I LOVED this story! Yay! Thanks, PodCastle. Interesting setting, gorgeous descriptions, mythic resonances. All in all, very nice, and nicely done.
That said, I have to agree with other posters in the wandering attention issue. I kept realizing that I'd missed two minutes of text and having to rewind. The story kept losing me. I don't really know if this was a momentum issue in the writing, or whether it was the reader, or possibly some combination thereof. The reading was delivered in a very regular monotone, practically without inflection and I'm leaning toward casting blame in that direction, but I honestly don't know, maybe there wasn't enough tension in the story to keep me engaged. But I was interested even if it wasn't continuous interest and I kept dutifully rewinding and listening again and again until I had it. And I loved it in almost every aspect. I even liked that it wasn't high pressure go go go and I could leave it and then come back to it (it took me about four days to listen to in its entirety, going over some parts many times). Seems to me that in contrast of tone and pacing, it was a perfect followup to Ant King, demonstrating PodCastle's commitment to exploring different aspects of fantasy. That was certainly different from the listening experience I normally expect. But it was very satisfying and I think it has strong potential for re-listens, and things I can go back to and be refreshed with again I value very highly.
One thing I thought was weird though, maybe someone can explain...the knife JP uses to cut the Prince with is obsidian the first time he uses it, but later the Prince is using it to slice apples and it's silver. What does this mean? Anyone know?