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prusikIt's not a big surprise, I guess, that a couple different podcasts landed on the same idea. It's horror month at both Podcastle and Lightspeed. The inevitable side effect is that most of the short stories I listen to this month are or will be some sort of horror story. This makes me weirdly thankful that Clarkesworld did *not* declare October horror month.
Fortunately, the stories that went up today at Podcastle and Lightspeed are both utterly captivating. The Related Burial at Podcastle, for me, is the more satisfying of the two. Lush, beautiful language. Rich immersive sense details despite the POV character having her eyelids sewn shut. All in all, a lovely meditation on the nature of death. (And it's all the more powerful for its length, or lack thereof.) Another Story I Wish I Had Written.
The Taste of Starlight is not really my type of story, but it is perfectly structured and it's unflinching in how it buries you inside the main character's head. i.e., if I were an editor, I probably would not have bought the story, not because it isn't a fine, well-written story, but because it's not the sort of thing any magazine I'd edit might publish.
Ultimately, the story isn't much more than a parade of the "violent and graphic imagery" that JJA warns about at the top of the web page with a smattering of hyper-rationality thrown in to justify it and, of course, the main character inevitable descent into madness. I don't think it's spoiling things to say that he does get his comeuppance. That's what happens in these sorts of affairs. (How it happens is one of those "inevitable but surprising" turns that's a mark of terrific writing.)
The story does everything it needs to do exquisitely. The violence the main character commits escalates inexorably throughout the story. At every point, he's challenged by his actions, but he pushes on nonetheless. The challenges mount ever harder. The story points out his own degradation skillfully and subtly. The story nails all the structural issues so that you keep with it. The "violent and graphic imagery" is as violent and as graphic as it needs to be to make the story work, but no more than that. Stinting on that front would have ruined the story but so would have anything gratuitous. The story navigates between those two with utter precision. It even justifies its length. (At an hour, this is a long podcast.) Pacing the story any faster would have robbed it of its power.
For me though, the end result is probably only a little more than the written fiction version of Saw. Lots of people loved Saw and its many sequels, but I never caught any of those movies because they're not for me, (This also means the Saw analogy may not be apt.) I'm striving to develop the level of craft and technique this story shows in abundance. I'd deploy it towards something else entirely, but that's just me.
Fortunately, the stories that went up today at Podcastle and Lightspeed are both utterly captivating. The Related Burial at Podcastle, for me, is the more satisfying of the two. Lush, beautiful language. Rich immersive sense details despite the POV character having her eyelids sewn shut. All in all, a lovely meditation on the nature of death. (And it's all the more powerful for its length, or lack thereof.) Another Story I Wish I Had Written.
The Taste of Starlight is not really my type of story, but it is perfectly structured and it's unflinching in how it buries you inside the main character's head. i.e., if I were an editor, I probably would not have bought the story, not because it isn't a fine, well-written story, but because it's not the sort of thing any magazine I'd edit might publish.
Ultimately, the story isn't much more than a parade of the "violent and graphic imagery" that JJA warns about at the top of the web page with a smattering of hyper-rationality thrown in to justify it and, of course, the main character inevitable descent into madness. I don't think it's spoiling things to say that he does get his comeuppance. That's what happens in these sorts of affairs. (How it happens is one of those "inevitable but surprising" turns that's a mark of terrific writing.)
The story does everything it needs to do exquisitely. The violence the main character commits escalates inexorably throughout the story. At every point, he's challenged by his actions, but he pushes on nonetheless. The challenges mount ever harder. The story points out his own degradation skillfully and subtly. The story nails all the structural issues so that you keep with it. The "violent and graphic imagery" is as violent and as graphic as it needs to be to make the story work, but no more than that. Stinting on that front would have ruined the story but so would have anything gratuitous. The story navigates between those two with utter precision. It even justifies its length. (At an hour, this is a long podcast.) Pacing the story any faster would have robbed it of its power.
For me though, the end result is probably only a little more than the written fiction version of Saw. Lots of people loved Saw and its many sequels, but I never caught any of those movies because they're not for me, (This also means the Saw analogy may not be apt.) I'm striving to develop the level of craft and technique this story shows in abundance. I'd deploy it towards something else entirely, but that's just me.
