Author Topic: PC215, Giant Episode: Ours Is the Prettiest  (Read 14979 times)

InfiniteMonkey

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Reply #25 on: July 16, 2012, 03:37:56 PM
I offer a gigantic, sweeping generalisation: perhaps it's people who were in the first wave of the Bordertown phenomenon who enjoy it most.

I would agree with that.



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Reply #26 on: July 16, 2012, 03:57:06 PM
Quote from: Dave
When you think of the fourth of July, what comes to mind?
Two things: My sister's birthday and the fact that it takes a world superpower to celebrate your own independence two days late.

I heard the title of the story come up, along with lots of artifacts and background noise.
I'll try listening to it again later, when I'm not jogging and can really concentrate on what I'm hearing so I can edit out the random noise.

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Reply #27 on: July 16, 2012, 04:10:20 PM
I offer a gigantic, sweeping generalisation: perhaps it's people who were in the first wave of the Bordertown phenomenon who enjoy it most.

I would agree with that.

Makes sense to me.



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Reply #28 on: July 16, 2012, 04:17:20 PM

I offer a gigantic, sweeping generalisation: perhaps it's people who were in the first wave of the Bordertown phenomenon who enjoy it most.


I don't know about this...mostly because I was a B-town newbie when Welcome to Bordertown came out, and I ate it all up. I do wish there was some way we could run the titular story of the anthology (alas, it clocks in at over 20,000 words and thus is way too long for us to feature here) because it was the most fun thing I'd read in a long time. For a newbie, it was a great introduction to this world, although I don't think it's a necessary one.

That said, as a generalization, it seems to work for quite a few of the other posters :)

Another Welcome to Bordertown story?  I'm starting to wonder if that whole anthology will end up being reprinted here.

This is only the second story we've featured from Welcome to Bordertown, so...we'd still have a pretty long ways to go before we got to reprinting the whole thing (which I think clocks in at 22 stories and poems). Currently, we have not bought any others.

(Yes, EP also featured one. No, we didn't actually plan that out or have a conversation with Mur about it - that whole happy accidents thing again. But I think the same point applies.)


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Reply #29 on: July 16, 2012, 04:22:37 PM
(Yes, EP also featured one. No, we didn't actually plan that out or have a conversation with Mur about it - that whole happy accidents thing again. But I think the same point applies.)

Ah, my mistake.  I often don't remember which EA cast a particular story ran on.  Especially for stories like that one which exist explicitly in a boundary that mix SF and fantasy.  I was thinking all 3 of them ran here.

Anyway...  I'll give any story published by EA a fair chance, but I'll be very skeptical of Bordertown stories after hearing these three.



childoftyranny

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Reply #30 on: July 18, 2012, 11:07:43 PM
I very much enjoyed the experience of this story, the language and culture was very lush. There were bits and pieces I recognized and many I didn't which is always a pleasant surprise. I come at this having not been particularly fond of the Bordertown stories but I think had this been my first experience I might have liked the others more, in that I'd look deeper for the same kinds of references this made. One example in this story was reference to The Wild Hunt, now I'm sure some consider it kind of cheating to make a rather quick reference to a weighty topic like that and have the influence the story but I thought it was well placed. Very curious in the midst of the Caribbean celebration, and considering whatever Bette might have been and the few second bowing scene suggests it was a reference to her, to me at least.

I think perhaps tension isn't the right word for the pieces of Bordertown I've enjoyed, its more curiosity. There are plenty of tropes as people often mention, but I find myself at least interested in what sort of life living among the tropes leads to.



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Reply #31 on: July 19, 2012, 11:01:54 PM
Like several others here, I enjoyed the experience of listening to Nalo Hopkinson read out her story far more than I enjoyed the actual story. It's not that the story was bad, it just wasn't particularly interesting for most of its length. I thought that the only really interesting bit was the arrival of Gladstone towards the end and her confrontation with the narrator, which was cut short by the arrival of Betty's brother. To be honest, I found the entire plot strand to do with Betty and her secret, from her introduction until its resolution, entirely without interesting. It was the side characters and the sights and sounds of this story that made me stick with it.

As for the larger setting, I don't hate Bordertown stories by any means, but I think that I've decided that the setting itself detracts from the stories. Almost everything I ever enjoyed in a Bordertown story I enjoyed *despite* the setting, not because of it.



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Reply #32 on: August 06, 2012, 08:07:34 PM
Yeah, very sorry here. I was tired when I posted that last night and I really shouldn't have resorted to a personal insult. My sincere apologies to ThomasTheAttoney and everyone else here.

