Psuedopod is a short story horror podcast that I listen to regularly (even if I always do seem to be a few episodes behind). The producers, Escape Artists, also do a science fiction 'cast (Escape Pod) and a fantasy one (PodCastle). They're all pretty great, but in some ways, Psuedopod is my least favorite of the three, just because horror is kind of a hit-and-miss genre for me, and when a horror story fails to work for you, it often fails badly.

But even on those occasions when the story itself doesn't do much for me, I'm always happy I listened, anyway, because they're always followed by host Alasdair Stuart's wonderful "outro"s, in which he somehow always finds really insightful things to say. Even if I don't always get much out of the story, he always seems to, which means that I do, after all. And he then uses that as a jumping-off point to talk about thoughts and experiences of his own on a variety of subjects: the horror genre, writing and creativity, pop culture, martial arts, growing up on the Isle of Man, the everyday struggles of his own life and everyone else's and how to face them with courage. Whatever it is he's talking about, he does it articulately and with a lot of humor and heart, and I always look forward to listening to him.

So I was delighted when I heard these segments were being collected into a book. Sadly, though, I just don't think they're nearly as successful in this format. Stripped of all references to the stories they originally accompanied and recast as standalone pieces, they feel entirely too disjointed and devoid of context. They were clearly written to play in audio format, and they lose a lot in the absence of Stuart's expressive voice. They also haven't been edited well; there are quite a few typos and other kinds of annoying mistakes, some of which actually make the sentences they're infesting a little difficult to parse. So, it's a bit disappointing, and really just not the same as listening to them on the podcast. That probably won't stop me from buying volume 2 when it comes out, though. ( )