Ears is for listenin'!
Added 2024-12-05 00:14:26 +0000 UTCNow is the season for long drives under cloudy skies, or maybe deep red and purple ones as the sun sets on a cold stretch of highway that’ll take hours to traverse. Toward fortifying you for those lonesome hours when you may need all the audio you have room in your brain for, I’ve attached a couple of my narrations of the works of other writers.
The first is called glimpse, by ‘Stilitana’--it was the creepy winner of The Knifepoint Horror Fan Writing Contest hosted on the Knifepoint Horror Discord channel and judged by the folks who host it. And here, you can download "A Fan Trilogy of Horror," a PDF of the full text of glimpse plus two other chosen entries. More contests for creators are underway over in the channel as we speak.
The second story attached is by the famous sci-fi/fantasy/horror writer Fritz Lieber. This one, called The Oldest Soldier, really gripped me when I first read it years ago in a tattered paperback bought from a used bookstore. I originally narrated it for the long-running community for lovers of weird fiction, The Lovecraft E-Zine.
Okay, back to writing. For the January story, I’m just now revising the part where the thing happens to the guy and the other guy is like “Whaaaaaaaa??” and there’s this great line where someone else goes “This is no ordinary rip in the fabric of space and time, grandpa!”, and if you thought a zombie wouldn’t have such great aim when it throws its own head at a woman on a skateboard, well, you’re in for an ending you never saw coming—unless you’ve seen the director’s cut of Sleepaway Camp, because it’s pretty much exactly like that.
-S 😊
Art by S. Patrick Brown, https://www.instagram.com/scalawagarts/
Comments
I’d never heard The Oldest Soldier— that was fantastic.
Nick
2025-06-05 05:16:31 +0000 UTCI think you’re thinking of Here. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/knifepoint-horror/id406250030?i=1000673314782
Victoria Gay
2025-01-24 12:10:37 +0000 UTCThis isn't the right place to comment about a different story but I can't find it. The story about the guy who walked into his home and found other people calmly living there. Police who entered remained. That really hit home (pardon the pun). The quiet non-visceral horror reminded me of the Twilight Zone. I don't remember if you wrote it or just narrated it, but can you tell me where it is so I can listen again? Unless some other story has taken its place and tells me "No, the time for that story has past. This story lives here now."
Jill E Merrill
2025-01-13 19:22:54 +0000 UTCthis one hit close to home, I'm glad I don't have nightmares anymore or it would've given me some for SURE
Vermine
2024-12-29 06:52:55 +0000 UTCTruly no more horrifying antagonist than the relentless passage of time.
benabu
2024-12-17 00:45:28 +0000 UTCIn the end, the hackers get us all.
Soren Narnia
2024-12-15 22:51:09 +0000 UTCI was m…b…27596 the hackers got me.
Michael Benson
2024-12-15 21:11:01 +0000 UTCWhat a wonderful way to round off this year. Will make for some fine wintery listening.
Mike M.
2024-12-12 20:53:24 +0000 UTCA decade of mayhem, subversion and iconoclasm!!
Lori K.
2024-12-12 20:32:27 +0000 UTCI never even heard of The Silent Partner! The 70s just never stop with the freaky finds.
Soren Narnia
2024-12-12 19:35:39 +0000 UTCYou’re not alone, Soren, as it’s a low-budget, B grade Canadian production, which I am happy to see get its dues from modern horror film makers as an influential slasher film. It’s also racy and profane for its time, which is not a problem here in the great white north ;) Another creepy 70s Canadian Christmas movie (I think we might have had a problem) is The Silent Partner, with Elliott Gould and a very terrifying Christopher Plummer. Would definitely recommend that one if you’ve not seen it!
Lori K.
2024-12-12 12:48:23 +0000 UTCFunny how I never even really knew Black Christmas existed till about five years ago. From the second I actually watched it, suddenly it seemed to be everywhere.
Soren Narnia
2024-12-12 12:37:13 +0000 UTCOh! And thank you so much Soren for this final gift of 2024! A truly great year for KPH fans
Lori K.
2024-12-12 00:37:34 +0000 UTCSo much to relate to in Glimpse, as not only was I sure a murderer lived in my closet but also, like Tiffany, I was the kid putting horror film make up on everyone…the child of concern amongst neighbourhood moms 😉
Lori K.
2024-12-12 00:33:19 +0000 UTCThe terrifying presence in the closet will never EVER get old. Primal fear and all that. I like that the protagonist in Glimpse turned his horror into a positive (if I understood correctly, but damn I’m a little dense sometimes)…correct me someone please if I am wrong. Congrats to the winning writer! ‘Tis the season for my annual inaugural terror in the closet presence, the maniacal eye from the closet in Black Christmas…1974…the first film that made my poor 10-year old blood run cold. Please see avatar ;) Thanks Bob Clark. Happy Holidays everyone.
