Author Topic: Pseudopod 317: Enzymes  (Read 7850 times)

Bdoomed

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on: January 18, 2013, 09:20:24 AM
Pseudopod 317: Enzymes

By Greg Stolze.

“Enzymes” is available for free on his web site.

GREG STOLZE has published several licensed novels - A HUNGER LIKE FIRE, ASHES AND ANGEL WINGS - as well as being anthologized here and there - DELTA GREEN: ALIEN INTELLIGENCE with “Don’t Read This Book” & “By No Means Vulgar”.

Your reader this week - Kyle Akers - is the front-man of Antennas Up, an electro-pop rock band from Kansas City. A budding voice talent, he continues to expand his reading roles across several podcasts. Antennas Up’s new album “The Awkward Phase” is available on iTunes and from Antennas Up music web site. He can also be heard occasionally on the No Sleep Podcast



“Maybe I’m not human, maybe I never was. I’m pretty sure humans never feel like I do when I drink gasoline, that sweet intoxication, so pregnant with possibility and power. It’s like the power of the sun, and of a great tree that drew in sunlight to grow, and of an ancient beast that ate of the tree and died, that sank into the earth and was worked on by millions of years until it turned to oil. It’s like all those kinds of power, concentrated step by step, and the toil of the drillers and refineries and pump mechanics too. Gasoline is everything. Gasoline is the elixir of modern civilization and I’m one with it when I drink. All the clouds of exhaust and all the labor of machines and their men, I’m all within it.

Then I drop off and I have to crawl out, I’m man-bodied again, dressed in jeans and a denim shirt with fake-pearl snaps. My fingers are crusted with rust and black under the nails but I run them through my hair anyway. It’s long hair, unkempt and black. I never get it cut, never trim my beard, but they stay the same.”



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eytanz

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Reply #1 on: January 18, 2013, 11:18:51 AM
Haven't heard the episode yet, but I'm wondering - is Episode 315 just biding its time? Or has something unspeakable happened to it?



Sgarre1

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Reply #2 on: January 18, 2013, 11:51:34 PM
biding time....



Kaa

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Reply #3 on: January 18, 2013, 11:57:10 PM
Wow. I really enjoyed this episode. It pulled a switcheroo on me, making me think it was going to be just another vampire story . . . and then surprised the hell out of me by going somewhere entirely . . . else.

I'd like to see more stories of these "enzymes." Maybe not this particular one, but I'm sure there are others. (Other enzymes, that is, not other stories. Although maybe there are other enzyme stories. What do I know?)

I invent imaginary people and make them have conversations in my head. I also write.

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Seekerpilgrim

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Reply #4 on: January 19, 2013, 04:21:39 AM
I also thought this was going to be another vampire story, but was pleasantly surprised when it actually turned into a tale of isolation and the possibility of love among those who don't fit the norm. I suspect most of us who listen to such tales from Pseudopod, PodCastle, and Escape Pod, who watch Doctor Who and aim to misbehave realize that we see the world differently than most. We wander through life invisible to the average person, taking sustenance from our hobbies and passions, speaking a language alien to most, the language of imagination and contemplation...and once in a great while we see someone wearing a Suicide Girls t-shirt or sporting an R2-D2 keychain, and briefly recognize someone from our tribe, maybe even making a connection. More often than not, however, the moment passes without comment and we go our separate ways, to continue our "strange" behavior, wandering our path alone, but knowing there are others out there.

By Grabthar's Hammer...what a savings.


Scattercat

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Reply #5 on: January 19, 2013, 08:45:29 AM
If any of y'all drink gasoline for the sheer orgasmic physical pleasure it gives you, y'all do me a favor and just keep that right up under your hat, 'kay?



Fenrix

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Reply #6 on: January 21, 2013, 05:45:18 AM
I thought about saying something insightful but I'm just going to nod at Seekerpilgrim and keep going.

If any of y'all drink gasoline for the sheer orgasmic physical pleasure it gives you, y'all do me a favor and just keep that right up under your hat, 'kay?

FINE I HATE YOU ANYWAY

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


danooli

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Reply #7 on: January 21, 2013, 10:08:50 PM
If any of y'all drink gasoline for the sheer orgasmic physical pleasure it gives you, y'all do me a favor and just keep that right up under your hat, 'kay?

Yes, and please stay away from all Volkswagen Karman Ghias?  They're my dream car and I haven't been able to afford one yet...I'd hate for them all to rust away before I get the chance to own one. 



