The Astreya Triolgy - Smooth Sailing Into Beautiful Waters

After a long while, we have found a podcast to crow about.  The trilogy actually began a year ago, but we've held off until now rating it.  The Astreya Triology (TAT) has proven itself to be consistently entertaining and compelling.  Strong work, author Seymore Hamilton!  Here's his blurb:

          When Astreya is 17, his widowed mother gives him his father's knife, riddling notebook and bracelet. Searching for the meaning of his strange inheritance he sails south into adventure: he endures storm at sea, betrayal, slavery, night escapes, false accusations and knife fights, but with the help of loyal friends he also begins to find love and the chance to discover his destiny.


NARRATION:  The author narrates the novel solo.  Mr. Hamilton does a yeoman's job of it.  He possesses a rich, clear voice, and his British accent is perfect for this tale of the sea.  Further, his character voices are interestingly varied and quite consistent.  Again, strong work.  As a solo-narration, lacking the complexity of a multiple actor production, we cannot give the full 20 points, but 18 are definitely in order.

EDITTING/TECHNICAL:  As we have stressed in the past, this is a tough catagoury.  There are so many professional-level production efferts that it is hard to shine in this sky.  That said, TAT is nicely done.  There are a few gaffs, missed-edits, and stutters, but not enough to detract from the stroy.  Plain and simple, but well executed.  We dispense 16 points here.

ORIGINALITY OF STORY:  TAT is a pleasant tale, but it does hold to several estabished, perchance worn, themes.  The, in our vaunted opinion, overused monomyth, or hero's journey format is central to TAT.  Also, TAT is a rather straightforward coming-of-age story.  There is more than a little Peter Pan, Master and Commander, and Horatio Hornblower than we'd have liked to see.  However, that negative said, TAT is certainly compelling enough to hold the listener's/reader's interest through several installments.  We will cut 14 points from the pie-of-originality for TAT.

QUALITY OF WRITING:  As frequent flyers on this airline/blog know, this is our pet peeve, our soapbox upon which we bellow, perchance sanctimoniously.  To this end, overall, TAT is well written.  The plot, as alluded to above, is maybe a bit too predictable.  The characters are, however, well constructed and consistent.  Above all, the good-guys are likable and the bad-guys are despicable.  This is a good thing.  The hero, maybe, overthink matters and he needs, definitely, to kiss the girl a little sooner, and with a bit less angst, but these are tolerable.  There are plot flaws which detract, such as why on earth Gar didin't get off the scaffolding sooner or tell Astryea more, sooner.  Maybe Gar, like us, procrastinates to a fault.  All-in-all, we will award 14 points for the writing itself.

WOW FACTOR:  TAT certainly has one.  Mr. Hamilton's knowledge of the sea, of sailing, and his ability to convey it meaningfully is a real plus.  We could, at times, smell the salt air.  We grant 10 points for wowing us so.

TOTAL:  TAT racks up a total of 72 points, a very good score.  We can, without reservation, recommend it to you, the consuming public.  We look forward to more winners from Mr. Hamilton.

for further info; http://seymourhamilton.com/?page_id=15

Well, We Were Trying To Help. WSRHs For Planet Secrets and Hidden Harbor

Well, our intentions were pure.  We elected to go to PB.com, select a few works, and review them for you, in spite of any trepidation we might have hade based on the podcast's teasers.
No good deed, it would appear to confirm, goes unpunished.  From the "new release section we downloaded Hidden Hrbor (HH) and Planet Secrets (PS).
As our close and personal friend George Takei would say, oh myyyy!  Both got very early WSRHs.  If the reader will recall, a WSRH is a signal that we bailed on a podcast based on what we heard up to that point.  The remainder of the podcast might be nothing short of brilliant, but we, and we suspect a large portion of the listening public, will never know.  In any creative writing class, the teacher stresses over and over one important point.  Hook the audience.  Make them buy in and want to turn the page.  If the author does not, they will lose reader's atention, and their purchases.  And so it is with audiobooks.
To the heart of it.  HH, by Jay Smith, held our deer-in-the-headlight attention for maybe five minutes.  The flaws it suffered were, to our ear, too legion to justify continued listening.  First, HH started with the scene where the young Bruce Wayne is leaving the threater late at night with his parents.  They stray into a seedy part of town, fishes out of water.  Mayhem promised to ensue. Ah, Mr. Smith, that's the start of Batman, and the first Batman movie.  We mean, it is rather blatently the start of Batman, both in print and on screen.  Furthermore, the lack of judgment displayed by the father in HH is significantly worse than that of the senior Mr. Wayne.  No one is that dumb.  Period.  So, based on a derivative and hard to buy into plot, we had to redline this one early.
PS, by Trisha Wilson, was actually not quite as appealing as HH.  The narrative mainly did PS in.  Colby Trax (who ever that is) must have been paid to produce PS.  If so, Colby would not only be the name of a tasteless cheese, but the name of a professional production house.  A professional production house should know better than to produce such an unacceptable narration.  The male voice speaks exclusively in a harsh, penetrating whisper.  Who speaks for pages on end in a harsh whisper?  No one.  As to content in PS, there was not possible to buy into.  The hook was that the narrator wanted to stay in college for free, forever.  Not a good hook.  There was no BFF factor.  Further, in the short portion we could bear, there was zero build-up, or escalating storyline.  No advancing action.  We suggest Ms. Wilson join a local writer's group and hone her writing in that venue.  Please recall Hemingway's cynical snark that a writer's first million words are shit.  After that, hopelly, Papa would conceed that excellent writing could occur.

We Are Still Here - And Waiting...

It is not that we have evaporated, or anything vaguely similar.  No, we are waiting for something on PB.com worth commenting upon.  We would love to reveal a diamond in the rough, and we would - as you know - love even more to lambaste something.  But... nothing.  We'll keep checking.  *headdesk*