Podcasts I'm Listening to

RATING: Four out of Five Sigs

I was a little down on THE ARWEN because of production issues (see related post), but found the story fun enough to get me to listen to Season Two. Man, am I glad I did. Tim Callahan rocked it in this one, the finale is an intense space battle that spares no punches and leaves a trail of corpses that could circle a planet twice over. That's the dichotomoy of Callahan's stuff -- you know damn well the main characters are going to live, they're going to win, and yet the journey to reach that conclusion is not as predictable as you would think. The characters flat-out make mistakes, mistakes that cost millions of lives.

The final battle pits two huge fleets against each other, with kamikaze runs and "human wave" tactics going head-to-head with Death Star-caliber weaponry and classic Star Trek oh-so-disciplined-and-still-geniuinely-good-people tactical prowess. Surface battles come into play, and he has a"death of a starship" scene that was just awesome.

Tastes Like: Battlestar Galactica

Available at: Podiobooks.com 

RATING: Three out of Five Sigs

I'm listening to this free podcast novel THE ARWEN, which I got at podiobooks.com. Click on the cover to go to that page. First of all, this is just old-fashioned spaceship scifi, with a tough-as-nails captain (but she has that soft spot for her crew), an ass-kicking first mate, and a supporting staff of experts in their fields. This isn't cutting any new ground on the conceptual level, but I'd forgotten how easy it is to get sucked into a story like this, particularly when it's written as well as Timothy Callahan has written this.

About Callahan. He won a Parsec Award for this. So he can kiss my fat ass. Fuck you, Tim Callahan, I ain't won shit.

Whew, that's better. Got that out of my system. Anyway, good story, the only dings are on the production side. He doesn't have an intro, just rolls into the story. Also, no story so far, so more than a few times I wasn't sure if I was on the right episode. Once my iTunes pooched, and I went from Episode 5 to Episode 16, but didn't know it, and was totally lost. Also, no outro music - the episode just ends, and you're looking at your iPod to see if it's broken. His reading is rushed and I've had to rewind in a few places to keep track. Now I don't know if this is a post-production thing when it was uploaded to podiobooks, because to be blunt, I can't figure out how this won a Parsec when production is supposed to be part of the equation. Maybe it's because the story is so much fun, it trumps the iffy production.

As for the story itself, I'm loving it. Cool cultures, neat plot twists, and a scientist that is almost as big an ass as Angus Kool from EARTHCORE. I'm digging it, and happy to see that there is a Season Two of the Arwen already up at Podiobooks.com.

Oh, and Tim, did I tell you to fuck off? Oh yes, I guess I already did ...

Wormwood is a tasty vacation spot ... if you like eating human flesh, that is.RATING: Four out of five Sigs.

I'm digging this one a lot. This is a nice audio theatre podcast, 20+ episodes of murderous occult action. Think of Buffy the Vampire Slayer getting it on with a Clive Barker carnival of doom and the baby would be born at Wormwood General Hospital.

PROS: The dialogue is really strong, even though it's written by multiple people. Arthur Russel (as Dr. Xavier Crowe) totally steals the show, and is hands-down the best voice actor in podcasting. Period.

CONS: The sound production is okay, but the levels are all over the place in the early episodes. Keep your hands near your headphones, my friends, because during phone conversations or when the monster screams, your ears will bleed. The voices are also recorded in different places, so a conversation could have one perfectly dry voice and one voice that's recorded in a cafeteria somehere. It's a bit distracting, but you get used to it quick, especially when Russel is laying down his lines.

OVERALL: This is gold. I love it. I'm knocking back three episodes a day. If it wasn't for the crazy audio production in the early episodes, it would be 5-of-5 Sigs.

7th SON COVERRATING: Five out of five Sigs.

Like I even need to include this one. Every fucker on
the planet listens to this ridiculous illegal audio herion that has us
all strung out. 7th Son, Book Three. J.C. Hutchins is a motherfucker, okay? It's just that simple. Muh-ther-fah-ker.

7th Son Book One will be out in print from St. Martin's Press in 2009. That publisher is smart enough to see the addictive nature of 7th Son and the storytelling of Hutchins. The book reads very long, however, and needs a ruthless edit to cut down some redundancies and make it punchier - that's what St. Martin's is going to do, and it's going to make 7th Son a total knockout.

Content-wise, Hutchins and I play in very similar spaces. There's a ton of science, both real and pseudo, to keep your brain involved. He creates excellent foreshadowing -- most plot devices and character actions are justified, nothing comes out of left field. There is no magic, no undead, no unexplained contrivances. This book is hardcore, disciplined storytelling. You can see that Hutch put in the wrench-time on this series. 

JACK WAKES UP coverRATING: Five out of five Sigs.

While I admit I don't read many books that don't include monsters, genetics, space and/or goth schoolgirls, Seth Harwood's JACK WAKES UP
is on the "must play" playlist on my iPod.

Now I don't read much in this genre, so I'll compare it to some movies. If you like PULP FICTION and/or CHINATOWN, I think you'll dig it.

Harwood's strength is character creation and development. Jack Palms, the main character in the series, has a fantastic backstory that helps justify the strange choices he makes during the books. He's really go no options but to partake in seedy underworld of San Francisco's crime scene, and he's not smart enough to realize the full ramifications of what he's doing. Palms gets through with a combination of acting skill, physical prowess, luck and a "by gosh" attitude that lets him use self-delusion to slide from one incident to the next.  

Guns, broads, fast cars and crime. Can't go wrong. 

JACK WAKES UP is available soon in print from Breakneck Books. 

Crescent coverRATING: Four out of Five Sigs.

I listened to all of Phil Rossi's podcast novel CRESCENT.. I loved it. I think Phil has a big future ahead of him. Now, don't get me wrong here - I don't like Phil Rossi. He's a pretty boy. He gives hard-drinking (and horribly out of shape) authors like Hutchins and I a bad name. You hear me, Phil Rossi? Damn you and your hair! But the man can spin a cool-ass tale. Think of HP Lovecraft, in space, knocking boots with the slutty love child of Phillip K. Dick and Anne Rice. That's Crescent. Sign up now, and thank me later.

The strengths of CRESCENT are the mood and the setting. Rossi paints a dark texture all over this thing, with people doing what they have to do to stay alive in lives that don't really thrill them. It reads like a dark urban novel, only set in a city in space. As for the setting, the Crescent Station is a fantastic set. You really get a feel for this massive, unfinished city -- has that essence of an Earth city that could be great, if only it hadn't run out of public works money before a recession kicked in. Put Detroit in orbit, and it's Crescent.

There were were a couple of dings with this book. First of all, it was quite a bit longer than it needed to be. Once CRESCENT gets a strong edit, it's going to move faster and pack more punch. Second, I kind of got lost at the ending. There was no end to the action, but elements started to kick in that weren't explained properly in earlier parts of the book. That dulled a great listening experience, because I was enjoying it so much I wanted the ending to just knock me out.

Bottom line here, folks, is that if you like my podcast novels, I think you're going to love CRESCENT.