Author Topic: Pseudopod 216: Oral Tradition  (Read 7199 times)

Bdoomed

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on: December 19, 2010, 04:30:39 AM
Pseudopod 216: Oral Tradition

By Angel Leigh McCoy

Read by Ben Phillips

Heavy footsteps crossed the verandah and approached the front door. Momentarily, a tall, thick-muscled black man entered the room. He wore the attire of a blacksmith from the 19th century, including the heavy leather apron. His image shifted in the breeze, like laundry hung out to dry, but upside-down, with inverted gravity, anchored by his feet to the floor. Around his neck, he had the unmistakable mark of a rope burn.

I stumbled back, back into an end-table. Clumsy, I placed it between me and my visitors.




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?


Scattercat

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Reply #1 on: December 19, 2010, 05:44:33 AM
Awesome idea and well-written, but I didn't really care for the execution.  The grotesquerie and body horror was a real turnoff to a fascinating concept for me.  There has to be another way to convey terror and horror, especially with such a rich vein to mine.  Likewise, I found the direct discussion of the themes - the way the protagonist openly announces about how she has to remember and tell the stories etc. - to be a trifle too straightforward for my taste.  I prefer an elliptical approach to theme, personally, and I think this story would more than support such a structure.  I feel like it weakened the metaphysical horror to be so blunt, and that's what necessitated the overdose of physical gross-out imagery: a bid to make the ethereally horrific past into a materially horrific present for the reader.  For me, I vastly prefer (and am more frightened by) the former compared to the latter, so I didn't get much from the translation of abstract to concrete.

A good story, but stylistically not to my personal liking.  I can distantly appreciate it; I just don't have any enthusiasm for it.



Loz

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Reply #2 on: December 20, 2010, 07:40:48 PM
Oddly I had the opposite reaction. Walking home from work in the snow that covers London and has succeeded in bringing most other forms of transport to a stop (trains, planes and automobiles tend to find it better to spend a couple of weeks moaning about bad weather rather than doing something about it) I found this the perfect story for accompanying me down deserted streets and the body horror kicked in as I walked across a park of dead or very deeply sleeping plant matter. What separates horror from fantasy for me is that in the former, there is often a high price for doing the right thing as well, and the narrator has to pay it here. I would have liked a little more activity on the part of the narrator, they killed her Mum for cripes sake, but all in all it was an atmospheric little tale, well told and well performed by Mr. Phillips.



Schreiber

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Reply #3 on: December 21, 2010, 04:24:46 PM
I hear what Scattercat is saying, but I'm glad Ben and Al took this one anyway. We could get caught up in the question of whether this really counts as horror - it is unquestionably horrifying but not particularly interested in suspense- and whether it belongs on Pseudopod or not. But unless I'm mistaken, there isn't a SankofaCast out there...yet. And this is a story worth telling.



iamafish

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Reply #4 on: December 25, 2010, 05:08:20 AM
I rather liked it. It may have been a little too over the top and lacking in suspense to properlly be called horror, but I guess it did chill me a little. some of the protagonists guilt got a little overbearing - show me, don't keep telling me!

I liked how at the end she lost all her teeth, i thought that brough an interesting symmetry to the story.


Scattercat

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Reply #5 on: December 26, 2010, 07:34:21 PM
I hear what Scattercat is saying, but I'm glad Ben and Al took this one anyway. We could get caught up in the question of whether this really counts as horror

Indeed.  I'd never suggest that the story doesn't "belong" on Pseudopod; I have my individual and esoteric tastes, and I'm pretty far out of the mainstream most of the time anyway.  Arguing over whether any given story fits within any given genre has always struck me as a bit silly on the face of it.

I just couldn't really get enthusiastic about this particular story because body horror just doesn't do it for me.  It takes me out of a story rather than pulling me in and making it more "real" to me, and I tend to dislike horror that hinges solely on disgusting things happening to someone's body.  I was disappointed here because I love the idea of stories having weight and meaning, and I tend to be fascinated by the way the past impinges on the present and the future, but rather than addressing those favored themes in a way I liked, this story went a different route and became, for me, less interesting as a result.  Sort of like if someone made me a chocolate cake and then put coconut on it.  :-(  People who like chocolate AND coconut will definitely enjoy that cake, but I prefer my chocolate straight.



Unblinking

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Reply #6 on: December 28, 2010, 02:56:51 PM
I like the overall theme of the importance of stories in your heritage, but overall I agree with scattercat on this one.  Body horror isn't really my thing, and I thought it was a shame when the underlying theme was explained so explicitly.  I mean, granted, I'm pretty slow when it comes to discerning themes, but I'd still rather have them be behind the scenes so that on the rare occasion when I can figure them out it feels like I've accomplished something.

