Author Topic: Pseudopod 186: Ankor Sabat  (Read 40941 times)

Mortuis

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Reply #25 on: March 22, 2010, 04:42:43 PM
Hey, I just listened to this story and signed up to say I loved it.  Is there any place we can get the text?



Kapitano

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Reply #26 on: March 22, 2010, 11:50:31 PM
Calling something a "pile of wank" if the style is not to your taste is a bit much.

Strawman. Personal taste in (sub)genre and judgements about whether the piece is written well are quite different things.

Personally I love science fiction - but I can still recognise that three quarters of Star Trek: Voyager is clumsily written and overformulaic. I'll forgive it some of it's problems more willingly than I'll forgive similar problems in (say) historical romance stories, because I don't enjoy the genre  of historical romance - though I may like certain stories.  But that doesn't mean I'm blind to bad writing in science fiction - or good writing in historical romance.

I gave a list of reasons why I think Ankor Sabat is thematically poor. Eytanz discussed it's overderivative and predictable use of language. Others said they found it boring. These are not objections to the genre itself.

If you personally enjoyed the story...good for you. But if we're talking about personal taste, all we can do is compare, not discuss.



Koobie

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Reply #27 on: March 23, 2010, 12:24:51 AM
Woah, teh hate. :)

Anyhow, much like Mortuis, I've also registered to say how much I've enjoyed the story.

While I agree with the general notion that the piece would have benefitted from a slightly less expected ending, I think that the world building, descriptions, and general "feel" of the story are extremely well-written.

Talking about the ending, btw, while I was hoping for more, I thought it fit with the rest of the piece. The evil high priest laughing at his throne made perfect sense to me - it reinforced the wicked fairytale-gone-wrong feel I got listening to this piece.

I had a very vivid image of the badly damaged old man climbing up to the tower with his six chambered repeater... Very powerful use of language, too - especially where the author described the high priest. Great stuff.

And the harem was a very powerful scene IMO, really made me feel for the MC's fear that his girl would be next in line.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2010, 12:46:21 AM by Koobie »



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Reply #28 on: March 23, 2010, 12:42:48 AM
Yah, the story worked well for me too.  The language made it feel like a super twisted fairytale, and in that light the "moral of this story" ending seemed totally appropriate.  I'm personally very surprised that the author was previously unpublished-- congrats C.

  Truly horrible a fate for that Fiona, as kind and loving as she was to him at the beginning, to see and recognize him but not be able to speak yet, to know, after so many years of hopelessness, that he came all that way for her, only to then turn his back and leave her to be locked away forever. 



feste451

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Reply #29 on: March 23, 2010, 01:22:09 AM
I enjoyed this story a lot. It started out like a classic epic fantasy, but started leaning toward steampunk a bit with the mention of the repeating rifle (I like), but then took a massive turn to the dark side as desperation and despair overpowered the values that made the MC a good leader. But when he finally reached Ankor Sabat, wow.

My first reaction was, "How cool! How very Lovecraftian." But then I read Sgarre1's entry and the reference to the works of Clark Ashton Smith. I immediately went looking for works from this author. I managed to find a few pieces from the Zothique collection and can only say, Sgarre1, SPOT ON! Thank you for the lead.

And to C. Deskin Rink, thank you for a most enjoyable and twisted story.

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Koobie

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Reply #30 on: March 23, 2010, 04:14:57 PM
And additionally, thanks to Pseudopod for buying it and to Ben for doing a fantastic job with the narration (forgot to mention how much I liked Ben's work with this in my previous post). Cheers!



Listener

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Reply #31 on: March 23, 2010, 05:33:01 PM
I'm not a fan of this writing style. It seemed like it was a lot of telling and not a lot of showing, too much description without enough action, and at the end the Elder God says "ha ha I fooled you". Not my kind of story.

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gelee

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Reply #32 on: March 23, 2010, 08:34:07 PM
* Pseudo-grand world creation with lots of sub-Tolkein place names.
* Pile on the standard horror adjectives - till you run out of them and have to start describing things as "unspeakable".
* Have the hero lose all remaining hope, several times in succession.
* Give the big bad exactly one insult to throw at the hero, again and again - "insect".
* Signify that a name refers to something evil by putting a "th" in it.
* Obvious "surprise" at the end - with the big bad explaining it for the benefit of dumb readers.
Well, I don't know about "strawman."  I'm looking at the list of things you hate about this story, and all but two seem, to me, to be hallmarks of the style in which it's written.  Are you really a fan of Lovecraft, Dunsany, Clark Ashton Smith, Howard, and others who wrote in this style, but just don't like this particular story?  I'm thinking you're not, and any story written in this style is probably going to get the "Overblown Lip-Smacking" lable.
But my point wasn't that your objection wasn't valid, just that it was made a bit theatrically.  Sorry if that wasn't clear.



