8114, a podcasting horror novel

8114
JOSHUA HULL
CLASH Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$5.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: After returning to his hometown, Paul, the beleaguered host of a small-time podcast, discovers a longtime friend committed suicide in the dilapidated ruins of Paul’s childhood home. Desperate to find answers, Paul interviews friends and locals hoping to find closure. He finds himself in a chilling downward spiral of his memories and the land he grew up on. Has his past caught up with him or is there something far more sinister at play?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Podcasting as horror...that scans. It's a modern medium that's neither rare nor well-done most of the time. Particularly troubling is the true-crime podcasting that can get so destructively out of hand in the information age. Mobs have lots more data to use in tracking down and harassing their targets, so the innocent feel the wrath of the ignorant and ill-informed much as Adam Benny, Paul's childhood pal and podcast subject did.

Does this teach Podcaster Boy some circumspection? Of course not. There wouldn't be a story!

A different childhood friend, Matt, tells Paul about a mutual called Kyle's suicide...Kyle even painted Paul's old house address onto the walls of the room in that very house that he diced himself up in, using his own blood. A new podcast is born! Plus, adding to the foolishness of this dude, he's got some awful botanical...thing...growing in his arm.

Not on. Not under. IN.

I myownself would be on the way out of that place, and I'd swear off the very sight of a lavalier to propitiate whatever the hell supernatural thing it was that had it in for me! The moldy walls and stuff like that make me shudder more than any ghosty/demony/Lovecraftian horror. Really, in 2025 reality is way more horrible and scary than any made-up thing could ever be. In this story, the horror that scares me witless is the podcast that's already done such damage.

Author Hull's made some very good craft decisions, like setting the story in rural Indiana...not a spooky gothic place, but one where the horror can really bloom without competition. The structure of "found audio, in effect, is achieved by the inclusion of podcast transcripts between chapters. It serves to make a point: the place, the medium, the man, are all being consumed by a guilt, a rot, a creeping nastiness inside hollow forms.

Had the author trimmed this a thousand words or bloated it five thousand in exactly this style, I'd be warbling my fool head off with praise. As it is, we're just short of a novel, just too much for a novella. There's a lot to be said for compactness in horror stories. I don't think this one benefited quite as much from it because the creeping rot was never really woven into the characters' motivations, or even awareness. Just a wee bit more, please, Author Hull.

It's too creepy and good an idea to leave just shy of its best!