Welcome To Night Vale - Now Leave IMMEDIATELY!

We take a rare stab into meat which is not PB.com raised.  As unluck would have it, we were surfing iTunes to find some audio worthy of our ears.  Ranked rather high in a "Medicine" search was Welcome to Night Vale (WTNV).  Not certain how weird fiction ended-up in that search, but we pined, perchance it was fair Providence directing our weary heart to transcendent fiction.  We were, it turns out, merely the butt of a joke played on us by Puck and Kokopelli.  Never a WSRH has violated our heads more so than WTNV!  We listened as far as we could into Episode One and were crest-fallen by way of impression.  Let us put it this way:  You know how you simply love the mystic and mystery of Tincture or How To Disappear Completely?  That clever turn of a phrase or the wonder of an unearthly twist, you know the stuff ya just love?  Yeah...  we do too.  It is painfully apparent the author of WTNV was attempting a similarly cutting-edge, surrealistic journey for the listener.  But, like a five-year old attempting to play in the NBA, the author came up real short.  What was meant to be creepy was simply dumb and what was meant to be irony was lame.  We couldn't keep from thinking how the poor fellow (or fella) who wrote the text must have dreamed such lofty dreams.  Alas, mon cheri, it is not to be.  We advise our readers herein to save themselves the frustration of sampling this annoying effort in dark humor.

This Paper World - Thinner than That

  Oh bother, bother, bother!  We listened with such anticipation to This Paper World (TPW) by Jeff Lane.  We, as you know, love a good story and have been so, unsupported of late.  Did we mention oh bother?  We listened to one episode of TPW before unconditionally and most deservedly lowering a WSRH.  As we append often, we are not here to dash the hopes of aspiring authors, but we will speak freely.  Oh bother.

TPW (we never did find the paper, by the by) is a very very stock tale.  I have super powers and am good and I fight - literally - the powers of evil.  I have guns - really big guns, and those evil-fellows are ever-so-evil.  They have super powers too.  So, since good super powers always defeat evil super powers (this is what, a rule or a guide-line?) I win and they lose.  Okay, if you cannot be original, maybe you will be impactful, innovative, unconventional, TPW.  Not so much.  Just off-the-shelf here.  The real turn-off was the torture-the-little-girl convention.  Yes, well, what good story does not necessitate the cruel torture of innocent young girls?  Torture little boys?  What a silly thought.  It is little girls who get inhumanely tortured, right?  What, torture yucky snakes and spiders?  Boy, are you out of touch!

  Did we mention that we guessed that Jeff Lane was a male?  So, novels where little girls are tortured written by men = way too many.  Novel where little girls are tortured written by females = none we know of.  Let us re-cap:  Men like to fantasize about torturing little girls too often, and women dream of tortured girls never.  Could there be a subliminal message males are missing in these statistics?

  The real incongruity is that the torturing of said little girls is completely extranious to the story as it needs to be told.  The evil dudes need to extract mojo from those who have it.  Okay, lame plot, but okay.  But why not A) simple murder the mojo-owner; B) Draw by magic the mojo from the victim; C) ask to borrow the mojo if they pay it back with mojo-interest in 90 days?  There are so many ways evil dudes can obtain mojo which do not involve the toture of little girls that we wonder (yet again) why this theme is so... attractive, so alluring, so_____------______------REVOLTING!

  There, we said it.  PEOPLE, stop glamorizing little-girl torture.  Do not write of it, do not speak it, do not even think it.  If you need to tell us your take on little girl torture, please...  please.... no we won't go there... please... go FRESHEN yourself.  Yes, clean your minds and hearts and souls and write a story which is not based on...  no, we won't stoop that low either.  Okay, PB.COM Review Rule One: Don't write shit.

  We're done now

  Please do not listen to this awful story.  How ever good it might have gotten (doubtful but within the realm of possibility), it is absolutely void of redeeming grace.

Tales Of The Left Hand - Both Our Hands Are Clapping

 Lately we have been jumping on new PB.com releases, hope as at Christmas to unwrap a wondrous surprise.  Our luck day arrived in the form of Tales Of The Left Hand, Book One (TOTLH), by John Meagher.  At the time of this review, TOTLH Book Two is already out, so Mr. Meagher promises to be prolific as well as entertaining.  This, our friends, is a welcome and novel combination.  There are a few hyper-productive authors on PB.com and, to an author, their offerings are weak, weird, and worthless.  Not so with Mr Meagher and for this our hat is off to him!  Here is the author's blurb:

  In the tropical-island region known as the Frees, magic is growing stronger, and gunpowder is becoming less reliable. Amid this world of "swashbuckling, intrigue, and a dash of magic," two adventurers literally run into each other and are forced to fight together against pirates, sinister assassins and powerful merchant families, in the process developing a most unlikely friendship.

Tesca is the Left Hand, a spy and assassin serving the Duke of Kohaya, ruler of one of the independent realms within the Frees. Kayrla is a sailor and sometime pirate with a few magical tricks up her sleeve. While fleeing the wrath of her former captain, Kayrla collides with Tesca, who’s on a mission of his own, and her captain, assuming them to be partners, sics his crew on both of them. Cutting their way free of the pirates' wrath, the pair come to realize that they make a very effective team, but will their combined talents be enough to stop an assassin seeking the Duke’s life, and who appears to be more than a match for either Tesca’s blades or Kayrla’s magic?

NARRATION:  A surprisingly good job of it here.  We specifically were caught off-guard because the narration seemed at first to be run-of-the-mill.  Mr. Meager's natural speaking voice is, while pleasant and clear, rather bland school-boyish.  By the end of TOTLH we were, however, most impressed with the range and consistency Mr. Meagher displayed.  Both women and men were credible and expertly reproduced.  Having done a good deal of podcasting ourselves, we can attest to the non-triviality of such a gift.  There was, to our ears, however, a negative with TOTLH's read.  Mr. Meagher chose rather inflexible and stereotypical characterizations for many players.  The sailors all spoke Pirate, the 'very dark skinned' race sounded Nigerian, and the boorish assassin-renters sounded awfully Teutonic.  To precognate, we shall site a few more examples from Book Two (We know, unfair you cry, this is a review of Book One - no fair precognating!  Well, get over it - this is our blog.  Our tongue is stuck out at all neigh-sayers, but at none of our true friends).  The French captain slurps his wine and the 'light skinned dark fellow' has dreadlocks and sound remarkably Jamaican.  Hum.  The problem here is what, in biology, is termed convergent evolution.  This is the process by which widely differing creature separated by great distances adopt the same trait.  So here, on this mystical far-off world, everybody just happens to speak with Earther intonations.  Hum.  So, while Mr. Meagher might have gotten a 15-18 for narration, we will ding him to a 14 for his annoying predilection.  In fact, dare we ever think it, we were reminded of that retched movie The Phantom Menace more than once!  Saints in Heaven, protect us against such drivel!  Nota bene:  When TOTLH was written The Frees was fine, but when narrated, it is identical to The Freeze.  We wondered for half the story how all those tropical plants could live at the North Pole.

