Author Topic: Pseudopod 151: The Undoing  (Read 6784 times)

Bdoomed

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on: July 18, 2009, 03:44:22 AM
Pseudopod 151: The Undoing

By Sarah Totton
Read by Christiana Ellis

There are two accepted procedures for performing ocular excision. One involves suturing the eyelids shut prior to dissection and removal of the skin and soft tissues around and within the orbit. In the second method the eyelids are sutured open before the eye is dissected out. Given my patient’s particular circumstances, I was instructed to use the first method. This method has an added appeal for me; although the second method is less bloody, it involves performing the operation with the eye open — and I dislike being watched while I work.


Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

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


Bdoomed

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Reply #1 on: July 18, 2009, 03:45:09 AM
kay just started listening, Al i love your intro!

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


Zathras

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Reply #2 on: July 18, 2009, 04:05:25 AM
What was the point?



Bdoomed

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Reply #3 on: July 18, 2009, 04:35:06 AM
kinda found myself asking the same question.  i was enjoying it but it kinda fell flat at the end.  i was expecting something more horrific to happen...

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


eytanz

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Reply #4 on: July 19, 2009, 02:33:25 PM
This was a deceptively shallow story - it felt like there was going to be more to it, but no, it's just simple social criticism against the modern culture of fear. I agree with what it was saying, and the writing was certainly competant, but my main feeling at its end was disappointment.



Sgarre1

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Reply #5 on: July 19, 2009, 04:33:37 PM
Whereas, I found a sober, measured, mature meditation on the dangers of the ongoing loss of small parts of oneself (literal and figurative), how easy it is to subsume one's identity into being merely a functionary of the state 9the justifications are built right in!), and the sudden, wrenching, stark realization that the world has subtly changed while one was being smug, self-serving and apathetic (all qualities a culture like our must inculcate to continue to function as it currently does - that is to say, that "nothing is ever wrong enough to indispose myself in any way" because the "wrong" never happens to you and yours) to be anything but decepetively shallow.  In fact, I found the writing during the last sequence to be some of the absolute best I'd read in the last year - evocative and honest.

But I've got to go now - Storm Saxon (I mean, Jack Bauer) is going to rescue us from those baddies again...by any means he can, and I don't want to miss the righteous (not sadistic, no) blood and guts!
« Last Edit: July 19, 2009, 04:36:45 PM by Sgarre1 »



umamei

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Reply #6 on: August 21, 2009, 09:55:51 AM
I don't like needles.  Or scalpels.  And my middle-school algebra teacher used to torment my class by putting his glass eye on the desk, pointed right at us while he wrote on the blackboard, if we were misbehaving.  "I'm watching you," he'd say.  Eeeeeew!

There's not enough eeeeeewww! available for my reaction to this story.  The only thing that made me go "eeeeeew!" as much as this story did recently was discovering a fly had found its way into my lidded coffee and I almost swallowed it on my last sip.  I repeat "eeeeeew!"

I can't really get beyond the enjoyment of that non-fly-in-my-coffee "eeeeew" experience enough to effectively analyze the story, I just know I'd be thrilled (and horrified) to listen to something else from this author, or another story like this in the future.  Blech!



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Reply #7 on: August 27, 2009, 01:35:00 PM
Great story, even better narration.  She read it in such a cold and precise manner that it really did sound like a surgery transcription, which made the grisly details of the operations that much more disturbing than hearing about them in a voice filled with passion.

That being said, I'm not likely to listen to this one too often, as the clinical examination of eye removal and castration is not something I really want to repeat.



JoeFitz

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Reply #8 on: September 16, 2009, 01:39:44 AM
I found this story quite chilling in some respects, and generally was satisfied with its construction and execution.

I had trouble with many unanswered aspects of the doctor's actions. It is suggested that the doctor did not take this assignment voluntarily - that compromises are made in the care and treatment because it is a prison and not a hospital; that she was performing surgery she had never done before; that she was not watching the pain properly. This alone undermines her assertion that the treatment is humane. A statement she makes after being rushed to the bedside of a man whose hand she has amputated but apparently forgotten to provide sufficient medication post-surgery. I would have liked a little more introspection; but I think the story gets there in the end.

I found it very difficult to stay with the main narrative given the distraction of the caricature of the guards. In my experience, prison guards do not act this way around any prisoner in the presence of outsiders - especially ones they do not trust or respect. The trigger-happy guards were also clearly the exactly wrong ones to be assigned to this prisoner if the stated propaganda purpose was actually being implemented (i.e. keep him alive long enough to be surgically maimed and paraded in public.)

Castration seemed a bizarre choice of protocol for the propoganda - what were they going to do show him naked in public? But it clearly had the psychological impact that the eye and hand did not.



Millenium_King

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Reply #9 on: June 09, 2010, 08:40:37 PM
I thought I'd write a new review for this one.  The last seemed too harsh and unfair.  I apologize to the author and editor(s).

I just want to say that this story did not work for me.  I did not find it scary: just 20 minutes of someone being mutilated.  I did not feel dread, fear or terror - just disgust.  It was like watching "Hostel."

Finally, I felt it was plotless.  Nothing really happens beyond the torture.  I think that this story's only success is its message about how torture robs us of our humanity.  That message is fine, but I would prefer it to take a backseat to a "ripping good yarn."  I invite a comparison to Star Trek's "Let that be your Last Battlefield" because, although it was heavy handed indeed, it was an entertaining story even without the message.

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Fenrix

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Reply #10 on: November 17, 2010, 05:19:40 AM
This story has well developed gore, but I'm not much of a body horror fan. I didn't find the doctors growing sympathy/pity compelling, nor was the degeneration of the prisoner's hope. The prisoner seemed to bend a little - bend a little - then snap. Realistic, maybe, but not what I was looking for.

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