Author Topic: EP325: Bad Dogs Escape  (Read 19017 times)

eytanz

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on: December 30, 2011, 11:21:34 PM
EP325: Bad Dogs Escape

By James Patrick Kelly

Cast:

Becca- AB Kovacs
Sam- Pamela L. Quevillon
Mel Gibson- John Cmar

An Escape Pod original!

---

/SFX/ CLOCK TICKING, FADE TO

/SFX/ DOGS BARKING IN DISTANCE

SAM: Like?

BECCA: Like.

SAM: (growls like a dog, sexy)

BECCA: Like?

SAM: Like.

/SFX/ DOGS BARKING IN DISTANCE

BECCA: Lick?

SAM:    (giggles) Like.

BECCA: (howls like a dog)

/SFX/ DOGS BARKING CLOSER

SAM: They’re busy today.

BECCA: Man’s best friend.

(SAM and BECCA laugh)

MEL: (in distance) Help!

SAM: Uh-oh.

BECCA: Company.


Listen to this week’s Escape Pod!
« Last Edit: December 31, 2011, 02:40:54 AM by Talia »



InfiniteMonkey

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Reply #1 on: December 31, 2011, 01:03:45 AM
Well, that was a twisted bitter little misanthropic piece to end the year.

And I'm not sure it qualifies as Escape Pod's first full character piece. Wasn't there a con reading of a story about an alien tree running amok on an Englishman's farm? Or was not *every* part on that read by someone different?



Gamercow

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Reply #2 on: December 31, 2011, 03:50:04 AM
This episode was very well produced.  It was also very well performed.  As for the writing...Not my cup of tea.  Seemed like a bad quest from Fallout 3. 

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H. Bergeron

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Reply #3 on: December 31, 2011, 02:17:29 PM
Never trust strange women who laugh at each other's jokes.

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Darwinist

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Reply #4 on: December 31, 2011, 03:23:31 PM
Funny and well done but not a fan of "males = bad" fiction.   

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.    -  Carl Sagan


matweller

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Reply #5 on: December 31, 2011, 08:57:28 PM
I thought it was more "crapass establishment=bad"...or did you mean you can't handle any fiction where the antagonist is male? That must limit your field of experience greatly.



matweller

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Reply #6 on: December 31, 2011, 09:12:44 PM
I would also be remiss if I failed to mention that all sound effects used in this episode were taken from http://FreeSound.org. What an amazing resource for free, user-generated sound effects.



SF.Fangirl

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Reply #7 on: January 01, 2012, 05:32:46 AM
Uggg!  Not my cup of tea.  I like post-apocolyptic fiction but with at least a slightly hopeful ending.  I didn't enjoy this at all!  In a large part because it was totally obvious how the story was going to end from the start; Listening to the two pychopaths play with their mouse wasn't enjoyable or funny at all.  Also the dialog only story left out any explanation about  who/what the two women were and how they survived so long as the only human survivors.  That explanation might have been interesting, but the not funny, toying with their prey wasn't.



archaevist

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Reply #8 on: January 01, 2012, 08:36:19 AM
I don't usually respond to these Escape Artist podcasts, but after listening to this one I knew I had to write in. I LOVED the style, and I'm all for more radio-style podcasts. However, the storytelling was not up to par. So much more can be done with audio-dramas, and whoever wrote this one seemed to not want to tell a particularly complex or interesting story. I think it was in a recent PodCastle thread where someone described the story as "a bunch of character living in a one dimensional world." I wonder if he wrote the story as an audio-drama or as a short story. While the women in the story were timing the man to see how long it took him to mention sex, I was waiting to see how long it took them to mention "the patriarchy." I'd say this barely grazes the "Science Fiction" genre, and would be better suited for a feminist magazine.

However, I'm all for increasing the amount of audio-dramas. Good job on that bit. Maybe attempt to "Show" us the setting more through more audio-production.



Max e^{i pi}

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Reply #9 on: January 01, 2012, 04:44:30 PM
Wow. I guess I'm in the minority here, since I really enjoyed this story.
Aside from the production (which was great) the way the story was told was amusing. I think I was grinning more or less constantly from the

SAM: Like?
BECCA: Like.
SAM: (growls like a dog, sexy)

