Broken Sea: Kolchak: The Night Stalker – a fan AUDIO DRAMA podcast

SFFaudio Online Audio

Broken Sea Audio Productions - Kolchak All Saints Archives PodcastBroken Sea Audio Productions has a new podcast, based on the old Kolchak: The Night Stalker TV series!

My name is Carl Kolchak, former reporter for INS, Chicago’s very own independent news service. In all my years of investigative journalism I’ve seen some pretty strange things. Today you’d simply look at them as amusing fodder for the national tabloids, but hear me out when I tell you…that they’re real. The vampires, androids, ghosts, swamp creatures, monkeymen, and even Jack the Ripper; yes–every last one!”

The first episode, just in time for the most ghoulish of months, is already in the feed. It’s the beginning of a serial called “A Playground for Evil.” This is an original Kolchak story written by Bill Hollweg!

Podcast feed:

http://brokensea.com/kolchak/?feed=podcast

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Shards by Bruce Baugh

SFFaudio Review

Horror Audiobook - Shards by Bruce BaughShards
By Bruce Baugh; Read by Wayne June
1 MP3-CD – 9.5 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Realms
ISBN: 9781565048652
Themes: / Horror / Vampires / Lasombra /

I don’t mind a good vampire story if it’s really an action movie that just happens to be about vampires (and as long as the protagonist isn’t a self-absorbed adolescent girl that can’t get over how “perfect” Edward is, but I digress). Otherwise, neh, I’m not so interested. Audio Realms tricked me into listening to Shards by Bruce Baugh (from Clan Lasombra Trilogy: Shards, Shadows, Sacrifices) by making the woman on the cover look like Kate Beckinsale.

Duped! It was the real deal. Vicious, evil vampires and no good guys. I loved it! I don’t usually like books where there is no one to cheer for. Don’t get me wrong, I like a hero with flaws, I just don’t like it when everyone including the protagonist is evil. But Bruce Baugh does a remarkable job with his characters. With each individual, motivations and predispositions were entirely understandable.

The protagonist, Lucita, is disillusioned about all things vampire. After 10 centuries a vampiress begins to ask herself, “Why? Why should I let the (undead) man hold me down? What’s the point of anything, really?” It’s kind of like Office Space for vampires. So of course she kills her “tyranical sire” and is ready to end herself too. The story starts at that point.

The Clan Lasombra is unhappy about Lucita’s behavior and (apparently ignoring the fact that she’s as hot as Kate Beckinsale) they send out a posse of ne’re-do-wells to hunt her down. The book is a fantastically creative vampire-hunts-vampire pursuit. Bruce Baugh created a plausible world where vampires could exist among us. I don’t know what I can say about the end without spoiling it, but it wasn’t predictable.

What stands out in this production is the narration. Since the antagonist was a female Audio Realms might have used a woman narrator, but Wayne June was just perfect for the story. I have a short list of narrators I just love to listen to, and none exceed Mr. June’s talent. His range of credible voices is astonishing. It has a deep, vibrant timbre that feels like smooth burgundy velvet. It made me think of an old muscle car when you start the engine and it idles deeper and stronger than most other cars. It was absolutely perfect for the characters in the story. Every time a new character was introduced and June would use a new voice I would think, “My goodness, how many unique voices can this guy do?!” They were all uniquely distinct and believable. It would be one thing if he had twenty generically evil vampires to do variations on. But he had to pull off the characters that Baugh had created, including an English vampire that I’m sure was the Fifth Beatle, ones with Spanish and Russian accents, nerdy college kid vampires, and and so forth. June sold me on every single character.

I’m not saying I believe in vampires, but I am saying that if Wayne June actually was a vampire it would explain a lot! A word of caution: the vampire’s language suggests that they’ve drank the blood of one too many drunk sailors, if you know what I mean.

Shard’s was a delightful, dark surprise. I’ve listened to it twice already and recommend it, even if (like me) you’re not normally a fan of dark vampire stories.

Posted by Michael Hinds

Recent Arrivals from Blackstone Audio

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Science Fiction - Armor by John SteakleyArmor
By John Steakley; Read by Tom Weiner
11 CDs – 13 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2009

The planet is called Banshee. The air is unbreathable, the water poisonous. It is the home of the most implacable enemies that humanity, in all its interstellar expansion, has ever encountered.