For what it's worth, I haven't listened to the episode, I was responding to the tone of ThomasTheAttoney's current and past posts, not the content (except for the mistaken assumption as to paying by word).

Not much of an apology, more like self praise:
1st, you give yourself permission to attempt to insult me because you were tired.
2nd, you state that you did not know what you were talking about as if it was a good thing.
3rd, you give yourself permission again to attempt to insult me because you decided I deserved it for other posts, and, by righting past wrongs with your attempted insult, find yourself quite the hero.
4th, you forgive yourself with "even if you are right, I decide I don't like your tone."

Perhaps you would like to attempt an actual apology.  On the web you will find the elements of a sincere apology.  This might be an opportunity for personal growth.

Also, Occicant, do not split the baby.  When you castigate me for receiving the insult, you encourage the insulter.
Read around the web about forums.  When "can't we all just get along" posts outweigh topic discussion and posting arguments, the forum loses energy and fails.  With such poor fare as this episode, a forum which relies on donations would be well served to embrace any energy. 



Talia

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Reply #33 on: August 06, 2012, 08:23:19 PM
Yeah, very sorry here. I was tired when I posted that last night and I really shouldn't have resorted to a personal insult. My sincere apologies to ThomasTheAttoney and everyone else here.

For what it's worth, I haven't listened to the episode, I was responding to the tone of ThomasTheAttoney's current and past posts, not the content (except for the mistaken assumption as to paying by word).

Not much of an apology, more like self praise:
1st, you give yourself permission to attempt to insult me because you were tired.
2nd, you state that you did not know what you were talking about as if it was a good thing.
3rd, you give yourself permission again to attempt to insult me because you decided I deserved it for other posts, and, by righting past wrongs with your attempted insult, find yourself quite the hero.
4th, you forgive yourself with "even if you are right, I decide I don't like your tone."

Perhaps you would like to attempt an actual apology.  On the web you will find the elements of a sincere apology.  This might be an opportunity for personal growth.

Also, Occicant, do not split the baby.  When you castigate me for receiving the insult, you encourage the insulter.
Read around the web about forums.  When "can't we all just get along" posts outweigh topic discussion and posting arguments, the forum loses energy and fails.  With such poor fare as this episode, a forum which relies on donations would be well served to embrace any energy. 

Are we reading different posts? Because that sounded completely sincere to me. I even went back to see if You'd clipped part of the post out. I really cannot possibly imagine how you could ask for something more sincere outside of groveling. o.O

RE: "can't we all just get along" posts - That's the thing about these forums, though. There are VERY rarely cases where we need to post about "can't we all just get along." People tend to be civil. Unfortunately, because it is the internet, sometimes people do come across more gruffly than intended, that's when the moderators step in to nudge the conversation back in the right direction.

PodCastle/Escape Artists listeners are a diverse bunch with diverse tastes. This has been proven time and time again. Sometimes you may not like an episode, it happens. I'm pretty sure I've never seen a single episode ever that pleased EVERYONE.  I happened to enjoy this. Others did too. Not to your tastes? That's OK, check back next week.

But meanwhile, we just ask for kindness. Keep in mind that even if you didn't personally enjoy the story, real work and effort went into both writing and producing the episode. It doesn't do anyone any good to be derogatory.




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Reply #34 on: August 06, 2012, 11:50:44 PM
"But meanwhile, we just ask for kindness. Keep in mind that even if you didn't personally enjoy the story, real work and effort went into both writing and producing the episode. It doesn't do anyone any good to be derogatory."

Thank you, Talia. You're absolutely right, there's rarely, if any, trouble on these boards and, having spent time around boards which were literally a rolling argument that's a very welcome change.

Also, and this is a plea from the behind the mike staff, please, please bear what Talia said in mind before commenting. Every single author works hard on these stories but they're not alone. Our narrator, our audio producers, our slush wranglers, our editors and our hosts are all normal people who do this job because they love it.  When the forum does go negative, six times out of ten, it goes negative at one of us and that's incredibly hard to deal with. So, please, and this is a general statement, aimed at no one, please bear in mind that we're a company run by people, not robots. If you've got a problem with something bring it up and we'll talk about it. If you're complaining to show us how clever you are, as several people have done in the past AT me, then do us all a favor and please don't bother.

Or to put it another way, as no less a luminary then Wil Wheaton put it, please don't be a dick.



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Reply #35 on: August 07, 2012, 01:02:04 PM
Some Bordertown stories have been nice. Others have been meh. This one was interesting and engaging. It did not need to be a Bordertown story, though.