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Reply #33 on: March 24, 2010, 02:01:58 PM
The beginning was so slow and over-descriptive that I was very tempted to hit the next button.  But I'm less quick to do that these days because I know I'll have to wait another week for a new episode, so I kept listening, and I'm glad I did!

I'm not very familiar with any of the authors that others have said this evoked.  I've only heard one Lovecraft, and that was The Music of Erich Zann here on PP (which I very much enjoyed).  So I'm coming into it with fresh eyes.

Overall, I wish the first half had gotten to the point a little faster.  Lots of description, not much happening.  Lots of writers do this (Tolkien being the master of over-describing) but it's not my cuppa.  And, as others have pointed out, the "indescribable" and "unspeakable" adjectives constantly making an appearance weakens the otherwise powerful descriptions.

It really started interesting me when each member of the harem was brought out, and it kept me interested until the end.  And by "end" I mean the point where the "hero" leaves.  I prefer to retcon out the Bond-villain explanation at the end and leave it at least marginally ambiguous.

To me, the most powerful things in this story were what I saw as the two themes.  Yes, these themes have been covered well elsewhere, but I thought this was a decent addition.
1.  The all-powerful quest bends the hero to its will.  Similar to Memento in this way.  The quest becomes the sole focus of the hero's attention for so long that it gains a life of its own.  No longer is the quest a means to an end, but it is both means and end.  "The Quest Must Go On" is similar "The Show Must Go On" as if the quest/show are more important than anything, but without any explanation for WHY.  The Hero has scraped away every bit of his soul that could interfere with his Quest, and when he finally attains his goal, he finds that he still feels empty inside, unfulfilled, and if he stops the Quest he will have nothing to do but wallow in his own misery.  Continuing on the Quest doesn't make him feel any more fulfilled, but it gives him a purpose and he can push aside his despair in his efforts to drive on. 
A Quest-obsessed hero can be one of the most capable villains because some part of him feels that what he is doing is for Justice and Truth, and he doesn't give a crap that he just tortured hundreds of innocent priests to death.
I'm not sure it would've ended any happier if he had taken Fiona back with him.  I'm not convinced he was any more sane or any less cruel than the evil priest, and with no quest to follow, he would've turned his sadistic attentions on Fiona.

2.  Reality can't compare with nostalgia.  He remembers Fiona through the distorted filter of his own nostalgia, and over the years, his obsession with the quest to find her has only strengthened the distortions in this memory.  The version of Fiona in his mind is so flawlessthat no flesh-and-blood woman could possibly compare.  When faced with the real incarnation, even one which has been apparently put in stasis to prevent the inevitable aging that SHOULD have occurred to turn her into a wrinkled old lady, all he can see are the flaws not represented in his memory.  Even kept so young, the real Fiona is human, and therefore she cannot be perfect enough.  He sees her in this moment of weakness coming out of the chamber and her fragility, her mortality is so apparent that he knows in a moment that she cannot possibly be the immortal, incomparable, unchanging, inhuman being he has used to drive himself to continue on his quest.    She has to eat and poop like any other person, she has flaws and tempers like any other person, she gets sick sometimes and she will die like any other person.  No matter how strong he is in other ways he cannot cope with the realization that he has gone to such lengths and done such terrible things for a woman who is only human, so instead he denies the truth and abandons her.




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Reply #34 on: March 24, 2010, 02:06:59 PM
Oh, and great reading by Ben!



Sgarre1

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Reply #35 on: March 24, 2010, 03:57:31 PM
Oops, just realized this went into "What are you reading" and not this thread...

Clark Ashton Smith readings at

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/spoken-word/

I can definitely recommend "The Maze of MaĆ¢l Dweb" (which has something like a sequel in "The Flower-Women") and "The Empire of the Necromancers".  "The Door To Saturn" is surprisingly funny!  "The Dark Eidolon" is very outre.



J_Sch_1104

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Reply #36 on: March 25, 2010, 12:48:22 AM
I really liked the story and great reading.  I have to say that if I were in the High Priest's position, I would have done the same.  Not create a harem of horror, but interact with the protagonist and give him the chance to leave with his prize.



GuildSteersman

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Reply #37 on: March 25, 2010, 01:01:53 AM
I see what in the story has made so many draw parallels to the work of H.P. Lovecraft. However, I think that - beyond use of some nice vocabulary and a horror setting - this isn't really much like a Lovecraft tale in the motivations. The protagonist is motivated by lost love, and the story's theme is that you are changed by the chase, maybe even to the point where you aren't chasing what you were originally. Not much like Lovecraft's usual messages. I thought the story was solid and didn't deserve quite so much criticism.



