genres shape people's expectations...and frustrated expectations can be more disappointing than a bad story.
I said something similar a while back when the story
The Sloan Men aired on one of the EscapeArtists podcasts. I started listening to it, forgot which podcast I was listening to, and realized that because of that, I had no idea how to "expect" it to end.
Had it been Escape Pod, I was expecting aliens or pod people, and with an upbeat ending ("Fun!" is Steve's criterion).
Had it been Pseudopod, I was expecting a very down ending, as horror stories don't tend to have happy endings.
And had it been Podcastle, I expected a more ambivalent ending, with demons or something supernatural-y instead of aliens. (Which I believe it actually was, implying that it was, in fact, on Podcastle.)
I kept expecting with this one to find out that they were actually
being killed on stage every night and then brought back to life. Or that they were all vampires. Or all ghosts. Or
creating the reality of the play. Or...just
something with a definite fantasy element. And I think that my not getting this is what made it very 'meh' for me.
So, yes, genre discussions are quite valid because they by definition form opinions for those of us who listen to the stories as to what is going to appear in a given story. This was a much
less valid argument before Pseudopod and Podcastle split off from Escape Pod and subdivided the genres. To say that genre doesn't matter is specious at best because by splitting them into three podcasts, you've demonstrated quite nicely that they
do matter, and that our expectations
are going to be informed by the statement--implied or not--that the story is "fantasy."
Granted, "fantasy" covers a wider range than do "horror" and "science fiction."
And I'll end this by saying that I by no means think this story didn't belong on Podcastle. It just didn't do anything for
me. And I'll keep listening and hope the next ones do. No story is going to please everyone.