Escape Artists
Escape Pod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: eytanz on April 05, 2014, 07:40:33 AM
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EP442: Eater of Bone (http://escapepod.org/2014/04/05/ep442a-eater-bone/)
by Robert Reed (http://www.robertreedwriter.com/)
read by Mat Weller (http://matweller.com/)
This story has been previously published as a self titled novel.
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With cured gut and twitch-cord, the Nots had constructed their trap—a marriage of old cleverness and deep rage designed to catch dreaded, unworldly monsters such as her. But the device had lain undisturbed since summer, and the winter rains had washed away some of the leaf litter and clay that served as its camouflage. Knowing what to expect, the young woman easily spotted the taut lines and anchor points, and experience told her where a single soft footfall would trigger the mechanism, causing the ground to fall away. An extraordinarily deep hole had been dug into the hillside. One misstep, and she would plunge into blackness, every kick and helpless flail bringing down the loose dirt that would suffocate and then temporarily kill. She had seen this design before. The Nots were masters when it came to doing the same ancient tricks again and again. Only once in her experience had this type of mechanism worked as designed, but the vivid memory of that exceptionally miserable night was enough to make the woman step backwards—a reflexive, foolish reaction, since traps occasionally came in pairs, and one careless motion could be more dangerous than twenty smart, studied footfalls.
But her bare foot fortunately hit only damp dirt, and she felt nothing worse than a jikk-incisor gouging her exposed Achilles.
She knelt slowly and pulled the thorn free, placing a thumb across the wound to force the first drop of blood to remain inside her body. Her skin grew warm beneath her touch, and then there was no wound. Sucking on her thumb, she tasted iron and salt and a dozen flavors of grime, and after some consideration, she carefully, carefully traced out a wide ellipse that eventually placed the trap upwind from her.
Riding the breeze was the aroma of a mature piss fungus. Saliva instantly filled her mouth. Her present hunger had been building for days. She couldn’t resist taking a quick step forward while sucking down the scent, wild eyes searching the forest floor until she saw the trap’s bait tucked behind a stand of spent silver yddybddy.
Her bare foot struck nothing but dirt; another youthful impulse went unpunished.
(http://escapepod.org/wp-images/podcast-mini4.gif) Listen to part 1 (http://traffic.libsyn.com/escapepod/EP442_EaterofBone.mp3)
(http://escapepod.org/wp-images/podcast-mini4.gif) Listen to part 2 (http://traffic.libsyn.com/escapepod/442_EP442b__Eater_of_Bone.mp3)
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In case anyone is wondering, I plan on using the same thread for both parts of the story.
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So, are we all waiting for the first review to decide whether to invest in the whole 2 hours?
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The episode I downloaded is called "EP442a: Eater of Bone" and it's 2:02:34 in length. Does this mean there is a part b that is forthcoming? Or is this the entire thing? I'm just curious. I will listen to both parts together if there is a part 2.
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There will be a second part released this week. In total, it's a novella that weighs in at just under 4 hours.
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So, are we all waiting for the first review to decide whether to invest in the whole 2 hours?
I'm ~1 hour in and it is quite engaging. I certainly plan to listen to the whole thing. If you are wondering whether it is worth starting, I say definitely yes.
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So, are we all waiting for the first review to decide whether to invest in the whole 2 hours?
I'm ~1 hour in and it is quite engaging. I certainly plan to listen to the whole thing. If you are wondering whether it is worth starting, I say definitely yes.
That helps, thanks. It's a biggish chunk of time to find a space for :)
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I have listened to the two hour "a" episode. Definitely worth listening to. I'm not sure where it's going to go, though.
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I thought the first half-hour or so was quite interesting, but rapidly started losing interest after that, especially when Mercer started ponderously pondering exposition/backstory that I'd already assumed to my satisfaction. I sure hope Part 2 justifies the investment of all this time. So far I can't see why this is better than having two different, smaller short stories.
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Different strokes. I like the reveal of how it happened better than the unexplained "now."
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So far, so good. I'm enjoying the flow of this story; it is at a completely different place here in the middle than where it began, but the narrative has been constant. We have been led to Mercer through Dream's misadventure, and the narrative seamlessly changes focus without leaving us in a lurch. It's especially impressive when you notice that there are no chapter breaks. That could be cumbersome, but here it feels organic. I can't wait to see what happens next!
