EP294: The Night Train

[Faraway Ray]

More stuff.  First off, I have to get this off my chest.  <Public Enemy> Y'all look out for the night train! </Public Enemy>

I'm mildly disappointed that the story had nothing to do with the only good Guns & Roses song ever made.

Look out! |,,| |,,|

[NoNotRogov]

The Southeast Asian flavored biopunk future made me think this was a Paolo Bacigalupi story, which is a good thing.

Darwin's Choice, while necessary for the the story to be told as centered around the protagonist mercenary transwoman, introduced what could have been a whole other SF story - a posthuman utopian race in a world that felt so much more transhuman and dystopian. But I guess there are many who would appreciate that juxtaposition better than I.

[CryptoMe]

I have to agree with the "did not like" camp on this one.

As many have already said, this was too dense in lots of places. But more than that, I felt it suffered from a serious case of "assume the audience knows what the author is thinking". There were far too many concepts that were thrown in with minimal explanation, leaving me confused and off balance. I think I figured it all out finally, but the story was not an enjoyable experience for me because of that.

[jjtraw]

I quite enjoyed this. Yes, it was dense, and required close listening - but that's because there was a ton of fascinating world building going on. Definitely good stuff. I suspect this one will improve on second listen.

I also found the almost expressionless reading *perfect* for the story. Our protagonist isn't really human anymore, and the reading made that work for me in a way mere printed text would not have.

[Listener]

Matt and Listener have it right though, the author is trying to cram an eight course meal into a happy meal box. 

I might've gone with Bento Box, because the food is better... but yeah...

[stePH]

Matt and Listener have it right though, the author is trying to cram an eight course meal into a happy meal box. 

I might've gone with Bento Box, because the food is better... but yeah...

Besides, you can put an eight-course meal into a bento box, if you get a stacking kind. It'll be a pretty tall box, but still....

[hardware]

In principle, I like this kind of non-explaining exposition, but the combination with that ice queen delivery made me lose focus all the time, and so I came out on the other side not really knowing what happened, there were trains, and frogs, and slugs, and references to evolution, and more transvestites than in an Almodovar flick, but I never got the connection. Too bad, Noon and Mieville has been mentioned here and are personal favorites (although quite different ones), so perhaps I should re-listen.

[ElectricPaladin]

In principle, I like this kind of non-explaining exposition, but the combination with that ice queen delivery made me lose focus all the time, and so I came out on the other side not really knowing what happened, there were trains, and frogs, and slugs, and references to evolution, and more transvestites than in an Almodovar flick, but I never got the connection. Too bad, Noon and Mieville has been mentioned here and are personal favorites (although quite different ones), so perhaps I should re-listen.

Oh, come on. They were transgendered, not transvestites. With a moniker like "hardware" you should understand the difference .

[hardware]

OK, my bad. Not the same thing at all in real life, but the effect is similar storywise (gender dissolution etc.) so I still think the analogy to Almodovar holds (and being mentioned in the same sentence as him is a compliment in any case).

Actually, I got my act together, risked my life and listened to this story while biking to and from work yesterday night and this morning. This time I followed without problems (the even tone of the reading made you have to focus to catch the transitions) and quite liked it actually. Still a bit heavy on the cool descriptions, but it's a nice, moody piece with classic cyberpunk roots. In the end, I think the three storylines were perhaps one too many, and if any, the assassination attempt felt the less interesting, perhaps because the stakes didn't really feel so high. A story contrasting the relation with big boss vs that with dc would have been enough for me.
   

[JoeFitz]

This really didn't work in audio format for me. Lots of back story and some thought-provoking ideas, motifs, etc., but for me it was too much, too heavy for a piece this length in audio.

[mbrennan]

I enjoyed this one a lot, but I had previously read it on SH, and I think that helped a great deal in terms of being able to navigate the ideas and unfamiliar terms.  I particularly appreciate the details about many ways of being trans (different stages of op, not wanting op at all, etc), since it's a complicated issue too easily, and too often, reduced down to a single flat idea.

[Mex5150]

Hi

Just listened to this (only just started with EscapePod, and catching up on older ones), I found this super difficult to get into, not because of the story, but due to the horrendously mangled Thai terms, and place names.

After re-listening and trying my hardest to block out the attempts at Thai from the narrator (not that I am blaming them, Thai is a very hard language, and if you don't know it well it's sooooo easy to get wrong), I think this piece would have been far better as a longer piece, there was just so much crammed in nothing really had room to breathe. Overall, I did like it though.

-Mex