I really liked part of the story. Unfortunately, this part was short-lived and embedded about 20 minutes into the 60+ minute tale so that it neither made a good hook nor a satisfying end and just sort of lived in the no-man's-land in between.
Seriously, you know a beginning is badly written if the editor writes an introduction wherein he says "Just stick through the beginning, thing's will start happening sooner or later". The warning was helpful in that I was sure to keep listening at that point, but it also set my brain to "skeptical" right at the beginning, and except for that one short part, that skepticality never lifted, though I did keep listening to the end to make sure I wasn't missing anything awesome by jumping the gun on the Next button.
I don't know what that beginning was going for, but if it was meant to be anything but a sleep aid, it failed utterly with me. The nature of the listing might've been enough to lull me just by itself, but I found the reading a bit flat throughout the whole story so that I rose from a stupor a few minutes after the beginning list had ended and I hadn't noticed because the narration sounded the same to my ears. I'm not sure that was the reader's fault at all, the writing itself just struck me as very flat and I'm not sure that life could've been injected into it by the best reader.
The scene that I liked was the sudden and aggressive outbreak of fungus at the house and his escape. Other than that it was mostly about him thinkign about his work, which I didn't really care about in the slightest. I did like the details of his girlfriend's condition, having gone blind and having lightning in her eyes.
From the moment he was present for the guy exploding into spores, I assumed that he would get it, so that was just waiting for the inevitable, while listening to this irritating person talk about his dull work.
You should NEVER expect "vanilla" fantasy from podcastle.
I hate when "vanilla" is used as a derogatory term to mean dull or common. I like the flavor of vanilla, and I don't find it dull at all. Maybe I'm just a "vanilla" person, which, since I like vanilla, sounds like a compliment to me, however others might take it.
(Also, and I assume that this wasn't at all intended, but especially when I first started hearing that term, it strikes me as having racist undertones, especially when used in combination with chocolate.)
So, if I should never expect vanilla from podcastle, this makes me sad.