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After listening to part 1, I was just amazed with wonder, and then I said, "There's More?!!".
I see that part 2 is posted now, and I will be listening when I have time, but I have to say this:
I love infodumps.
When I read or listen to a story, I want to get into the story, to be there. Infodumps help me do that. Orson Scott Card, in his book on writing fantasy and science fiction, says to never have a prologue. Since some of my favorite books are the Belgariad and Malloreon series by David (and Leigh) Eddings, which have a prologue for each book, I have to disagree. A prologue helps me get into the feeling of the world, especially in those books where they tell a legend. which figures into the backstory of all of those people who know the story, but don't talk about it much. For another example: Years ago, when my wife and I first read The Eye Of The World by Robert Jordan, I was excited and looking forward to the sequel, while my wife was never that into it. The difference was that I read the glossary first, so I had an idea of how the world worked. If I had read the book while having to guess how the world works by inferences, I wouldn't have enjoyed it either. (Incidentally, my wife did eventually get into that series.)
I know the popular thing to do is to plop the reader in the middle of the sea with no map and no lifeboat, and make them figure it out, but I don't enjoy that. If this story had ended with Dream being thrown onto the beach, it would have resembled many such stories that I just don't get into, and have no desire to try to relisten to. If I can't get into the story during the story, then it has failed to entertain me. This story became enjoyable about the time the man found her and I began to understand some stuff.
Anyway, I'm definitely looking forward to part 2.
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I ended up getting impatient at the pace of the reading and just read the text on the site instead of listening, because I read faster than Mat Weller can narrate, and I didn't have four hours to kill. :) Not to say Mat's narration isn't top-notch, as usual, of course. I just . . . 4+ hours is a big commitment when I could read the entire thing in half that time.
I enjoyed it after a rough start where I couldn't figure out what species the main character was, what a Not was, and why other humans were after "Dream." After that, though, it sucked me in and didn't let me go until the bitter end.
I was struck by the thought that, for all intents and purposes, Mercer really WAS a god: he directed the development of the Nots and affected the entire future of their species.
One frustrating thing: I was going to buy the book on Kindle so I'd have it . . . only to find out that it's not available on Kindle? What? I urge Mr. Reed to get right on that. :)
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Ah, an Escape Pod special I liked! I have fond memories of Reed from my time subscribed to F&SF. "Five Thrillers" is probably my favorite from that time, in part due to its epic scope. Little did I know how epic Reed could get.
Delightful setting and worldbuilding aside, I thought this story a mixed bag. The massive chunks of backstory could start to drone despite my interest in the overall picture being painted. I had to rewind a few times to due to my mind starting to wander. The style of narrative also required constant attention or things could be missed. There was at least one spot with odd shifting tenses that I had to listen to three times to make sure I'd heard it correctly.
After three-plus hours, I was a little disappointed with how it ended for the viewpoint characters, but I really liked what came after--let's make the scope even more epic. All in all, an enjoyable listen and a perfect fit for my morning work, even if it did back up the rest of my carefully scheduled podcasts a bit.
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Wow. I really, really liked this one. I wasn't at all put off by the length -- maybe because I had a ton of yard work to do, and this helped pass the time -- or maybe because I like longer stories? I don't know. The Drabblecast's Boojum stories (by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette) are some of my favorite pieces on that show. Or maybe I like Reed? I remembered hearing the story that Norm mentioned and quite liking it.
I rather do prefer to be dropped into a story with no explanation, and I was glad the infodump didn't happen until later in the piece. I kind of spaced out (he) while the dump was going on anyway, so all I really got was wandering colonizers, metal-poor planetoid/moon, Lord of the Flies.
The number of times Dream is referred to as "tiny" or "small" or "girl" struck me, especially since Mercer was also repeatedly called "huge" or "giant" or the like; I wonder if the author was suggesting that the lack of essential minerals had led to a kind of island dwarfism (eat your vitamins, kids!)
The only thing I didn't really take to was the male/female, teacher/student dynamic. Wouldn't it have been interesting to have a young man sit at the feet of the wise old woman! Course then you couldn't have the youngster get pregnant, but still.
Anyway, from my perspective, this was a refreshing change for the better for Escape Pod. Keep up the good work!
(Oh, my comment can't end without a huge round of applause for Mat Weller, one of my absolute favorite narrators.)
