Waiting For A Window wins an Ogle Award

SFFaudio Online Audio

Radio Drama RevivalFrederick Greenhalgh of Radio Drama Revival (and FinalRune) writes in to say…

“Saw that you honored 19 Nocturne Boulevard with an announcement of their win of the Gold Mark Time, I just wanted to add that my piece (which you reviewed earlier this year) Waiting For A Window has won the Gold Ogle!”

Congrats Fred! For those who haven’t heard it I described Waiting For A Window as “a richly atmospheric and rather nautical version of Waiting For Godot. Or perhaps as a sailor’s version of The Prisoner. But, it’s not so much scary as it is comforting. A tall tale of the sea and a fine sounding audio drama.”

The Ogle Award, celebrates the best Fantasy/Horror audio production of the year. The actual trophy will be handed out on July 2nd 2009 at the annual Mark Time Awards ceremony at Convergence-Con 2009.

This FinalRune Productions is an original story of a man waylaid on his way somewhere else, Waiting for a Window stars Bill Dufris (William Dufris), Joe Duley, Charly Duley, Ed Patterson and Philip Hobby. And it features original music by Barb Truex.

There’s a low quality version here…

Final Rune Productions Radio Drama - Waiting For A Window by Frederick GreenhalghWaiting For A Window
By Frederick Greenhalgh; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 26 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: Radio Drama Revival
Podcast: September 26th 2008
This FinalRune Productions is an original story of a man waylaid on his way somewhere else. Starring William Dufris, Joe Duley, Charly Duley, Ed Patterson and Philip Hobby. With original music by Barb Truex.

And a high quality version available to purchase ($3) at Echo Fiction.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Radio Drama Revival is Waiting For A Window

SFFaudio Online Audio

Radio Drama RevivalFrederick Greenhalgh of Radio Drama Revival podcast and radio show sez:

“My latest story, “Waiting for a Window,” is at long last up on my podcast. While I welcome people to check out the show on the podcast, I would ESPECIALLY encourage them to buy it on Echo Fiction.”

This FinalRune Productions is an original story of a man waylaid on his way somewhere else, Waiting for a Window stars Bill Dufris (William Dufris), Joe Duley, Charly Duley, Ed Patterson and Philip Hobby. And it features original music by Barb Truex.

Final Rune Productions Radio Drama - Waiting For A Window by Frederick GreenhalghWaiting For A Window
By Frederick Greenhalgh; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 26 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: Radio Drama Revival
Podcast: September 26th 2008

Fred gave me a chance to listen to the high quality version. I’d describe it as a richly atmospheric and rather nautical version of Waiting For Godot. Or perhaps as a sailor’s version of The Prisoner. But, it’s not so much scary as it is comforting. A tall tale of the sea and a fine sounding audio drama.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs

SFFaudio Review

LibriVox Science Fiction Audiobook - Pellucidar by Edgar Rice BurroughsPellucidar (2nd in the Pellucidar series)
By Edgar Rice Burroughs; Read by Ralph Snelson
16 Zipped MP3s or Podcast – Approx. 6 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 2008
Themes: / Science Fiction / Hollow Earth / Adventure / Prehistoric Beasts / Exploration / Nautical /

Pellucidar is a difficult audiobook to review because it is quite dependent on the listener being reasonably familiar with its predecessor, At the Earth’s Core. Unfortunately, the LibriVox version of At the Earth’s Core is still in its very early stages, though there is a nice looking commercial version by Tantor available.

Taking the above into account, the LibriVox Pellucidar is an enjoyable listen with plenty of adventure, a grand odyssey, new characters, and one of the coolest “dogs” (hyenadons) ever imagined. Its only flaw, a rather minor one, is its rather abrupt/summarized ending.