Scumpup

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Reply #8 on: January 22, 2013, 03:03:44 PM
That was certainly an unusual story.  I was tempted to turn it off during the early description of feeding on a car.  My best friend in high school, all those years ago, was a gearhead and it sounded disturbingly like what I suspect went through his head when he touched himself.  I did keep listening, though, and was pleasantly surprised with the direction the story took.  Vampires, even ones that feed on cars, aren't interesting to me.  Incarnations of wear and decay, though, are a new idea.



Unblinking

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Reply #9 on: January 28, 2013, 02:44:22 PM
This was one of those times when a story has elements that feel almost exactly like one of my own stories for a time and it creeps me out--that happened in the opening scene of this one, but diverged from there.  Phew!  Always creeps me out when that happens, synchronicity.

Anyway, i thought this one was interesting in showing the strange world as it revealed.  It wasn't full of plot tension, but had enough of an interesting slow reveal that I never got bored.  Odd that entropy doesn't just work on its own here and needs human agents to act on its behalf.  Makes me wonder if those people who are passionate about their hobbies are people who didn't QUITE qualify to go full-on enzyme, or whether they are in training to become enzymes, or what.



Moon_Goddess

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Reply #10 on: February 07, 2013, 03:56:40 PM
Firstly I know this has nothing to do with the story,

And I know I'm being a totally nitpicking bitch..

but this actually bothered me so much I couldn't stop thinking about the whole way thru the story.

Quote
It’s like the power of the sun, and of a great tree that drew in sunlight to grow, and of an ancient beast that ate of the tree and died, that sank into the earth and was worked on by millions of years until it turned to oil. It’s like all those kinds of power, concentrated step by step, and the toil of the drillers and refineries and pump mechanics too. Gasoline is everything.

It doesn't work that way, that's backwards, There is always waste, the tree gets part of the energy from the sunlight that falls on it, the beast gets part of the energy of the tree, the oil gets part of the energy of the beast and the gasoline gets part of the energy of the oil.    It's horribly inefficient

And yes I know a gasoline 'vampire' would probably think of it  backwards, and it makes more sense for the story backwards.   As I said it just bugged me.    Sorry had to get that out.

Was dream6601 but that's sounds awkward when Nathan reads my posts.


Scattercat

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Reply #11 on: February 07, 2013, 07:25:21 PM
Bear in mind that the "beast" would have eaten a lot of *different* plants, as well as other stuff, and then the factory workers etc. all add more energy into the process from outside, fueling themselves with their own intake.  It's not unreasonable to say that it's concentrated energy, in a way.

A more pertinent concern for nitpicking would be that most petroleum comes from algae/plankton type stuff left behind when oceans departed, not from ancient megafauna.  :-D



schizoTypal

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Reply #12 on: February 12, 2013, 02:34:18 AM
I loved the way that this story explored the concept of exactly how and why things decay to begin with, and what happens when items are no longer loved and cared for. I thought that the idea of the main characters having been at one time human was a little hard to integrate smoothly into the overall super-natural sort of feel that they seemed to have, but I still liked it overall. It wasn't my favorite story, or even in my top 100, but it wasn't a bad one at all. It was a good experiment.



Kat_Rocha

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Reply #13 on: February 12, 2013, 10:28:09 PM
Probably one of these most unique urban fantasy stories I have ever come across. Makes me want to know more about this world. Are their others like these two. What happens to them and how long do they go on like this. Does the woman feel that her food supply is slipping away as more and more people turn to digital means, or does her diet change along with them?

GREAT STORY!!

-Kat



schizoTypal

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Reply #14 on: February 16, 2013, 05:12:03 AM
Probably one of these most unique urban fantasy stories I have ever come across. Makes me want to know more about this world. Are their others like these two. What happens to them and how long do they go on like this. Does the woman feel that her food supply is slipping away as more and more people turn to digital means, or does her diet change along with them?

GREAT STORY!!

-Kat

There's definitely something to be said for a fictional world that makes you want to know more, almost as though there's actually more to know.



Fenrix

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Reply #15 on: February 16, 2013, 05:14:04 AM
Probably one of these most unique urban fantasy stories I have ever come across. Makes me want to know more about this world. Are their others like these two. What happens to them and how long do they go on like this. Does the woman feel that her food supply is slipping away as more and more people turn to digital means, or does her diet change along with them?

GREAT STORY!!

-Kat

There's definitely something to be said for a fictional world that makes you want to know more, almost as though there's actually more to know.

Of course there is more to know. All these stories are true.

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


Unblinking

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Reply #16 on: February 18, 2013, 02:58:28 PM
Of course there is more to know. All these stories are true.

Alasdair wouldn't break a promise, right?



Scattercat

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Reply #17 on: February 19, 2013, 01:47:27 AM
Of course there is more to know. All these stories are true.

Alasdair wouldn't break a promise, right?

Unless... it hasn't been Al all along.