EP168: Family Values

[bolddeceiver]

I guess I depart from the pack; my impressions were exactly the opposite of the usual -- I really dug the story, didn't care for the world-building.  I know, I know, it's really tough to write truly alien aliens, and this was a valiant attempt.  But it fell to two related pitfalls.  First, while in physiology and mechanics these blobs were totally inhuman, and their culture was pretty alien.  But their mental and emotional process were, well, pretty much human.  Maybe there are some universals of what might be expected to develop in communicative sentient beings, but these guys seemed to think pretty human.

And that gets me to the other problem.  These guys seemed to think about their situation too much.  They felt almost like they were mildly surprised by their own biological and social activity.  So many things were said, not just in narration (acceptable, as the story is being narrated to humans) but also in dialogue (less acceptable, since the blobs are talking amogst themselves), that seem like they would have been left unsaid by a creature who had lived with that set of rules all its life.

Still, great story, and at very least tons of points for ambition just for trying to write a story so short about aliens so alien.  This definitely comes in on the top side of the EP median for me.

[Schreiber]

I did like the irony of casual and ostensibly anonymous sex saving a politician from a political gaffe.  But the story itself was weak soup.  Those zettajoules might have been better spent on character development and an emotional arc that didn't feel like a deleted scene from some  intergalactic version of "The West Wing."

[eytanz]

I enjoyed the story, and I echo Steve's sentiment about the worldbuilding. But there was something that worried me about the ending - maybe it's my cynicism, and years of being disappointed by (Earth) politics, but it seems to me that if all it takes to get a "Get A Senate Voice" token is some flattery and a larger donation (of body heat in this case) to a politician, without her ever checking to see what the guy's actual politics are - well, isn't that an echo of the worst people say about lobbyists today?

[stePH]

But there was something that worried me about the ending - maybe it's my cynicism, and years of being disappointed by (Earth) politics, but it seems to me that if all it takes to get a "Get A Senate Voice" token is some flattery and a larger donation (of body heat in this case) to a politician, without her ever checking to see what the guy's actual politics are - well, isn't that an echo of the worst people say about lobbyists today?

In a word: yes.

[slic]

Well, I lost the chance to be the clever one to make the link to "The West Wing"    
I definitely enjoyed the behind the scenes manoeuvres.

I found the story to be excellent!  It couldn't be any longer without being much much longer.  Schreiber wasn't wrong in describing it as a scene more than a complete episode, but that is often the weakness of short stories.

The story used every word effectively.  Every description helped move the story forward and explain the world.

Having disliked/meh'd most of the stories recently on Escapepod, I have been wondering if I am too picky - then this story comes along and delivers all the things I really enjoy in character-driven sci-fi.  I enjoyed so much, and it contained so much information, it is the first Escapepod story I've ever listened to twice.

bold deciever - the story has to be written from a human sense or else we couldn't possibly relate.  This is a mistake some writer's make when writing aliens - if they are too different from our understanding then the reader never relates.  This is clearly shown when people attribute human motivations to their pets and other animals.

[Schreiber]

I don't know if I agree that it couldn't have been productively longer, Slic.  I mean there's a built in cliff-hanger with the pregnancy, a virile young political upstart with newfound juice, and an upcoming election to sort through.  It felt as though the author just lost interest and went off to write a lobster alien sex story.

[smithmikeg]

I guess I depart from the pack; my impressions were exactly the opposite of the usual -- I really dug the story, didn't care for the world-building.  I know, I know, it's really tough to write truly alien aliens, and this was a valiant attempt.  But it fell to two related pitfalls.  First, while in physiology and mechanics these blobs were totally inhuman, and their culture was pretty alien.  But their mental and emotional process were, well, pretty much human.  Maybe there are some universals of what might be expected to develop in communicative sentient beings, but these guys seemed to think pretty human.

What, in your view, is the purpose of fiction?  I think that a wonderful aspect of sci-fi (and fantasy) is that we can explore human ideals, emotions, and thoughts in a way that would seem silly and contrived in contemporary settings with human characters.  I don't see the aliens' "humanity" as a liability.

