Author Topic: PC Giant: The Curandero And The Swede: A Tale From The 1001 American Nights  (Read 32255 times)

Heradel

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PodCastle Giant: The Curandero And The Swede: A Tale From The 1001 American Nights

by Daniel Abraham.
Read by Kip Manley.
Read by Dave Thompson

“He’d been down here about six years when I knew him. Had a girl he was seeing name of Corine. She was pretty. Had this line of dark little moles, just like pinpricks, all along her jaw. Made me think of the sort of bangles they put on women’s veils out in Baghdad. She’d come by the shop sometimes, and we’d have to make him stop working until she went away for fear he’d get distracted and lose a finger.

“He’d been seeing her for maybe six months when Martin Luther King got killed. That was before you were born, so I don’t expect you’d understand it. And, honest to God, I’d never say this outside the family, but the Blacks have got a whole different contry they live in. Even someone like the Swede who worked with us and drank beer with us and all? Now I was sorry to hear about it when King died, and I’m not ashamed to say it. But it wasn’t that much to me. For the Blacks, though. . .”

Dab shook his head.

“It was different for them. What with everything else that was going on back then, King’s getting shot was like Kennedy in Dallas and the planes in New York all wrapped up in one…

Rated R. for language and difficult situations.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2011, 05:10:37 PM by DKT »

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stePH

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Isn't this PodCastle #75?

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Heradel

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Isn't this PodCastle #75?

The Giants have their own numbering system, and this is the fifth Giant. I cut the number because it was that or truncate the title, which I try to avoid.

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stePH

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Okay, then it's #74b by my numbering system, where I keep the episodes in release order.

I should have just looked back at my saved episodes ... but I'd also mistakenly numbered "Carnival Park" as #39 when it should be #74a, so I almost labeled this one as #40.

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Heradel

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Okay, then it's #74b by my numbering system, where I keep the episodes in release order.

I should have just looked back at my saved episodes ... but I'd also mistakenly numbered "Carnival Park" as #39 when it should be #74a, so I almost labeled this one as #40.

You could just date them (eg, PC 102109 TheCuranderoAndTheSwede).

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jalsk

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Is it just me or was the narration on this podcast recorded using the built-in mic on a macbook pro? I can hear the fan in the background really well. It is a bit annoying.



MacArthurBug

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I'm going to have to try and listen to this on my "big" speakers. The sound quality of the recording is truly disgusting. Can't tell if I like the story. I promise to chime in later- after I've found something I can tolerate listening to it on.

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pfischer

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I wanted to really get into this story, but the audio quality was so poor it hurt to listen to it. I had to bail. If the editors are listening, please please please make sure your readers supply you with an audio sample before you choose them for a story. I couldn't even give the story a chance. I feel bad because I know how much effort the reader must have put in to make this available for us. But if I'm fatigued by listening, I just have to dump it and wait for the next one.



MacArthurBug

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found something I could handle listening on. This story was wasted on bad equipment and a half hearted reading. The content- the stories tangled within the story- was astounding. The point it drove home was wonderous. I have no personal problems with whomever was the reader this week- but better audio quality coupled with a more impassioned reading would be GREATLY appriciated in the future. Especially with a story of this quality!

Oh, great and mighty Alasdair, Orator Maleficent, He of the Silvered Tongue, guide this humble fangirl past jumping up and down and squeeing upon hearing the greatness of Thy voice.
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Ocicat

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I tried listening in the car, but coudln't.  I'll try again at home, when I have time.  The 10 minutes of actual story I heard were quite promising, and for what it's worth I thought the reading was pretty good - as far as I could tell.  But I kept missing words under the background hiss.  Just really bad.



Gia

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I didn't like the reading either. It was a hair too fast and there wasn't enough enunciation.

In Arabian Nights there were always stories within stories. I liked that and it made me happy to see that included in this story. Unfortunately, I would lose my place a lot and that made it hard for me to get the overall point.



stePH

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God's balls this is some atrocious audio.  Even lying in bed with my wife asleep beside me, I had trouble listening.  The background hiss/hum is louder than the reader's voice. 

I tried to listen to more of it in the car on the way to work this morning ... not happening.

