Runalong The Short Shelves -Pseudopod
Website - https://pseudopod.org
For this week’s Short Shelves I have a look at the audio delights and shivers that Pseudopod had for me
Pseudopod episode 1,015 What Haunts the Newbuild by Megan Cain. Narrated by Danny Daly. Hosted by Ali James.
This is an incredibly smart story and a neat spin on the haunted house. Cain imagines here houses prey on their occupant’s to feed them. A suitably creepy gothic house starts a competition with the new build next door as to whom will have the bigger feast. Daly really gives the story depth with their characterisation and we watch the horrors unfurl for the occupants while at the same time wonder who will eventually win here. The outcome is unexpected and wonderfully sinister!
PseudoPod, episode 1016, Flash on the Borderlands 76 - Left by the Tide by Edward E Schiff, Sirens Chasing Sirens by Seth Wade, Dread and Faith by Ash Vale. Narrated for you by Leman Kessler, Scott Campbell and Amy H Sturgis. Hosted by Alasdair Stuart
The Borderlands episodes have shorter fiction for the listeners and a fine range awaits. Left By The Tide is more classic cosmic horror with a man encountering something mysterious at the beach. Leman Kessler fills the tale with shocked and indignant certainty. A highlight of this story is Stuart challenging us to revisit who exactly is acting the most monstrous and linking this to the current climate of men who are far too entitled to being right about everything.
Sirens is a very different tale of lust and death as a siren chooses his prey. Despite monstrous activity we witness (beautifully described by Scott Campbell) there is a sense here of someone doing what they need to survive in this world. A cycle that will never end happily probably for anyone. It neatly contrasts the pure confrontation of the first tale
Dread and Faith perhaps then is the synthesis of the story. A woman dining her dates to a pool soon becomes aware she is being watched. Our two earlier stories show where this could go and this neatly leaves it up to the reader to decide if that is likely or just possibly based on the way this story is told by Amy H Sturgis perhaps here the ‘monster’ will just be embraced? Stuart explored boundaries and limitations in the story analysis afterwards that really brings the great selection here together
A very good collection of stories!
PseudoPod, episode 1017 In the Hands of a Different God by Noah Ashley Blooms. Narrated by Danny Daly. Hosted by Alastair Stuart
This one is a hard story about generations tied into some form of worship of an entity that bestows the power of miracle working but at an immense cost. The horror is the way no one really realises they’re trapped until it’s too late and our narrator’s solution is both tragic and in the long term incredibly cruel. Salt brings that character’s denial to the surface in the narration while Stuart has a fantastic piece of analysis at the end of this story that is very much explaining how the horror works
PseudoPod, episode 1018 - The Polyamorous Heart of Death by M. Lopez de Silva. Narrated by Jordan Karella, hosted by Kat Day
A wonderfully macabre final tale of the month where an artist decides to use the body of a model to create their next great work. Karella brings this to life with a tale of art, obsession and it gets crisis int the lines of madness but also has a final reveal as to our narrator’s identity which really works to put the tale into context. Day in their story analysis explores how artit’s using tragedy to make artist new but raised all kind of hard questions for both the artist and the listener to confront. A thought provoking story!
