EP287: A Taste of Time

[matweller]

Agreed. Plus, some coincidences have significantly higher probability factors. For instance, I nearly guarantee there will be an earthquake and resulting tsunami that will erase entire islands in Malaysia and Hawaii within the next five years. Precognition? No, I can just read history.

[Talia]

Agreed. Plus, some coincidences have significantly higher probability factors. For instance, I nearly guarantee there will be an earthquake and resulting tsunami that will erase entire islands in Malaysia and Hawaii within the next five years. Precognition? No, I can just read history.

Or you're about to enact some sinister plan.

*narrows eyes*

[Corydon]

Jane makes a comment, maybe 2/3 of the way through the story, about missing family. It struck me that she didn't have children- and that the subject of children never came up.  Of course, many people never want to have kids, and others can't, and presumably Jane was in one of those categories. 

But Jane not having kids also avoids a problem: going back in time to before her children were born would (potentially, at least) scrub them from existence.  That's something of a horrible thought to a parent.


Also, yeah.  "Replay."  I read that ages ago and enjoyed it.  Lots of similarities with this story.
 

[Gamercow]

A nice story. Nothing mind-boggling or never seen before, but I still enjoyed it.

There's just one thing that bothers me, and I'm surprised nobody has mentioned it yet. If this story was first published in 2004, how did the author know about the BP oil spill, which was last year?

I caught this too, and figured it was just a typo on the year. 

[eytanz]

A nice story. Nothing mind-boggling or never seen before, but I still enjoyed it.

There's just one thing that bothers me, and I'm surprised nobody has mentioned it yet. If this story was first published in 2004, how did the author know about the BP oil spill, which was last year?

I caught this too, and figured it was just a typo on the year. 

It is not a typo.

[El Barto]

My only complaint about this story is that it should have run on PodCastle. Science fiction should at least try to have a logical explanation for the fantastical elements. Magic time-traveling wine = fantasy.

True enough, but Escape Pod can run a fantasy story if they want to. 

Ocicat is of course correct that Escape Pod *can* run a fantasy story if it wants to.  The editors who do all the work have certainly earned that prerogative. 

But I would like to respectfully suggest that they consider that if someone has their heart set on seafood, has been thinking about seafood all week, and goes to a great seafood restaurant for dinner on Saturday night, that person would be understandably frustrated to order lobster and be handed a plate of rare/bloody steak, no matter how much a steak lover might like that particular steak.

To stretch the analogy a bit further, I get extra frustrated when this happens at Escape Pod because I don't discover that I'm getting a fantasy story until I have already invested in listening to the story.   

I wish the editors would please please please identify stories like this as magic/fantasy right up front so that those of us who greatly dislike that genre can skip the episode. 

[matweller]

You're assuming that the editor thought this was a fantasy piece and ran it as such. Genre is in the eyes of the beholder sometimes, and I doubt our esteemed leader would try to sneak in something she didn't think was appropriate. It's a bit callous of you to think she would. Are you always so blindly
judgmental? Because without her, this is all empty and insulting supposition.

Mind you, I'm back on my diet and have given up my daily cigar, so my view is presently a bit skewed.

[Gamercow]

time travel stories are SF to me.  Always will be.  Yes, that includes "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"

[kibitzer]

time travel stories are SF to me.  Always will be.  Yes, that includes "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"

but but but, that's... y'know... medieval and stuff!!

[Unblinking]

Time travel and superheroes are odd ducks in the genre definitions.  For me, generally, I call a time travel story fantasy or SF depending on the origin of time travel.  In "Back to the Future" time travel was done with a machine made by a scientist studying time travel, so I consider that SF.  In this story a bottle appears that seems to be both magic in origin and method of operation.  Seems fantasy to me.  I've written a story with time travel where the method is never revealed, always happening off-camera to non-POV characters.  That one I'd call either SF or fantasy (generally depending on what market I'm sending to).

But I can't say I'm really worked up about it.  If EP runs the occasional fantasy story I'm not going to have a conniption fit. 

[Father Beast]

My very first thought, when she realized that she was back in 1999, was that the back episodes of geek fu action grip were still available then!

[Father Beast]

My only complaint about this story is that it should have run on PodCastle. Science fiction should at least try to have a logical explanation for the fantastical elements. Magic time-traveling wine = fantasy.

