Comments on: PodCastle 053: Change of Life

By: SoCuteUrl

SoCuteUrl — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:57:17 +0000

Was that reader Steve Ely’s wife in disguise?

By: Natasha

Natasha — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:39:54 +0000

The first story I’ve heard on this site that I really just didn’t like. I thought the story was predictable, the style annoying, and the narrator didn’t seem to. Know when the sentences. Ended. The story was going along, missing kids, crazy mom, when all of a sudden the mc says something along the lines of “I knew what was going on.” What? That came out of the blue! How did she know, and what was going on? There was nothing in the story to convince that the mc had any clue, other than that the author said so.

This story had a promise of a good idea but wasn’t fleshed out nearly enough

By: Dave (aka Nev the Deranged)

Dave (aka Nev the Deranged) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:55:23 +0000

Man, this was a pretty disturbing look into dementia. A slight twist on the ending could have easily rendered this a Pseudopod story.

By: LINKS…OF…INTEREST! (Interest…Interest…interest…) « The Cafe in the Woods

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:21:22 +0000

[…] read any of Bradford’s work, Podcastle recently ran a short story of hers called "Change of Life". Hop on over and have a listen, then head to her website and […]

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sat, 23 May 2009 02:41:11 +0000

it annoyed me, intrigued me, entertained me, bothered me. again, a formula ending, but with this story, any other ending may not have been well received. I liked how the story was constructed (through the eyes of a younger sibling) and the reader did an excellent job of telling the story.

By: Erica

Erica — Fri, 22 May 2009 02:43:47 +0000

I didn’t get the intro at all–wasn’t sure what it had to do with the story, other than that the narrator of the story was also a kid. I liked that the story dealt with fantasy without recognizing it as such, though I agree with the earlier comment that you have to wonder why the narrator didn’t figure out what was going on. Kids are actually really good at that sort of thing.

By: Robin Sure

Robin Sure — Thu, 21 May 2009 10:50:35 +0000

Maybe it’s my cruel aging nature showing through, but the intro spoiled my mood for the whole story. If I want to listen to amateurish kids reading recipes, I’ll head down to Clonepod. I’d hoped that Escape Artists were going to keep good quality readers going, but this episode really disappointed in that regard.

The story wah meh, mildly more interesting at the end, but the child viewpoint made it pretty slow for me.

By: David

David — Tue, 19 May 2009 22:30:16 +0000

Nice work. It’s a fun change of pace for this feed, being reminded that fantasy is no less fantastic when it’s done on a smaller scale and wrapped up in a way leaving nearly everyone none the wiser. I wouldn’t want every story here to be like this one, though.

By: scatterbrain

scatterbrain — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:45:43 +0000

I enjoyed this story quite a bit; the combination of a plot I think resembles Philip K. Dick’s early work with a child narrater who uses childish language and grammer works perfectly for the story.

By: Reed

Reed — Tue, 19 May 2009 19:46:24 +0000

I thought the story was quite creepy – the happy ending took the edge off, but, well, who knows what happens if Mom doesn’t get grandchildren soon? Nevertheless I found it enjoyable and I liked the narrator a lot (I’d put her at about 9 or 10 years, rather than 7, btw.).

By: Travis

Travis — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:11:21 +0000

This was an amusing story. I agree that it was awfully vague about the very aspect which qualified it as Fantasy. Given the setting, though, and the youth of the main character, I think it’s perfectly understandable that the creepy events described here would be relegated to a family secret that is better not discussed.

Unfortunately, I must say that the reading was awkward. I got the impression the reader was going away for a break after every single sentence, then coming back and editing the pieces together later. It broke up the flow of the story and I found it very distracting.

Oh, and by the way, the Authors and Readers get credit on the website. Shouldn’t the person doing the introduction also be credited?

By: R.G. Quimby

R.G. Quimby — Tue, 19 May 2009 01:46:21 +0000

*slaps forehead*

Yeah, that makes sense. For some reason, I guess I was kind of buggy about whether or not the kids themselves were turned into animals, rather than trapped in the animals or whatever it was.

As far as the age of the narrator, I was imagining a kid of 7-years-old or so, but that’s just me. I think it had a lot to do with the blase (but rather optimistic) way that the narrator reacted to the mother’s obsessive behavior.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Mon, 18 May 2009 23:38:29 +0000

This was just so incredibly predictable with this premise, but I kept on listening for the horror of it all. I can’t figure out how old the narrator is supposed to be, or how smart/stupid she’s supposed to be in knowing exactly what’s going on. Hard to MISS what’s happening, and yet she’s all “I hope Chuckie gave me a present?”

I think the pets came back after they were freed of the kids, on their own recognizance. Like a regular animal looking for home again.

By: R.G. Quimby

R.G. Quimby — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:16:29 +0000

A very interesting story, but to me it seemed rather hollow at times. Was anyone else hoping to learn more about how Mom was able to suck her errant children into the pets? And why would some of the pets/kids choose to return in the end, while others didn’t? I guess the “magic” of the whole thing felt kind of unclear.

Still, I found the mother character to be an intriguing mix of sympathetic and utterly creepy, which made me really interested in finding out what else would happen. The resolution was clever, though still pleasantly creepy.

By: Txistu

Txistu — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:11:16 +0000

“I wasn’t impressed. I wanted a dog.” That sums it up pretty well for me.