Author Topic: EP341: Aphrodisia  (Read 13042 times)

CryptoMe

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Reply #25 on: May 31, 2012, 04:12:04 PM
...  what was that Escape Artists episode with the Australian future with some difficult future language...  drawing a blank. 

EP179: Arties Aren’t Stupid
http://escapepod.org/2008/10/11/ep179-arties-arent-stupid/


I really liked this one, which is why I remember.  :)



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Reply #26 on: June 18, 2012, 04:16:57 PM
...  what was that Escape Artists episode with the Australian future with some difficult future language...  drawing a blank.  

EP179: Arties Aren’t Stupid
http://escapepod.org/2008/10/11/ep179-arties-arent-stupid/


I really liked this one, which is why I remember.  :)

Actually that wasn't the one that I was thinking of, though that's a good example too!  The one I'm thinking about took place in an otherworld Australia, a specialized team looking for an alien.  One of the characters was named Tintype (which I thought was a cool name)... Arg, must figure out the title.

Ah!  I hadn't remembered the name "Tintype" until I was just typing this post, made it easy to search for.  Cinderella Suicide was the one I was thinking of:
http://escapepod.org/2007/03/15/ep97-cinderella-suicide/



Gamercow

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Reply #27 on: July 09, 2012, 02:42:50 PM
Still catching up, so I apologize for re-animating this thread:

I enjoyed this story quite a bit, but that may be because I almost immediately saw it as some sort of twisted William Gibson-Hunter S. Thomson lovechild of a story.  Thomson's stories are often like this, rambling sensory overloads contained mostly in the MC's mind, occasionally showing the reader a glimpse of the outside world and therefore the story.  I liked Alisdair's narration, but sometimes the volume levels were inconsistent.  I understand some of that was necessary for the story, but it made listening difficult at times.

The cow says "Mooooooooo"


Umbrageofsnow

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Reply #28 on: August 16, 2012, 07:05:50 PM
I fear that Lavie Tidhar is going to join Cat Rambo on my "clearly they have it, whatever it is, but their it is not my thing" list.

I was going to not say much about this story under the "if you don't have anything nice to say..." guideline, but thought I'd just read the thread and spend my time posting on all the stories where I actually have something interesting to add or a strong opinion beyond "didn't like it" but then I read this comment and had to write this really long paragraph to summarize the classic messageboard response of:

+1

It's funny, those are exactly the two frequently-podcast authors I feel that way about, and the only two that readily come to mind.  I finished this story and thought to myself "Tidhar is with Cat Rambo now." Which is funny, because I remember really liking something I read of Tidhar's in print a couple years ago.  In Interzone maybe? Also I think I liked that "Whirlwind" story okay, but I he's burned off any goodwill left over from that by now, at least for me.

And yet, lots of people love them. I find the same situation with Kristine Kathryn Rusch in Analog/Asimov's. I have gotten less and less interested and found myself having geometrically reducing patience for her stories, while others routinely vote them best of year.  Taste is an interesting thing, huh?



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Reply #29 on: August 17, 2012, 04:46:18 PM
And yet, lots of people love them. I find the same situation with Kristine Kathryn Rusch in Analog/Asimov's. I have gotten less and less interested and found myself having geometrically reducing patience for her stories, while others routinely vote them best of year.  Taste is an interesting thing, huh?

Yes exactly.  I've heard others express similar sentiments, but apparently the mass of voters feels differently...



CryptoMe

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Reply #30 on: August 21, 2012, 06:54:18 AM
And yet, lots of people love them. I find the same situation with Kristine Kathryn Rusch in Analog/Asimov's. I have gotten less and less interested and found myself having geometrically reducing patience for her stories, while others routinely vote them best of year.  Taste is an interesting thing, huh?

Yes exactly.  I've heard others express similar sentiments, but apparently the mass of voters feels differently...

It happens with any art form.
... some people swear by Fellini, other people swear at Fellini....



Umbrageofsnow

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Reply #31 on: August 22, 2012, 11:50:10 AM

Yes exactly.  I've heard others express similar sentiments, but apparently the mass of voters feels differently...

I don't think I'd mind so much (I swear at Rusch more loudly and frequently than Fellini) if it weren't for the pagecount. Analog in particular makes half their issues 50% uninteresting to me by cramming them with big dull novellas. Don't think I've been impressed by an Analog novella since Mike Flynn's one about the caves and silicon life back in October of 2010? 2009? somewhere in there. "When the Winds are All Asleep" I think it was.  I think some of the extra annoyance, beyond just being an author I'm not as impressed with is that she's the primary perpetrator of these novellas that kill my magazines. Anyway, I'm honestly about one more big Rusch novella away from letting my Analog subscription lapse, and I don't think I've ever been that annoyed with an author. 

It's kind of weird, given that she isn't the worst writer they've ever published by a long shot, and I know that on a prose level, But it's more annoying because of the volume, and yes, probably because of all the people making me feel like I'm in the minority and maybe Analog is something I only like occasionally lately because it caters to these other people.  Like how I would be really unimpressed with story selection for a magazine of teenage vampire love stories, but that magazine is pretty clearly not marketed toward me. I know Analog has often been kind of a punching bag for criticism, but I honestly used to like it a lot more three or four years ago than I have lately, although even then it probably wasn't my favorite.  Sorry for the big long ramble.

Anyway, it's a good thing Albert E. Cowdrey has about a 66% hit rate for me, or I'd probably have the same complaint about F&SF.

EDIT: Just thinking about this and looking over the magazines, there have barely been any Rusch stories this year, I realized I'm still peeved from last year. Huh. Now I feel irrational. Or maybe Stan Schmidt could hear my psychic threats.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2012, 12:10:00 PM by Umbrageofsnow »



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Reply #32 on: August 22, 2012, 12:46:59 PM
Anyway, it's a good thing Albert E. Cowdrey has about a 66% hit rate for me, or I'd probably have the same complaint about F&SF.

I have similar feelings about novellas in magazines.  I used to have a subscription to F&SF.  But for me, Albert E. Cowdrey has had a 0% hit rate.  And I found it really annoying that in almost EVERY issue 50+ pages were spent on his story.  It wouldn't have been so bad if the stories were shorter, or if they hadn't been in every damned issue.