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They did explain the size thing. Their bodies cannibalize themselves for building blocks if they, say, lose an arm and need to regrow it. Aside from general lack of nutrition and limited food supply, their bodies can actually shrink to repair themselves.
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They did explain the size thing. Their bodies cannibalize themselves for building blocks if they, say, lose an arm and need to regrow it. Aside from general lack of nutrition and limited food supply, their bodies can actually shrink to repair themselves.
Yes, excellent point. With his evaporative salt processing lagoon and more plentiful food, Mercer certainly enjoyed better nutrition, thus saving the need to regrow using internal resources.
Speaking of which, by the way, do the nanobots reproduce in the womb?
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This one was good - I listened over three sessions and so I may have missed some exposition.
While listening, I thought they were called "Knots". The story started with the ingenuity of the Nots, and ended with their dominance over the fickle "gods". I enjoyed contemplating the parallels between the mothers and the Nots, who had very few resources and opportunities. Mercer getting his comeuppance after his condescending attitude when it came to the Nots was bittersweet - but his extra resources enabled him to have more compassion.
I missed some of the dynamics of the human vs. human stuff. Were they hunting each other for resources, or sport? The fact that Mercer had such a stockpile of goods (which he stole away in the dark of night from his friends) made me want to learn more about that story. How many of the people who came back to the island were his children?
Perhaps I should go back and read the text here.
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First, props to Matt. I can't imagine reading a story that long and keeping up the energy and pace he did. How long does something like that take? My voice gets tired if my kids wants two long bedtime stories.
Speaking of parenting, among the many metaphors and images in the story, I was struck by the idea of Mercer as parent. And "his" Nots as kids. He was protecting them; he was teaching them to obey; he loved them. But he could not let them go. In the end, however, they needed to be free. He could not protect them from the world forever. And it turns out that they didn't need his protection after all.
I also really liked the idea that the Nots had billions of years of patience on their side. The humans had nanotechnology that would allow them to survive for tens of thousands of years. But, in the face of the lifetime of a planet, that's still not enough. Eventually, even a "god" like Mercer will die.* Eventually, all the humans will die. And, in Not lore, the reign of the monsters will end up being a 200,000 year blip in their history.
*Or have your indestructible brain put on a shelf in a dark basement until the heat death of the universe. Which seems enough like death to count as such.
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I have very mixed feelings about this story. First, technically, it was very well done. But, the genre - where mankind has lost technology and has fallen - isn't my favourite. I struggled through the first half of the story. The second half was better, but still wasn't one of my favourites. Still, it was a solid piece, and while I wasn't thrilled by it, it was still good enough that I wasn't tempted to skip it.
I did enjoy the ending. I was expecting it to be a more typical 'everything works out', and that Dream would manage to save Mercer, or that she would get his brain and it would end with her starting to regrow him -- essentially becoming his mother as well as bearing his child. The fact that he fell, and that she ran off, and that he inadvertently started a renaissance for the Nott culture a surprising twist.
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First, props to Matt. I can't imagine reading a story that long and keeping up the energy and pace he did. How long does something like that take? My voice gets tired if my kids wants two long bedtime stories.
Thanks! It was 5-6 hours all told (for the reading; producing the show is its own thing). I really mowed through the first half of the second episode, but the rest was pretty much paragraph by paragraph. It was good practice since I plan to start auditioning for more audio books.
I get tired on the second bedtime story too, but part of that is because I lay down on my daughter's bed to do it, and that's asking for trouble. I fall asleep if I sit still too long. Once I'm horizontal, it's "when," not "if." More than once (this week) I've awoken to the little hand shaking me and her demanding "Daddy, get out!" She doesn't appreciate the soothing rhythm of a deafening snore. Kids...
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The fact that Mercer had such a stockpile of goods (which he stole away in the dark of night from his friends)
I thought his stockpile came from both killing 300 humans and painstaking manufacturing, with very little being left over from when he fled the colony.
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Wow, what a tour de force! Voices, pacing intensity... Mat, I'm seriously impressed. :)
I had a hard time figuring out the relationships between the Nots and the humans and the monsters, even right up until the end. I take it that the humans and the monsters were the same thing, just depending on your point of view? Other than that, I thought the setting and the "biology" of the post-humans was very cool and well-explained.