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ridiculouslee

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The audio quality made this story totally unlistenable for me and I stopped listening after 10 minutes and 33 seconds, which is really sad because the reader sounds so good and the story it's self sounds really interesting. I can just barely make out the readers voice over the white noise in the background. I'm really surprised at how bad the quality was because all of the Escape Artist recordings are usually high quality.



stePH

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Oh, and I keep forgetting to check out Kip Manley's work, since I live in the actual "City of Roses".  I remember that being mentioned in a past PC episode and I meant to look into it.  I liked Megan Lindholm's Wizard of the Pigeons being set in Seattle, too (my other Home City).

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yellowhat

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The audio quality really was awful, but I could really see what kind of person the Uncle is from the style of the reading.  Hasn't anyone else had a long-winded uncle who takes forever to get to the point of a story?

The content was just amazing.  There should be a story for important people.  One thing doesn't ever just lead to another.

I loved it and I can't wait to hear the other 1000 stories from 1001 American Nights.



stePH

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Argh, no Kip Manley in my local library.  :(

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internalogic

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No offense to anybody but I have real trouble relating to the negative comments.

This story was so amazing.  This is a really excellent, excellent story.  And actually once you get past the sound quality, the narration was truly kick-ass.  It didn't even seem like a narration.  It just seemed like you were listening to Dab tell the story.  It was so damned excellent.  I was truly moved by this.

I always hear comments on the podcasts about people being moved to tears by a particular story, and it never really happens for me.  But this one...this one did it.  I actually got the intuition that I was becoming a slightly better person by listening to this.  As though the story channeled some of the healing energy of the queer and the curandero.  

I didn't consider Dab longwinded at all.  oHe was a man who appreciated the power of story, the power of 'significance'.  The investing of life with significance.  He's realized that as far as he's concerned there really is no other point.  And so he wraps himself, his family, and his whole life in the power of significance.  He has realized that it has a healing power.  

The true story has no beginning and no end, because every new moment is getting woven into it.  Dab knows this.  That's why he talks the way he does.  He's not long-winded.  Look how he talks when the women come over to the porch.  Barely says 3 words.  But he sees the spiritual condition of his nephew and he knows that the healing of the story is needed for this kid or he's going to be in a lot of trouble.

The magic in this story is not only in the actions of the curandero and the queer.  The true magic that happens is what Dab does to the nephew.  He's initiating him.  And by listening to it, we are initiated as well.  

Thank you so much, Daniel Abraham!



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No offense to anybody but I have real trouble relating to the negative comments.

This story was so amazing.  This is a really excellent, excellent story.  And actually once you get past the sound quality, the narration was truly kick-ass.

I don't think anybody has actually had negative comments about the story, and mostly, not the narration either.  The negative comments have been about the sound quality.

I agree with you that the story was amazing.  It was quite bold and a different style of writing than most comtemporary fantasy (at least than I am aware of).  Quite a difference from "The Cambist and Lord Iron" (which I loved).  Daniel Abraham continues to impress me.  I may have to read his Long Price Quartet books.

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DKT

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We appreciate everyone's chiming in about the sound quality. Sorry about that. For the record, it wasn't all Kip's fault. We were having some issues gaining access to the files for a while, so I apologize for that.

That said, I love this story - stories about stories always seem to remind me a bit of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman but this one really floored me. It did make me feel like it was challenging me to up my life, if you know what I mean. I've heard several stories by Daniel Abraham that hit me (Cambist and Lord Iron, Flat Diane over at PP), but I think this one might just be my favorite.

And sound qaulity aside, I think Kip Manley did a hell of a reading of this story. I loved his narration and I hope he comes back to read more for us.


corydodt

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Thank goodness I wasn't the only one who noticed the unlistenable audio.  I turned it off after 5 minutes.  Is there any way this story could be remastered or just rerecorded?  I'd love to listen to it, but won't do so as-is.



stePH

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Finished this in bed last night.

A good story and a good reading, cut off at the knees by the worst recording in Escape Artists history.  I was unable to listen to it anywhere except in bed with my wife already asleep, so I had to split the listening across three sessions.

