Podcastle Reviews (11-27, plus miniatures)

Almost two months since the last set od PodCastle reviews? Yikes. Here's a big chunk then, which makes me up to date with PodCastle (except for the most recent show).

• No. 10. "Magic in a Certain Slant of Light" by Deborah Coates (read by Cat Rambo). A lonely academic sees the future, kinda. I don't remember this one very well. One of the side effects of listening to stories while doing other work is that sometimes I don't pay close attention to the story. So I don't remember much about the relationship that fueled the story, but I do remember the narrator very vivdly, which says good things about the writing and the performance. And in skimming over the text of the story, I remember more and more about what I liked.
  
  The fantasy aspect of the story are premonitions of the protagonist, which are often preternaturally accurate. But at the same time, she's a scientist, and she is more than ready to explain this perception as intuition founded by oservation. And as the story goes on, it's hard not to hear her fears and doubts creep into what she sees, or is willing to see, about the future. A beautiful character, all told.
  
  
• No. 11. "Fourteen Experiments in Postal Delivery" by John Schoffstall (read by Heather Lindsley). Again, it's been a while since I listened to this one, so I can't be too specific about what I hated, but boy did I hate this performance. There was an extreme disconnect between the voice of the narrator and the tone of the performer that I actually got angry trying to listen to it.
  
  
• No. 12. "Barrens Dance" by Peter S. Beagle (read by Stephen Eley). A powerful wizard is obsessed with a beautiful woman. I enjoyed this story a lot, but I don't remember much to say about it. I keep trying to remember it, but instead, I remember the places on my commute where I listened to it.
  
  
• Miniature 5. "Directions" by Caleb Wilson (read by Chris Furst). I turned this one off pretty quickly, even though I usually give minis the benefit of the doubt. Still, this one both bored and annoyed me in short order, a combination of the boring trope and what I believe was a mismatched performance. A different reader might have found something different in the story to pique my interest, but looking over the text, I don't know what that would be.
  
  
• No. 13. "Spell of the Sparrow" by Jim C. Hines (read by Tina Connolly). A love spell causes hijinx in an adventuring household. This story had a very standard sword-and-sorcery-and-humor setting, and the protagonist's family was filled with quirks like a sitcom cast. "She's a fighter, he's a rogue, their daughter's a mage, and the cat is a ghost! What wacky trouble will they get into next?" But though it seemed well done all around, this just isn't the kind of story that holds much interest for me. Much like a sitcom, I wasn't exactly bored, but I wasn't much of anything else. But still, I did appreciate having the story there, since I'm sure others enjoyed it, and because, just as sitcoms are a part of television (which I love), this kind of story is definitely a part of fantasy (which I love).
  
  
• No. 14. "The Grand Cheat" by Hilary Moon Murphy (read by Rajan Khanna). An Indian lawyer looks for loopholes in fate. A straightforward and enjoyable fairy tale. Khanna gave an excellent reading, with one glaring exception. At certain points, the story included asides from the narrator to his grandhildren, to whom he was telling his tale. These asides (including the extended section at the end) sounded painfully out of place.
  
  
• No. 15. "The Yeti Behind You" by Jeremiah Tolbert (read by Elie Hirschman). A man sees extinct creatures while waiting for his child to be born. I'm struggling to remember much about this story, but I'm not dredging anything out of my brain but a mild distaste. I guess I didn't like it much.
  
  
• Miniature 6. "Eating Hearts" by Yoon Ha Lee (read by Ann Leckie). There's like a cave and a wizard and a tiger and magic, I think? I listened to this one twice (at least) and never quite followed what was happening. I don't think that this story was well suited either for Leckie or for podcast format in general—very oblique, much left unsaid, it seemed to beg a reading closer than was possible to merely listen to. Perhaps it could have been clarified by the performer, but perhaps not. Still, I enjoyed the story very much, even if I heard it as fractured.
  
  
• No. 16. "Magnificent Pigs" by Cat Rambo
  (read by Matthew Wayne Selznick). An older brother carres for his dying sister. Ever since I watched The Grave of the Fireflies, I've known that I've had an overly soft spot for this plot, and this story was no exception. I'm tearing up again just looking at the story. I really liked Selznick's performance, which grounded the various tragedies underlying the story.
  
  Must move on! No crying at work!
  
  
• No. 17. "Goblin Lullaby" by Jim C. Hines (read by Christiana Ellis). A goblin nanny intrudes on a heroic quest. Remember what I said about "Spell of the Sparrow" (written, I now noticed, by the same person)? Same thing here, except I disliked this one more. For one thing, where Conolly played her narrator more or less straight in "Sparrow," Ellis seemed to be playing up for yuks in this story. It didn't help that the material was weaker here too. The characters are all cliches, and I can't think of a moment that wasn't shopworn.
  
  
• Miniature 7. "Tooth Fairy" by Jeffrey Valka (read by Stephen Eley). I don't remember a single moment of this story. Did I turn it of because I was annoyed at Eley? COuld be, but I could just as easily have skipped it by accident, or listened to it all and have nothing at all to say about it.
  
  
• No. 18. "Illuminated Dragon" by Sarah Prineas (read by Steve Anderson). An old magician despairs under the weight of a fascist state. Age, despair and a bleak world are what I remember of this story. Anderson did a great job communicating the narrator's view of the world. I liked the story so much, I don't want to alk any more about it. I'd definitely love to hear more stories from this world.
  
  
• No. 19. "Galatea" by Vylar Kaftan (read by Rachel Swirsky). A woman falls apart. This story left a very bad taste in my mouth, and I haven't been able to pin down why. It's the sensation I get when something is portrayed as positive when it shouldn't be. But the metaphors in the text are muddled, so it's hard to get a clear idea of what's being said and what's being unsaid.
  
