Author Topic: EP217: The Kindness of Strangers  (Read 32799 times)

Ben Phillips

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Reply #50 on: September 29, 2009, 08:08:55 PM
She created some really good characterizations about unpleasant people that didn't really leave me feeling like humanity has a future in this world. 

Perfectly valid.

This story felt to me like Nancy Kress broke up with her boyfriend, and had to write a fantasy about aliens blowing up the world to feel better about it.

Let's all avoid engaging in demeaning speculative biography about each other, please.



Strawman

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Reply #51 on: September 29, 2009, 09:14:38 PM
but aliens seem to be incapable of doing this. In Star Trek the prime directive existed so that Kirk could ignore it. In the rest of fiction, there is no prime directive and aliens just meddle as they please.

Spoken like a typical earthling... soooo superior. That is why the universe hates you.



Sgarre1

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Reply #52 on: September 29, 2009, 09:42:02 PM
Quote
My second thought was "How come advanced races never do anything useful?" They have vast amounts of knowledge and yet they can't help us grow more food and build space colonies. God forbid they take a few years out of their busy, planet-destroying schedules. It's not just this story. It's every story with advanced aliens. They either want to overtly destroy us or they're so darn superior that they need to save us in a way that is totally contrary to what everybody wants. As human beings have gotten more advanced, in many places there has been a push to respect other cultures, but aliens seem to be incapable of doing this. In Star Trek the prime directive existed so that Kirk could ignore it. In the rest of fiction, there is no prime directive and aliens just meddle as they please.

The Kanamits seem to be doing all right by us.  Cured world hunger, ended war.  Plus, those cushy trips to their wonderful home planet...

Dear Mr. Chambers

Re: Kanamit document decoding, please find enclosed most recently translated words/phrases:
'succulent',
'tenderizer',
'rotisserie',
'until fork emerges clean'
'baste'
'fall off the bone'

Hope you enjoy your trip.  I may see you off at the launch pad.  We're very close to cracking the whole thing!

Your secretary
Pam Roberts  x0x0x0x0
« Last Edit: September 29, 2009, 09:46:33 PM by Sgarre1 »



Prank Call of Cthulhu

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Reply #53 on: September 29, 2009, 09:50:34 PM
I didn't care for this story. For me, it encapsulates what too often happens in science fiction written by women. (Yes I paint with a broad brush, but notice I say "often," not always.) The story seemed to be about 40 minutes of listening to an emotionally crippled character drone on and on about her feelings, and then at the end a couple of minutes were tacked on to wrap up the "plot," such as it was. I kept thinking as I listened to it that a more interesting story would have been told from the viewpoint of the men digging the tunnels and plotting an assault on the aliens. They were actually reacting to the situation and trying to solve the problem, while the narrator just existed to moon over her unhappy love affair to little purpose.

It was like taking one of Grace Paley's whinier stories and shoehorning it into a framework of aliens and forcefields just so it could get the sci-fi stamp.



Listener

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Reply #54 on: September 29, 2009, 11:33:20 PM
This story felt to me like Nancy Kress broke up with her boyfriend, and had to write a fantasy about aliens blowing up the world to feel better about it. 

Don't knock it. After a HUGE fight with my wife I wrote a novella about fighting with one's wife. Haven't published it yet but I really enjoyed writing it because, unlike the fight, it actually had a happy ending. Writing can be really theraputic.

"Farts are a hug you can smell." -Wil Wheaton

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Listener

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Reply #55 on: September 29, 2009, 11:35:45 PM
Are people nicer in small groups? Anyone who thinks that never lived in a small town. Are they more cooperative in small groups? Well, they tend to know their neighbors and follow the rituals of their culture. In the city those that don't conform can lose themselves in the crowds of people but in small groups those that don't conform will be ostracized or attacked.


I think they're either REALLY nice or REALLY insular, in small groups. In my neighborhood, I know about 40% of my neighbors on sight, but I only talk to 2% (there are 50 houses in the neighborhood). No one's made an effort to get to know my family, and honestly I haven't tried much to reach out either. It goes both ways, something that Jenny didn't figure out when Caitlyn (the grandmother; I forget her name) brought her into her circle.