PLEASE for the love of BOB don't let this happen again.
« Last Edit: October 25, 2009, 03:06:59 AM by stePH »

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stePH

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Isn't this PodCastle #75?

The Giants have their own numbering system, and this is the fifth Giant. I cut the number because it was that or truncate the title, which I try to avoid.

Looking back at my podcast directory I see that:
"Moon Viewing at Shijo Bridge" was PodCastle #29.
"Hell is the Absence of God" was PodCastle #40.
"Bright Waters" was PodCastle #47.

The "Giants have their own numbering system" only started with the fourth, "Captain Fantasy and the Secret Masters".

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Yargling

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Fantastic story(ies). Awful, horrible recording of a great reading. After awhile, I just heard the reading without hearding the noise too much, and it was great. But please, please, PLEASE record future stories better - or filter out the noise.



Talia

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WOW. That genuinely was an amazing story. And like others as it progressed I noticed the errant audio less and less.

Really very moving. Folktale-ish, in a story within a story within a story way. Full of the colorful details and entirely human elements that, for me, just really make a story, drag me in.

Wonderful.

Also, I would add, regardless of the recording's fault, the READING was perfect. Exactly the way a rambly uncle would sound!

I highly recommend those who had a hard time with the audio to give it another try and hang on. It's well worth it.
« Last Edit: October 26, 2009, 02:09:44 AM by Talia »



Biscuit

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Isn't this PodCastle #75?

The Giants have their own numbering system, and this is the fifth Giant. I cut the number because it was that or truncate the title, which I try to avoid.

My bad. I totally got the numbering system out of whack.


stePH

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I highly recommend those who had a hard time with the audio to give it another try and hang on. It's well worth it.

I finished it, and it is a good story, but I can't fault those who give up because the sound quality is really shit.

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Yep. Tried to listen on the way to work in the car, and between the lethal amount of hiss and the narrator whispering his reading, I couldn't hear a damned thing. This may be the first escape artists podcast I don't listen to simply because I hate straining to hear.

Too bad. From the comments above, it sounds like the story itself was quite enjoyable.

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Poppydragon

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Another one who's given up due to sound quality, I normally listen in the car but couldn't make anything out, tried at home in a quieter setting and still struggled. Hope that it can be re released with better sound as the comments made by those who could hear it sound really positive.

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kagillogly

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Thank goodness I wasn't the only one who noticed the unlistenable audio.  I turned it off after 5 minutes.  Is there any way this story could be remastered or just rerecorded?  I'd love to listen to it, but won't do so as-is.

I concur.  Can the hiss be remastered out?  I was so happy today, knowing that I'd get to listen to a Podcastle Giant on the long commute home.  I was so disappointed that I couldn't hear the story.  This is the first time I was unable to struggle through audio problems.  What a shame for the author. 



Heradel

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I found the following settings helped dampen the hiss, though it did clip the voice a bit.


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I would like to also post my wishes for this episode to be remastered. This is the first time I have been unable to listen to an EA episode because of sound quality—and I’ve been listening from the very beginning.

I usually listen to audiobooks and EA stories before going to bed as a way to relax and such audio quality—especially on a Giant episode—is simply unacceptable. The noise was so distracting that I often found myself not listening to the actual reading and just thinking my own thoughts on the background of the white noise.

So please, do remaster the episode. All your listeners will appreciate it!



lunastrixae

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I'm sorry to voice a complaint for something that is free and labor intensive. Just another to add that I could not get through more then a few minutes of this recording. Because of the hissing, low reader voice volume and echo I just couldn't stand it for a long episode. Really, it should have been held back and re-recorded. I so look forward to the long episodes, and not being able to hear one was pretty disheartening.




DKT

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So please, do remaster the episode. All your listeners will appreciate it!

FTR, we hear this, too, and are seriously considering it. It's not something that can happen immediately due to time, but we are really thinking about it, and we really appreciate everyone who's posted something like this. It helps us know whether or not it's something all you listeners want. Right now, it sounds like it's something you do want, even if it takes a little bit of time to make it happen.


stePH

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So please, do remaster the episode. All your listeners will appreciate it!