EDITING/TECHNICAL:  This aspect, especially give that this is Mr. Meagher's first PB.com effort, was flawless.  Even the larger names on PB.com have a few fumbled splices or stammers.  Flawless is not, however, spectacular.  Nowadays, the bar for this category is way-high.  Several authors have posted remarkably complex and professional-quality material.  All students of physics are not Einsteins, but we must insert this caveat.  Intros/outros were blessedly short, which was especially since Mr. Meagher elected to chop his opus into relatively short episodes.  All-in-all, we shall grant 16 for technicalities.

ORIGINALITY OF STORY:  For our money this is a very important element of a good book (okay, the podcast is free, so none of our money is actually at risk, but, please, allow us metaphoric range).  We are reluctant to be overly negative, but we think TOTLH is, at a heart & soul level, not all that original.  That does not mean it is not entertaining, but it added no novel insight, no remarkable twist to our collective experience. We have a mean pirate captain, a good-of-heart pirate elf (never understood how good-at hearts could spend some of their lives murdering and stealing, but, then again, we are probably just quit provincial), a civic-minded assassin, a benevolent duke, et cetera, et cetera.  Swords, bad-guys, a lust for gold, a predictable ending - you know the story.  Were there new quirks, unexpected elements?  Sorry, we cannot recall any.  Again, that does not mean TOTLH is not worthy, it just ain't fresh.  A middling 10 here.

QUALITY OF WRITING:  As with Best Movie of the Year at The Oscars this is the really quintessential consideration - the Big Kahuna (a term from a 1959 Gidget movie, of all things).  After all, these are podcast novel, n'est pas?  Linear and 'round-the-camp-fire are adjectives which spring to mind.  A tale told 'round the fire at night is off-the-cuff, unprepossessing, and uncomplicated.  By linear, we would signal a plot-line which goes from A to B to C, ending in Z.  There are no real detours, twists, or convolutions.  If you have read any quantity of our reviews, you will recall that a good many PB.com podcasts are similarly - simple.  The best example we can site is a work we never reviewed because it stands as one of the most popular.  Nathan Lowell's Solar Clipper series is 'round-the-camp-fire and is enjoyed by a multitude of paying fans.  No sin here, no condemnation to readership hell, but, needless to say, not very Bradbury-like.  In fact, until the introduction of the unstoppable assassin character, we were drifting toward a WSRH due to lack of interest.  Everybody was so darn happy and nice, unless they were evil and hence unhappy.  TOTLH told of a world where you literally bump-into a trained killer on a mission and he not only aids you but becomes your BFF inside of - well - no time at all.  Such a happy place!  Pity Sidney Carlton from Tale Of Two Cities or Cosette from Les Miserable were not similarly fortunate.  A final note.  The Kayrla character was painted too-simply.  She was naive, trusting, and altogether rather dimensionless.  We would have liked a bit more edge, insight, and maturity mixed-in with her persona.  Not to bash, but to discuss Mr. Meagher's style, we will say no more.  A 12  for writing.  How, you query, could we award that high a score to a work so humble?  Simple.  You try to write a cohesive novel and make it entertaining and get it published and podcast and then ask us that question again.  Yeah, that's why.

WOW FACTOR:  There is, in TOTLH, some real wow.  The aforementioned excellent voice acting of wowful.  Sympathetic characters, that's nice.  A tale told well, that's good.  Being thoroughly entertained while listening, that's great.  So, we allow 8 wow-points.

TOTAL:  60.  We were quite entertained by TOTLH and recommend it to fantasy listeners without reservation.  In spite of what might be interpreted to be harsh criticism above, know this - we liked TOTLH.  It was fun.  Yes, that's the best way to sum TOTLH in a word - FUN!

Bedtime Tales: Stories For the Wayward and Churlish - It Worked, We Were Put To Sleep

  Bedtime Tales: Stories For the Wayward and Churlish (really, that's you title? Kind of long and over-cryptic, perchance?)  (BT) is a collection of short stories by Dar Qwynd, Narrated by Norman Chisolm III (again, really, eponymous for "Dark Wind", why not use that nom de plume directly, and why "III" what is the point of the over-embellishment?).  We listened, with one eyebrow raised skeptically the entire time, to the first short story, Blankie.  So completely underwhelmed were we that the WSRH axe fell immediately upon the alleged conclusion of the story.  Let us summarize the story for you.  A boy loves his blanket.  The blanket is made of the remains of a demon who died for unclear reasons (and we listened really hard to determine why it died).  That's it.  Cue the sound of crickets buzzing.  In this over-produced, dare we say maudlin, podcast, the intro's/outro's were sooooo long and stilted, gratuitously repetative and most off-putting.  Please see the discussion in the review immediately proceeding this one, of Every Picture Tells a Story for a detailed discussion of plot-elements.  Blankie violated so many plot elements that it was infuriating.  There was no plot, just a boy playing word-games with squirrels interrupted by a demon who died.  A completely unacceptable climax and no resolution.  People, please, if you write a story, make certain it has a point to make and that it does not just end, but has an ending!  'Nuf said 

Every Picture Tells a Story, Volume 4 - Underexposed Film

  Every Picture Tells a Story, Volume 4 is offered to us via the combined efforts of Katerina and Mick Bordet.  We assume, but have not read, that Volumes 1-3 are out there somewhere.  The Bordets apparently post a photo and have followers write a short story based on this image.  An intriguing concept, but as we quickly found out, a concept whose success depends wholly on the skill of the contributors.  We only listened to the first short story, titled Digby the Travelogue, and we were most unimpressed.  We reasoned that the lead story would be a strong one, so when it was unacceptable, WSRH.  Rash and over-reactive of us?  Perchance, but after we read a tale which is irritatingly bad, it leaves us feeling off.  The influence of a poor story is akin to how we feel after we've eaten WAY to much pizza an are over-full yet full of regrets for the over-consumption.  Yeah, lousy fiction has that effect.  So, while we could have listen to more, we literally did not wish to risk it.  What was wrong with Digby?  It violated a scared rule of story telling.  Remember from school, that a story consists of various elements.  One outline defines exposition (plot), rising action, conflict, climax, and then resolution?  Well, Digby lacks plot, climax, and resolution.  It just ... ends.  No tale is told, no moral learned, not episode cataloged.  It is not a short story, it is a short thought.  We smell in Digby one of the oldest failures a writer falls into, that of having a really cool idea, but no point to make with it and no ending to be found with it.  Listening to Digby emoted from us the expression, "Not in my house!"