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Listener

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Reply #56 on: September 29, 2009, 11:40:29 PM
Most everything's been said already, so I'll say it briefly:

1. Story was too long and dragged in the middle with all the self-absorbed depression.

2. Jenny was a great lens to view the invasion through. Agree that it was great how self-absorbed she was while the world fell apart.

3. Reading was good for the character, though after a while it got a little tiring to listen to because of the character.

4. Captain Imanalien Exposition at the end dragged somewhat as well, though Jenny's righteous anger -- not something you expect out of a sci-fi fan -- made up for it a bit.

I didn't like the story, but it was a good story.

Agree that the outro was a TAD long, but *shrug* my iPhone has a 2x speed button, and if I feel bored I can always press it.

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MacArthurBug

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Reply #57 on: September 30, 2009, 02:26:55 AM
This story felt to me like Nancy Kress broke up with her boyfriend, and had to write a fantasy about aliens blowing up the world to feel better about it. 

Don't knock it. After a HUGE fight with my wife I wrote a novella about fighting with one's wife. Haven't published it yet but I really enjoyed writing it because, unlike the fight, it actually had a happy ending. Writing can be really theraputic.


OOOH I do this too. My most used threat is "Be good or I'll torture/kill you in my next story."

Oh, great and mighty Alasdair, Orator Maleficent, He of the Silvered Tongue, guide this humble fangirl past jumping up and down and squeeing upon hearing the greatness of Thy voice.
Oh mighty Mur the Magnificent. I am not worthy.


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Reply #58 on: September 30, 2009, 05:20:02 PM
Love the plot, but WAY too long for its purpose.   I can skip over 75% of it without missing anything.
Short attention span or not, I was not prepare for a hour of derived "Childhood's End"



l33tminion

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Reply #59 on: October 01, 2009, 01:06:49 AM
Sometimes the only way to cope with disaster is to angst about your more mundane relationship problems.

Good story.



Joaquin Escudero Jr

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Reply #60 on: October 01, 2009, 10:28:01 AM
I have to admit I wasn't sure what to think of the story when I first heard it, not because it wasn't a good selection by the EP team I've yet to find a story whose merits I couldn't agree with, but it was more the large amount of ideas that blasted into my head after hearing it. Let me first point out that at the tender age of 26, I have no plans for children in the near future but often wonder as to the caliber of parent that I will become when that moment comes, this story brought up several issues in me about the choices my parents made while they were raising me. Often making choices about my future without first stopping to consider that though young I was another human being capable of forming my own opinions about the way my life should go.

 

I think ultimately that's the mark of a great story, one that leaves you pondering long after you've put the book, or in this this case your headphones down. I did feel that the pace of the story was a little on the slow side, about half way through the story I found myself thinking to myself, "Somebody give this woman a my chemical romance album and a razor blade stat!" The woe is me aspect of the main character was at first endearing, we all have those moments in life where we feel like the cosmos is out to mess with us in every way possible, but she quickly turned into the type of person that merely sulks about the injustices that the universe has laid upon her without realizing that she's not the only one suffering.

Aside from that, I thought that the story overall a great listen, the narration was superb as always.


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eytanz

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Reply #61 on: October 02, 2009, 03:45:09 PM
I'm with the negative side on this - I didn't think this was a terrible story, I just think it was overwrought, and unbalanced. The hook - a global crisis from the perspective of someone who is more caught up in their personal affairs - was interesting, but, as others have pointed out on the thread, the story ended up feeling more like two stories (Jenny's relationship problems + aliens) meshed together, not like one story with two strands.