FTR, we hear this, too, and are seriously considering it. It's not something that can happen immediately due to time, but we are really thinking about it, and we really appreciate everyone who's posted something like this. It helps us know whether or not it's something all you listeners want. Right now, it sounds like it's something you do want, even if it takes a little bit of time to make it happen.

Count me as another vote in favor.  I'd love to listen to this story again, but not that recording.

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eytanz

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Let me start with an audio quality comment - I was luckily to be listening to this story while on a walk outside of town. Yes, I had to press my ipod's "30 second rewind" button every time a car drove by, but overall, I could hear the entire thing, which I don't think I could have done anywhere where there was a background noise.

As for the actual story - well, the story itself was great. Really great. I really loved the multi-layering of the story, how each sub-tale introduced a different aspect of American history and interwove them into a cohesive whole, forming the American present. It is a rare, yet wonderful, story where the final point - stories shape who we are more than actions - is not just said, but actually demonstrated by the very story we were listening to.

And yet -- And this is a big, yet personal, "and yet" -- and yet, it does not really work for me. Because, I am *not* an American. This story isn't about shaping my cultural heritage, it's about shaping someone else's cultural heritage. All the "we"'s in the above paragraph were a lie - I am not included. And this was brought very much to life by the fact that my actual history - the history of my country, my people - shows up in the story. My culture, my past, the right and wrongs committed to and by my parents, are a cautionary headline in a newspaper you show to a ghost so that the two of you can agree that hey, America may be built on a past of violence and bigotry, but at least we're not those guys, right? And just like that, it all came down crashing around me, and I suddenly realized - why am I buying into this? Why am I buying into a discourse that tells me that the lines of racism are drawn between distinctions like black, white, Mexican, native American, when none of those categories mattered to me when I grew up - and trust me, racism was everywhere in my upbringing, but the categories were very different. Why is it that I am listening, over and over, to a media that tells me that American issues and troubles are more important than my own?

And then I calmed down, and realized that the story is called "a tale from the 1001 american nights", and that at least it's honest about it's perspective. And it is a wonderful story, on many levels.

But yeah. It's never a lot of fun to discover that you've been reduced to a footnote in someone else's story.



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Well, it seems that everybody liked this story.

Guess I'll have to be the odd man out.

Once you get going with a story-within-a-story, you start to lose me if it isn't exceptional. This story was not exceptional.

By the time it got back around to the Swede, I had lost why he was there. Oh, yeah! Those little crawly things under his skin.

THEN, we get back to the guy getting married! I forgot about him completely.

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Circles inside circles works for Aikido. Not story telling.

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As others noted the audio quality in this was just terrible.  Add me to the vote for re-mastering or re-recording this.  Nobody can really enjoy a story to its full potential if they have to strain to hear over the noise.  And, being a writer, I'm sympathetic to the poor author.  Granted, he got paid for it, but it's too bad for him that so few people will listen to this version just because of technical problems.

That being said, I realized about 10 minutes in that I've read this story before in F&SF.  I already gave them feedback on it, so I'll repost it here:
Quote
I had a fair-to-middlin' reaction to this, between the "love it" and "hate it" reactions exhibited by others.

The Good:
I read the whole thing mostly because the narrator's voice was compelling enough to interest me. Otherwise I would've skipped ahead after a couple digressions. The tall tales reminded me of the book "Big Fish" which I very much enjoyed. The ending was reasonably good once I got to it.

The Bad:
The digressing random storylines were okay, but I think they went too far. At one point in the story, one of the characters in a digressing story starts digressing on a totally unrelated story. At that point I almost put it down. The story easily could've been trimmed back to half its length without losing anything and made way for another short. I liked "Big Fish" better because I felt that the tall tales really enhanced the overall story arc, but here they were used to the extent that they obscured it.

Of course, in this case "made way for another short" doesn't apply.  I said that in F&SF because I wish they'd spent that extra page space on another short story instead of having this one be much longer than it needed to be.

This strikes me as a story that would not be particularly well-suited for audio because of all the meandering subjects.  When I read it in F&SF, I had to flip back and forth to figure out which trail I was picking up on again.  I can't do that for audio (at least not easily), so if I'd missed a transition sentence or something I'd be totally lost.



