Youth-In-Asia: WSRH Reviews of Arnand Ptolemy and Teruvisa

We will be brief.  There is little to say about these two very new PB.com releases.  They are WSRH's.  We regret the few moments we spent hearing them.


Armand Ptolemy and the Golden Aleph by Mark Jeffery.  Mark, you should know better.  The sound quality is horrible.  The narration is worse.  If you do not show any respect for you prospective listeners, you should expect none in return.  The narration is a story told by a campfire.  When Mr. Jeffery stammers, he leaves it in.  When he aborts a line and redoes it, he leaves it in.  All in all it sounds like the podcast was produced on the subway during rush hour and the narrator was under tremendous time pressure.  The policeman swears excessively and gratuitously.  The story, well the 10 minutes we listened to, promised to be far-fetched, unrealistic - maybe silly -  and certainly uninspiring.  Policemen's bodies exploding when crushed between floating slabs of rock?  Really?  Nice visual, Mark.  Floating multi-ton rocks?  At least it's an original concept....

Teruvisa: Two Kingdoms by Gentry Winn.  Gentry, as opposed to Mark, it would have been nice if you'd known better, but at least you're a newbie.  We only lasted 3-4 minutes with this podcast.  The recoding/production quality is just too awful.  There seems to be many many episodes following, and the thought of experiencing that poor an audio was just about enough to halt us in our tracks.  The sliver of story we heard was the coup de grace.  Norseman magically slinging spit and leaping from Never Never Land to Riverside, California, where the magical dwarfs, like live?  Wow.  WSRH.  But seriously, it was the sound which did you in.  There is a Mentorship Forum attached to PB.com where expert advise is freely meeted-out.  Why skip that crucial step.

Union Of Renegades - Revolt Against This One

As we have been forced to admit often and anon, we are nit-pickers and we often do not much fancy ourselves.  We mean, what if we are gratuitously picking at nit?  Hum?  Well we don't know if such a thing is possible either - but there it is.  Anyway, to our point, which we do indeed have.
  It is with inconstant conviction that we must confess the Union of Renegades: The Rys Chronicles Book I (UOR) by Tracy Falbe has slipped quietly into a coma and we have hence removed it from listening-support.  In other words - WSRH.  The axe fell later in the story than most, around episode 15.  Only The Leviathan Chronicles earned a WSRH later (say, perchance we are not chronicle lovers?  Nah, silly coincidence).  In common, both have some sparkling qualities which make they somewhat compelling.  They both share outstanding production.  They both failed in the story, which, as we harp-on time and again, needs be the real magic.
  Ms. Falbe employed Dark Fire Productions and their near-incomparable Chris Snelgrove to do the job.  Aside from Chris's annoying rendition of a French Canadian accent for two female characters (seriously, Chris, we need to talk) he is his usual fantastic.  The WSRH would have been assigned had we read the book directly, most assuredly.  As always, we wish to illustrate our issues, not merely sling-mud.  The writing issues are both global and specific, and despite some attractive aspects of the book.  For example, we commend Ms. Falbe on her imagination and unique insights.  The story is diverse and the action complex.  She demonstrates empathy for her characters - aside, lamentably, from the male lead.
  Global issues are the construct of a plot based (we extrapolate from 15 episodes experience) on cooperation and 'union' between god-like magical beings and very pedestrian mortals.  In the battle for Heaven, God and his angels did not call on man to form an alliance to defeat evil.  Why would they?  We would have brought veritable zero to the table.  The same flaw barks-out at us in UOR.
  When we say there are specific issues we, in the final assessment, could not overlook were, in essence, the lead male.  He needed a lot of work to rise to the level of acceptable - passable.  His fatal flaw is the he whines incessantly.  If we wish to experience whiners, we need only go to work.  They are there unavoidable.  We do not relish spending our leisure time re-experiencing them.   Examples.  He gets pissed at his boss and quits at the worse of times because he is essentially an idiot and over-reacts.  His girl friend is trapped on an ice mountain and scheduled to expire asap and he whines that he will not attempt a rescue until the children - who are safe in a nice castle - come too.  He is told it is unsafe and imprudent to visit the girl friend when they first arrive at the castle.  Instead of adhering to good advice from a supportive ally, he whines, that he wants to go to her.  Oh yes, whining abounds.
  Also, the male lead displays uncanny and consistently imbecilic decision-making.  They flee into the wilderness.  They are assaulted by ravenous wolves and horrific monsters yet they press-ahead in lieu of a wise retreat (no, Trac, even before the evil queen warped their minds and stole the child - even before that).  His arguing with his new buddy about not rescuing his damsel in distress unless the kids come climb the mountain too.  At most times, the lead's dialogue - his manner of speech - is stilted and unrealistic.  People don't talk like he does and it detracts from the character's credibility.  Other flaws abound,  Why would the queen go to all the trouble of having said girl friend hauled-off to a mountain top to freeze to death when she could snap her fingers and the girl would burst into flames.  It the tiresome old plot twist of setting up a death scenario in which if the villain had only just done the deed no escape would have been possible.  Remember Batman and how he always extricated himself because the arch-villain left the scene too soon?  Oh, and the cover.  Ms. Falbe, a successful novel cannot be fronted with a picture of your neighbor on his way to a Ren-Faire.  We notice subsequent covers are quite nice.  Why start the series with the weakest cover?
  Okay, enough said.  We admire anyone with the conviction and insight to pen a work of fiction.  We specifically admire Ms. Falbe's efforts.  They do not fall too short of passable and she will doubtlessly improve.  Hopefully that improvement will be offered in a series other than UOR sequels, as we are out in terms of that series.  Even if Book II were brilliant, if we cannot get through Book I we would be in the dark, right?  As we say, we are not here to impugn or pick-on Ms. Falbe.  We simply, as always, wish only to offer our opinion in the for-what-it's-worth category while supplying specific examples.  As a podcast, most listeners will enjoy it as it is so well produced and the story is, as we said, not too far off the mark.  We, however, are not most listeners.

