Author Topic: EP186: Chrysalis  (Read 20159 times)

Russell Nash

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Reply #25 on: January 24, 2009, 05:09:23 PM
I've been reading the comments with great interest.  There's a saying in theater, "If it's not on the page, it's not on the stage" and a couple of the comments have made that really resonate in my head.

I just wanted to explain Vanessa's statement at the beginning about how people wouldn't have asked her male colleagues if they got involved.  Honestly, it is there for the purely technical reason of letting people know her gender.  Without Cunning Minx's voice, people who read the story on paper were bothered because they kept trying to figure out if she was male or female.

However, having read the previous two comments, I'm totally like, "Holy crap! That's a completely valid way to read it."  Just because it wasn't my intention doesn't save me.  As I said, this is completely fascinating.

Hi Mary,

We love it here when the author takes the time to come by and respond to our comments.



Mary Robinette Kowal

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Reply #26 on: January 25, 2009, 01:16:41 AM
Oh good.  I was worried that it would be intrusive.  I'm happy to answer questions, but equally happy to just watch you all talk about the story. It's a rare opportunity for me to hear this many people respond.



Russell Nash

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Reply #27 on: January 25, 2009, 09:23:15 AM
Oh good.  I was worried that it would be intrusive.  I'm happy to answer questions, but equally happy to just watch you all talk about the story. It's a rare opportunity for me to hear this many people respond.

Well, I hope you have thick skin.  Our folks are respectful, but they do speak their minds, and they are very critical.



Bdoomed

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Reply #28 on: January 25, 2009, 09:46:04 AM
just listened,
although the story was pretty predictable, the situation the documentarian was in is no less challenging.  There is also a lot to be said about the young working so the old can play, very cool idea!

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


ChiliFan

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Reply #29 on: January 26, 2009, 05:38:54 AM
I thought I should say that after listening to this story twice, I still don't really understand what it was about. I'm looking forward to the next episode of Escape Pod and I hope there will soon be an announcement of when this might be.




wakela

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Reply #30 on: January 30, 2009, 01:18:09 PM
Did anyone else's head to a little backflip when the Ms Kowal started off as an observer to our discussion and then decided to get involved thereby possibly changing the discussion?   ;)



Russell Nash

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Reply #31 on: January 30, 2009, 01:43:10 PM
Did anyone else's head to a little backflip when the Ms Kowal started off as an observer to our discussion and then decided to get involved thereby possibly changing the discussion?   ;)


Bravo!  Good observation.



ChiliFan

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Reply #32 on: February 05, 2009, 07:32:36 AM
Did anyone else's head to a little backflip when the Ms Kowal started off as an observer to our discussion and then decided to get involved thereby possibly changing the discussion?   ;)

Not really. I'm just waiting for her to explain what the story was actually about, then I'll be happy!  ;D






Planish

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Reply #33 on: February 11, 2009, 06:52:13 PM
I just wanted to explain Vanessa's statement at the beginning about how people wouldn't have asked her male colleagues if they got involved.  Honestly, it is there for the purely technical reason of letting people know her gender.  Without Cunning Minx's voice, people who read the story on paper were bothered because they kept trying to figure out if she was male or female.
It did accomplish that, no problem there.

What I began to wonder though, by the end, was whether or not the documentarian was human or not. I started out assuming that she was, but (unless I wasn't paying close enough attention) I don't think it's made clear either way.

I'm not sure it even makes a difference, but I would think that being a human would help her to maintain a distance from the subjects, so I'm inclined to believe that she was. Otherwise, what's the point in making the subjects so un-human?

I feed The Pod.
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Ersatz Coffee

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Reply #34 on: February 12, 2009, 04:37:48 PM
I thought this was one of the best stories for a while. What gave the aliens a real sense of alien-ness was not silk-spitting and thousands of 'fingers', but the fact that they live their lives backwards, so to speak - get all the work out of the way in the first stage of life, then afterwards devote themselves to leisure. It's an interesting idea.

It strikes me it's not just a simple reversal of the human pattern, however - the play of our childhood is in many ways part of our education (at the very least, our social education). With these creatures there must be a sort of childhood/adolescence during which they accumulate the necessary knowledge & experience to be able to undertake their 'work'. So really their next stage is more of a retirement than a childhood.

On a broader level, the work vs family life theme is something a lot of us can relate to!



zZzacha

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Reply #35 on: February 15, 2009, 05:56:35 PM
This story was great fun to listen to! Only the beginning... It just didn't grip me, had to rewind a few times before I started getting into the story. There was just a bit too much unfamiliar information in the first minutes, which needed my full attention. Being who I am, I can never ever give anything my _full_ attention, so I had to rewind over and over because I kept missing words or part of a sentence and then I was completely lost again. To me, the story had a very difficult start and I noticed that more listeners had that problem.

I was, however, very glad that I kept on going! The story was great and interesting. It did touch a few nice anthropologists' issues, issues that would also apply to embedded journalists and such.

As for the aliens, I agree with Bdoomed: a very cool idea, that the young were working so the old can play. What would humanity be like, if we started doing that today? End of humanity, I predict ;P

It is never too late to be what you might have been.


Planish

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Reply #36 on: February 15, 2009, 09:03:53 PM
There is also a lot to be said about the young working so the old can play, very cool idea!

I took that to mean "the young work so that their older selves can play". Possibly that's different from what you were thinking. ;)

I feed The Pod.
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Unblinking

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Reply #37 on: May 20, 2010, 02:04:21 PM
I had likes and dislikes for this one.

I liked the reversal of age roles, where the young are the hardworking and the researchers replaced by their devil-may-care ne'er-do-well elders, and the anxiety one feels when you're approaching the rite of passage and know you'll be giving up your life's work.  Full-scale metamorphasis is common in insects, but it's interesting to see how thinking beings react to it.  When you come out of the cocoon you know you'll basically be a different person--you can choose to see this as the death of one person and the birth of another, or just as personality growth.  If one sees it as the former, that would be terrifying, and his mate's reassurances about the future can't do much to comfort him because she's not the same person she was before the change.

Also, the documentarian's dilemma was an interesting one, though it's a little predictable that she's going to interfere at some point.  In her shoes, I think I would have too.

My dislikes:  the beginning was way too slow, throwing too many alien details at me that I just got lost, and inundating with camera angle info which is in character but really dull to me.  Once it got to the real dilemma and I understood what was going on then it went pretty smoothly.