Sandikal

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I think this is one of those stories I would need to read rather than listen too.  I was listening to it on my iPod in the car with an FM transmitter.  Those things don't really work well here in the OC because we really don't have any empty FM stations.  Add the difficulty of the audio quality to the hiss of the transmitter and I was completely unable to follow this.  I gave up.  I don't know that a better quality recording would make much difference for me though.  It seemed like it needed to be on the printed page.



yicheng

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I wasn't bothered all that much by the sound quality.  It sounded like a bad microphone, but it wasn't totally unlistenable.

The story was simply amazing!  The imagery was vivd, and the words just pull you in.  There's a kind of Tom-Waits-like American-gothic flavor with this that I love.  Normally I lose track of nested stories (i.e. a story of someone telling a story), but this one kept me hooked and didn't lose me at all.  It makes want to buy the book and see if the other stories were as great as this one.  The narration was also very good, despite the bad recording.  I found the accents (especially the curandero) to be natural and spot-on, without feeling unnatural or going to exaggeration.



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Here's one more request for a do-over. The audio quality started off poor and got worse. After about 10 minutes I bailed--the first time I've ever bailed on an EA story. I simply couldn't hear it--at maximum volume--over outside noise.



Loz

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It's odd, because I generally find the longer the Podcastle story the more likely it is that I won't like it, I don't know why but I often find the lost art of brevity a powerful aid to the success of a story. However, struggling past the awful quality of the sound file, I was really taken with the story. It reminded me of 'The Hunt' from the Sandman, with it's tribe of Romany werewolves living in the modern suburban America. Each digression coloured the world wonderfully, and I found it's message at the end to be a positive and inspiring one. I hope that this will get remastered quickly for those that couldn't listen to the original to hear and appreciate.



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It's odd, because I generally find the longer the Podcastle story the more likely it is that I won't like it, I don't know why but I often find the lost art of brevity a powerful aid to the success of a story.

I don't find that odd at all.  For me, one of the greatest attributes for a great story is "it was exactly as long as it needed to be".  If a story is too short, then you're missing important details, or the character wasn't developed enough.  If a story was too long, then there's needless fluff.

The longer a story is, the more likely it is too long (for my tastes).  I've read very few stories that were 20k words that couldn't have been improved by cutting them to 15k. 

That's one of the reasons I like flash fiction so much (and I'm a slush reader for flash fiction).  Even if you don't like the story, at least it didn't take long to not like it.  :) 



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I unfortunately had to stop listening to this. It's the first time ever, but as English is not my first language, and as the sound quality actually decreased as I was listening, I could not understand anything.

If we can still vote to remaster it, please add my vote!



Listener

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A lot of comments about the audio, so I'll just add a hearty "me too".

I think the narrator did a good job with Uncle Dab's storytelling voice.

For a long time I really, really didn't like this story. Obviously the whole point of it is to parallel "1001 Arabian Nights", and that's fine, but I guess I just don't like that style. It really only works for me as a graphic novel (Sandman, anyone?); when Elizabeth Kostova did it in "The Historian" -- which was pretty damn boring anyway -- I didn't like it there either.

The individual stories were very cool -- the trucker on Route 666, the young woman visiting the Curandero, the Swede, the Swede's "cure". I have to admit, though, the moment Uncle Dab started lecturing the MC I knew how the story was going to end. If the MC himself didn't realize it then I fear I'm going to lose a lot of respect for him.

I don't know if I'll read the book when it's released, because (as I said) I didn't really care for the storytelling style, but this particular piece had a lot of great historical details told through the eyes of a character who, as someone living in the South, I totally can recognize and understand the viewpoint of. If anything was wrong with the telling of the tales themselves it was that Uncle Dab was a little too apologetic about how he referred to people in the whole "well I'm going to call you this but I'm not really bigoted" fashion of reformed racists. It was somewhat heavy-handed toward the end, when the Swede got his "cure". Maybe that's part of Uncle Dab's character, but if so I think that probably could use a little rewriting to make him less verbally apologetic -- him throwing the MC a look is enough.

I do wonder what tale Abbie will tell when her turn comes.

Overall, a lot of good stories crammed into a framework I didn't like, which lessened the episode somewhat, as did the technical quality of the recording.