Until Norm's "Heh, that was fun".
The whole single-scene story was absolutely absurd, and it tickled my funny bone.
I'm not sure which I liked more, the fact that (apparently) you need to be a cynical misanthrope to survive in this brave new world or that these two women were so self-aware.
That "we need to restart humanity" trope is so annoying that it often turns me off from otherwise good fiction. I'm glad that it has become such a running joke with them that they don't even need to explain the joke to each other.
Also, not restarting humanity with the same assholes who screwed it up in the first place is a very good idea.
The fatalistic view that maybe humanity's time on this planet is up and therefore it doesn't need rebooting made its brief appearance in my mind during this story, and is probably the governing philosophy of our two heroines. I won't say that I agree with it, but it's a refreshing new perspective in post-apocalypse stories.
Also I love how Twinkies are the only food to survive the apocalypse, and how she says that their computer is running Vista with a sigh of resignation and the line "she's a lesbian, I'm just lonely" and how....
But I can't list everything I liked in this story, because that's pretty much the whole thing.  ;)
I do want to discuss some literary effects here.
"We like to keep track of time... so little of it these days"
Douglas Adams said: "Time is an illusion, lunchtime, doubly so." And that's very true. Time is only a thing of meaning because we give it meaning. We define time, minutes and hours. Without people, there really is no time. Sure there's daytime and nighttime and noontime and in-between-times, but that's just nature. It's not real time, time needs to be measured by somebody for it to be called time. That (I suppose) was the point of the TICK-TOCK effects and the fact that they collect watches. That inside this little enclave, there are still people, and thus still time. But out there....

I'd say this barely grazes the "Science Fiction" genre, and would be better suited for a feminist magazine.
I think we all agree that post-apocalypse stories are pretty much all science fiction, automatically. Not sure how or why that happened, but that seems to be the truth of the matter.

Anyway, I loved this one.
Good job to all involved!

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Talia

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Reply #10 on: January 01, 2012, 09:25:11 PM
I really enjoyed it too, and thought the audio drama format worked exceedingly well for this particular tale.

. While the women in the story were timing the man to see how long it took him to mention sex, I was waiting to see how long it took them to mention "the patriarchy." I'd say this barely grazes the "Science Fiction" genre

I really have no idea why you'd feel that way. It's pretty clearly a post-apocalyptic tale, which tend to fall under science fiction. Pretty solidly sci-fi in my book.





Lionman

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Reply #11 on: January 01, 2012, 09:52:46 PM
I'm not sure what to make of the audio drama.  To me, it just didn't come off as well as a story with a single voice actor pulling off different voices.  The written stories would have more detail with words than simple sound effects convey.

I didn't really dislike the story, but I'm just having mixed feelings.  Maybe a few more of these and there will be a groove things fall into that make it even better.

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archaevist

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Reply #12 on: January 01, 2012, 11:00:47 PM
I really have no idea why you'd feel that way. It's pretty clearly a post-apocalyptic tale, which tend to fall under science fiction. Pretty solidly sci-fi in my book.

It lacked interesting ideas or themes driving it. I wish I'd had as much fun as you two seemed to, but the story was kind of blah. I did like the idea of the "raccoon flu" though.



Talia

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Reply #13 on: January 01, 2012, 11:25:19 PM
I really have no idea why you'd feel that way. It's pretty clearly a post-apocalyptic tale, which tend to fall under science fiction. Pretty solidly sci-fi in my book.

It lacked interesting ideas or themes driving it. I wish I'd had as much fun as you two seemed to, but the story was kind of blah. I did like the idea of the "raccoon flu" though.

I disagree about that assessment, but I put forth that even if the ideas or themes behind it aren't interesting to you, that doesn't make it "barely" sci-fi, it just makes it something that doesn't interest you. :)



archaevist

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Reply #14 on: January 02, 2012, 05:31:43 AM
fair enough



medusa.v2

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Reply #15 on: January 02, 2012, 06:55:10 AM
So - Did we just start 2012 with a story featuing a sex-negative, man-hating lesbian, her bitter female side-kick, and a weak-minded male political scapegoat?

This must be an election year.

Beatifully produced, but damn, the only thing you forgot was the black best friend getting killed in an act of selfless heroism.



Scatcatpdx

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Reply #16 on: January 02, 2012, 08:50:06 PM
I have to give this story  thumbs down  what come to mind is post apocalyptic Thelma and Louise   with a man hating lesbian and not too sure dragged along sidekick and  a hopeless clichéd congressman male, a wimpy Dr Strangelove.  What bothered most was self centered lesbian’s hate of mankind or rather humanity.



Swamp

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Reply #17 on: January 02, 2012, 10:08:07 PM
And I'm not sure it qualifies as Escape Pod's first full character piece. Wasn't there a con reading of a story about an alien tree running amok on an Englishman's farm? Or was not *every* part on that read by someone different?

The live reading you refer to is EP 206: Rouge Farm by Charles Stross.  That would be considered a full cast reading of a short story.  Audio drama is essentially a story told with only dialog and audio production, without external exposition.  It is cool to see Escape Pod trying out either.

I would also be remiss if I failed to mention that all sound effects used in this episode were taken from http://FreeSound.org. What an amazing resource for free, user-generated sound effects.

