Burn - Into The Fire With This Cord-Wood

  Thanksgiving, a day of thanks and touchy-feely, is over not 24 hours, and here we go, having to hatchet another podcast.  Well, we don't have to, we want to, so we can help you - you are becoming quite demanding, you realize?  This is the first non-Podiobooks.com podcast novel we are reviewing.  We had planned on giving it a good score, commensurate with its modest virtues, and were frankly stunned we had to WSRH-it.  We are not certain, but we think we were within a few minutes of the end!  To go so far, to invest so much time and emotion into a piece and then bail - it must have really pinched a nerve.  It did.
  The work in review is Burn by James Patrick Kelly [ http://bit.ly/hJrOD7 ].  The story is a tad simple, but it was entertaining.  The authors voice-variations were journeyman.  The technical quality was iffy and repetitiveness of the intro's most annoying, but we were going to score it in the mid-to-high 70's probably.   The world will never know.  What stuck in our throats, caused us to spit the hook, get out'a Dodge without a goodbye, was an unfortunate plot element far too many authors use, as far as our refined tastes are concerned.  "Victimization of the innocent" is one term we employ to describe this literary foible.  Another way of putting it, generically, would be needless or, worse yet, gratuitous violence/evil/cruelty, that type of thing.  Now violence has its place, and people die, so it is not these elements in-and-of-themselves which piss us off.  It is their overuse, or specifically, egregious offenders.  Rape, cannibalization, abuse of children, and violence against bystanders are the type of things which we would prefer never to see, and honestly puzzle-after why others put up with them.  Are we as readers so insensitive?  Perhaps we are too willing to consume whatever we are supposed to, in lieu of considering what it is we are putting in our brains.
  In any case, we've waxed philosophical enough, too much in fact, and we'll step off the soapbox and let you go.  If you are as picky and moralistic as us (actually it's as sensitive as us), avoid Burn.  If you're a bit thicker skinned, Burn is an okay novella adequately presented.  If you do chose to listen, let us know how it ends, next time we run into you at the bar.

The Terrible Business of Salmon and Dusk // How To Disappear Completely - Never Dissapear, You Great Old Story, You

  

  Thank you, thank you, thank you, Myke Bartlett.  Seriously, thank you.  The Terrible Business of Salmon and Dusk - How To Disappear Completely (TTBOSAD) is exactly and precisely what is right and encouraging and spell-binding about new literature and the new Internet Paradym today.  This is not high praise, given our dour mood in general, it is well-earned hyperbole.  As a podcast it is a wonder to experience, and we are certain that as a read-text it would shine equally brightly.  Strong work, dude. ( We cannot believe we just called someone dude.  We must be very giddy indeed.)  Okay, composing ourselves, here's the author's teaser:

     Part film noir detective story, part fantasy adventure, part East End gangster tale, How to Disappear Completely concerns Theo Braithwaite, a failed actress and worse waitress, becoming involved in an unseen world populated by history's rejects and runaways from a secret society known as The Footmen. A stranger to London, waiting for life to come and find her, she is instead found by a part-time thief called Kilbey Salmon who, along with his rockabilly-obsessed partner, is attempting to eke out a living stealing things that have already been stolen and finding people who don't want to be found.

An episodic narrative, Kilbey and Nero's capers will drag Theo through the forgotten parts and people of London, hunted by ancient sects, carnivorous shadows, cannibalistic butchers and off-duty policemen. Along the way she'll meet the Eternal Footmen, blow up Hammersmith Bridge, reach the end of history and quite possibly disappear completely.

If Theo is to survive, she'll need to get her life sorted before all of our futures catch up with her.

   
NARRATION: A "20" if ever there were one.  You simply have to hear Myke's masterful narration of this beauty.  His voice, his cadence, and the correctness of his acting for this book is perfect.  He is sassy, irreverent, and chameleon in his narration, complimenting the text superbly.  He is so good, one cannot help but read the next few items one reads with his voice in mind, and it makes even a memo from the personnel office seem dodgy.  The casual manner he can toss out and insult or spin a denial, well it make us wish we had him with us, Cyrano de Bergerac-style, when we're speaking with our bosses.  The only pairing to voice and task we can recall as being so perfect is Toothless; heady company to keep, indeed.

