Pseudopod 418: Shadow Transit

[Bdoomed]

Pseudopod 418: Shadow Transit

by Ferrett Steinmetz

“Shadow Transit” was originally published in Buzzy Mag.

FERRETT STEINMETZ is a Nebula-nominated author who’s appeared on PSEUDOPOD before (“Riding Atlas,” “Suicide Notes, Written By An Alien Mind” and “The Sound of Gears“), in Asimov’s, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Shimmer, among other venues. He is also a graduate of both the Clarion Writers’ Workshop and Viable Paradise.

Your reader – Marie Brennan – appeared on Podcastle recently reading The Ascent of Unreason.


“Michelle wasn’t sure how to tell if her daughter was going insane, because kids weren’t stable. She remembered how Lizzie would boldly greet her favorite aunt one day and then hide behind Michelle’s legs the next. Lizzie slept through the night for years without a nightlight, and then suddenly developed a terror of the dark. That was just how kids were; their personalities fluid, like water, ever-changing.”



Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

[adrianh]

Really, really liked this one. Story and reading both.

Some great world building, and the contrast between the despair of the adults and the optimism of the kids was nicely done.

[Unblinking]

I liked it.  Super creepy, and the optimism of the kids in the face of inevitable doom is a chilling and oddly hopeful thing.

I put it as #3 on my Best of Pseudopod 2014 list that just posted this morning:
http://www.diabolicalplots.com/?p=12662

[ElectricPaladin]

Holy shit. I loved it. This is probably my favorite Psuedopod story all year. I take back everything bad I ever said about Ferrett Steinmetz. This one blew me out of the water. I want to read the novel, watch the movie, and play the roleplaying game. More, please!

[zoanon]

wow.... WOW. loved every second, this is one that will stick with me forever, the little girl trying to process whatever it is they are doing with her, popping off the doll heads. brilliant.
I especially loved how I couldn't really imagine what the mother meant when she was scared of how her daughter played with barbies now, and the full exploration of that scene was just beyond anything.

I could rave about this all day and I want to make all my friends listen to it.

[TimWB]

This was great!
Marie's reading added even more to the realism.
The punchline from the child made me groan aloud!

[Fenrix]

Holy shit.

The ending of The Little Mermaid is totally the end of The Call of Cthulhu. It even includes an bonus cleansing bolt of lightning. After being pierced by a ship, Ursula drifts down to R'lyeh.

That which has been seen cannot be unseen. The caul has been torn from my eyes.

[DerangedMind]

Put me down as another that loved the story and the narration. 

[Metalsludge]

I disliked the author's Atlas story. But this one was pure gold. It was delightfully dark, yet almost comic sometimes too. I think one of the first things my mother told me about Disney cartoons was that they lie, so I could relate to the child's point about that. But then we get the note about too many tentacles for comfort in The Little Mermaid, and it's wickedly funny in a way too.

I think the best aspect of it is the way the child lets out little hints about her experience and the perspective of her caretakers throughout the story. This limited what we learned, keeping things helpfully weird and mysterious, but also reminded the listener of how tense each speculation about the details is for the mother.

[Moritz]

I thought this story was amazing and exactly the kind of horror that I love. While I do think that Lovecraftian outer-worldy horror can be overdone, it worked perfectly here.
edit: the style wasn't lovecraftian at all, I just mean the kind of Horror

[ciristhan]

Hi everyone! I registered to the forum just so that I could express my immense appreciation of this remarkable story. In my view, cosmic horror and weird fiction has become a somewhat worn out sub-genre, and many contemporary writers seem to contend themselves with writing pastiche and paying homage to Lovecraft, Machen, Derleth and Co. Given this dismal state of affairs, it is all the more remarkable that Ferrett Steinmetz has not only written a cosmic horror story in a genuinely new and innovative voice, she has also established a new topos: the idea of fight back against the incomprehensible forces that invade our world. Whereas the classic writers usually focused on the discovery of ancient, trans-dimensional evils that threaten our world and on the terrible effects that such knowledge has on our frail human psyche, Steinmetz puts her protagonists past that point. Her characters are all too well aware of what is out there and yet, against all odds and reason, they cling on the hope that they can somehow withstand the impending doom. 
In short, it is great stuff. Read it. Now.

[TrishEM]

Hi ciristhan! It is a great story, isn't it? I apparently was too busy or something to comment back when the story was posted here, but it made my list of three nominees for Pseudopod Best of 2014. The aspect that still strikes me most is how the mother struggled with dread, despair, and detachment while her daughter seemed pretty matter-of-fact, even cheerful, as she trained to fight against eerie doom (although she'd definitely been ... affected). The adaptability of youth, or just too young to really understand?
Minor point: Ferrett takes a male pronoun (@ferretthimself on Twitter).
Major point: Ferrett's new novel, The Flux, the sequel to his debut novel Flex, came out this month if you want to read more of Ferrett's stuff.

[ciristhan]

Hi TrishEM. Thanks so much for letting me know about Ferret's new book. This sounds exciting, I'll be sure to check it out. Also, I'm not quite sure why I thought "Ferret" would be a female name, but thanks for clearing up the whole gender issue.

[Unblinking]

I'm reading The Flux right now and it's amazing.  But it would probably be very confusing if you didn't read Flex first.  I recommend reading Flex first.  Flex is also amazing, IMO.