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:
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!
