Fantasy Magazine now features podcasts and this week it’s “Watermark” by Michael Greenhut and read by Cat Rambo. |MP3|
You can subscribe to the feed at http://www.darkfantasy.org/fantasy/?feed=rss2
Posted by Charles Tan
Tag: fantasy
Wormwood Season 2 – Crossroads
Wormwood Season 2 is active and well underway!!!
So what’s Wormwood? And why are you so excited about it?
Well, Wormwood is one of the coolest audio dramas I’ve ever heard. It features a large cast of characters who reside in a small town called “Wormwood” – this is the kind of place H.P. Lovecraft would have lived in if he’d moved to California. Last season, the mysterious Xander Crowe, who sports a mysteriously withered hand, arrived in town chasing after a vision he had of a drowned woman. He closed in on the mystery near the season finale, but that only brought many new questions – all scary.
Some quick advice before listening:
1. Be sure to put on your brown trousers.
2. Listen only during daylight hours.
3. Don’t listen alone!
The new season is subtitled “Crossroads,” here’s the teaser |MP3| and here are the first 6 episodes:
Season 2 Episode 1 |MP3| One Month Later
Season 2 Episode 2 |MP3| The Rescue
Season 2 Episode 3 |MP3| The Missing Month (part 1)
Season 2 Episode 4 |MP3| Thinning (part 1)
Season 2 Episode 5 |MP3| A Sentimental Nature
Season 2 Episode 6 |MP3| Ghosthunters Of Wormwood
Click HERE to subscribe via iTunes, or plop this feed into any podcatcher:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/WormwoodMystery
Posted by Jesse Willis
Review of Fangland by John Marks
Fangland
By John Marks; Read by Ellen Archer and others
10 CDs – Approx. 12.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 1400103592
Themes: / Horror / Fantasy / Vampires / Romania / New York / Television /
In the annals of business trips gone horribly wrong, Evangeline Harker’s journey to Romania on behalf of her employer, the popular television newsmagazine The Hour, deserves pride of place. Sent to Transylvania to scout out a possible story on a notorious Eastern European crime boss named Ion Torgu, she has found the true nature of Torgu’s activities to be far more monstrous than anything her young journalist’s mind could have imagined. The fact that her employer clearly won’t get the segment it was hoping for is soon the very least of her concerns.
Authors are supposed to write what they know. If John Marks is writing what he knows there’s one hell of a story that 60 Minutes never aired. As a former producer for that show Marks brings what feels like a pure authenticity to all the scenes revolving around the New York office politics and what it takes to make a show like 60 Minutes. Those office characters really do feel like those craggy faced reporters we’ve seen on 60 Minutes all these decades. And if for nothing nothing else, this makes Fangland a unique experience.
The plot should be very familiar to most, it’s a fairly faithful retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Differences being that Fangland is set in the modern day, a post-9/11 New York and a post-Soviet Romania. Like the original novel Fangland is told in epistolary form. That is, its chapters are entire emails, letters or notes, written by witnesses recalling recent events. But, at the novels culmination Marks breaks out of letter writing. The transition isn’t too jarring. Making the Jonathan Harker character female adds a new flavor to the flow. I can’t say as how the paperbook was received, but with this audio version, we get four terrific readers. This is a well selected cast of familiar Tantor voices. Ellen Archer predominates, as she voices Evangeline. She’s sympathetic, a little naive, but a confident modern woman confronted by a terror from Transylvania’s ancient past. Todd McLaren, Michael Prichard, and Simon Vance then take turns playing her 60 Minutes The Hour producers, other on-air reporters, a concerned father, the fiance and more. The novel runs a little too long, mostly in the middle. In terms of pay-offs though, the only thing this novel didn’t deliver on was an Andy Rooney (or equivilent) column at the end. I kept expecting Andy to show up and start telling us what bugs him about ‘being undead’ or some such.
This is not a classic, but if you dig vampires, Stoker’s Dracula, or Horror fiction that doesn’t come out of a modern horror tradition, you’ll quite dig Fangland. I’d stake my reputation in it.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Sonic Society enters GATE
With The Sonic Society’s podcast feed temporarily broken, you’ll be wanting to download the first episode of Gate, SS’s new homegrown Fantasy audio drama directly. Episodes of Gate will be released each week over the summer on the Sonic Society feed. Jack Ward, the scripter, was inspired to write the series by watching a marathon of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Are you a Buffy fan? If so, this show’s for you…
Gate – Episode 1
By Jack J. Ward; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 18 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: The Sonic Society
Podcast: July 2008
From Sonic Cinema Productions- specifically written and created by Jack J. Ward and co-produced by Shannon Hilchie comes the Sonic Society’s summer series. A modern age fantasy tale with demons, vampires and a high-school girl named “Gate”, who’s is entrusted with the safety of humanity. Naturally, comparisons to Buffy the Vampire Slayer are bound to creep up.
