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EP14 How to Talk to Girls at Parties by Neil Gaiman
By admin | July 16, 2008
This story is PG13 which we neglected to mention in the intro. Parental Guidance is strongly recommended.
Read by Bruce McDonald
Music by Robert Farmer
Audio Engineering by Bruce McDonald
Yes, the story really is by the Neil Gaiman! Neil Gaiman works magic in all fields of speculative fiction. He has won many awards. He has written Coraline, American Gods and Anansi Boys. Most recently he has released a short fiction collection titled Fragile Things. M is for Magic is a new collection coming out soon.
“Come on,” said Vic. “It’ll be great.”
“No it won’t,” I said, although I’d lost this fight hours ago, and I knew it.
“It’ll be brilliant,” said Vic, for the hundredth time. “Girls! Girls! Girls” He grinned with white teeth.
Topics: podcast | 5 Comments »
July 18th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
I have to say… this story confused me. It was rolling along, I thought the author was setting up a good “girls and boys are so different and confusing to each other at the beginning of adolescence as to be aliens” theme… and then it ended. The only thing I can imagine the story was meant to convey was a sex-negative message. Was Neil Gaiman trying to convey that meeting someone different and messing around with them can result in such a horrifying tragedy that it will make you feel that it has changed who you are? It’s interesting message, and consistent with a lot of abstinence propaganda, but I don’t like it one bit. The story was very interesting, and the idea of the girls being a “poem” or a “pattern” that propagated outwards from a sun and ‘infected’ a race and decimated them was a great and deep concept. But I would have preferred it had Vic and the narrator come away with a positive experience… I can’t imagine what their life with the opposite sex would be like from that point on if they start believing that sex is other-worldly and scary. In 500 years, anthropologists will look back on us with a mixture of shock and horror at the degree to which we, as a species, handle our own sexuality by withholding knowledge about it from the people who need it most, leading to all manner of wrecked lives when sex should be a joyous thing and definitely can be if the people involved are educated and careful.
July 21st, 2008 at 7:48 am
I didn’t get the Sex Negative message. The lads didn’t know they were trying to “get with” aliens, and it happened 30 years ago. The narrator seem pretty well adjusted, but his friend was messed up for life by his experience. I can see contact with an invasive changing species being like that. Ever smoke crack? Just one hit and then the addiction takes over. I have met some women like that, Just one time and guys follow them around for months and years wanting another chance.
Imagine if you will, feeling yourself being changed by the contact, before you hit the point of no return you realize what’s happening (the girly bit were not right), and Woah! I’ve got to get out of here. What just happened. I loved the part about the glare the universe gave.
That’s my take.
From a technical standpoint, the story didn’t seem finished. It was like there was supposed to be a realization from the narrator that he met aliens. Instead the story just fizzled after the climax. Which is sort of fitting considering the subject matter.
August 1st, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Not what I was expecting, at least not at first. Once the girls started acting weird, it started getting interesting. While not the best Neil Gaiman work I’ve experienced, I did enjoy it for the most part.
I HIGHLY reccomend the Anasi Boys audio book. It was my first audiobook ever and first Gaiman novel I’d ‘read’. The reader is EXCELLENT. Or you can just read the book.
September 27th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
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