EP544: Only Human

[eytanz]

EP544: Only Human

AUTHOR: Lavie Tidhar
NARRATOR: Summer Brooks
HOST: Alasdair Stuart

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There are four Three-times-Three Sisters in the House of Mirth, and five in the House of Heaven and Hell, and two in the House of Shelter. Four plus five plus two Three-by-Threes, and they represent one faction of the city.

You may have heard tales of the city of Polyphemus Port, on Titan, that moon of raging storms. First city on that lunar landscape, second oldest foothold of the Outer System, or so it is said, though who can tell, with the profusion of habitats in those faraway places of the solar system? A dome covers the city, but Polyport spreads underground – vertical development they called it, the old architects. And its tunnels reach far into the distance, linking to other settlements, small desolate towns on that wind-swept world, where majestic Saturn rises in the murky skies.

There are two Five-times-Six Sisters in the House of Forgetting, and five Eight-by-Eights in the House of Domicile. We who are a ones, and will one day be zeros, we cannot hope to understand the way of the Sisterhoods of Polyphemus Port, on Titan.

Understanding, as Ogko once said, is forgiveness

Listen to this week’s Escape Pod!

[DerangedMind]

This was a difficult story for me.  There was  alot going on in terms of world building, and it took me far too long to have a clue what was meant by a 3 x 3 or a 1 x 1.  Maybe this story wasn't a good choice for my commute home from work...

Unfortunately, this story didn't do it for me.

[Myst]

This was a difficult story for me.  There was  alot going on in terms of world building, and it took me far too long to have a clue what was meant by a 3 x 3 or a 1 x 1.  Maybe this story wasn't a good choice for my commute home from work...

Unfortunately, this story didn't do it for me.

I have to say I agree with you. I was trying to listen to it at work and the sudden math quiz just threw me out of the story. Maybe I am just not the target audience.

Mike

[Gary]

Whew. I thought it was just me.
I actually gave up on this story 20 minutes in when I realized I had no idea what was going on.
I did give it another try 2 days later and made it all the way through but I had to really work at it and in the end, the story just never engaged me.

Perhaps there was just too much "world building" here for the short story format? Imagine "Dune" done as a 30 minute podcast. 

[acpracht]

I'll grant the numbers do make it tough to follow in audio form.

If anyone has a good suggestion (past following along with the online post) to use in the future, I'm quite open to ideas...

[DerangedMind]

I'll grant the numbers do make it tough to follow in audio form.

If anyone has a good suggestion (past following along with the online post) to use in the future, I'm quite open to ideas...

I'm not sure if it was the numbers, or the lack of context.  The style of the author seemed to be to introduce a concept, talk about it for a while, and then explain later in the story what the concept was (the 3x3, the Houses of --- ).  Some of that can work quite well in a story, but in this one, I felt that there was too much of that happening at the beginning.  I restarted the story once because I thought I must have not been paying enough attention and missed something.

And honestly, I'm not sure what you could do about it.  I'd rather have this confusion than have an 'abridged for audio' version of the story.  Maybe a mention in the intro that we shouldn't worry - that all the concepts do get explained, and to enjoy the lyrical style of the narrative.

[Myst]

I'll grant the numbers do make it tough to follow in audio form.

If anyone has a good suggestion (past following along with the online post) to use in the future, I'm quite open to ideas...

Having read through the story I have to say this is one of those times when the Text is better than the Audio. Don't get me wrong Summer Brooks' performance as narrator was great. It was just too easy to miss the subtle clues the author inserted about how this universe worked. What can be done about it? Nothing. This type of problem isn't easy to spot beforehand. Once you have read the text you know the context of the story and then the problem disappears.

The one part of the story that I still do not understand is the whole section about Dragon. It's like a chunk of back story notes got left in by mistake.

Mike

[Unblinking]

I don't think this story works for me in audio.  I think it could work in text?  The number details were too hard for me to process, I was so distracted trying to keep up with what dimensions were which and what that meant and etc that I had a hard time discerning anything else about the story.  In text I would probably have to go back and reread paragraphs as I go to get a glimpse, but that's not really an option in the car listening to audio.

[Devoted135]

Give me a math problem in the first sentence and I'm going to be so distracted trying to figure it out that I will miss a significant portion of the story's beginning. I did finally figure out how the math worked, but I agree this one doesn't really lend itself to audio. It was a good story though, and I did enjoy it once I figured out what was happening.

[CryptoMe]

I didn't have as much problem with the cells idea as many forumites did. Yes, it was confusing at first, but honestly, I am finding that so many stories I listen to these days are confusing in the beginning, that I just attribute it to a getting settled in period for me and don't give it much thought.

That said, I am not sure what I think of this story. I guess I have never been into transient relationship stories, not in fiction, not in real life. So this one kind of left me unmoved.