Pellucidar continues the adventures of David Innes, and too a lesser extent Abner Perry, in the Hollow Earth land of Pellucidar, after the surprise, cliffhanger ending of its precursor. David treks across much of Pellucidar in search of his lost love, Dian the Beautiful (It must be such a burden going through life with that epithet). Overall a fun adventure story with a few clever twists.

Ralph Snelson does a very straight, non-interpretive, reading of the story with little excess of emotion or dramatization. It is a simple, pleasant reading without bells and whistles. This is another good reading that proves the value of LibriVox’s free audiobooks.

An enjoyable audiobook, but only for those who have heard or read its predecessor (The movie would help a little, but not as much)

Posted by David Tackett

Aural Noir Review of Fever by Sean Rowe

Aural Noir: Review

As part of our revival of the Aural Noir label, we’ll be re-running some of our classic (offline) Aural Noir posts, including this “vintage” audiobook review which was first posted in December 2005…

Tantor crime audiobook - Fever by Sean RoweFever
By Sean Rowe; Read by William Dufris
5 CDs – Approx 6 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: 2005
ISBN: 1400101778
Sample: |MP3|
Themes: / Crime / Heist / Noir / Thriller / Terrorism / Florida / Cuba / Nautical / Family /

Raw, is probably the best one-word sum up of Sean Rowe’s first novel Fever. Rowe’s prose lacks the polish found in novelists like Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake and Elmore Leonard, but he doesn’t lack what it takes to eventually become worthy of hanging out with these masters, especially if he keeps writing like this!

Fever follows a tight knit group of fuck-ups through their attempt to rob thirty million dollars of stashed drug money from an aging cruise ship plying the waters between Miami and Cuba. The crew, on paper at least, looks like it should be able to handle anything. It consists of an ex-FBI agent Matt Shannon, his step brother (an ex-DEA agent named Jack Fontana), an emergency room nurse named Julia, a former Black Panther, and a South American soldier of fortune. Despite their collective skill set these are all losers in almost every way. Shannon’s past is slowly revealed, working backwards we know that he’s an in-debt alcoholic, with a dead wife, missing an index finger and has a step-brother who is a recently paroled felon. When the step-brother frames Shannon in the sinking of a freighter Matt is half-blackmailed into going along, with a vague desire to somehow help his brother. The rest of the crew are nearly as sad, Julia was an orphan who was sexually abused from a young age. And Jack Fontana is dying after serving his sentence. Even the minor characters have their share of problems…. one passage detailing the last job the mercenary took killing Indians in the jungles of South America is brutal, funny and illustrative of just how unlikely this string will be of pulling off this or any job. The malformed love triangle between Shannon, his brother, and Julia pays off in a tasty neo-noir style. In fact love, brotherly and the other kind is probably at the heart of this story. Fever is extremely enjoyable, the dialogue is crisp and fun, the scenes are imaginative and original. A constant surprise awaits in every chapter. None of it goes exactly according to plan and that makes it all the better to follow. The novel’s few problems seem mostly structural, scene transitions aren’t handled as well as I’d like and despite it being a first person perspective we never really get an idea of what’s going on inside the narrator’s head. This could be a deliberate style on the part of Rowe, as both flaws could be thought to pay off in certain ways later in on the book, but I’m thinking a more seasoned novelist might have been better able to give us everything. I eagerly look forward to reading the next Sean Rowe novel!

Read by the always reliable William Dufris, the first person perspective plays into such classics as Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice. Dufris’ natural timbre doesn’t exactly embody the gravelly voiced loser we imagine as the narrator but his voicing of the rest of the crew is spot on. Men, women, a Colombian drug lord, the string and even minor characters like an aging boxer all sound just like you’d want them to. Tantor Media, an exciting new player in unabridged audiobooks has packaged Fever in a clamshell CD case with leaved pages. The cover is the same as the Little Brown & Co. original and the sound quality is phenomenal. The pricing is extremely reasonable too. I think Tantor is probably the most exciting new big little publisher of the decade!

Posted by Jesse Willis