The teeth falling out at the end, while it fit Grandma's story about having too many stories in there, seemed like it was added just for grossout effect. 

I kept forgetting, too, that the protagonist was female--I think because it was narrated in first person and read by a man. 



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Reply #7 on: December 29, 2010, 06:08:51 PM
I enjoyed the premise of the story, but there were a few technical issues with the writing that kept pulling me out. First, the afghan on the back of Granny's couch changed from crocheted to knit. Then, the twin girls are described as smelling of almonds but having been poisoned with arsenic. Actually, the poison that smells like bitter almonds is cyanide.

I know they're small issues, but they bugged me enough to stop listening to the story with 12 minutes left to go so I could point them out. :-/



Marguerite

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Reply #8 on: December 29, 2010, 06:55:35 PM
While a lot of aspects of the story were there, I think, for shock value (like the whole outhouse scene at the end - was that really necessary?) the emotions under the words - feelings of discontent in a modern life, the yearning to return to something simpler, family and history as restraining forces - were very well done. 

Lots of shivers in this one, and holy CRUD does Ben do Southern well.  It gives me a great idea for a Pseudopod fundraiser some day - camping trip fireside ghost stories.  I wouldn't sleep for a week and I'd LOVE it.

Alea Iacta Est!


angelmcc

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Reply #9 on: December 30, 2010, 05:55:04 PM
Happy New Year, everyone. :)
I just wanted to drop a quick thanks to you all for listening to my story with such thoughtful intent. I'm loving the commentary I'm reading. Whether you enjoyed the story or not, you took the time to drop a note here.

It's so great to see that there are readers out there still reading and discussing stories. I hear so many people say that, in this day and age, no one has the attention span to read.

You've made my week.
Best regards,
Angel...

www.angelmccoy.com






Scattercat

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Reply #10 on: December 31, 2010, 02:25:40 AM
It's so great to see that there are readers out there still reading and discussing stories. I hear so many people say that, in this day and age, no one has the attention span to read.

In fairness, we didn't have to read it.  I was doing dishes while listening, for instance.  ;-)



Unblinking

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Reply #11 on: January 04, 2011, 05:07:50 PM
It's so great to see that there are readers out there still reading and discussing stories. I hear so many people say that, in this day and age, no one has the attention span to read.

In fairness, we didn't have to read it.  I was doing dishes while listening, for instance.  ;-)

That's the nice thing about podcasts, is that you can listen while you're doing something else that's necessary but does not require your conscious mind.  It's not that my attention span is so short, but when I'm sitting down I just have so many things I have on my agenda that reading has to duke it out with so many other things to make it on top!  I do a bit of reading before bed usually, but that's more often novels, since I get my short stories in through podcasts.  :)



stePH

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Reply #12 on: January 05, 2011, 03:10:05 AM
I kept forgetting, too, that the protagonist was female--I think because it was narrated in first person and read by a man. 


This bothered me quite a bit. If it hadn't been first-person, it wouldn't have. But it's a first-person narrative from a female character; y'all should have sat on it until you could get a female reader.

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Sgarre1

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Reply #13 on: January 05, 2011, 05:27:48 PM
We did (9 months)....we couldn't.



zoanon

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Reply #14 on: January 13, 2011, 02:55:42 AM
I feel like this story tried to hard to be creepy, I was yawning by the end. also, it seemed to me like the girl got what she wanted in  a way, she felt guilty for  forgetting the stories, and in the end she got them all back. I don't know... it just didn't work for me.



Ben Phillips

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Reply #15 on: January 13, 2011, 05:12:38 AM
Yeah, I don't know why the black female narrators of the world don't return my emails, but it definitely made us sad.  If anybody knows one with a mike who wants to do some reading, for god's sake have her drop us a line.



Fenrix

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Reply #16 on: March 25, 2011, 09:11:47 PM
From a meta standpoint, this was a fantastic story for PseudoPod to pick up. Audio fiction is one of the places where the Oral Tradition of story telling can continue to thrive. If the protagonist of this story made a podcast and broadcast one story a week, I would subscribe in a moment.

I enjoyed the story, even with the squicky bit of body horror at the end. A couple scenes full of "horrible justice" where even after agreeing to perform her duty, she is punished. Much like the part in "The Hand You're Dealt" where the protagonist screams in horror "But I won!" as he underwent not-so-voluntary surgery.

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”