On the less evaluative  and more practical side of criticsm, I'm a bit confused about the alien's plan, killing 90% of humanity is not going to make a major change. There are currently about 6.75 billion people on the Earth. 10% of that is 675 million, which was the population of the Earth in the early 18th century. And, with modern technology and medicine (presumably, enough doctors survived in small towns, non-Urban campuses, and in countries like Finland, Israel, and New Zealand, that are highly developed technologically but have no cities large enough to have vanished before the culling was done), the population will increase much faster than it did for most of those 250 years. Probably, the Earth will return to current population levels within 100-150 years at most. Were the aliens going to repeat the exercise?

Actually, mentioning Israel - how did the Aliens determine city population? If they went by official city boundaries and people counts, Tel Aviv, a city of less than 400,000 people, will almost certainly be spared. But the boundaries of Tel Aviv are mostly a technicality and have no pratical significance other than tax purposes and parking permits, as it is really just the central city in the continuous urban sprawl of Gush Dan, which contains 2-3 million people, depending on how exactly you count its boundaries, and would thus be larger than Rochester and included. I wonder what criteria the Aliens used - would suburbs count for city population sizes only if they are officially incorporated?

(I originally had an additional rant on how inappropriate the term "mass genocide" is, both in general and in the context of this story. I think using it here - apparently as a way to say "really really massive homicide" is highly problematic, on many levels, and offensive to victims of actual genocide - the distinction between genocide and homicide is not the amount of people killed, but the motivation and goal of the murderers, and it is worth keeping that in mind. But I decided to leave out the ranting, and just make note on this poor choice of words).
« Last Edit: October 02, 2009, 03:51:48 PM by eytanz »



Heradel

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Reply #62 on: October 02, 2009, 03:57:28 PM
(I originally had an additional rant on how inappropriate the term "mass genocide" is, both in general and in the context of this story. I think using it here - apparently as a way to say "really really massive homicide" is highly problematic, on many levels, and offensive to victims of actual genocide - the distinction between genocide and homicide is not the amount of people killed, but the motivation and goal of the murderers, and it is worth keeping that in mind. But I decided to leave out the ranting, and just make note on this poor choice of words).

When you're talking about a species-wide attempt xenocide is probably the right term, though it's still fairly colloquial and OSC-branded.

I Twitter. I also occasionally blog on the Escape Pod blog, which if you're here you shouldn't have much trouble finding.


eytanz

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Reply #63 on: October 02, 2009, 04:03:15 PM
(I originally had an additional rant on how inappropriate the term "mass genocide" is, both in general and in the context of this story. I think using it here - apparently as a way to say "really really massive homicide" is highly problematic, on many levels, and offensive to victims of actual genocide - the distinction between genocide and homicide is not the amount of people killed, but the motivation and goal of the murderers, and it is worth keeping that in mind. But I decided to leave out the ranting, and just make note on this poor choice of words).

When you're talking about a species-wide attempt xenocide is probably the right term, though it's still fairly colloquial and OSC-branded.

Part of the problem is that the aliens were not interested in exterminating either the human species or any particular human race or ethnicity. They killed a lot of people, but their stated goal was "pruning" the species, not killing it. They quite clearly had the ability to easily kill everyone on Earth, so the fact that there were any survivors meant that they were not being genocidal.



ajames

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Reply #64 on: October 03, 2009, 12:53:03 AM
On the less evaluative  and more practical side of criticsm, I'm a bit confused about the alien's plan, killing 90% of humanity is not going to make a major change. There are currently about 6.75 billion people on the Earth. 10% of that is 675 million, which was the population of the Earth in the early 18th century. And, with modern technology and medicine (presumably, enough doctors survived in small towns, non-Urban campuses, and in countries like Finland, Israel, and New Zealand, that are highly developed technologically but have no cities large enough to have vanished before the culling was done), the population will increase much faster than it did for most of those 250 years. Probably, the Earth will return to current population levels within 100-150 years at most. Were the aliens going to repeat the exercise?

Actually, mentioning Israel - how did the Aliens determine city population? If they went by official city boundaries and people counts, Tel Aviv, a city of less than 400,000 people, will almost certainly be spared. But the boundaries of Tel Aviv are mostly a technicality and have no pratical significance other than tax purposes and parking permits, as it is really just the central city in the continuous urban sprawl of Gush Dan, which contains 2-3 million people, depending on how exactly you count its boundaries, and would thus be larger than Rochester and included. I wonder what criteria the Aliens used - would suburbs count for city population sizes only if they are officially incorporated?

