Author Topic: EP420: The Shunned Trailer  (Read 20579 times)

eytanz

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Kaa

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Reply #1 on: November 01, 2013, 12:52:37 PM
Oh. Em. Gee. This just skyrocketed past a lot of other stories to be one of my favorites. I loved this unabashedly. I have sat at my desk giggling insanely to myself for the last 30 minutes, garnering odd looks and, frankly, not caring. It inspired me to seek out Ms. Friesner's email and send her a gibbering-fanboy email of praise.

Love it, love it, love it, love it, love it.

[The less said about that . . . whatever-it-was at the very end after the dying notes of the theme music, the better, though.]
« Last Edit: November 01, 2013, 12:56:00 PM by Kaa »

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chemistryguy

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Reply #2 on: November 01, 2013, 02:59:01 PM
A lot of things written that would probably inspire anger as opposed to intelligent discourse   

Although I can appreciate the whimsical play on old-school writing and couldn't possibly think of a better person to read said text, I just couldn't get into this one.  I've never been a big fan of Lovecraft and it just feels like I've heard this story before. 

Also:
I've defended quite a few of the stories when some have complained about them not fitting into a particular genre, so I don't want to open that particular can of worms.  All I'd like to say is that an injection of some good ol' Arthur C. Clark or the like would feel mighty fine about now.

Peace out!


Tara

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Reply #3 on: November 01, 2013, 06:57:52 PM
I've been listening to Escape Pod for quite a long time, but I registered now just so I could comment on this one. Awesome, awesome, awesome. I've been reading a collection of Lovecraft short stories, so this was very timely. Did I mention that the story is awesome?

~*~ Tara


matweller

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Reply #4 on: November 01, 2013, 08:08:05 PM
I asked Norm to Narrate this one because of his work narrating the Lovecraft month of The Drabblecast. You should totally check that out too - http://www.drabblecast.org/tag/lovecraft-month/



Yarin

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Reply #5 on: November 02, 2013, 03:29:26 AM
Before Cthulhu came about did I miss hear something or did the narrator shoot divine lighting from his hands?



Myst

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Reply #6 on: November 02, 2013, 09:25:37 PM
Fratboys and Cthulhu Fhtagn what's not to like.



Kaa

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Reply #7 on: November 02, 2013, 09:27:18 PM
Before Cthulhu came about did I miss hear something or did the narrator shoot divine lighting from his hands?

I think so. I even rewound it and listened twice to that part to make sure I heard what I heard. I think maybe I'll have to listen to it again.

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

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Yarin

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Reply #8 on: November 02, 2013, 10:17:18 PM
I was hoping he'd be an even bigger monster than they were



adrianh

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Reply #9 on: November 03, 2013, 01:06:48 PM
Laughed my arse off. Out loud.

Great story. Great reading.



davidthygod

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Reply #10 on: November 04, 2013, 12:10:17 AM
This story was awesome and fun and hilarious.  I wish I was smart and educated enough to get half of the overly erudite references he makes.

The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad.


TonyV

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Reply #11 on: November 04, 2013, 01:36:38 AM
This was so awesome - I registered in the forums.

I can't imagine anyone else reading this - The delivery was flawless.

The ending brought me back to my teenage years reading HP and those sleepless nights.  The story itself was funny and a great homage to HP Lovecraft and New England.

Wow!

Tony V



Windup

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Reply #12 on: November 04, 2013, 04:14:57 AM

I thought this was hilarious.  Simultaneously skewering Lovecraft, Southern Evangelicals and the Ivy League is no mean feat, and it was done with panache.  And could anyone have possibly been a more perfect narrator for that than Norm Sherman?  No, definitely not…

"My whole job is in the space between 'should be' and 'is.' It's a big space."


Fenrix

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Reply #13 on: November 04, 2013, 03:24:02 PM
Awesome inclusion of The World's End in the parade. Probably the best film I've seen (and probably will see) this year. Yeah, I said it, PJ.

I'm happy to see the strong use of batrachian, as it's a significantly underloved word. However, I have to pedant a bit. Lovecraft only published that word once. Clark Ashton Smith, on the other hand, LOVED the word. I recommend The Mother of Toads and all the horrid batrachian flopping contained therein.

The truly unmentionable horror came at the very end after the closing music had faded out.

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


albionmoonlight

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Reply #14 on: November 05, 2013, 03:27:13 AM
"Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice."

But, in any event, however the world ends, I just want Norm narrating it.



Unblinking

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Reply #15 on: November 05, 2013, 03:01:35 PM
Very entertaining story, and no better person to read it.  I'm surprised it wasn't run on Drabblecast's Lovecraft month.  I was laughing consistently throughout.  I found the old-timey Lovecraftian language contrasted with the modern setting a nice touch--but what would you expect of a Harvard man in the sticks?  Lots of funny little details, the party hat, the "Stephen Hawking is a Mack Daddy" tat, lots of good stuff.

And, hey, if this story can get accepted at Escape Pod, then mayhaps I have been too self-restrictive on what I submit.  I should submit that bogeyman love story, that story with the Fey sword inheritance, the story about the undead grandma, and the one about the talking pig. 



Max e^{i pi}

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Reply #16 on: November 05, 2013, 03:07:45 PM
Loved the language of this. Loved the narration. Loved the little jibes at everything from tacky lawn ornaments to the nation's best and brightest.
I also loved that I think I got all the jokes and references, but I will never be sure.

