Author Topic: EP315: Clockwork Fagin  (Read 19610 times)

CryptoMe

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Reply #25 on: November 07, 2011, 07:33:15 PM
I enjoyed this story. It was fun!
Also, I was listening to this story while out running in Toronto, so it was interesting hearing references to some landmarks that I had recently passed by.

I'm not sure why Toronto was part of "Upper Canada" in the Canadian war, but that's what I gathered.   
Upper Canada is the part that is further "up" the St. Lawrence seaway (towards the source). So, even though Toronto is south west of Montreal, it is Upper Canada. Strange local factoid ;)



Wilson Fowlie

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Reply #26 on: November 07, 2011, 08:12:14 PM
I'm not sure why Toronto was part of "Upper Canada" in the Canadian war, but that's what I gathered.   
Upper Canada is the part that is further "up" the St. Lawrence seaway (towards the source). So, even though Toronto is south west of Montreal, it is Upper Canada. Strange local factoid ;)

Also, since 'Upper Canada' was (mainly) English-held and 'Lower Canada' was (mainly) French, and the terms are English, it wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn - though I have never heard this - that there was a cultural factor to them as well, though possibly not at first.

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Gary

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Reply #27 on: November 08, 2011, 11:38:03 PM
Yea!
Just "Yea!"
One of those stories that is so fun and engaging you ignore the few holes and actually cheer for the sappy ending!

Again I cry "Yea!"



Gamercow

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Reply #28 on: November 09, 2011, 02:13:15 AM
I enjoyed this story. It was fun!
Also, I was listening to this story while out running in Toronto, so it was interesting hearing references to some landmarks that I had recently passed by.

I'm not sure why Toronto was part of "Upper Canada" in the Canadian war, but that's what I gathered.   
Upper Canada is the part that is further "up" the St. Lawrence seaway (towards the source). So, even though Toronto is south west of Montreal, it is Upper Canada. Strange local factoid ;)

Right!  I learned this when I was touring the St. Lawrence seaway.  Thank you for reminding me.

The cow says "Mooooooooo"


SF.Fangirl

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Reply #29 on: November 13, 2011, 01:15:45 AM
Well done.  I liked this a lot which surprised the heck out of me.  I do want to like Cory Doctorow because he's been elected the epitome of geek cool, but I usually don't care for his work.  Also I am not a steampunk fan so my enjoyment of this story was a very pleasant surprise.  But it was a good story with good worldbuilding and an uplifting ending.  Quality makes for a very enjoyable listen.

And count me with the folks who misheard gaol as gallows or something similarly sensible enough that I didn't notice it at all.



El Barto

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Reply #30 on: November 13, 2011, 07:16:44 PM
I first have to say I've never been much of a fan of steam-punk, just never got into it. With that prejudice, in my opinion this may be one of the finest pieces Escape Pod has put out. The writing was lyrical and gorgeous. The reading was perfect. I've been disappointed of late of some of the stories that EP has done, but this one was a home run.

I've got to agree with you.  I'm not a fan of steampunk at all but this story was brilliantly written and gorgeously narrated.  I remember looking down at my iPod thinking it must be about to end, and then being excited to see that I had 40 more minutes of goodness coming my way.



FireTurtle

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Reply #31 on: November 24, 2011, 02:50:34 AM
Yay! This is definitely going on my "Best of Escape Pod" list. Loved it. I enjoyed it from beginning to end (this is not to say that I didn't get the willies from enjoying a story about horribly maimed children, that would be wrong :P).

The narration was excellent from a pacing and voice standpoint. The breathless delivery was very evocative not only of "Victorian" pacing but also youthful storytelling. That being said, the accent did wander a bit and I occasionally was thrust part way out of the story when it did.

Great, inventive fun. Love it. Good feelings all the way around.

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Spindaddy

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Reply #32 on: November 24, 2011, 03:43:03 PM
I really dug this story although it was frustrating that my phone kept losing signal, causing the story to reset. I found the reading and the telling great. I thought it was pretty funny the city was called Muddy York, but I thought it was originally in England, then in the US and then toward the middle/end of the story I kept wondering... 'woah, is this in Canada?'

I was a little mollified when I realized it wasn't taking place in England but in our New York, but - really. You should know that "gaol" is "jail". Including in pronunciation.

