Pseudopod 196: The Hand You're Dealt

[nathonicus]

I have to say I share the feeling that the draw of the game doesn't seem quite believable.

However I enjoyed the reading a great deal, and thought the narrator did an excellent job.

The story was interesting, weird, and definitely horror. Keep em comin'.

[ThinlyVeiledAlias]

  I don't really see why playing poker for body parts is so enticing to the characters here, and the mysterious dark force behind the game was kept a bit too mysterious to really explain that.

First off, Liked it. The writing wasn't the most polished I've heard/read.  But the story was solidly structured and had some nice cringeworthy imagery.  Good job.

I didn't think WHY the spooky guys played for body parts needed to be addressed.  Why not?  My answer is... piercings.
We as a society are chock full of subcultures.  I live near a number of tattoo and piercing parlors. Each day I see people with multiple piercings in multiple bodyparts (all their own).  If there was a contest they could enter where the prize was getting a piece of metal shoved through their skin, they would be all over it.   These are fairly ordinary people, nice folks, but I dont understand the motivation or rewards they get from what they do.
Some of you reading this might understand, might even be part of the "pierce it all" subculture yourself. Great. But I don't understand it. And these are people pretty much just like me minus all the metal sticking out of them.

In this story we're introduced to a subculture much farther removed from everyday society than the tattoo and piercing crowd.  Spooky old dudes with occult powers or sodwops for short.  As a reader I didn't expect to understand why the sodwops did what they did.

That said, Like Millenium King pointed out, I would have liked a sentence or two explaining why the protagonist felt he had to keep playing.  Some sort of threat from the weird doctor hinting at repurcussions if the hero doesn't show up at the next game. 
oh well. I still liked it a lot.


Mod: fixed quote

[ThinlyVeiledAlias]

the quote from Scattercat only goes to where I typed END QUOTE.  I obviously need to learn how to use the forum posting tools.
Sorry for any confusion.

Mod: no worries just put a [ /quote] at the end of the quote.  (without the space there of course)

[Nitequill]

Lo-cal but fun. Solid for pp I think. Nicely read.

[eytanz]

I enjoyed this, but like Scattercat, I found it difficult to see why the game was so compelling in the end. I don't think it's a matter of asking why - ThinlyVeiledAlias is correct that why they play to begin with doesn't matter so much. Rather, it's the rather bizzare shift in Danny's attitude at the end.

The story built up suspense slowly and masterfully, and it accumulated and accumulated and then the reveal was at just the right time. I, as a listener, and Danny, as protagonist, are shocked by the surgery. Then Danny is forced to go through with it, and I feel for him. And then Danny leaves, shocked, trying to adjust, and trying to figure out a way to survive the next game - and at the time, the feeling is that he would happily avoid it, he just doesn't think they'll let him. So, ok - I don't know how it feels like to have an extra hand, but I understand what it is like to feel trapped - so I am still following along with Danny here. Then, Danny has a clever idea! Amoral, sure, but in character and I'm happy to play along. And now Danny is hooked and wants to keep playing and I have no idea how that happened.

That's my problem with this story - not that the game doesn't make sense, but that Danny went from being terrified to being eager without even playing a second time. If the story had cut forward a few games in the future, and now Danny is hooked - I would have had no issue with it. But basically, for a story that was so good at keeping not only my interest but my empathy throughout, the ending was too much and broke my connection to it.

[Scattercat]

I think eytanz successfully illuminated one of the main reasons I was so displeased with the ending.  Maybe e should just write all my posts from now on...

[SanguineV]

I really liked this one, the pacing, the build up and the shift from others (incomprehensible old men) to the self (sure, I'll trade someone else's body parts to feed my addiction, I may even kill them to suit my needs). The only (minor) criticism would be that the story would be even better after another pass through/edit to polish the language (same word cropping up in rapid succession and not as an apparent device). This was never enough to detract from the story though. 