The Phoenix Conspiricy - Falls Back Into Its Own Ashes

  Arg!  Darn, oh bother, and WTF!  Okay, we have vented our frustration, now we may proceed with an orderly review of The Phoenix Conspiracy (TPC) by Richard L. Sanders, narrated by Matthew Ebel [who has no middle name, we presuppose].  TPC received a very late WSRH.  We were into Episode 10 or 11 when the podcast took the torpedo a-midships and sank into the abyss of ignobility.  We were rather stunned when we found that Mr. L. Sanders made us reach-up and first hit the stop, and then the delete icon, so far into the book.  Why, good sir, did you so force our hand?

  Competent fiction writing involves but a few key elements.  The aspiring author must have a story to tell, a plot to carry that story passsably, credible characters, and an ending which does not suck.  Naturally, great fiction excels at all these components, but we're just talking about competent fiction here - the kind which would receive a C+ from the teacher.  It was one of these torpedoes which done-in TPC.  First, there was much to speak well for TPC, aspects which lead us into the bowels of the book.  We were, as implied, assuming we'd finish the book and were blind-sided by the fatal implosion.  On the plus side, Mr. Ebel proved to be a journeyman voice actor.  We were initially off-put but the hissy, high pitched quality of the production, but quickly learned to ignore this flaw.  Mr. Ebel has an unspectacular voice, but his characterizations were well thought out and very consistent.  Strong work, Mr. Ebel.  In TPC, we also loved the 1950's space-opera genre.  Very nostalgic, very inviting.  Though TPC was probably only going to score in the 40-50 range had the dreaded WSRH not fallen, TPC was entertaining and acceptably engineered.

  Okay, why the WSRH?  Mr. L. Sanders made one too many errors in the plot.  This is, unfortunately, not an uncommon flaw among authors who never quite make-the-grade.  Without revealing too many spoilers, should you choose to listen-in anyway, we will paint a picture of the death-giving gaffs.  First, a ship's captain commanding a ship-of-the-line in combat with an addiction issue?  Hum.  And this lunk-head never remembers to put his illegal narcotic away, perennially leaving in plain site?  Again, hum.  And the ship's doctor is his dealer?  Double hum.  But, we did not WSRH these soft-spots, we just groaned and bore-it.  Then, the same ship's captain ignores orders to discontinue his personal-interest driven investigation during a war-footing and commandeers his ship on a private quest?  Ah, wait, that's mutiny, treason, and desertion all rolled into one!  You know, the kind of nasty things they hang you for.  Really?  Ya think a military officer would risk brutal exicution to sate his curiosity?  Yet, still we read-on, daunted but not detered.

  The coup-de-grace concerned the "strong" female character, the ship's Executive Officer, or XO.  Mr L. Sanders went well out of his way to construct a hyper-rigid, by-the-book military officer in this XO.  She was stern and inflexible to an annoying and unrealistic extent, but, hey, L. Sanders is the author so there she was.  Then, when the XO decides (based on one episode) to topple the captain from command, she slips into something slinky and pseudo-seduces him?  She injects chloral hydrate into a full bottle of wine, fills her mouth with it, and literally forces it down the captain's throat while swallowing neigh a drop herself, and Cap passes out like a rag-doll dropped?  All this, again, on a war-footing in a combat zone?  Wow, we mean, wow!  There are so many things wrong with that scene!!  So many WTF's that...  WSRH

  Look, chloral hydrate, famous as a "mickey-fin", is used to knock someone out so you can shanghai or date-rape them - whatever.   If an adult takes 500 milligrams, they will fall asleep in about half an hour - longer if "stimulated" (as in, oh we don't know, say about to have sexual abandon with the most beautiful woman you've ever seen).  So, if she spit a mouthful, approximately 20 milliters into his mouth, the wine-solution would need to have 25 mg/ml of drug, minimum.  The XO would have had to inject 40 milliters into the 750 ml bottle.  That means the bottle was holding 790 mls, which it cannot, so, since she did not remove the cork, it is impossible.  Plus, no way she would not swallow some herself.  If she had mixed such a high concentration, even a small volume would lay her out too.  Plus, she's a hyper-rigid military officer.  Now, durning a war-time period, she willfully and knowingly commits assault, battery, unlawful imprisonment in the form of sedation, the dissabling of a superior and commanding officer on a combat mission, in effect mutany, and then either burglary after he passes out if she serches his quarters or entrapment if she turns him in for drunk and disorderly?  If the XO was very lucky, she'd only be stripped of her rank and imprisoned for twenty years, even if she proved the captain was an addict and insubordinate.  We picture the JAG investigator questioning the XO as  Cappie is haul-off in chains.  "SO, XO, how exactly was it that you were able to search the captains' quarters?  Were you romantically involved?"  "Ah, no, I mean, not as such."  So, if I may, how were you able to discover the drugs?"  "Well, I jumped to a quick conclusion, played slap-and-tickle just long enough to incapacitate him, then rifled his room."  With a smile, she proclaim, "It only took me a minute to crack his government issued safe, you know, where secret orders are stored.  Oh, and I found these girly magazines and these computer-inhanced photos of the women's locker room on Deck Five taken right after the girl's volleyball playoffs.  Look what that girl is doing in the shower!  She' next on my hit-list, the dirty slut!"

   Realistically, she'd be hanged.  Really really, this stick-up-the-butt duty-driven-by-the-book officer does all that on a hunch, on a whim... ever in the first place.  What a sloppy job of officer vetting they do in the future.  Two ship's captains and one XO all needing to be executed in such a brief moment in time.  Everyone in command or medically trained if morally bereft and in need of euthanasia.  The future, it seems to us, is not very bright.

