Spirit Blade - A Spiritless WSRH

We are disillusioned.  This time it is not simply with the paucity of quality podiobooks, but with us.  We fear we are appearing to you, our beloved and devoted reader, as negative-Nellies.  But, as our good friend Bill Shakespeare reminds us often, the fault lies not in ourselves but in our podiobooks  [okay, Mr. or Ms. Picky-Picky the quote is: “The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves if we are underlings.” from Julius Caesar, but our paraphrase was witty, which counts for something].
Back to point.  We must pass-along our latest WSRH.  This one pulls this dreaded label onto itself for the usual reasons, plus an honestly haunting one which we are pained - truly pained - to have to announce.  Spirit Blade (SB) is apparently a "cinematically" produced audiodrama one must purchase to enjoy.  The website is http://www.spiritblade.net/ .  Before, good friend, you go there and invest in a copy, please complete the reading of this post - then decide.  The plot hook was interesting enough, sort of.  The Christian Bible translated into an action adventure.  Man versus demons, God and the fallen, big guns and swords - the typical teenage boy genre, but inoffensively - at first.  To cut-to-the-chase, as even we, the loquacious one, do not wish to draw this out.  We desire not to speak in excess on a topic which is not worth the investment of too much time.  We listened to many episodes before bailing.  We were off-put by the preachy-preachy-preachy writing.  The action was unrealistic - clever raillery during mortal combat - that type of drivel.  We were formulating the necessity to dispense a WSRH for those elements alone, when a truly darker, and hopefully incorrect impression struck us.  The author seemed to be advancing a very bigoted and exclusionary theological lesson in the story.  In fact, we are certain he was.  Religion is integral the the human experience.  We are piously religious ourselves.  Religious intolerance, dogmatism, and rejection of all other religions is, however, in a word, offensive.  The proof of our contention is simple, powerful, and irrefutable.  When the thousands of fanatics who assault the human spirit and belittle themselves with their ignorance blab their venom and condem all others to Hell, we remember Isaiah 55:8 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways, declares the LORD."  We reject out-of-hand anyone's opinion when their delusions extend to knowing the will and the ways of God.  The Beatles said it completely: "Love is the answer."  In the immortal words of Sergeant Hulka, spoken in the sacred text of Stripes: " Lighten-up, Francis."  'Nuff said.

Marco and the Red Granny - Just On The Mark

After another considerable drought, we can finally at least RATE a PB podcast!  We are rather discontent that the hiatus between ratable podcasts is so voluminous, but really, what can we do - we simply read and rate?

Marco and the Red Granny (MRG) comes to us from podcasting legend Mur Lafferty.  She is both prolific and respected, not an easy combination, so we were not certain what to expect.  We could be more impressed, but the story has it's moments, we finished it willingly, and it deserves a review.

Here is the author's blurb:

By bringing back the patronage system, a new alien species has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, and Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname “Mollywood.” These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate other senses than simply sight. When someone asks a starlet, “Who are you wearing?” she could as easily say “J.K. Rowling” as she could “Gucci.”

Every creative person in the world wishes for a patronage. It’s quite competitive.

Marco wanted one, once. But then his girlfriend got one and shuttled off to Mollywood for fame and fortune, and Marco stayed home, waiting for his own patron. After several years, he gave up entirely. His career faltered. His agent dumped him. And then, one morning, he gets a call. At last he has a patron, at last the aliens want him. But he’s about to find out that an artistic patronage isn’t what it was in the good old days, and that the only friend he’s made, a tiny old woman who’s the star of a blood sports reality series called The Most Dangerous Game, has secrets of her own.

