Author Topic: EP297: Amaryllis  (Read 27694 times)

Thunderscreech

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Reply #25 on: June 22, 2011, 02:31:35 PM
When I was a kid, science fiction stories were about spaceships, lasers, and aliens.  As time passed, I gradually became more interested in the people and social 'what if's' of SF.  Amaryllis (and 'For Want of a Nail' for that matter) scratch that itch.  It's interesting to live a slice of a life being experienced by people who are operating on a very different set of assumptions and constraints. Whether it's the seemingly heartless (but necessary) way people are recycled in FWoaN when they reach their end of usefulness or the resource-limited society of Amaryllis where having children is a strictly controlled, community driven phenomena, both of these stories briefly immersed me in a different possible culture of the future.



dragonsbreath

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Reply #26 on: June 23, 2011, 01:49:27 PM
The story was good in that it touched on my personal beliefs about personal freedom and liberty. The world described in this story was that of a collective/communal society where resources are distributed by a central committee. Personal decisions such as having a baby, are relegated to the community as a whole. This is antithetical to my opinion that each is entitled to the fruits of his/her labor whether it be money, property or raising and supporting a family. This pursuit of personal fulfillment can only be attenuated when the rights of others are infringed. I can appreciate the need for a more communal society when resources are limited. Unfortunately, even in a communal society someone has to be in charge of deciding allotments of resources. When an entire society comes to depend on a centralized controlling entity for its existence then corruption, favoritism and despotism often occurs.

This story presents a somewhat favorable view of a communal society, but it is only a story. In reality, when someone has the courage to expose corruption of public officials in such collective regimes, they are the ones often punished.



ElectricPaladin

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Reply #27 on: June 23, 2011, 01:52:36 PM
This story presents a somewhat favorable view of a communal society, but it is only a story. In reality, when someone has the courage to expose corruption of public officials in such collective regimes, they are the ones often punished.

Because our individualist culture in America is completely free of corruption, unfairness, and inequity. A veritable bastion of fairness and justice, we are. Yep.

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Devoted135

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Reply #28 on: June 23, 2011, 02:20:02 PM
I keep trying to post in this thread and then getting stuck, mostly because there are a number of perfectly valid (and quite convincing) criticisms and deconstructions of the story that have been posted, thus making it difficult to post my gut reaction to the story. Which is that I loved it. It made me feel good inside, complete with warm fuzzies and hot chocolate (which was weird, because it's about 100 degrees outside). So there! :D

I must admit that even upon first listen I was surprised by how easily the committee agreed to her requests and kept expecting the other shoe to drop. However, I would submit that while the MC isn't exactly an unreliable narrator, she's certainly a biased one. Sure, the ruling body was super harsh in dividing her mother's household up, but resources were a lot more scarce back then. Maybe now, something like 30-40 years later, they've lightened up since resources are obviously starting to be more plentiful. So perhaps the system has changed for the better, but the MC is still operating as if it hasn't. She almost reminds me of the people who lived through the great depression and then became pseudo-hoarders later in life because they couldn't adjust to living in a time of plenty after such a time of lack.



Devoted135

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Reply #29 on: June 23, 2011, 02:24:00 PM
This story presents a somewhat favorable view of a communal society, but it is only a story. In reality, when someone has the courage to expose corruption of public officials in such collective regimes, they are the ones often punished.

Because our individualist culture in America is completely free of corruption, unfairness, and inequity. A veritable bastion of fairness and justice, we are. Yep.

Oh yes, we are a paragon among societies and don't you forget it!



InfiniteMonkey

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Reply #30 on: June 23, 2011, 05:45:15 PM
In a weird bit of synchronicity, I was working on historical pictures of the Fulton Fish Market while listening to this.  Maybe that's why I liked it a bit more than others.

Though I do agree that the resolution was a little too pat. Turns out it all hinged on the main character's lack of confidence. I kept expecting something really nasty to happen, and it didn't (as one might expect in a by-your-fingernails society).

Though perhaps I should be glad there's not too much hopelessness in a post-environmental collapse story....



Calculating...

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Reply #31 on: June 24, 2011, 04:43:16 AM
Stuck on a feminist rant that's spilling over from podcastle, but here goes. This story was about women's uncontrollable need to be mothers and have babies. Obviously all women want to mother something, be it a younger member of the house, an illegally conceived child, or a baby you're allowed to have and keep. Come on, really?
I have to say the author did a wonderful job portraying the difficulties of being a woman in charge who is tough and can handle herself (to an extent) who is also traumatized by her past and things that were out of her control. That takes a lot of strength and courage to accept and love who you are, male or female, and then it takes even more to say a big screw you to the person/people/thing that has been a constant reminder/tormentor for most of your life. This is not an 'emo girl' story, it's a story about strength, courage, and a woman's uncontrollable desire to reproduce and play mommy.