WSRH, nuf said

Strigoaie The Romanian Witch - We Were Not Enchanted

  Strigoaie, The Romanian Witch (STRW, we helped you, author by inserting the comma), by Mark Vale is a new release on PB.com.  We, always hungry for a great tale, scooped it up greedily.  We listened to a full hour before the WSRH axe fell.  We did not dis-like STRW, we simply found nothing to like.  First, Mr. Vale, an absolute point-of-order.  When your podcast begins with the first three notes of the Star Trek intro music, you had better be good - damn good!  Aside from How To Disappear Completely, Toothless, Write Now!, and precious few others, nothing on PB.com rises to that lofty level.  STRW falls well short of Mt. Olympus.  Second point, good author.  Are you of an age to remember the ever so cute Archie comic Sabrina, The Teenage Witch, or the even cute late-90's sit-com of the same name?  You take an awful risk titling a book S-T-R-W when it veritably rhymes with S-T-T-W.  Please accept this as another kind suggestion.

  So, why the WSRH?  Several issues.  First, the basic concept.  In STRW we have a male author writing what, at least in the first hour, is a woman's story.  Four teenage girls in the 1960's, a contemporary babe, and a couple old women populate the story.  We are always...  nervous, when someone fully male takes it upon them selves to write a novel from a fully female perspective.  We cannot say it has never been done well, but we've never read it.  Hemmingway never attempted it, nor Bradbury nor even Shakespeare.  Us fellows have such a heck of a time trying to figure you gals out on an historic and an ongoing basis that it is inconceivable that a man could get y'all right.  Further, - and, please, we are supremely to-each-his-own - we cannot understand why a man would set-about to elucidate the female essence.  However, we know full well that an author must write what they must write (please research to concept of vates), so we scold not.  We did not like the fundamental error we heard either, not in the context of STRW.  The granny speaks of her wicked aunt as a disgusting Gypsy.  Gypsies, more properly, Roma, are an ethnic group especially common in that part of Eastern Europe.  However, if the aunt is Roma, the mother must be one too - they are family.  We guess they could be introduced as step-sisters to make the insult work, but that's getting pretty far-afield.

  The basic flaw, however, which caused the axe to fall, was the very blandness of the story.  The writing was crisp enough, and the plot not unpromising, and the narration was gentle and pleasing, loving, if you will.  But, - and darn-it-all, there always has to be a but - the story is dull, lifeless, uninteresting, and unpromising.  Like a tofu steak, or a date with one's sister, STRW looked to be a poor investment of time.  Maybe, if there was action and tension to take place, and it were introduced sooner, Mr. Vale might have set-the-hook, but, alas, we easily spit it out.  Sorry, Mr. Vale.  We really admired your kind effort and appealing yarn-telling, but... eh.  Having stopped after hour one, we clearly have no idea what transpires in STRW.  We will expose ourselves fully here and predict what happened.  PS: the reader should NEVER be able to do this, so if we are even close, Mr. Vale, please return to the word processor and mix-it-up a bit.  The cute babe gains magical powers as she enters her true native land.  As she struggles to be a full-fledged witch, she must combat the darkest of forces, probably her great aunt, yet, despite all odds and wishes-to-hope, the beauty triumphs...  but wait, if you buy now STRW will throw-in that she meets Mr. Wright and... well, we'll stop here.  We do not wish to be snarky, just illustrative.

PS:  Because we are ever so worldly, a correction of sorts.  We do not know what a "strgoaie" is.  The male 'witch' in Romanian would be "strigoi" and the female "strigoaica".

Inside The Whale - Outside of Tolerable

One cannot judge a book by it's cover.  We saw the cover, very much liked it, and read the blurb.  We dismissed Inside the Whale (ITW) several times based on that blurb, but finally decided, what's there to lose?  Oh myyyy, ask that question and you're answered with a pie in the face.  ITW is billed as in the bardic tradition of Beowulf.  Ah, as if!  We have read Beowulf in Old English with parallel translation on the opposite page, and in two other straight translations.  Beowulf ITW is not!  We always listen to one full episode, but oh how we were tempted to break our pact here.   A poorly narrated, poorly produced, and oh so poorly written podcast is this.  The quasi-poetry is unpaced, rhyming here and not there, and the story is awful.  A drunken brat who kills a nice girl in a DUI who haunts him because he killed her, but she was drunk too and went voluntarily with him.  WTF!  And so many lines and ideas were repeated that we thought our iPhone had an auto-replay feature we were unaware of.  An the vulgarity.  The dead couple make love in the In-Between.  This nice girl asks the drunkard to bring his shaft (penis) and grabs it!  Argh!  That is not the worst vulgarity, only the most pictorial, which pollutes most our fading memory. 
  Yes, our vitriol boarders on the personal, but really, this is one of those podcast where all one can mumble is wtf as one shakes their weighty head.

The God Conspiracy - A Plot For Entertainment

We are late comers, as it were, to The God Conspiracy (TGC) by Derek Gilbert.  It was released in The Before Times, 2009, and was under our pod-dar all this time.  This is a shame, as Mr. Gilbert offers-up a very nice novel for us to enjoy, well worth a listen.  We advise potential listeners not to be off-put by the interlacing of evangelistic Christian messages.  Thankfully we are not pummeled about the head and shoulders with The Good News, but rather, the Christian element is worked into the plot as an essential.  Plus, as we count ourselves among the intelligencia of Christian lore (not, not the silly Illuminati, gag me with a Dan Brown), we are happy to report Mr Gilbert sites correct examples and informed interpretation of the religious elements, demonstrating true knowledge of the subject matter.  There is, in TGC basically a soliloquy where a evangelical minister is explaining The End Times to an FBI agent.  Mr Gilbert sites reasonable interpretations of Scripture and doctrine, not bible-thumping misunderstandings.  [Well, that is of course except for the rookie mistake, Mr Gilbert, if you ever read this, of interpreting Revelations to be anything other than a political statement from it's author directed against the Roman government couched in words which would not, hopefully, result in the authors instant lion-ization, but we digress.]  In fact, Mr. Gilbert's overall fund of correct facts, as opposed to the all-too-common contrived facts, boded well for the quality of his book.  For example, Mr Gilbert, unlike most 'Mericans, understands the Preamble to mean "life, liberty, and the pursuit of property" when the word 'happiness' is used.  Our Founding Fathers did not mean to scream Toga Party like John Belushi when defining a fundamental tenet of our nation.  So, on to our review.

