Author Topic: Pseudopod 036: Liberation  (Read 12543 times)

Bdoomed

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on: May 04, 2007, 07:55:44 PM
Pseudopod 036: Liberation


By Kevin Anderson
Read by Mur Lafferty

It had the characteristics of a spider but looked more like some underwater creature – a mutated octopus or alien squid. The arachnid’s legs were thick like tentacles, splayed out on a chalky porcelain table. Pools of blood spotted the off-white surface and a pair of forceps lay next to the spider, providing a sense of scale. The creature’s creamy white frame seemed about four inches in length. Its color reminded Caroline of the salamanders discovered in subterranean caves. Living their whole lives in darkness, the lizards looked pasty – sickly.

Leaning in, Wendy traced a finger along the picture’s caption. “It says, it didn’t have any eyes.”

“It doesn’t need them,” Caroline said, grinning. “It lives in darkness, just feeling its way around.” Just like the salamanders.

Wendy stood up. “This doesn’t prove anything, Caroline. You don’t have spiders living in your brain for god-sakes.”



Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Bdoomed

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Reply #1 on: May 06, 2007, 01:44:53 AM
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW! WOW whats with the gore lately?  This is makin me squeemish!  ive had to stop listening a few times!

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Shade53

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Reply #2 on: May 06, 2007, 06:51:48 PM
For those of us who are a touch arachnaphobic, the world may never look quite the same. Or at least for a few days anyway.

~Sarah

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Mur Lafferty

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Reply #3 on: May 06, 2007, 11:25:04 PM
Shade, trust me, I agree with you. Spiders freak me out.



Shade53

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Reply #4 on: May 07, 2007, 02:15:44 AM
Because I happened across this tonight, after having listened to the story today, it seemed a strange synchronicity....

http://www.comcast.net/news/strange/index.jsp?cat=STRANGE&fn=/2007/05/06/655956.html&cvqh=itn_ear  about a boy with spiders in his ears and I may never sleep again.

~S

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Bdoomed

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Reply #5 on: May 07, 2007, 03:17:14 AM
if i EVER hear snapping in my ear i'm going to completely freak out now.
*shudders*
the end of this story was just as chilling!

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


clichekiller

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Reply #6 on: May 08, 2007, 02:35:59 PM
This one just didn't sit well with me.  It's not the gore, I can handle that just fine, I just don't enjoy psychotic horror stories as much.  I never got the impression or feeling that we were supposed to believe that there were actually spiders living in women's brains, but rather the poor women was extremely delusional. 

Maybe because I read to escape the world for a time and I could see something like this happening in real life, (not the successful self brain surgery, rather one person deciding to rid other women of their affliction), that it felt less like fantasy and more like an episode of Criminal Minds. 

My personal favorite flavor of horror tends more to the supernatural. 

On the flip side I enjoyed the reading of it, and as always your production was as professional as always.  It never ceases to amaze me that you put out a more professional sounding audio work then many audio books I've listened to. 



flammableskirt

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Reply #7 on: May 10, 2007, 08:31:25 AM
I was intrigued by the disclaimer at the beginning, which seemed to imply the story was going to be anti-feminist, when surely feminism means acknowledging that women are just as capable of being evil/lunatic/terrifyingly deluded as men?

A wonderful, disturbing little tale. Like clichekiller, I love smart supernatural horror (and the vegetarian vampire story a few weeks ago was fantastic), but psychological horror that unspools inside your head is closer to home, closer to the realm of the possible. Or maybe I'd just LIKE to think that I have more chance of going paranoid-delusional with arachnids in my brain than being kept in storage in a barn as an appetiser for some monstrous funereal feast.

The writing was also great - although you could see the ending coming from a mile off, the storytelling was compelling and articulate and I loved the biological detail of the brain that seemed to fuel and corroborate her delusion.



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Reply #8 on: May 22, 2007, 01:16:11 AM
I just had to comment on this one.  The part were she put the drill to her head chilled me so bad, I had to stop listening - listening to the rest the next day.  Damn I hate spiders.  Great pick pseudopod.  And I was surprised that a guy wrote this one.  Thought for sure it had to be a feminine point of view.




sirana

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Reply #9 on: May 23, 2007, 09:12:41 AM
I really liked it, although the ending was a bit foreseeable.
But honestly, anything that includes a surgical drill makes me happy ;-)



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Reply #10 on: September 21, 2009, 05:30:16 PM
This one was alright, although it seemed completely clear to me that she was simply delusional.