I thought both Dream and Mercer's though processes and philosophies were understandable from their point of view, and it was fun to see them play off of each other. Both were seemingly so knowledgeable about their world, and yet so ignorant in the other's eyes.
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One of the things I hate about a story is when it leaves me thinking "huh... that doesn't make sense". But one of the things I love is when two paragraphs later my question is not only answered but blasted with detail and background. That happened a few times over these 4 hours and was very satisfying. For example, early on we learn that Dream, not yet named, has a metabolism dependent on exotic elements, but then it's also revealed that there these are exceedingly rare on this world. It looked like an oversight (which I hate) but then it's not only explained but becomes an essential thread through the story for example with Mercer building salt flats to capture rare elements, etc. Another moment was the announcement of the indestructible brains, with a short but significant delay before in depth discussion of that as well.
Overall this was a great story and I would like to see a few more long ones appear once in a while. Nice to have something to sink your teeth into and leave you waiting for the next day's commute or whatever to drop back into that world.
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I take it that the humans and the monsters were the same thing, just depending on your point of view?
That's how I read it.
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Wow. Awesome stuff. My inner Physicist geeked out over the area of space with lack of second generation stars, and hence, lack of heavier elements. But that was overshadowed by the realization I had at the end.
OK, I sort of ignored that Dream referred to their race as "Monsters", eventually accepting it when I realized that Mercer really is like Godzilla to his little population of Notts. And that this situation is likely ocurring in multiple places around this world. But then I realized that Monsters is what they are, in the sense that they have no future. That is, no Civilization. Humanity has become so over-engineered that there is no reason for anyone to form communities for mutual protection. Dream commented on the group of 29 that came to kill Mercer that they couldn't hold together for very long at that size.
So the humans have become like dragons. Frighteningly intelligent, deadly to fight, desperately hard to kill, but solitary and hermitish.
The Notts, because of their forming of communities, and particularly this one group's ability to research, will eventually inherit the world and wipe out all the monsters. It's inevitable, if a long time coming. Humans were doomed from the time their community fell apart. They will never form another permanent community, only temporary alliances for short term goals.
I love this story.
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This must be one of my favourite stories!!! This is why I keep coming back to escapepod.
The story itself, but also how it was read. Matt Weller is amazing. So is Robert Reed.
What made the story so amazing to me, were the large number of wtf moments and twists: in plot, character and even genre, I would say.
And while I loved it, I must say, that the end left me a bit uneasy (sad?) but then, I think this ending is far less 'scary', as the other option where Mercer would have survived, just to keep on living forever (which to me would have felt like an existencialist type of hell)...
Btw
a couple of times I had to think of Pandemonium (another menkind conlonialises planet gone wrong scenario)
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I'm currently an hour into the story. Two thoughts.
1) The story is engaging my interest so far. The characters are well presented, the setup is intriguing, the world building is achieved masterfully. I am definitely looking forward to listening to the remaining three hours of it. That said:
2) This story is WAY too long for Escape Pod, at least as I have come to know and love it. We've had a series of long (1+ hours) stories in the last few months (episodes 419, 429, 432, 437 and now 442), and while I have enjoyed them all they do throw out my listening routine. A piece that length isn't suitable for a morning's commute or evening car trip, but demands a serious amount to time to be set aside in order to do it justice. This isn't so much a quick jaunt in the escape pod, but rather a fully fledged adventure holiday. Fine if you have the time for it, but not something that can be easily fit into the day. YMMV of course.
Will have more to say when I've listened to the rest.
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My reaction to this was pretty typical of my reaction to most Robert Reed stories. Wow, neat idea, but his writing style seems to distance me no matter what.
Besides being very very long, I didn't think that the pacing was done well at all. At the beginning there was some fast paced action with her running away from her hunters, though she had few enough options that it didn't serve to bring me closer to her--she was just operating on survival instinct at that point. Then she got creamed... spent a long time getting eaten by fishes... then getting eaten by larger fishes... then pulled out of the water and given a slow recovery... I thought the part in the water got absurdly long, and besides that also served to add a ton of distance because whose POV are we seeing from? I'm yet to find an omniscient POV that I didn't find distancing.
Then as they were learning to coexist with each other, their characters finally come out to really show themselves, but at the same time I found that part very lacking in tension. She might run away or she might not, but she's prepping for it and he seems oblivious but is really just accepting. There's not really any tension there.