  Here is the book's blurb:

     One e-mail. Five lines.
          4,000 dead.
And it is only just beginning…
When a small boy in Iowa forwards a mysterious email from ‘God’ to a small group of friends, he unwittingly releases a trigger that sends blood pouring throughout his farming community.
Thousands more are dead across the country in dozens of simultaneous terror attacks and the government blames fundamentalists who want to trigger the Apocalypse.
FBI Agent Joe Unes reluctantly teams with reclusive Internet radio host Barney Ison (from Sharon K. Gilbert’s The Armageddon Strain) to expose the plot -- and discovers that he's not contending against flesh and blood.

  Our general summary is Christian thriller in which unsuspecting every-day Joes and Janes find they are immersed in a world-gone-mad struggle between the forces of good and evil.  Will we all be cannon-fodder and mindless sheep, and therein victims, or shall we rise as one and fight the fight for freedom?

NARRATION:  Mr. Gilbert elects do do his own solo-read.  His voice is pleasant and he is at ease with the microphone so his voice tells the story, as opposed to us listening to someone read a line of text.  There is a local-news-weekend-anchor quality to Mr. Gilbert's voice.  That is to say, his voice is middle-of-the-road-upper-key bland, but this quality was over lookable once we bought into the story.  We will award 14 points in this category.

Editing/Technical:  Run-of-the-mill, we would surmise.  There were, the Mr. Gilbert's credit, not searing gaffs.  A few bad splices were left in, but nothing egregious.  We fully concur with commentators on PB.com the the intro/outro music was jarringly loud.  As this is an easy fix, even now, it is hard not to ding points for this annoyance.  A pale 11 here, where the unspectacular is coupled with the offensive.

Originality of Story: This is, for us, a bit of a tough one.  We are not very familiar with the Christian apocalyptic genre.  It is possible this is a very fresh and original story.  We suspect there exists a large body of such stories and that this is a common enough tale.  We made it though five or six pages of the mind-numbing Left Behind series ( to quote Dr. Smith from Lost in Space "Oh, the pain!").  Well, it's original to us, little fish in the big pond that we are, so that counts for something.  Based on our vacillations, we will score a neutral 10.

Quality of Writing:  As we've said - time and again - it's all about the story.  The mix of writing prowiss, deeply developed characters, and an enthralling tale are the stuff of magic.  Well, have a seat, pour a cold one, and be patient with us, we are going to set our soap-box right... here... and lecture a bit, expound upon our opinions, as it were.  Forever void of malice in our hearts and in our pens (keyboards keys sounds too sterile, so, please pens it is), we wish to drill a bit deeply into TGC.  The characters are, lamentably, two-dimensional, off-the-shelf kind of folk.  The preacher who prays cheerily (we were reminded of Ned Flanders cheery) while death is quite literally on the door step (maybe run now, pray later?) and the treacle-flock of loving white husbands who cannot stand to be apart from their wives.  The couples all love each other as much now as the day they first met.  They are all white, too, except for a token Asian wife.  The black football player with a son raised by his single mother ex-girlfriend.  Ah, does anyone sense a rigid stereotype here?  Moreover, the black single mother is an unreasonable bitch.  When her ex is called to active duty in the setting of a world gone mad, she is pissy about her plans and won't allow a visit.  She is the only negative character in the book who is not one of the bad-guy.  Very thin ice here, Mr. Gilbert, very thin indeed.  And, when all the world is threatened and The Common Man unites to defeat the beast, no common man is gay.  We have written several novels and short.  We think we only have one cameo-type gay character, but includcivity was not a central theme for any of our books.  It very much was in TGC.  Moreover, when you write Christian fiction, if you don't add a LGBT character, we think you are declaring your uncharitable opinion as to the right of consenting adults to do as they choose behind closed doors.  And each character acted exactly as you anticipated.  We read a few comments on PB.com before starting TGC and noted someone was surprised by the ending.  Really, we saw it half way through with clairvoyant clarity.  The stark predictability of the climax were not so onerous as to earn a WSRH, but a little imagination peppered in would have been nice.  After you've read TGC, or if you are Mr. Gilbert, splice-in this example.  Cut to the scene where the FBI agent and deputy trap the Special Ops in the house.  The captain comes out, nervously faces the agent, then asks the whereabouts of the deputy.  She steps forward and punches him in the nose.  What if...  instead of that, she recognizes him.  They served together in Afghanistan, fell in love, but duty tore them apart.  She has not seen him since - lost track of the ghost warrior.  She insist on going with the captain to confront the bad guy.  When the bad guy *spoiler* she pulls the crucifix the captain gifted her at their parting, which she later had the Pope himself bless while she was visiting Lourdes, and the sanctity of the amulet, when impaled into the *spoiler* eye causes the *spoiler* to *spoilered* into  *spoiler* for some unpleasant time.  You see our point.  It is not difficult to enrich a story, to multi-dimentionalize a character, so as to tell a more non-linear tale.
  All that said, we enjoyed TGC, in spite of it's devote simplicity.  For writing, we will aware a bland 9.

Wow Factor and Extra Credit:  We will award 5 points here, mostly to acknowledge the effort it takes to write and produce a podcast, and the generosity to do so with only a hope of recompense.  Study, practice, and call-upon your imagination, Mr. Gilbert, and afford us these thing next time out.

TOTAL:  49   Yes, this is the lowest rated podcast so far, but, know this.  It stands head-and-shoulders above the debris of WSRH'S who never even made it to the dance.  Seriously, this is a worthy podcast and you should listen to it.

Cheval Bayard - Don't Ride This Horse

  We may need to make a set of appointments with our psychiatric team.  We are depressing our self with our seeming negativity.  What's up with that?  Only one rated podcast out of the last six reviews.  Is it us?  Well of course it is, but really, what are we to do?  We listen, we deflate, and then we rate.  To the sad pile of WSRH's, we now toss Cheval Bayard (CB) by Artemis Greenleaf.