Boggled Coriander

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Reply #38 on: March 25, 2010, 06:53:25 AM
Five minutes in, I was thinking that this was a very over-written Lovecraftian story, and I was kind of looking forward to seeing what sorts of snarky comments it would generate on this forum.

Ten minutes in, I was hooked.  Totally engrossed and loving the writing style.  I saw the final twist coming, but only 5 minutes in advance, not 20.

Great story.

"The meteor formed a crater, vampires crawling out of the crater." -  The Lyttle Lytton contest


Sgarre1

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Reply #39 on: March 25, 2010, 08:30:02 PM
A very interesting essay on "over-writing" versus differences in style, re: Clark Ashton Smith, that compares the original written text of a story by him versus its "edited for publication" version.  Well worth looking at.

http://www.violetbooks.com/REVIEWS/rockhill-cas.html



Listener

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Reply #40 on: March 25, 2010, 08:39:22 PM
A very interesting essay on "over-writing" versus differences in style, re: Clark Ashton Smith, that compares the original written text of a story by him versus its "edited for publication" version.  Well worth looking at.

http://www.violetbooks.com/REVIEWS/rockhill-cas.html

THIS (from the article):

Frequently, the revision replaces a phrase evocative of a number of different impressions by a simpler one with a close, but less precise meaning, for instance the fusion of the first two clauses of the opening sentence minus the cosmic frisson produced by the earlier description, the removal of "writhings" from the swamp, the substitution of "he did not approach" for "he was equally careful to avoid," the substitution of "guarded by the silent colossal automatons" for "guarded by those he did not wish to meet: the silent colossal iron servitors," etc. Subtle indications of Tiglari's caution & motives disappear. Now he simply moves, & the world in which he does so is less colorful & a little less menacing than it had been.

That's exactly how I feel when I have to cut down my stories -- I lose the descriptive words and turns of phrase that make the story more detailed. I cut almost 5000 words over the past three years as I tried to get "113 Feet" published. At first I lost minor details, but the last batch of 2200 chopped out two swaths of plot that made the story richer and more interesting (in my opinion). I still haven't sold it, and someday, after I do, when I have my own anthology or become popular (hah!) I'll publish the Director's Cut.

But by the same token (to bring it back on topic), there's a difference between description for description's sake and description to enrich the story. I made that mistake when trying to sell my first (and very crappy -- trust me) novel. I felt my readers needed to know the tiniest details about every character's life. It's still something I write when I do first drafts, but I pull that stuff out when I revise unless it's actually germane to the story. I haven't gone back and listened to "Ankor Sabat" -- and I probably won't -- but it felt like a lot of the descriptive language was overly flowery and unnecessary, much in the same way Tom Clancy's earlier Jack Ryan books overexplained EVERYTHING.

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goatkeeper

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Reply #41 on: March 26, 2010, 04:13:41 AM
GREAT article.  Thank you Listener, you've done a service to us all-- including editors of fiction markets everywhere.  :-)

Originality really comes into play whenever there is "excessive" modifiers, adjectives, descriptors-- and even then, most readers would probably prefer writing that is sharp and concise.  But I think it's something all of us writers deal with, we love us some lyrical lines.

At the same time, I always love when ancient, spooky stuff is described as "eldritch."  So, let's not get too regulatory here, hehe.
 
Concerning Ankor Sabat, this story just wouldn't have worked had it been trimmed of all wordiness, IMO.  It's more of a fairytale-- almost a parable, than "in the style of ____" and you just get away with it in that context.  The same way that a banjo works in a bluegrass band but not with a symphony orchestra.
Or does it....?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R13gYUjO2Ws&feature=related



Scattercat

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Reply #42 on: March 26, 2010, 06:08:39 AM
Extremely big "meh" for me.  I <3 Lovecraft 4 eva, but I never liked any of the other Mythos stuff.  It felt derivative and just... kind of imitative.

I pegged this as an homage to the Mythos stories almost immediately and was prepared to enjoy a bit of fun.  "The Great Old Pumpkin" is one of my favorites, and I generally enjoy stories that play with language and sounds ("Sultan of Meat," say.)

Someone above used the word "checklist," and noted "non-Euclidean" as the only Lovecraft Word that didn't get checked off.  That almost precisely parallels my own thoughts while listening.  I rapidly grew bored when I realized that, rather than a fun parody or reimagining, I was instead going to be listening to someone playing it straight and, worse, playing a cover rather than a new song in the style of the original.  Not to say that this specific story was told elsewhere, but it didn't go anywhere that wasn't obvious from the beginning, and then had a freaking monologue to explain the painfully obvious ending.  I kept second-guessing myself.  "Surely there's a twist here somewhere," I cried, running through the manure-filled barn.  No pony for me, alas.