EDITING/TECHNICAL:  Every Achilles must have his heel and every silver-lining a cloud, it would seem.  This aspect of TTBOSAD is the only one where significant fault can be found.  Especially the early episodes are plagued with rough sound quality.  Not being a technical guru ourself, we cannot pin-point the problem, possible a bad microphone, possibly poor understanding of the recording program.  In any event, these flaws are easily overlooked and forgiven, but they would be oh so easy to fix also.  A 16 pointer on this aspect.

ORIGINALITY OF STORY:  Back to a full 20 points on this count.  The dark fantasy, bordering on the steam punk-genre quality of the tale, is delicious.  There exists a seperate culture of The Lost, The Fallen, dirty and inconsequential, living amunst us.  There are ghosts, magic, and super-human super-powers guiding the wold like puppet-masters.  Time travel, booze, sex, fighting - come on, people, what more can you want?

QUALITY OF THE WRITING:  Really top-notch.  Myke is, by trade, a journalist and his writing skills are evident through out.  Crisp when crisp is needed, humorous where humor fits, and confused uncertainty when appropriate.  The story is truly woven-together and tailored to fit Myke's vision, not simply told to get it done, like so many podcasts on PB.com.  The characters are independent, deep, empathetic where needed, and despicable where called-for.  The bizarre become the believable and the impossible to-be-expected.  We can award 20 points confidently to Mr. Bartlett on this count.

WOW FACTOR:  You can see our opinion coming, can't you?  Tongue hanging out, drooling, begging for more.  Yeah, fairly obvious, we expect.  Look, TTBOSAD is fresh, expertly crafted, irreverent to beat-the-band, intoxicating, and fully, like, cool, dude. (oh my, we said it again, didn't we)  Yes, 20 originality point for Table One, if you please!

EXTRA CREDIT:  In all candor, there is nothing present we commonly award extra credit points for.  This is a solo-read, now thunderous sound effects or spell binding music.  We will, because we can, award Myke 2 point extra because of the bad-ass sarcastic narrationn he achieves.  Very cool cat, this Mr Bartlett.

TOTAL:  A near-perfect 98 for this pioneer podcast.  Mr Bartlett show remarkable promise for the future and has thrown down a podcast gauntlet which others will be wan to pick-up.. Thanks again, Myke.

The link to the podcast: http://www.podiobooks.com/title/how-to-disappear-completely