  An historical note.  The concept of cheval bayard is a very long and very rich icon of epics.  First appearing in the Twelfth Century in Renaud de Montauban ( no not Ricardo Montalban, he's more current).  The horse was capable of carrying Renaud and his three brothers (the four sons of Aymon) all at the same time and of understanding human speech. Near the end of the work, Renaud is forced to cede Bayard to Charlemagne who, as punishment for the horse's exploits, has a large stone tied to Bayard's neck and the horse pushed into the river; Bayard however smashes the stone with his hooves and escapes to live forever more in the woods.

  Back now, to reality.  CB impressed us very much as a children's story, though it was not so designated.  In as long as we listened, we kept thinking the podcast would only be worth listening to with our children.   Maybe CB changed gear radically, but we will never know.  The theme, coming of age, can be most tricky, as it is soooooo overdone, so overdone poorly and tritely.  Watch Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and you've completed the coming of age genre.  We gleaned no fresh spark or signs of distinction in CB.  Girls and boys in a boarding school in a dream space (say, Harry Potter, where have we heard about that before?) with some having magic or being fairies and some with dinosaur heads.  Okay, we made-up the dino-heads.  Might have helped!  Stock characters in stock settings with simplistic, predictable interactions (at least up to when the WSRH fell).  The narration was a bit whiny too, which did not help.  In the four episodes we waited patiently through, our summary thought was - boring.

Our First Throw-down, "Where Evil Grows", is, Alas a WSRH

  Yes, there is no Santa Claus, politicians are all scheming power mongers, and the boss always sucks.  Life can be, if you focus on its more dismal aspects, quite discouraging.  Likewise, we were all amped-up about an challenge from a PB.com author.  We were, a few entries back, lamenting over the poor quality of new podcast material offered on PB.com.  One S Lawrence Parrish wished to disabuse us of our misgivings and offered Where Evil Grows (WEG) as a potential negater of our pessimistic assessment.  Would that it would have been so.

  In keeping with our commitment to be objective and fair, never snarky or demeaning, we must, however offer a review of WEG which reflects accurately our serious reservations.  As always, it takes a lot of chutzpah to conceive of, write, record, edit, and offer-up a podcast novel.  So, we always wish to acknowledge this labor.  Thank you, Mr Parrish.  The occasion of this challenge lead us to commit to ourselves before ever hitting the 'play' icon that we would listen to three full episodes.  That would afford WEG a fair hearing, independent of our initial impressions .  We lasted...  three episodes.  Mr. Parrish delivers a solo read, the audio is fine, the voice characterization are laudable, and the editing is clean.  But, as is so often our experience, the story itself falls well short of the mark.

  WEG begins with a scene of rodents inexplicably parading into the sub-basement of a high school.  This was, in there full episodes, the only odd or evil growth present.  Otherwise, we follow a handful of hyper-hormoned teens as the new school year begins.  New friends to be made, bullies to be suffered, and coolness being everyone's goal.  Sound promising?  No, you are right, it does not.  But, what had our delete-finger itching to fall as the last decibels of episode three ended was the potty-language.  We can handle most anything, but really, Mr. Parrish, would you read this story aloud to your mother?  Committedd to examples as we are, let us summarize.  In episode one, one of the teenage boys snatches-up a pornographic magazine and declares his intention to defecate to his mates.  One boy taunts that he will likely be self-pleasuring, and admonishes the pooper to not foul the ceiling with his semen (notice how we are using nice, neutral terms for the potty stuff.  We are so proud of ourselves).  In episode two, we meet the developmentally delayed school janitor who, when frightened by rodents, passes wet, juicy stool into his large butt-crack and has is smell and squish much to his consternation.  In episode three, we meet the beautiful girl who had a miscarriage.  The pregnancy caused her once mild mestual cycles to be vindictively arduous.  Sound like something you'd like to read about?  It gets worse.  Her first day back to school, she decides to wear really tight jeans.   Thus, she can only afford herself the protection of a tampon, and not the panty-shield she would generally double-up with.  Now are you entrigued?  Us either.  But wait, when she is frightened by a mouse, she squirts menstrual flow into the crotch of her pants and has to...

  Okay, you get the picture, unfortunately.  WEG promised to be a gross, boy's locker room tale which would appeal only to adolescents and pre-adolescents.  If you are not among those demographics, we suggest humbly you forgo WEG.  If our citations float your boat, you should go for it.  You will learn the secret that if a man has a really huge phallus, he can stimulate a girl's G-spot and she will urinate when she achieves orgasm.  

  On myyy!  Let us go wash our ears out with a warm soapy solution.  We intentionally did not investigate Mr. Parrish's background, because, we blindly hope and pray he is no more than a lad of seventeen.  Otherwise we'd have to entertain the possibility that an adult wrote with such a libertine style.  Oh myyy, indeed!

Zombie Critters - Dead To Us

  As with the immediately proceeding review, we will be brief and kind.  We always debate even penning reviews for the lower lying of the fruit.  But, in the end, we did create this blog to review PB.com material, so all is fair-game.  Zombie Critters (ZC) by Jesse O'Brien is audio, but it is not a book.  We rather envision ZC as the transcript of an event.  Picture, if you will, a dad holding a large glass of over-sweetened ice tea telling a bedtime story to a group of ten year old boy stacked irregularly on the living room floor in sleeping bags for a Saturday night slumber-party.  Though it adds nothing relevant to this review, it is probably mid summer, the dad is in his early forties with a burgeoning paunch, more bald than he'd care to acknowledge, and his wife is upstairs hazed on Xanax staring out the sewing room window into blackness wondering whatever happened to Fred Silverman, the other boy in high school who also asked her to the prom - the one she said, "No, thanks, I already have a date.  He's downstairs at this very moment telling our ten year old's friends a whacky bedtime story.  But, see you in English class Monday, okay?"

  But we digress.  Mr. O'Brien seem perfectly affable and most enthusiastic, but the yarn is not literature.  In the ten minutes we gave ZC, we were pelted with well-intentioned factual and conceptual errors in a story-line which was based on no understanding of reality.  The doctors doing research on revivification pooled their effort.  Not in academics, buddy.  Steal what you can but never cooperate.  Also, they spoke glowingly about their work being worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize.  Ah, in medicine, they dream of the Nobel Prize in...  Medicine.  Mother Theresa and the 14th Dalai Lama received the Peace Prize for their effort to promote world... peace.  And the serum the doctor's created was administered to the dead critters by inhalation, as it was easier than delivery by injection.  Ah, how can you administer a nebulized treatment to a dead critter?  They are not...  breathing, right - they're dead.  One could postulate the medication was actually absorded through the skin in this bedtime story, but that wouldn't work either, because dead critters have not circulating blood to transport the vaccine anywhere.