[bolddeceiver]

bold deciever - the story has to be written from a human sense or else we couldn't possibly relate.  This is a mistake some writer's make when writing aliens - if they are too different from our understanding then the reader never relates.  This is clearly shown when people attribute human motivations to their pets and other animals.

I recognize that, but that doesn't make it believable.  I guess my problem here was it wasn't done consistently.  I can take something like Babylon 5 or Star Trek, where the aliens are humans with funny bumps, because the degree of difference is pretty steady.  I can also deal with something like Contact (the book, not the movie) or Gateway (the Heechee in the first book, or in the later book when they became skinny humans with human feelings, the Slush-dwellers and the Assassins) where the aliens' behavior and motivations are so different and unfathomable.  It's harder to deal with sentient jellyfish society revolving around preudosexual transfer of energy (hoeever plausible the measures) in a society of rigidly quantifiable (and possibly emperically verifiable) social hierarchical standing, that just happen to also experience the same emotions as we do in pretty much the exact same way, and also dance and engage in representative government by plebicite.  Teh anthropologist in me says, with such different starting conditions, it's just not believable that so much of their psychology and society would feel just like ours.

[slic]

I don't know if I agree that it couldn't have been productively longer, Slic.  I mean there's a built in cliff-hanger with the pregnancy, a virile young political upstart with newfound juice, and an upcoming election to sort through.  It felt as though the author just lost interest and went off to write a lobster alien sex story.

Hmmm.  While I do think this story had enough energy to go much longer, I meant that it would have to get alot longer to find another comfortable breaking point.  While the sub-plot around Teacher is unresolved, everything is pretty much answered.  Continuing the TV show analogy - these scene wrapped up, but you couldn't write another scene, you'd need to finish the episode.


And, bold deciever, I guess you've got the same point I sometimes have with a story - some niggly detail that I just can't get past. No worries.

[sayeth]

Thanks for a short one, Steve. Now I'm all caught up on my Escape Pod.

[ChiliFan]

I'm afraid I don't really understand what this story is about, because it was so short, therefore it didn't have enough Worldbuilding! I've listened to it three times now. All I understood was that a female politician was pregnant, the length of the pregnancy depends on how much energy she's got and how many offspring she's carrying and some of them can be held in suspended animation. I don't think this is enough and it obviously wasn't explained what "the children's vote" meant. I didn't know how old the children had to be before they could vote. This, as well as the lack of other details, such as the definition of energy units, really disappointed me. I hope there will never be another story as short as this one on Escapepod in the future!   

[eytanz]

I don't think this is enough and it obviously wasn't explained what "the children's vote" meant. I didn't know how old the children had to be before they could vote.

Well, since it was claimed that the children are pre-verbal, my assumption was that the only requirement was that they are born. But I'm not sure how giving a specific age would be helpful anyway, since we also don't know how long these creatures take to reach maturity, or, for that matter, how long their years are relative to ours.

[deflective]

as jellyfish like entities, they probably have a polyp stage they call children. since polyps are anchored (probably to something near the bottom, making sense of 'teacher of muddy waters') their movement would be limited and since jellyfish don't have much in the way of vocal chords their 'verbal' communication might be something more like sign language.

I hope there will never be another story as short as this one on Escapepod in the future!

according to the big list we've already had well over a dozen that were even shorter. maybe it's a trade off for going years without flash fiction.

i found the cross-gender thing strange. i can't think of the last time escape pod had an episode where the reader wasn't the same sex as the main character.

[Talia]

as jellyfish like entities, they probably have a polyp stage they call children. since polyps are anchored (probably to something near the bottom, making sense of 'teacher of muddy waters') their movement would be limited and since jellyfish don't have much in the way of vocal chords their 'verbal' communication might be something more like sign language.

I hope there will never be another story as short as this one on Escapepod in the future!

according to the big list we've already had well over a dozen that were even shorter. maybe it's a trade off for going years without flash fiction.

i found the cross-gender thing strange. i can't think of the last time escape pod had an episode where the reader wasn't the same sex as the main character.

Well, Steve read episode 155, which had a "female" protagonist, sort of - a robot referred to as "she" anyway..

