Escape Artists
Escape Pod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: eytanz on April 04, 2013, 10:44:24 AM
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EP390: Cerbo un Vitra ujo (http://escapepod.org/2013/04/04/ep390-cerbo-un-vitra-ujo/)
By Mary Robinette Kowal (http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/)
Read by Veronica Giguere (http://voicesbyveronica.com/)
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Grete snipped a diseased branch off her Sunset-Glory rosebush like she was a body harvester looking for the perfect part. Behind the drone of the garden’s humidifiers, she caught a woosh-snick as the airlock door opened. Her boyfriend barreled around Mom’s prize Emperor artichoke.
Something was wrong.
The whites showed around Kaj’s remarkable eyes, a blue-green so iridescent they seemed to dull all the plants around them. “Mom and Dad got me a Pass to a down-planet school!”
The blood congealed in her veins. Kaj would leave her. Grete forced a smile. “That’s the outer limit!”
“I didn’t even know they’d applied. Fairview Academy—game design.” His perfect teeth flashed like sunshine against the ink of space.
“It’s wacking crazed. Should’ve been you, you’re a better hack than me.”
“I’m already entitled to school.” Grete winced as the words left her mouth. Like he didn’t know that. He was the middle of five children, way past the Banwith Station family allowance. She picked up the pruning sheers to hide the shake in her hands. How would she live without Kaj? “So, I guess you got packing to do and stuff.”
“They provide uniforms. All I’m taking is my pod with music and books. Zero else.” Kaj slid his arm around her waist and laced his long, delicate fingers through hers. “And I want to spend every moment till launch with you.”
She loved him so much, it hurt. Grete leaned her head against him, burning the feel of his body into her memory. She breathed in the musky smell of his sweat and kissed his neck, sampling the salt on his skin.
After a moment, Kaj hung a chain around her neck. The metal tags hanging from it were still warm from his body.
“What?”
“Dogtags, like they used in the oldwars. I put all my bios on there so you’d remember me.”
“Kaj Lorensen, don’t think I could forget you.”
But if he was away at school, he might forget her. She studied her rosebush and freed the most perfect rose with her sheers. She held it out to him, suddenly shy.
He kissed the rose and then her palm. Grete sank into his gaze, lost in the blue-green of his eyes.
(http://escapepod.org/wp-images/podcast-mini4.gif) Listen to this week’s Escape Pod! (http://traffic.libsyn.com/escapepod/EP390_CerboenVitraujo.mp3)
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This story was wacking crazed. I did find it a shame that the warning given in the intro pulled me out of the story a bit. At each scene I kept expecting an attack on Grete. While I understand why there was a warning, I still felt a little cheated over not being able to experience the story as it naturally unfolded.
What did I harvest from this? Mostly I saw a dark tale of social inequality. I live a life of relative ease, so I find it difficult to imagine being so desperate that I'd sell off pieces of myself. And yet, a black market for body parts exists. This story seemed both plausible, but also horrifically unreal.
If anyone finds me in a holding room after being picked apart for my choice cuts, please do me the service that Grete mercifully performed on Kaj.
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Sweet mother of lizards. Sweet fuck. Sweet fucking lizard. The sex was the least disturbing part. I'm going to take a shower. In bleach. Hot bleach.
If this becomes the future, I'm siding with the aliens. It's time to start again.
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Throughout this story I kept thinking: well, it's clearly an illegal thing to be kidnapping and chopping up kids in this society, so surely she's going to call the space cops or whatever passes for the law out there, sooner or later...I mean, that's what any normal person would do, Surely? The cops are due in any minute, or she's gonna bite his cock off or something!
And then with the rather predictable conclusion I couldn't help thinking that this doctor must be lacking in the mental capacity department, given how this young lady was able to track down a guy's body parts without too much effort and he wasn't even concerned as to how she did it. She had a bargainaing chip, right there!
I mean, come on, it seems that half the characters in this story were lacking basic common sense! A highly frustrating story. >:(
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This reminded me -- in a good way -- of The Starchild Trilogy (specifically the first book, The Reefs of Space), where the Risks were harvested for parts if a citizen needed, say, a new spine or a blood transfusion. So I was totally expecting that aspect.
But I gotta tellya . . . I'm with ElectricPaladin. Bleach. Hot bleach. <shudder>
But here's the part that really gave me the squicks. Kaj's younger sibs also hadn't been seen by their friends. And the mom? She was too cold to have gone weeks without hearing from her son, no matter how many others she has.
The obvious answer, here, is that Kaj was purposefully sold by his parents, and so were his younger sibs. To body harvesters.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the horror I got from this piece. Egad. Bleach. Hot. Bleach. I do not want to live in this future. :(
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One of the scariest stories I remember hearing on Escape Pod. I expected to read an argument on the board as to whether the story should have been on pseudopod instead... maybe that is coming. Regardless of which podcast it appears on, great story and great narrator. I also agree with the others, that the warning while necessary, took away from the horror of the situation.
The story was so shocking though, it could be in the running for the best of Escape Pod 2013. The only thing I would say against it is that I could not listen to this type of story every week.
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Is this some sort of retaliation for our reception of Trixie and the Pandas? Oh, you don't care for light-hearted ridiculousness? Try this on for size, then! Bwahaha! Seriously, opposite ends of the spectrum. Though not in a bad way. In reality, I enjoyed this story. I just hope to never hear it again...
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Throughout this story I kept thinking: well, it's clearly an illegal thing to be kidnapping and chopping up kids in this society, so surely she's going to call the space cops or whatever passes for the law out there, sooner or later...I mean, that's what any normal person would do, Surely? The cops are due in any minute, or she's gonna bite his cock off or something!
But it wasn't. The narration stated early on that if kids were running around free they'd get snatched up and harvested, but that wasn't "allowed" -- that was the word used -- on Grete's home station.
On any other station, no parent in their right mind would let their unentitled kids run free, for fear they’d be taken by a body harvester on a job for some rich-ass client. Banwith Station didn’t allow that; you got born with a withered arm, you lived with it, so there were lots of kids running around.
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This story was vivid and rich in atmosphere and worldbuilding, and the narration was good (except for one part that felt like a retake where her voice sounded different), but I figured it out way too soon. Basically, the moment Grete finds Kaj's retina scan being used on that other station, that was it. I knew.
It was suitably disturbing, and a good commentary on where we might go if genetic manipulation/genetic engineering/research isn't allowed to be fully explored, but I also found it to be somewhat gratuitous. Almost like there were too many details of the rape scenes, in some ways. Also, the word "tear" was overused during intercourse narration. Not saying that it wasn't happening, just that it stood out to me.
On balance, I'd give it a B. Or, if this were Harry Potter, an A+.
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It would have been a happier ending if she had killed the doctor, at least. All in all, I wish I could unlisten to the story.
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Starting my response with a couple of quotes, because BLARGH I can hardly figure out how to comment on this story without losing my composure.
When you're telling these little stories, here's a good idea -- have a point. It makes it SO much more interesting for the listener!
(Steve Martin, Planes, Trains and Automobiles)
There's no moral, Uncle Remus, just random acts of meaningless violence.
(Michael O'Donohue, Mr. Mike's least loved bedtime tales)
What I'm getting at is that this is a melodrama. The bad guy is unrelentingly and unselfconsciously bad, the victim is helpless and literally without a voice, and the heroine is ineffectual and fails about as badly as it's possible to fail.
I'm not saying I'm above enjoying a good old melodrama now and again, but I don't think it's possible to use "good old melodrama" to describe one with skin-crawling scenes of rape and domination in it. If you are going to play that card, you had BETTER have a point, and there had BETTER be more than random acts of meaningless violence.
I stuck with the story because it was described as "difficult, but awesome". There is no awesome here. What the hell.
Given they're on a space station, am I justified in assuming that the parents could have had easy access to birth control / sterilization and thus were having children specifically to sell them?
Ugh. I hadn't thought that part through. Ten times worse.
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Well written and brutal, with no payoff other than an emotional punch in the gut. If Grete had felt even a small sense of victory by giving her love a merciful death, that might have been enough of a payoff for me, but no.
Given they're on a space station, am I justified in assuming that the parents could have had easy access to birth control / sterilization and thus were having children specifically to sell them?
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Dear Lord, you finally found a story that makes Peter Watts look cheerful! And Mary Robinette Kowal is so pleasant in person!!
Well, it was a very well-done- if very graphic - story, and I agree that part of the horror - and make no mistake, it is horror - is that Kaj's siblings have been sold too. (Wow, is their mom up for the Mother of the Year award, or what??)
But above (or below?) and beyond that, is the horror that, not only did Grete not get to kill Dr. Feelgood, but it's pretty clear she's going to me harvested by the sick bastard as well. And no one really knows where she is.
Of course in a more conventional story she'd have beat him silly while he was playing the piano, rescued or killed Kaj, and/or shot him dead. But this is more the way the world actually works.
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I couldn't disagree with the detractors more. This story is a sci-fi Shakespearean tragedy and it's so beautiful in its honest agony. Her hunt doesn't render what she had hoped for. She sacrifices herself to grant her love release. Plus the irony of his body parts being used to brutalize her. Seriously, if this was rendered into full play length, the Bard himself would resurrect and give it his blessing. My only complaint was Doc suggesting at the end that he was going to harvest her too. It was too much. Please, she's gone through hell, let her go after, at the very least.
I recommend waiting two weeks, then going back and reading the story after it has had some time to ferment in your psyche. Read it, don't listen again, I think it's important to consume it in two different ways. I bet on the second consumption it will be both more horrifying and more amazing at the same time. It was for me.
Some inside information: I didn't want to run this one. I think part of the reason Norm did the warning was that he thought I wanted to have nothing to do with it. When he handed it to me, I was new at finding the narrators and I made the rookie mistake of handing this one to a new narrator before I had read it all the way. She didn't accept. She didn't even answer my apology emails. True story. It made me gunshy for trying to find another. I didn't know who I was going to ask. It had to be a female. The story could be read by a male, but it would lose the beauty just for the association. But I didn't know any females well enough to ask them to tackle this. Norm believed in it and he tackled getting the narrator, and honestly, it wasn't until I was listening to the narration while editing that I got it. This story had left me somewhere between scared for what your reaction would be to bitter for being put in the position for three months, but that night I got it. I wept a little at the end.
I recommend the second take after letting it sit for a bit. It may not change your mind. Then again, it might change you.
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I recommend the second take after letting it sit for a bit. It may not change your mind. Then again, it might change you.
No thanks, I'm not into snuff fiction.
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It would have been a happier ending if she had killed the doctor...
Obviously.
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Judging by the style I was pretty sure I knew where it was headed early on and... yup, that is exactly where it went. There was no surprise. Her very bad plan went about as horribly as you would expect it to go. My problem is that if you are going to get me wincing and cringing, shouldn't there be a point to it? If I am not going to get something emotionally satisfying (spaceships blowing up, hero fantasies, whatever), I need at least a little interesting speculation in my speculative fiction. The world just seemed pointlessly cruel without even an attempt at explanation. I couldn't tell if the doctor was some sort of black market dealer, or if in this society it is for some reason perfectly okay to carve up live people for spare parts. I got the vague impression that maybe there was some sort of wealth disparity, but it could have been the difference between rural China and New York, or the difference between Portland and Boston for all I could tell. It just seemed like a tragic tail that was tragic for its own sake.
I guess what bothers me the most about this piece is that in the end, there was no need to set this on a space stations other than to be able to give a pretty graphic violation a double cringe factor. Fiction is perfectly capable of telling a gut wrenching story about an utterly helpless girl getting brutally and predictably violated and destroyed. What is the point of setting that story in space if space has nothing to do with it? Don't get me wrong, the story is wonderfully written, but I can't figure out what it is doing in my speculative fiction. This is like picking up a novel in the romance section expecting to find some trashy and steamy lovemaking, only to find that it is actually an epic space opera that happens to have an irrelevant and brief romance.
So, good reading, great writing, but this kind of story is not why I come to speculative fiction.
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I'm with Peevester on this one. To justify that level of graphic sexual violence you have to have a real good point you couldn't make another way. I fail to see what it was in this case other than that of a rich upper class that has no regard for the well being of poor people. That's not new in fact it's kind of the definition of class ( taken to the extreme).
The other sin of the story is that it didn't hold together from its own internal logic or any reasonable view of how bio-technology might progress without some big contrivances. It's a sign of me being taken out of a story for some reason that I start to nit-pick but for the record:
- Kaj is traced through retinal scans so clearly they are used for identification purposes thus the woman who gets his eyes also has to get Kaj's id data deleted and hers edited to expunge her old retinal scans and replaced with new ones. Same story with fingerprints for the doc.
- This society is sufficiently advanced to overcome all the tissue type rejection problems and the ability to graft hands on well enough to have the fine control within four weeks to be able to play the piano but it can't do anything about skin tone matching?
- Again there is the need for skin tone matching but women have their breasts harvested? We have breast implants now but this society doesn't? Or maybe they do but they don't feel as good as real flesh? If that is the case is any woman who is that sensitive going to be happy with an approximate skin tone match?
- They also have the technology for all this harvesting and grafting but they can't grow artificial organs from stem cells? We can virtually print kidneys now http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_printing_a_human_kidney.html (http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_printing_a_human_kidney.html)
- In the final rape scene Grete has time to suffocate Kaj and the Doc who is presumably taking her from behind doesn't notice? Kaj is a precious commodity and has tubes in him. You think maybe they'd have heart and blood oxygen monitors too and maybe they'd go off and alert the doc or bring in a nurse?
I'm sure there are explanations you can make for all the above but they require a suspension of disbelief I wasn't willing to make for this story to play out its sexually explicit pantomime melodrama.
OK sorry about the rant but I had to get that off my chest.
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This story was vivid and rich in atmosphere and worldbuilding, and the narration was good (except for one part that felt like a retake where her voice sounded different), but I figured it out way too soon. Basically, the moment Grete finds Kaj's retina scan being used on that other station, that was it. I knew.
This was where it twigged for me too - but it's also where Grete begins to suspect whats happening, so I think the reveal was defiantly intentional on the authors part. I think Matweller put it best - it's a Shakespearean tragedy. You know it's going to end badly, but the main character keeps on heading towards their inevitable fate. I hoped that the story was going to end well, but knew it wouldn't (if that makes sense).
I'm not sure I enjoyed this story. But I don't regret listening to it either. So I'm going to take Matweller's advice and listen to it again in a couple of weeks.
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I couldn't disagree with the detractors more. This story is a sci-fi Shakespearean tragedy and it's so beautiful in its honest agony.
Shakespeare's tragedies are my favorites. This didn't feel anything like those.
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Wow… this story was not Fun at all. To my mind, while it certainly had an SF setting, it was inarguably horror, slowly peeling away the very thin and all-too-few layers of hope from the protagonist. Someone else lamented the lack of argument on here that this story should have been on Pseudopod, so, here you go: This should have been on Pseudopod.
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Hrm. Hrm.
Does the science hold up?
OK: we still read War of the Worlds, because even if the science doesn't work any more (or didn't even work then), the story has things to tell us about colonialism, culture clash, the personal and mass response to disaster, etc.
So I agree with everyone here who has correctly pointed out the scientific and technological and social difficulties with this story--a society that uses biometrics for tracking/purchasing has to figure out a way to deal with widespread body harvesting; was there any reason to set this story on space stations?; they've conquered organ rejection but nothing like organ growing?; why are they keeping "donors" alive and not just cutting them up and freezing them?; etc. But, like reading War of the Worlds when we no longer think Mars has aliens, all of this set-up is just the gimme--it's what you have to buy into to get on with the rest of the story.
(That said, I think this story has an awfully expensive buy-in.)
What do we get if we buy in?
Like Peevester and matweller, I think this story is best approached as melodrama. Or rather, as Commedia dell'arte, with the classic figure of Il Dottore (the doctor) trying to keep apart the lovers. Actually, that's all I got--where's Harlequin and Punchinello? I I guess we could say it's a fable of love lost: he goes away, she gets him back in pieces, he's not how she remembered him/imagined him. Or a story of inequality and the need for laws against organ harvesting. I'll be honest: I'm not sure what we get if we buy in.
What's that title mean?
Maybe the title will help me. After some really shallow research, I'm tentatively going to say that the title is Esperanto, meaning something like "Brain in a glass jar." (Cerbo=brain, vitra=glass, ujo=vessel, jug. I think "un" should be "en," but I'm outside my language comfort zone, which honestly doesn't even cover English.) So we have a classic science fiction trope about disincarnate sentience (hands off--that's my new band's name) when the real commodity here is the opposite: non-sentient body parts. Can anyone use this?
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Or, instead of going off on commedia dell'arte, of which I know very little, I could just go to her website and read her comparison between this and Han Christian Anderson's "The Snow Queen."
