Escape Artists
PseudoPod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Bdoomed on April 21, 2012, 02:42:43 PM
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Pseudopod 278: The Prophet’s Daughters (http://pseudopod.org/2012/04/20/pseudopod-278-the-prophets-daughters/)
By Michael J. DeLuca (http://mossyskull.com/).
This story originally appeared, simultaneously in French and English, at Onirismes.com (http://onirismes.com/issues/001/prophet.php) in Spring 2011 (still available at the link). Sybaris was a real city, a wealthy Greek colony founded in Italy in the 8th century BC, destroyed by flood in the sixth century when its enemies diverted a river through the city’s streets in retribution for its citizens’ greed. From whence the word “sybaritic”, a very fine synonym for “self-indulgent”, has descended into modern English.
Michael J. DeLuca attended the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2005, helps run the indie ebook site Weightless Books (http://weightlessbooks.com/), has volunteered at Small Beer Press (http://smallbeerpress.com/) for longer than he cares to admit, and is a member of the Homeless Moon (http://homelessmoon.com/) writers’ cabal. His short stories have appeared in Interfictions, Apex, Clockwork Phoenix and The Future Fire. If you like this story, you might try his series of centaur westerns, which are similarly Classics-infused and brutal, and can be found in the archives (some in audio form) at Beneath Ceaseless Skies (http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/author.php?a=22). His website, The Mossy Skull, can be found at the link under his name at the top. Also check out Literary Beer (http://smallbeerpress.com/tag/literary-beer/) at the Small Beer website and his profile at Writertopia (http://www.writertopia.com/profiles/MichaelJDeLuca) for a list of previous work.
Your reader this week is Tina Connolly (http://tinaconnolly.com/) whose debut dark fantasy IRONSKIN is forthcoming this October from Tor. Not horror, but definitely dark. Also, be sure to check out Tina’s own weekly short fiction podcast at TOASTED CAKE (http://toastedcake.com/).
“”Do you wonder, my brothers in service of death, what powers the prophet takes with her on her voyage down the Acheron? We all do, I suspect: all of us from Sybaris who felt the lash of her tongue. She told many bleak fates. We all wonder which she is waiting yet to fulfill–or else I suspect so many wouldn’t have come to bestow such gifts!” He cackled.
Melia’s fingernails dug into Io’s palm; Io gripped her sister tighter. No one said a word to silence him. The priest only played his lyre.
“Now let me think,” death’s taskmaster rambled, helping a mourner to hoist up the corpse of a heavy black calf, “What do the ancients teach on the subject of power after death?
“Sheshet, astronomer priestess of Egypt, achieved deathly might through preservation. She took her own life by drowning, at the age of twenty-nine. Her cult preserved her flesh and organs whole in vats of lotus honey. It is said she left plans for her own resurrection, and any man who walks within miles of her tomb dies of fever before the next moonrise.”"
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Listen to this week's Pseudopod. (http://media.libsyn.com/media/pseudopod/Pseudo278_TheProphetsDaughters.mp3)
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This story grabbed me from the first line...and then gradually let me go.
I loved the setting and description. The characters were interesting. Was it horror? ??? Perhaps its subjective.
I got ahead of the story and guessed the ending, so maybe I felt like there wasn't enough payoff.
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I thought the younger sister had an awesome Alia vibe to her. Tina did her usual great job with the reading.
I got ahead of the story and guessed the ending, so maybe I felt like there wasn't enough payoff.
I got the impression that the ending was foretold all along, if you read the omens correctly.
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That's great for divination. Less so for suspense and drama.
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May I say how much I enjoyed hearing from Alex -- wonderful to know a little about the background of Pseudopod.
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Hear hear!
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This story grabbed me from the first line...and then gradually let me go.
I had much the same feeling - for me, it wasn't so much that I guessed the ending but that the ending simply didn't have much of the impact of the beginning. I'm also a bit suspicious of the stupidity of the city:
Sisters to annoying man: "One of us is a prophet, and to prove it, you're going to die tonight"
Sisters murder annoying man and do not bother to hide the evidence.
Entire town: "I guess she is a prophet, indeed!"
Of course, the fact that the sisters somehow murdered a wealthy man in a house full of his servants without anyone stopping them perhaps does lay credence to the claim of special powers. But I sort of had the suspicion that the special power they had was the ability to do things off-screen where they don't have to actually make sense.
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I didn't really get into this one. I never really cared about the characters and the fact about that place in the introduction seemed like it was meant to give greater weight to what happened in the story, but ultimately I still never really cared. I listened to this a couple days ago, and I'm having trouble recalling any of the happenings, other than the most high level stuff, because I just found my attention wandering.