I had some problems with the practical side of the story, too, but these points don't seem particularly problemsome to me. Given that in this story the aliens wiped out 90% of the population because we were destroying the earth and leading to our own demise, the 10% that was left would likely take great pains to make sure that further growth was sustainable. Also, there may have been further alien "guidance" to prevent a return to the same problem.

As for determining population, who knows? Presumably they used some method of calculation.

With that said, I agree completely the first part of your criticism - the plots meshed together rather than carefully interwoven.



Talia

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Reply #65 on: October 04, 2009, 01:15:24 AM
I really rather enjoyed this one, particularly because of the protagonist's self absorbtion. She's so caught up in her own inner turmoil she pretty much completely ignores the needs of anyone else, and it makes it blind to what it's cost Eric. That seemed very realistic to me. I found the drama playing out between her and Eric moving and I felt for her, even despite her selfishness.

Also, I first made the mistake of trying to listen to this episode while in the supermarket. I spent the entirety of the intro wandering around the produce aisle aimlessly while I laughed. I probably looked like a crazy person. I'm not, though. Really. There are NO BODIES buried in my cellar...



Maze

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Reply #66 on: October 06, 2009, 12:57:35 PM
 :-\   


Norm - you are not Jack Nicholson. That voice in the intro just set my teeth on edge.

I feel that Steve, Alasdair and Claire all appear honest and earnest - The funny voices and over the top trying too hard - grates in the EP, PC and PP environment. Be yourself. Even a carefully scripted but seemingly natural version, please.

Story - sadly long, overwrought and did further perpetuate the cliche that the US is populated almost solely by the self absorbed and the gun totin' SUV drivin' meshbacks. (aah, very old term in SF there) and their screaming wives and kids.

It's not true, is it?

Some neat detail and quirks but the engineer in me kept saying 'why drive the cars, just run the engines, find the smallest cars, save fuel' oh its a plot point. ok.

 



kibitzer

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Reply #67 on: October 08, 2009, 07:56:12 AM
Story - sadly long, overwrought and did further perpetuate the cliche that the US is populated almost solely by the self absorbed and the gun totin' SUV drivin' meshbacks. (aah, very old term in SF there) and their screaming wives and kids.

It's not true, is it?

From outside the US, it can sure seem that way ;-)


thomasowenm

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Reply #68 on: October 10, 2009, 10:42:41 AM
Let me add my name to the haters of this story.  I had wanted at the start to like this story "end of humanity, last survivor trope", but it quickly fell into "Oh woe is me, Johnny give me your gun so I can end it all".  I was waiting for Jenny to slash her wrists to get some attention from Eric.  The other characters were all stereotypes with nothing to latch onto.

I also find it inconceivable that a large group especially New Yorkers would allow themselves to be corralled without demanding answers.  It took a self absorbed woman four days, to finally approach the aliens?  What about this person who is a "great organizer"?  Why didn't he go himself?  That is the sign of great leadership, and surely someone in that camp had leadership qualities.  And nobody else is even the least bit curious about the glowing buildings?  Too implausible.

As far as the benevilent aliens go, they seem the most realistic part of the story.  A species that is so far advanced that they can obliterate entire cities, probably think humanity is insignificant.  If I can borrow from real life, I'm from hunting country and people look at the deer population and when they see that it can not be sustained with the limited food available the DNR sell more deer tags.  The idea behind it is to weed out the population to make the rest of the herd stronger.  Maybe the aliens thought of us in the same way little more than mindless cattle, and they were unwilling for us to suffer so they issued human permits.


