Unexplained: Based on the 'world's spookiest podcast'

Product Information

I don’t know why I feel unable to award this more than 3 stars, because essentially it is a very informative and well written book - but I think that’s where the problem lies, it’s a little too well written. This is a mixture of various supernatural stories, ideal for this time of year. There’s reincarnation, UFOs and possession. All of the tales are unexplained, a little bit creepy, and the author goes into great depth about the history behind the mythology, and provides a very comprehensive analysis. It’s clearly well researched and told with enthusiasm for the subject. I just found that at times the writing style was a little dry and hard going. Sometimes the attention to detail also detracted from the storytelling rather than enhance it, and I found it difficult to really get into - which was a shame as the potential and passion is clearly there. This book has some really good thought provoking information, but sadly quite equally as much boring suppositions.

This is 1000 words to say what 100 would do. And at times what 10 done WELL would suffice even more. To Morn Names: The unidentified man found dead on a beach in Australia. The mystery is well laid-out, and the speculation and narrative done respectfully. This is one of those unsolved mysteries I think about from time to time -- as frustrating as it is to still be without answers, it was nice to see this story included with the same meticulous care as the other accounts. Unexplained is a bi-weekly podcast about strange and mysterious real life events that continue to evade explanation. The best part was the tales. If the author had just went full blown telling the tale like it was true it would have been entertaining. If the author had instead examined each tale by being scientifically critical and giving references in-between that would have been great too. But the whole trying to fit science to explain the tale irked me. A "non-fiction" collection of "real-life supernatural stories for uncertain times." The non-fiction adjective describes where this book can be found in a library or bookstore, and the "uncertain times" description on the front of the book hints that this author will be trying to explain how the spooky tales in this book can relate to our inner lives, technological advancements, scientific developments, ETC.Unexplained, based on a successful podcast of the same name, is a feast of the supernatural, paranormal and just plain weird that is known to have happened at various periods throughout the UK and is practically perfect for those drawn-in Autumn nights as we head towards Halloween. I am a fan of these often creepy stories from all corners of the globe and read them no matter the dale they're published, but I must admit that these had a bigger impact on me being both from this country and released at an inspired time of the year! Each chapter focuses on one tale of the supernatural, a supposedly true tale of the unexplained, i.e ghosts, UFOs, alien visitations, possession etc. Within the chapter the author tells the supposed tale of the incident and gives a brief mention to cases that may be alike. Alongside the tale is a commentary that is sometimes philosophical, and sometimes trying to be scientific. But the weird thing is (yes, weirder than the stories) that the author isn't using science to look sceptically at each tale, but is sometimes trying to justify the tale scientifically. He bring up a lot of different science, and I could understand his connections, but it was just too much of a stretch to even consider what he was saying. I can say that he didn't do too bad explaining some scientific concepts, but I could tell that he was making great leaps and didn't really have a deep understanding.

Richard MacLean Smith:A good friend of mine is a real heavy conspiracy theorist with a particular interest in UFOs and esoteric ideas and we had actually planned to make a show together. It was going to be a podcast, which I guess you could say for the time was a more traditional approach — essentially two guys talking about strange and weird things.But we couldn’t ever seem to find the time to get together and as the months went by I started to think on my own a bit more about the show and what it should be.At the time I was listening a lot to the usual suspects like This American Life, Serial, that sort of thing and then my girlfriend recommended Lore to me, and it was a bit of a game changer — aside from being an incredible show, it was the moment I realized I could actually do the thing on my own. I used to be a musician and know how to record a bit, I had all the equipment, basically everything I needed. But more than that, it made me see what the show could be, that it could in my own small way be a real piece of art.I having trouble trying to decide what this book was meant to be. I know it is inspired from the author's podcast which the blurb tells me is very successful. If this book was just meant to be a podcast in book form, I guess it succeeded. But I don't think it was what I was looking for.

Unexplained has ten chapters, each dealing with an 'unexplained' story (I would contend that done of them have pretty simple explanations, like the severely merely ill young German woman whose parents and the church conspired to deny her medical treatment and feed the delusion that she was possessed by demons). The chapter starts with a general introduction, often talking about a piece of history or a philosophical question. The story is then told as a piece of creative non-fiction. That is, an event which is professed to have truly happened presented using the conventions of fiction such as direct speech. Smith is not an excellent fiction writer. His dialogue his stilted, he head hops continually, he isn't grounded enough in the characters for this style to have any value over a more traditional mode of presentation for non-fiction. It's like he's gone half way to creative non-fiction but doesn't want to commit.I’ve really enjoyed doing the show how I‘ve done it so far, but I feel like it needs to evolve somewhat to keep me and the listeners interested; so, you may see something a bit more ambitious in the next season. I won’t say too much, but the basic premise will be [that] instead of doing tenshort individual stories, I’m going to take one and make that the whole season. I’m not quite sure if it will work, but that’s the plan for now[.] I tried. But verbosity to this extent would never have grabbed me, even if the proofs and voices were better, more authentic. Stringy and roundabout writing, filled with circling redundancies and asides. I have no idea what he means by "uncertain times" either. Regardless, that's a quirky slant to describe these episodes. Nor is it accurate, IMHO. I skipped almost the whole chapter about UFO’s because I found it quite boring.... even though the Welsh village named in the book as being home to more than 14 UFO sightings is only 8 miles from my house. Every Story is a Ghost Story: An account of the poltergeist haunting of Hannath Hall, which was a case I had no idea about! This is a rare thing for me now, so I read it with much fascination. It's a good, creepy, solid poltergeist story, and a good choice for the final chapter. There's a lot of discussion on the nature of hauntings, what it means to be haunted, the different expectations and experiences of such things, how everything could be said to be haunted... nice and eerie.