Felix is a scout in A-team Two. Highly competent, he is the sole survivor of mission after mission. Yet he is a man consumed by fear and hatred. And he is protected not only by his custom-fitted body armor, the culmination of ten thousand years of the armorers’ craft, but also by an odd being which seems to live with him, a cold killing machine he calls “the Engine.”

This best-selling science-fiction classic is a story of the horror, the courage, and the aftermath of combat and also of how strength of spirit can be the greatest armor of all.
 
 
Fantasy - Burn Me Deadly by Alex BledsoeBurn Me Deadly
By Alex Bledsoe; Read by Stefan Rudnicki
7 CDs – 8 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2009

Alex Bledsoe’s first novel, The Sword-Edged Blonde, drew rave reviews for its ingenious blend of fantasy and hard-boiled detective fiction. Now Bledsoe returns with an all-new tale of mean streets and medieval intrigue.

Above Angelina’s Tavern in down-and-dirty Neceda, you’ll find the office of Eddie LaCrosse. He’s a scruffy sword jockey who, for twenty-five gold pieces a day plus expenses, will handle any problem short of murder for hire. Eddie’s on his way back from a routine investigation when his horse almost runs down a half-naked blonde in serious trouble. Against his better judgment, he promises to protect the frightened young woman, only to find himself waylaid by unknown assailants and left for dead beside her mutilated body. Eddie’s quest for payback leads him to a tangled mystery involving a notorious crime lord, a backwoods dragon cult, royal scandals, and a duplicitous femme fatale who has trouble keeping her clothes on. As bodies pile up, Eddie must use all his wits if he hopes to survive….
 
 
Science Fiction - The Martian Chronicles by Ray BradburyThe Martian Chronicles
By Ray Bradbury; Read by Stephen Hoye
8 CDs – 9.3 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2009

Leaving behind a world on the brink of destruction, man came to the red planet and found the Martians waiting, dreamlike. Seeking the promise of a new beginning, man brought with him his oldest fears and his deepest desires. Man conquered Mars—and in that instant, Mars conquered him. The strange new world with its ancient, dying race and vast, red-gold deserts cast a spell on him, settled into his dreams, and changed him forever.

In connected, chronological stories, a true grandmaster enthralls, delights, and challenges us with his vision, starkly and stunningly exposing our strength, our weakness, our folly, and our poignant humanity on a strange and breathtaking world where humanity does not belong.
 
 
Fantasy Audiobook - THe Mystery of Grace by Charles de LintThe Mystery of Grace
By Charles de Lint; Read by Paul Michael Garcia and Tai Simmons
8 CDs – 9 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2009

On the Day of the Dead, at the Solona Music Hall, Altagracia Quintero meets John Burns—just two weeks too late.

Grace, as her friends call her, has a Ford Motor Company tattoo running down her leg and grease worked deep into her hands. She works at Sanchez Motorworks customizing hot rods. Finding the line in a classic car is her calling. Now Grace has to find the line in her own life. Grace loves John, and John loves her, and that would be wonderful, except that John, like Grace, has unfinished business: he’s haunted by the childhood death of his younger brother. He’s never stopped feeling responsible. Before their relationship can find its resolution, the two of them will have to teach each other about life and love, about hot rods and Elvis Presley, and about why it’s necessary to let some things go.
 
 
Fantasy Audiobook - Podkayne of Mars by Robert A. HeinleinPodkayne of Mars
By Robert A. Heinlein; Read by Emily Janice Card
5 CDs – 5.6 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2009

From the author of Friday and Rocketship Galileo comes this classic tale featuring the grand master of science fiction’s most remarkable heroine. Podkayne Fries, a smart and determined maid of Mars, has just one goal in life: to become the first female starship pilot and rise through the ranks to command deep-space explorations. So when she is offered a chance to join her diplomatic uncle on an interstellar journey to distant Earth via Venus, it’s a dream come true—even if her only experience with diplomacy is handling her brilliant but pesky younger brother, Clark. But she’s about to learn some things about war and peace because Uncle Tom, the ambassador plenipotentiary from Mars to the Three Planets Conference, is traveling not quite incognito enough, and certain parties will stop at nothing to sabotage negotiations between the three worlds….
 
 
Posted by Scott D. Danielson