Yes, it is!  I thought you did a great job with the production, Mat.

As for the story, I thought it was all right.  Fun and quick.  The beginning was a bit confusing.  I really didn't know what was going on until Mel/Bob entered the shelter.

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Gamercow

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Reply #18 on: January 03, 2012, 02:33:30 PM
I would like to add that my dislike of the writing had nothing to do with the femininity or masculinity of the story.  I just thought there wasn't much substance there. I'm not sure why there is so much negativity towards stories with lesbian characters, or why it gets pointed out with a "here we go again" vibe when there are lesbian characters in a story.  We went through this 2(?) years ago, with someone basically saying "All there ever is on EP is lesbian stories!"

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Anarquistador

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Reply #19 on: January 03, 2012, 05:33:59 PM
Never trust strange women who laugh at each other's jokes.

There's another kind of woman?

But seriously, folks....

It was an interesting format to try, but yeah, it didn't feel like it had a lot of substance. It did feel like being trapped in a videogame. Probably didn't help that I'd been playing Borderlands the night before listening to this story. I kept wanting to crouch behind a rock until my Scorpio Turret recharged.

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lisavilisa

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Reply #20 on: January 03, 2012, 08:23:19 PM
Never trust strange women who laugh at each other's jokes.

There's another kind of woman?

If we had a comment of the week, I would nominate this.



H. Bergeron

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Reply #21 on: January 04, 2012, 12:03:54 PM
Never trust strange women who laugh at each other's jokes.

There's another kind of woman?

But seriously, folks....

It was an interesting format to try, but yeah, it didn't feel like it had a lot of substance. It did feel like being trapped in a videogame. Probably didn't help that I'd been playing Borderlands the night before listening to this story. I kept wanting to crouch behind a rock until my Scorpio Turret recharged.

I have to double-concede on this one. Both to the initial comment and your comments about Borderlands, as I've been playing the hell out of that recently, too.

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Anarquistador

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Reply #22 on: January 04, 2012, 01:08:27 PM
Frigging addicting game, isn't it? It actually put my relationship in jeopardy for a while; now I have to take my fixes on the sly.

..oh crap. I hope she doesn't read this forum.

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ElectricPaladin

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Reply #23 on: January 04, 2012, 02:43:55 PM
I'm afraid this one was a total miss with me. I'm quite sick of stories that attempt to take mankind to task for behaving like living organisms. You know what we call creatures that don't reproduce, expand their territory, and respond to threats?

Dead.

Of course, it behooves us to do these things in such a way that we don't destroy our own environment, cause unnecessary pain and suffering to the creatures around us, and so on, but when the story fails to make the distinction between "growth" and "irresponsible growth," I get a little annoyed. I think that the trick to a better attitude about the environment is less viewing ourselves as apart from and above from nature, and more acknowledging that we are also animals.

In other words, screw the whales - save us!1

I also really get annoyed at stories - and people! - who masculinize "progress" and feminize "oneness with nature" or "serenity" or whatever. Frankly, that's total bullshit. In my experience, men and women are equally likely to desire control, power, and security, not to mention all the other things that come with being the apex predator of the earth.

So, in the context of those opinions, there wasn't much for me to like in this story. I had a lot of sympathy for the defrosted congressmen, bumbling and befuddled he might have been - and let's face it, who wouldn't be? - he seemed to be trying to deal with his situation with as much grace and dignity as possible2. The women, on the other hand, were arrogant, sadistic, sniggering, maniacal villains, infinitely more monstrous than the "bad dogs" they despised.

I guess I disliked this story for odd reasons. I thought it was full of huge and sweeping themes and was deeply science fictional... I just thought that its approach to the huge and sweeping themes was infuriating.

- - -

1: This is not to be construed as genuine apathy towards whales. I love whales.

2: Nah, he was kind of a schmuck. Maybe it's just by comparison to his hosts that he seemed so noble.

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Anarquistador

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Reply #24 on: January 04, 2012, 03:54:54 PM
I'm afraid this one was a total miss with me. I'm quite sick of stories that attempt to take mankind to task for behaving like living organisms. You know what we call creatures that don't reproduce, expand their territory, and respond to threats?

Dead.

Of course, it behooves us to do these things in such a way that we don't destroy our own environment, cause unnecessary pain and suffering to the creatures around us, and so on, but when the story fails to make the distinction between "growth" and "irresponsible growth," I get a little annoyed. I think that the trick to a better attitude about the environment is less viewing ourselves as apart from and above from nature, and more acknowledging that we are also animals.

::puts on sunglasses and speaks haltingly in a deep voice::

You...are a virus. A cancer...on this planet.

Ack. Sorry about that. Glitch in the Matrix.

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