Author Topic: EP278: Written on the Wind  (Read 33483 times)

Listener

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Reply #50 on: February 17, 2011, 07:12:53 PM
I didn't really enjoy the story. It was TOO alien for me.

My favorite part has been the books-with-tapes stuff. I used to have this player with four buttons, where depending upon what you wanted to happen in the story, you'd push a certain button and a different part of the audio track would play.

I also had the Star Trek III book-with-tape. Turn the page at the sound of the communicator indeed.

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Wilson Fowlie

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Reply #51 on: February 17, 2011, 08:42:47 PM
I used to have this player with four buttons, where depending upon what you wanted to happen in the story, you'd push a certain button and a different part of the audio track would play.

That's pretty cool.  Wouldn't work for listening on a commute, though.  :D

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Reply #52 on: February 18, 2011, 12:25:07 AM
My favorite part has been the books-with-tapes stuff. I used to have this player with four buttons, where depending upon what you wanted to happen in the story, you'd push a certain button and a different part of the audio track would play.

Yeah, that's called an "eight-track tape player"; they were kind of big in the seventies. When I was a sprog, I used to have this version:




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Talia

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Reply #53 on: February 18, 2011, 02:38:41 AM
I didn't really enjoy the story. It was TOO alien for me.


Can I ask what you mean by that? Because aside from references to various body parts, etc etc, I thought these "aliens" all behaved in a pretty human fashion.



wakela

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Reply #54 on: February 18, 2011, 02:43:03 AM
I didn't really enjoy the story. It was TOO alien for me.


Can I ask what you mean by that? Because aside from references to various body parts, etc etc, I thought these "aliens" all behaved in a pretty human fashion.
I agree with Talia.  I thought it wasn't alien enough.  Not only did the aliens behave in a human fashion, they behaved in a American/European human fashion.



Swamp

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Reply #55 on: February 18, 2011, 05:29:45 PM
Yeah, that's called an "eight-track tape player"; they were kind of big in the seventies. When I was a sprog, I used to have this version:



I loved 2-XL when I was a kid.  Spent many an hour with him.  Very cool.

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Reply #56 on: February 19, 2011, 02:00:55 AM
Yeah, that's called an "eight-track tape player"; they were kind of big in the seventies. When I was a sprog, I used to have this version:



I loved 2-XL when I was a kid.  Spent many an hour with him.  Very cool.
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Reply #57 on: February 24, 2011, 04:30:20 AM
Can't add much to the comments already present, just wanted to say I liked this story a lot.  The parts of the story capturing the drudgery were perfect, as well as the aspects of their bureaucracy wherein Luulianni finds herself defeated by its byzantine/nepotistic nature.  A million times at my job I've wanted to report something, make a difference, suggest a positive change, only to remember that it would go nowhere and circle the drain.  The few times I've brought forward something, it gets the "Oh yes!" and goes right into the pile.  Felt very relatable, and from the comments I can see I'm not the only one to have experienced it - definite consequence of any system allowed to get sufficient inertia.  I really liked the ending, but not necessarily the denouement.  The part where she was trying feverishly to solve the riddle of the language was brilliant and I felt myself wishing the narration could go as fast as my mind was racing.  I was trying to visualize characters and patterns in my brain, nevermind the fact that I've never studied linguistics.  And then the rush in to the press conference-type event, all very stirring. And then.... the message.  Yeah, not for me.  I think it was a 98% excellent, 2% bad story, and the bad was all at the end.  Anthropocentrism ftl.



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Reply #58 on: February 24, 2011, 02:21:39 PM
Anthropocentrism ftl.

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Listener

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Reply #59 on: February 24, 2011, 08:36:07 PM
I didn't really enjoy the story. It was TOO alien for me.


Can I ask what you mean by that? Because aside from references to various body parts, etc etc, I thought these "aliens" all behaved in a pretty human fashion.
I agree with Talia.  I thought it wasn't alien enough.  Not only did the aliens behave in a human fashion, they behaved in a American/European human fashion.