The tension comes back when she realizes she's pregnant and has to decide whether to walk across the sea to the mainland again. So there's tension there, but simultaneously I have trouble holding my empathy for her when she decides she's going to the mainland. Her line of reasoning was explained like this as far as I can tell: "Sure, if I stay here my baby will grow up, we can be comfortable if not always free. There will be more children and more children until we can't populate this island anymore and then someone is going to have to go to the mainland and that would be terrible."
Okay, sure, that might happen. But if you go to the mainland you KNOW that you're going to be resource starved and you may not even be able to carry the baby to term. If you do, he's going to have to be fending for himself at a very young age one way or the other, and odds are very high that even if he is born you'll end up as two ceramic brains buried in the dirt or in the ocean.
Don't count your babies before they're born kind of thing.
The decision made so little sense to me that I just found I couldn't follow it at all. I never really gained my empathy for her after that point.
Lots of great worldbuilding, not so great pacing, not so great at maintaining my empathy.
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Was I the only one, as Mercer was talking about all of his previous lovers who "went away" who was expecting it to turn into a posthuman Bluebeard tale, with the ceramic brains of his six wives in the forbidden room?
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I decided to read this instead of listening to the podcast* and, from what I can see, this was a good decision. It meant I could spend more time with the how and why of it than the what; to go back a little and recap; to develop a feel for the way it developed instead of just needing a payoff. So I think I did feel for the characters: Dream's choice of risky freedom over a kind of benign captivity that might, in fact, not be so benign; and Mercer's conflicted need for company and absolute control. He was a logical god but not a compassionate one so he controlled the Nots too instead of helping them to develop, and if I missed anything, it was a bit more exploration of these creatures whose own world was so bizarrely para-human.
*No reflection on the podcastering, it's just I'm likely to nod off during a lengthy stint - you don't tell kids stories at bedtime for nothing!
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Interesting story, in that the term "monster human" was literally true- the humans on the planet were monsters, and it just took a while for me to realize that because we were seeing them from the monster's point of view.
Some random thoughts:
The story works just as well if you change the humans to "ogres", and make the Nots humans: imagine if in sometime in our stone-age past a race of huge, powerful, nearly unkillable beings descended on humanity, killing humans and each other at whim. The only advantage is that the number one enemy of the monsters is each other; they cannot form into groups. One of them even terrorizes an isolated island, forcing the natives to grow food and harvest minerals that he needs.
It's ironic that Mercer actually solves the problem that keeps the humans from forming a civilization, but the inherent selfishness and solitary nature of the monster humans keeps him from actually doing anything with it.
Anthropologically speaking, it's weird that even in a severely nutrient depleted environment, one requiring a nomadic existence, that the human monsters don't at least manage to band together in small groups. Even nomadic hunter-gatherer groups in deserts manage to do that- 2 person groups should be common, not vanishingly rare. It implies that something about the cyborgization/genetic alteration process really affected the ability to feel empathy and work together.
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I really enjoyed this story. I thought it was well written and displayed some masterful world-building. I felt completely engrossed in this strange foreign planet and look forward to hearing more about it.
One question still bothers me: What happened to Dreams Mother's brain? Maybe I'm just crazy for fixating on something like this, but once we learned that nothing short of a nuclear blast can destroy a human brain I couldn't help but wonder what dream had done with the brain of her mother. Had she just left it in the woods? Was she carrying it around in her backpack? Couldn't Dream have just "regrown" her Mother?
Really cool story!
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I really enjoyed this story. I thought it was well written and displayed some masterful world-building. I felt completely engrossed in this strange foreign planet and look forward to hearing more about it.
One question still bothers me: What happened to Dreams Mother's brain? Maybe I'm just crazy for fixating on something like this, but once we learned that nothing short of a nuclear blast can destroy a human brain I couldn't help but wonder what dream had done with the brain of her mother. Had she just left it in the woods? Was she carrying it around in her backpack? Couldn't Dream have just "regrown" her Mother?
Really cool story!