More information about Myke Bartlett:  http://mykebartlett.com/

A Special, Sad Edition, of WSRH - The Leviathan Chronicles

  We are, if you knew us, a really nice personage.  We are devoted to the happiness of others, driven to aid in all things, and likely to achieve canonization more rapidly than most other saints.  We take joy from the joyful and no joy from that which falls short of that heady mark.  So, you'll empathize with us, it is with a truly heavy heart and sincere displeasure that we must (for we must) share this WSRH assignation.  The Leviathan Chronicles (TLC) could have been exceptional, and was achieving not-bad-at-all-and-very-entertaining, until it dropped, like Icarus, from our listening-radar screens.
  The label we will next apply, a dastardly one to be certain, fits, regrettably, all too well, the work under review: "Rembrandt comic" [ http://www.sfwa.org/2009/06/turkey-city-lexicon-a-primer-for-sf-workshops/  and   http://fritzfreiheit.com/wiki/Rembrandt_comic_book_story ].  We were large fans of the podcast as it released from the website over the past 2 years.  The creators A) care deeply about their production, and it shows; and B) spent beau coup bucks in producing it.  Spending a not-so-small fortune bringing to life a terrific story you love would suggest the end result was destine to be top-notch.
  Therein, we fear, hid the problem, and hence the Rembrandt comic label.  As we listened to the story play out, we envisioned the glowing review we would be authoring on this site.  We would ding them here and there for this or that, and in the end, give them a very nice mark.  Off hand, we'd guess they would have ranked in the mid-to-high 80's, though never the low 90's.  The writing is simply to unsophisticated and there are too many plot gaffs.   By way of example, so as to lend credibility to our saged opinion:  1. The heroine discovers a weird alien machine in her grandmother's bedroom way in the beginning of the story.  Never again does the author return to explain or use this plot element.  Then why use it?  2.  The aliens give the immortals a super power-source every now and then.  The story hinges on evil-doers stealing one or interfering with the delivery.  Huh?  For centuries the only way to deliver one must have been for the aliens to do so themselves; 16th century technology certainly couldn't put a multi-ton battery at the bottom of the ocean.  So why are humans involved in the delivery now?  Makes no sense.  3. Two characters run through a motorcycle show and jump on a bike and ride off, chased by another who steals a bike too.  Really, can just anyone steal a motorcycle from a show?  Maybe we should try it, after all, times are hard and motorcycles look like fun.  4.  The main immortal chooses as her number one assistant the clearly evil man who killed her lover.  Really?  She must be a-better-man-than-I, Gunga Din.  Come now, it's a bone-head move on her part and most unbelievable.  5.  Though out the story the author uses the lame technique of having discussions and clever repartee occurring during mortal combat.  Very very unrealistic.
  There are hugely way more examples, but time and reader forbearance are only so allowing.  But you take our point.  The Rembrandt comic label comes from this combination of pedestrian writing coupled with state-of-the-art-spare-no-expense production.  It is truly a pity a good editor was not involved.  The Leviathan Team could have really gifted us with something special.  We know, we can heard you muttering, (please don't mutter so loudly in the future, this is OUR blog, not your blog - room for only one on this soap box) "Hey, Anonymous, this is audio drama, not high-fiction!  You cannot fairly ding them for the writing craftsmanship.  If you're reading their book, well then fair is fair, but... blah blah blah..."  Yes, we hear you, and fast food should taste bad and one-night stands should be unfulfilling, and if Warhol painted a soup can it would be art, yeah, yeah.  Well not for our money, thank you.  There is no reason to not make something as good as it can be.  Moreover, and you'll find with time that we are real sticklers on this point, writing is a sacred art and must be honored and cherished and sought-after.  Mediocre is not, in this setting, mediocre.  It is unacceptable!  End of discussion.  Get it right or get it shredded; struggle to produce a jewel or struggle equally hard to keep it out of our face.  Sorry, but passion is passion.  The writing of recipes for your neighbors and sick notes for your kids should correctly expected to be well crafted or the author should be chastised.
  Whew, that felt good!
  Back to the task-at-hand.  So we were going to award TLC an adequate score, challenge them to w-r-i-t-e a better sequel, and move on.  But, we hit a WSLH point.  We were honestly surprised, blind-sided in fact.  The aggregate quality of TLC's was so good, we could not conceive of hitting a point so egregious as to be WSRH-worthy.  But we did and we suggest you heed our warning and consider skipping TLC altogether based on it.  First, if you didn't already know, the production team hires paid voice actors.  They audition them, direct them, push them, and they are excellent.  So, the WSRHtoo real.  It is deeply troubling to hear.  Cruelty abounds in our world.  People are tortured-to-death.  Hearing it, experiencing it, is simply too much.  Plus, though we will rarely jump on this old hackneyed bandwagon, there might be children listening.  More than decorum is at risk here, folks.  The only two things we can say in the dispensing of this WSRH is that 1. It's the first and only one not based on terrible writing/production, but rather content; and, 2. We contacted the author directly and told him to edit/pull the scene, because we felt so passionately as to the fatalness of this flaw.  Oh well.  There, we've warned both author and potential listener, so our conscious is clear (not that our hubris wouldn't have prevented tarnishing, but it it were possible, it has been expunged).
  Hollywood, famous for giving us ultra-expensive flops, should be taken by TLC team as cautionary and prophetic.  Heaven's Gate, Ishtar, Hell's Angels, and The Adventures of Pluto Nash, to name but a few ill-fated high price projects.  They did prove, and prove again, that money and wishing cannot save a project doomed by it's ill-conception.  Iffy writing and poor taste/judgement are a worrisome combination, but are possible the change.  Anyone here drive an Edsel?  We thought not.
  'Nough said.