As for the bit at the end...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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Unblinking

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Reply #17 on: November 05, 2013, 03:08:07 PM
Also, minor note--Alasdair refers to Nate's Nightmare Lights of Mars feedback when it was actually the Big-Fisted Circuit feedback.  :)



Max e^{i pi}

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Reply #18 on: November 05, 2013, 03:11:13 PM
Also, minor note--Alasdair refers to Nate's Nightmare Lights of Mars feedback when it was actually the Big-Fisted Circuit feedback.  :)
Not the first time he's done that, I remember at least one other time when Alasdair's schedule was different from the one in our universe.

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matweller

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Reply #19 on: November 05, 2013, 04:39:28 PM
As for the bit at the end...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
For the record, the movie was a spoof, but that bit of the movie was a pop-culture spoof of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJmqCKtJnxM

The question is, why was this scene from Scary Movie appended to the end of the episode? The answer lies in your ID3 tags.



Max e^{i pi}

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Reply #20 on: November 05, 2013, 07:06:35 PM
As for the bit at the end...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
For the record, the movie was a spoof, but that bit of the movie was a pop-culture spoof of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJmqCKtJnxM

The question is, why was this scene from Scary Movie appended to the end of the episode? The answer lies in your ID3 tags.

I don't need them, Robot Lady gave away the answer.
But for those of you who didn't get it:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Cogito ergo surf - I think therefore I network

Registered Linux user #481826 Get Counted!



Cutter McKay

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Reply #21 on: November 05, 2013, 07:21:43 PM
And, hey, if this story can get accepted at Escape Pod, then mayhaps I have been too self-restrictive on what I submit.  I should submit that bogeyman love story, that story with the Fey sword inheritance, the story about the undead grandma, and the one about the talking pig. 

I'm going to beg that these stories don't get picked up here at EP. Not because I don't want to hear them, I'm sure their great coming from Unblinking, but because the only reason I'm not ranting about this story not being anywhere near sci-fi is because it was the Halloween episode and it was absolutely hilarious. I'm going to keep that complaint bottled up... this time ;)

As for the story, I loved about 95% of it. The language was perfect, the dichotomy of the setting brilliant, and there are no words in this language to praise Norm's narration. The one thing that I really didn't like was City Boy's sudden burst of divine lightening. I mean, where did that come from? If he had this power all along, why didn't he use it earlier? And why is he so put out by all of these crazy, cultist, magical events when he KNOWS he has some mystical powers, too? I mean, the whole thing was just completely out of character and completely unnecessary in my opinion. All he used that power for was to scare off the locals so he could have his one-on-one time with Cthulhu. There's no reason he couldn't have found a non-magical and completely plausible way to scare them off without this mysterious and unexplained power. [/rant]

Other than that one quibble, I laughed myself silly listening to this brilliantly written piece.

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matweller

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Reply #22 on: November 05, 2013, 08:17:46 PM
As for the bit at the end...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
For the record, the movie was a spoof, but that bit of the movie was a pop-culture spoof of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJmqCKtJnxM

The question is, why was this scene from Scary Movie appended to the end of the episode? The answer lies in your ID3 tags.

I don't need them, Robot Lady gave away the answer.
But for those of you who didn't get it:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I can't take credit for the random XML, but thanks for the tip, I'll look into it. I am annoyed the message got cut off. Both issues are most likely a gift from either Podpress, which generates the feed or (more likely) Libsyn, who houses the file.

Actually, since it got cut off in the tags, I should probably just come out and say it. "Episode 420 falls on Halloween, hence the clip being from a weed-induced scene from Scary Movie." It made me laugh. Feel free to ignore it or email me any complaints.
« Last Edit: November 05, 2013, 08:22:40 PM by matweller »



Varda

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Reply #23 on: November 05, 2013, 09:10:19 PM
Wow. Great story, and I agree that you couldn't pick a better narrator than Norm for the job. I completely lost it at the condom of "non-Euclidean dimensions"! I also appreciated the cleverness of both paying tribute to Lovecraft's obsession with racial intermixing while simultaneously parodying it in the most delicious and hilarious way possible. Fun, subversive, and quite original all around.

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PotatoKnight

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Reply #24 on: November 05, 2013, 10:59:43 PM

If he had this power all along, why didn't he use it earlier? And why is he so put out by all of these crazy, cultist, magical events when he KNOWS he has some mystical powers, too? I mean, the whole thing was just completely out of character and completely unnecessary in my opinion. All he used that power for was to scare off the locals so he could have his one-on-one time with Cthulhu. There's no reason he couldn't have found a non-magical and completely plausible way to scare them off without this mysterious and unexplained power. [/rant]


Not that you have to like it and obviously it was a bit out of left field -- part of the joke -- but I don't think it's out of character for him to suddenly have the powers. As for why he didn't use them earlier--there was no reason to. He doesn't stick around with the cultists because he's a prisoner.  They tell him to not be condescending with the relatives  or hit the road, but hitting the road is an option. He's staying out of politeness, because they kept him out of the rain and he promised to stick around. I never get the sense that he's particularly afraid of them, just disgusted. What sets off the divine fury is the horrific insult of suggesting he went to Yale--which is key set-up for the joke at the end.

I also like it as worldbuilding. In a world where there's Miskatonic University and priests of Cthulhu to to Yale Divinity, how cool do the magic powers have to be at Harvard?

As everyone noted, this was the story Norm was born to read. It was nice and ironic that the voice of Cthuhlu was Norm at his least sinister.  I was at first a little annoyed by the whole "loutish guy speaks in highfalutin' language," feeling that I'd heard it before until the realization that it was specifically a Lovecraft pastiche which I think it does quite well.