Author Topic: Pseudopod 208: The Evil-Eater  (Read 12202 times)

Heradel

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on: October 15, 2010, 06:03:50 AM
Pseudopod 208: The Evil-Eater

By Peadar Ó Guilín

Read by Wilson Fowlie

The giant left them to be replaced by a man bearing a pair of earthenware bowls containing a dark, lumpy substance. Marie watched it warily, and Toby knew she was already thinking of leaving. She had expected champagne and chandeliers; a feast of caviar and lobster while famous men took time out from their wives to steal glances at her across the room. Her dreams did not include the absence of a menu, brown lumpy stuff and a waiter who looked like he’d eaten bad chicken the night before. In fact, Toby noticed, while the wine stewards were all fine, strong men, the food waiters who passed through the flickering firelight were frightening to behold. Their faces shone with a veneer of sweat which beaded and ran into the rough spun tunics they wore. They shook as though palsied, and each of them moved as slowly as possible, hurrying only under the glare of the wine stewards. Not one of them looked Irish.

“What is this bleedin’ crap!” hissed Marie.

“Er-Erta,” said the waiter. He looked terrified. “Erta.”



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snap-hiss

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Reply #1 on: October 15, 2010, 01:20:14 PM
I really dug this one.  The beast living in fire had me thinking it was a demon, or otherwise from Hell, but this story surprised me more than once. The line about being "run out" (I forget the exact line) was interesting. The control bracelet concept didn't really work for me, but overall... Enjoyable.

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ElectricPaladin

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Reply #2 on: October 15, 2010, 07:56:38 PM
This story failed to appeal to me. Ultimately, I think I found it a little ham-handed. The basic premise was pleasing enough - man purified through exposure to darkness - but I thought it was a little... obvious? Overstated? The fact that he actually manages to get back together with his ex, whom he abandoned at her hour of greatest need is a little bit pat. People don't really work that way; or rather, when they do, it's really a story in and of itself. I thought that some of the details of Toby's redemption would have been better off implied, not stated.

The silver control bracelet also seemed a bit forced. It diluted the shock and horror value of the Evil Eater itself: "there's a giant flame-colored blob monster that eats sin and shits happy memories, and also magical mind control bracelets. Up next: faeries!" The story would have been punchier with another method of control - perhaps something more intimately tied to the Evil Eater, or simply a man with a gun - letting us focus all our attention on the Evil Eater itself.

I'm glad to see Wilson Fowlie branching out to Pseudopod, though. His reading made a mediocre story enjoyable.

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SanguineV

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Reply #3 on: October 15, 2010, 11:17:31 PM
I agree with ElectricPaladin that the silver bracelets and cute wrap up ending were a bit clumsy/heavy handed. Despite this I enjoyed the other aspects. The highlights were the basic idea of the Evil-Eater and then the way its existence was used by the humans around it. I found the horror to be mostly in how the humans took advantage of the Evil-Eater's existence, not so much in the monster itself.



zoanon

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Reply #4 on: October 17, 2010, 04:08:30 PM
a god who eats people providing a service in exchange for free meals. it reminds me of ep 191 acceptable losses, which in my opinion, was better and more horrible.



Unblinking

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Reply #5 on: October 18, 2010, 01:27:04 PM
This one had a really cool idea, the evil-eating goodness-shitting god/monster, and the man who was purified through his contact with him.  The initial setup was also very intriguing--in his position I might've tried to slip into the restaurant too, it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, really. 

As others said, his reunion with the ex who'd dumped him for his stupidity was a bit too convenient for me.  Has she really not moved on at this point?  What if she'd been married to someone else by that time? 

And the mind control bracelet just read too much as a plot device.  It never felt real, just a way for the author to explain the obvious question "why doesn't he tell someone?"

Overall, I liked it though.



heyes

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Reply #6 on: October 18, 2010, 03:44:28 PM
YEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS!
Now that was great, horrible, and wonderful.
I loved how just being in the presence of evil changed the main character.  I love how the evil stayed with the main character.  The fear that grew as the main character really came to know just what kind of a person he was and who he could become.  I love how the fear shaped his choice of who to be once he was free.