I can think of no story that has run on Escape Pod that is not fantasy

[Unblinking]

My only complaint about this story is that it should have run on PodCastle. Science fiction should at least try to have a logical explanation for the fantastical elements. Magic time-traveling wine = fantasy.

I can think of no story that has run on Escape Pod that is not fantasy

 
Are you using a very broad definition of fantasy that includes all science fiction within it?

[stePH]

I can think of no story that has run on Escape Pod that is not fantasy

 
Are you using a very broad definition of fantasy that includes all science fiction within it?

Must be, at the very least, if not "all fiction".

[CryptoMe]

I really enjoyed the story. It took a while (and was just about ready to puke when she got Robert after winning the lottery), but the story really redeemed itself by the end, painting a great portrait of someone who is never satisfied with what they have. The story starts with thoughts of suicide, and ends with a symbolic suicide. Jane just can't seem to be happy, no matter what she does.

[Unblinking]

I really enjoyed the story. It took a while (and was just about ready to puke when she got Robert after winning the lottery), but the story really redeemed itself by the end, painting a great portrait of someone who is never satisfied with what they have. The story starts with thoughts of suicide, and ends with a symbolic suicide. Jane just can't seem to be happy, no matter what she does.

A rags to riches to rags story.

[El Barto]

You're assuming that the editor thought this was a fantasy piece and ran it as such. Genre is in the eyes of the beholder sometimes, and I doubt our esteemed leader would try to sneak in something she didn't think was appropriate. It's a bit callous of you to think she would. Are you always so blindly
judgmental? Because without her, this is all empty and insulting supposition.

Mind you, I'm back on my diet and have given up my daily cigar, so my view is presently a bit skewed.

That's a good point, and I would be interested to know what Mur's thought process was here. My guess is she read the story, liked it, and glossed over the magic wine part of it because it didn't jump out at her as a problem.   In which case the point of my feedback was to let her know that some of us think that the presence of a bottle of magic wine makes the story a questionable fit for a science fiction podcast.

Alternatively, if she noticed that a magic bottle of wine was the crux of the story and knew it would like rub many of her listeners the wrong way, my feedback was to ask her to please consider throwing a heads-up/disclaimer at the intro to the story so that those of us who dislike stories where the central technology is magic can skip the story instead of listening to it and being disappointed, as I was.

[Father Beast]

My only complaint about this story is that it should have run on PodCastle. Science fiction should at least try to have a logical explanation for the fantastical elements. Magic time-traveling wine = fantasy.

I can think of no story that has run on Escape Pod that is not fantasy

 
Are you using a very broad definition of fantasy that includes all science fiction within it?

admittedly, the only definition of fantasy I can work with (a story with some fantastic element) is also the only definition of science fiction I can work with. Therefore, they are the same thing.

To declare that the delineation is made solely by personal arbitration (what I'm pointing at) is to say that the people who tell Connie Willis that her time travel novels are not science fiction are correct. I don't buy that.

There is a softer definition that can be used, although it is full of holes: that magic is used by a person's internal power, and technology uses an outside element. i.e. if a person channels energy through their body to create a dimensional warp, that's magic. if a person presses a button to create a dimensional warp, that's science. By that definition, the woman was using an outside agent to accomplish her time travel, instead of effecting the jumps through inner power, therefore it is science.

A pseudoscientific explanation can be made for any fantastic element. and likewise, a mystical explanation can be made for any fantastic element. In this story, no explanation is even attempted, so to declare that it is mystical is unsupported. For all we know, the time travel was accomplished through nanotech within the wine. or the wine being in a partial hyper-dimensional state. or it being an experiment performed by aliens, or any number of other things.

Anyway, to declare that there should be a warning that some people might not like the content of the story is absurd. I thought it was awesome.

[NoraReed]

Who cares about genre? The real question here is: would you have used it? How far back would you go?

I sort of think I'd go back to high school and fix everything I did wrong from there on out.

