Author Topic: Pseudopod 243: Corps Cadavres  (Read 10926 times)

Bdoomed

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on: August 22, 2011, 08:05:21 PM
Pseudopod 243: Corps Cadavres

By Neil John Buchanan
click the link under his name to enter his dark, dark head.

Read by Alasdair Stewart, the toast of the ethernet set….

“Mayor shuffles in circles; his reins hang from his butchered mouth. His clothes have disintegrated, and his swollen legs have been reduced to black stumps. Doc sways in his saddle, gives a gentle sigh, and slips from his mount.

Doc is already half-turned. We can’t have him go wild. Captain orders Mayor for dispatch, and Sarge steps up for the job.

Mayor looks to the middle distance with cataract eyes, oblivious to his impending ‘second’ death. Sarge unclips Mayor’s head and without preamble removes his brain. Mayor looks confused as if he’s just been told a joke he half-understands and pitches forward to lie dead in the dirt. Captain sets about the body with his ‘taming’ knife, stripping free skin with a practiced hand. When finished, he and Sarge roll Doc in fat so only his face can be seen. He looks like a giant maggot. The wild won’t smell him that way.”




Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Kaa

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Reply #1 on: August 23, 2011, 12:10:03 PM
Well. That was...gruesome. It probably didn't help that the first attempt I made to listen to it was while eating lunch. Yeah, that didn't last long. I listened to it again while driving home from work. I'm fairly sure it wasn't any less gruesome, merely less disgusting. :) [Hmmm. Note to self: Pseudopod as weight-loss scheme.]

I like the Idea embedded in this story, but I found it extremely hard to follow as audio. I think maybe it was all the names combined with the speed with which Alasdair read it. I'd like to see it in print so I could read it at my own pace to see if I get more than a rudimentary understanding of what was going on.

That being said, it reminded me a bit of Greg Bear's Blood Music, with maybe a soupçon of Strength of Stones added for flavor.

You know, and zombies. Lots and lots of oozing zombies.

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Listener

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Reply #2 on: August 23, 2011, 12:49:03 PM
I couldn't finish listening to this. Despite the vivid imagery, I just wasn't invested.

Also, with the reading -- I don't think it was the speed with which Al read the story; I think it may have been the audio normalization (or lack thereof) because some parts were way too quiet.

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galacticus

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Reply #3 on: August 23, 2011, 03:05:52 PM
I was confused for a second there because I enjoyed Alasdair's reading of 'Big inches' on Cast macabre and never had a problem understanding his post-story reflections, so I'm glad I'm not the only one who had difficulty following the reading. Listening to it twice did help though.

I thought the world the story took place in was interesting, but found myself asking what was the motivation behind the journey. I know the ultimate goal was killing off the wild and reclaiming the city, but for what purpose? Did they have families, friends, lovers somewhere? I just found the characters to be one dimensional and had trouble understanding what they were fighting for.
« Last Edit: August 23, 2011, 03:08:38 PM by galacticus »



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Reply #4 on: August 23, 2011, 06:12:04 PM
I also found the audio to be too quiet in places, and Alistair seemed to read a couple of parts faster than necessary. Saying that, I enjoyed the story. Gruesome and very twisted. Part of why I found it so dark was the bleak existence of the characters. I think they were fighting because they just didn't have any alternative. It was all that they'd known and all that they had. Even the victory was fairly empty for them.
Great story, but next time this author has a podcast, I'll try not to listen to it when I'm preparing dinner  :P




Scattercat

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Reply #5 on: August 24, 2011, 07:31:10 AM
I was reminded of "In the Hills, the Cities," by Clive Barker.  This had some interesting elements, and thankfully avoided being Just Another Zombie Story, but I had a hard time grasping it.  It did seem to move awfully fast, in the reading, which wasn't a help for such a rapid barrage of plot and backstory.



Seekerpilgrim

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Reply #6 on: August 24, 2011, 07:47:38 AM
I think sometimes authors forget that a "short story" doesn't mean an "incomplete story". Like PodCastle's "Blood Willow" the listener is thrown into this story with no preamble and no context, and since I don't know why things are happening I don't care...about the situation and ultimately the characters. The listener is simply "shown" a group of gruesome scenes so quickly they lose shock and it becomes some weird Hellraiseresque landscape of blood and flesh everywhere, corpses riding corpses and switching out brains like some kind of bad car part. I'm assuming that the city of flesh rising up (like Scattercat said, VERY reminiscent of Barker's "In The Hills, The Cities") is some kind of allegory for cities being alive, but in the end this story just fell as flat as the debrained "mounts".

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Unblinking

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Reply #7 on: August 24, 2011, 01:36:42 PM
I felt like there was a lot of interesting stuff here, but I just found it impossible to follow.  At the end of the story I was still trying to grasp the basic details of the setting:  What are the wild?  How does the main character ride it's fleshmount--perched on its shoulders, wearing it like a side, burrowed in its body?  

By the end of the story I still didn't have the most basic grasp of this, and had only a slight idea what they were doing, bringing the still-beating heart away from the dead Wild so that it will finally die.  But I didn't really get why that was so important, or anything else out of this. 

I listened to the end because it sounded very interesting if I could just find something to solidify the idea in my brain, but I never found that.  So yeah, just plain confused, I am.   ???



