Author Topic: Pseudopod 369: Four Views Of The Big Cigar In Winter  (Read 9197 times)

Bdoomed

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on: January 18, 2014, 07:44:23 AM
Pseudopod 369: Four Views Of The Big Cigar In Winter

by Charlie Bookout

“Four Views Of The Big Cigar In Winter” placed in a contest held by a publisher called Zharmae and it was to be printed in an anthology due out in the spring of 2014. Zharmae’s editor, Travis Grundy, contacted me saying that he’d scrapped the anthology. A link to the Kindle edition of the story can be found at www.maxavalon.com.

CHARLIE BOOKOUT lives with his family in Gentry, Arkansas — a creepy little town that’s a stone’s throw from the hillbilly infested Ozark Mountains. He belongs to a group of rural artists who, years ago, converted our home town’s old mortuary into a funky project studio for music, film, and strange art that defies description. They did their nineteenth annual haunted house this past Halloween, and it was a scream. (It is a mortuary after all.) – check out Mortuary Studios and Facebook. His music can be purchased here. His science fiction short “One Sixth Gravity of The Heart” is scheduled to appear on the podcast Wily Writers this coming April. It will be edited by Guild Wars 2 designer Angel Leigh McCoy and Ghost Hand author Ripley Patton.

Your readers this week include: Emily Smith (who works as a physician in central California to keep her cats and dogs in kibble and afford her excessive reading habits), Matt Franklin (who is a narrative developer and vocal talent working in the game design industry. He tweets through @angusonair, and would like to thank his director, Pauline Lu, for continued support) and Laura Hobbs (who works in infosec by day and is a random crafter by night. Twitter is her social media of choice, and she despises the word “cyber”. When asked nicely, she sometimes reads things for people on the internet. You can find her online at soapturtle.net.



“She watched him tromp away and quickly disappear into the blizzard. Had he survived a little longer, she would have given him the big news he was dreading. But a madman with a hammer would find him that afternoon and mercifully spare him the trouble.

Her tears were starting to freeze on her cheeks. She yawned and looked to the east. Snowflakes swirled against the fragile glow like volcanic ash.

No one would see her. Everyone else was indoors: listening to the weather guy for closings, checking the cocoa supply, planning snow forts. She had observed that Arkansans, as a rule, did not prepare for snow—not like their neighbors to the north—and that the residents of Cedar Hill were particularly myopic. They would weave along slick streets like drunkards. They would entrust their children to the talents of school bus drivers who had established records of vehicular homicide. They would neither chain their tires nor salt their bridges. They would pretend that nothing had changed. But only to a point. When a storm like this one came around, even Cedar Hill gave up and stayed home. Bone-aching winter had assailed the Ozark Plateau like a nocturnal predator, and all the other rabbits were snug in their warrens. No one would see her.

No one but the crow on the branch above her.”




Nick Winnick – Pseudopod Assistant Editor and all around great guy – is available for editing at Pixel Ink Editing



Just a quick note – this episode of Pseudopod was released with a technical snafu. It has now been corrected but we ask you to please redownload it, as part of the story was missing. Thanks!



Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
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Kaa

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Reply #1 on: January 18, 2014, 01:59:31 PM
I listened to the entire "wrong length" episode yesterday in the car on the way home from work, and rather than listening to the entire story again, I'd like to find out where, specifically, the missing piece is so I can hear just that part in context.

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Sgarre1

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Reply #2 on: January 18, 2014, 04:19:33 PM
The last scene, which returns to the current time frame, was missing.

*But* - depending on whether Graeme or I are wrong about what we heard, the order of other scenes may have been jumbled as well in the first version.  It should have started in modern times, gone back a year, gone back back 18 years, gone back 37 years and then returned to modern times, closing the frame.



kibitzer

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Reply #3 on: January 19, 2014, 09:53:13 PM
Huge apologies for the slipup folks, my face is very red.

Probably worth mentioning here that the correct version is 43:18 in length.


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Reply #4 on: January 20, 2014, 02:11:34 PM
The last scene, which returns to the current time frame, was missing.

*But* - depending on whether Graeme or I are wrong about what we heard, the order of other scenes may have been jumbled as well in the first version.  It should have started in modern times, gone back a year, gone back back 18 years, gone back 37 years and then returned to modern times, closing the frame.

Oh!  Gotcha.  If I parsed it correctly, the one that I heard started in modern times, went back 37 years, back 18 years, back to modern times.  The scene where he sold the land was before the scene where Tink died.

Anyway, right order or no I thought the story was decently good, creepy and well written.  I'm not sure it will be hugely memorable long term, but was plenty good.  I'll have to think about whether a different scene order would've made any difference.



Kaa

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Reply #5 on: January 20, 2014, 04:23:27 PM
Heh!

Well, that DOES rather change the entire story, now, doesn't it? The funny thing is, I would never have noticed if y'all hadn't said something. I re-listened to the whole thing again, and it was a bit more coherent AND the ending made sense. Thanks for fixing it and re-uploading. :)

As for the story itself: I liked it, although "The Big Cigar" was only used once, so I was a bit confused at the title until it was used. Great voice work by all three readers, but especially, I thought, by Matt Franklin.

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Reply #6 on: January 21, 2014, 03:03:45 PM
although "The Big Cigar" was only used once, so I was a bit confused at the title until it was used.

I think that if the scenes had been in the right order, the one use would've been near the beginning instead of near the end, which probably would've made it easier to get.  Yeah, as it was, I kept on waiting for the cigar to show up and wondering if this would be one of those times when a cigar would just be a cigar.



zoanon

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Reply #7 on: January 28, 2014, 06:02:25 AM
well I'm confused  ???
I get the gist of the story, and it's ok, but I don't think I listen again.



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Reply #8 on: February 10, 2014, 05:36:55 PM
Thoroughly enjoyed this one, and I would echo again that Pseudopod is having a great 2014.  The writer chose the happy ending, I probably would have made the other decision and allowed evil to continue.  The time jumps didn't bother me at all.  If there was any negative, I think it was fairly predictable at times, but still well executed and an entertaining listen.

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