[hardware]

Hmm. I didn't really like this one at all. I think the main reason was that there was no compelling character in the story, we get no meat on the bones of even the main protagonist, only hints of events and happiness and failures, but nothing is allowed to be important. And given that what happened, happened between the lines, I would have needed a psychologically believable character. Also, there was a disturbing lack of originality (winning the lottery was all that was needed for a life of happiness, really ?) and a discomforting antimorality (as long as she only did things for herself, everything went fine, but as soon as she wanted to help anyone, she was punished to a life of loneliness and boredom).

By the way, was this a time travel or parallel universes story? I would say the latter, since even the first time she time traveled, things were a bit different than in her original life (the colleague who had never talked to her coming over for a chat).

And, yeah, I despised 'The Butterfly Effect'.

[Unblinking]

By the way, was this a time travel or parallel universes story? I would say the latter, since even the first time she time traveled, things were a bit different than in her original life (the colleague who had never talked to her coming over for a chat).

It seemed like time travel, not parallel universes to me (though you can argue that when she branched the timeline she was traveling into other universes on the tangent of her choices).  Her co-worker stopped to chat, but she first said something because she saw her sneaking a bottle and was impressed by the her sneaky wine-swilling, enough to spark a conversation where conversation had never happened.

[JTony]

I'm sorry, but I really hated this one. Actually, I liked about the first half, but then it just fell off a cliff.

1. Jim Crocce did this story way better in way less time. His protagonist was also braver and more interesting.
2. How stupid do you have to be not to know that if you set up a bomb scare at the World Trade Center, they'll evacuate the building. Not hard to set up a bomb scare. Even an anonymous phone call would get them to pull folks from the building. The point is there is almost always a way if you stop for a moment to think, and when you're beating your head against the wall, try something else! This protagonist was weak minded and weak willed.
3. The end, my god woman, grow a pair and use your super powers to make things better. Wallowing in "Boo Effing Hoo, I'm 11 and my peers don't like me" when you've already ruled the world once just doesn't cut it.

What would have been interesting was how she might have changed the world/her life the second and third and fourth time around. Seeing that would have been cool. What would your choices be on that last swig after that? That's the question I was hoping for. Instead she had force us to watch this pitiful excuse of a Kassandra cry into her Black Sabbath. Just a stupid waste.

[matweller]

1. Jim Crocce did this story way better in way less time. His protagonist was also braver and more interesting.

Yeah, but he totally got trumped by the muppets... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvnCKJCgCD8

[Devoted135]

Little late to the party, but hey, why not?

I thought it was really interesting how the MC evolved in terms of what she thought was worth living for. First for money and "the perfect life" but by the end she felt guilty for not using her gift for others. So she went back to live for others and tried to make the world a better place, but found herself ultimately estranged from all she had previously known. So she went back to try and fix it again, and of course through the fixing everything got worse and worse.

Leaving behind the horrifying possibilities of the last scene, this character arc was a really interesting way to portray the real life arcs of so many people. "We" work so hard to get rich and have a good life, but at some point realize that we still feel empty inside so we devote ourselves to serving others (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bono's charities.... not to say that the world isn't a much better place due to their work) to try and make up for it. Somehow this doesn't end up quite satisfying us the way we thought it would so we try again. It's kind of sad to think about, actually. So I suppose the question I'm left with at the end of the MC's story is what could she have done differently, what would have satisfied her?*


*If this paragraph doesn't describe you, then please don't think I mean for it to do so. Obviously, not everyone goes through this arc, or has the same reactions to each particular step of this arc. YMMV 

[LaShawn]

Finally got around to listening to this...and yes, that means I'm catching up to my own story, which is weird in its own sense.

It's very interesting to compare the protag from this story and mine. Both are women who are not satisfied with their circumstances. Both get caught up in the "what if" trap. It does feel like that this story is bleaker. It starts off with the MC contemplating suicide, and towards the end it feels like she does (unless she truly does wake up in her mother's womb. I don't think though that the bottle would appear with her. If it's empty, it's entirely conceivable that the magic was in the elixir and not the bottle itself.) What gets me is that *nothing* this protag does makes her happy, even when she does get the happy life she always wanted. She's *never* satisfied, but she can't let herself die a normal death because...what if she *could* get a happy life? As long as there is enough tabula Rasa, the *possibility* still exists. My protag towards the end went insane, but it least it was a happy sort of insane? This protag feels as if she's driven more by despair.

All in all, I found this more frightening than my tale.