Readers Imbibing Peril roundup for October

I started, but didn’t finish, Sheridan Le Fanu’s In a Glass Darkly. Maybe I’ll have time to finish it this month. Everything I listened to from Pseudopod in October: Pseudopod 830: The Honey Witch by Kathryn McMahon, published September 30, 2022; listened October 1, 2022 ***** We’ve All Gone to the Magic Show by Todd

Readers Imbibing Peril: Short Stories read in September

There’s no official sign-up for RIP this year, but I read or listened to a bunch of horror short fiction in September, all from the Pseudopod podcast. Pseudopod 823: Little Freedoms by Ephiny Gale (August 13, 2022) (first published 2017) listened September 14 **** Pseudopod 822: The Experiment of Erich Weigert by Sewell Peaslee Wright

5 Great Fantasy Stories as Podcast Episodes

This is another post for the Fantastic Five short stories prompt (May 22: “Bite-sized delight”), a little late this time. I have listened to a lot of short story podcasts in the last few years, mostly the horror podcast Pseudopod and its sister podcast Podcastle, which covers fantasy short stories. My first pick for this

5 Fabulous Fairytale Retellings

(tree wolf image by chic2view on 123RF.co) This is for the Fantastic Five short stories prompt (May 22: “Bite-sized delight”), but I decided to be a little bit more specific and recommend 5 of my favorite fairytale retellings. I’ve read a few novel-length retellings — I loved Robin McKinley’s Deerskin and Spindle’s End — but

Review: Fire Watch (repost from GoodReads, 2016)

Fire Watch by Connie WillisMy rating: 3 of 5 stars This collection contains 12 stories. The title story, “Fire Watch” is a bittersweet tale set in the same universe as Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, but written earlier. It was published in 1982, and won the 1983 Hugo & Nebula Awards

Review: Two Plays for Voices (repost from GoodReads, 2016)

Two Plays for Voices by Neil GaimanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars This full cast audio CD includes 2 short stories previously published in Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions. There are some gruesome bits in both stories, but I didn’t find them gratuitous. The highlight is definitely “Murder Mysteries” which I think is

Review: Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances (repost from GoodReads, 2017)

Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil GaimanMy rating: 3 of 5 stars The highlights of this collection, for me, were “The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains,” “A Calendar of Tales” and “The Sleeper and the Spindle” (the last of which I’d listened to before, as a separate audio CD). “A

Review: Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things

Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things by Lafcadio HearnMy rating: 4 of 5 stars Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904), also known as Koizumi Yakumo after gaining Japanese citizenship, was best known for his books about Japan. He was born in Greece and raised in England, and moved to Japan in 1890. Kwaidan is a book

Deal Me In: The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains

This is one of my cards for the Deal Me In Challenge: the 7 of Hearts, which is the suit I dedicated to stories on audio. I was keeping up with my list until I fell behind in May. I will try to catch up this month by reading two at a time for a while. I have

Deal Me In: March Stories Read (4)

Here are the stories I read in March! Spades: Contemporary Science Fiction John M. Ford, “Heat of Fusion“ This is a new author for me. The story is told through diary entries of a man with terminal radiation poisoning. This is a hard one to describe… it’s intense, and very internally focused, with very little setting