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Or, instead of going off on commedia dell'arte, of which I know very little, I could just go to her website and read her comparison between this and Han Christian Anderson's "The Snow Queen."
The commedia dell'arte reference is very interesting. I was quite surprised when I read at the author's website that this was based on the Snow Queen http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/ep390-cerbo-un-vitra-ujo-escape-pod/ (http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/ep390-cerbo-un-vitra-ujo-escape-pod/) but I'm not familiar with that story so didn't spot the structure. Though even if I had I don't know it would have made me buy in to the story anymore.
The point about buy in is key here. There are plenty of other stories where because the rest of it is so good I'll happily overlook all sorts of inconsistencies prolly not even notice them in fact. Let's face it aside from a few hard sci-fi stories the majority of stories on Escape Pod probably wouldn't stand up to any detailed scientific scrutiny but I don't even think about that if I am bound up in the story.
Thinking about it some more, I realise the main reason the story doesn't work for me is because of the graphic depiction of sexual violence. It could have been just as horrific and maybe more sinister without the rape scenes and maybe I would have "enjoyed" the story more. By way of comparison here is a dark horrific and yet engaging story from the Drabblecast on a similar theme that stayed with me for a long time and I really "enjoyed" in as much as that word is appropriate. http://www.drabblecast.org/2011/01/05/drabblecast-194-a-distant-sound-of-hammers-by-s-boyd-taylor/ (http://www.drabblecast.org/2011/01/05/drabblecast-194-a-distant-sound-of-hammers-by-s-boyd-taylor/)
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Has anyone read 'Spares' by Michael Smith? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spares-Michael-Marshall-Smith/dp/0006512674/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365338717&sr=8-1&keywords=spares (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spares-Michael-Marshall-Smith/dp/0006512674/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365338717&sr=8-1&keywords=spares) Much the same principle but in a novel and without, I think, the sexual violence, or at least I don't recall any. For me, this is a speculative horror based on existing horrors, many of which are sub cultural, half-known, and occasionally sanctioned. I saw it more as a thought exercise, a morality yardstick maybe, so that the detail of needing to wipe and reallocate ID data, or being able to print kidneys was less important than the projection into a monstrous future world. We already buy and sell organs, we are already seekers after cosmetic perfection, and we have just begun acknowledging the prevalence of sexual violence in conflicts of many kinds. I don't think it matters that some of the fictional underpinnings don't hold up, what matters is that we have had behaviour that is feasible imagined for us and that our reaction is abhorrence.
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Much the same principle but in a novel and without, I think, the sexual violence, or at least I don't recall any. For me, this is a speculative horror based on existing horrors, many of which are sub cultural, half-known, and occasionally sanctioned. [...] We already buy and sell organs, we are already seekers after cosmetic perfection, and we have just begun acknowledging the prevalence of sexual violence in conflicts of many kinds.
I think Dem makes an excellent point here: I think it would be relatively easy for us to imagine this story without the sexual violence. I mean, "lovelorn girl tracks down body harvested boy in clutches of evil doctor" is enough of a plot and gets at many of the themes (love, inequality) we've identified. So why put in sexual violence? Well, it helps ID the doctor as Evil; and maybe it's fun to be transgressive and shock the squares/bourgeoisie/norms.
But maybe the sexual violence isn't an addendum, but part of the main idea of the piece. As Dem notes, sexual violence plays a role in many kinds of conflicts, including rare resource management, like contemporary rare earth mining in the Congo or (in this story) future organ harvesting. Personally, I wish we knew more in this story about the extent of body harvesting and the extent of sexual violence. Is it just that Doc is Evil or is there some connection between taking people's bodies for organs or for orgasms. (Note: I couldn't resist the parallelism organ/orgasm, but it's always useful to point out that we're talking less about sex and more about power when we talk about rape.)
This is speculation on my part, but did anyone else notice that Kaj and Grete don't seem to have dads? Now, I'm not saying that, in this story, men from the rich space station go and rape women of the poorer space station in order to produce useful organs. (Although, if Doc really wants to match skin tone, what better way than by passing on his own genes?) Is that horrible? Yes--but it's also something we've already seen historically with American slave plantations. (Note: This was not the case for all slave owners, some of whom seemed to show affection for their slave children, c.f. James Henry Hammonds's diary. But yeah, we've also got lots of proof of white people selling their black kids into the slave market; or of white people committing incest on their black daughters. Yay, the 19th century--when railroads were legal persons and black people weren't.)
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So why put in sexual violence?
Because Dr. Evil is raping Grete with Kaj's parts. That's part of the horror. Hell, that's MOST of the horror. Listen carefully to the pronouns used in that scene.
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I've gone back and forth for several days on whether I should comment on this story. I try to be helpful and offer constructive criticism when I don't like a particular story, but in this case my reaction to the story was so very negative on every level that I'm at a loss as how to proceed without simply sour lambasting. Having followed up by looking at the author's blog where she expounds upon the Snow Queen connection, I do appreciate the apparent seed of the story in which a young girl attempts to rescue her magically-dispersed lover. However, that is about the only part I do appreciate.
My largest problem with the story lies at its structural and thematic center. This story is victimization porn. Figuratively as well as literally. Our main character begins the story as a victim; she is to be left behind by her lover as he "advances." She is further made a victim by his apparent neglect to correspond. In both cases, she is victimized passively. When she hits a stall in the subsequent investigation, she conciously decides to become a victim again by offering herself to the man she suspects killed her lover, first as an apparently willing seductee, then explicitly sexually. The narrative places us explicitly in her head during and after she's violated with extensive emotional detail so as to drive her victimhood home. When she makes the turning-point discovery that lies at the heart of the story, her active, concious decision is to be completely passive, and again be sexually victimized as a distraction so she can take action. And how does the story conclude? We're told that she will be horrifically victimized with pornographically tortuous medical procedures over an enormously long time until she is dead. Weirdly, all of the rest of the victims in the story are entirely victimized offscreen. All the victimization in the story is horrifically entered into willingly, leading to some puzzled questions about how this "design house" exactly works. It doesn't matter how it works! It only matters that it acts upon victims.
This 'character' is not a character. She is a victim, and nothing else. This is a story arc in which our clever, intelligent female character progresses from being passively, emotionally victimized to actively causing herself to be sexually and then surgically victimized. I give the reader credit for recognizing this at the core of the tale and reading it with that particular quavering note from the first line. The overall effect and impression of the story I can only sum up with a rather nasty colloquialism: this is a 30 minute rape-shower-cry scene.
(I wondered initally at the odd phrasing in the opening warning; telling us to expect a scene of "forced sexual intercourse." I suspect it was to forestall the explicitly nasty discussion attached to the word rape: "can you rape the willing?" I've no straightforward opinion, nor interest in discussing that nasty topic here.)
That was my central difficulty with the story, but I had lesser problems as well. The entire tale for me was given away in the first line. Such an absurly specific metaphore telegraphed the central twist immediately. It was so obviously given away that I kept expecting some twist to controvert expectations and was sadly disappointed. Mechanical problems with the story's setting got in the way of the obviously intended commentary on class: is this harvesting legal? If yes, why did the woman with the eyes react badly? Why was it not widely known? Why bother with the deception after the fact? Why weren't the retinal and fingerprint records re-certified (giving away what had happened) to recognize the new owners, especially since they likely use them for identification? If no, why not contact authorities? Why was the doctor so casual in talking about it, and so readily took her to see him? (Are there no "stings" in the future?) Where did the rest of his family go? Did they sell just him (the pretty one), all of their children, or were they all victims taken in by a scam and all diced up somewhere? If there are artifical (cosmetic) options, why do people want the real ones? If it's a status thing, that needs to be said. If it's a practical thing or an expense thing, that needs to be said. This is important because it's directly interfering with the interpretation of the story's thematic elements. Is this a story about the rich preying on the poor out of simple evilness? A story of limited resources (working body parts) going to the undeserving? About a society that can't be bothered to care about the fate of the poor? About a society where the poor are so mercenary that they sell their own family members to uncaring 'knackers' to advance? We don't get any details that enable us to sort these themes out, because the story simply doesn't care: just watch the victim get victimized.
To be clear, I am not dissecting this story because of the sexual violence elements. I am not easily "squicked' and reacted much more strongly to the apparent thematic cores in this story than to any aspect of the sex. Sex, even sexual violence, being a part of the human experience today (and projected future) certainly has a place in storytelling. I object not to the element, but the way in which it is employed.
In conclusion, I found the story grossly self-indulgent and voyeuristic. It was well-presented with excellent audio and I appreciated the warning on the front end. Nor do I condemn EP for running it: I've listened for years and never expected to like everything. This particular story, however, had very large problems.
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Why weren't the retinal and fingerprint records re-certified (giving away what had happened) to recognize the new owners, especially since they likely use them for identification?
Consider how Grete conducted her search. She did not access Kaj's public records and then say, "show me where he is." She hacked the system and searched public records with a set of {retinal | finger}prints and said, "show me where these have been used." Big difference. The new owners may very well have had the scans re-ID'd to reflect their new owners, but she subverted the system.
I thought that was the whole point of the author bringing hacking into it very early.
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Very disturbing story.
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Oh dear. I'm trying not to be "confrontational", really I am, but this story sucked so bad I didn't even stick with it to the end.
That girl was unbelievably stupid. None of the other characters were much brighter. I saw no hint of the promised "awesome", and reading some of the other comments it looks like it didn't show up after I gave up on it. And while I didn't want to be the first to say it, I agree with MCWagner's comment about "victimisation porn".
Sadly, unlike MCW, I didn't even find the reading style ("that particular quavering note") to be any good, just annoying.
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Holy crap that was dark.
Even though Alastaire hosts some of the episodes, there is no excuse for this type of story on EP.
I'm with Kaa, the horror of this story is the fact that a society exists where parents would knowingly sell their children for spare parts. Hell, not even spare parts. Upgrade parts. This isn't someone needing new body parts due to illness or bad genetics, this is pure evil. "I want new hands, so I'll take them off of some kid".
Pass that bottle of brain bleach, thank you.
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Gosh there's a lot of disdain for this particular story. I didn't think this one crossed into any theoretical forbidden zone, nor did I think the writing was so bad that the plot was just window dressing for victimization porn.
Even though Alastaire hosts some of the episodes, there is no excuse for this type of story on EP
Ouch! Don't blame the host if you don't like where each story is placed. There is no denying this contains science fiction. If ever there is another Union Dues episode here, you won't here me complaining about genre.
That girl was unbelievably stupid
Because when it comes to love, young love at that, we were all so logical :P
I haven't given it another listen, but I'm inclined to do so.
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I'm not sure I enjoyed this story. But I don't regret listening to it either. So I'm going to take Matweller's advice and listen to it again in a couple of weeks.
So I actually managed to re-listen to the story today, whilst running errands. And I didn't enjoy it. The beginning of the story was incredibly frustrating. I was prying for details about Kaj and they just weren't there. I knew what was going to happen to him, but the story never tugged at my heart strings. How long had he and Grete been together for? What was there relationship like? I mean, the story implies they would have had a hell of a time at it. Kaj from an unfashionably large family, which Grete's mother didn't approve off. What with the desire for secrecy and all, it's unlikely Kaj''s mother would take a shine to Grete either - it just makes the prospect of selling your son all the more risky. And they couldn't have even met at school, given Kaj was ineligible to go. Obviously it's impossible for an author to provide all the background in a 30 minute story, but God damn it! This is interesting stuff! Re-listening, I was desperately searching for more clues and just couldn't find any.
It got worse from there. I disagree with the idea of Grete simply been a victim - she's aware of the risks of going off-station, but chooses to do so anyway out of love for Kaj. Leaving the station (rather than trying to keep on tracking him remotely) is no doubt the first of many stupid decisions, but seemed completely believable to me, given the context of young love. But the problem was that I knew what was going to happen. And I wasn't sad for Grete. I literally felt sick in my stomach. It wasn't horror, I didn't feel scared. Dr Fairview didn't seem that scary. Evil yes, but an evil that is regrettably rather explicable and rather commonplace. A 'rich bastard' essentially.
What worries me is I'm not sure why I didn't feel sad for Grete. If her and Kaj had ended up committing suicide together, alla Romeo and Juliet, I would have. If Grete had managed to sneak in, kill kaj and then escape, only to be captured, I would have been heartbroken. But the rape and sexual violence changed the story. I knew it was coming, in all it's explicit, gut-churning detail and that just took over my thought process. It's the first podcast (and I listen to psuedopod) that I've seriously considered stopping halfway through. I just didn't want to listen to Grete go through it all again.
What worries me is what this says about me. As mentioned previously, Kaj dying doesn't bother me. Grete dying on a surgical table, cut up for parts, doesn't bother me. It's the sexual violence that does it for me, the rape. I don't know why I can cope with a live human being being cut to help some selfish rich bloke look ever so slightly better, but not cope with Grete's defilement. It doesn't seem logical, but there it is. And yes, I do realise it served a purpose of contrast, what with Kaj's bodyparts involved. Second time around, that just wasn't enough of a pay off.
I feel at this point I should say that I like having stories like this on escapepod. One of the first escapepod stories I listened to was 'The Paper Menagerie', which was hardly conventional sci-fi. It hooked me and I've been a regular listener since. Even if I didn't enjoy this story, I've spent a lot of time thinking about it. I've tried to work out what makes a good tragedy story, and why this one in the end wasn't. And that (hopefully) will make me a better writer.
So because I don't say it enough, thank you escape pod!
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That was a really ugly story. I can accept ugliness as a means to make a point. I already knew all the points this story might have made, though. Haves can exploit have-nots in ever more terrible ways as tech advances? Check. Young lovers can do stupid things? Check. Poor people can be pushed into awful acts by their poverty? Check. Rapists exist and they are evil? Check. So, listening to it left me in the detestable position of "watching" a rape for nothing more than entertainment. I like myself less for having listened through to the end.
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That girl was unbelievably stupid
Because when it comes to love, young love at that, we were all so logical :P
Oh I don't deny that love makes us blind, but pay attention to the word "unbelievably". This girl wasn't just lovelorn and foolish.
Actually, re-reading some other comments I see people have said this was a horror story. In the classic low-budget horror genre it is conventional for the young couple (who are probably having sex too liberal-minded for the 1950s) to behave in unbelievably stupid ways, like walking straight into the blatantly obviously haunted mansion with the immensely creepy owner and staying the night. The idea is not to make you believe, but to make you nauseous with all the gore. Such films don't work at all for me, so I don't suppose I should be surprised that this story didn't either.
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Even though Alastaire hosts some of the episodes, there is no excuse for this type of story on EP
Ouch! Don't blame the host if you don't like where each story is placed. There is no denying this contains science fiction. If ever there is another Union Dues episode here, you won't here hear me complaining about genre.
I'm not blaming the host at all. In fact, this week's podcast was hosted by Norm, not Alasdair. I was just making a slightly humorous and mostly sarcastic remark about how Pseudopod's tentacles are slowly strangling EP and converting it to one of its own.
I'm sorry that you didn't understand my comment the way it was meant.
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That girl was unbelievably stupid
Because when it comes to love, young love at that, we were all so logical :P
Oh I don't deny that love makes us blind, but pay attention to the word "unbelievably". This girl wasn't just lovelorn and foolish.
Actually, re-reading some other comments I see people have said this was a horror story. In the classic low-budget horror genre it is conventional for the young couple (who are probably having sex too liberal-minded for the 1950s) to behave in unbelievably stupid ways, like walking straight into the blatantly obviously haunted mansion with the immensely creepy owner and staying the night. The idea is not to make you believe, but to make you nauseous with all the gore. Such films don't work at all for me, so I don't suppose I should be surprised that this story didn't either.
I see what you're saying, but I wasn't picking up that kind of vibe with this story. I haven't seen many of films you're talking about, but like yourself I have no desire to do so.
There isn't enough of a back story explaining their relationship, but when Grete assumes she's being ignored by Kaj and decides to investigate, I can buy it. She then realizes that his eyes have already been harvested she makes it her mission to see if he's ok. Not the smartest course of action, but unbelievable? When she finds herself in a position to get some information from the good doctor himself, she does what she thinks is necessary to get that information. Stupid? Extremely so. But she is in no right frame of mind after seeing all she has, including the juxtaposition of Kaj's familiar hands on the surgeon's body.
People do unimaginably stupid things on a daily basis. Never, ever underestimate humanity's capacity for self-delusion and denial. I can find holes in the technology, but I have no doubts that a version of this story has already played itself out again and again and again.
I was just making a slightly humorous and mostly sarcastic remark about how Pseudopod's tentacles are slowly strangling EP and converting it to one of its own.
Putting it this way give me a chuckle.
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I'll just leave this here:
“No one knows where you are, do they, kitten?”