I see the point here -- the Western Human aliens. But I almost felt like the author was trying too hard to make the aliens alien by referring to their weird (to us) characteristics. This is something Scattercat pointed out to me that I was doing in a story I wrote about nonhumans, and now I'm noticing it more an dmore.

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Reply #60 on: February 24, 2011, 10:45:39 PM
I see the point here -- the Western Human aliens. But I almost felt like the author was trying too hard to make the aliens alien by referring to their weird (to us) characteristics. This is something Scattercat pointed out to me that I was doing in a story I wrote about nonhumans, and now I'm noticing it more and more.

Bwahaha!  You cannot unsee what has been seen!  You cannot unpick the nit that has been picked!

(I do kind of agree that the aliens here weren't very alien; their behavior was totally in line with modern American office politics, basically.)



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Reply #61 on: February 24, 2011, 11:13:41 PM
I see the point here -- the Western Human aliens. But I almost felt like the author was trying too hard to make the aliens alien by referring to their weird (to us) characteristics. This is something Scattercat pointed out to me that I was doing in a story I wrote about nonhumans, and now I'm noticing it more and more.

Bwahaha!  You cannot unsee what has been seen!  You cannot unpick the nit that has been picked!

(I do kind of agree that the aliens here weren't very alien; their behavior was totally in line with modern American office politics, basically.)

Or alternately, modern American office politics are totally inline with alien behavior. Just sayin'...

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Reply #62 on: February 25, 2011, 08:05:18 PM
I see the point here -- the Western Human aliens. But I almost felt like the author was trying too hard to make the aliens alien by referring to their weird (to us) characteristics. This is something Scattercat pointed out to me that I was doing in a story I wrote about nonhumans, and now I'm noticing it more and more.

Bwahaha!  You cannot unsee what has been seen!  You cannot unpick the nit that has been picked!

(I do kind of agree that the aliens here weren't very alien; their behavior was totally in line with modern American office politics, basically.)

Personally, I'd rather have Office Space alien drones than something along the lines of "Wweyuw harbled the wangle frunctiously, arbinguous in guryc's gibble fong gawple."  Sometimes reference points are good.

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Reply #63 on: February 25, 2011, 08:07:56 PM
What makes you assume the aliens will use a spoken language?  Or consonants?  ;-)



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Reply #64 on: February 25, 2011, 09:02:58 PM
"Wweyuw Harbled the Wangle Frunctiously"

Sounds like a great title, along the lines of Rejiggering the Thingamajig.

Alternate joke: I wish I could find a sentient to harble my wangle.

Take your pick.

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Reply #65 on: February 25, 2011, 09:34:34 PM
"Wweyuw Harbled the Wangle Frunctiously"

Sounds like a great title, along the lines of Rejiggering the Thingamajig.

Alternate joke: I wish I could find a sentient to harble my wangle.

Take your pick.
Harbling is a very underrated corporate activity. Wangling, on the other hand..

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tinygaia

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Reply #66 on: February 26, 2011, 01:12:54 AM
"Wweyuw Harbled the Wangle Frunctiously"

Sounds like a great title, along the lines of Rejiggering the Thingamajig.

Alternate joke: I wish I could find a sentient to harble my wangle.

Take your pick.
Harbling is a very underrated corporate activity. Wangling, on the other hand..
As long as they do it frunctiously, I'll take it.



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Reply #67 on: February 28, 2011, 03:21:32 AM
Lemme tell ya, frunctiousness is way over-rated.


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Reply #68 on: February 28, 2011, 03:36:29 AM
Enjoyable story. Once again I found myself listening to a podcast wishing that readers would keep a dictionary handy to double-check the pronunciation of words - in this case, "consortium", "interminable", "phoneme" ("phenomes" exist, but languages have phonemes), and "modal", which is accented on the first, not the second, syllable. Yes, a minor issue, but as a word-lover, I find it jarring. Mispronunciations are the typos of audio presentations. It knocks me out of a story for a moment as I am forced to pause to assess "what was that?"



