Author Topic: CoW Ep. 024: Kulturkampf (& Ep. 113 Staff Pick, & Ep. 360!)  (Read 4788 times)

danooli

  • Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 1745
    • Who Doesn't Love Stories?
Episode 24: Kulturkampf by Anatoly Belilovsky (& Ep. 113 Staff Pick, & Ep. 360!)

Today we’ve something a little out of the ordinary for you: Kulturkampf, a story of music, warfare and battling composers. It was first published in the Immersion Book of Steampunk from Immersion Press, UK, in 2011.

The author is Anatoly Belilovsky who was born in what is now Ukraine in time to watch the tanks roll into Czechoslovakia in 1968. He came to the US in 1976, learned English from watching Star Trek reruns, and is now a paediatrician in Brooklyn, NY, in an area where English is the 4th most commonly spoken language. He finds it fascinating that most of his SF sales so far have been to British and Commonwealth publications such as Nature Magazine, Andromeda Spaceways, Immersion Book of Steampunk, Ideomancer and Kasma. He believes this may be due to the influence on his work of great classic British writers of the past century, such as John Cleese, Graham Chapman, and Eric Idle.

Your narrator is Hans Fenstermacher who was born in front of the Iron Curtain in Munich, Germany. He grew up in the crosshairs of the Cold War in Berlin. With that kind of provenance, what else could he do but study Russian? Despite the tutelage (read: learning swearwords) from his T.A., Anatoly, and after a stint really deep behind the Iron Curtain in Leningrad, Hans managed to graduate with a degree in Russian. He went on to a lengthy career in localization (if you have to ask what it is, you don’t need it) and language-related exploits.

September 1, 1870
 
Most respected Feldmarschall von Moltke,
 
I wish to thank you for giving me the opportunity to put my theories to the test in the taking of Sedan. They were, of course, entirely correct, and our clear tactical victory I am happy to be reporting.


Click here to listen to Episode 24
Click here to read the text of the story

Tags:Anatoly Belilovsky, Cast of Wonders, classical music, Fantasy, Hans Fenstermacher, invasion, opera, Steampunk, tympanfurer, war, Young Adult fiction

Note that this story also ran as Episode 112 as Barry J. Northern's staff pick for 2013, and as Episode 360 as an Encore! episode
« Last Edit: January 25, 2021, 04:55:02 AM by Languorous Lass »



Fenrix

  • Curmudgeonly Co-Editor of PseudoPod
  • Editor
  • *****
  • Posts: 3996
  • I always lock the door when I creep by daylight.
Reply #1 on: January 25, 2016, 08:29:52 PM
Most of the time, I am take it or leave it with audio production. Without audio production, this would have been a thoroughly adequate absurdist story. With the soundscape embedded, the whole became greater than the sum of its parts. I like how the Pagliacci obscures the storytelling during the defeat. And the transition to Night on Bald Mountain at the end just underlines the deep satire of the closing line. Just wonderful.

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


Alasdair5000

  • Editor
  • *****
  • Posts: 1022
    • My blog
Reply #2 on: January 25, 2016, 09:54:22 PM
This is SO MUCH fun:) The audio production is staggeringly great and the story is just wonderful.



danooli

  • Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 1745
    • Who Doesn't Love Stories?
Reply #3 on: January 26, 2016, 04:29:54 PM
Thanks for asking for this post, Fenrix. I gave this one a relisten and was glad I did. What an amazing production of a great story.



kibitzer

  • Purveyor of Unsolicited Opinions
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 2228
  • Kibitzer: A meddler who offers unwanted advice
Reply #4 on: January 27, 2016, 02:33:13 AM
That's one of my all-time faves from my CoW days.

IIRC it was Barry who produced that one.


Marguerite

  • Editor
  • *****
  • Posts: 306
    • Cast of Wonders
Reply #5 on: January 31, 2016, 06:18:03 PM
I know I really shouldn't have favorites, but I listen to this episode at LEAST once a year.

Marguerite

Alea Iacta Est!


Unblinking

  • Sir Postsalot
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 8729
    • Diabolical Plots
Reply #6 on: February 02, 2016, 02:38:21 PM
I know I really shouldn't have favorites, but I listen to this episode at LEAST once a year.

Marguerite

Well, if you're not supposed to have favorites, the convention of "staff picks" kind of runs counter to that, right?  :)



Marguerite

  • Editor
  • *****
  • Posts: 306
    • Cast of Wonders
Reply #7 on: February 10, 2016, 03:47:21 PM
Well, if you're not supposed to have favorites, the convention of "staff picks" kind of runs counter to that, right?  :)

Ha! There's a reason I get to pick last - usually everyone else has helped narrow the field!!!

---Marguerite

Alea Iacta Est!


knigget

  • Matross
  • ****
  • Posts: 177
  • Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!
    • apoGrypha
Reply #8 on: April 24, 2016, 04:36:27 PM
Ahhh... a thread to warm the cackles of the author's heart!

Thank you, kind souls!

Anatoly

http://www.apoGrypha.blogspot.com

What would have been written. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)