Our first piece of audio fiction for June is "Futures in the Memories Market" written by Nina Kiriki Hoffman and read by Kate Baker.
Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 45 - Futures in the Memories Market by Nina Kiriki Hoffman [33:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (3504)
Over the past twenty-some years, Nina Kiriki Hoffman has sold adult and YA novels and more than 250 short stories. Her works have been finalists for the World Fantasy, Mythopoeic, Sturgeon, Philip K. Dick, and Endeavour awards. Her first novel, The Thread that Binds the Bones, won a Stoker award, and her short story "Trophy Wives" won a Nebula Award in 2009. }}} Her fantasy novel Fall of Light came out from Ace in May, 2009. Her middle-school novel Thresholds will come out from Viking in August, 2010. Nina does production work for the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. She also works with teen writers. She lives in Eugene, Oregon.
Website:
ofearna.us/books/hoffman.htm
I think that this story has an intensely poetic appeal that comes to the surface by focusing on the shifting center of reference - the so-called viewpoint- that becomes the authorial presence of the author's voice, not the main or viewpoint character. If one focuses on the flow of narrative as an expression of the author, the ideas about memory, perception, value, and the eternally re-visited tropes of virtual/fictional elements set in an unreliable space/time structure becomes the ultimate theme. I know I sound a little deconstructionist here, but to me, the ultimate theme transcends a simple narrative tale by having a shifting center. Memory and history, narrative and structure, all become a little virtual or slippery in this story. At least that is what I got from listening to it as a blank canvas with an unreliable narrator manipulating memories and perceptions.
Well, what a comment above me... Thought, I have a little bit of a different take from the story.
First off, this was a solid reading performance. I was lost in the narration and prose almost instantly. Kate's voice seems to be suited to certain stories, and this was most certainly one of them.
And what a fine story it was! It held me the entire time, and excited some dormant thoughts. The idea behind this rather horrifying concept seems like a not-so-far expansion of what I see with the Internet, especially webcam based sites were we can experience the lives of another. But even stuff like tabloids, etc...
It all stems from this hunger to live through the lives of those who we project our fantasies on. The story took it a lot farther by abusing and exploiting those who gave up memories to the public appetite, but am I the only one who saw the parallel?
Contrary to what I saw written in the other comments section, this was a moving story that was both beautifully written and original.
We all look at
That was a great story. I totally thought that the twist in the story was going to go the other way. I was sure that the twist was going to be that Idsel was also having his memories siphoned off, just after longer intervals.