Grete shuddered, and then wrinkled up her nose. "Do I smell a panda farting?"
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Grete shuddered, and then wrinkled up her nose. "Do I smell a panda farting?"
Wouldn't save the story, but it certainly lightens up the discussion thread. :D
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I'll just leave this here:
“No one knows where you are, do they, kitten?”
Grete shuddered, and then wrinkled up her nose. "Do I smell a panda farting?"
Now I want an Escape Pod crossover extravaganza. I can’t see how it could be done with really any degree of seriousness or plausibility, but I don’t care.
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That was one of the most sickening stories I have ever listened to. It is a none-too-implausible extension of the current state of the world. For example, in China, where there is vast poverty and inequality and the law does little to constrain the actions of the powerful, organs are harvested from executed prisoners and used by the rich. They even harvested organs from living members of the banned Falun Gong sect. If that can happen with a liver, why not a hand?
The bit about tracking the retinal scans and finding the other person with the kid's eyes was brilliantly done.
I thought the narration was over-enunciated, as if the narrator was trying to pronounce every letter in every word.
I wouldn't say I enjoyed the story, because it made me kind of depressed, but it was well written.
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I'll just leave this here:
“No one knows where you are, do they, kitten?”
Grete shuddered, and then wrinkled up her nose. "Do I smell a panda farting?"
Now I want an Escape Pod crossover extravaganza. I can’t see how it could be done with really any degree of seriousness or plausibility, but I don’t care.
Not serious at all, but very plausible. Just as DC has a weekly twabble, we could do a 100 character crossover challenge. Any of the podcasts could intrude into another and potentially solve (or cause) problems.
Additional non-existent bonuses rewarded to those who could name both podcasts.
This one is over the limit by 26 letters, but it might be possible to trim it down to size.
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What started out with some interesting intrigue( the investigation, the other missing kids and whether or not the boyfriend suspected something was amiss and thus left the girl with his bio-data) fell apart.
I have no sympathy for anything that happens to Grete after she finds his hands at the bar. She turns from hero to victim as she just passively moves through the rest of the story.
And even if she had been smart for the rest of the story(eg. leaving a message for someone about the 'doc'), it just means the doc was acting suprisingly stupid.
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Now I want an Escape Pod crossover extravaganza. I can’t see how it could be done with really any degree of seriousness or plausibility, but I don’t care.
Not serious at all, but very plausible. Just as DC has a weekly twabble, we could do a 100 character crossover challenge.
I actually meant a full-length short story (possibly amalgamating a bunch of previous stories), but this is a great idea too.
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I am okay with dark stories. I do feel, however, that this one had some issues. Which is unfortunate, because the emotional quandary of someone possessing your loved one's body parts is really neat.
My first concern is how the main character was weak and not at all empowered, and it made me not care what happened to her. I might have accepted the story if it hasn't ended with Grete's implied death--if she had at least tried to fight the doctor in the end, instead of just meekly accepted what had been done to her. Had she fought, I could have cheered for her. Unfortunately, she was flat throughout the story and her personality didnt have enough texture for me to feel she was anything but a vehicle to deliver the final scene.
People often say to stay away from using rape as a tool to victimize female characters in fiction. This story made me understand why they say that, because the conflict of the story could have been presented without rape and to me it came across as cheap shock value. Very unfortunate for such a cool premise.
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The premise of the story was intriguing but in execution I disliked it intensely. The moment Grete tracked the eyes to a neighboring station I knew how it was going to play out. Frankly Grete is so dumb I couldn't work up any sympathy for her. Maybe we are supposed to think of a Romeo and Juliet pure love but I would rather see it played out as a revenge story. Grete is shown as a very resourceful young woman but the "I'm going to follow Kaj's body parts around the solar system because he might be alive" is irritating. "I'm going to get revenge on the people responsible starting with his mom" would have appealed to me more. I guess the "no one knows you are here, kitten" line at the end is supposed to be chilling but why would she have any trust in the doc after the bar and apartment. Bah! let her parts go to someone more deserving.
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Sweet mother of lizards. Sweet fuck. Sweet fucking lizard. The sex was the least disturbing part. I'm going to take a shower. In bleach. Hot bleach.
If this becomes the future, I'm siding with the aliens. It's time to start again.
I COULDN'T HOPE TO SAY IT ANY BETTER THAN ELECTRIC PALADIN! Now......Where is that bleach?
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Now I want an Escape Pod crossover extravaganza. I can’t see how it could be done with really any degree of seriousness or plausibility, but I don’t care.
Not serious at all, but very plausible. Just as DC has a weekly twabble, we could do a 100 character crossover challenge.
I actually meant a full-length short story (possibly amalgamating a bunch of previous stories), but this is a great idea too.
Someone actually did this very early on, and included all of the EP stories that had run up until that point. I forget, it was somewhere in the vicinity of the very first 20-40 stories, and Steve actually read it at the end of an episode. It was fantastic! I have no hope of finding it, but maybe someone else remembers better where it was?
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Okay, to the actual story... Unfortunately, I listened to this one back to back with PC's Sundae. That was a rough morning.
One of my problems with this story was that I somehow missed all of the clues that were apparently there to let me know Grete's age and her sexual relationship with Kaj. Having missed them, and hearing that he was being sent to school, I decided that they were about 14 and were very close friends - maybe even best friends. Wow, was I wrong! The hacking and the tracking him down made sense until she had confirmation that the lady had his eyes, and then I completely lost any ability to connect with Grete's motivations.
It's so painful to watch a character decide to be repeatedly raped just because her *friend* might still be alive! I was 100% convinced that Kaj was dead (after all, he doesn't have key organs or extremities any more) so I couldn't figure out why she didn't run home and at least save herself. Of course, my assumption that he was dead turned out to be wrong, but that didn't help on first listen through. I can see that many of my issues were due to false assumptions that I made while listening, but I feel like at least part of that is the story's fault (after all, I'm not usually that far off). And I'm not even going to get in to the buy-in and rape-card and other issues, because that's been thoroughly covered.
Anyway, I think that Mat is probably right and this story should be taken as a tragedy. However, I'm not really willing to give it another 30-40 minutes of my time in order to read it right now. :-\ Also, THANK YOU to Norm for that strong warning at the front of the episode. Seriously, I appreciate it.
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That was a really ugly story. I can accept ugliness as a means to make a point. I already knew all the points this story might have made, though. Haves can exploit have-nots in ever more terrible ways as tech advances? Check. Young lovers can do stupid things? Check. Poor people can be pushed into awful acts by their poverty? Check. Rapists exist and they are evil? Check. So, listening to it left me in the detestable position of "watching" a rape for nothing more than entertainment. I like myself less for having listened through to the end.
This, and I respect Escape Pod just a little less for picking this story.
I've been subscribed since day one and have never been so.... at a loss for words at the end of a story. It barely fits the science fiction definition, It started ok... but at the end I was actually yelling at my car stereo "Really?! You are going there with this? Really?!?" Psycho horror stuff porn. Classy.
So, if this story was a clever plot to get people to register on the forum. Well played!
I miss Steve and Mur.
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I miss Steve and Mur.
In all likelihood, Mur was still in charge when this story was selected, given the speed of turnaround. (Not a dig; just a statement of the way things are.)
One thing I wanted to add, though, was that this story certainly is not 'fun' in any definition of the word that I recognize. In that sense, I do think Escape Artists should probably have run this on Pseudopod where there is no expectation for the stories to be "fun." Is it science fiction? Yes. Is it horror? Yes. Is it fun? Absolutely under no circumstances. And that's where I think the mistake was made.
I would have listened to the story anyway--I listen to all three 'casts, and a number of others. But there are others here who scrupulously avoid Pseudopod.
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Moderator note: Ok, ok, time to cool things down a bit, everyone (and I include myself in this) - let's keep this thread to discussions of this episode. I'm going to leave the discussion as it is for now; if people want to start a different thread about the relationship between SF and horror, feel free to continue the discussion there - if people do so, I'll go back and move some of the relevant posts out of this thread once I have some more time - but please keep in mind that we ask you to respect your interlocutors. Thank you!
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It's funny, but critiques about the technical aspects that I control don't bother me, but when the validity of the art (for which I am really just another audience member) is called into question on a completely subjective basis, I get itchy.
It's not funny at all. It means that you are a mature adult who can accept criticism about something that he can improve upon, but when it comes to something that you have no impact on, the only thing you can do is get itchy.
And now back to our discussion about the story.
Having let it sink in for a while, and gotten over the shock aspect of the story, I think that it is an interesting piece of speculative fiction. Science fiction at its best holds a mirror up to society and says "This is where we're heading!" (Or in the case of Star Trek, "This is where we can be heading if we all smoke something really groovy!").
That's what this story does. In my mind the true horror of this story is the society where body snatchers are a real thing, and they are other humans. And they do it for personal gain. (And sometimes they don't even need to snatch, just pay some cash).
Every time a new discovery is made, a new procedure perfected, a new patent is awarded, ethical questions arise. Some weightier than others, but nonetheless, ethical questions. We need to answer them in such a way as to better our interests as a species, but also to maintain our humanity. This story is a glimpse at what can happen if we don't.
So as speculative fiction: this story rocked. But I don't think I want to listen to it ever again.
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I'm on my phone now so I can't really do too much but let me be clear - when I said "feel free to continue the discussion but not in this thread" that's exactly what I meant. I will split the discussion when I am able. In the meanwhile, any post that is not directly on the topic of the actual episode will be deleted and the person who posts it may be banned. If anyone wants to discuss this, please do so over PM or your posts run the same risk.
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And that's my major complaint with this story - that the rape doesn't have any consequences, it's just another check box in the "bad guy is bad" column.
The rape doesn't have to have consequence, the crime in and of itself is inconsequential to the scene it's a circumstance of the journey. The fact that Grete chooses to endure it to find her love and either save him or bless him with release is the whole beauty of it. She didn't have to go to Doc's house, and she certainly didn't have to go to the office, but she knew there was a chance that her love needed her and that she was the only one in the universe that could do anything to help him. So she chose to go on a potential suicide mission, knowing what it would entail -- remember she flirted with Doc to get there in the first place and maintained the charade to continue -- and none of that mattered to her to accomplish her mission.
That's my beef with the "female victimization" whiners -- she wasn't the victim, she controlled the situation from beginning to end by making Doc think he was getting his way.
And my complaint with the "eeew-yicky!" people is that they're letting the act cloud their judgement. It was self sacrifice like in any of 100 movies where the male hero gets shot to shreds to save his girl or his kid, and many of these same people would cheer the sacrifice. In this case it's sex instead of bullets and a girl instead of a hero against the odds, but the end result in both cases is chosen self sacrifice for love, and that may be the single greatest thing anyone has to offer. It's Biblical. It's Shakespearean. It's the very definition of "epic."
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I liked the idea of self-sacrifice. Part of thinks I'm clutching it like a drowning man does to a piece of timber. If she was sacrificing herself, then it was a good ending. Not a happy ending, but something good came of it. She won, in so far as the fates allowed her to.
What frustrates me is that I didn't pick this idea when I was listening to the story. Twice now. I'm reluctant to do so a third time. I think the problem for me is a lack of choice on her part. See, I do agree that she wasn't a victim - she made an initial choice to seek Kaj out and was aware of the dangers. But although it was a choice, it wasn't a sacrifice. To try and explain, using a no-doubt flawed metaphor: A soldier might chose to sign up to fight, well aware of the risks involved. That's the choice. Three months, later, he's faced with another choice when a grenade lands right in the middle of his squad - does he throw himself on the grenade. This is a separate choice, but it is also more than that, it is a sacrifice. The first choice (to sign up) was accepting a degree of risk, the second choice is accepting an inevitability of death.
In the story Grete continually (and knowingly in my opinion) chooses to enter into situations where the level of risk to herself increases. At what point does it become a sacrifice? Her fate is sealed is when she enters into the hospital room with Doc, she will be raped, then dismembered into parts. Grete has at no point chosen this as an inevitable outcome though, merely entered into situations where the likelyhood of it increased, until it was a certainty. The other, darker side too this is that whether she 'saves' Kaj or not, the same thing will happen to her. By the time she enters Kaj's hospital room, she has nothing left to sacrifice......
If the authors purpose of the story was about the sacrifices of Grete, I think it would be simple enough to rewrite the story so that a more 'active' choice was available for her to make in the last few segments - even if it's just Grete admitting to herself enroute to the hospital what she's getting into. That would probably make the story at least marginally more 'enjoyable' for sum. I'm not sure it'd be a better story though. What made this story sickeningly tragic for me was Grete's endless hope that maybe, just maybe Kaj was ok and that everything else might just work out. As I've (tried to, no doubt badly) said before, I don't think this is a story we're meant to like, but it doesn't mean it's not worth listening to.
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That's my beef with the "female victimization" whiners -- she wasn't the victim, she controlled the situation from beginning to end by making Doc think he was getting his way.
Except she didn’t make him think he was getting his way; she let him have his way. She did manage to kill Kaj, but the doc didn’t even seem to care about that once he had her. He got exactly what he wanted—and more, it seemed, once he realized she’d known Kaj—and she lost absolutely everything. I think it’s more suicidal shaggy dog than self-sacrifice, honestly, since there was nothing gained from the sacrifice.
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What Frungi said!
The more you think about this story, the more you realize that everyone, other that Kaj and Grete, are either perpetrating or complicit in this crime.
If it's been going on for any length of time, even the state is in on it, given that Grete could track Kaj using the kind of forensic evidence that the police would have no problems following if they had a mind to.
Nihilist stories are just not for me. I don't want to be entertained by something this ugly. It reminds me of a Douglas Adams gag. The story made me feel bad, and I feel good about feeling bad about it. If I had initially liked it, I would have felt bad about liking it, and then felt good about feeling bad about feeling good about it.
P.S. Matt, you should lay off phrases like "female victimization whiners" and "eeew-yicky! people". That's really uncalled for, and an incorrect characterization besides.
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Y'know, every now and then I really wonder what the heck the world looks like to other people. Some of y'all appear to have heard a completely different story on a different podcast from me. Possibly in a different language.
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Y'know, every now and then I really wonder what the heck the world looks like to other people. Some of y'all appear to have heard a completely different story on a different podcast from me. Possibly in a different language.
Care to elaborate?
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That's my beef with the "female victimization" whiners -- she wasn't the victim, she controlled the situation from beginning to end by making Doc think he was getting his way.
Except she didn’t make him think he was getting his way; she let him have his way. She did manage to kill Kaj, but the doc didn’t even seem to care about that once he had her. He got exactly what he wanted—and more, it seemed, once he realized she’d known Kaj—and she lost absolutely everything. I think it’s more suicidal shaggy dog than self-sacrifice, honestly, since there was nothing gained from the sacrifice.
Except that this is her story. What Doc got out of it or thinks he did is obviously not the author's point or the main character's concern. Grete's suffering and triumph at all costs is.
Look, I'm not trying to change anybody's mind about this story. If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work and we can all walk away friends. We run a lot of stories that don't connect for me. I usually choose not to comment on them because I don't want to offend the authors who read the forum with my opinion and because I don't want to cloud the appreciation of the people for who those stories do have value.
If a story doesn't work for someone, I think it's absolutely valid to come here and make that statement, and I encourage it as a way for the editors to know the consensus and hopefully take that into consideration with future decisions. But I will be happy to be just as dismissive of people who choose to be dismissive about anything by saying it isn't 'good' or it isn't 'art' or it isn't 'worthy' -- especially when it comes wrapped in a package that clearly states "this may not be a good one for you, please spare yourself any discomfort and skip this one." Those are all subjective positions and every bit as dismissive to the author, the staff and the audience as any terse phrase I may have sent in the direction of the proverbial "other three fingers."
I'll stop now. Feel free to have the last word. My intent was never to insult, only to say to some people "I know this was gritty, but I hope you can see how someone might find deeper meaning here than you may have taken time to consider."
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Ok, the discussion about whether SF should be/has historically been "fun" and the relationship between SF and horror has been moved to a seperate thread (http://forum.escapeartists.net/index.php?topic=7062.0). It was not entirely possible to make a fully clean break because some posts covered both that topic and this episode. If people feel like their comments on this particular episode belong here, they are free to make them again in this thread - but please keep the discussion of SF in general to the other thread.
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That's my beef with the "female victimization" whiners -- she wasn't the victim, she controlled the situation from beginning to end by making Doc think he was getting his way.
Except she didn’t make him think he was getting his way; she let him have his way. She did manage to kill Kaj, but the doc didn’t even seem to care about that once he had her. He got exactly what he wanted—and more, it seemed, once he realized she’d known Kaj—and she lost absolutely everything. I think it’s more suicidal shaggy dog than self-sacrifice, honestly, since there was nothing gained from the sacrifice.