[cryptoengineer]

I loved the story. In good short SF, the reader has to scramble
to build the world from hints dropped by the writer. This is a pleasure
denied to readers of mainstream literature.

I'm technically trained, and the energy units issue hit me like a
hammer ('He just said ZETTAjoules?'). It's up there with Han
Solo 'Making the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs', or the
original Battlestar Galactica using 'microns' as time intervals.
Authors who grab cool words from the dictionary should
realize that there's always someone familiar with the actual
meaning.

[DKT]

This is easily one of my favorite Escape Pods in recent months.  Very fun, I dug the Jane Austen vibe and wit and energy transfer/sex, and it made me laugh in a couple of spots.  I'm also going to have to take a look at more of what this author's written, and I hope we hear more of her stories on Escape Pod.  Alasdair was a great reader for this one. 

Also, I definitely don't mind a few shorter episodes like this one, especially when they're so note perfect.  I guess it could've been longer, as Schreiber suggested, but it would've been a different story, a more epic one, and it could've detracted from the fun tone and pacing this piece has going for it.

[Animite]

Contrary to the title, this story easily constitutes moral deviance not to mention the universal trait of political corruption found in all alien cultures. The intelligent jelly based races of the cosmos should take action against this senseless affront to their wholesome way of life...

So, seriously, it's sort of odd how the reproductive traits of a species unlike our own are perceived as unoffensive. As humans we gaze with slight embarrassment at documentaries and images as different species participate in the reproductive process and yet the idea doesn't take on real vibrance until the players become those of your own kind. What an odd race of beings we are. 

This was a good story with even spacing. I enjoyed it. 

[Swamp]

Contrary to the title, this story easily constitutes moral deviance not to mention the universal trait of political corruption found in all alien cultures. The intelligent jelly based races of the cosmos should take action against this senseless affront to their wholesome way of life...

So, seriously, it's sort of odd how the reproductive traits of a species unlike our own are perceived as unoffensive. As humans we gaze with slight embarrassment at documentaries and images as different species participate in the reproductive process and yet the idea doesn't take on real vibrance until the players become those of your own kind. What an odd race of beings we are. 

This was a good story with even spacing. I enjoyed it. 

I know your objection is somewhat tounge-in-cheek.  However, I felt as I read the story that the energy transfer was not a tautry act of sexual satisfaction, but a necessity for Senator Wu as a mother to care for the embryos she carried.  The teacher told her, "Surely, no one can blame you for being absent from the party in order to procure energy for your young." or something in that vein.  The source of her political power came from her competance as a mother, or at least as a child-bearer.  The story didn't actually say much about nurthuring and rearing the children. 

I kind of like the idea of a political system built around caring for children.  Of course, these alien politics (like all) are also subject to corruption.  It also appears the children were a source of status for the males.  Also, the teacher only gave her the energy to make her look good for the party, and he gave her a super dose of energy to impress her, so it's all about power and position.

Regardless, it is a fascinating world that we are given a glimpse of here.

[deflective]

i found the cross-gender thing strange. i can't think of the last time escape pod had an episode where the reader wasn't the same sex as the main character.

Well, Steve read episode 155, which had a "female" protagonist, sort of - a robot referred to as "she" anyway..

ah, i remember that now. i also remember thinking that was odd when i heard it. maybe we'll see more experimentation this way.

I kind of like the idea of a political system built around caring for children.  Of course, these alien politics (like all) are also subject to corruption.  It also appears the children were a source of status for the males.  Also, the teacher only gave her the energy to make her look good for the party, and he gave her a super dose of energy to impress her, so it's all about power and position.

maybe it's similar to the way a strong warrior general would be respected in the roman senate, this society gives political capital to strong breeders. veni, vidi, semini

[eytanz]

Also, the teacher only gave her the energy to make her look good for the party, and he gave her a super dose of energy to impress her, so it's all about power and position.

Maybe - his motivations are not very explicit in the story. It could be he's just trying to impress his way into her graces for personal reasons, or it could be that he's a very committed supporter doing what he can to help her get elected - most likely a bit of both - or it could be, as I suggested as a possiblity earlier - that he has his own political agenda and he's just trying to use her to get to it. The story didn't let us see much into his mind...