EP347: Next Time, Scales

[eytanz]

EP347: Next Time, Scales

By John Moran

Read by Josh Roseman

An Escape Pod Original!

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Listen to this week’s Escape Pod!

[schizoTypal]

Firstly, I'm so happy there was another episode so soon! It seems soon, anyway...

The reading was spot-on. I loved the voices, and the different speed and timing between the characters. Marla seemed very interesting, though I couldn't quite figure out exactly what she was. There's an interesting interaction between the way the two behave, and I thought it odd how Marla keeps insinuating that merging was a bad idea. Strange that they can do anything that would be called merging in the first place.

Marla's very violent, as it seems her race tends to be. The main human character seems to be less so than even the average human. I thought that to be worth noting. The body-switch ability was novel, though I got the feeling of it being little more than just novel. There didn't seem to be any particular need for it in the story, beyond allowing for otherwise impossible action scenes. I did think it was interesting that they feel something similar to an orgasm when excreting poisons.

I felt, in the end, that this was a very sweet love story at its core... and I liked that about it. There are a few surprises, though in my opinion they aren't particularly important. The important parts are the emotional ones.

[Listener]

The reading was spot-on. I loved the voices, and the different speed and timing between the characters.

Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[InfiniteMonkey]

I really liked this, though I would have liked to have been told what the spider-thing was doing and why. In fact, while it was a great character sketch betwixt lizard and man, it was just a sketch.

It's simply too short. It feels like a piece of something bigger. Which I'd be happy to read more of.

[ElectricPaladin]

Escape Pod doesn't run straight-up weirdo space operas often, but when they do...

I really liked this one. It was an odd, syncretic mix of tropes and subgenres - body swapping, alien biology and alien culture, space cops - and I dug it. It wasn't super deep, but it wasn't super shallow, either, and it definitely was plenty fun. I liked the unexpected human/reptile romance (I consider myself a reptile lover, but not like that...), especially how it snuck up on me. I'm a man of my actual century - I don't expect main characters to fall in love with lizard-girls, but then again, in the transhuman future, anything is possible.

[Scattercat]

I feel like I didn't enjoy this story, but mostly that was because I wanted it to take its time a little more and explore the characters and situation more gradually.  So basically, I wanted it to be longer, which means it must be at least pretty decent, right?

I enjoyed the fight scene, although I got a little lost in all the scenery.

[eytanz]

I really liked this, though I would have liked to have been told what the spider-thing was doing and why. In fact, while it was a great character sketch betwixt lizard and man, it was just a sketch.

We were told - Loris was a body-switching thief, and he somehow managed to activate a machine that resurrected a spider-thing, which attacked him. He saved himself by swapping bodies with it, and then wanted to eliminate the evidence by killing the narrator and the narrator's lizardfriend.

I also think this story was a bit too short - complete, but it did feel a bit rushed. But I enjoyed it quite a bit.

[Coolbreeze44105]

Good story. The line about having changed bodies to either gender went unexplored though. I would have liked an examination of how changing bodies changed the personalities. Would the lizard have still been in love with the hero if the body he'd assumed at the end of the story had been female?

And why was the bad guy doing what he was doing? What was his motivation, since he was essentially a spider? What do spiders want out of life(s)?

[eytanz]

And why was the bad guy doing what he was doing? What was his motivation, since he was essentially a spider? What do spiders want out of life(s)?

The bad guy wasn't a spider. He was a human who had body-swapped with a spider.

[Max e^{i pi}]

The reading was spot-on. I loved the voices, and the different speed and timing between the characters.

Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I liked it a lot too. And I will now see that creepy dog smile in my head whenever I hear your voice.

I liked the story a lot too. My only problem was that humans use huge floating hospitals in orbits around the moons of Jupiter to accomplish what this guy was able to do with a bracelet. That just seems a little bit too convenient and contrived.
Otherwise, great silly little space opera. Well done.

[Devoted135]

I enjoyed this story a lot, but felt like I had missed quite a bit when it ended. So I listened to it again! (great reading, Listener!)

I agree that there were a lot of throwaway tidbits that could have been explored more, but that would necessitate a much longer story, to the extent that it would never have been run on Escape Pod. So, I'm going to argue that it was actually the perfect length for the story that was told. I must say though, the idea of waking up in a giant spider's body... ugh! Worst. Nightmare. Ever.