Except that this is her story. What Doc got out of it or thinks he did is obviously not the author's point or the main character's concern. Grete's suffering and triumph at all costs is.
Look, I'm not trying to change anybody's mind about this story. If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work and we can all walk away friends. We run a lot of stories that don't connect for me. I usually choose not to comment on them because I don't want to offend the authors who read the forum with my opinion and because I don't want to cloud the appreciation of the people for who those stories do have value.
If a story doesn't work for someone, I think it's absolutely valid to come here and make that statement, and I encourage it as a way for the editors to know the consensus and hopefully take that into consideration with future decisions. But I will be happy to be just as dismissive of people who choose to be dismissive about anything by saying it isn't 'good' or it isn't 'art' or it isn't 'worthy' -- especially when it comes wrapped in a package that clearly states "this may not be a good one for you, please spare yourself any discomfort and skip this one." Those are all subjective positions and every bit as dismissive to the author, the staff and the audience as any terse phrase I may have sent in the direction of the proverbial "other three fingers."
I'll stop now. Feel free to have the last word. My intent was never to insult, only to say to some people "I know this was gritty, but I hope you can see how someone might find deeper meaning here than you may have taken time to consider."
This story has generated some of the best conversation of any feedback to date.
Much of what you've written had been on my mind as well, and I'm very happy to not be the only dissenting voice in the group. I agree that this is a tale of self sacrifice. It speaks to us, and perhaps some would like to close their ears to what it has to say. Which one of us wouldn't readily lay down our life to save our loved ones? I think one of the issues people take up with this one (aside from the graphic nature of the story itself) is that all is lost.
After sacrificing all that she is, does she really save Kaj? She releases him, but is that the same? Maybe his last thoughts are of how he is escaping this hell, but Grete is stepping in to take his place. That is Shakespearean. A tale of epic tragedy if ever there was one. And despite all of the pain that Grete places on herself, nobody wins except for the doctor, and it pisses people off. Getting pissed off can be a good thing, situation dependent of course.
It is what it is. I'm glad I listened and very glad to read all the subsequent feedback.
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She understood the rules of her universe, but wasn’t willing or able to put one and one together. If he had sold his eyes my choice, why wouldn’t he contact her? Brother and sister seem to be missing? Nothing strange there. If she knew they took his eyes and his hands, and other parts – why would she think they wouldn’t do the same to her?
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She understood the rules of her universe, but wasn’t willing or able to put one and one together. If he had sold his eyes my choice, why wouldn’t he contact her? Brother and sister seem to be missing? Nothing strange there. If she knew they took his eyes and his hands, and other parts – why would she think they wouldn’t do the same to her?
Exactly. The problem with claiming this was about sacrifice is that, with a modicum of intelligence (and given that she manages to hack into the security systems, I really don't think we can excuse portrayal of her without it), she should have known it was futile. Laying down one's life for one's fellow men (or beloved) is noble sacrifice. Laying down one's life for no purpose whatever is just plain stupid.
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This was the closest I have come to snuff porn in my life.
It made me feel disgusted with myself and with Escape Pod to the extent that, after a few days of consideration and after 8 years with the podcast, I have now cancelled my subscription.
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Y'know, every now and then I really wonder what the heck the world looks like to other people. Some of y'all appear to have heard a completely different story on a different podcast from me. Possibly in a different language.
Care to elaborate?
Not particularly.
It made me feel disgusted with myself and with Escape Pod to the extent that, after a few days of consideration and after 8 years with the podcast, I have now cancelled my subscription.
Congratulations on saving money by missing the point? Unless you meant your iTunes subscription and not a donation subscription, in which case, uh, thanks for sharing? Bye?
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I have now cancelled my subscription.
Wow, bit of an extreme reaction, I think. Especially for an episode that had a warning at the start.
Hm… it wouldn’t be too hard, I think, to draw a comparison between sensitive listeners who choose to listen past the warning, and Grete in this story.
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It made me feel disgusted with myself and with Escape Pod to the extent that, after a few days of consideration and after 8 years with the podcast, I have now cancelled my subscription.
As Steve always said, next time there's completely different words in a different order. Judging the whole 'cast based on one arguably poor decision is a bad move.
Did I hate this story? Yeah, pretty much. Do I think that Escape Artists should have placed it differently? Sure. Do I think less of them for carrying it? NO. Art can't hurt you, even if you think it's bad art.
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IRL I have worked law enforcement, residential treatment, and at a mortuary. I've searched through the weeds for a dead kid's head. I've "therapized" the guy who pimped out his retarded sister. I've looked over the sights of my service pistol and been a couple ounces of trigger pull away from taking a life. The bad guys win often enough in real life that I don't need to read fictional accounts of the same just for shiggles. Tastes and appetites. This one met neither of mine.
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Okay, I skimmed the 4 pages so far of this thread. A lot of what I had to say has been said. Here's what I don't think has been said yet, in a series of unrelated points.
-I'm really uncomfortable about the disparaging tone used by a few people here in reference to "sensitive" listeners.
-As a survivor of sexual/physical abuse, I sort of enjoy rape stories? I find comfort or something in...maybe it's like listening to metal when you're angry, or watching a sad movie and having a good cry. Like you're not alone and it's not all your fault. Anyway, the part some people would have cut out of this story was the only part that rang really true to me. In particular, the way Doc made *some* effort to play out a seduction the first time, and then the second time it was just like "this is what's happening now. we both know you have no say in it." That seemed really real. And relatedly, as much as I also wanted Grete to attack Doc in the end, her brokenness made sense to me.
-Writing: meh. Not too into it overall. Reading: so good. So good. I initially found the story extremely compelling, all the way through, and only thinking back on it did I start to find plot holes and silliness of characters as pointed out here already by others. I realized that I thought the story was better because it was so well-read.
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-As a survivor of sexual/physical abuse, I sort of enjoy rape stories? I find comfort or something in...maybe it's like listening to metal when you're angry, or watching a sad movie and having a good cry. Like you're not alone and it's not all your fault.
This is a viewpoint that probably would have never occurred to me. Thank you for sharing.
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While I understand all the visceral reactions to this story, I have to admit that for me it all just laid there flat. It is, simply, a bad story because the author telegraphed everything. When an author mentions "remarkable eyes" that's fine, but when she ticks off body parts like "perfect teeth" and "delicate fingers" the laws of short story economy begin to come into play. Next we hear of a child allotment, see how the mom was ignoring her, the he shouldn't have had a scholarship, and finally learn abouts body harvesters. It was so obvious that any power the rest of the story had was muted.
When his eyes showed up all I did was sit back and wait for his teeth and fingers. By then it was clear that he would be harvested down even more by the time we saw him because he has to reappear for there to be any hope of power left in this particular depiction of cosmetic harvesting.
The sex scene was simply poorly handled. There was nothing in the character of Grete to suggest that she would be willing to offer sex for information. Up to this point she had been a halfway decent detective. It would be clear to anybody who lives in this society what had happened and that the authorities condone it or look the other way. The only shock left in the story is viewing Kaj, and there were many other ways to get her there.
Throughout the story my mind kept wandering over to other, far superior, stories about body harvesting that managed to depict the horror of the idea with much greater power. In particular one that tried to do the same thing - a school, a woman in love, an air of mystery about what exactly is happening, social commentary- only with well developed characters. (I won't tell you the book for fear of spoilers, but if you know sci-fi and don't know the novel I'm talking about your head must be in a hole.)
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Hooooooly wow what did I just listen to?! That was intense, haunting, absolutely horrific, and evil. I quite enjoyed it. I found it kinda predictable, but the journey was interesting nonetheless.
It felt like some bits of game of thrones, where everything seems so unfair to the character you really like, the world goes topsy turvy, and then he/she is dead. And you hate the author for it, but can't stop reading.
To the more sensitive listeners with... Adverse reactions... There was quite the disclaimer... Norm made no pretense about this story.
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Great story! Dark, disturbing, graphic, and no fun to listen to, but a very well done story. And I had little trouble suspending disbelief. They established early on that this harvesting was legal at least for the "extra" children. And Grete was dumb, but I excused it because she was a dumb teenager in love. Once she found his eyes in another's face, I knew that Kaj was gone, and I was annoyed with her stupidity to keep looking at first but then I remembered - teenager in love.
I did find the second rape to be extraneous. At that point it didn't make the situation any more horrific, and I did wonder if that really would distract Doc Fairview. That's were my suspension of disbelief got very close to the edge.
I am sorry that Norn was so explicit with his warning though. It was too much of a spoiler and distracted me while I kept waiting for the rape in the next scene. I think "sexual violence" might have been less spoilery than being so specific as "forced sexual intercourse" while still covering the same warning, but that's just a thought for next time.
Is this story Sci Fi enough for EscapePod? Yes, I say. I am a sci fi fan not a fantasy or horror fan (not that there's anything wrong with that). I know what is sci fi when I read/hear it. I say this is sci fi. ;) Besides if this had been on PseudoPod I would have missed it. Probably not going to listen to this story again, but I am glad I heard it once.
So overall I am glad that I heard this disturbing story. I can't say I enjoyed it, and I do understand while other might be disappointed and disturbed.
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While I understand all the visceral reactions to this story, I have to admit that for me it all just laid there flat. It is, simply, a bad story because the author telegraphed everything. When an author mentions "remarkable eyes" that's fine, but when she ticks off body parts like "perfect teeth" and "delicate fingers" the laws of short story economy begin to come into play. Next we hear of a child allotment, see how the mom was ignoring her, the he shouldn't have had a scholarship, and finally learn abouts body harvesters. It was so obvious that any power the rest of the story had was muted.
Although I felt differently than you, great review Mercurywaxing. I do want to add that I suspect my most frequent complaint about EscapePod is that I figured out the "twist" ending before the reveal and it ruined the story. It seems to me EscapePod goes for a lot of stories that rely on twist or reveal at the end to be enjoyed. And I figured out that Kaj was harvested away well before Grete (although not as fast as Mercurywaxing it seems). It didn't matter in this story; the twist was not the point and figuring that out did not affect my appreciation of the story at all.
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It seems to me EscapePod goes for a lot of stories that rely on twist or reveal at the end to be enjoyed.
That's because then people complain that "nothing happened" ;)
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Sweet mother of lizards. Sweet fuck. Sweet fucking lizard. The sex was the least disturbing part. I'm going to take a shower. In bleach. Hot bleach.
If this becomes the future, I'm siding with the aliens. It's time to start again.
I have to agree with this sentiment as well. "Nuke it from Orbit, it's the only way to be sure." Talk about your dystopian futures!
However, I have to say in it's defense, this is probably a story that would play out in the world of Blade Runner. So, while we hold high the gritty nature of such a genre, there are still parts of the underbelly we loathe.
This is really from the point of view of someone who doesn't have the experience to know better, young love...the Romeo and Juliet of Blade Runner, if you will. Unlike our reality, parents tend to keep their children from making these sorts of fatal mistakes.
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One of the things that I love about EscapePod is seeing the commentary that goes on in the forums. I always debate whether or not to engage, but in this case, I thought some context might be interesting.
I wrote this back in 2005 for Apex Digest at a time when it was focusing on SF horror.It's a story that makes me deeply uncomfortable because horror is not my natural space, but I do try to step outside my comfort zone. Normally, I'm a happy ending girl and write stuff that's more like Jane Austen with magic.
This is a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's Snow Queen, and, icky though the story is, to me it's a love story. The main characters in Snow Queen are Gerda and Kai, so there’s the obvious name connection.
The basic plot structure of the Snow Queen is that Gerda and Kai are best friends and play in the rose garden together. One day, a goblin comes and steals Kai’s heart (Go to gaming school!) and tempts him away.
Gerda goes on a quest to find him, and keeps seeing people that she thinks are him,[lady with his eyes, the doctor] only to discover that they’re not.
She finally discovers that he is in the Snow Queen’s palace (the clinic) and enters to try to save Kai. She finds him, cold and heartless, in the middle of a lake playing with ice shards (medically induced coma.) He doesn’t recognize her and her tears melt his heart, saving him. (Though the saving here is rather darker).
What I had always been struck by with Snow Queen was the lengths that Gerda went to in an attempt to save her friend. For me, Grete starts off exactly that naive, but by the time she gets to Doc's place she knows that there is no happy ending in front of her. "If Kaj weren’t dead, if Doc had kept him like the tiger skin then she could not leave him like that."
She knows that pretty much her only option is to kill her boyfriend because she's on a station where body-harvesting is legal. She could have been smart and walked away, but I don't think that would have made the ending any happier. Revenge on the Doc? Absolutely, but I'd been asked to write for a horror magazine so a happy resolution or justice wasn't an option.
And that's the piece of context that I've found most fascinating to watch in this. While the warning about the rape scenes was at the front, there's nothing saying that this is horror. Not just dark, but in a different genre. In fact, I've seen several people suggesting that it should have been on Psuedopod where I bet the reaction would have been different. Not better necessarily, but different.
Funny thing though, Mur rejected this when I submitted it to Pseudopod in 2006.
Anyway, it's been a very interesting discussion. Thank you for having it.
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Hello Mary,
Thank you very much for posting and giving the context for the story. It's always appreciated when an author comes in, but doubly so when the thread is so - lets say "contentious" - as this one has been.
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I thought about replying earlier, but wanted to give people space to have the conversation. I've always firmly believed that my intentions don't really matter once the story is out of my hands. In this case, however, I think that the context of where the story was originally placed might open up some new avenues of discussion around audience expectation.
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I love Escape Pod but I hated this story. Not only was it predictable, it was unsatisfying on many levels. I hate that the first time I feel compelled to post is negative but rape and snuff fiction is not what I expect from this incredible podcast! You're better than this. What would your mother think?
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My mother thought it was a troubling story. She avoids anything that has the slightest iota of suspense or danger to it, though, so this story was definitely not to her taste.
However, because my mother is a sane adult who is capable of reading and interacting with fiction, she was able to phrase her discomfort with regard to her personal psychological buttons and discuss the story without panicking about the moral decline of science fiction and dismissing a story that contains rape as a story whose purpose was to pruriently describe rape for the sexual pleasure of its author.
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However, because my mother is a sane adult who is capable of reading and interacting with fiction, she was able to phrase her discomfort with regard to her personal psychological buttons and discuss the story without panicking about the moral decline of science fiction and dismissing a story that contains rape as a story whose purpose was to pruriently describe rape for the sexual pleasure of its author.
Scatter, you seem to be taking this much more to heart than the author herself. Many listeners appeared to have had strongly negative responses to the story, so much so that many registered on the forums to say so, and one has decided to leave the podcast entirely. Attacking them for "dismissing" the story and excoriating them for "panicking about the moral decline of science fiction" is exactly the opposite of the appropriate response to this invitation to discussion, especially when you, in particular, do not "care to elaborate." If you are attempting to calm the forums in your capacity as editor, then it is appropriate to refrain from offering your own opinions, but you should not be attacking the legitimate feelings others had about the story. If you are commenting in your capacity as another audience member, then you are welcome to criticise other's reception of the story with your own impressions, but you do not wish to offer them. We might say that you are being dismissive of their concerns and impressions.
For my own part, I like to think I was anything but dismissive of the story in my evaluation. On the contrary, I decided to dig deeper and take a closer look at the underlying thematic elements within the story to find the source of my dislike. The themes unearthed in this examination did not improve my impression of the tale.
I am grateful to the author for her offer of context to the story, which I found immensely illuminating. I was (as I'd noted) previously aware of the fairy tale used as a template, but what I found truly illuminating was the author saying that this was a horror story and a deeply uncomfortable story for her because horror is not her "natural space." I frequently find that authors making a foray into horror especially have an odd penchant for the extreme: they think of horror as the genre that disgusts them or dwells upon the most vile and nasty of thoughts, because those are the aspects most commonly seen from outside the genre. (Non-genre fans are all familiar with the ideas of "Saw" and subsequently "The Human Centipede," and that's what everyone thought of horror for the last... jeez, decade? This is the rough equivalent of someone from outside of Sci-Fi writing a thinly-veiled Star Wars pastiche or someone outside of Fantasy not realizing there was more to the genre than Tolkien-adventure-tales.) Consequently, when entering horror, the author goes somewhere overly nasty (based on this impression) and it spirals into places that the genre regulars don't go out of courtesy and a more thorough understanding of the action and concepts at the core of the genre. (This is especially telling in light of the fact the story was initially rejected by Pseudopod, and the calls from some members of the audience -who do not listen to pseduopod- that the story should have been placed there.) I can now see that the descending spiral of somewhat illogical bad decisions by the main character, and the thinly constructed world, were mostly there as a necessity to get us into the utter nastiness of the final reveal and closing action: this is the vile and nasty idea at the core of the story and the rest is merely mechanism in order to place us there. I appreciate the author's attempts, and hold nothing against her personally, but this revelation only explains, and does not change any of my inital evaluation. I appreciate that many of the listeners enjoyed, or at least appreciated the story, and I hold nothing against them or their opinions. I speak only for myself.
