Collaborative Narrative

So the recording hasn’t been working like I wanted. No matter how much I tried, when I played back my recording, it just didn’t sound right, with all sorts of odd inflections. I couldn’t get passed trying to make it sound like how I wanted to sound, instead of just reading…

I was feeling a bit down on it all, and the E.I.C. said she could read it for me..

She started reading and it sounded like what I thought I was trying to read!

I have therefore decided, that even though I wanted to do the narration myself, it just wasn’t working. So therefore, the E.I.C. is going to do the voice work for me

It already working really well, as we work really well together…

Vacuum Pack And Quarter Share

Today was a good day for mail. We had two parcels, one from America and one local.

The first parcel was our hardback copy of Quarter Share by Nathan Lowell. We first found Nathan on podiobooks.com, and for both the E.I.C. and myself his series was the one that really made us fans. We have listened to the entire series of five books multiple times. The thing is it’s a bit strange to read the story that we now know so well. The E.I.C. described at as meeting a dear old friend after having some sort of plastic surgery. Strange but cool. It was a lot like that when I received our copy of Scott Siglers The Rookie.

The other parcel was the prize pack of Vacuum Packs. It was strangely fun storing stuff in them…

Anyway below is a photo of the book and our blankets all safely stored.

More On The Golden Clipper Podiobooks

We have finished our binge of the podiobooks by Nathan Lowell in his Golden Age of The Solar Clipper series. It didn’t take long for us to run through all five books, especially when you are listening to three or four episodes a night. It might have to admit to the fact that some of the lake of diligence displayed in my writing other the last two weeks, may just have something to do with the fact that I needed to keep listening.

I have to say that the whole series is excellent, even though we found the second in the sequence the most challenging, but I can see why he put it in there. I will be awaiting the concluding story Owners Share which is due to drop sometime in 2010 with anticipation.  I  understand that Nathan is inking a deal to put the books out in print format. It will be interesting to see what differences emerge between versions after a professional editor has passed their pen over the manuscript. I will also be curious to see if Nathan re-releases the podiobooks updated to reflect any changes made in the print publishing process.

Now we need to figure out what we will listen to now.

Going Slow On Dial-Up

Last week we started listening to a new podiobook, called Quarter Share. It rocked, and we were happy to discover that there are four more in the series. So I went and downloaded the lot.

Small problem though. It was about 5gigs of data, and it put us over our datacap.

This is the first time this has happened, but the end of the month for the plan is tomorrow, so we will be back to normal speeds on Wednesday.

It has given us a taste of dialup and while I suppose it’s livable, some pages sites just won’t display, and the some are so slow.   

Them’s the breaks I guess…

Murder at Avedon Hill by P.G. Holyfield: A Review

The latest podiobook we have finished listening to is Murder at Avedon Hill. A murder mystery in a fantasy world, combining two of the EIC’s and my favourite genres.

“Lord Avedon has a problem. Generations of Avedons have watched over Avedon Hill and controlled the only pass through the Lantis Mountains. Traditions are important to the Avedon family, but one tradition has tragically come to an end. Gretta Platt, Housemistress of Avedon Manor, has been murdered. A member of the Platt family has always served the Avedons as Housemistress. until now. Only a handful of people live at Avedon Hill, and most are suspects. Arames Kragen, retired Aarronic Advisor and scholar of prophecy, arrives at the gates of Avedon Hill, hoping to gain access to the mountain pass. Lord Avedon is not in a giving mood, however.

This is the story of Arames Kragen and his attempt not only to discover who killed Gretta Platt, but also to uncover the truth about a town that apparently has more secrets than inhabitants.

The Land of Caern: It is a world where the gods, the Children of Az, can choose to be born as mortals to directly affect events in the world, and often do. It is a world where the Priests of Caern frantically search for the mortal incarnations of any of the Children, in order prevent the Prophecies of Iberian from coming to pass.

Welcome to The Land of Caern. Welcome. to Murder at Avedon Hill, the podcast novel by P.G. Holyfield” From the site

This is an award winning podiobook, which has been recommended numerous times by other authors. It was different to the other books we had listened to as it is not just the author reading his work, but also having other podiobook authors read different characters. So in some ways it was almost a dramatisation. We really enjoyed it, though we both felt it was a little long. Some 42 to episodes worth of listening. I also found the ending  a little unsatisfactory as one of the sub plots, of which there were many, was not resolved to my liking. There was a lot of world building going on, and it may be that later on that strand will be resolved, as it was obvious P.G. is looking to develop a series of books. I would be interested to know how that is going for him, and whether they willal be mystery/fantasy crosses.  

Iron Dragons: Book 1 – The Saramond Quests by Derek Gilbert: A Review

We finished The Rookie and went looking for more Podiobooks to listen too. We listened to a number of different starting episodes in our hunt, and the next one to grab us was Iron Dragons by Derek Gilbert.

How could we go passed a story with the first line being, “Dragon pee really stinks”. What a hook

We both really enjoyed this one. The authors voice and pacing in reading his work was excellent. I think the voice is one of the most important things for audiobooks and podiobooks. The story itself was well passed and flowed from scene to scene, with good characterisation and a nice descriptive turn of phrase. I did feel though that one of the side adventures could have been missed, and the whole “starman” sub plot was unnecessary. I am thinking though that it is part of an overarching world plot, but I was still a bit disappointed. I was enjoying my fantasy without adding sci/fi.

Anyway, we enjoyed the story and will look forward to more in the series.

The Rookie by Scott Sigler – A Review

This year, as part of my new adventures in Social Media, I discovered podiobooks. These are free audiobook versions of stories put up on the web by the authors, often read by the authors, for people to download free and listen to. Myself, and the Editor-In-Chief think their great. We have been slowly listening our way through them. So, to add to the random stuff I am putting up here, I am going to review books, audiobooks, podiobooks and movies.

First up is the Rookie by Scott Sigler (warning this book is for mature audiences). This story of American football in space with aliens, death and mayhem was fantastic. Both myself and the Editor-In-Chief (EIC) thoroughly enjoyed this, although we felt at times it could have used a bit of an edit. Scott’s passion for American Football showed through, although as neither of us have watched a game much we skimmed the detailed analysis of games and concentrated on listening to the story. By the end the EIC said she almost wanted to sit down and watch a game. To get all literary, I feel the story is a great example of highlighting social themes (prejudice, bigotry, racism) within the context of a rollicking good action story set in a genre universe.

The visual imagery was great, I could really see the story unfolding, so much so that I think it would make a great movie! But it would have to be done properly by someone like Peter Jackson. Someone needs to set up a campaign to get it in front of weta workshop. Scott is meant to be writing a sequel called The Starter, which we can’t wait to listen to.  Although waiting each week for a new episode will be a test of patience…