The protagonist's belief that men were poisoning women this way to keep them under men's heel was rather annoying.  I mean, if female medication is based on rainforest discoveries, wouldn't men's medicine also come from there?  Maybe I just travel in different circles, but the women I know are anything but meek.  If anything, the men tend to be less determined than them.  Maybe someone switched their pills?  I don't know.  Also, if the spiders REALLY robbed her of determination, there is no way she would get rid of them with self-surgery.  It certainly takes massive amounts of determination to put a drill to one's own head, don't you think?  I mean, it takes a lot of determination to listen to someone narrate fiction about putting a drill to one's own head, so the act itself would be exponentially more difficult.  I mean, if a spider had the trait to drain determination, wouldn't the point be to use it as a self-defense mechanism by forcing the host to be unable to remove the parasite?  That alone convinced me that she is simply insane.  Perhaps if she at least had some justification to why she's able to be determined right now ( a change in medication or recently getting an electric jolt or something, anything), that would allow me to see it ambiguously.

And the ending of self-mutilation followed by the mutilation to make others like her has just been done so many times.  not that it's a bad ending, or that it's out of character for this insane person, but it's just so easy to predict that.



Millenium_King

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Reply #11 on: August 12, 2010, 12:08:29 AM
Eh.  This one gets a thumbs down from me.  Too bad, because I loved "Blood, Gridlock and PEZ."  All politics and social commentary aside, this one plodded along an utterly predictable, utterly borning and utterly linear plot:

1. Character suspects all problems come from supernatural source.
2. Character is doubted.
3. Character takes huge risk and is proven to be true.

I knew from the moment she mentioned the "brain spiders" that they would be real.  Lo and behold, with nary a twist in sight, I was right.  Besides the social commentary (which I thought was a little uncreative - and not terribly feminist: doesn't everybody constantly find themselves doing things they don't want to?  How many men hate their jobs too?) this one did not have much to offer besides the gross-out factor.

Great reading, though.

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Unblinking

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Reply #12 on: August 12, 2010, 01:22:19 PM
I knew from the moment she mentioned the "brain spiders" that they would be real. 

I don't think their realness is any kind of certain thing.  After all, she's not shown herself to be the most rational of people, so it's possible that she is seeing them to justify her past and future behavior.



Millenium_King

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Reply #13 on: August 12, 2010, 04:57:59 PM
I knew from the moment she mentioned the "brain spiders" that they would be real. 

I don't think their realness is any kind of certain thing.  After all, she's not shown herself to be the most rational of people, so it's possible that she is seeing them to justify her past and future behavior.

Yeah, I did consider that.  But here's how I look at it:  the argument "well, maybe the chracter was really delusional and just seeing things" can be applied to tons of horror stories (cf. "Radiodemonology") and, given that, it's something I just didn't bother considering.  I think the whole "He's just crazy... or is he?" question never adds anything to the story.

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Unblinking

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Reply #14 on: August 12, 2010, 05:42:00 PM
I think the whole "He's just crazy... or is he?" question never adds anything to the story.

I disagree.  Some of my favorite stories center around that question.  It's the very definition of the "unreliable narrator" device, of which this is a prime example.



Millenium_King

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Reply #15 on: August 12, 2010, 06:56:01 PM
I think the whole "He's just crazy... or is he?" question never adds anything to the story.

I disagree.  Some of my favorite stories center around that question.  It's the very definition of the "unreliable narrator" device, of which this is a prime example.

Be that as it may, the question of whether she is crazy or not does not enhance what is a pretty generic plot.  I guess that was more my point.

FYI - if you like unreliable narrators, you cannot beat "The Repairer of Reputations."

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Reply #16 on: August 13, 2010, 01:57:44 PM
FYI - if you like unreliable narrators, you cannot beat "The Repairer of Reputations."

I do indeed like unreliable narrators when they're done well.  Who's the writer and do you know where I might find it?



Millenium_King

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Reply #17 on: August 13, 2010, 02:36:05 PM
Robert W. Chambers.  I'm pretty sure it's public domain now.

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Kevin David Anderson

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Reply #18 on: August 18, 2010, 02:32:31 AM
Honestly, even when I was writing this I didn’t know if the spiders were real or not.  Thought I’d figure it out when I got to the end, but the end came and I still didn’t know.  Kind of leaning toward not real. 

But whether the spiders were real or not I can definitely say, and I think we can all agree, that they were all in her head. 

Ba dump bump


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Reply #19 on: August 18, 2010, 01:46:46 PM
Honestly, even when I was writing this I didn’t know if the spiders were real or not.  Thought I’d figure it out when I got to the end, but the end came and I still didn’t know.  Kind of leaning toward not real. 

But whether the spiders were real or not I can definitely say, and I think we can all agree, that they were all in her head. 

Ba dump bump

*Groan*  Well, I hope you don't quit writing to become a comedian.   :D



Millenium_King

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Reply #20 on: August 18, 2010, 04:49:12 PM
Haha - Well, I thought it was kinda funny.

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