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internalogic

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For me, the main character of the story was Storytelling itself.  That was the point for me of all of the stories within stories, branching out and tendriling and some disappearing and some coming back to the main thread.  The story was about the power of just wrapping all of your experience in story and thereby imbuing it with irreversible significance.  There are risks in doing that too of course, but then there are always risks.  Anyway, I thought it was beautifully done.  A real meta-tale.




FamilyGuy

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I vote for the remaster as well.  As a hearing-impaired person, I had great difficulty understanding what was being said.  From what I could tell in the first 10 minutes, I think it would be a story I would like, if I could hear it.

When will all the rhetorical questions end?


Dave

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Wow. I wanted to know how the story went, but after a few minutes, the poor sound quality forced me to hit Skip on my player. It was hurting my ears. Too bad, it was an interesting start.

(having gone back and read some comments)

Oh good, it wasn't just me.

Put me down on the petition for a remastered version, too. I'd like to hear the rest of it.
« Last Edit: November 20, 2009, 09:50:37 PM by Dave »

-Dave (aka Nev the Deranged)


MrElzebub

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I feel bad that my first post on these forums is to fuss about something but the audio quality of this episode was appalling. Escape Artist Productions has been one of the standard setters for quality in podcasting. I remember Steve Eley apologizing on early episodes of Escapepod for what to me seemed minor glitches in the sound. However, this episode was inexcusable. If a reader turns in audio this poor again it should be scrapped and handed out a different reader to rerecord. The fact this episode was released is very confusing considering the hard work that so many people are putting into making this podcast as good as it has been up to this point.



Gamercow

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Well, I listened to the whole thing on my commute to and then from work, and my ears actually hurt after both times, because the amount of white noise produced by the combination of the road, my car, and the background noise in the reader's environment was immense. 

But it was worth it.  If I had known that the author of this story was the author of "The Cambist and Lord Iron" I would have listened a lot sooner, as that is one of my favorite short stories of the last 5 years.  The story within a story is very reminiscent of my father-in-law's storytelling style.  He was from Texas, and would often take an innocent topic, and stretch it out to hours of storytelling on his front porch, while he and I enjoyed a few beers.  Most of his family had heard all his stories and tales over the years, but they were all new to me, so he was more than happy to share. 

Thank you for featuring this story, it was heartily enjoyed, audio flaws and all.

The cow says "Mooooooooo"


knigget

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The story was so good I never noticed the audio, and narration was perfect for the content.  It also resonated with my own experiences.  Two thumbs up!

http://www.apoGrypha.blogspot.com

What would have been written. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)


supergrover

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Like others, I was interested in the story, but couldn't listen more than 10 minutes due to the very poor sound quality.



Alcairha

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Beautiful touching story with a great ending - I loved it, including the story nestled in the story nestled in the story. Then again, I loved Carlos Ruiz Zafon and Isabel Allende too. My favorite character was the Mexican witch doctor/therapist. I agree the audio was awful and the narrator's mostly flat recital didn't do the story any favors either.



jjtraw

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Quote
For me, the main character of the story was Storytelling itself.  That was the point for me of all of the stories within stories, branching out and tendriling and some disappearing and some coming back to the main thread.  The story was about the power of just wrapping all of your experience in story and thereby imbuing it with irreversible significance.

Very well said, internalogic!

The final point - if you can't tell the story of your own life, it's missing the soul of it - that was powerfully, powerfully conveyed. Made me cry.

And the reading was spot-on. I know a few, great oral storytellers, who can take an everyday story and make it hours-worth of art, carring your attention through a thousand digressions. It takes a sense of tension, and timing. This had both. Congratulations to both Daniel Abraham and Kip Manley - very well done, both of you.

The audio quality, as has been said, was terrible. At first, I honestly thought the character was "Uncle Dad." (The story of how he met his wife musta been something else...)

So, here's another vote for remastering. I'm grateful for the chance to hear the story, and I would *love* to have a copy clear and good enough to share with friends not familiar with the podcast.



Dave

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Hey, did this story ever get re-released without the static? I'd like to give it a listen...

-Dave (aka Nev the Deranged)


DKT

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Unfortunately, it has not, although it was talked about and may still be a possibility. Let me look into it some more.