I don't know who you are or where you came from, but from now on you'll do as I tell you, okay?


Calculating...

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Reply #32 on: June 24, 2011, 04:55:08 AM
All that aside, does anyone else have a string hankering to go fishing and eat some tuna?

I don't know who you are or where you came from, but from now on you'll do as I tell you, okay?


grokman

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Reply #33 on: June 24, 2011, 12:25:39 PM
Others may complain about the lack of "REAL" sci-fi elements in this story, but I found the world-building to be so intriguing that I didn't worry that there weren't enough robots and lasers. I especially liked (and was frustrated by) the parts that WEREN'T explained - how did the "house" system come about? What was "The Big Fall" (?? forget the term). Why would one include radishes but not carrots in their garden? (ok, not really - I just don't like radishes). I've got a soft spot for post-apocalyptic stories, and it's refreshing to read one that's centered on civilization that's pretty much totally re-established, albeit markedly different from the pre-apocalyptic times. And nice to see that in that new civilization that people are still very much the same - holding grudges, longing for children, and in general just wanting a nice life for themselves and the ones they love, even those that aren't authorized by a quota committee.



Unblinking

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Reply #34 on: June 24, 2011, 01:24:03 PM
I must admit that even upon first listen I was surprised by how easily the committee agreed to her requests and kept expecting the other shoe to drop. However, I would submit that while the MC isn't exactly an unreliable narrator, she's certainly a biased one. Sure, the ruling body was super harsh in dividing her mother's household up, but resources were a lot more scarce back then. Maybe now, something like 30-40 years later, they've lightened up since resources are obviously starting to be more plentiful. So perhaps the system has changed for the better, but the MC is still operating as if it hasn't. She almost reminds me of the people who lived through the great depression and then became pseudo-hoarders later in life because they couldn't adjust to living in a time of plenty after such a time of lack.

For me it wasn't an issue of believability.  At the end it became clear that the government wasn't as set against her as she'd thought, just some of the government staff, and I think you're right about her being a biased narrator that made me think that.

For me it was an issue of tension.  Throughout most of the story it seems to be person vs. society, big conflict, relatively large stakes.  At the end it turns out it was person vs. person, and that conflict was resolved with the first attempt at a solution. 



Corcoran

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Reply #35 on: June 24, 2011, 01:53:49 PM
I found this story seriously disappointing, especially because it was a Hugo nomination.

The setting was unclear and uninteresting, there was no problem to be solved that was worth mentioning.
People are no free to get as much children as they want, ok, thats SF. But that should be the same way today, most of the problems that mankind
faces comes from this fact.



Talia

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Reply #36 on: June 24, 2011, 02:03:16 PM
there was no problem to be solved that was worth mentioning.

I completely disagree. The issue with the guy who was measuring their catches was a serious one, considering he was actively screwing them over with potentially severe consequences.



bolddeceiver

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Reply #37 on: June 24, 2011, 05:51:19 PM
I've been off the forums a while, but didn't there used to be a general agreement not to argue the "is it SF" question in episode threads?

I personally really dug this story, and actually choked up a bit at the end.  SF doesn't just have to be about rocket ships, speculation on the implications of developing phenomena and the societal changes that might be necessary to confront them has its place as well.  This story did a good job of it, without going down the path I was afraid of with to end with a self-righteous strawman screed about how evil this fictional society is because it doesn't conform to our present norms and values.  Of what I've read/heard so far this would have my Hugo vote, were I a WorldCon attendee.



DKT

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Reply #38 on: June 24, 2011, 06:12:44 PM
Good to see you around again, Bolddeceiver!


kibitzer

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Reply #39 on: June 25, 2011, 12:45:38 AM
I've been off the forums a while, but didn't there used to be a general agreement not to argue the "is it SF" question in episode threads?

Yeah, but it still comes up quite frequently. Doesn't usually continue ad nauseum, though.


Julio

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Reply #40 on: June 25, 2011, 01:27:57 AM
there was no problem to be solved that was worth mentioning.

I completely disagree. The issue with the guy who was measuring their catches was a serious one, considering he was actively screwing them over with potentially severe consequences.