A Few More WSRH's, Alas

If it were to end, that we need never again relegate a PB.com author's work to this classification, it would be a great time in  great world.  Alas, we think the denizens of this deep are destine to burgeon in number.  It is, we shall all agree, not a sin to produce inferior art.  It is, however, not a thing which is beneficial or praise worthy.  But these musings are philosophy, not literature, so onward we go...

The Guerrilla Poet, by Keith Hughes.  Well, where to start?   Okay, Mr. Hughes seems like a nice fellow.  His last podcast novel, Borrowed Time was pleasant if not journeyman.  Are we done yet?  No, we will relent and proceed.  TGP is, let us say kindly, unfocused and confusing.  The premise of the book seems to be that writing words can physically effect the world, construct buildings, you know, that type of everyday experience.  Suspend disbelief is severely challenged with this plot hook.  We listened to most of two episodes before bailing, so maybe the hook could have set.  We will never know.  The story jumps around chaotically and inexplicably, the characters are poorly crafted, and the action is honestly hard to follow.  Having a story based on a weak plot hook, that words cause things to be built or destroyed, starts the author way-out on an unsympathetic limb, in our opinion.  It is difficult to buy-in to a story which seems from the start to be, simply put, so weird, such an odd personal vision of the author.  And there's the repetitiveness and there's the repetitiveness.  The 'Story So Far' for episode two was so painfully long and tedious that it, more than anything else, caused us to not proceed with the book.  The prospect of wilting under even one additional painfully read and interminable summary of the paucity of comprehensible action which took place in the prior episode was just too chilling to face.   Sorry Mr Hughes, but this one is really weak.  If you fancy yourself an author, show us why next time out.




The Wolf of Man by Shawn Lewis.  We do not, as a rule, like or condone horror.  Life is too short and the human lot so desperate that inflicting horror on one's psyche just seems a bit much.  But that matter of taste is a needed caveat.  It would have taken an exceptional work of horror to bind our fancy.  Toothless is the only one we can easily site.  This one held us not.  We made it 1/3 through Episode 1, hardly a fair sample, but we were then out.  Waiting for a frightened little boy's expectations of being ripped from his bed by a violent monster to come true, well let us simply say, that was not what we wanted to put in our head.  The narration and technicals seemed good, so if you like little boys ripped from their mother's beds in the night, this one might, for reason which will never be clear to us, be your cup of tea.  Good luck with that.


Valhai by Gillian Andrews.  This one is advertised as "Young Adult".  We are certain we are not young and we hope we are not adult, so this was a long-shot to win our fancy.  It is, by way of example, not impossible for "YA" to be actually good, not merely simple.  The Prophet of Panamindorah carried this sub-classification, at it is a pearl.  This podcast is not of the same ilk.  The narration is slow and relatively lifeless and the recording quality is quite substandard.  These flaws can be over-ridden by a superior tale, but the listener is not so fortunate on this count.  What little we could put up with was poor.  There's this rebellious child forced by mean old people to go to a school he doesn't want to in order to learn something he doesn't yet value.  Hum, not the stuff of legend.  Sounds like our childhood.  There is a plot-element we have seem repeatedly which defies our belief each time we see it.  Many authors, intent we presume, to marvel us and sweep us away to a fanciful foreign place, start out of the blocks employing an incomprehensible and completely non-intuitive writing style.  We always find it jarring and  almost always "WSRH" the story.  Dazzle us with the story, not by the story.  Make us know that, by book's end, we have been somewhere wondrous and novel.  Don't shake the reader like a pit bull would a flimsy toy to impress upon them what a wacky new world their about to not read about.  It is your first effort Ms Andrews, and few first efforts are stellar.  Learn from the process and the experience and make the next one better, and the following one better still.  Your care and concern do show-through, so get back the that laptop and wow us, okay?