayed that way. The racism themes were a bit beyond the understanding of the average child, but I do not know that I would give it an R rating... maybe a PG-13 though.

Actually, there was cursing.  I remember someone saying "fuck" at least twice.  Both times I thought it was funny.  But I can understand why a parent might not want their 10 year-old to listen. 

Interesting side note: the only reason "Garden State" was rated R, according to Zach Braff, is that the word "fuck" was used twice.  The MPAA allows one "fuck" if you want a PG-13.

I'm not Roseanne, your guide to the world of facts.

If you haven't already, I highly recommend checking out the excellent documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated."  It will really frustrate you about the MPAA (if you aren't already).

Now I'm waiting for Russell to split the thread...

[mt house]

I LOVED this story. The narrator challenged me a little at first (I hadn't even been to the south until in my 20's), but that just got me to listen to it twice (which I rarely do) and it was better the second time around. More from the author AND narrator please!

[Tango Alpha Delta]

Put me down in the "really enjoyed it" column.

I am *not* putting anyone else down, but I do feel I have a bit of an edge understanding outlandish accents, and this reader consistently does a great job with the accents.  I didn't experience any of the audio problems cited by other listeners, and I sympathize with non-native-English speakers, but there has only been one Escape Pod episode that suffered from my inability to decipher what was being said, and that was the Cory Doctorow econ-punk thingy read by Biscuit.  (To be perfectly clear, I liked Biscuit's voice, but could parse that lingo to save my life.  The Pseudopod story she read about the Aussie fish-people was *much* more enjoyable.)

I was surprised that this crowd was thrown by the supernatural terms; but then, I remember seeing the word as "ha'ants" in one old ghost story book, and I've frequently perused Myths, Gods and Fantasy looking for inspiration.  Seeing the title primed me to expect the citizenry to consist of ha'ants, boggarts, frights, spooks, spirits, pixies, afancs, afrits, incubi, hobs, etc.

Y'all need to git yo fright on, y'dig? 

(Oh, moderator... moderate in moderation, please?)

[ChiliFan]

I was also really confused by the accents! Not only that, but the boxing statistics and the various fantasy or voodoo terms used. I actually had to listen to the story a total of three times before I fully understood it. I hope Steve learns from this not to make the same mistakes in future Escapepod stories.

 

[Void Munashii]

I was also really confused by the accents! Not only that, but the boxing statistics 

  I liked the part in the gym. The fact that he had a 3 and 2 record in fights to the death actually made me laugh out loud.

[DKT]

I was also really confused by the accents! Not only that, but the boxing statistics 

  I liked the part in the gym. The fact that he had a 3 and 2 record in fights to the death actually made me laugh out loud.

Yeah, I thought some of the humor in this really weird world was great.

[tawnyleona]

I've been listening to Escape Pod for a long time, and this is the first time I've really felt the urge to come post on the forums about a story...and also the first time I've actually read what people had to say, besides hearing Steve recap comments.

First, what I came to say was simply that I LOVED this story.  Not so much the mystery itself, because there wasn't really much of one, but the characters were absolutely engaging.  I also wanted to say that this was a case of a story wasting no time with exposition, and it still WORKED.  No words were wasted explaining what things were, because they were explained in the context of the story.

This is something I've worked on extensively in my own writing, and the style here made me stop and really think about how much time I've wasted in my stories explaining things when explanations could be made in the following passages and actions so neatly and efficiently.  Why turn to your audience and tell them what you mean when you can have your characters so conveniently work it in?

Then I came here to read that many people were confused about the very things I thought were so brilliant.  And then I read that many were confused by the accents, which made me giggle a bit because I didn't realize there WERE any accents. 

As for the rating thing, ratings are so off anyway to individual tastes.  When I worked in a movie theater, I showed "Erin Brockovich" and "Cider House Rules" at the same time.  Erin was rated R, Cider was rated PG-13.  The R-rating for Erin was the extensive use of cursing; Cider house rules had no cursing, but dealt with themes such as abortion, rape, and incest.  And that got me a little riled up.  My theoretical children (I have none yet) are going to hear foul language waiting in line at the grocery store, but I hope that the concepts of abortion, rape, and incest won't be introduced to them until they are much older. 

But this is coming from the person who didn't even notice cursing in the story.  I had to actually read a print version to verify it was in there:P  Guess my neighborhood grocery store needs an R rating as well.

Edit:  On second listen, while reading along, the accents were pretty inconsistent.  Just didn't notice it the first time...was too wrapped up in the story, I guess.  Will starts out the story with an accent, but towards the middle it disappears, comes back again.  I can understand how that can be frustrating to someone who is trying to keep character voices apart.

[Anarkey]

Oh huzzah, giving up Pseudopod doesn't mean I'll never hear Cheyenne Wright narrate a story again!  Life is good.

I liked this story.  As others have said, it's a fairly straightforward mystery, but the setting really sold it for me.   The only thing I didn't need was the 'here's what happened' recap.  The story had already played out, we could have skipped the stunted recap dialog and gone straight for Toussaint already knowing it, which was the emotional guts of the story anyway.

Also a fan, like tawnyleona, of the implied rather than explained world setting. 

Also would read/listen to other things in this setting.

Want to start a Toussaint for prez campaign.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

Oh huzzah, giving up Pseudopod doesn't mean I'll never hear Cheyenne Wright narrate a story again!  Life is good.

I liked this story.  As others have said, it's a fairly straightforward mystery, but the setting really sold it for me.   The only thing I didn't need was the 'here's what happened' recap.  The story had already played out, we could have skipped the stunted recap dialog and gone straight for Toussaint already knowing it, which was the emotional guts of the story anyway.

Also a fan, like tawnyleona, of the implied rather than explained world setting. 

Also would read/listen to other things in this setting.

Want to start a Toussaint for prez campaign.

Would "He Haint - Gonna be President!" be too ambiguous a slogan?

[Anarkey]

Would "He Haint - Gonna be President!" be too ambiguous a slogan?

I would wear that on a t-shirt!