Author Topic: Pseudopod 456: Flash On The Borderlands XXVI: Official Reports  (Read 4449 times)

Bdoomed

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Pseudopod 456: Flash On The Borderlands XXVI: Official Reports

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. ”

George Orwell



Thumbwood” by Davin Ireland

“Thumbwood” was originally published in September of 2007 in THE FIRST HUMDRUMMING BOOK OF HORROR STORIES, a UK print anthology of horror fiction edited by Ian Alexander Martin. The tale was reprinted in August of 2010 in ESTEBAN’S HOUSE OF BIZARRO, an online journal of bizarro fiction that folded some weeks later. While the tale itself is fictional, the structure and language of the document are lifted directly from a genuine British Ministry of Defence report I was able to get my hands on.

DAVIN IRELAND was born and raised in the south of England, but currently resides in the Netherlands. His fiction credits include stories published in over sixty print magazines and anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic, including Aeon, Underworlds, The Horror Express, Zahir, Comets & Criminals, Rogue Worlds, Storyteller Magazine and Something Wicked. He blogs at Davin Ireland.

Your reader – should be somewhat familiar to you…

“c) The kitchen is surprisingly modern given the setting, and contains many of the domestic appliances one might expect from an equivalent family home. Dishwasher, microwave, fridge-freezer and designer espresso machine are all in evidence. In an alcove by the back door, Sisyphus struggles valiantly to push a large granite sphere up a craggy mountainside. Oblivious to our operative’s presence, the former Corinthian king puffs and strains in order to achieve his goal, jaw clenched, diminutive biceps popping beneath the fabric of his flimsy cotton tunic. The task is a thankless one.”



Final Corrections, Pittsburgh Times-Dispatch” by M. Bennardo.

“Final Corrections, Pittsburgh Times-Dispatch” was first published by Daily Science Fiction on January 3, 2013. (about story) “I’m quite fond of Pittsburgh, and selected it as the scene of this story only for its interesting geography.”

M. BENNARDO is the writer of over 40 published short stories. He is also co-editor of the MACHINE OF DEATH series of anthologies (along with David Malki and Ryan North). The most recent volume in the series, “THIS IS HOW YOU DIE”, was published by Grand Central Press in July 2013, and was named by the Onion AV Club as one of their favorite books of the year. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio and his personal website is M. Bennardo.

Your reader – John Bell – is creator of award-winning radio ads (no, really!), voice talent, audio-book voice, and writer/producer of the “Bells in the Batfry” podcast. He has an audio book on Audible and iTunes (plus a text version, but you REALLY want the audio version) called “The Devil’s Pinata”… a rather silly and pun-filled spoof of action-adventure novels…

“In several items yesterday, the Visitor was variously described as having six legs, eight legs, or “an unholy agglomeration of writhing, thrashing appendages, unable to be counted”. The correct number of legs is eight.”



N0072-JK1: Study of Synaptic Response of the Organism to Spontaneous Stimulation of Vulnerability Zones. Photographic Analysis” by Adam Corbin Fusco.

“N0072-JK1: Study of Synaptic Response of the Organism to Spontaneous Stimulation of Vulnerability Zones. Photographic Analysis” was first published in the anthology Borderlands 5 from Borderlands Press. It was reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Seventeenth Annual Collection. Borderlands 5 was republished by Warner Books under the title From the Borderlands.

ADAM CORBIN FUSCO is a writer whose fiction has appeared in Realms of Fantasy, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Weird Tales, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and other publications. His website is at The Tantisper Tower.

Your reader – Erik Luke – is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film EXPLORERS, which is currently in development as a remake, the comic books GHOST and WONDER WOMAN, and wrote and directed the NOT QUITE HUMAN films for Disney TV. His current project INTERFERENCE, a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook… that kills, is available free on iTunes and at Quillhammer.com.

“Reaction to the ‘primal face’ is correlative to reaction to the ‘laughter response face.’ Subjects were shown a photograph of a theater audience. They were told the audience was viewing a comedic film and were asked to rate the comedic value of the film on the one to five Tortelli scale based on the audience’s facial reaction. Seventy-nine percent of males and seventy-two percent of females rated the comedic value at a four or greater. The fact that the audience was not watching a comedic film at all maintains the consistency of the study. (Note photographic archive of Nazi ‘Laughter Cabaret’ wherein each seat delivered mid-level electrical shock via anal probes during strategic ‘punchlines.’)”