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MCWagner, did you read the post immediately prior to Scattercat's where the poster said, "You're better than this. What would your mother think?" I don't find Scattercat's reaction to be over-reacting, given the poster's question.
I listened to this story this past week (a bit behind), after reading much of the forum conversation, which is an interesting way to come at a story. I gotta say, this one made me flinch, and left a mark. I'm primarily familiar with Mary Robinette Kowal's Glamourist Histories (Jane Austen and magic, as she mentioned up thread), which I enjoyed listening to, and thus I was...impressed by how dark and disturbing this tale was. I thought the whole thing was particularly chilling - the mercy killing and the last line didn't let the story end easily, and I appreciate it for that. Well done both to Kowal for writing it, and Veronica Giguere for conveying the horror of the tale so well in her reading.
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If people post contentless snark, then they get contentless snark.
And yes, I am more annoyed about this than the author. She's rolling with the punches and generally behaving graciously, and I applaud her for it. Since I'm not involved and don't have to be gracious, I'm choosing not to. I didn't pick this story (as it never came through slush) and had never read it before I heard it. While I can totally see people not enjoying the story per se, the sheer number of people who have come here to post sarcastic rejoinders aimed at the author (even your own post suggests that she wrote a crap story because she doesn't know what she's doing as a horror writer, which is a bit of a stretch from her saying that writing about rape is outside of her comfort zone), up to and including suggestions (now deleted) that she should be forced to undergo what her characters experienced leaves me severely disappointed in pretty much everyone involved.
To address your specific concerns about the story itself, I would say that this story is about agency, and that the main character's open-eyed decision to move deeper into the morass despite the obvious signs warning her away is part of the theme of the underlying fairy tale: the willingness (or desire) to risk when the logical and correct (and possibly even moral) choice is to remain safe. I don't see her insistence that her lover might be alive as reflecting her actual beliefs - she seems quite aware of the risks and the obvious interpretation of the evidence she has gathered - but rather to be her willfully blinding herself to that possibility, deliberately pushing herself until she gets trapped rather than foolishly wandering into the woods. Metatextually, therefore, I don't see the protagonist's actions as deliberately leading to the rape scene, nor do I see that as the "point" of the story; that strikes me as a rather insulting assumption to make of the author, even if I were not aware of her other work and thus cognizant that she's more skillful than that.
We can certainly discuss the thematic underpinning further if you wish (though at this juncture I don't really see the point), but in the future, when I reply to someone saying something stupid, I hereby preemptively assure you that I'm not speaking to you unless I mention you by name, 'k?
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We're going to need a podcast just for the comments alone.
Thank you, Mary, for posting. Your story had an essence of fairytale. I rather enjoyed hearing where some of the pieces originated from.
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We're going to need a podcast just for the comments alone.
After all the complaints y'all have been making about lackluster response to stories in the comment threads, I'd have thought you'd be happy to get a more spirited discussion. :)
(even your own post suggests that she wrote a crap story because she doesn't know what she's doing as a horror writer, which is a bit of a stretch from her saying that writing about rape is outside of her comfort zone)
Scatter, although I was not mentioned by name in the above comment (nor have you mentioned any other poster by name in this thread, other than the author) I think this part was addressed to me, and I feel it necessary to respond to part of it: you are making incorrect assumptions about either my attitude and/or motivations in my post.
I am not being sarcastic in my "attack." (Nor did I ever use the word "crap.") I am offering what I consider to be a legitimate critique of the story both for my own edification and whatever benefit the author may gain from it. Mediating my response would be doing myself and the author a disservice, especially in light of its reception. I strongly disliked the story and, motivated by this dislike, set about dissecting what it was that bothered me about it. When I came to my conclusions, I posted it (which, if you will look, I did with more than a little hesitation initially). I have a deep fascination with flawed stories, because I consider them to be more revelatory of the art than those that are pristinely constructed.
You have misread the author's own post: I was not stretching the author's statement that "writing about rape was outside her comfort zone" into an assumption that she "does not know what she is doing as a horror writer," because that was not her statement. What she said was:"It's a story that makes me deeply uncomfortable because horror is not my natural space, but I do try to step outside my comfort zone." (bold added) I assumed that she was unused to horror, because she said it was not her natural space, and she implied in context that she entered it at the prompting of story requirements by Apex Digest. The comments that followed were a natural (to me) extension in light of the story's substance and further supported by the initial rejection by Mur for Pseudopod, and the numerous suggestions from those who do not frequent Pseudopod that it would be better suited there. (There are further connections to be made throughout her note, but that level of dissection would likely bore.)
I would strongly disagree with your interpretation about agency in the story. To me, the most profoundly distasteful aspect of the story is that it seems to be obsessed with the willing and deliberate abandonment of agency, and the reduction to a pitiful thing (the surgical victims) whose single characteristic is that they are without agency. Action in the story (especially the final action) is only accomplished through the abandonment of larger agency. Remember, each of the sexual encounters were entered into not just willingly (or possibly, in the final instance, passively), but at her own prompting (though they are strongly framed as rape=sexual encounter without agency), and that the final event of the story isn't her action of killing her boyfriend, but her reduction into an agency-less victim. This is why I found the story voyeuristically obsessed with victimization, as detailed previously.
As for your disappointment in me (as a member of 'pretty much everyone'), I shall endeavor to live with it. (That last sentence alone may be considered snark.)
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Regardless, MCWagner, if you had left it at the discussion of agency in the story and why you didn't like it, my parenthetical would not apply. You did not do so, and instead moved on to comment on Ms. Kowal's chops as a horror author and speculate that she had made the errors you perceived because of this hypothetical unfamiliarity with the genre. That's rude and unnecessary, and I stand by my criticism of it. The rule is to criticize the story, not the author, remember?
Also, as an aside, Mur's rejection of the story is completely irrelevant. Even non-paying markets receive more submissions than they could possibly publish, and almost all of the stories that make it to an editor's hands from the slush pile are good enough to run. (That is, in fact, MY job as assistant editor to ensure.) The editors then decide to publish or not based on factors including personal preference, recent stories already run, tone, length (and thus cost/space analysis), and so on. Stories have gone on to win major awards after accumulating dozens of rejections. It's not an argument against the story in any meaningful way.
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To return to the discussion:
I don't see that the story is voyeuristic. It certainly is about the loss of agency, but everyone other than the protagonist has had their agency taken (or tricked) from them, just like her boyfriend, sold unknowing to the body harvesters while believing he had won a scholarship. The protagonist's decision to join them is, I agree, the focal point of the story, but I don't see that the story glorifies it or revels in it; it seems to me to be intended to be the horror of the story. Her options are either to move forward by sacrificing her agency (and eventually her life), or to return home at the cost of believing she could have saved her lover and chose not to.
Why do you feel that this was presented lasciviously rather than as a legitimate exploration of an appalling predicament?
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Consequently, when entering horror, the author goes somewhere overly nasty (based on this impression) and it spirals into places that the genre regulars don't go out of courtesy and a more thorough understanding of the action and concepts at the core of the genre.
I have to say that this makes me laugh a bit. I guess when I said that horror wasn't my area of comfort, I should have elaborated by explaining that I then sat down with Jason Sizemore, the editor at Apex, and best-selling horror author, Steven Savile, and brainstormed the story. Even so, my first draft was too tame, and Jason asked me to make it more visceral. In particular, I faded to black for the seduction scene because I thought it was too intense. The advice I got was that skipping that scene was cheating because then the character didn't earn her scars. I guess these genre-regulars didn't understand that showing such a scene was discourteous.
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Even so, my first draft was too tame, and Jason asked me to make it more visceral.
There's a hell of an assignment. "Hey, this isn't nasty enough, could you brutalize the protagonist some more? Thanks."
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I said this before, but I will say it again. It was creepy and it made me feel a little sick. That was the point of the story and I liked it. The fact that it has caused all this debate makes me like it even more. Obviously like it or not, it has provoked a large response and caused people to think. Now I would get mad if escape pod did a story like this every week or every other week, but that is not the case.
It wasn't smut, but it wasn't tasteful. It was artistic expression at its finest. The author wrote something most of us find disgusting and we felt disgusted. For some people it went to far, but art sometimes does that.
I know most of you think I am crazy. You guys wait and see. It might get one of my votes for best of 2013!
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I know most of you think I am crazy.
I honestly did not like this story at all. And yet I agree with everything you said (except for the quoted line).
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(Apologies for delayed response. I've been travelling.)
Regardless, MCWagner, if you had left it at the discussion of agency in the story and why you didn't like it, my parenthetical would not apply. You did not do so, and instead moved on to comment on Ms. Kowal's chops as a horror author and speculate that she had made the errors you perceived because of this hypothetical unfamiliarity with the genre. That's rude and unnecessary, and I stand by my criticism of it. The rule is to criticize the story, not the author, remember?
I commented upon the context because it was volunteered. I would not have if it had not been (and did not before it was). As the context was volunteered as an explanation of the story I included it in my analysis and stand by my statements that they were intended as helpful critique, further noted in the closer "I appreciate the author's attempts, and hold nothing against her personally, but this revelation only explains, and does not change any of my initial evaluation." If the author took it as insult, I apologize.
Also, as an aside, Mur's rejection of the story is completely irrelevant...
Noted. The reception of the story by the intended audience, however, is not.
I don't see that the story is voyeuristic. It certainly is about the loss of agency, but everyone other than the protagonist has had their agency taken (or tricked) from them, just like her boyfriend, sold unknowing to the body harvesters while believing he had won a scholarship.
However, none of that loss of agency is seen or portrayed in any way. We know only how they ended up and not how they got there. We don't know if the boyfriend fought against his dismemberment, or accepted it for the enrichment of his family. Or even if the family was in on it or tricked as well. There is no detail or exploration in the other victim's loss of agency, and the outline of the world they live in is insufficiently detailed to make clear assumptions (we still don't know if it's illegal or not). The only agency this story truly focuses on is the agency of the girl, and her abandonment of it.
The protagonist's decision to join them is, I agree, the focal point of the story, but I don't see that the story glorifies it or revels in it; it seems to me to be intended to be the horror of the story. Her options are either to move forward by sacrificing her agency (and eventually her life), or to return home at the cost of believing she could have saved her lover and chose not to.
Why do you feel that this was presented lasciviously rather than as a legitimate exploration of an appalling predicament?
I believe I covered this in detail in my first post, but to briefly address it again: I never said I thought the piece was presented lasciviously (lustfully) but rather voyeuristically. A voyeuristic perspective need not be explicitly sexual; to draw a rough analogy I'll return to the previous note on "rape-cry-shower-scene." This is a mainstay of certain female-audience-directed daytime dramas (to be more direct, "Lifetime" movies), in which the woman, having previously been raped or otherwise violated earlier in the film, huddles naked in the corner of the running shower and sobs uncontrollably while the camera zooms in slowly, lingering on her misery. In this cliche' trope, the camera becomes a highly intrusive presence in the film, explicitly viewing very private, intimate, and painful moments of the main character to an obsessive extent, leaving the audience not with an impression of the turmoil of the character, which is already well understood, but with the distinct feeling that this is private pain they should not be watching or at least not lingering upon. The nudity, while anything but sexual, serves to emphasize her defenselessness and intensify the awkward feeling of wrongness spying into another person's defenselessness. (This technique has been used effectively to accuse or involve the audience in observing something it wishes to indict them of (lingering on the human aftereffects of a thrilling scene of violence), but there is no such indictment employed here.) It is the lingering aspect, the emphasis upon the wrongness of the observation (essential for a voyeuristic viewpoint), and the helplessness of the observed that move starkly from contemplation or understanding of a terrible event to outright wallowing in the character's misery. -I would quote from the story text at this point, but it would likely trigger the forum 'Charlie' filters.- These being emotional responses, they are of course subjective, but they are among the responses I saw in the comments, the frustrated "really?!? we're going there?!?" and likely led to many of the "porn" related impressions, as that can be a strongly voyeuristic genre. Expansion to other emotional events is straightforward.
I guess when I said that horror wasn't my area of comfort, I should have elaborated by explaining that I then sat down with Jason Sizemore, the editor at Apex, and best-selling horror author, Steven Savile, and brainstormed the story. Even so, my first draft was too tame, and Jason asked me to make it more visceral. In particular, I faded to black for the seduction scene because I thought it was too intense. The advice I got was that skipping that scene was cheating because then the character didn't earn her scars. I guess these genre-regulars didn't understand that showing such a scene was discourteous.
I would have to say, based on the reception here, that you were badly advised. However, it is not the verbiage in the scenes I disliked, it is the thematic content. Oddly, this discussion has made me think of another comparison- the film Sucker Punch, which is surprisingly parallel on many levels. Though deeply obscured by nested hallucinations, it's essentially the story of a young girl who, in attempting to prevent a rape, is locked away in an institution where she will be lobotomized (surgical removal of agency) unless she and her fellow inmates coax the staff into raping them as a series of distractions in an escape attempt, only for her to give herself up at the end and be lobotomized in order to save another girl. All of this is disguised: the girls hallucinate themselves as burlesque dancers, and the burlesque dancers hallucinate themselves as action stars in fetishistic gear, but at the base, non-hallucinatory level it's all about asylum staff raping imprisoned, institutionalized women, with the plot framing rape as a power-play employed by the recipient.
Didn't much like the movie.
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Having read an article on child slave labour in napal/china the idea that the parent might have sold her son (and possibly the other two that hadn't been around in a while) was not so surprising, that we live on a planet where this happens at all is a sad indication of our species destination but I did enjoy the story just wanted the girl to think of something to do about it she sat in the bar drinking while he played and piano and didn't think to call anyone ? she was a hacker surly building an audit trail and a deaddrop for some evidence would have been a good idea yet she was so fixated on finding her love that she seemed to have lost any sense for self preservation.
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I commented upon the context because it was volunteered. I would not have if it had not been (and did not before it was).
There is a difference between "I don't like this story because FOO" and "FOO indicates that the author is BAR." An author might reveal any number of details about the genesis of a story, but that is not free license to start talking about the author and extrapolating criticisms of their person and skills, particularly in this forum, where such behavior is explicitly frowned upon.
A voyeuristic perspective need not be explicitly sexual; to draw a rough analogy I'll return to the previous note on "rape-cry-shower-scene. ...the distinct feeling that this is private pain they should not be watching or at least not lingering upon.
Given that prohibiting the use of the Rape-Cry-Shower scene (RCS) on the basis that private pain should not be watched would bar everything from Hamlet's graveyard soliloquy to the near-entirety of the romance and mystery genres, I would say this is largely a matter of personal preference; the question becomes whether the RCS was used effectively, which is why I asked why you felt it wasn't used well here. Other than your personal distaste for the way the scenes were written, which is entirely valid because it's your own opinion, you said:
We know only how they ended up and not how they got there. We don't know if the boyfriend fought against his dismemberment, or accepted it for the enrichment of his family. Or even if the family was in on it or tricked as well. There is no detail or exploration in the other victim's loss of agency, and the outline of the world they live in is insufficiently detailed to make clear assumptions (we still don't know if it's illegal or not). The only agency this story truly focuses on is the agency of the girl, and her abandonment of it.
You appear to be suggesting that the paucity of detail in the world supports your allegation that a voyeuristic sensation is the sole point of the story. I disagree.
While it's true that the story does not give us a golden-age-SF style narrative overview of how society deteriorated to the point shown in this story, we do know that the boyfriend was tricked into leaving the "safe" station, from which we can assume that he was likely not complicit in the arrangement, whereas the mother's defensiveness (and the line about the other small children being strangely absent) strongly suggest that she was complicit. The story fairly specifically states that body harvesting is permitted on most (or at least a significant number) of other stations, in that the home station is singled out as unusual in banning it. Additionally, the reactions of the other characters provide further information - the rich woman's evasion suggests that the black market in "quality" organs is at least considered gauche, whereas the protagonist's thoughts that her boyfriend had sold his hands or eyes in need of cash indicates that - particularly in seedier areas - body harvesting is as normal as pawn shops or payday loans. Saying that we don't know these things strikes me as a bit nitpicky, and I cannot see objective evidence supporting your contention that the world and background are thinly drawn.
Furthermore, while I agree that the protagonist's agency takes central stage, I don't see how that suggests voyeurism. I make the comparison with payday loans quite consciously; it seems to me that the protagonist's lack of resources to trade other than her own body ties into the broader society on display, which in turn appears to be an exaggerated version of the predatory capitalism extant in much of the world today. There is a clear thematic link between the individual loss of agency and the helplessness everyone seems to feel in this universe, which in turn supports a variety of real-world connections. It seems to me that story that was intended solely as "tragedy porn" would not bother with the resonance between individual and societal plights.