[Cutter McKay]

My only beef with this story, which I found entertaining and worth the listen, was the operation of the bracelet. Maybe I missed something. It's a device for swapping bodies. It only has one button. One would assume then that pressing the button would swap the consciousnesses of the person wearing the bracelet, and the person or thing with which the wearer is in contact. With no dials, settings, or other means of control, how else would it work? If that's the case, then how in the world did Steven end up in Marla's body? It makes no sense at all other than the convenience of giving Steven and Marla glimpses into each others' existences. I feel like it was contrived only to further the love story without paying attention to the logistics of the action story. In other words, it's a gaping plot hole.

Unless I missed something.

Other than that, I quite enjoyed this one. Especially seeing things as a lizard from Steven's POV. 

[timprov]

Who needs depth in a story?  Not me if it's a fun one, which this one was. 

[tpi]

I have a serious complaint about this story:
I listened it while I was driving, and it was so exiting that I missed my exit and had to drive kilometers to next exit to make a detour.

[SF.Fangirl]

I enjoyed this a lot and like many others wish it were a little longer because there was clearly lots more to explore in the universe.  I really felt like the "romance" came out of left field at the end there and wouldn't have minded a few more hints that that was coming.  It was a fun little story with some scientific techno-babble to explain the aliens and the body swapping.

[Unblinking]

This story was pretty good, active enough and with enough interesting ideas that I didn't get bored.

My only beef with this story, which I found entertaining and worth the listen, was the operation of the bracelet. Maybe I missed something. It's a device for swapping bodies. It only has one button. One would assume then that pressing the button would swap the consciousnesses of the person wearing the bracelet, and the person or thing with which the wearer is in contact. With no dials, settings, or other means of control, how else would it work? If that's the case, then how in the world did Steven end up in Marla's body? It makes no sense at all other than the convenience of giving Steven and Marla glimpses into each others' existences. I feel like it was contrived only to further the love story without paying attention to the logistics of the action story. In other words, it's a gaping plot hole.

I agree with you there.  It's probably my engineer mind at work, but if there's only one button then the usage ought to be straightforward.  Maybe the bracelet was designed by someone who just didn't care how usable the design is?  I dunno.  More likely the bracelet was designed by the author for the purposes of directing the plot as he wanted.  But yeah that was a sticking point for me.

I really felt like the "romance" came out of left field at the end there and wouldn't have minded a few more hints that that was coming. 

Interesting, because I thought their romance was a foregone conclusion pretty early on.  It didn't really strike me as a twist.

[aesculapius]

A cool, fun story, and a universe that I'd be interested in exploring more.

[Myrealana]

Interesting, because I thought their romance was a foregone conclusion pretty early on.  It didn't really strike me as a twist.

I agree there, Unblinking. I picked up on romantic undertones from the very beginning. It was just an undertone, and initially I didn't think it was anything but character background. I was pleasantly surprised when the main character came around to realize that the feelings had been there all along, and made a decision to act on them.

In the end, this was a romantic interlude set against the background of catching a legendary interstellar bad guy.

It's the people (a word I use quite loosly here, for obvious reasons) and their relationships with each other that make all the body-swapping, poison-tailed lizards, spider creatures and immortal space vandals matter.

[childoftyranny]

Fantastic, this will be one of my favorites of this year.

I mean; body swapping, species swapping, actually having difficulty accessing higher order abilities instead of everything being instinct. Romance, light at first but then becoming clearer with better understanding instead of straight out hero-girl interaction all the elements blending together so well. I'd love to hear more from these two, especially assuming that since this technology has proven to not be species bound what it leads to when life-times start reaching their end, would they species-hop together or diverge again?

[LiudvikasT]

Aww, such a sweet love story. It's funny how all the best love tales of our days involve telepathic space lizards.

[CryptoMe]

I was kinda bored in the beginning, but it sure picked up, didn't it!

[Gamercow]

I'm not entirely sure what happened, or why it happened, but I'm glad I was along for the ride.  Great narration, sweet companionship, and likeable characters. 

[Grumpoid]

going back and catching up with some of the stories I missed

This was a cracker, a proper gem.

Mind in neutral, let the author do the talking, enjoyed the ride.

Good prose, good pace, and I had no "wait a minute" moments and no questions carried over after the last word.
I felt properly entertained.

nope, I can't deduct points for anything.

  

[jwbjerk]

This is one i'll save to listen to again.