NARRATION:  Ms. Lafferty chose to have this read by one Devo Spice, in lieu of acting it herself.  Mr Spice did a good job, rather right-down-the-middle, we estimate.  His voice is pleasant and his reading confident.  Male/female modulations were done well, if not inspiringly so, as were the variations of male-to-male characters.  A British accent was adequate.  We say "read" intentionally, because there was no evidence of "voice acting" or even "narration" - Mr Spice read the novella.  Nothing objectionable, but nothing to beat-the-drum concerning, either.  In this day of flashy audiodrama and stellar effects full-cast podcasts, MRG is pedestrian.  A straight-read (as this style is know as) can be wonderful.  Nathan Lowell.  That is all that needs to be said to prove a straight-read can be a thing of beauty.  If 20 is perfect - Murder at Avedon Hill/Chasing the Bard perfect -  and 0 is the harpy screeching, MRG pulls in a 10.

EDITING/TECHNICALS:  Here again, the podcast is good, but far from impressive.  The overall sound quality is - you guessed it - good.  MRG suffers from loose editing, and, unfortunately, we do mean suffers.  There were innumerable "deep breaths" Mr Spice took which would be trivially easy to snip-out, but they were left in.  Why we cannot say.  There were some awkward gaps or late cues too, which suggested a quick-once-over edit as opposed to a commitment to get it right.  Maybe we are too fussy.  In any case MRG garners another 10 here.

ORIGINALITY OF STORY:  Thankfully, our little tour-group here is back on considerably thicker ice.  Ms Lafferty has displayed out-of-the-box imagination before in her career, and does so again.  She graciously tells us at the beginning of the podcast from whence she took her inspiration.  Fascinating.  An alien race possibly helping, possibly enslaving humankind.  Multiple senses are combined so the toaster can make one happy, or your coat and feel like Mom's hug.  Ms Lafferty leans heavily on a stock-and-trade reality game as a central plot-hook, which detracts by its banality, but there are original takes on "what if", so we must award 18 points here.

QUALITY OF WRITING:  That scraping sound you hear is the scraping of our feet, which we do so uneasily.  Our purpose, honestly and above all, is to fairly review a book.  We do not offer-up this podcast to position ourselves to snark and poke.  But, as we have stated time and again, we are sticklers for writing.  The authored word is a sacred thing, or at least should be held as one.  That said, this novella is, again, right-down-the-middle in this category, again.  We love Ms Lafferty's ability to come-up with fresh metaphors/similes and the general takes of her expression.  She is clever and it shows.  Subtle humor is laced-in enjoyably.  There is no gratuitous violence, cheap-shot sex, or other common fault.  On the other hand, the sophistication of Ms Laffert's writing is inapparent in MRG.  The story is told like she was sitting around a campfire with us, without a sense of craftsmanship.  And there are the WFT's.  The reality game involves volunteers killing each other, okay.  But many competitors are thrown-in as an execution.  Okay, the aliens might be so inclined, but there would be repercussions from the human governments, right?  Wrong in MRG.  The protagonist is simply too whiny to believe - no one pisses and moans so often and so annoyingly and leads a story we are going to admire.  The logic used to define and mix-in the Alcoholics Guild was shaky, at best.  The hero draws a pattern on the ground he can't see, and we were not certain he knew what he was even drawing, during mortal combat?  Hummm...  Unfortunately, we detected the common error of a writer with a great idea, an interesting beginning, but a weak middle and a poorly constructed ending.  Overall, being as generous as is fair, we dispense 13 points here (though 10 might be more objective).

WOW FACTOR:  Again we hate to appear churl, and we did enjoy MRG enough to complete it, we must be the bad-guy here, again.  The only wow factor is Ms Lafferty's imagination and freedom of expression.  The originality of her concept is laudable, but the follow-though was weak.  We can see maybe a 5 for wow.

TOTAL:  Grand total: 56.  We know, that sounds bad, like an "F", but it is not.  Yes this is the lowest total score we've awarded, but we awarded it.  Many a podcast received an ignominious WSRH, and many more won only the silence of the tomb for their efforts.  This is a worth while podcast.  MRG is simply what it is - a straight forward tale told adequately and written well enough to allow a critical reader to finish - nothing more - nothing less.

The podcast link is http://www.podiobooks.com/title/marco-and-the-red-granny

and Mur Lafferty's home appears to be: http://murverse.com/