  You, by now, take out point.  ZC might indeed be viewed as an mp3 to play at your son's sleep-over if you are too lazy or inebriated to do so yourself, but Mr. O'Brien warns of graphic content, so, well, that wouldn't fit-the-bill either.  Probably best to just pass on ZC.

The Shadow of Black Wings - A Black Shadow, Indeed

  As you know well, dear reader, we are not here to bash, malign, or otherwise deflower the aspirations of budding-young (or unbudding old) authors.  We were put on this Earth for one purpose and one task alone.  We are here to inform and elucidate!  Hence, we will here be charitable and brief (adjectives somewhat foreign to our nature).  The Shadow of Black Wings (SOBW) is a WSRH for three major reasons.  We should point out that we only made it to midway through the second episode, but, honestly, we could not hang any longer to see if the tale improved.  The three strikes which outed this podcast were rather typical ones.  First and foremost, SOBW promised very much to be another - yawn - coming of age story with teens on dragons.  Replay and of Anne McCaffrey's endless Dragon Rider books - yawn yawn - or DreamWork's How to Train Your Dragon - applause due here - and you have, in watered-down form, SOBW.  Second, the sound quality is marginally acceptable and definitely presents a listening challenge.  Third, the music is ill-fitted to the story.  This pablum tale of teen angst is scored with thunderous and dramatic orchestration.  As we mentioned earlier, we'll be kind, so....  'nuh said.

Tincture - Laced With Goodness!

Okay, my minions, we are proud to do a review.  What pleases us most, and the reason we must make such a show of it, is that there have been so few PB.com entrants of sufficient worth to warrant a mention.  But now we may share our profundity regards a winner!  Tincture, An Apocalyptic Proposition (TAAP) by Matthew M. Jordan, like so many successful salmon before it, beat it's little fins hard enough to reach The Promised Land - a review by us!  This is fantasy, not exactly post-apocalyptic, a genre we tired of many a moon past, and is really dark fiction, maybe weird fiction.  Whatever label is appied, TAAP is a commendable effort.

Here's his tag:

Rhamuel and the last of his family, Abranyah, travel their barren world, shack to shack, selling tinctures to keep a full belly and evading the dogmatists to keep their throats safe. Time has turned funny after The Whatever, an apocalyptic event that few remember and even fewer can explain, danger now as commonplace as the unrecognizable relics of war, and the madman Aphulan—along with an iron rule over his small township—may hold the answers. With a cure for The Sick and a passion to uncover what happened to their world, Rhamuel and Abranyah set off on a journey to the “other place,” the days before The Whatever, and ready themselves for a glimpse into what happened, and what was always meant to happen next.

NARRATION:   Very nice indeed.  We are unfamiliar with the voice, and no specific attribution was made as to whom it was.  We presume it was Mr. Jordan (hint hint, Mr. J - add attributions!).  As a solo read, there was sufficient articulation of voices between characters to distinguish amongs them.  Also, the anonymous narrator (oh how we admire anonymity) gave a spark, an energy to each main character which fit the personalities well.  There was a confidence in the narration which is surprising to find in a novice.  Very laudable.  We Would give 19 points for this category, about as high as a solo read may garner. 

EDITING/TECHNICAL:  There was one missed over-dub in a later episode, but just the one.  There were a few too-long-a-pauses, but, again, not enough to detract from the overall pace of the story.  Music outros could be a bit long.  Not that the music wasn't pleasing and well matched, it occasionally just ran a bit amok.  Sparse sound effects were bland and probably should have been deleted, but they  were not bad, just... melba toast.  We dole-out 15 points in this grouping.

ORIGINALITY OF STORY:  Back very much on track here, this is a unique tale.  We are unfamiliar with a similar yarn.  As original could be a bad thing, we must definitely state the originality was refreshing.  Several story-twists and elements caught us, scared veterans as we are,  completely by surprise.   This speaks well for the imagination of the author.  A wild and vivid imagination is such a gift, both from the Muse to the author and the author to us readers.  Thank you, kind sir!  An unreserved 20 points here.

QUALITY OF WRITING:  Ah, Mr. Jordan, if you're reading this, you may wish, at this juncture, to take a prescription tranquilizer, if available.  Wait twenty to thirty minutes, then read on.  The rest of you may proceed directly ahead - sedatives optional.  TAAP is more a story told more than a novel written.  This is not a bad thing, but it is not a good thing in and of itself.  Our ancestors sat around many a campfire at night listening to a bard tale tale like Beowulf and the like.  Good stuff!  Writing serious fiction is another art form and it is the one we pine-over.  That said, this is an expansive story with palpable characters who develop intriguing personalities.  Well done, good sir!  But technical flaws do hamper the effort.  There is an on going convolution to the story, scene out of time, if you will.  Think, for illustrative example, of Slaughter House Five.  Done well, this devise is wondrous.  In TAAP, we think the tool may have been over-employed, leading to a bit of jarring and miscomprehension.  The vagueries surrounding the beginning were almost enough to earn TAAP a WSRH.  But - for you dear reader - we persevered and found ourselves caught-up willingly in TAAP. 
Another Serious flaw was the dreaded Anticlimax.  The story came to a truly endless series of saw-toothed ending points, only to launch-forth into another riveting, poignant interlude.  We flash on the image of a fish dying slowly on the floor of a boat.  Will it ever stop flopping?  A final critique.  Mr. Jordan, please vary the word skull for the abused word brain-pan and pepper-in time as it is significantly less liberally.  That is all we'll say.  Zip.  We ladle-forth 10 points here. 

WOW FACTOR: There is clearly some in TAAP.  The prowess of the solo-narration is impressive.  The unbridled imagination of the setting the story is told in is most commendable.  We will always reward an author who spawns a new world and them leads us though it with loving care.  Just say no to zombies and vampires shall always be our motto, or battle cry.  TAAP stays light-years away from the cliche.  Finally, the music, which was a bit long at times, was spell-binding, well-matched, and a pleasure to hear.  You should be proud of yourself, Mr. Jordan!  14 wow-points.