I specially liked the shift in focus for horror. Flailing body parts attached all over someone is a nice creepy idea (not to mention trading them!), but then the turn into deciding that doing it is a good idea. As a bonus the callousness to not only play the game, but to do so with an unsuspecting victim. I can see why some people might have not followed this leap though as it can seem like a big jump. It reminds me of addicts I have known who just can't stop doing something even if they know it may harm them, and more darkly, of people who play competative games just to take their opponents apart.

[Unblinking]

Did anybody else start singing The Gambler in their head? 

You've gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run.  You never count your money, while you're sittin' at the table.  There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealing's done.

[Alasdair5000]

Did anybody else start singing The Gambler in their head? 

You've gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run.  You never count your money, while you're sittin' at the table.  There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealing's done.

Ask and you shall receive:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh4z81aa8BE

Keep watching by the way.  One of the singers is...unexpected..

[Dave]

Awesome. I can totally see this as an episode of Tales from the Crypt.

[The Far Stairs]

When I was narrating the story, I wondered about some of these questions. Ultimately, I decided that the mechanism by which the doctor was able to reanimate severed limbs/tongues/eyes wasn't really that important to the story. I just took it on faith that there was dark magic at work. To me, the focus seemed to be the psychology of gambling and addiction. I thought that the real horror came from the fact that these people were totally willing to physically take each other apart for the sake of a game. If you look at it that way, there doesn't need to be a reason for why they wanted extra body parts; it was all just one-upsmanship and the pride of knowing that they were better at the game than their companions. I don't gamble myself, but from what I've heard, gamblers take a lot on faith. To the real hardcore addicts, winning or losing is a metaphysical thing which makes them feel like the universe is either with or against them. That must be why they get such a huge rush from winning big; it's not the money (or the limbs), it's the feeling that they have been favored by fate. In this case, they were willing to stake their own bodies for that feeling.

Danny struck me as an addict; he seemed like a pretty desperate guy with emotional issues and not much of an inherent sense of self worth. Therefore, the fact that he didn't really hesitate to get involved and stay involved with the game seemed plausible to me. He didn't care much about the underlying morality or even how the magic worked; he just needed that fix or that rush of making the cards dance and beating chance.

On a side note, I think the trickster comment was really sharp. This is totally a trickster story, with the hero (or anti-hero) trying to outwit fate. That also supports the lack of explanation for the game's origins and means of functioning. The game just represents fate/chance. Frank's use of a pulp/noir style of writing would seem to support this. Most hardboiled detective literature involves a certain amount of man vs. fate or man vs. chance.

Anyway, great story! Especially since it generated all this discussion.

[ThinlyVeiledAlias]

That's my problem with this story - not that the game doesn't make sense, but that Danny went from being terrified to being eager without even playing a second time. If the story had cut forward a few games in the future, and now Danny is hooked - I would have had no issue with it. But basically, for a story that was so good at keeping not only my interest but my empathy throughout, the ending was too much and broke my connection to it.

You know, I just didn't get the idea of eagerness or wanting to have an ongoing involvement in the black arts poker night on Danny's part.  The whole idea of the ending to me was that Danny thought he wouldn't be allowed to stop playing unless he went all out, was killed for all practical purposes.  So he gets the idea of using Rod to go all out for him.  He doesn't want to keep playing. he is making one last desperate attempt to get out. 
    But at the very end when the plan is being put into action he does feel good. He may not make it.  but he's made his choice all or nothing.  And he might just pull it off.   After all he's the guy who can read the faces and make the cards dance.    At least that's what I got out of it. With a little help from the outro.

[Fenrix]

With regards to the discussions about slowly losing yourself, PP did a good job with that theme by producing Come to My Arms, My Beamish Boy.

My appreciation of the story grew after reading the spirited discussion here. Although I normally dislike body horror, the grotesqueries were compelling and the gore was pointed at but not languished in. There was a good balance struck.