If you like horror movies you really should be listening to FACULTY OF HORROR!.

If you are female (or identify as such) and write horror fiction, you should consider submitting to Artemis Rising 2: Hecate Strikes Back

If you enjoyed the stylistic conceit of this week’s episodes, you should check out TANDEM REGION TIMES


Listen to this week's Pseudopod.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2015, 06:23:53 PM by Bdoomed »

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


starktheground

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Reply #1 on: September 23, 2015, 12:47:10 PM
I enjoyed the news format of the stories, though it's always hard to make a connection when the writing is so technical. It was interesting, though. I don't think I can ever think of tickling the same way again.



dwarzel

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Reply #2 on: September 24, 2015, 05:39:30 PM
I believe that should be #456 up there, not 436.



Bdoomed

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Reply #3 on: September 24, 2015, 06:24:18 PM
I believe that should be #456 up there, not 436.

doh! Didn't catch that!

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


Acth99

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Reply #4 on: September 25, 2015, 01:40:54 AM
I love, love, love this sort of format for horror. I especially liked the perfect match of narrator to story in "Corrections." Keep up the great work!



ElectricPaladin

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Reply #5 on: September 25, 2015, 02:35:02 PM
Of the three, Thumbwood was my favorite. Possibly one of my favorite stories of all time. I wish I could find it somewhere in print, so I could keep it near me at all times and read it whenever my life is feeling too normal. The other two were pretty good... but they weren't Thumbwood. Thumbwood blew my mind, gave me a new mind, then blew that one, too.

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Unblinking

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Reply #6 on: September 29, 2015, 03:17:51 PM
Thumbwood
I enjoyed listening, but I'm not sure I got from this what I was supposed to get from this.  It seemed that the small oddities were supposed to add up to something more, I guess that never came together for me.  It's possible that I missed something, maybe I zoned out at an inopportune time.

Final Corrections, Pittsburgh Times-Dispatch
I loved this one.  Especially in how we don't get to read the story but we see the shape of the story in the errors that were inherent in the original story.  I liked how those errors ranged from ordinary corrections like misspelling of a person's name, to mundane things that it would be easy to misconstrue in a panic like the number of legs, to fire-and-brimstone freakout language like the portal to hell, etc.  Besides the title "Final" it seems to be implied that this will probably be one of the last publications of the city one way or the other, especially with the incubation period having been shown to be 16 hours, and part of the interest in the story is that anybody has bothered to write this up at all rather than running in terror in a futile attempt to escape.  Will anyone actually read this?  Maybe, maybe not.

N0072-JK1: Study of Synaptic Response of the Organism to Spontaneous Stimulation of Vulnerability Zones. Photographic Analysis
Oh, man, this one was messed up in that strange kind of clinical, distant way.  Funny in its horrificness.  Taking a basic and reasonable question which might have some reasonable scientific validity like "Why do we laugh when we are tickled?" and taking the study to a horrible level.  Most poignant, to me, was the necessity to stop the tickle study after 15 hours because of the loss of skin integrity, and how casually that fact is just tossed in there.  "Yes, we literally TICKLED THE SUBJECT UNTIL THEIR SKIN WORE OFF.  FOR SCIENCE!"  And the bizarre image of a Disney-esque toddler-proportioned cheetah mascot suit mauling and killing a person was such a strange and bizarre image, my brain still doesn't know what to do with it.

And with a 2 year old at home, the comparison of giggling pursuit with terror pursuit was interesting, because the toddler does frequently flee us when he knows we want him to do something, and then giggles uproariously while we chase him down.  And he giggles like mad when we pretend to nibble on his hand or something like that.



zoanon

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Reply #7 on: October 03, 2015, 07:20:19 AM
I was not sure what was going on in thumbwood and  was going to re-listen to the this episode but I had to burn my phone and all memories after hearing N0072-JK1. which was a shame, I really enjoyed the middle story.

I couldn't even get into N0072-JK, my mind was rejecting it that hard. I'm sure it was fascinating.

EDIT:
it's three months later and I had a horrible flash back of N0072-JK. definitely proves it as the most disturbing flash I've heard.
I need brain bleach :(
« Last Edit: January 20, 2016, 09:28:12 PM by zoanon »