Drabblecast 179 - The Red Bride

[normsherman]

Drabblecast 179- The Red Bride by Samantha Henderson
Drabble- Twinkle Twinkle by James Shackell
Friday, September 10, 2010
You are to imagine, Twigling, the Red Bride to be a human, such as yourself, although she is in truth a creature of the Var...

Read by Delianne Forget
Gbase.com
Cast Macabre
United States Disc Golf Chapmionship
Music by Gringo Motel, Norm Sherman, Bruce Winter, Scott Shannon
Art by Skeet Scienski

[Mikes]

Little slow on responses on this one. OK, I'll start off: after an initial listen through I'm liking this one a lot. What starts off an apparent comforting bedtime story by a slave race soon turns into something more sinister. Very well handled in the subject transition, and the delivery is just plain spooky.

And I'll be sure to check out cast Macabre. DC has a 100% hit rate for recommendations so far.

[themorg]

The main story seemed a little hit and miss for me.

[Polecat]

The main story seemed a little hit and miss for me.

That is probably because of your impatient human ways
Verily did I enjoy this account, although it took two listenings to fully understand the story. The lady Forget´s delivery was delightful, beautifully on the edge of madness - I liked the fact that she opened Twiglings sisters veins in order to spare her unnecessary fear - this is the logic of the desperate. I couldn´t quite make out the exact nature of the Red Bride, but in the end it didn´t seem too important.
Respectfully
The Polecat

[themorg]

The main story seemed a little hit and miss for me.

That is probably because of your impatient human ways
Verily did I enjoy this account, although it took two listenings to fully understand the story. The lady Forget´s delivery was delightful, beautifully on the edge of madness - I liked the fact that she opened Twiglings sisters veins in order to spare her unnecessary fear - this is the logic of the desperate. I couldn´t quite make out the exact nature of the Red Bride, but in the end it didn´t seem too important.
Respectfully
The Polecat

i was actually trying to sleep and was re-listening to this story for that exact reason. It missed for me because they eluded to consequences and vague things that will probably happen. It was Horror but the way an older brother comes in and tells your something bad happened and turns out not to be how he said it was except in one narrow view of how things happened. There was also a missing context that did make it feel alien but also disjointed. I also agree that there were some logic flaws perhaps manufactured or as illusions to how different the aliens worked.

not my favorite. There was just so much goodness with all that HPL month that perhaps even the best of Tim Pratt would not have lived up to my new expectation of the Drabblecast.

I will ponder more about the story and see if i can better pin down what it was that i did not like so i will not make the same mistake in my own writing and active listening.

[isfullofcrap]

Twinkle Twinkle was so full of awesome and win, I'm ferklempt.

Twisting around nursery rhymes and bedtime stories into lurking horror tales... well, there's no better use for the art form that is named Drabble.

I'm making a note for the end-of-the-year awards on that one.

-ls/cm

[alhilton]

That was a wonderful, complicated piece of work, but the delivery made it pop. Fantastic reading!

I can tell that even as text on the page, the narrator has an incredibly strong voice. I particularly liked the places where she's trying to describe her struggle with translating her story. She's trying to translate myth, and instead of just translating from Earth languages (as real slaves had to do), she's trying to translate alien language, myth, and biology. The resulting half-glimpsed vision feels very real, even though parts of it are incomprehensible.

Also, even though you never get a single word from the child-audience to whom she's speaking, you get a strong sense of this person's struggle between relief at being saved, horror at being saved alone, curiosity, terror, and guilt. The emotions jerk you first one way and then the other. This, too, feels very real.

[ewagoner]

I listened to this on my way to work this morning. Delianne's delivery lulled me into the bedtime story frame of mind, and I settled in for something akin to the original Grimm's stories, something dark and sinister with a thin veil for the benefit of the more innocent.

But as the story turned and the veil was ripped away, her delivery *did* *not* *change*. The music did, a bit, but not her voice, and that was what will make this story memorable for me. Holy crap, was that creepy.

As for the writing and the story itself, I'm not sure. I don't think if I had read it myself that it would stick with me the way it will now. That's the power of fiction podcasts for you.

[SeldonCrisis]

One word: Wow.