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Reply #8 on: August 24, 2011, 04:24:35 PM
I have to say this is read very badly, I found the chap reading it very hard to follow. The idea is absolutely brilliant! Gruesome but fantastic. Would like to see the original written form?



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Reply #9 on: August 25, 2011, 03:25:35 PM
Argh!!!  Another "well how does it end?!?!?" story!  I don't mind these on occasion, but I've hit a streak of them lately and they're starting to lose their appeal.

While the story itself wasn't hard for me to follow, and the world was fantastically (and very, very graphically) described, I too find myself asking what the character's motivations were.  I think "because they don't know what else to do" fits it best - blind, human nature driving them towards fixing a problem that looks impossible.

As for Alasdair's reading, I didn't have any problems following it though it does have a greater range of tempo and volume than usual. Which was fine by me - it's how I kept the characters differentiated.

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tardigrade

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Reply #10 on: August 28, 2011, 07:27:15 PM
Alisdair's narration was god awful.

His breathless, nonchalant delivery cracks me up each week (I'd like to believe he's a comedy genius, but I understand the humour is mostly unintentional), but it absolutely murdered this story for me.

I gave up a few minutes in. But, having read the comments here -- concerning the echoes of Clive Barker -- I may give it another go.



Bdoomed

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Reply #11 on: August 29, 2011, 07:00:40 AM
How nice of you to mention that, tardigrade.  Clearly you have a fantastic grasp of our One Rule.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Scattercat

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Reply #12 on: August 29, 2011, 09:58:25 AM
How nice of you to mention that, tardigrade.  Clearly you have a fantastic grasp of our One Rule.

Technically, he's not a member of the forum...



matweller

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Reply #13 on: August 29, 2011, 12:52:50 PM
It's pretty obvious that one of the martial arts classmates is a little incensed about a particularly hard toss suffered at the hands of the big man...



Neil John Buchanan

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Reply #14 on: August 29, 2011, 07:46:30 PM
Thanks for listening, guys, and taking the time to air your views. It's been a real pleasure having a story turned into an audio podcast for Pseudopod. There were a number of ideas bouncing around my head when I wrote it. It's important - although not necessary - to comment on the human condition in any story, but especially those that concern zombies. Blame Romero for setting the trend. Thanks again for all the constructive comments - I do appreciate it - and I'll try for something really disturbing next time.  ;)
« Last Edit: August 29, 2011, 08:31:02 PM by Neil John Buchanan »



Kaa

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Reply #15 on: August 29, 2011, 08:40:44 PM
I'll try for something really disturbing next time.  ;)

Note to self: Avoid food next time NJB has a story on Pseudopod...

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evelet

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Reply #16 on: August 29, 2011, 10:19:25 PM
Doc as the maggot in fat made me start thinking about Dune where I seem to remember someone ends up a worm after covering themselves in...something (I am sure my memory for this kind of detail has  deteriorated since google).

I liked the creation of a world where the need to climb into rotting zombie people in order to avoid something even more awful exists. Gruesome. I would have liked to know more about the why and how it all happened, but I guess there are limits in short stories.

No problems with the audio for me - you should try pseudopod in the quiet dark of bed...although sleep can sometimes be somewhat 'disturbed'.



Thomas

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Reply #17 on: August 30, 2011, 03:47:03 PM
this was a fun ride (pun intended)

a different view of life with zombies

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rotheche

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Reply #18 on: August 31, 2011, 07:11:49 AM
I had some of the same problems with the audio: sentences or paragraphs starting off at the normal/comfortable volume and then trailing away.  I listen while driving and I just can't listen with one hand on the volume control, so I only got five minutes into the story before giving up in frustration.



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Reply #19 on: September 02, 2011, 03:23:16 AM
I couldn't follow this one at all. I just "burned" it; letting it play in my earphones without paying much attention, just so it could finish and get erased from my autoplaylist.

...well, Alasdair's outros are worth listening to anyway. I paid attention then, but the story was for no.

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ElectricPaladin

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Reply #20 on: September 02, 2011, 03:49:19 PM
I have to admit that this story didn't really do it for me. I don't blame Al's reading, though - I think something was wrong with the audio.

I also think the story just didn't do it for me. It was too alien, the plot too full of vagueness. I know what it was going for - a small story that evokes a larger story happening just out of reach - but I don't think it succeeded.

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smFish

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Reply #21 on: September 05, 2011, 12:41:32 AM
I had some of the same problems with the audio: sentences or paragraphs starting off at the normal/comfortable volume and then trailing away.  I listen while driving and I just can't listen with one hand on the volume control, so I only got five minutes into the story before giving up in frustration.

I had trouble with this as well - with the road noise in the car the narration was just sort of drowned out.  Skipped it in the car, then just finished it while sitting on the couch.  Much better without the background noise, but Alasdair - slow down.   I agree with the other listener who commented on the uneven pacing.  Could have been better - love the intros and outros but the story itself not so much.



justenjoying

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Reply #22 on: January 08, 2012, 05:08:48 AM
This is a story that is everything that I love about Horror. It is honestly my favorite story so far this year. It is so vivid and completely awash with flesh. The deeper meaning the city being alive and wants to absorb you. I can't say enough about this story, yet I'm lost for words. ;D