A Simple Way To Go Faster Than Light That Does Not Work

This week's episode of Escape Pod features the short "Ulla" by Daniel Schwabauer, and it's totally awesome. It uses the trope of retelling a classic story from the villain's point of view to stunning effect, in part because it also employs a separate and quite unexpected narrative convention that I won't spoil for you. The reading is very well done, too (though I dunno about all the reverb).

Link to Escape Pod page on the story | Direct link to MP3

Steve's been doing the pre-show WARNINGs less often, too, which I think is an excellent trend. I seriously yank the buds right out of my ears and do a fifteen-count when he starts into one, so deep is my aversion to spoilers. (Though if he now only does them for stories with sex /cussing/bloodnguts in them, the very presence of a warning becomes a spoiler. Pfui.)

Just had to shut off a Gaming Steve show cuz one of his co-hosts was sprinkling his commentary about the GDC with wingnut watchwords like "the whiners in this country" and "feminazi". And instead of taking the proper countermeasure of immediate rhetorical decapitation and staking, Steve would just say something about video cards or whatever. To his credit, he would completely ignore the comments, which is better than chuckling at them, but still... if it were my show, I'd react as if the other dude had just stood up and pissed in my coffee.

Man, I hate the possibility this raises. Steve's show is my favorite amateur-produced podcast (at least among those not made by me or people on my fllist, ha ha) and for many months now I have looked forward to each new episode. But I dunno if I could continue listening to it in good faith if I learned that he had the taint.

He doesn't bring up politics much. I know that he doesn't have much love for his senator Clinton, but this is mostly because of her silly video game legislation and not because she lays with incubi and drinks the blood of Republican babies or whatever they say about her down on the farm.

Maybe I can write him a nice letter suggesting that he ask his future co-hosts to please cool it with the political asides, because that sort of thing is sure to alienate half of his listeners. I would have to write without any implication that I'd like to have a political discussion with him, because if he actually is working for the other side, I just don't want to know. I'd rather just keep enjoying his show in ignorance and avoid another Lileksian tragedy.

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I would also like to write a letter to the other podcasting Steve I know about, the fellow who makes the often-delightful Escape Pod. He's sort of erring overmuch in the other direction, recording warning messages before many of his shows whenever they contain sex, or naughty language, or even just tragic imagery.

His second-to-most-recent episode was MPAA-equiv of PG-13 at "worst" but he still felt the need to open with a lengthy preamble about how dark and upsetting the story was. And for the life of me the only reason I can conjure for that is a character remembering how a doggy he worked with had died. It was a brave doggy caught in a very bad situation, and the telling was non-gratuitous and indeed central to the story. But I know that some people just can't deal with doggy death.

Eh, it also dealt with terrorism and city-trashing forces of nature, and these are certainly topics with close nerve clusters close for many. Maybe that was it. But still, whenever the-other-Steve prefaces a show with one of his content advisories, I spend the whole listening on edge, braced for the content. And when the story ends, my primary reaction is "Whew! That wasn't so bad! Thank goodness!" And, man, that's not the feeling that the author was trying to convey, I'm pretty sure.