Author Topic: PseudoPod 465: Saturday  (Read 4569 times)

Bdoomed

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on: November 21, 2015, 08:17:14 PM
PseudoPod 465: Saturday

by Evan Dicken

Saturday” was first published in the September issue of Shock Totem, this is the first time it’s been reprinted.

Evan Dicken’s work has recently been appeared in: The Lovecraft eZine, Analog, and Daily Science Fiction, and he has stories forthcoming from publishers such as: Unlikely Story and Chaosium. His website is here.

Your narrator – Mikael Naramore – is the narrator of over 100 audiobook titles (and counting…) from authors including Clive Barker, Wesley Chu, Mark E. Cooper, and Ramez Naam. His website is here.



“The city slept, unmindful of the doom creeping toward it at 61.38 meters per year.”




Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
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EFBQ

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Reply #1 on: November 22, 2015, 02:26:02 PM
This one was really effective for me.  The protagonist recognized that the horror was destroying his children, but he couldn't see the same thing happening to himself.  Maybe emotional trauma (the separation from his wife and kids) accelerated the process, or maybe his obsession with getting back 'what was his' was a symptom of it.  In either way, seeing the transformation from the inside makes this story terrifying...

Well done.



Tim Tylor

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Reply #2 on: November 23, 2015, 08:41:32 AM
This seems like an interesting, much bleaker take on the "Isolated city besieged by vast patient monsters" scenario of W H Hodgson's classic dark fantasy "The Night Land". The Big Things here are every bit as looming and surreal, and have a similar note of time and waiting entropy. The main difference being that Hodgson's fortress-city is warm and bright and secure, the enemy firmly shut out and the inevitable End held back a few more million years. Whereas on "Saturday" the End is nearer than anyone's openly admitting, and the monsters already have a spiritual clawhold inside the all-too-porous defenses.



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Reply #3 on: November 23, 2015, 01:56:36 PM
This was also effective for me.  I interpreted the creeping thing, the watching thing and the forgetting thing as his anxiety.  The MC is living under fear.  He can see the creeping thing slowly destroying him and the city, but he cannot do anything about it.  The destroys walls, but it held by fences.  It wants to be seen, and the MC can not face it.  If the MC tries to avoid his fear, he circles back into it.  It is the same thing for people caught in anxiety or panic. 



Maxilu

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Reply #4 on: November 24, 2015, 04:24:07 AM
I got a definite Philip K. Dick meets  H.P. Lovecraft vibe from this story. I also disagree with Alistair's analysis, that Luke was a villian. Luke has lost control of his mind, and therefore, his actions. I'm not sure to what extent that he knew he was losing his mind--I think that he honestly believed that talking his kids to the fence was the right thing to do.

The Forgetting Thing, more than the other things, represents the real horror of this story for me. It's not just the slow destruction of the Earth, it's not the Thing that Watches, it's not even the dissaperance of the animals. It's that the world is slowly being wrenched from humanity's grasp, and no one can remember this long enough to do anything about it.



Unblinking

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Reply #5 on: December 03, 2015, 02:50:13 PM
Effective. I agree that Luke is the villain to the story, even to himself.  Lots of little hints at unreliable narrator, up to and including the little circles he spins to orient himself at the end (geometry is the last thing to go). 

Lots of little effective points.  Another one that really struck me was the realism of him being repelled at the wall because he is doing irrational things... until he is recognized as an authority figure, after which those irrational things are accepted, including irrational orders.  That's plausible, you see it all the time, but it's not a great preservation trait to accept irrationality from a leader where one would not accept it from anyone else.




Scuba Man

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Reply #6 on: December 06, 2015, 05:24:24 PM
Effective. I agree that Luke is the villain to the story, even to himself.  Lots of little hints at unreliable narrator, up to and including the little circles he spins to orient himself at the end (geometry is the last thing to go). 
Unfortunately, I couldn't get into this story.  I deleted it about a third of the way into my second attempt at listening to it.  I agree with you about the unreliable narrator point.

I'm a stand-up philosopher until 2024. Then, I move onto my next gig. I'm a gentleman forester and farmer. I also enjoy jumping into Lake Huron and panicking the fish.


zoanon

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Reply #7 on: December 07, 2015, 06:56:45 PM
I just did not like anyone in this story, it sounded really dated, like 1960's.  it also reminded me of my dad's lost battle with mental illness, so not a fun listen for me.
it was a good concept though, I want to hear someone elses story of living in that kind of situation.



Moritz

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Reply #8 on: December 10, 2015, 11:53:11 AM
I generally liked the story and it worked for me, though I think the trope "while a huge catastrophe is happening, personal tragedies are highlighted instead" is slowly but steadily becoming a trodden out path on escape artists' three podcasts.



Unblinking

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Reply #9 on: December 10, 2015, 02:15:43 PM
I generally liked the story and it worked for me, though I think the trope "while a huge catastrophe is happening, personal tragedies are highlighted instead" is slowly but steadily becoming a trodden out path on escape artists' three podcasts.

As a counterpoint, I would much rather see personal tragedies and personal effects played out in the face of huge catastrophe because the personal stories are what make it matter, to me.  I wouldn't so much call it a trope personally, because that implies something specific that's overused while I'd just consider this a broadly defined trait to make me care more about stories...



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Reply #10 on: December 10, 2015, 11:45:27 PM
I like apocalypse stories, but if it's only a retelling of event's then it's just an alt-history book. World War Z is so effective because we get it through the lens of dozens of different eyewitnesses. The Stand works because we get to see the world fall apart from dozens of perspectives, large and small. I need that personal hook to make the situation affect me. Without it, we just have a dude in a rubber suit knocking over cardboard buildings.

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Reply #11 on: December 14, 2015, 05:05:29 AM
I found this story very disturbing on many levels.
Not being able to trust the narrator made it even more effective for me.
The Lovecraftian elements were good, made even better for not being very detailed.
Overall, this is what I want from a good horror story: to be disturbed, and to have it returning to my mind over the next few days...
Well done.

Something clever just around the corner.