I feel like this was an ode to Lovecraft/Smith/whoever that got a little too wrapped up in itself and its adoration and forgot to do enough to make itself fully presentable.  The place names were annoyingly generic; sure, they sound exotic... if you don't know the words.  To me, naming your cities "Blessing" and "Sullen" and so on isn't much of a cute trick.  (At least do some linguistic games and create words that SOUND LIKE they mean the concept you want them to mean.  Watch, I'll do one right now.  I want a, um, desert city.  Full of cacti.  So a word that means "spiky" and "dry."  Definitely need a "k" sound from prickly, stickly, etc.  "D" is dry.  "S" for sand and silicone and sun, and we want "a" because of all the "al" sounds in Arabic and Arabic = desert-ish.  My desert city will be named... Akladasi.  Bam.  Done.  Sixty seconds of stream of consciousness linguistic association.  How hard is that?)  In particular, the tone-deaf use of Lovecraft Words was grating to me.  There were a couple of times that I just groaned and said, "That's not how you use that word."  My cats were offended, as they never say anything they don't intend.  (They are quite erudite, but they don't realize that I'm not always addressing them.)

(Also, it would have been way cooler if Fiona had gasped out Galen's name as she was crammed back into the Magic Sensory Deprivation Chamber instead of the Attack of the Monologue.)



Listener

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Reply #43 on: March 26, 2010, 01:00:22 PM
GREAT article.  Thank you Listener, you've done a service to us all-- including editors of fiction markets everywhere.  :-)

You're welcome... but we really must thank Sgarre1, who put up the link in the first place.

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kibitzer

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Reply #44 on: March 30, 2010, 09:42:39 PM
Just finished this one and I'll add my voice to those who found it underwhelming. I found neither the MC nor his quest compelling or interesting and it felt a little like the story was going through the motions of C19th horror. It was by no means a terribly bad story, simply uninspiring.

The title had me expecting a setting in Thailand.


Ben Phillips

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Reply #45 on: March 31, 2010, 12:53:01 AM
There were a couple of times that I just groaned and said, "That's not how you use that word."

Specifically?  (I'm sure you're right, but I like learning.)



Scattercat

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Reply #46 on: March 31, 2010, 01:46:00 AM
There were a couple of times that I just groaned and said, "That's not how you use that word."

Specifically?  (I'm sure you're right, but I like learning.)

Criminy, now I can't even remember, and I don't want to re-listen to the story.  It might have been miscegenation, but I'm not sure.  It was something where he just threw out a Lovecraft-sounding word in a not-quite-appropriate context.  (He used miscegenation, for instance, to describe one of the twisted mockeries of women who had been reshaped and tormented into a monstrous form.  Either they started as human and were warped, in which case no breeding took place, or they were actually monsters in and of themselves, in which case they had bred true to their monsterhood and no interbreeding took place.  It wasn't entirely clear from the story which of those it was; I got the impression of the former, personally, given the Magic Sensory Deprivation Closet.)

Like I said, there were a couple of moments like that, and they bugged me, but I can't recall them all.



ancawonka

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Reply #47 on: April 01, 2010, 04:51:40 PM
I've never been able to read a full Lovecraft story, so I can't comment on whether this is derivative or not.  I enjoyed listening to this story, however. The narrator's tone was just right, and the imagery toward the end had me sitting in the parking lot till the end. Which was a bit disappointing after the buildup.

Perhaps Pseudopod should run a "classic" here and there, with an actual HP Lovecraft tale rather than all tuse dudes who are into Lovecraft.



DKT

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Reply #48 on: April 01, 2010, 06:33:09 PM
Perhaps Pseudopod should run a "classic" here and there, with an actual HP Lovecraft tale rather than all tuse dudes who are into Lovecraft.

Psssssst  :)


nathonicus

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Reply #49 on: April 06, 2010, 11:32:38 PM
Well, I'm not too into this story, but my Nerd-Rage has been piqued by people referring to this as "Lovecraftian."  Tsthagguoa was a creation of Clark Ashton Smith, and mentioned only in passing by HPL.  The whole structure of the story is dark fantasy, of the the type written by Smith or Robert E. Howard.  Perhaps dark, heroic fiction is not for you, but it is a genre some folks enjoy, and just because something is written in that genre doesn't make it garbage.  The writing in this story was ok, the plot was a bit predictable, and the pacing slow, but those are something of a hallmark for the genre, which attempts to create a fairytale-like experience.  (Albeit a dark one.)

Not one of my favorite stories, but really people, feedback can be negative without being cruel.

Oh, and learn your early 20th century horror tropes! :P