DKT

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"Actually, it's a pretty good story."

And you all should get to hear it - and hear it much more clearly - very soon.

 :D


DKT

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Happy Valentine's Day, people! It's been re-recorded.

You can find it either in the original post, or in this blog post.

Enjoy!


yicheng

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Awesome!!!!   ;D



DKT

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Well, this is humiliating. It turns out that there were some blips - repeated lines, etc. in the narration. If you haven't listened yet, you should probably late until the corrected version gets posted. Apologies to everyone, especially to Mr. Abraham. We'll have it fixed as soon as possible.


stePH

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Well, this is humiliating. It turns out that there were some blips - repeated lines, etc. in the narration. If you haven't listened yet, you should probably late until the corrected version gets posted. Apologies to everyone, especially to Mr. Abraham. We'll have it fixed as soon as possible.

Mine downloaded from the feed this morning. Will the re-corrected version go to the feed and auto-download as well, or will I need to go to manual?

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DKT

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If you've already downloaded it, then I believe you'll have to grab it again manually.

The corrected version should be up tonight.


DKT

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Well, this is humiliating. It turns out that there were some blips - repeated lines, etc. in the narration. If you haven't listened yet, you should probably late until the corrected version gets posted. Apologies to everyone, especially to Mr. Abraham. We'll have it fixed as soon as possible.

Annnnnnnnnnnnd the corrected corrected version is now up at our site. Thanks for your patience, everyone.


Dave

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I facepalmed a few times listening to the uncorrected version, but the story was good enough that the glitches were quickly forgotten. Glad to finally get to hear the whole story! Thanks, guys.

-Dave (aka Nev the Deranged)


Kaa

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Seems like I remember this one when it was first released, and I couldn't hear a single word. So I'm glad that it was re-recorded.

However, I found the story too rambling, too confusing.  It would perhaps be better in print where the reader could see the gaps that are intended to denote changes in time. And perhaps it was because I listened to it in two sittings rather than just one, but by the time I was into the second listening, I had forgotten the framing story...and the framing story inside the framing story...and the one inside that...

So, yeah. Not my favorite story. But not horrible, either. Just not to my taste.

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Max e^{i pi}

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Hmm...., recursive storytelling.
Fortunately I have a CS mind and was able to follow this all rather easily.
Some of the stories were better than others, but all in all it was very nice.
I missed this on the first time around, it was before I saw the light. (Well, heard the light).

Cogito ergo surf - I think therefore I network

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Unblinking

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Hmm...., recursive storytelling.
Fortunately I have a CS mind and was able to follow this all rather easily.
Some of the stories were better than others, but all in all it was very nice.
I missed this on the first time around, it was before I saw the light. (Well, heard the light).

Luckily it didn't spawn an infinite recursive loop that continued until it used up all of your memory!



Max e^{i pi}

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Hmm...., recursive storytelling.
Fortunately I have a CS mind and was able to follow this all rather easily.
Some of the stories were better than others, but all in all it was very nice.
I missed this on the first time around, it was before I saw the light. (Well, heard the light).

Luckily it didn't spawn an infinite recursive loop that continued until it used up all of your memory!
It can't.
I'm the top level call to the story, it starts and ends with me. The end case is one of three:
1. I turn off my player.
2. My player runs out of battery.
3. I fall asleep.

Yet another case of the real world beating the computational one.  ;)

Cogito ergo surf - I think therefore I network

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Unblinking

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Hmm...., recursive storytelling.
Fortunately I have a CS mind and was able to follow this all rather easily.
Some of the stories were better than others, but all in all it was very nice.
I missed this on the first time around, it was before I saw the light. (Well, heard the light).

Luckily it didn't spawn an infinite recursive loop that continued until it used up all of your memory!
It can't.
I'm the top level call to the story, it starts and ends with me. The end case is one of three:
1. I turn off my player.
2. My player runs out of battery.
3. I fall asleep.

Yet another case of the real world beating the computational one.  ;)

Ah, but if it were ended improperly it wouldn't deallocate the memory and release it back to the heap.  You'd have to reboot to get it all back, and humans don't reboot very well--shut everything down and it's a little difficult to get it all running smoothly again.