I disagree as well... The guy is not the problem of the story, he has no arc in the story, and doesn't understand all unhappiness he is causing. I think the "problem" of the story is the protagonist who (although she won't admit it) thinks that she deserves all bad things that happen to her, who doesn't want to improve for this same reason.



Talia

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Reply #41 on: June 25, 2011, 01:32:01 AM
there was no problem to be solved that was worth mentioning.

I completely disagree. The issue with the guy who was measuring their catches was a serious one, considering he was actively screwing them over with potentially severe consequences.

I disagree as well... The guy is not the problem of the story, he has no arc in the story, and doesn't understand all unhappiness he is causing. I think the "problem" of the story is the protagonist who (although she won't admit it) thinks that she deserves all bad things that happen to her, who doesn't want to improve for this same reason.

Good point.



Salul

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Reply #42 on: July 01, 2011, 02:56:58 AM
I think the story was more or less decently written, hence the characters, or at least the MC and a couple of others, are fleshed out just enough to make them believable, with a bit of biographical depth. The context and world building could have worked better, I thought, but were never really fleshed out or pursued further.

However I was also left wondering about this one being nominated.

Since no one has said so thus far, I wonder if some of those who really enjoyed it or felt emotionally drawn to it weren't reacting in part to the narrator's tone, inflection, etc. She does a good job of putting emotion into it. Having said that, for the first half, as I tried to imagine this tough captain-lady, the narrator's tone just felt too nice - at one point I almost thought it made it sound like YA fiction. But then as the story unfolds and the MC turns out to be rather incapable of taking decisive action that part of the narrating felt perhaps more in line with the story.

One last thought re:
I can appreciate the need for a more communal society when resources are limited. Unfortunately, even in a communal society someone has to be in charge of deciding allotments of resources. When an entire society comes to depend on a centralized controlling entity for its existence then corruption, favoritism and despotism often occurs.

This story presents a somewhat favorable view of a communal society, but it is only a story. In reality, when someone has the courage to expose corruption of public officials in such collective regimes, they are the ones often punished.

Although it is easy to forget, our purportedly globalised planet is currently home to over 4,000 different language communities (yes, that's languages, not "dialects"), comprising thousands of distinct cultural and ethnic groups, not to mention ways of understanding and ordering their particular worlds. In a substantial majority of these groups individualism of the kind you describe is virtually nonexistent; indeed it is antithetical to how people conceive their life-worlds, which is mostly as networks of relations and interdependent institutions. To reduce communalism, as is so often the case in the Cold War and post-Cold War Euroamerican imagination, to a caricature of failed socialist/communist utopias really speaks volumes to our own cultural limitations than to anything else.

Sorry, that all sounds like a rant, and maybe it is, but this touched a raw nerve since I have spent the past 15 years carrying out in-depth ethnographic fieldwork in societies of Oceania and Inner Asia that are profoundly communal, demographically insignificant and in most cases deeply isolated. Communal distribution and ownership in these places makes total sense and is anything but abusive. Moreover, what  these peoples can teach us -in their own peculiar ways- about conflict resolution and survival in the most unlikely environmental and historical circumstances would, I think, leave many of us wondering whether it's out of a SF setting.

Yes, I exaggerate slightly, but much of what I say here is true.

There be islands in the Central Sea, whose waters are bounded by no shore and where no ships come...

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany


ElectricPaladin

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Reply #43 on: July 01, 2011, 04:40:20 AM
One last thought re:
I can appreciate the need for a more communal society when resources are limited. Unfortunately, even in a communal society someone has to be in charge of deciding allotments of resources. When an entire society comes to depend on a centralized controlling entity for its existence then corruption, favoritism and despotism often occurs.

This story presents a somewhat favorable view of a communal society, but it is only a story. In reality, when someone has the courage to expose corruption of public officials in such collective regimes, they are the ones often punished.

Although it is easy to forget, our purportedly globalised planet is currently home to over 4,000 different language communities (yes, that's languages, not "dialects"), comprising thousands of distinct cultural and ethnic groups, not to mention ways of understanding and ordering their particular worlds. In a substantial majority of these groups individualism of the kind you describe is virtually nonexistent; indeed it is antithetical to how people conceive their life-worlds, which is mostly as networks of relations and interdependent institutions. To reduce communalism, as is so often the case in the Cold War and post-Cold War Euroamerican imagination, to a caricature of failed socialist/communist utopias really speaks volumes to our own cultural limitations than to anything else.

