I've got to agree with CryptoMe. The feedback on this story was very strongly negative in a way that seems pretty unusual for Escape Pod.
A few people said things about this being the first Escape Pod story they reacted so negatively to. Here are salient comments from a dozen and a half folks:
• But mostly just seemed like it was trying too hard to be poetic and deep, and not focusing on telling a coherent story. Got really old really quick.
• EP gets a D- for this episode. Mod: really, stop it, I don't like the idea of giving stories grades.Mod again: woops, didn't realize this was a summation thread of other people's posts... still... well... not your fault really... um... carry on.
• I have no idea what's going on. I get the impression that there's something a bit pretentious about it, but I can't say exactly why because, as I said, I really don't know what's happening.
• I felt like I'd taken something, then had a freak out. When did EP come with a bad trip? I did not enjoy this story, did not understand this story.
• Same here. Not easy to follow as narrated. I think I'll opt for something else on the commute home & wait for next week.
• One of the few EP's that I just really really couldn't listen through.
• This is the first EP story in a long time that was a chore to listen to… I give this story an F. If the singularity is going to be this boring, count me out.
• Holy cow, this was a bad story! How bad? It was so bad that the Star Trek Voyager episode "The Thaw" which was not dissimilar to it was better. Yes, I just said Star Trek Voyager didn't suck as bad as something else. I went there.
• Sounded like a computer wrote this story. Insert random person description, insert random action, insert random room description. And no differentiation with the voice. At 11 minutes, I stopped because I could never tell who was talking, or what they meant when they said it. Definately one of the worst on EP.
• Boring. Boring. UNBELIEVABLY boring. I listened through the whole thing, but every two sentences or so my mind drifted off. Couldn't make heads nor tails. Didn't care, either.
• There is a period of time, at the start of any tale, after which the reader should at least think they understand what is being described. A story can then go on to puzzle, surprise or challenge the reader because he or she is following along. This was like riding a high speed train past billboards too fast to read or make out the images. There is an intuition that meaning is flying past you, but there is nothing to grab on to so you stop looking out the window. Keeping with travel metaphors, this story has no on ramp, so it doesn't matter where it goes. The reader can't merge.
• Ultimately, I found the character of Esme far too self-absorbed to give a damn about her or the rest of the story. I've read a couple of posts that say that everything comes together in the last 10 minutes, but I still have no desire to finish listening, especially if the id is really part of the explanation.
• Some SF stories intentionally confuse the reader at the beginning and then clear things up as they get into it. This story really didn't seem to do that for me. I also wasn't a fan of the narration, it seemed like the reader had a snarky, sarcastic tone the whole time, and I had troubles identifying who was talking, or even if the person WAS talking or simply self-talking.
• I simply cannot possibly express how wonderful it was to come here and see that I wasn't crazy, and I wasn't the only one who found this story ... hm ... unenjoyably difficult? Far too obfuscatory? This is the very first Escape Pod I've ever fast forwarded through, and I just finished up listening my way through the entire archives a month or two back.
• Ok, I've stopped listening to this story about 3/4 in since I have no idea what's going on. This isn't a criticsm of the story. I honestly have no idea if it's a good story or not, since I couldn't follow it at all. The reading - with its flat tone and voice crossing multiple viewpoints with no clear breaks between them - didn't help.
• I got to the last 17 mins and just couldn't justify taking the time to finish. Can't win them all.
• Some stories don't work in audio. This is one of them.
• I really couldn't follow this one, and gave up mid way through. Maybe it was just me, but it was confusing to me.
As for me, I definitely didn't like it at all, but wouldn't say I hated the story. To paraphrase an old saying, a bad day reading sci-fi beats a good day working for the man!