“Quiet,” she begged. But the phantom refused to obey. Quietly but with force, it reminded the grown daughter, “I promised you one treasure for your day.” She realized that she was weeping, and she had been weeping for a long while now. “What was the treasure, daughter?” “No.” “I was dying—“ “You weren’t dead yet,” she muttered, probably too loudly. “I was lost,” the phantom said. Starvation on top of endless malnutrition had shriveled her mother’s badly depleted body. The woman had insisted that her child eat everything available, which was very little, and that final deprivation meant that even cuts that should have healed in moments refused to knit. Organs, named and otherwise, were plunging into hibernation. Old wounds were resurfacing, and each labored breath could have been the last. “You did what you had to do, daughter.” The strength drained from her legs. Slowly, she dropped to the ground and wrapped her arms across her bare knees, sobbing peacefully. “I was lost—!” “I could have buried your body,” she interrupted. “Hidden you and come back again, with food. With nutrients.” “That wouldn’t have happened,” the phantom replied. “In my pack,” she said, looking south toward the sea. “I have enough treasures to make you over again. Bring you to life and back with me—“ “Your child needs those gifts, darling.” “I didn’t have to,” the young woman muttered, mouth against one knee, the salty taste of her own flesh making her guilt even worse. “Your bones…they were just a few little sticks at the end…” “Mine became yours,” the phantom assured her. But that sorry truth just made her sicker, and sadder, and she pulled the palms of her hands across her wet eyes and choked back a deep sob and let little gasps leak out while the phantom said, “Sticks, yes. Spent, yes. But still with little nodules of minerals that you needed worse than any dead lost soul would need them…and that was the beautiful heart of your day, daughter…regardless what you pretend to think…” Another ollo-lol spoke in the darkness. She looked up, looked around. What would she do now? “Run,” the dead mother advised one last time. Then the young woman rose to her feet again, finding the strength to retrieve her rifle from the hiding place. What she would do next wasn’t decided. She didn’t know her mind yet, and it might have taken another thousand breaths before she finally gave up the wait. But then came the sudden thunder of bombs exploding to the east and south, and she turned in time to see a flash rising from where the barricade divided the island into its two halves, both His. - See more at: http://escapepod.org/2014/04/05/ep442a-eater-bone/#sthash.LPrAaXxB.dpuf (http://escapepod.org/2014/04/05/ep442a-eater-bone/#sthash.LPrAaXxB.dpuf)
Since it mentions early on that the bodies get smaller as they get depleted, there was too little left of the mother to regenerate her at the time and she told Dream to completely consume her rather than allowing her to be an ongoing burden.
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Ate her body, yes, but not her brain. Because it said explicitly that the only thing in that solar system that can destroy one of the human brains is the sun itself.
Theoretically, if she had the brain, maybe she could coax it into reforming flesh if she showered it with all the nutrients required in the right fashion. Or maybe once just the brain is left there's no way to recover the rest of the body.
I think she probably buried the brain somewhere, deciding that it wasn't worth the weight of carrying it.
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I'm pretty sure she buried her mother anywhere she could be found again. Didn't she debate taking the nutrient packets and using them to resurrect her mother, as opposed to using them on her child?
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This one gave me nightmares, but in a good way. The climax was so brutal with Mercer's death of a million hacks after I had grown to like the character. Part of me was wondering why the humans don't just grow gills and hang around to volcanic vents in the ocean. Even if the metals were fairly rare on the surface they should be concentrated down there. All in all this was a no happy endings story. The Nots are doomed to a life of slowly dwindling sunlight with the occasional destruction of their cities by rampaging Humans. The humans on the other hand are doomed to slow death by starvation and eventual death as a race. The humans come out a bit better because there is always the chance the sun will blow up and their indestructible brains will be blasted into the path of a more metal rich system....after billions and billions of years of course.
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I liked all of the world-building here. The story seemed at once like Dune, with a well-thought out grand ecology. Robert Reed obviously knows something of geology, and it shows, and really helps the story along, especially when it comes to explaining why humans are so scarce in number. Yet the scale of the story was completely the opposite of Dune; not an epic spanning entire galaxies and molding the future of humanity, just a battle between a group of humans on an island.
It was also interesting seeing the Nots come into their own at the end of the story, too. All thru the story, the listener was conditioned to think of them as the characters did; of limited intelligence and having very low reasoning levels. At the end of the story, the rug was pulled away, and we get to see the Nots working with true patience, seizing their chance to overcome a god after tens of thousands of years of oppression, and once in control of his castle, working very methodically to capture its secrets, rather than simply running in and destroying everything they could.
I have a feeling the Nots are going to be left alone on the island for a very long time by humans after the battle took place. And after the island's Nots start to figure out how technology works, the future of humanity on this world may not look as bright.