That's an incredibly hard pronunciation to pick up.  I've seen it written before, but typically I just mark it in my mind as "word I don't know" and try to pick up what I can from context.  Last year my wife was reading a translated book about a criminal trial and she asked me what the hell "gaol" meant and I didn't know.  If I've seen it written, then I just assume it's some dialect word I'm unaware of.  If I hear it said, then I just think "jail".  And my wife thought the same.  Only if there's an association created between the two that the link is fully formed.  For me, that didn't happen until the Podcastle episode "The Fairy Gaol" some time recently-ish, in which the narrator pronounced it like "jail" and it was clear from the context that it meant the same thing too.
Same here... I do that same thing where I mark something as "word I don't know but will eventually look up." I had no idea that gaol is pronounced jail, but I had previously assumed it was sort of a word to describe a place of holding somewhere between a dungeon and a 'wild west' style jailhouse.

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Swamp

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Reply #33 on: November 30, 2011, 06:30:51 PM
Great story!  One of the my top favorites, and I think my new favorite Doctorow story.

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gelu88

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Reply #34 on: December 13, 2011, 10:22:59 AM
I enjoyed this story. It was fun!
Also, I was listening to this story while out running in Toronto, so it was interesting hearing references to some landmarks that I had recently passed by.

I'm not sure why Toronto was part of "Upper Canada" in the Canadian war, but that's what I gathered.   
Upper Canada is the part that is further "up" the St. Lawrence seaway (towards the source). So, even though Toronto is south west of Montreal, it is Upper Canada. Strange local factoid ;)

Right!  I learned this when I was touring the St. Lawrence seaway.  Thank you for reminding me.

Wonderful story, one of the best EscapePod has ever done.

On the subject of geography, this might be of interest:
These borders were in effect until 1840, when both territories were combined.



hardware

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Reply #35 on: December 14, 2011, 05:34:04 PM
Yeah, don't have too much to say except that it was good fun, and I would probably enjoy an adaptation by Jean-Pierre Jeunet to the movie screen. I guess there is something about these uber-resourceful kids which strikes me as overly wishful thinking, but as a fairytale it works fine.



Unblinking

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Reply #36 on: December 14, 2011, 06:00:15 PM
Yeah, don't have too much to say except that it was good fun, and I would probably enjoy an adaptation by Jean-Pierre Jeunet to the movie screen. I guess there is something about these uber-resourceful kids which strikes me as overly wishful thinking, but as a fairytale it works fine.

I thought their resourcefulness was plausible.  They've been trained toward fulfilling their skilled-labor roles since birth, and those who were bad at it probably are dead of starvation on the streets, having lost their work for lack of production (it's been a while since I listened, but isn't this a home for the mangled, but not for the incompetent?).



hardware

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Reply #37 on: December 14, 2011, 06:52:25 PM
Yeah, don't have too much to say except that it was good fun, and I would probably enjoy an adaptation by Jean-Pierre Jeunet to the movie screen. I guess there is something about these uber-resourceful kids which strikes me as overly wishful thinking, but as a fairytale it works fine.

I thought their resourcefulness was plausible.  They've been trained toward fulfilling their skilled-labor roles since birth, and those who were bad at it probably are dead of starvation on the streets, having lost their work for lack of production (it's been a while since I listened, but isn't this a home for the mangled, but not for the incompetent?).

True, but that kind of situation was hardly what they were trained for, and from what he describes it doesn't seem to be an environment that would encourage that kind of independent thinking (beyond the purely technical skills). 



LaShawn

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Reply #38 on: April 13, 2012, 05:06:06 PM
Hmmm...I think I'm the second dissenter. Maybe I'm too much into dark things as of late, but I was disappointed with the ending of this one. Everything else I loved--the reader was full of cheerfulness, even during the hard times, and I loved the resourcefulness of the kids. But I kept waiting for something bad to happen--the story kept dropping hints, but never followed up. And the deus ex machina of the narrator conveniently having his 18th birthday right when the kids needed someone to run the orphanage was a bit hard to swallow. I would have accepted it more if the kids used him temporary to make another clockwork person--the already put so much work into making a clockwork Grinder--but the story just peters out. At least it was fun to listen to.

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