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Reply #69 on: February 28, 2011, 02:55:40 PM
I see the point here -- the Western Human aliens. But I almost felt like the author was trying too hard to make the aliens alien by referring to their weird (to us) characteristics. This is something Scattercat pointed out to me that I was doing in a story I wrote about nonhumans, and now I'm noticing it more and more.

Bwahaha!  You cannot unsee what has been seen!  You cannot unpick the nit that has been picked!

(I do kind of agree that the aliens here weren't very alien; their behavior was totally in line with modern American office politics, basically.)

Personally, I'd rather have Office Space alien drones than something along the lines of "Wweyuw harbled the wangle frunctiously, arbinguous in guryc's gibble fong gawple."  Sometimes reference points are good.

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Reply #70 on: February 28, 2011, 06:11:31 PM
I see the point here -- the Western Human aliens. But I almost felt like the author was trying too hard to make the aliens alien by referring to their weird (to us) characteristics. This is something Scattercat pointed out to me that I was doing in a story I wrote about nonhumans, and now I'm noticing it more and more.

Bwahaha!  You cannot unsee what has been seen!  You cannot unpick the nit that has been picked!

(I do kind of agree that the aliens here weren't very alien; their behavior was totally in line with modern American office politics, basically.)

Personally, I'd rather have Office Space alien drones than something along the lines of "Wweyuw harbled the wangle frunctiously, arbinguous in guryc's gibble fong gawple."  Sometimes reference points are good.

Calloo, Callay!
He chortled in his joy?

??? *scratches head* ???

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Reply #71 on: February 28, 2011, 07:15:01 PM
I see the point here -- the Western Human aliens. But I almost felt like the author was trying too hard to make the aliens alien by referring to their weird (to us) characteristics. This is something Scattercat pointed out to me that I was doing in a story I wrote about nonhumans, and now I'm noticing it more and more.

Bwahaha!  You cannot unsee what has been seen!  You cannot unpick the nit that has been picked!

(I do kind of agree that the aliens here weren't very alien; their behavior was totally in line with modern American office politics, basically.)

Personally, I'd rather have Office Space alien drones than something along the lines of "Wweyuw harbled the wangle frunctiously, arbinguous in guryc's gibble fong gawple."  Sometimes reference points are good.

Calloo, Callay!
He chortled in his joy?

??? *scratches head* ???

Oh that was just my way of chiming in to say that nonsense words can be fun too, ala The Jabberwocky.



stePH

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Reply #72 on: March 07, 2011, 09:15:13 PM

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Reply #73 on: March 18, 2011, 07:07:43 PM
Oh, lovely, lovely story. I wasn't too hot about the other Levine story, but this one had me on the edge of my seat. Beautiful tale of perserverance in the face of bad odds, and the message at the end was surprisingly poignant.

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Reply #74 on: May 18, 2011, 07:24:03 AM
I enjoyed this one (a lot more than I did "Wind from a Dying Star"), though I agree with a lot of the nitpicks here.

I also think the reading was a lot rougher than I usually expect from Mur, in terms of hesitations, stumbles, and mispronunciations.  Some of that was because of the alien names, true, but not all of it.  And for those complaining about the names being too alien . . . .

Not alien names per se, just the ones that shriek 'alien' by being made up of bizarre vowel/consonant arrangements.

Frankly, a lot of the world's languages have vowel/consonant arrangements that look bizarre to an Anglophone reader.  Some of my favorite examples: the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli, the Irish verb form "bhfaighidh," and the (I think) Czech last name Hrynczyszyn.  (Fun fact: depending on your dialect, that Irish verb can be pronounced like the English words "we" or "why."  No, really.)  So I actually like alien languages doing unexpected things; unless the author is a dedicated conlanger, those things are probably no more unexpected than stuff found in real human languages.

But it does pay for the reader to practice the names and words until they roll smoothly off the tongue.  Otherwise, yes, they do trip up the narration.