I also hated Sucker Punch, and for much the same reasons as you. However, Sucker Punch is not particularly similar to this story. For one, the elaborate special effects, the highly sexualized outfits, the exoticism of non-Caucasians, and the exaggerated weaponry and gore in Sucker Punch all indicate that it is intended as spectacle, and in particular as a spectacle to appeal to immature straight white males. That, to me, is the problem with the movie, not its core plot of a desperate woman using her body as a last token of exchange in order to help another. "Cerbo un Vitra Ujo" contains almost no spectacle; the closest we get to titillation is the explicit nature of the sex scene in Doc's apartment, and given that reaction to that scene has been almost universal revulsion, I would say that it was either intended to repulse, or else the author was comically incompetent. (Given that she has achieved significant success as a professional author in a wide variety of genres, I would further hypothesize that general incompetence is a highly unlikely scenario.)
Now, say you don't like this story, and I believe you. I can quite understand that this story would not be to everyone's taste; it is highly graphic, and it is attempting to use sex in an uncomfortable way to make a point. One can even say that one feels it was unsuccessful at its task; clearly, it did not work for you. However, I don't think the argument that it was not intended to do anything other than generate an emotional thrill will hold any water; it is too deliberately crafted for that.
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wow. Did Escapepod just rape me with Pseudopod's penis?
Count me iin the group that loved it. Lke Norm, it will be with me for weeks. Very dark- sinister even, but very evocative writing and a truly powerful horror piece.
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I guess when I said that horror wasn't my area of comfort, I should have elaborated by explaining that I then sat down with Jason Sizemore, the editor at Apex, and best-selling horror author, Steven Savile, and brainstormed the story. Even so, my first draft was too tame, and Jason asked me to make it more visceral. In particular, I faded to black for the seduction scene because I thought it was too intense. The advice I got was that skipping that scene was cheating because then the character didn't earn her scars. I guess these genre-regulars didn't understand that showing such a scene was discourteous.
I would have to say, based on the reception here, that you were badly advised.
i would have to say, I think the basis you're suggestions is incredibly flawed. How a story is received on the forum does not necessarily indicate the quality of the story.
Mary Robinette Kowal wrote a story that was originally published in 2005 by Jason Sizemore of Apex. She resold it to Norm in 2013 at Escape Pod. That both those editors thought it worked suggests she was well-advised. (Hell, if I had read it earlier, and could've somehow squinted at it sideways and called it fantasy, I might have tried to get it at PodCastle as well.)
That some listeners on the forum, such as yourself, do not like it, is perfectly fine. It's a very rare story that appears on EP, PC, or PP that is universally enjoyed. I like the discussions, and think it's really cool that Kowal took the time to come here and participate in them. Let's please be polite to her, and not tell her how she should've written the story she chose to write.
Not gonna address Sucker Punch, which I haven't seen but have read enough about, and do not see the connections between it and this story.
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There is a difference between "I don't like this story because FOO" and "FOO indicates that the author is BAR."
If I may quote the author: "In this case, however, I think that the context of where the story was originally placed might open up some new avenues of discussion around audience expectation." I simply followed her own suggestion in opening up new avenues of discussion around the context which she provided and audience expectation. I'm sorry it did not drift in approved directions and will endeavor to not rock the boat again.
A voyeuristic perspective need not be explicitly sexual; to draw a rough analogy I'll return to the previous note on "rape-cry-shower-scene. ...the distinct feeling that this is private pain they should not be watching or at least not lingering upon.
Given that prohibiting the use of the Rape-Cry-Shower scene (RCS) on the basis that private pain should not be watched would bar everything from Hamlet's graveyard soliloquy to the near-entirety of the romance and mystery genres, I would say this is largely a matter of personal preference; the question becomes whether the RCS was used effectively, which is why I asked why you felt it wasn't used well here. [/quote]
The parsing is getting complicated here. The point above was in response to your statement that you do not see the story as voyeuristic. I strongly disagree, and gave a lengthy explanation of what a voyeuristic perspective in storytelling is, how it applied in the story, and noting specifically that it need not be sexual, nor that its use is forbidden (giving examples where it is used successfully). Your expansion that 'viewing private pain is forbidden in literature' is needlessly hyperbolic as I specified at some length that there is a distinct difference between contemplation, understanding, and simply wallowing in another's misery. "It is the lingering aspect, the emphasis upon the wrongness of the observation (essential for a voyeuristic viewpoint), and the helplessness of the observed that move starkly from contemplation or understanding of a terrible event to outright wallowing in the character's misery." I even pointed out their subjectivity already.
We know only how they ended up and not how they got there. We don't know if the boyfriend fought against his dismemberment, or accepted it for the enrichment of his family. Or even if the family was in on it or tricked as well. There is no detail or exploration in the other victim's loss of agency, and the outline of the world they live in is insufficiently detailed to make clear assumptions (we still don't know if it's illegal or not). The only agency this story truly focuses on is the agency of the girl, and her abandonment of it.
You appear to be suggesting that the paucity of detail in the world supports your allegation that a voyeuristic sensation is the sole point of the story.
Incorrect. I am suggesting that the paucity of detail involving all of the other characters' agency loss (indeed it all occurring offscreen) means that the story is really only contemplating the agency of the main character, and therefore it is her willing abandonment of agency which is the central concern of the story. This passage was in response to your comment "It certainly is about the loss of agency, but everyone other than the protagonist has had their agency taken (or tricked) from them." My concern has always been with the thematic core of the story, and it is devoted solely to the gradual abandonment of agency (willing victimization) of the main character. Nor did I ever allege that "voyeuristic sensation is the sole point of the story." You are conflating me with someone else. I have stated that I feel the story is voyeuristic, and shown at some lengths why I feel this is true, but my central concern with the story is its constant obsession with victimization of the main character. The voyeuristic aspects further this obsession, but occur only in the last third or so of the story. As I stated initially, I did not find the world sufficiently defined or the character sufficiently fleshed out from her rather emotionally monotone construction, but characterized these as "lesser problems" I had with the story, not the essential problems.
Which means the next two paragraphs concern very minor details I wasn't really digging into, but briefly:
The story fairly specifically states that body harvesting is permitted on most (or at least a significant number) of other stations, in that the home station is singled out as unusual in banning it.
A subtlety of language here, but you are referring to: "On any other station, no parent in their right mind would let their unentitled kids run free, for fear they’d be taken by a body harvester on a job for some rich-ass client. Banwith Station didn’t allow that; you got born with a withered arm, you lived with it, so there were lots of kids running around." I couldn't figure out if that meant it was legal, or a matter of authorities looking the other way for rich people. (Like Cocaine trafficking.) Or looking the other way for some things (limb selling), but not others (child stealing). I basically had no clear context for her encounter with the police officer, the rich woman, the doctor, or any other authorities. I further can't make sense of the child market: you can sell your kids for money, but kids can be taken off the street... which would be theft... which would be illegal? Or not? And if not, why don't the rich just harvest the poor en-mass? Your gauche interpretation is interesting, but I didn't find anything in the story to support that: the doctor openly declares that his "equipment" is new. And further, if gauche, why do it? We're told specifically there are cosmetic options, so why get grey-market items if they're not considered socially superior? Just to be evil? (I do concede the single point of "did the family know" as the mother evidently did, but I meant the -entire- family, kids included.)
I cannot see objective evidence supporting your contention that the world and background are thinly drawn.
...did you just ask me to objectively prove my opinion?
I make the comparison with payday loans quite consciously; it seems to me that the protagonist's lack of resources to trade other than her own body
Except the main character has a rather startlingly powerful skill set at hacking, leading to many posters to wonder at her immediate jump to willing victimization to further her investigation.
There is a clear thematic link between the individual loss of agency and the helplessness everyone seems to feel in this universe, which in turn supports a variety of real-world connections. It seems to me that story that was intended solely as "tragedy porn" would not bother with the resonance between individual and societal plights.
As I stated originally, "Mechanical problems with the story's setting got in the way of the obviously intended commentary on class:" In other words, I disagree that there is anything like a clear thematic link in the story that enables clear construction of societal class themes. (I gave several examples in the initial post.) Your listed themes are interesting, but I do not find more than cursory support for them in the story, and you're forced to do a lot of filling in to make them work. Instead, the story employs most of its efforts and wordcount in obsessing over the victimization and suffering of the main character.
I also hated Sucker Punch, and for much the same reasons as you. However, Sucker Punch is not particularly similar to this story. For one, the elaborate special effects, the highly sexualized outfits, the exoticism of non-Caucasians, and the exaggerated weaponry and gore in Sucker Punch all indicate that it is intended as spectacle, and in particular as a spectacle to appeal to immature straight white males. That, to me, is the problem with the movie, not its core plot of a desperate woman using her body as a last token of exchange in order to help another.
I disagree: the core problem is the framing of willing abandonment to rape as an entertaining, flashy spectacle. If you take away the rape, you have flashy stupid entertaining spectacle. Vapid, but not particularly evil. It's the core concept of getting to watch repeated flashy scenes of metaphorical sex framed as willing submission to rape (the context of the "real life" scenes makes it clear the girls are abusively institutionalized, while the fantasy scenes have them initiating the seduction). The camera gets to linger on their fetishized sexuality in elaborately staged scenes that take up the majority of the screen time, when anyone paying attention realized they're in the process of being violated. It's this obsessive contemplation that makes the film voyeuristic (and also lascivious, as opposed to here) and highly distasteful.
(Notably, you can impress various themes upon that film as well. Themes of female empowerment in a patriarchal society. Doesn't make it any less voyeuristic, and the film only gives cursory support to this concept, spending the majority of its time on sexy scenes.)
"Cerbo un Vitra Ujo" contains almost no spectacle; the closest we get to titillation is the explicit nature of the sex scene in Doc's apartment, and given that reaction to that scene has been almost universal revulsion, I would say that it was either intended to repulse, or else the author was comically incompetent.
As I've repeatedly stated, this is not a sexual voyeurism, but an obsession with victimization. I agree about the lack of spectacle. The startling similarities I noted are thematic (which, as always, are my central concern): the population with no agency, the abandonment to become a victim and loose all agency, the framing of rape as a tool to be used by the victim, surgical disassembly (physical here, emotional there), etc..
(Given that she has achieved significant success as a professional author in a wide variety of genres, I would further hypothesize that general incompetence is a highly unlikely scenario.)
Why does she even care about my critique then? And provide context? And snarkily name-drop to contradict my point?
However, I don't think the argument that it was not intended to do anything other than generate an emotional thrill will hold any water; it is too deliberately crafted for that.
I've no insight into intention: we've declared the author off-limits. I can only speak to the finished form of the work. I find thematic obsession with victimization, and mechanical problems with the story obstructing any coherent social commentary. The parts I found deliberately crafted were voyeuristically wallowing in the character's misery.
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Yay! #100!
Now that I've got that out of the way, I have to say that I think the main current disputants--MCWagner and Scattercat--will never convince each other. Unless, possibly, we hold an impromptu rap battle. (I'm sorry, but both your names are clearly calling out for a rap battle.)
Though you may never convince each other, you've both convinced me: Scattercat, I see now more clearly the thematics of agency and sacrifice that run through this story; MCWagner, you've convinced me that the mechanics of the story are creak a little, as if motivated by an external force rather than from the internal needs of the characters.
I'll add that that notion--"the internal needs of the characters"--I get from Mary Robinette Kowal, with whom I recently took an online class in short fiction that I enjoyed very much. That I like her personally won't stop me from critiquing her work professionally. However, it will keep me from being a jerk about it, as someone recently was when he wrote her a nasty bit of hate (http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/debut-author-lessons-hate-mail/)mail about this very story on this very podcast. There's no call for that, which bothers me very much.
In fact, that bit of nasty email is the only thing about this story and its reception that continues to bother me. This story has caused a lot of argument, some interesting and well-argued, some hot-tempered but still well-argued, and some just inarticulate spew of feelings--all of which I find interesting as a reader and occasional writer. As long as we speak to our own feelings and argue with the assumption of good faith in our opponents--stretching towards considering the most charitable and strongest arguments--then, please, on with the bloodsport of arguing.
So, who wants to be the first post on page 6?
[ETA: Whoops, I guess I'm the first post on page 6.]
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Why does she even care about my critique then?
I don't, particularly. I was initially responding to the entire conversation.
And provide context?
Because I thought that a conversation about the differences in audience expectation would be interesting. EscapePod listeners are, I think, justified in being upset that a horror story got mixed in because the conventions are notably different whether or not it is also SF. The expectations of a horror audience dictate certain choices in storytelling, that would make them equally dissatisfied if, for instance, the story had a happy-ending.
And snarkily name-drop to contradict my point?
Sweetie, if you want snark, I can bring it on. That wasn't it. This is, however, the point at which I've crossed from being interested to being pissed. Stop assigning motivations to me.
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Oh snap! ;D
Mary, your story kicked ass. The fact that horror isn't your regular thing but you produced this story is astounding to me. You should do it more often.
And I'm not saying Escapepod should run horror sci-fi all the time, but I certainly appreciate the diversity it brings to the show and the cajones it takes to run stuff like this. I'd hate for every week to be farting pandas, clowns and talking alien monkeys.
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EscapePod listeners are, I think, justified in being upset that a horror story got mixed in because the conventions are notably different whether or not it is also SF.
This is, indeed, the problem I had with this story. It’s not that it was a bad story—I don’t think I even made a quality judgment in my mind at the time—but that it wasn’t the kind of story this audience (or at least I) was expecting. Escape Pod isn’t known for horror stories, and unless I missed it, we didn’t know we were getting one in this episode. We were warned of the forced sex, but not of the horror. It’s like being given a cake made of tofu; you may enjoy tofu, but if you bite into this, your immediate reaction is confused disgust—not because it’s bad tofu, but because it’s not what you thought it would be.
I think I may have stretched that metaphor a bit too far, but I’m hungry. Sorry. Also deeply sorry if it’s seen as an unflattering comparison, but sometimes I say things without thinking first.
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Well, here's a thing - I never considered this to be horror. Horrific, certainly, but only as a component part of a socially driven SF story where the technology exacerbates and advances what is already a problem in our society.
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Well said, Dem. I think that's what I was trying to say earlier. There are horrific elements to the story, but the story didn't contain any of the elements that I normally attribute to horror. There was no big shocking reveal. The story wasn't about the monster at all, he was just a vehicle. It would be like saying Harriet Tubman's story is a horror -- it belittles the journey and ignores the ultimate win.
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I may (or may not) agree with Dem and matweller, but that still leaves a question unanswered: if you say "this isn't horror" you still have to answer "what is this if it's not horror?"
I think one of the main stumbling blocks with readers here with this story on this podcast is that the speculative/world-building aspect leaves many questions unanswered--the sort of questions that many readers here on this podcast want answered. Of course, (a) not every science fiction story is about speculation; and (b) this story is clearly more interested in the MC's choices in the environment rather than just in the environment; and (c) the readers of Escape Pod may be a small subset of science fiction readers.
That said, judging by many of the negative responses that run along the lines of "I don't understand this world, it doesn't seem to make coherent sense," I'd at least entertain the possibility that this story doesn't work very well as science fiction for this audience. (Of course, sf is a fuzzily-bounded set--I like Wittgenstein's "family resemblance" idea to talk about the nebulous cloud of sf material; but I also follow Jim Gunn and Samuel R. Delaney in thinking that there's a set of reading protocols peculiar to sf.)
Which is why, for me, the story seems more like a fairy tale using sf tropes. (The same way we might speak of Firefly being an sf show using Western tropes--or vice versa if that's what you want to argue.)
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I don't think describing this as a horror story is wrong. Genres are like labels in Gmail; you can add as many as you want to any particular item, and they're all still valid (although the more descriptors you type in your search field, the smaller your returned list). Also similarly, they are ephemeral, nearly meaningless on their own, and tend to be idiosyncratic to each user, though there are some broad strokes ("Sent," "Trash") that are nearly universal.
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Because I thought that a conversation about the differences in audience expectation would be interesting. EscapePod listeners are, I think, justified in being upset that a horror story got mixed in because the conventions are notably different whether or not it is also SF. The expectations of a horror audience dictate certain choices in storytelling, that would make them equally dissatisfied if, for instance, the story had a happy-ending.
This is a point you've noted repeatedly: that "it's horror, so it doesn't have a happy ending." I'm a little puzzled by this in that there are a lot of stories out there commonly categorized as horror which have happy endings. The Exorcist, for example, ends with Regan free of the Daemon, Amityville Horror with the family escaping, and the typical slasher film ends with the "final girl" triumphing over whichever supernatural or deformed monster did in her friends. I'm tempted to say that more horror stories have an at least partially "happy" ending than don't, but that would require a larger survey of the field than I could do easily. Do you not consider these horror stories?