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Loz

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Reply #7 on: October 18, 2010, 03:50:04 PM
Hmmm, that's interesting. I have been toying with the idea of dropping Pseudopod, it's not a comment on the hard work Ben, Al and the others put in, but I've never really been a big horror fan. But I enjoyed this story and it seems for the exact reasons as those that disliked it. For me the weakest part was Toby and Marie's getting into the restaurant, because this is a horror podcast and this is a horror story it was annoyingly obvious that they had no idea what they were getting into, but after that was out of the way the rest of it was interesting.

I didn't understand why Erta, or concentrated goodness, would make Toby and Marie both think of happier times, but am happy to leave that as a 'why not?' of the story. And the end of the story was unclear for me, he dedicates himself to doing something more useful with his life, I get, but whatever it was that made him break up with his previous girlfriend he makes up with her and now they live together with a baby?

So I'll stay subscribed to Pseudopod for a while longer I guess. ;D



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Reply #8 on: October 18, 2010, 05:14:04 PM
I didn't understand why Erta, or concentrated goodness, would make Toby and Marie both think of happier times, but am happy to leave that as a 'why not?' of the story.

The way I understood it, on a very abstract level, is that Erta tastes like happiness.  Sensory associations are one of the biggest keys to memory.  I've heard smell is the strongest, but that's closely linked to taste, so not a big stretch.  Natural flavors (i.e. flavors that actually exist outside of this story) can have strong associations, Alasdair listed a few of these.  None of these have any kind of universal reaction across humanity--they may be associated with nothing at all, or with some powerful childhood memory for good or bad.  Erta, on the other hand, has an unnatural origin and works in a different way.  It works through the sense of taste, but taste is nothing but a vector for the emotional association.  So instead of tasting cherries and reliving a memory associated with cherry flavor, the Erta tastes of happiness and makes you relive a memory associated with happiness.

You've heard the expression "comfort food"?  Which is often things that are typically served for holidays, like roast turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, etc...  Though they taste super delicious, they also have strong emotional associations across large swaths of society with happy times spent with family.  That's about as close to this sort of universal emotional association food as I've ever heard of, and it's at best incomplete--It's assuming 2 things that are not universally true:
1.  That your family cooked those particular things on holidays.
2.  Your holidays with your family were a happy memory.
Erta bypasses these assumptions entirely, assuming no particular personal history, but jumping right to the "happiness" reaction.  No wonder this restaurant is wildly popular.  :)




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Reply #9 on: October 18, 2010, 11:22:18 PM
I'm not sure which I find more horrifying - the fact that there was some demi-god / demon that dined on evil and crapped happiness or the fact that it was exploited by the uber elite of humanity.  And why feed it immigrants?  Would it not find snacking on a few politicians a more satisying meal?
The overall idea of this story I did enjoy, but the happy ending kinda left it flat for me.
   



Wilson Fowlie

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Reply #10 on: October 19, 2010, 12:22:44 AM
And why feed it immigrants?  Would it not find snacking on a few politicians a more satisying meal?

Not enough goodness left over to feed the diners.  They only feed it politicians once in a while, as a special treat. ;)

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Reply #11 on: October 19, 2010, 02:02:52 AM
Enjoyable. I found it entirely plausible he'd seek out his ex- and try to mend what was broken after such an horrific experience. There were a few logical inconsistencies to my mind -- such as why the frak were they paying the workers €2,000/day??? -- but overall a good story. It might also seem slightly implausible to have a god on tap for so long?

Nice reading, Wilson. I can probably get a decent German accent going but with Irish ones I devolve into Scottish into spitting into incoherence.


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Reply #12 on: October 19, 2010, 01:24:44 PM
Quote
I found it entirely plausible he'd seek out his ex- and try to mend what was broken after such an horrific experience.

I didn't find his desire to get back with her implausible, but it just seemed convenient that she was both willing and available to get back with him just when he wanted.

Quote
such as why the frak were they paying the workers €2,000/day???

Hazard pay.  If you offer enough money, you can find someone to do any dirty job.  And I got the impression they pulled in enough from the celebrity diners that this amount to the workers was chump change.

:)



Schreiber

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Reply #13 on: October 20, 2010, 01:14:21 AM
This would have to be, at the very least, the third worst service industry job ever.



snap-hiss

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Reply #14 on: October 20, 2010, 10:52:34 PM
This would have to be, at the very least, the third worst service industry job ever.

And that's saying something.