As far as  Norm Sherman's hosting I tried but found I had to fast forward through it.  Not my style  It seemed like someone from Cracked magazine was asked to edit Time or newsweek, without changing his style.  (Although that might make the  magazines better IMO).  But Norm does not a better EscapePod make.  Just my two nigis.



spork

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Reply #69 on: October 11, 2009, 04:42:13 PM
Dreadfully dull.
What happens when a writer has a minimum length deadline, and an Atlas.
How much of this story was just reading lists of world cities in order of population size? At least two minutes.  And then there was the geneology tree reciting. 
Please don't give authors like this a deadline or a target length.  It is punishing.



Cerebrilith

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Reply #70 on: October 13, 2009, 02:55:20 PM
I mostly got a kick out of this story because I live just outside of Rochester, NY.



kibitzer

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Reply #71 on: October 13, 2009, 10:16:55 PM
I mostly got a kick out of this story because I live just outside of Rochester, NY.

Hope you're stocked up on food and water. And petrol.


Ocicat

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Reply #72 on: October 15, 2009, 07:29:03 PM
This one really wasn't my cup of tea.  I liked some of the alien bits, but they didn't seem well thought out, just a framework to hang the relationship drama on.  And the relationship drama didn't grab me.  Hated all the characters, mostly (well, didn't hate the grandmother, but she was dull anyway).  Partially it might be my polyamorous perspective - stories about cheating and such just bore me. 



wakela

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Reply #73 on: October 27, 2009, 12:58:47 AM
This was one of my least favorite EP stories.

I thought the reading was good.  It was flat an monotone and depressing, but so was the main character.  I'm not being sarcastic, I would like to hear more from the reader.  I don't mind the mispronunciation of the cities; I just figured not everyone pronounces them the same way I do.

I also thought the writing was good.  And good writing isn't easy.  The story was well paced if you assume it's a story about a woman feeling useless because she's going through a bad breakup.   But I think most of us did not want to hear this story. 

But the unforgivable sins of a science fiction story or that it be unimaginative and poorly thought out, and this story is guilty of both.  The idea that humans are so hopeless that they need to be nearly wiped out in order to save them from themselves is tired, and this story doesn't add anything new to the sub-genre.  Treating humans as a species instead of individuals could be interesting but the story would rather give us a trite message about the crisis du jour.  Enough people have raised questions about cell phones and metropolitan borders that I don't have to.  I have more questions, but I don't think anyone is really interested.  If Ms Kress didn't care enough to think it through, why should we?  OK, I will ask this:  why are they driving around to charge the car batteries, why not let the cars idle? OK, sorry, but who the hell gives their kid with a broken arm to a stranger?! 

But something I can add to the conversation regards the treatment of women in this and many other SF stories.  I haven't done a count, but if you have some otherworldly event and the main character tries to deal with the problems it creates, he is most likely a guy. On the other hand, if the main character worries about a guy who she's been seeing who seemed like totally cool at first but has recently become distant and she really thought this might be going somewhere but now I just don't know what to think  I mean is he seeing someone else or what and oh yeah these aliens are like so annoying, the main character is probably a woman.  Imagine how silly this story would be if the main character were a man who spent all day moping about whether or not a woman who cheated on her husband with him was going to stop trying to escape the alien menace and come give him a hug.   Next time you hear an SF story and the protagonist is a woman see if her relationship problems take center stage.  Ask yourself what would have happened if the protagonist were male.  I'm not saying it's a 100% (military stories about women are an exception.  As soon as the woman picks up a weapon she's her own person: Terminator, Halloween, Alien(s), oooooh very phallic.  I could get a PhD for this.), but I think there's a trend. 

I don't really think women are incomplete unless they are in a relationship, but women authors keep telling me that they are.



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Reply #74 on: October 27, 2009, 05:10:04 PM
I completely agree with Wakela. 

The only reason I kept listening was to see when Jenny would finally stand up to Eric and the redhead, but she never does.  I can't stand characters who mope while others treat them like crap.  Her sudden hatred at the end didn't convince me that she would change and be motivated to do anything.

But if there had just been a closing paragraph in which she tells Eric to go to hell, slaps the horrible mother, and then charges off all blazing with her new purpose, I would have LOVED the story.  ;D