Agreed.

Overall the story was pretty well-told, although yes the thing with the Mad Hunt was a little off-putting and weird. I'm not really of a mind that a story is written from a non-Caucasian or non-hetero viewpoint just to be sold, but I've noticed that stories like that DO get bought. Not that Ms Hopkinson wrote the story that way for that reason -- I'm sure most writers don't -- but it happens. The non-Caucasian viewpoint made it more exotic and interesting, to be sure, at least to someone like me whose experiences with people not like me are generally limited to Hispanic folks as opposed to Caribbean ones.

I'm not sure if anyone else uses Bluetooth, but certain narrations hit certain tones that cause a fuzz or overload in the speakers, and Ms Hopkinson's voice (as well as Wilson's and occasionally Dave's) hit those tones. It made it hard to listen to the story. Not PC's fault, but has anyone else experienced this? Any ideas on how to correct the car's sound levels to fix it?
« Last Edit: August 07, 2012, 01:10:13 PM by Listener »

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Reply #36 on: August 07, 2012, 01:50:13 PM
RE: "can't we all just get along" posts - That's the thing about these forums, though. There are VERY rarely cases where we need to post about "can't we all just get along." People tend to be civil. Unfortunately, because it is the internet, sometimes people do come across more gruffly than intended, that's when the moderators step in to nudge the conversation back in the right direction.

The moderators here are my heroes.  I've peeked into a few other forums, sometimes even hung around for a little bit, but this is the only one that I have spent any large amount of time at, posting on every episode thread.  Part of that is because the EA casts provide some of the best audio work, in terms of story selection, narration, intros and outros, that I can find.  But another large part of that is that the moderators moderate exactly how they should.  Honest criticism, whether positive or negative, is welcomed and there are many intelligent folk around here who will debate you civilly no matter what you say.  Negative criticism is not crushed like it is on some forums (which to me defeats the purpose of story discussion to disallow negative counterpoints).  But when the criticism starts to be about people instead of stories, they step in promptly and try to get the thread back on topic, which to me makes me feel like everyone is welcome as long as they can act civilly. 

Or to put it another way, as no less a luminary then Wil Wheaton put it, please don't be a dick.

Great advice.



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Reply #37 on: August 07, 2012, 02:22:58 PM
Jumping on the bandwagon to say that this is my favorite corner of the internet, no holds barred. The amazing thing is that we do get along, even when we strongly disagree, and if anything that encourages more interesting, more intelligent conversation. We respect each other, and we Have Fun!



LaShawn

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Reply #38 on: August 08, 2012, 07:45:10 PM
I didn't care for the first Bordertown story, but I enjoyed this one. This one made Bordertown come alive for me.  I love the city/carnivale aspect of it. And Oh my goodness Neville! Honey! Is he real? Can I meet him? I want to flounce with him down the north side. I want to drink tea with him. I want him to be my new best friend!

The only thing I had a problem with was the reveal of Gladstone being a physical abuser. If Gladstone was a man, would the MC still remain friends her? I found the advice she gave Betty to "lay low" until Gladstone calmed down extremely troubling. If she was a man--there would be no way the MC would tell her to lay low. She'd be telling her to run--even before they started dating. But the more I think about it, the more it gets complicated. You got the MC who's watching out for Gladstone's lovers, but she's a former lover herself, and furthermore, it appears she's *still* in love with Gladstone.  This reminds me of the graphic novel Wet Moon in terms of lesbian drama.

It took me a while to get used to Nalo's voice, but once I did, I was sucked in. And her language. Ahhhh... Good job in having her narrate the story. I'm still grinning at the slight fangirlish squeal she gave "a pitchy-patchy crew!" I'm going to find a way to add that to my repetoire of words.

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Reply #39 on: January 18, 2013, 10:19:34 PM
I liked the narration, as no one knows better then the author what her slang is supposed to sound like. In addition, no one knows better what her songs are supposed to sound like. Not saying that EA should consider changing the general policy against authors reading their own stuff. If you have suffered through anything that Stephen King has narrated, then you can really appreciate this policy.

And Oh my goodness Neville! Honey! Is he real? Can I meet him? I want to flounce with him down the north side. I want to drink tea with him. I want him to be my new best friend!

He was a pretty awesome character, and really made the restaurant live so much more than the rest of the settings. I would love to try the tea, and anything but the scones.

I found it an odd choice that the story ended on a close up shot of him covering his one hoofed foot. I'd be interested to see how he felt about shoe shopping. Does it hurt to buy really expensive shoes if you only get to wear one?

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