Podcastle and Girl Power April 24th, 2010
Originally Written 05/12/08
The folks behind EscapePod and Pseudopod have finally opened their new fantasy-themed audio-fiction podcast, Podcastle. I’ve been listening to the first several episodes, and like their other podcasts, the stories and production values are both very good.
They started off with one of Peter S. Beagle’s (of “The Last Unicorn”) early works, Come Lady Death. Another story is a retelling of a classic Grimm’s fairytale, Goosegirl, which gets into the psychological schisms caused by a spell forcing a switched identities.
There were also two stories, back to back, which have heroines going up against social conventions and norms, Fear of Dragons and Run of the Fiery Horse. The stories get a little political, and the first one is a bit heavy handed, while the second is more balanced. Both of them had neat takes on Easter and Western tales of dragons (or serpents) and I loved the mythology of them, especially the Fiery Horse one.