Max e^{i pi}

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Hmm...., recursive storytelling.
Fortunately I have a CS mind and was able to follow this all rather easily.
Some of the stories were better than others, but all in all it was very nice.
I missed this on the first time around, it was before I saw the light. (Well, heard the light).

Luckily it didn't spawn an infinite recursive loop that continued until it used up all of your memory!
It can't.
I'm the top level call to the story, it starts and ends with me. The end case is one of three:
1. I turn off my player.
2. My player runs out of battery.
3. I fall asleep.

Yet another case of the real world beating the computational one.  ;)

Ah, but if it were ended improperly it wouldn't deallocate the memory and release it back to the heap.  You'd have to reboot to get it all back, and humans don't reboot very well--shut everything down and it's a little difficult to get it all running smoothly again.

Reboot? I never reboot my computer to recover from a memory leak. There's a magical incantation for that:
Code: [Select]
$sudo fuser -a -ki

Cogito ergo surf - I think therefore I network

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iamafish

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nice story. Took me a while to get to it because it's sitting at the bottom of my 'currently downloaded' list, given that they're in numerical order.

I didn't hear it first time round because I only started listening to the pods recently.

At first I was a little put out by the fact that the stories seemed to be going through a list of all the minority groups in the US. Black guy, gay guy, Indian guy, Mexican guy, etc. But soon I got that that was the idea. I like recursive stories, because I forget where we started and then get the 'oh yeah' moment when we return to the original story. All the stories were satisfying and interesting, and tied together really well.

It seems that length effects my enjoyment of PodCastle more than the other pods. I don't really dig the flash fiction and tend to really enjoy the long episodes. I guess that's because fantasy is my favourite genres and I'm used to epics like LotR or series like WoT and SoT. I like sinking my teeth into fantasy.


H. Bergeron

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I listened to the re-recording of this story and don't even remember the original recording - I think probably I skipped it due to the sound quality.

What a loss!

This story was great. I listen to my podcasts while I'm doing work around the house or driving, and sometimes follow with half an ear for a little while. This story made me laugh with its digressions into other stories as I was following along and then suddenly would be thinking, "Wait, how did we get here?" It really reminds me of a man named Willem Lange, who is a commentator on Vermont Public Radio and also a writer. I saw him live at First Night in Burlington and he told the story of breaking his leg (and missing the previous year's First Night) for about 45 minutes - a story that started, he said, back when he was a young man, working at one of the last residential logging camps in New Hampshire...

I love this kind of purposeful rambling along. It's very irritating if you're talking to someone and having a conversation where it happens, but it can be very fun if you're willing to just trust the speaker - the storyteller, as someone earlier in this thread put it - and enjoy the ride.

I approve of this story. I don't necessarily like Uncle Dab's stories within the story and their unapologetic depictions of "the queer" and the ghost of the girl, but I really liked the moral of the tale - that everything has to have a story. That's how we connect, it's the way we share information with one another. It's important to be able to tell stories, rather than just reciting facts, or saying "one thing led to another."

Formerly Ignoranus - now too big for my britches, literally and figuratively.


jjtraw

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Thank you, thank you, thank you, for reposting this story! It's one of my favorite Podcastles :) I'm sorry Kip Manley was unavailable to narrate, because the original reading was great, if poorly recorded. But on the other hand, if he had been available then we would have missed Dave Thompson's reading, which was also wonderful!

You've made my day :)

-JJT



tinygaia

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I actually listened to this story the first time around, but I wasn't participating in the forums then. It's odd that I don't remember the poor audio quality - it must have been bad, to warrant a re-recording - but as I listened to it again, I only remembered liking the story. Is that a commentary on how good the story was or on how low my standards are? O.o

Anyway, I like the story's similarity to the original 1001 nights, which also goes around in circles, but mostly I like that it's true to the narrator. Forget the American highways and deserts and what-have-you: the setting of this tale is the main character's weird uncle telling him a story. I'm blessed to have many friends and relatives who are great storytellers and their method is very similar to this one. One thing leads to another.

Also, in my mental movie of this story, the part of the Curandero was played by Danny Trejo.