Comments on: Psuedopod 046: The Hanging at Christmas Bridge

By: Mari Mitchell

Mari Mitchell — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 08:25:11 +0000

Good reading.

What is about bridges. They seem to collect things, bad things: trolls, ghosts of all kinds?

The story itself was okay.

By: John Austin

John Austin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 01:48:46 +0000

Great story Dave. Give us Part II. We gotta see the baby.

By: Dave (aka Nev the Deranged... or is it the other way around?)

Dave (aka Nev the Deranged... or is it the other way around?) — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:15:32 +0000

I never really have gotten the “malevolent object” genre of ghost story myself. Maybe if there’d been more about why the bridge was… haunted? evil? whatever. And it always irritates me when “protagonists” act helpless. A friend saves your life and you leave him there to die in some misguided attempt to appease the will of this inanimate evil force? To hell with that. How can you live with yourself after that?

I dunno. It all just seems heavy handed to have the main character just wake up in the thrall of this thing and never have a chance to do anything about it- where’s the human drama in that?

Real horror, to me, is about the choices people make. Like in the Stockholm Syndrome story, when the sniper lets the girl get eaten even though he might have saved her. That’s messed up. That’s scary. Some guy being magically forced to commit suicide? Meh. After his dream about his pregnant wife, I was expecting him to turn against her, Shining style, but he didn’t even get that much respect as a character.

I will freely admit, I’m harder on “horror” stories than, for instance, the ones on EP. I think horror is a much more difficult genre. The line between horror and SF is razor thin, as far as I’m concerned. Nearly all of Stephen King and Dean Koontz’ stories, for instance, read as SF to me.

But that’s just me. Keep the stories coming, and I’ll keep listening.

Sorry to hear Mur had to step down, her near-ubiquity in the geek community had to catch up with her sometime, though. Hope she’s taking a well deserved breather, and good luck in her future endeavors.

By: Barrett Johnson

Barrett Johnson — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 03:55:43 +0000

This one actually made my skin crawl. Stories of malevolent objects have always scared the bejeezus out of me. Good job!

By: Jonathan Gillespie

Jonathan Gillespie — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 02:52:07 +0000

I enjoyed this, David. Definitely my kind of horror. I my opinion, the implied is far more terrifying than gore, which, while having its place, seems to saturate the horror landscape these days.

By: DKT

DKT — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 23:18:42 +0000

Very well done. I liked that it was a throwback ghost story and sense of doom building throughout. I also liked the twist at the end. I was pretty sure poor George had damned himself. Although I get the idea that in the future, he might be called upon to make a similiar sacrifice. Thanks for the story!

By: David E. Hilton

David E. Hilton — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 13:18:32 +0000

Thanks, I really enjoyed writing this piece. It is sort of a throwback with a classic feel, but that’s what I intended, and it was fun. The image of a forced suicide was what I found the most intriguing, and the story just grew from there. I hope more people enjoy it as well!

By: wez

wez — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 07:48:17 +0000

i thoroughly enjoyed this one! there’s something to be said about a latent lunacy within each and every one of us, and the fear of some external force controlling our actions while we have to act the puppet. the horror.