EXTRA CREDIT:  They say in baseball, that if you watch long enough you'll see something you never have before.  And so it is here, a first in the annals of our saged reviews, a negative extra credit.  TAAP is the first to earn a subtraction.  We strike 3 points off the podcasts total for the blatant and unapologetic plagiarism of Fire Fly/Serenity.  We are huge fans of this body of scifi goodness.  But the dialogue in TAAR is clearly a photocopy of the jerky-western drawl of Malcolm Reynold and the rest of the Brown Coats.  It was a brilliant tool for Fire Fly, but when so overtly recycled, it shows a clear lack of originality.  As our close and personal friend Doctor Who has said, "Originality is cool!"

TOTAL:  75.  Well done, TAAP!


Their website is:  http://tincturestory.com/

The Guild of The Cowry Catchers - A Catch And Release

  With this review, of Abigail Hilton's The Guild of The Cowry Catchers 1-4 (TGOTCC), we will be uncharacteristic.  This is a major podcast of PB.com, so TGOTCC cannot be ignored.  So, a review we feel obliged to publish.  We were torn as to whether to post upon this work, but decided one must not pick-and-choose for reasons of conflict - and we are conflicted.  There weight two very heavy counter-balances which prompt us to be reserved.  Ms. Hilton pours her very life and soul into this epic podcast, a well as a tremendous amount of her time.  Her production is nothing short of brilliant.  The world Ms. Hilton creates is fresh and her writing skills are top-notch.  She gives us all outstanding cast, editing, and sound effects.  Few podcasts are technically superior.  These factors combined constitute one monument force on the scale we judge TGOTCC with.  The other massive counter-weight is that, in spite of these attributes, is that TGOTCC earned a WSRH.

  How is it possible for such a superb podcast to be shot-down with an ignoble WSRH?  As we stress time and again, it's all about the story.  A permutation of this credo is that it's all about what the author wishes to tell us, wishes to say to us.  Ms. Hilton chooses to, for reasons she is very much entitled to express, hammer the listener over the head with repeated gay-sex scenes.  One was one too many, but maybe it was needed, but several?  Hardly likely.  In all seriousness, we will announce our steadfast support of the quote often mis-attributed to Voltaire, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." After volumes of brilliant story-telling, Ms. Hilton feels it incumbent upon herself to push into the listener's ears, in brilliant stereo, graphic sex scenes between two male characters.  So be it.  This literary device is clearly extremely important to Ms. Hilton and she is free to express it.  We applaud her honesty with us in exposing to us her passionate desire to do so.  Why on earth she feels such a need is well beyond the scope of our speculation, but - as the common-herd is so fond of saying - it is what it is.

  We, Anonymous, are, well - duh - anonymous.  We are a reviewer of art.  That said, we feel that graphic sex is a wonderful thing if conducted between two (or, to be inclusive, one or three or twenty-five) consenting adults in private.  Sex should always be so confined.  We do not care if it is sex between males, females, or any desired combination of the two.  We do not care if one is referring to graphic sex between fictional character which are human, or alien, or six-dimensional.  Are we a prude?  We think not, but the reader may differently.  We simply feel that graphic sex in books, photos, and film, is a cheap-shot, an facile ploy for an author.  We wish there was one hell of a lot more 'fades to black' in art.  We get it, the man sitting on the bed tightening his tie and the woman presumably naked under the covers just did 'it', they gained carnal knowledge of each other, they hid the salami, they played slap-and-tickle - whatever!  Why do we need to have the act depicted to use in cheek-blushing detail?  For vicarious sexual arousal?  One word: GROSS!  Once safely past adolescence, vicarious sexual gratification is reserved for those who never matured out of adolescence. Wash, rinse, repeat.  Detailed sexual encounters are gratuitous and those who derive gratification from them are not persons we would care to spend much time in the company of.   Grow up people!

  Well, we must restate that expounding graphic sex is for the vicarious as well as for those who have an agenda.  We are oblivious as to which motivated Ms. Hilton.  Her reasoning is her own and we support her right to soap-box them to the world.  We, however, care not to expose ourselves to such low-brow entertainment.  As a reviewer of PB.com material, we feel honor-bound to pass along our honest review.  We hope it helps prospective listeners chose wisely.  As always, it is never our intention to insult or impugn the artist.  Critique is, in the end, personal opinion.  Here it is offered with deference and with a heart-felt desire to inform.

  So, should you, PB.com listener, select TGOTCC?  It is a great story told brilliantly.  If you can overlook the above mentioned flaws, go for it!  You will be richly rewarded.  If you actually want to hear graphic sex, well stop reading this review and download this bad-boy.  But, for the faint-of-heart, it poses some potentially significant challenges. 

The Deleted Ones -Please Do Delete

  We must first quote The Sage, George Takei.  "Oh myyyyy!"

  The Deleted Ones (TDO), by Martin Kolacek was, unfortunately, yet anther in the terribly long-line of WSRH's we suffered through, however briefly, for you.  You are welcome.  The podcast may - oh we are such a play-on-words slut - be deleted.  We were shocked at first to hear even the narration.  Martin clearly possesses a middling command of the English language, so his attempt to write a book in the same language as The Bard struck us as odd.  Don't get us wrong, Martin is free to do as he chooses - he is hurting no one.  Still, it is odd to create a tale in a language one is not fluent in.  The narration as such was slowly paced and labored, reflecting his unfamiliarity.  This in no way helped the podcast along.  But, in the end, it's always about the story.  Again, oh myyyy!  This was odd, at least the half episode we could stomach.  Amnesia - always a weak writing device - coupled with gay-sex robots and some dysfunctional social set-up.  WSRH.  Oh myyyy, myyyy!  Do yourself a favor, heed our warning, and pass on TDO.

A Breif Word

  And yes, before you think it, we are capable of brevity.  We have posted no recent reviews.  This is due to a superposition of forces.  First, Podiobooks.com was hacked, so they changed their entire set-up.  They were once difficult to search, now they are virtually impossible to search.  Hence, when we go to PB.com, we find it hard to find anything.  Second, the browsing of titles we have do reveal to us - oh for once we'll be kind - sparse offerings.  The recent WSRH essay was the best we gleaned from PB.com, and it was...  well, read the post.  The podcast was rather the opposite of good.  But, we will, from time-to-time, check back in and see if anything interesting turns up.

  If we do not serve you - we are not serving you!