  
• Miniature 8. "Believe" by Katherine Sparrow (read by Ann Leckie). A young girl believes. Not much to say about this short piece. I thought Leckie captured the naivete and exuberance of the narrator.
  
  
• No. 21. "Hallah Iron-Thighs and the Change of Life" by K. D. Wentworth (read by M. K. Hobson). A barbarian adventurer must confront her own aging. Another humor piece set in bog-standard fantasy world, so see "Spell of the Sparrow" and "Goblin Lullaby" for general thoughts. This story was somewhere between the two, Hobson overplayed for yuks, but the material was slightly better at times.
  
  
• Miniature 9. "What Dragons Prefer" by Dayle A. Dermatis (read by Loupe Savich). A dragonseeker knows more than her employer. Less than five minutes? We were robbed! The bervity of the story demanded some pretty broad strokes, but the performance had a certain air of moral ambiguity. I wanted to keep following the dragonseeker as a character like the Man with No Name.
  
  
• No. 22. "Dead Girl’s Wedding March" by Cat Rambo (read by Rachel Swirsky). A five-thousand-year-old teenager disobeys her father re marriage. I was mostly bored by this story, so I don't have anything to say now.
  
  
• No. 23. "Moon Viewing at Shijo Bridge" by Richard Parks (read by Steve Anderson). A disgraced noble turns psychic detective to protect the honor of a princess during the Heian period. At first, it seems like this is going to be a blend of noir detective fiction and Japanese court drama, but the noir wraps up rather quickly, while the intrigue remains the focus of the story. That was mildly disappointing, but I enjoyed the more traditional story on its own merits, too.
  
  This was the first of several promised "PodCastle Giant" episodes, with a runnign time considerable longer than the standard episode. There were some pacing problems, where certain scenes of dialogue dragged much more than the rest of the story. I can't be certain what caused them; I suspect that they read faster on paper than when listened to. There are also some extensive expositioning in scenes. Still, even considering the slower parts, the story felt much shorter than its actual ninety-minute length, which says much more about the quality of the story.
  
  As for the performance, it was in this story, and I synced into a verbal tic of Anderson's, and the reading of every sentence started to sound the same. It's reared its head in several other readings since, and it makes me grit my teeth each time. Not yet as bad as my issues with Eley, but getting there. I feel like I'm making a cheap shot because I can't describe it right now, but I can't recall it precisely, and I don't have a recording handy (my workplace blocks the server that holds the podcasts).
  
  
• Miniature 10. "The Desires of Houses" by Haddayr Copley-Woods (read by Rachel Swirsky). I almost turned this episode off, because it seemed so stereotypically over the top, but Swirsky deftly highlighted a hairpin turn that left me shocked and amazed.
  
  
• No. 24. "It Takes a Town" by Stephen V. Ramey (read by Bill Ruhsam). A small town annoys me with it's plan to colonize Mars. I turned this one off pretty gosh-darn-shucks-howdy fast, when the folksyism became too much.
  
  
• Miniature 11. "The Fable of the Moth" by Peter S. Beagle (read by Stephen Eley). The first in a series of Eley-read shorts by Beagle. I gritted my way through this one, but didn't really get anything out of it.
  
  
• No. 25. "Anywhere There’s a Game" by Greg Van Eekhout (read by Benjamin Manoochehri). I didn't make it through the episode, so I can't give a full idea of what's going on. But it's about pro basketball, which is apparently full of people with crazy fantastic powers. The writing was good, but the performance was rather lacking, and I started to grit through it. At a point I believe was around the halfway point, there was a performance/text mismatch that I just couldn't listen to. When the narrator was angrily, frustratedly, desperately reaming out a teammate, Manoochehri sounded listless and a little bemused. It killed the story for me, though I think I'd like to read it for myself.
  
  
• Miniature 12. "The Fable of the Tyrranosaurus Rex" by Peter S. Beagle (read by Stephen Eley). The second in the series. I tried to last through it, but the voice of the T-Rex was too much for me to take, even for a mini.
  
  
• No. 26. "Black Ribbon " by Dawn Albright (read by Heather Welliver). Beautiful twins are raised to be a weapon. This story had a lot of problems, the biggest of which was that it was hard to follow by ear. Twins with the same name? Not the easiest thing to keep up with. I wasn't doing anything strenuous while listening (just the dishes), but I kept missing bits, even when I rewound. But it was a good performance, and the final image was beautiful.
  
  
• Miniature 13. "The Fable of the Ostrich" by Peter S. Beagle (read by Stephen Eley). After the previous two, I stopped this one pretty quick, though this time it ahd as much to do with the text as with the performance. With all that's going on in this country's politics and economy, I the thought of listening to a bunch of ostriches debate head-hiding made me ill.
  
  
• No. 27. "Red Riding-Hood’s Child" by N. K. Jemisin (read by Rajan Khanna). Little Red Riding Hood's son is drawn to the forest. I really enjoyed Khanna's reading here, as in "The Grand Cheat," now freed from the storyteller's aside. He's good with the straightforward, unembellished style that this dark story really needed to balance its fantastic aspects with its mundane horrors.
  
  This story is "rated X" and features a rather graphic depiction of sex. Personally, I felt that it was gratuitous, but that's mostly because I'm over and done with the "Freudian" interpretation of "Little Red Riding Hood," from which this story takes inspiration. Thinking back on it, I wonder if I would object to the same scene if the story were distinct from the older tale. I don't think I would,
  
  
• Miniature 14. "The Fable of the Octopus" by Peter S. Beagle (read by Stephen Eley). I don't know how many more of these there will be, but I'm not going to bother listening to this particular miniseries.

MonNYTX: 4.