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I wonder why they were called Nots.
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In one commute I made it to the end of Chapter 1. The distancing techniques made it really tough for me to get into. It's hard to empathize with someone who has no name, and we won't find that out until Chapter 4. I applaud the effort to put this story together, and I appreciate the metaphorical dragon story this could become. However, I couldn't bring myself to commit another 3.5 hours to something that I hadn't connected with.
Next time! :)
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Well, I finally got around to listening to this, and it was worth my time.
A good story, told well. Excellent job, Mat.
As for the mother's brain discussion: at the end there it was mentioned that the Nots were thinking about maybe one day reviving a human brain, so maybe it is possible.
I have to say that throughout the entire story I debated whether they were called "Naughts" or "Nots" or "Knots". All of those options made sense at least at one point in the story, and I still prefer Naughts over Nots. There is a subtle difference in meaning, one that I can't really put my finger on, but it seems more apt in my mind.
Also, Eytanz, you mentioned that you didn't understand Dream's decision to return to the mainland (I'm too lazy to find the quote). The way I understood it, there was no actual rationalization involved. As you so succinctly put it, she is a creature of instinct. Instinct and habit rule her world. She completely disregards any information, however interesting, as not important if it was not relevant to her. She is the ultimate pragmatist. She feels strange and out of place actually thinking and planning and having ideas, she says as much to Mercer.
So why did she go back to the mainland? Because she is a creature of instinct and habit. She could never truly be herself on the island. The small area argument was a rationalization, and a weak one. She has to go back to the mainland, otherwise she will die. Her body might live, but not her spirit, not what makes her "her".
On some level, Mercer was exactly the same way. He couldn't change his ways if he wanted to. The only difference is that he was aware of his personality freezing. He denies its affect on him, but he is aware of it.
That raises an interesting question: how mutable is an indestructible brain? Clearly they are capable of forming some new connections, otherwise they couldn't learn anything. But it must be difficult. In our universe it is hard enough for us to change our habits. Imagine how hard it would be if you had spent thousands of years developing those habits, on top of the fact that your brain finds it very difficult to change its wiring, to form new connections.
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Also, Eytanz, you mentioned that you didn't understand Dream's decision to return to the mainland (I'm too lazy to find the quote).
Wasn't me.
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Also, Eytanz, you mentioned that you didn't understand Dream's decision to return to the mainland (I'm too lazy to find the quote).
Wasn't me.
My bad, it was Unblinking. And here's the quote I was too lazy to go find.
The tension comes back when she realizes she's pregnant and has to decide whether to walk across the sea to the mainland again. So there's tension there, but simultaneously I have trouble holding my empathy for her when she decides she's going to the mainland. Her line of reasoning was explained like this as far as I can tell: "Sure, if I stay here my baby will grow up, we can be comfortable if not always free. There will be more children and more children until we can't populate this island anymore and then someone is going to have to go to the mainland and that would be terrible."
Okay, sure, that might happen. But if you go to the mainland you KNOW that you're going to be resource starved and you may not even be able to carry the baby to term. If you do, he's going to have to be fending for himself at a very young age one way or the other, and odds are very high that even if he is born you'll end up as two ceramic brains buried in the dirt or in the ocean.
Don't count your babies before they're born kind of thing.
The decision made so little sense to me that I just found I couldn't follow it at all. I never really gained my empathy for her after that point.
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I liked it. Well written, well read, the pace varied, but in a good way, and the world felt like just that, a world rather than just an idea. And the characters, while vaguely stereotypical, were believable enough to be worth investing in. For the length, I think it's fine to mix it up with longer stories, as long as it's not the norm. I don't have a special slot where it needs to fit in, and I often split stories into several listening sessions anyway.
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I absolutely loved the reading of this story."Eater of bone" said in a harsh whisper is still an earworm I get occasionally, even a few months after first hearing it.
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You made my day. :)
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One of my favourite EA stories ever. MOAR Robert Reed please.
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I absolutely loved the reading of this story."Eater of bone" said in a harsh whisper is still an earworm I get occasionally, even a few months after first hearing it.
I agree, and I still think about this story from time to time. I was surprised how much I cared about the characters. I almost think it should be a movie, and the sing at the end credits would be "A thousand years" by Christina Perri. Though, it would match better if the lyrics said "ten thousand years." :)