The Emperor's Edge - Reigns Well Over Our Hearts and Minds

  Well, finally!  After a depressingly long spell of WSRH's, we have a winner!  The Emperor's Edge (TEE) by Lindsay Buroker is a PB.com supplicant well worth your time ( yes, we do know how you should best spend your time - we are so very clever!).
  The novel is what we would classify as fantasy.  Ms Buroker adds the tag 'steampunk' and though we will technically grant her that, it is a minimal facet to the opus.  Delete a few steam trucks and trolleys, present without much relevance, and you have a standard format fantasy - magic, swords, good vs evil, and tense interpersonal character development.  The novel is a very well executed and the author is to be commended.  Here is her blurb:


Imperial law enforcer Amaranthe Lokdon is good at her job: she can deter thieves and pacify thugs, if not with a blade, then by toppling an eight-foot pile of coffee canisters onto their heads. But when ravaged bodies show up on the waterfront, an arson covers up human sacrifices, and a powerful business coalition plots to kill the emperor, she feels a tad overwhelmed.
Worse, Sicarius, the empire’s most notorious assassin is in town. He’s tied in with the chaos somehow, but Amaranthe would be a fool to cross his path. Unfortunately, her superiors order her to hunt him down. Either they have an unprecedented belief in her skills… or someone wants her dead.


NARRATION & EDITING/TECHNICALS: These two usually separate categories are combined as Ms. Buroker has enlisted the help of Dark Fire Productions and their Starla Huchton to produce this podcast.  Subsequently, they can be considered as one element.  In short, the production is nothing short of perfect.  We have long been a fan of Ms. Huchton's smooth, silky (yes, a bit sultry too we must lasciviously append) voice.  She is at her top-notch best in TEE.  Well paced, well emoted, and outstanding character differentiation.  Dark Fire's technical chops are a joy to behold.  Great sound quality, excellent music integration, and totally seamless editing.  This combined group garners a full 40.

ORIGINALITY OF STORY:  Fresh and well conceived, which are good things.  In creating works of mainstream fantasy, author's are hard-pressed to be original - to invent novel takes and develop new angles.  We are SOOO totally over cute-little hobbits and nasty-old trolls, bitchy sorceresses and - we cannot even bring ourselves to type the word - you know, the "V" creatures who lap-up voluminous quantities of hemoglobin-rich bodily fluids.  Yes, them - shudder.  Anyway, where were we (in fact where ARE we?)?  Oh yes, originality.  Ms. Buroker presents us with a new world, free from stock-elements and cliches.  It is set in winter, women run business, she mixes greed with power-lust - always a winning ticket - and does not resurrect any tired-stock elements to advance the plot.  That all said, it is still a fairly straight-forward world she creates and the players are equally notwithstanding being well developed are nonetheless fairly rote.  We will dispense an 14 for this element.