And, when the podcast feed is working again, subscribe:
http://sonic.rnn.beta.libsynpro.com/rss
Posted by Jesse Willis
Review of The Red Panda Adventures – Season 3
The Red Panda Adventures – Season 3
By Gregg Taylor; Performed by a full cast
12 MP3 Files – Approx. 6 Hours [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: Decoder Ring Theatre
Podcast: September 2007 – May 2008
Themes: / Fantasy / Superheroes / Mystery / Adventure / Magic / Time Travel / Robots /
“None of the other heroes kiss their sidekicks!”
You’d think after thirty-six episodes The Red Panda Adventures would have become formulaic – to have settled into a well-worn style. It sure doesn’t feel that way, RP shows no signs of becoming anything like a mere dry routine. The familiarities are only in the iconic lines of character dialogue that are heard in every episode – bits like: “Kit Baxter, behave yourself!” and “He’ll face justice at the hands of The Red Panda!” If there is a formula, it must be a magic one secretly possessed by Gregg Taylor and the Decoder Ring crew. There’s really no other way to explain how bloody wonderful this show really is.
Plotlines from Season 3 still obviously follow the ‘heroes fight injustice’ thread, but other than that the storytelling is extremely varied. In one show the story is told very heroes-light, with the twin leads barely showing up, in another it’ll be very hero-heavy with barely another actor on the stage. One show will showcase a new villain up to old tricks, another will offer an old villain up to very new tricks. Injustices too run the gamut: from arson, to bootlegging, to racketeering, to pickpocketing, to mysterious and seemingly profitless industrial accidents. Heck, there was even a Christmas show performed entirely in rhymed verse (“Tis The Season!”). Other favorite episodes from Season 3 included the locked room style “A Midwinter’s Murder,” the series of three short adventures chronicled in “Now, The News,”. Scenes too standout, there was a certain scene on Sunnyside beach in “The Rat Lord.” that is utterly classic. And finally, there is the shocking (and I do mean shocking!) season ender – “The Field Trip.”
Voice talent abounds in the Decoder Ring troupe, there’s hardly a performance that isn’t spot on. Although, I should say, there was one actor, who obviously wasn’t very experienced, as he was playing a kid, and obviously was a real kid! But this is an aberration, normally, the child characters are played by female adult actors (as is done on The Simpsons). My favorite returning villain for Season 3 was the Mad Monkey (voiced by Christopher Mott). But this time he’s returned with his own assistant, but just like RP, he can’t seem to wrap his mind around an aggressive female sidekick. New characters like The Red Squirrel (played by Denise Anderson) also charm – I do hope to hear more of her! One thing I’d been missing from the show by listening to the podiobooks collections in the past, was the wonderful commercials. Every episode in the regular Decoder Ring feed has some sort of commercial endorsement. This could be from a website or a company, but often they are just the cutest little skits paid for by family members wishing each other a ‘happy birthday’, or ‘happy anniversary.’ How cool is that?
In the final episode of Season 3, old villains like Professor Von Schlitz are aligning themselves with new enemies like the Third Reich (!) but that isn’t the half of it. See, on the personal front, the blossoming romance between Panda and Squirrel is brought to the fore in the last epsiode. I imagine every longtime listener to the show who’s heard it is just freaked-out to the max about the final scene. Will where the show has now gone ultimately bring the end of the show? We’ll have to wait about two more months to find out.
Happy Canada Day everybody, go celebrate with some RED PANDA!
Posted by Jesse Willis
Review of Enna Burning by Shannon Hale
Enna Burning
By Shannon Hale; Read by Cynthia Bishop and the Full Cast Family
8 CDs – 8.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Full Cast Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9781934180198
Themes: / Fantasy / YA / Magic / Fairy Tale /
First, I have to say that I LOVE Full Cast Audio. They always do family-friendly books and they are always unabridged. They do an excellent job.
Enna Burning is the sequel to Goose Girl, Shannon Hale’s novelization of the classic fairy tale (also on audiobook by Full Cast Audio). However, you do not need to read/listen to Goose Girl to enjoy Enna Burning”. Hale does an excellent job of giving just enough background to ensure that the reader knows what is going on.
The story is well paced and full of action. The cast of actors does a great job of keeping the feel of the book and keeping the listener’s attention.
Izzy, the “goose girl”, is now princess and her friend, Enna, has gone home to the forest to take care of her dying mother. Enna’s mother dies before the book starts, but she is still in the forest, taking care of her older brother, Leifer. Leifer finds a long-hidden piece of vellum that teaches him to magically work fire. He struggles to control this power as it slowly consumes him. Finally, he uses his power to save their country of Bayern from the invading country to the South, but the fire destroys him.
Enna’s curiosity gets the better of her, and she, too, reads the vellum, telling herself she won’t ever follow the path her brother chose. But her need to help Izzy and save Bayern from being destroyed soon cause her to take a path not of her choosing.
The story is well paced and entertaining. It is written for the Middle Grade/Young Adult market, but is a great story for all ages. I highly recommend both the book and the audiobook.
Posted by Charlene C. Harmon