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Now that I've got that out of the way, I have to say that I think the main current disputants--MCWagner and Scattercat--will never convince each other. Unless, possibly, we hold an impromptu rap battle. (I'm sorry, but both your names are clearly calling out for a rap battle.)
Trade secret: it's just my initials. But I also have a friend named Darius J. Washington...
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It’s like being given a cake made of tofu; you may enjoy tofu, but if you bite into this, your immediate reaction is confused disgust—not because it’s bad tofu, but because it’s not what you thought it would be.
Ha! Yes, that's a perfect metaphor. Also, now I want cake.
This is a point you've noted repeatedly: that "it's horror, so it doesn't have a happy ending."
Please do not put paraphrases in quotes to make it look like I said something I didn't. I said, "I'd been asked to write for a horror magazine so a happy resolution or justice wasn't an option" and "The expectations of a horror audience dictate certain choices in storytelling, that would make them equally dissatisfied if, for instance, the story had a happy-ending."
The distinction is that your "quote" makes it look like I am saying that horror can never have a happy ending, as opposed to talking about audience expectations of my story in specific. I can see how it is possible to misinterpret that, but still, don't put words in my mouth.
I'm a little puzzled by this in that there are a lot of stories out there commonly categorized as horror which have happy endings. The Exorcist, for example, ends with Regan free of the Daemon, Amityville Horror with the family escaping, and the typical slasher film ends with the "final girl" triumphing over whichever supernatural or deformed monster did in her friends. I'm tempted to say that more horror stories have an at least partially "happy" ending than don't, but that would require a larger survey of the field than I could do easily. Do you not consider these horror stories?
I understand why you are asking, but my answer is complicated by the fact that you are listing films rather than horror short stories. Structurally, they do have different audience expectations. The Amityville Horror for instance, is purported to be based on a true story. Slasher films are their own distinct genre.
The Exorcist is often classified as supernatural suspense, but I think it's horror. I'd argue with you about the happy ending though, but it depends on if we're talking about the film or the novel. Film audiences demand happy endings as a general rule and the film certainly feels like it has a happy ending.. The novel, on the other hand, does not. Yes, Regan is freed from the demonic possession, but both main characters die in the process of freeing her.
That said, the defining factor of horror is that it provokes a strong negative emotion, usually dread, revulsion, or fear.
Most though not all horror stories call for a tragic ending, or a price paid. Joe Hill's novel Heart-Shaped Box is a good example of a happy ending that comes with a price. Even those that allow the hero to triumph, usually carry the threat that the evil will rise again. However, novels and short fiction tend to be different in regard to the ending.
If you grab the latest Year's Best Horror, you'll note that the tendency in short fiction is to end either at the failure point or with the threat of recurring evil. One of the differences between long form and short form fiction, across genres, is in the dismount. In short fiction, one tends to stick the landing at a point of strong emotional impact and cut, whereas in long form, the audience needs a transition to ease them out of the novel.
Technically, my story actually uses the happy ending followed by recurrence of threat. Grete's goal was to find her boyfriend and, once she realized his likely situation, release him from his misery. She succeeds in that, though she pays a price. The last line, structurally, is the threat of recurring evil.
Given the length requirements, and the market that I was writing for, a full happy ending would have been unjustified for this particular story. Novel form... yeah, I probably would have tried to pull off the happy ending epilog. But novels and films are not the same medium as short fiction.
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So, this was the story that catalyzed me enough to comment.
It'd been sitting on my ipod for a while, and I just got to it, and just, man. I echo so many comments already on this thread.
Victim porn. Snuff lit. Etc. It's a powerful story, no doubt. It's powerful. It's well written. It's also needlessly cruel. It reminds me of a statement made by Penn of Penn and Teller, Penn's not my favorite guy, but he made a point once while doing a nail-gun trick that I think relates.
He said that he wanted to assure the audience before hand that what he was doing was a trick, because to imply that there was real peril involved was to make the audience complicit in what, as far as they new, was an act of violence. He felt that this was inherently wrong.
Now, there were no real victims here, just a character in a fictional world, but I feel complicit in something none the less. And I don't feel complicit in a way that makes me think. Class relations, issues of rape and gender inequality, the fact that there are people who can be made to just disappear... Yeah, I had strong opinions on those things, and this story didn't change or enhance them. It just dredged the bottom of my own worst fears and experiences to make me feel awful. It made me complicit, and now I feel like the victim, because I had faith that an author wouldn't take me on this journey without reason. And this isn't some clever metaphor for the protagonist, because she *at no point* is duped by authority, or convention. She walks into the lions gate eyes wide and asks to be eaten. I was duped by my faith in Escape Pod. And the more I think about it, the less I want to listen to other stories here on the site. It makes me not want to recommend the site to to others (as I've often, very often done)So that's the effect of this piece. It makes me want to punish editors and authors just to never have it happen to me again. It makes me want to exercise my agency to say no to this podcast.
The bit about Kaj's... member... the moment the story telegraphed Kaj's fate, along with the warning, that thought popped in my head. I dismissed it as too gratuitous, too vile, too much like something you'd find in rape-porn. And yet, that's where we went.
I don't mind taking the long, dark walk to Mordor. I don't mind us dying when we get there. Just don't tell me we made the trip for nothing. And don't tell me I needed that awful thing rehashed to know it was awful. No. I'm saying no to this.
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Just don't tell me we made the trip for nothing.
We didn't make this trip for nothing. She saved Kaj. She lost him, looked for him, knowing what she was getting into, then she made sure she would find him, doing what was necessary within the context of the world she was in, and then she found Kaj. She found him and she knew she had to set him free, and that's just what she did. It's a beautiful story surrounded by ugly things, but to not see the beauty and sacrifice in it is to miss the entire story behind it. When you do that, you are left with nothing but victim porn/snuff lit/what have you. (which, by the way, snuff lit? ONE guy dies as a consequence of a bunch of things, I don't see how that is snuff lit at all)
The horror in this story isn't even so unbelievably terrible. Oedipus kills his father and screws his mother, that's messed up. Romeo kills himself and Juliet follows close behind, that's messed up, and they're only 16 or so as well! Other stories use sex/rape as a means to an end as well. The 300 had Leonidas' wife raped by that traitor in order to gain a political ally, in order to get what she wanted. That was as much rape as this story, really, minus maybe the traitor didn't have Leonidas' penis. This story was pretty gruesome, but it really wasn't anything outside of what we've all already seen or heard or read. Watch Antichrist and then say that this story was even remotely bad. This story is, at its heart, a tragedy. It is a tragic love story, gruesome for its world, but the plot itself isn't all that gruesome. And it's not like there wasn't a warning.
As for rape-porn? It's only rape-porn/victim-porn/torture-porn if the point of the story is to take some pleasure in the horrible things that are happening. It is rape-porn when the rape is described in a way so as to be erotic, as if the author would take pleasure from writing it. I didn't hear any of that. It would be victim porn for the same reasons. There was clearly no pleasure in these scenes, no glorifying of the situations, no joy in what was happening. That is the kind of stuff you find in bad submissions to Pseudopod with simply gratuitous rape, that does nothing to move the story, nothing to develop anything but the "horror" that someone is being raped.
The horror in this story is not that she throws herself to the lions, it is found as she realizes what happened to her boyfriend, yet deludes herself over and over that it cannot be true, that he must be alive, only to find that yes, he is alive, but now you have to kill him. That is the horror in this story, that is the tragedy and the love and the beauty all in one. I thought it was immensely powerful.
That's how I chose to hear this story, at least.
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There's this repreated refrain in the defense of the story about self-sacrifice. And I'm sorry, I don't buy it. She literally risks death for the promise of nothing. When she starts to play into Doc's seduction she hasn't firmly made the connection that he is directly responsible for Kaj. No, at the time she meets Doc he's a guy who *might* have information that *could* lead to her *possibly* alive boyfriend. That's three levels of uncertainty in a situation where the most negative outcome is 100% already articulated and known by the protagonist. She already suspects he will only part with the information if she plays into his seduction, and she knows that if Kaj was taken by organ harvesters the likely outcome for both of them is a slow, agonizing death.
I don't see what she does as victory, and the second rape on top of it, no, that's exploitative. I made it through the first scene on the promise of awesome. No, we end on a rape that is used to cover euthanaisia just before torture taht will end in murder... and likely more rape.
I think Shakespeare only ever managed two of those in a single scene.
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Ok - moderator stepping in here.
JakeEkiss, you have a strong reaction to this story, and that's perfectly ok. You obviously found little positive about it an a lot of negative. But please be respectful of other people's opinions as well, and that means that you should not refer to the views of people who disagree with you as a "defense" of the story. Bdoomed wasn't trying to defend the story, he was giving his own impression of it, and that's just as valid as yours. Please be mindful of that.
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I'll just bow out then. People have implied on this very thread that those felt one way or another about the story were reading it in a different language, I felt "in defense of" was fairly tame by way of description of a point that has been repeatedly brought up.
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It's not a victory, it's a tragedy. It is, however, closure for her. I don't think she much cares what happens to herself after that, she has lost her love and seemingly lost the will to live. There's no victory here at all, but that shouldn't discount everything else the story had to offer. But hey, it's all opinion. EP doesn't run these types of stories all the time, but they are allowed to do so. I don't think one story you disagree with strongly should influence your overall perception of the entire podcast. You are, however, entitled to react any way you want to, so long as it doesn't break our one rule while reacting on the forum :P
I think, though, that it would be nearly unbelievable if she were to just walk away after killing Kaj. It was pretty much necessary to end up where she did. And it's sad and it's wrong, but it's the reality of the world that she is in.
And no worries, honestly, eytanz and JakeEkiss. No offense is taken. I wouldn't say I'm not defending the story, I enjoyed it, as much as I could enjoy something this rough. And it was rough, it was hard to listen to, and it was gruesome. There's really no denying that unless you literally get off on that sort of stuff. I just think that stories like this need to be looked at with more scrutiny than pure hatred for harsh themes. It's just my opinion, and I wanted to express it. It also just happened to be in reaction to JakeEkiss' post :P
I was going to say something else but I forget. Oh well. :)
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I'll just bow out then. People have implied on this very thread that those felt one way or another about the story were reading it in a different language, I felt "in defense of" was fairly tame by way of description of a point that has been repeatedly brought up.
I did not mean to silence you or make you bow out. But as you've noticed, this is a thread where things were getting rather heated, and there has been a need for some discussion to be removed, so now I'm being more careful than I have been earlier.
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I can appreciate that this conversation has been more touchy than the norm. It's unfortunate that it's the first thread I chose to comment on while simultaneously being the most recent comment you chose to clamp down on. It paints niether of us in a decent light to the other. I didn't intend to be inflammatory, and it is clear I missed the mark.
I apologize for the offense. My feelings on the story are well represented by the others on the thread, and I have no issue with those that feel otherwise.
In retrospect, it's clear I posted because the story got me angry, at the podcast, at the writer, and I wanted a place to unpack that, because I didn't feel like I as a reader had done much to deserve it. But that's a terrible reason to post, and a fantastic reason to find a different outlet for that emotion.
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Thank you, I appreciate your understanding - but just to make it entirely clear, I didn't feel you caused any offence, I'm just in "once bitten, twice shy" moderating mode right now. I'm sure it's not pleasant to have a mod come down on your second post in the forum, but I do want to stress that I was just pointing out one problematic word choice on your behalf, and I have no issue with the rest of your post which I felt was a perfectly sensible explanation of your view.
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JakeEkiss and Bdoomed, without again getting into discussion about this story, from your last few comments, I think you might enjoy Mur Lafferty's interview of Connie Willis on her podcast "I Should Be Writing," where Willis describes her views on tragedy and comedy (if you haven't already heard it).
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http://podbay.fm/show/79085800/e/1329418234?autostart=1 (http://podbay.fm/show/79085800/e/1329418234?autostart=1)
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I actually meant a full-length short story (possibly amalgamating a bunch of previous stories), but this is a great idea too.
Someone actually did this very early on, and included all of the EP stories that had run up until that point. I forget, it was somewhere in the vicinity of the very first 20-40 stories, and Steve actually read it at the end of an episode. It was fantastic! I have no hope of finding it, but maybe someone else remembers better where it was?
Hey - that was me!
The story is called EPn+1 and it ran at the end of MetaCast #2 It is a meta-story with characters/pieces of the first 20 or so EP episodes. I think Platypus Girl (#21), might be the latest reference, but I don't remember for sure.
Swamp was even kind enough to start a comment thread for it: http://forum.escapeartists.net/index.php?topic=3259.0
If you listen, the story starts at around 14:40 in the podcast.
Oh - and thanks for the kind words about the story!
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I actually meant a full-length short story (possibly amalgamating a bunch of previous stories), but this is a great idea too.
Someone actually did this very early on, and included all of the EP stories that had run up until that point. I forget, it was somewhere in the vicinity of the very first 20-40 stories, and Steve actually read it at the end of an episode. It was fantastic! I have no hope of finding it, but maybe someone else remembers better where it was?
Hey - that was me!
The story is called EPn+1 and it ran at the end of MetaCast #2 It is a meta-story with characters/pieces of the first 20 or so EP episodes. I think Platypus Girl (#21), might be the latest reference, but I don't remember for sure.
Swamp was even kind enough to start a comment thread for it: http://forum.escapeartists.net/index.php?topic=3259.0
If you listen, the story starts at around 14:40 in the podcast.
Oh - and thanks for the kind words about the story!
That's awesome! Thanks for the link, and you're welcome. :)
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Well, I FINALLY got around to listening to this story (still way, way behind on all my 'casts..). To say I enjoyed it would be an overstatement, but I did find it well-crafted. The protagonist is obviously a girl of wits and character, I like to think she'd find a way to pretend to be defeated, then take out Dr. Psychopath when his guard dropped. :)
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I disliked this one very much until Ms. Kowal came on the forum to discuss the story and give us some insight into its creation. Here's what I was going to write, more or less, before that point:
"I didn't like this story because it was so simplistic, with no foundation in reason. For the most part I don't mind stories that don't follow the laws of physics, but stories that don't follow the laws of common sense do bother me. This seems like a simplistic moral tale, like a fairy tale or some such, with a SF pastiche put over it, with a dash of horror for extra punch."
I don't know/remember the story of the Snow Queen, but I feel that knowing the author's intention, a sci-fi/horror retelling of a fairy tale, reshapes my opinion of the story. I now think of it as a very good adaptation of an old tale that is supposed to have shallow characters that act in very simplistic ways. I don't mean that as an insult, either, that's just what happens in fairy tales. The characters are secondary to the theme and the moral(?) of the story, in this case that true love will suffer great lengths to save their beloved, even if it means a tragic end.
This of course leads me to an interesting introspection. I definitely look for more substance and depth from a sci-fi story than I do a fantasy story. In the former, I'm looking for deep characters, setting, and internal logic, while in the latter, while having those things are all good, I understand that many times, one or more of those things goes by the wayside in order to put forth a grander idea or moral or lesson. I don't brook any malice towards either, I just realized that is what I come into those stories expecting.
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Holy shit.
::stares in horrified silence for a long, long time::
Hole. Lee. Shit. ::more horrified silence ::
Right.
So, a bit of context. For the past year or so, I've been somewhat rediscovering my black identity. (A long story and if you want to know, ask me about it sometime). This past weekend was Mo*Con, and a friend of mine, for my birthday, put together a playlist of a history of hiphop and rap. Now mind, being raised by a fundamentalist mom, I never really listened to much hiphop and rap in my youth. So it was most interesting. For the most part, I enjoyed it, but there were times when the swearing and the liberal use of the 'n' word got too much for me, so I would switch to Podcastle and EscapePod for "lighter" fare. And it was the same with this story, except as I was switching it over, I accidentally turned the volume down, and then had to change lanes, so by the time I could turn the volume back up, Norm was reading Mary's bio. Which meant I completely missed the warning.
Let me repeat that. I completely missed Norm's warning.
I hated this story. Hated, hated, hated this story. Not because of the rape and the snuff and what not. Not because of the Grete's naivetivity or the evil evil doctor. I hated this story because the whole system was one big fail. The implications of what Kai's mother was doing. The society where people could get new body parts and not care where they came from, whether they knew it or not. The society where a girl could be so stupid to go chasing after some boy using her mother's credit card and not telling her where she was going and then get in way over her head. For love? Gahhhh...
