Escape Artists
Escape Pod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: eytanz on March 11, 2017, 05:35:04 PM
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EP566: Honey and Bone (http://escapepod.org/2017/03/09/ep566-honey-and-bone-artemis-rising-3/)
AUTHOR: Madeline Alvey (http://malveyauthor.com/)
NARRATOR: Tina Connolly (http://www.tinaconnolly.com/)
HOST: Alex Acks (http://katsudon.net/)
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With each step she took, the girl’s leg hissed. Thump, hiss, thump, hiss, thump, hiss. Whenever she lifted her leg, the knee joint extended. Her thigh and shin pulled apart unsettlingly, reminiscent of something deeply broken. Her gait was slow, round, loping. She didn’t move with any expedience. It was a speed without rush, or any desire for such.
Her footfalls themselves were soft, a quiet – thup, thup, thup. Soft leather covered her feet as she padded along, her hissing knee the loudest sound there. Once, it had creaked, a creak reminiscent of breaking metal – or perhaps, nearly as much, a rusty hinge. Before that…she didn’t remember.
The girl plodded slowly through a field of tall grass. The dry grass was up to her waist, rustling with each step. Rustle; rustle, hiss; rustle; rustle, hiss. It was late summer and the sun was high and hot. Her pack was heavy with honey from the field of hives outside the village. It was raw honey that she had scraped into dark jars, small glass jars could be found, at least one, in each home in her village. Several bees still lingered, buzzing around her as she walked, following her home.
The girl came over a low rise, bringing the village into sight. It was a stand of old houses, tall Victorian things all scrunched together as if they had grown from the earth. The village held lush gardens, carefully tended wells, and great tall trees. The paved paths between the houses had crumbled long ago, and repairing them would’ve required so much stone, so simple dirt paths strung the buildings together.
(http://escapepod.org/wp-images/podcast-mini4.gif) Listen to this week’s Escape Pod! (http://traffic.libsyn.com/escapepod/EP566_Honey_and_Bone.mp3)
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Did anyone else get a "Wizard of Oz" feeling here? Spires in the distance, following a brick road. Didn't quite get what's up with the Beekeeper's knee but it reminded me of the Tin Man, and her picking grass out of it reminded me of the Scarecrow's hay-sprouting joints. Thought this one was compelling and kind of sweet.
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This one felt like a fable from a future Brother Grimm (but one of the super weird one plus some shades of Rumplestiltskin). Or maybe a Miyazaki film. I enjoyed it either way and it conjured a lot of great mental visuals.
I didn't get the Oz vibe, but I can totally see why you did. I saw the Spire as a Golden Age Rocketship!
As always, Tina was a phenomenal narrator.
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I love that people are seeing my story through lenses that honestly had no impact on my writing - particularly because they all seem to share the feel that I was going for!
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I got the honey tinged feel, but I am not sure where the bone in the title comes from. Maybe the bones of the old colony? Or the bones of the beekeeper's artificial leg? I think the point of the leg was to show she had a defect, one that the AI would have killed her for had she been born in the old colony.
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Good one.
End of the world, but with optimism.
I like strange spires :P
Narration was good.
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I felt this was a cautionary tale written specifically for me: "Stop being such a perfectionist. It will be your downfall!." ;)