More words, in support of the one word above: Fully describing any monster or situation almost always kills the terror for me. This is probably why I loved this story more than anything from HP Lovecraft month. If the narrator had more time, I'm sure she could have fully described the beast in all its terror, but leaving her description to the name "Red Bride" was very effective. When first hearing her title, the reader gets an image of a blood-covered Carrie-esque bride on her wedding day gone wrong, but the terror goes deeper than that. The narrator's choice to translate whatever their term for the monster was to "The Red Bride" reveals how the Var view their avenger: beautiful and elegant as we view our own brides. The narrator also speaks of the Red Bride as a mother would speak of her daughter on her wedding day, with pride and affection and anticipation of the day's events. The contrast of a human bride's big day (white dresses, beautiful cakes, classical music) with the Red Bride's big day (blood, guts, vengeance, death metal) only adds to the terror. Wow. Good stuff.

And Delianne Forget deserves an award for her performance.

[Phenopath]

I liked this one, but it need two listens.

Perhaps the scariest thing about this monster is its name; The Red Bride. Without any further description the name is inherently creepy. I guess that this is the origin of the story in the author's mind, but Samantha Henderson did not over-elaborate the details of the bride, instead describing a myth. I did get a little lost on some of the details of the alien world (the stomach stones on the beach).

Great performance from Delianne, and an excellent drabble.

[Seraph]

I wish I had something deeper to say than 'That story was freaking amazing!' - but that's all I can come up with.
Freaking.
Amazing.

[DKT]

Geez. Drabblecast, that is a well-deserved Parsec award, and this story's evidence of why. I read it back in SH when it first came out and it was everything it was supposed to be. Complictated, horrifying, alien. But the way Delia Forget read this, and the production you all gave it? Cannot. Be. Beat.

Oh, Drabblecast. I love you so.

[ejbman]

Hate to say this on the heels of the Parsec win, but... I didn't really like this one. I noticed that I am not the only one who had to listen to it twice. I think the reason for this is that it was over-acted and over-produced. That distracted from the story, which was really only so-so to begin with. Now don't get me wrong; I like music, effects and dramatic readings as much as the next person (maybe even more), but it just didn't come together in this story.

[tbaker2500]

Excellent drabble!

The main story was too intricate for my simple brain. I relies heavily on listener-generated imagery, so I think that's more a failure on my part more than the story's. Judging by the super-happy reviews here, I'd guess that they have better imaginations than I do.

[Arkayanon]

I really, really liked this story.

The story itself, to me, was a mixture of intended comforting amidst the revelation of horrible events happening all around the listener as her world is torn asunder. The reading delivery, especially the line, "a dog which is not a dog..." reminded me so much of John Hurt's stint on "The Storyteller" which I adored as a child.

I think this story might get my vote for the best of the year.

[themorg]

for my simple brain.

your brain is not simple

[normsherman]

the reading delivery, especially the line, "a dog which is not a dog..." reminded me so much of John Hurt's stint on "The Storyteller" which I adored as a child.

.

Hell ya! I totally agree.

I also like the twisted Bro's Grimm story to the 3rd power (by unfathomable alien race/situation) that's been mentioned too.
Also, Samantha successfully taps into the same Great Flood/ 'purging of all but innocence' theme that she hits on in her story "Starry Night." It's scary to be a 'first born' in these worlds, where something terrifying and beyond your comprehension is coming for you, not because of what you did, but because what of you are-- the class/species/demographic that is in the wrong or in judgment.

[Talia]

Oh man, 'Red Bride' was absolutely fantastic. Creepy! Though I found myself wondering about the history between the humans and the Var. I think at the end she says something like "we are the seeded races, beneath the skin we are all the same." I want to know more about about where the Var came from.

[flyawaybefree]

I was a little confused the first time around, but the second, I really liked the voice, and the way that we all felt as though we were Twigling. And I agree with Talia- it would be really cool to hear that story.

[Farseeker]

I'm not really certain if I finished this one. If so I have very little idea what the story was about.

I listen while commuting, which usually works pretty well for me, but on this story I repeatedly came to the realization that my mind had wandered away from the story and I had very little idea what I had just heard.

At least part of the reason had to do with the audio rather than the story. I had to struggle to understand the words. I think at least one reason was that I thought the music wax mixed in too loud.

I'm sorry for the author. It might have been a really good story, but if so I missed it.