And then, And then, it got worse, much much worse, so much worse that I missed my exit and drove 15 miles on another expressway out of my way because I was shrieking at the radio at the top of my lungs. And what made it all worse is knowing that this happens on a regular basis. Kids get kidnapped, jailed, sold into slavery, disappear, and if you took out the science fiction elements, this could easily be a non-fiction story here. Heck, look what happened to those women found in Cleaveland. Stuff like this happens all the time, and it's the system's fault, the people's fault, everyone's fault. And I got so angry, so very angry.
So angry I decided to pop the rap playlist back on, and the very first song? NWA's "Fight the Power".
How apropos.
At some point, I'm going to read it again (read, not listen), because as I was writing this post, I learned this was the same structure of The Snow Queen, which is one of my favorite stories. And now I have the same reaction as Gamercow, because holy shit, now that I know what it's based on, I can see the structure, and it is fucking brilliant. The writer part of me is going nuts and wants to dissect it. And I will, once I get some distance from it.
I think I appreciate hiphop a bit more, and I'm going to figure out how to challenge the system, because there are ways to change systems. I'm also going to watch My Little Pony, because I think I need sugar and rainbows right now.
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I just logged on for the first time because I listened to the feedback, didn't remember the story as described, was curious about what seemed like a pretty negative response by the forum, and went back to check it out.
I loved this story.
It was horrifying, yes, and also lushly written and evocative. If it had not been written so well and read so well, it would have been tawdry. But it was written well, and so it was tragic.
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Some of the comments have some excellent points, and I'm sorry if this has already been covered. but I feel the need to vent as well.
Never have I heard such a clumsy story in all the years I have listened to Escape Pod and its affiliates.
The author shows her hand in all its clumsy, hamfisted glory as she railroads her protagonist into one bad decision after another. The author mentions the fact that the protagionist is supposed to be a good hacker, but I find that hard to believe when she consistently ignores the increasing number of red flags that pop up in her search. First she cannot find anything about the school and while we are at it why didn’t the boyfriend send up his own red flag? If you are going to be sent away to a prestigious school you are going to excited about it and want to know all you can yet he doe not find it suspicious that he cannot discover anything.
Second, this is supposed to be a dystopian future where bodysnatching is normalised, yet the protagonist does not become suspicious when she cannot find anything about this supposedly great school doing charity work for the underprivileged?
Third, the protagonist then makes the error of leaving her safety net without letting anyone know, even if it’s just a time delayed message and when she discovers the woman with her boyfriend’s eyes decides to continue walking into the lion’s den with her eyes closed.
Fourth, not once does she use any common sense and and consider that it would be smarter to play to her strengths and attempt to discover the truth online with her amazing hacking skills.
If this was just a touch more pornographic it would be an S&M erotic story.
I like my horror, but the plot had more holes than a Hollywood blockbuster with none of the popcorn entertainment value, very poor, rating Not Applicable.
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The responses to this story don't surprise me, I have the unfortunate happenstance or this to be what I listened to right before lunch, as well trying to do a little skip-over of very rapey stuff, only to realize that the part that was really warned about comes later, I'm gonna bow down to fate on that one, well played.
I really didn't see her actions as being too outlandish, her original conviction that her was just selling off a few parts(Well I have TWO kidneys...) to get money would suggest that part wasn't super risky, and the mention of daily shuttles going back and forth suggests that a trip there wasn't uncommon, though expensive enough to require her moms credit card. Form the authors response, I saw it confirmed, that unlike her home, this second station had body harvesting as a more condoned thing, I dunno about families selling their children, but I don't think that people would find people with harvested parts to be unusual. I suspect that it was n accepted illusion that it all must be done properly. On a side note, I love the idea of piano bars being a big thing in the future!
After the original seduction scene, albeit-creepy seduction you definitely get the idea that hes certainly dead, and for most purposes he is. It seems far more creepy that they keep the bodies alive long term, but I know we already do that short term for heart and lung types of transplants.
I'm torn on whether the rape was necessary, I do see what horror it ads to the situation, thinking more on it, I even see more anger in the "See, this is what you really wanted" response when he shows her the donor corpse, because of the scene we read mostly fakery into his attempt at seduction, but if you understand that as being honest, that, these younger parts were an honest, if terrifying, attempt at being more a looker it changes why did things, without making them any better in any way.
This was a very provocative story, I find it fascinating that this is what came out of a story being called too tame and without reading anything into it I'd be curious to the reason for the original rejection from Pseudopod. I hope the folks that were so put off by this they went running give things a second shot, if this was my first story here I might have been shy about a second, but I also enjoy horror, if something more psychological, than visceral are more to my taste, yanno calling it a taste in horror is creepy in and of itself!
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I thought the story was good while listening to it - disturbing and close to reality, quite horrifying.
The ending felt like something out of classical horror pulps.
All of the discussion here is fascinating, and makes me want to read the story again in written form.
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Wow, I can't believe I stuck with this story until the end. I had this need to know what happened to Kaj and what Grete would do to find him.
The results disturbed me, but I have always been one to realize that these kind of stories should also be told. It kept me transfixed and broke
my heart a little, so I guess it was told well. But I won't be listening to it again any time soon.
Another Note::
I can clearly imagine the Surgeon and Kaj's parents getting theirs.
I blame Network TVs' plentiful supply of Crime series. ;)
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I am as horrified as fascinated with this story. I do not want to discuss the violence, but only the theme. To me, this was a book about power. Kal has no power whatsoever, Grete is in a plain that gives her a little more power, but even her becomes a prey to people who more power. It's about the value of life, and what it means when everything goes. It is, to me, a moral story.
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I'm with Matweller on this. Sure it is graphic, gruesome and painful - but it is a wake up call to those of us who have never been seriously exploited. What does it take to sell a kidney? People do it in India. What does it take to let someone defile your body? Young women do it all the time. I found the situation plausible and the violence was measured for effect.
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Maybe that’s part of why some had such a negative reaction to the story. People generally don’t like to be reminded that there are parts of this world that we live in where horrible violations are common, even permitted. (Especially in a publication which has(/had?) “Have fun” as a motto.)
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Loved it.
Scare me.
Author doesn't have to justify anything to anyone.
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Wow this generated a lot of feedback!
Was this horror? Yes.
Was this SF? Also yes. I see genre as a series of checkboxes, rather than radio buttons: "Select all that apply".
Was this rape-porn? Hell no. For it to be pornography it would have to have the goal of sexual gratification of the listener. Which, I'm with scattercat on this one, was either clearly not the intent or if it was the intent was a complete and total failure (but I really don't think that's a possibility here). None of the scenes are written in a way that suggests arousal as a reaction, unless perhaps for someone who's into some really freaky stuff and then I'd really prefer they keep that to themselves...
For me the intent here was clear, to tell a horrific and tragic story of dying for love. I totally understand why that doesn't work for everybody, and everybody has to draw a line where they draw the line for themselves. A pre-episode warning was totally justified here (and yikes, LaShawn, for having accidentally missed that!).
Was this snuff? I don't see how that label could possibly make sense here. Unless my passing definition of snuff is not what I think it is. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the Wikipedia entry was accurate in that a snuff film is:
A snuff film is a motion picture genre that depicts the actual murder of a person or people, without the aid of special effects, for the express purpose of distribution and entertainment or financial exploitation.
motion picture genre
So, since this is not a film, of course it's not a snuff FILM. But is it a snuff short story?
for the express purpose of distribution and entertainment or financial exploitation
This is surely true. The story has been distributed on an entertainment podcast, and she's been paid at least twice for it.
actual murder of a person or people
Well, did Mary Robinette Kowal actually kill someone and then write a short story about the murder? I'm guessing not, though I don't have sufficient evidence to rule this out for sure, I have not seen any hint that this is the case.
without the aid of special effects
The definition of special effects in prose is, I guess, embellishment or deviation from actual events. For Mary to have written this without embellishment she would've had to observe some actual future where these events were possible. Which I can't totally rule out, but for which there is also no evidence to support.
It's kind of a funny idea to have a snuff short story where someone would go to the legal risk of committing a murder just to write a short story about it without having to embellish. Might make a funny flash story. Maybe I'll try that.
So, if you take away the "special effects" part, and the "actual" part, then you're left with a fictional story in which there is at least one murder for which the author intends to distribute and/or make money. Which much of the Mystery genre is specifically centered around, much of the horror genre, and large subsets of any other genre.
Is there another definition of snuff that I'm unaware of?
And snarkily name-drop to contradict my point?
Sweetie, if you want snark, I can bring it on. That wasn't it. This is, however, the point at which I've crossed from being interested to being pissed. Stop assigning motivations to me.
I'd also add that "name-drop" is much too strong a word. Mary mentioned the people that she worked with on this, and an feedback that led to a change in the story. The latter was information directly relevant to the current state of the story, and the former is the origin of that feedback.
To me at least, name-dropping is the gratuitous use of names to impress others, especially if it's not actually relevant to the discussion at hand. But it was totally relevant here.
Also, hi Mary! And thanks for stopping by. We can be a contentious lot, but I love the discussions here.
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And, as to the story itself:
I think it was done well. Yes it was dark. No, I probably won't listen to it again because it's a very emotionally raw story.
Was she a victim? Well, in the sense that she is doomed at the end to an unpleasant fate, I guess so. But I respect her dedication, her love, and her fortitude, even if there's a possibility that she could've found a way to meet her goal without killing herself in the process. I'm not even convinced that she could've done it any other way. Time was of the essence, she thought she had to act quick before he was lost forever. Hacking takes time, less time than showing up on the doorstep.
I was surprised that the rape was the thing that many people reacted so strongly too. Rape is a topic which I'm not comfortable with in a story or elsewhere, and has to be used very carefully. But being uncomfortable with it doesn't mean it shouldn't be talked about. Rape happens in the real world, and to exclude it from fiction would be to deny its existence. This story is about rape of multiple kinds. The doctor cuts people apart and sells their pieces to people who are bored with their own parts--the loss of control and pain inherent in these acts is rape. Why in the world would the doctor who has not hesitated to do this to random strangers whenever the opportunity arises, draw the line at sexual rape? "I'll happily leave you senseless and suffering for the rest of your unnaturally prolonged life, but when it comes to sex, no means no." For him to do anything but gratify his own urges at the cost of others in every possible way would be out of character for him. I'm not saying that it's wrong to react strongly to the sexual rape when the rest of the story already had the body harvesting aspect, I just don't understand that view at all.
By the time she was halfway through the story I didn't feel that romantic love was driving her, but compassion for a fellow human being. She knew deep down that something had gone horribly wrong and she wanted to spare him that pain however she could. She took on pain of her own in the end, but it takes a noble person who would cause themselves pain to spare another the same. She is well and truly doomed at the end of the story, but her actions were not for nothing. She has done nothing to stop the doc, and maybe she could have stopped him in some way, but in her rush she committed to her goal until there was no possible way out. Even if she killed the doc, there is clearly a huge societal problem here that stopping him would do nothing to solve. The villain is just one cockroach thriving in a world of cockroaches, squashing him makes little difference to society. But she can make a difference to this one person, and she does. To her that matters. To him that matters. That has to be enough. It's like the parable about the person throwing beached starfish into the ocean--she can save one starfish but she can't stop the tide from going out.
I don't think she saw the final line of the story as a surprise. She saw it as inevitable. At that point it really doesn't matter, because she's done all she can do and she has made peace with it.
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Also, if anyone has some desire to read rape-porn, volunteer to read slush for a horror magazine. You will get plenty of it.
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And, as to the story itself:
I think it was done well. Yes it was dark. No, I probably won't listen to it again because it's a very emotionally raw story.
Was she a victim? Well, in the sense that she is doomed at the end to an unpleasant fate, I guess so. But I respect her dedication, her love, and her fortitude, even if there's a possibility that she could've found a way to meet her goal without killing herself in the process. I'm not even convinced that she could've done it any other way. Time was of the essence, she thought she had to act quick before he was lost forever. Hacking takes time, less time than showing up on the doorstep.
I was surprised that the rape was the thing that many people reacted so strongly too. Rape is a topic which I'm not comfortable with in a story or elsewhere, and has to be used very carefully. But being uncomfortable with it doesn't mean it shouldn't be talked about. Rape happens in the real world, and to exclude it from fiction would be to deny its existence. This story is about rape of multiple kinds. The doctor cuts people apart and sells their pieces to people who are bored with their own parts--the loss of control and pain inherent in these acts is rape. Why in the world would the doctor who has not hesitated to do this to random strangers whenever the opportunity arises, draw the line at sexual rape? "I'll happily leave you senseless and suffering for the rest of your unnaturally prolonged life, but when it comes to sex, no means no." For him to do anything but gratify his own urges at the cost of others in every possible way would be out of character for him. I'm not saying that it's wrong to react strongly to the sexual rape when the rest of the story already had the body harvesting aspect, I just don't understand that view at all.
By the time she was halfway through the story I didn't feel that romantic love was driving her, but compassion for a fellow human being. She knew deep down that something had gone horribly wrong and she wanted to spare him that pain however she could. She took on pain of her own in the end, but it takes a noble person who would cause themselves pain to spare another the same. She is well and truly doomed at the end of the story, but her actions were not for nothing. She has done nothing to stop the doc, and maybe she could have stopped him in some way, but in her rush she committed to her goal until there was no possible way out. Even if she killed the doc, there is clearly a huge societal problem here that stopping him would do nothing to solve. The villain is just one cockroach thriving in a world of cockroaches, squashing him makes little difference to society. But she can make a difference to this one person, and she does. To her that matters. To him that matters. That has to be enough. It's like the parable about the person throwing beached starfish into the ocean--she can save one starfish but she can't stop the tide from going out.
I don't think she saw the final line of the story as a surprise. She saw it as inevitable. At that point it really doesn't matter, because she's done all she can do and she has made peace with it.
Well said, that man :)
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Also, hi Mary! And thanks for stopping by. We can be a contentious lot, but I love the discussions here.
Hi! Part of why I like EscapePod is because of the committed audience and the active forum discussions.
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And, as to the story itself:
I think it was done well. Yes it was dark. No, I probably won't listen to it again because it's a very emotionally raw story.
Was she a victim? Well, in the sense that she is doomed at the end to an unpleasant fate, I guess so. But I respect her dedication, her love, and her fortitude, even if there's a possibility that she could've found a way to meet her goal without killing herself in the process. I'm not even convinced that she could've done it any other way. Time was of the essence, she thought she had to act quick before he was lost forever. Hacking takes time, less time than showing up on the doorstep.
I was surprised that the rape was the thing that many people reacted so strongly too. Rape is a topic which I'm not comfortable with in a story or elsewhere, and has to be used very carefully. But being uncomfortable with it doesn't mean it shouldn't be talked about. Rape happens in the real world, and to exclude it from fiction would be to deny its existence. This story is about rape of multiple kinds. The doctor cuts people apart and sells their pieces to people who are bored with their own parts--the loss of control and pain inherent in these acts is rape. Why in the world would the doctor who has not hesitated to do this to random strangers whenever the opportunity arises, draw the line at sexual rape? "I'll happily leave you senseless and suffering for the rest of your unnaturally prolonged life, but when it comes to sex, no means no." For him to do anything but gratify his own urges at the cost of others in every possible way would be out of character for him. I'm not saying that it's wrong to react strongly to the sexual rape when the rest of the story already had the body harvesting aspect, I just don't understand that view at all.
By the time she was halfway through the story I didn't feel that romantic love was driving her, but compassion for a fellow human being. She knew deep down that something had gone horribly wrong and she wanted to spare him that pain however she could. She took on pain of her own in the end, but it takes a noble person who would cause themselves pain to spare another the same. She is well and truly doomed at the end of the story, but her actions were not for nothing. She has done nothing to stop the doc, and maybe she could have stopped him in some way, but in her rush she committed to her goal until there was no possible way out. Even if she killed the doc, there is clearly a huge societal problem here that stopping him would do nothing to solve. The villain is just one cockroach thriving in a world of cockroaches, squashing him makes little difference to society. But she can make a difference to this one person, and she does. To her that matters. To him that matters. That has to be enough. It's like the parable about the person throwing beached starfish into the ocean--she can save one starfish but she can't stop the tide from going out.
I don't think she saw the final line of the story as a surprise. She saw it as inevitable. At that point it really doesn't matter, because she's done all she can do and she has made peace with it.
Thank you. Sometimes I do not have the words and you put them out there the most clearly.
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Long thread here, which wasn't that surprising given the nature of the story. When you write explicitly about sexual abuse, you should be prepared for strong reactions. But I like an author who is ready to take risks, and this was exactly that. I will not say it was entirely successful, in fact, perhaps the most disturbing part might be that I just listened to this story and it didn't really mark me. It did remind me of Breaking The Waves, the Lars von Trier movie, which also hammers in the theme of sacrifice, although I don't think it was as well handled here as in that movie. There was no attempt to build up psychologically believable characters, perhaps explained by it being a re-telling of a children's fairytale, but in the end that removed a lot of impact for me.