Having two podcasts out there (Deep Red and Beans and Marbles) has lead me to discover that the world of podcasts is much more active than the world of print. For one thing, there seem to be a gazillion sites out there dedicated to nothing but spreading new podcasts around like an infectuous disease, so much in fact that the hit list of my (ever more infrequent) ego google tripled in the weeks following the appearance of my podcasts. But that’s not all; the listeners seem to some of the most opinionated people in the world.

Within a week of Beans and Marbles appearing on Escape Pod, and Deep Red on PseudoPod, the forum threads dedicated to my stories filled with people’s opinions about it. Wildly varying opinions, I may add. While one reader listener is very firm in his opinion that Beans and Marbles "sucks", another "thoroughly enjoyed this story", someone else thought it "terrific",  and yet another "truly scary" (which is interesting in itself, since it was widely received as a funny story). And Deep Red elicited "dated and unconvincing", "a disaster on many levels", "predictable", and "no, no, no way", but also "good", great", "creepy and horrible", and "one of my favourite horror stories ever". Only goes to show that there’s no accounting for taste.

My favorite reaction is that one listener said he’s going to be "buying the rest of his published work from AnthologyBuilder".

Not that he ever did, but I appreciate the intent.

The semi-official review of both stories on The Fix does a remarkable job of reflecting the ambiguity of the forum reactions.