The Corridor - A True Path To Good Listening

This 2006 release is well worth listenning to. Without any follow-up release or ongoing promotion by the author, Zan, it seems to be less followed, which is a shame. Here is the author's teaser:

The Corridor [TC] is a fantasy/horror story about Stuart Morrow, a man who has lost all hope and reason to live. However, a strange coincidence brings him unexpectedly into contact with a multitude of worlds beyond our own. Hunted by a despot who rules over countless alternate realities, Stuart’s only hope is to seek help amongst the assortment of bizarre and grotesque characters who await him in the Corridor.

As of now, we have not reviewed this on Podiobooks.

How We Would Describe This Book: This is a dark fantasy, but rather far from the standard fantasy template we think of when this descriptor is employed. Zan creates a bizarre and full novel world, or series of worlds, all attached by 'The Corridor". The parallel worlds are all similar to each other, subtly changing from one to the next, so that after many versions, the substances are very different from Earth. The universe is dominated by a detached non-human power manifesting itself tough an evil madman who controls all events in all worlds. Magic is real, horrific creatures abound, and Stuart, our hero, must navigate the entire mess to save existence without ever having a real clue what he's up against.

NARRATION: This is one of the real strengths of this book. Zan has a clear, professional voice, accentuated by his beautiful accent (Australian, we think, but information about Zan turns out to be difficult to find, it would seem). He doesn't vary his voice much in the solo-read but this does not make the story difficult to follow are become monotonous, as non-varied reads are want to be. For an earlier PB.com effort and adding his brilliant accent, we will award a strong 17 points.

EDITING/TECHNICAL ELEMENTS: Journeyman work, where there are no obvious errors or weaknesses. There is a smooth telling of the tale, free from echo and background noise. Zan pulls down a full 20 points.

ORIGINALITY OF STORY: Very is inadequate in labeling the originality of TC. We are veterans of many a podcast and fantasy novels, and we can identify no copy-cat elements or template applications here. It is actually quite difficult to imagine what the creative processes and dark recesses much be like in Zan's mind, to produce so twisted yet cohesive a story. Our hat is off, as always, to any author who can muster powerful imaginatively originality, and Zan definitely earns our respect with TC. 20 points for certain.

QUALITY OF WRITING: TC is quite long, and starts in our familiar setting, following a lack-luster mentally unstable protagonist and ends up with him being a strong, dominating character in a foreign place, very much in control. This is not a mean feat as wide ranging scope is a difficult commodity to do expertly. TC is written very well. We would describe Zan's style as straight forward narrative, lacking any guile or unanticipated plot twists, and in this regard, though it is well suited for podcasting, it misses top marks in terms of writing prowess. Also, toward the stories end, some themes and settings are beaten somewhat to death, hence the tone grows a tad monotonous when it need not be. A last example of the areas the writing could have been stronger were that the evil lord's lead minions were too few in number to support the action fully, and the paucity of trusted supporters seemed odd. Still, these are nit-picky points on our end; this is written better than three quarter of the PB.com books we've heard. 15 Points.

WOW FACTOR: TC definitely pulls down a goodly number of wow points. The wide ranging scope of Zan's imagination, the power of the action, the quality of the characters, and the use of music bumpers all add significantly to this marvelous tale. We mentioned it twice already, but the accent is a wow also. Maybe from where ever Zan hails from everybody sounds like him, but it is a joy to hear him speak none the less. we'd dole out 17 wow points here.

TOTAL SCORE: A very strong 90 point total for TC. In reading the comment blog found on PB.com, it seems to us Zan felt his time and effort were under-rewarded by the response to TC, so he did not produce a sequel or any other podcast novel. Pity. He is the real deal, a credit to podcast storytelling, and we would very much snap up any subsequent efforts with glee.

Additional information about Zan can be found at: http://the-corridor.info/index.php. He seems to be a shy guy though, without any real personal content to the blog, and Zan appears to have abandon the blog in 2007. A fantasy writer whose a mystery; there you have it!