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Unblinking

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Reply #15 on: October 21, 2010, 02:29:09 PM
For anyone who's interested, you can see Black Gate's illustration of The Evil-Eater here (along with a text excerpt):
http://www.blackgate.com/fiction-excerpt-the-evil-eater/



Scattercat

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Reply #16 on: October 21, 2010, 04:06:07 PM
For anyone who's interested, you can see Black Gate's illustration of The Evil-Eater here (along with a text excerpt):
http://www.blackgate.com/fiction-excerpt-the-evil-eater/
Wow.  That is... a really terrible picture.  What's with the 80's hair? 

I thought this story was okay.  ElectricPaladin and Unblinking pretty much summed up my dissatisfactions, and I heartily agree that "Acceptable Losses" was a lot more horrifying to me.  Rich people force poor people to do a disgusting job and risk life and limb in order to make said rich people more comfortable?  Shocker, there. 



snap-hiss

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Reply #17 on: October 21, 2010, 07:12:10 PM
For anyone who's interested, you can see Black Gate's illustration of The Evil-Eater here (along with a text excerpt):
http://www.blackgate.com/fiction-excerpt-the-evil-eater/


Looks like the thing is trying to eat Linda Hamilton.

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Dave

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Reply #18 on: October 24, 2010, 10:36:06 PM
Seems like every time EA publishes something from Realms of Fantasy, I say "hey, good choice!"

That goes double for anything from Black Gate. Mr. O'Neill's taste is impeccable, and this story is no exception.

I don't agree that the details of how Toby sets his life straight after escaping are important. Sure, there's a story there, but that's not what THIS story is about. We don't know exactly how long ago he made those mistakes, or what it would take to get to where he ends up, or even how long it DOES take him. (unless those details were in there and I missed them, which is possible). Either way that was secondary to this story, which kept surprising me. Good stuff.

Thanks, and keep 'em coming!

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ThinlyVeiledAlias

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Reply #19 on: October 25, 2010, 05:29:30 PM
I really enjoyed the concept of the story. I'm a sucker for culinary horror, (Afghan Lamb anyone?) That said, I found the story got a little preachy. I'm not against some sermonizing if it's balanced well.  Even with the dread of the tentacled thing the moralizing seemed heavy. 
Still, I felt listening to this story was time well spent.



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Reply #20 on: December 01, 2010, 06:25:53 PM

Really awesome story. I liked "Act 1" the most, setting up the premise, the character's jealousy and vanity, and the unraveling mystery of the Erta. The surrealness of inner sanctum got so wild that I felt the story was losing its focus, shifting to the Evil Eater and the other waiter, rather than Toby's predicament. But that's a minor criticism. Great story.


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Fenrix

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Reply #21 on: March 02, 2011, 03:38:02 PM
Fun story and an excellent reading by Wilson Fowlie. I thought the voices and accents were fitting and well done.

The moment of gut twisting I received was when I was figuring out what the erta was. For me, it was during the first feeding, just before it was explicitly explained. I thought it didn't fit the elegant and graceful Persian woman's character to talk so casually about shit, even if it is the shit of a god. The muscle stating that the protag would "be shit out within a day" was fitting and a better lead-in. The revelation in the feeding room could have been more subtle and dignified with that setup, as the reader realizes that the statement was literal and not figurative.

I'm not sure if I'm annoyed or amused by the inclusing of a character named Mr. Tahini in a story involving food in middle eastern swaddling.

Comfort food isn't just about holidays. Comfort food is also the stuff that is cooked with care and means family. A lot of what is considered comfort food is the borne from the need for economical methods of feeding the family. Stews are a fine example of this, as they are generally cheap, tough cuts of meat slow cooked to tenderize them and then the rendering used to build a sauce. This is generally served with some vegetables and bulky starches to help stretch the meat. And every culture has a basic stew that reflects the regionalities and what is cheap and plentiful for that area. Other things that fit this category are home-made chicken soup and anything that goes into the "soul food" or "low country" categories.
« Last Edit: March 02, 2011, 03:39:40 PM by Fenrix »

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Reply #22 on: May 18, 2014, 04:39:21 AM
  And why feed it immigrants?  Would it not find snacking on a few politicians a more satisying meal?

Because they won't be missed by anyone who can do anything about it, and because the politicians have money, and know other people with money.