"The President of the United States is dead. He was murdered in the morning sunlight by a four-year-old boy ..."

That's an intriguing excerpt from "7th Son," an online podcast novel written by J.C. Hutchins.

The plot of the story from the author's official website goes on to read: "7th Son is the story of seven strangers who have been brought together after the recent assassination of the U.S. president. These men quickly discover they all appear to be the same man ... with identical childhood memories." (Source: jchutchins.net)

Interested in the story but not quite sure how the heck a podcast works exactly?

Let me try to explain ;-)

A podcast is simply an MP3 file. Contrary to what you might think, you don't need an iPod or similar MP3 device to run it. All you need is your computer and MP3 software (Windows Media Player, Quicktime, and iTunes all fit the bill). However, you will have to use an iPod or MP3 player if you want to play podcasts outside the house.

You can subscribe to podcasts and have them delivered directly to your computer via iTunes or an RSS (really simple syndication) program that supports "podcatching" file downloads. (Source: podcast411.com)

Podcasting isn't just limited to online audio novels, though. It has exploded all over the 'net. There are podcasts on just about everything you can imagine. For a huge list, check out podcast.net and podcastalley.com:

http://www.podcast.net

http://www.podcastalley.com

For more information on 7th Son and downloadable links to every chapter of Book One, go to J.C. Hutchins' website:

http://jchutchins.net/7Son/Home/Home.html.