Lori K.
2024-12-11 23:17:36 +0000 UTCSeen it?? I go to SleepawayCampCon every year!
Michael Fallon
2024-12-11 08:05:19 +0000 UTCWow. Just... Unbelievable. I think this story defined the idea of fear better than any I've ever read or heard.
Not 7000 Spiders In a People Suit
2024-12-09 17:25:56 +0000 UTC2004 being 20 years ago sent a shiver down my spine
Leblanc
2024-12-07 17:54:13 +0000 UTCWow! Outstanding!
Sara Fleming
2024-12-07 01:17:16 +0000 UTCThat's a long time for a foot to heal...
Jill E Merrill
2024-12-06 00:02:23 +0000 UTCThese were incredible. Huge congrats to the competition winner. When I read the introduction, I was like, “oh hell yeah I want to submit something. I’m so spooky.” Then I heard the winning story and decided no, not yet. Soon, but the bar is high high high. The second story made me weep and I’ve never heard of this author, so huge thanks for that as well. Been a listener since about 2015, please keep them coming - or there will be no one to make me cozy up in my blanket in sublime fear but then accidentally drift into even more terrifying fever dreams.
Sarah Pritchett
2024-12-05 22:19:50 +0000 UTCThat's some committment. During a crappy office temp job I " extended" a bout of laryngitis , got nearly another 2 weeks out of it until forgot myself and ordered coffee 😩
Rebecca R
2024-12-05 17:06:03 +0000 UTC“Sorry. Can’t make the party. The entity that visits me at night and traces the word TOYS on my ankle got a little too aggressive.”
Elliot Lem
2024-12-05 14:49:47 +0000 UTCI faked a broken foot to get out of work-related Christmas parties for 7 years straight.
Soren Narnia
2024-12-05 11:15:19 +0000 UTCNever let "Them" tell you what is and isn't "rude", or "inappropriate", or "sexually threatening", or "in wanton violation of company policy, foundational social norms, and a significant number of federal laws".
benabu
2024-12-05 09:22:17 +0000 UTCI think it's a great testament to how well your writing voice has developed and connected that you've attracted what I reckon must be an unusually high standard of writing submissions (assuming the winner wasn't the solitary readable entry and the competition didn't consist only of a 300-page anti-woke Star wars treatment written on a pile of napkins). Seriously, writers are all terrible, podcast writers somehow even worse, so either I actually did finish that PCP joint I thought went in the bin or it's that other thing I just said.
benabu
2024-12-05 04:26:27 +0000 UTCThank you for thinking of our ears. Another use for these fine tales could be to discreetly- or not- listen to them via at least one earbud at the staff christmas party youve been forced to endure. Apparently its "rude" - so I've been told- to sit and enjoy a paperback or the giant pdf of historical folklore that you printed at work. We must endure.
Rebecca R
2024-12-05 04:08:31 +0000 UTCPerfection. Thank you!!
Lisa
2024-12-05 03:33:54 +0000 UTCI read through all of the fan submissions on the Discord server and while there were a few that really stood out, “glimpse” by far blew them all away. What a treat to hear Soren’s narration.
Dorsett
2024-12-05 03:29:35 +0000 UTCI know you didn’t write it, but WOW, glimpse really had me shook! I really loved the twists and turns of that story, and I had goosebumps the entire time! Usually I’ll put on one of your stories to help me sleep (not because your writing is boring, but because of your casual, dulcet delivery), but every now and then I’ll stumble across a story that has me flushed with fear adrenaline. Glimpse is now up there with “staircase” and “chasm” (thalassophobia’s a bitch) of stories to never try to doze off to! The only thing I would’ve changed is cutting out the first two seconds, where the character gives HIS name. I realized I missed it the first go around, and so I thought it was a very powerful story to examine queer themes. The narrator describes themselves as feeling like they were living a shadow of a life, and of feeling an awakening when seeing their face to be made up as neither male nor female. And then the traumatic incident occurs, and they let their life be ruled by fear and abandon that awakening feeling, only to be confronted with the shame of their wasted years at age 23. I thought it was a powerful analogy for being queer, and I was kinda bummed to find out it seemed like it was unintentional by making the narrator unambiguously male.
Tyler Stevenson
2024-12-05 01:19:04 +0000 UTCEars are for listenin' and brains are for munchin' 🧟 Thanks Soren, as always 👌
Alain Kapel
2024-12-05 01:12:16 +0000 UTCMy ears need brain food 🧟♀️ THANK YOU, SIR
buddhapugz
2024-12-05 00:28:39 +0000 UTCGreat, now I’m hearing the line, “Hey Angela, why are you so f’ed up?” running through my head. thank you for the unexpected audio gifts.
Emily T
2024-12-05 00:24:20 +0000 UTCYeeees yes yesyes
Noelle
2024-12-05 00:18:21 +0000 UTC