Sorry, that all sounds like a rant, and maybe it is, but this touched a raw nerve since I have spent the past 15 years carrying out in-depth ethnographic fieldwork in societies of Oceania and Inner Asia that are profoundly communal, demographically insignificant and in most cases deeply isolated. Communal distribution and ownership in these places makes total sense and is anything but abusive. Moreover, what  these peoples can teach us -in their own peculiar ways- about conflict resolution and survival in the most unlikely environmental and historical circumstances would, I think, leave many of us wondering whether it's out of a SF setting.

Yes, I exaggerate slightly, but much of what I say here is true.

Preach, brother/sister/thing!

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Help my kids get the educational supplies they need at my Donor's Choose page.


Unblinking

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Reply #44 on: July 01, 2011, 04:08:51 PM
Since no one has said so thus far, I wonder if some of those who really enjoyed it or felt emotionally drawn to it weren't reacting in part to the narrator's tone, inflection, etc. She does a good job of putting emotion into it. Having said that, for the first half, as I tried to imagine this tough captain-lady, the narrator's tone just felt too nice - at one point I almost thought it made it sound like YA fiction. But then as the story unfolds and the MC turns out to be rather incapable of taking decisive action that part of the narrating felt perhaps more in line with the story.

Good question.  I'd first read it in text on Lightspeed, and had had the same reaction as I did hearing it the 2nd time.  It's possible that if I'd first heard it I would've had a different reaction.  For my part, I don't think my reaction would really have differed. 



Salul

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Reply #45 on: July 01, 2011, 08:23:55 PM
Preach, brother/sister/thing!

 :D
It's been a while since a comment on any particular forum actually made me laugh out loud.

There be islands in the Central Sea, whose waters are bounded by no shore and where no ships come...

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany


Andy C

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Reply #46 on: July 02, 2011, 01:52:16 PM
I'm just getting around to replying to the points made by 'Unblinking' especially in his replies to my comments. We were broadly on either side of the 'I like this story / I don't like this story' divide'.

It may be that one of the reasons this story divided people is that it has something of a 'slice of life' feel to it, rather than the usual beginning, middle end. For me the interaction of character, and the identification with characters worked, I think of others it didn't. I can see why Unblinking would say (quote):

It was way too long for its content.  If it had been half the length it might've been about right.  As it was, it seemed like ages between anything important happening.  My mind kept wandering, but when I rewound and relistened I hadn't really missed anything.

I think with this story you had to savour the journey, if that worked for you, great, if it didn't and it all seemed like meagre fare, as it did for a number of people, then you are going to end up feeling like there wasn't much to this episode.

The other issue here is that it might not be wise to listen to this story thinking too much about it's award nomination, if anyone did that they might well end up spending more time comparing it to the standard in their head and not just enjoying the tale for what it is.

I think the story works, but it leaving me thinking the author could do even more, even better; whatever the outcome of the awards, my advice to Carrie Vaughn (meant absolutely as encouragement)would be: ' This is very good, but I think there's even more in you as a writer; keep aiming higher, your best work is yet to come.'



olivaw

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Reply #47 on: July 03, 2011, 02:57:46 PM
I couldn't help while listening to this but think of something a friend wrote: 'The Fish Quota Song'.

Tedious backstory: part of a political fantasy LRP game we play involves the harvesting of resources; fish in particular were being harvested to excess, so we needed to agree some fishing protocols. The discussions were infamously long and boring. Before long, 'the Fish Quota' became a codeword for 'long and boring conversation', and was in fact used as a cover to dissuade people from listening in on much more interesting and important conversations. In celebration of this, my friend was asked to write a song on the subject, and rose to the challenge.




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Reply #48 on: July 04, 2011, 07:17:18 PM
I liked the pacing and world building, but ultimately felt it was a bit too heavy on explaining how the world worked. I wonder if part of that had to do with it being read out loud? Stories read different to me on the page versus out loud.



Unblinking

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Reply #49 on: July 05, 2011, 02:16:00 PM
The other issue here is that it might not be wise to listen to this story thinking too much about it's award nomination, if anyone did that they might well end up spending more time comparing it to the standard in their head and not just enjoying the tale for what it is.

I think that's just a natural response to any kind of award nom.  I often say similar things for the Oscar winners, and etc...  Awards are always a point of contention.  I like to hear what was nominated to get an idea what people are looking for in a winning story.  Unfortunately the answer is usually "Not what I like to read" (and all-too-often "Stories by people who are already famous, regardless of quality"). 

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect more from a Hugo-nominated story.  It was chosen by a large portion of the SF fan community as being within the top five of its class for its year.  That's supposed to be significant.