The Pseudopod Tapes and Some Thoughts on Horror

Okay, readers, I have a confession to make. Rarely do I read one book at once.  It is a hold over from grad school.  I'm usually flipping between three or four books at a time, so that I have roughly the right book to suit the right mood.  If you add me as a friend on Goodreads, you can see how much my "currently reading" shelf regularly expands and contracts. The day that I'm not actually half way through something will be a very scary day for me.

But this habit of mine occasionally leads to wondrous gems, and I want to share one of these with you.  I recently discovered Alasdair Stuart's The Pseudopod Tapes. The book itself has an interesting genesis: the collection of essays in the book originally were all inspired by horror stories that aired on Pseudopod.  Check it out, dear reader, its awesome, I love it and I can't even sit through a scary movie without a friend to protect me from the scary.  While the essays have been shorn of their original context, there is something magical in the way they work. They were were often only loose meditations on the original stories anyway and more deeply mediation on human nature, the agony of insecurity, fear of loss, how we as human beings hurt each other.

The real meat of horror is what is there once you get past that the blood and guts and elder gods are all really metaphors for what terrifies us when we stare at ourselves in the mirror.

However, this is a book I'd recommend to people who aren't even interested in horror.  There is such a strong current of passion running through Stuart's writing.  I cried, repeatedly, simply because someone was telling me, honestly, that there is darkness but that there is a path through it.  That we as humans endure and endure and endure.  That instead of fighting against the panic, sometimes the breaking down and acceptances of your own breaking is the best path to to the other side.

There are many other topics covered, but that repeated theme struck me hardest.  We are taught over and over to hold ourselves together, to remain strong, to not face the darkness and what we are holding strong against. To stick to the mundane and not sound the depths because you might awaken who knows what.

Insert yet another Cthulhu reverence there.

I think that's what Stuart has reminded me of, that if you keep running away, the evil monster is going to get you anyway, you just aren't going to see the face of your destroyer.  But if you turn and face the horror, well then, then you stand a chance at leaving the horror movie alive.  Soaked in blood, maimed, changed, but you might escape.

So go, dear reader, pick it up, give it a read.  I can honestly say this book has changed my life.  And there aren't many books I say that about.

The Pseudopod Tapes via Amazon