QUALITY OF WRITING: As we always harp-upon, this category is really where the money is at (we know, sloppy metaphor, but we are not responsible for the quality of the idioms American English embraces).  We are rating podcasts on this blog, not novels, so weighting is balanced, but this is where the magic happens or where it goes to perish.  As a work of fiction, TEE is written well.  Protagonists are likable, antagonists are somewhat complex, and ancillary cast members are credible.  The prose is well above average and the flow is most pleasant.  Off-elements are, unfortunately present also.  The lead character, Amaranthe, is painted with depth and consistency.  She is, however, too damnably clever.  She wiggles her way out of any number of impossible scenarios with increasing predictability.  It grows burdensome.  Examples are illustrative.  Amaranthe wishes to reconcile with a gang-boss old friend.  She and her companion are thrown into a steel pit with ravenous metal machinations designed to ribbonize them.  There can be no escape!  But, of course there is.  But to make the scene work, the evil-doers of course go off to resume their busy days so as to not be present to witness the completion of the dismemberment of the guests.  If only they had stayed to make certain all the slicing and dicing were completed.  Wait, it's like Batman.  Remember, the Joker or Penguin would line-him up for a dastardly fate, then step-out for a smoke and Batman would escape just in the nick of time?  Or Goldfinger leaving before James Bond was laserly parted down the middle, groin up?  Why oh why don't the forces of evil ever learn?  All of us horror-fans have learned NEVER to back into a dark room alone.  Why can't villains stay till the axe falls - literally?  Well, we guess if your job-options are dark overlord you must have some issues, right?  But we digress - nauseatingly in fact.  So, in terms of a written work of fiction, we will assign Ms. Buroker 14 points - well above average but well below Bradbury (but who isn't?).

WOW FACTOR:  The most subjective of the 20 points possible, we hope to be fair, and not miss-rate based on apple/orange issues.  That said, this podcast is wow-worthy.  State-of-the-art production, fresh story, and delicious characters combine to make this as treasured addition to the ranks of podcasts.  While somewhat short of causing us to brake the car and pull over to hear the next few lines, TEE pulls-in a solid 17 wowies.

EXTRA CREDIT: We will disburse 3 points for wow, based on Starla and Dark Fire's outstanding contribution.  A beautiful thing is, in the end, a beautiful thing.

TOTAL:  88!  A very solid debut for TEE and Ms. Broker.  So, Lindsay, stop reading this touchy-feely review and get crackin' to supply volume II.....

Lindsay Broker's website: http://www.lindsayburoker.com/fantasy-novels/the-emperors-edge-a-high-fantasy-novel-in-an-era-of-steam/

 

We're Just Sayin'

So the finalists for the Parsec Awards are out.  We wish outstanding luck to those who deserve to be there.  We notice without glee that one of the founders of the Parsec Awards, Mur Lafferty, is up for three awards, and this year, again, Scott Sigler is up for a do-over of an old podcast - perchance a tired old podcast.  Hummmmmm.... 

Cambridge Online Dictionary defines:

award-winning

Definition

"having won a prize or prizes for being of high quality or very skilled."

Hummmmmmm...   we're just sayin'.....................

Eternity - Not In It For The Long Run

  Sometimes we wish we were not so goldarn picky.  Really, why so fussy, Anonymous?  Ah well, one cannot cast-off one's nature, can one?  So, it is with a truly heavy heart we must WSRH this interesting podcast.  We are confident any number of potential listeners would love this podcast, so please feel free to judge for yourself.  The pluses, Mr, Townsend does a crafty solo-read narration, with nice voice modulation without getting silly (see review for Edit Zero).  There is plenty of action - action action action.  The lead characters are interesting, if not complex.  What turned us off was the comic book feel of the writing.  There were too numerous to count examples of unrealistic action, bravado, and dialogue.  A man jumps from a roof to catch another flying away on a personal-aircraft and just barely grabs a foot - thus avoiding a nasty pitfall - and kills the flyer, dons the suit and saves the day.  'Nuff said for credibility.  Oh, we cannot help ourselves - the highly advanced evil-empire has bred super-size pigs to defend themselves in a pinch.  No relying on lasers and robots and nano-tech for these fellows - no, they have super-hogs.  Okay, now 'nuff said.  But seriously, if hyperbole is your cup of tea, and significantly larger than life drama is your fancy, this is an excellent podcast.

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/