Monday, April 11, 2011

Audio Drama & Podcast Fiction

As many audiobooks as I listen to, and as big a fan of podcasts as I am, you'd think that podcast fiction would be right up my alley. But I haven't listened to much of it, to be honest. And I can't really come up with a good reason why.

Maybe it's my bias towards the self-published nature of these works -- as old-fashioned as the publishing world is, I do buy the "gatekeeping" function of publishers and editors, and the handful of self-published novels I've read have all been of well below average quality. So I admit to being cautious about podcast novels, and careful about which I choose to listen to.

I should listen to more audio dramas, and as a huge fan of Doctor Who, I know I am missing out on a huge part of that character's adventures. Paeter Frandsen's audio dramas, from his Spirit Blade Productions studio, are excellent. He has two complete audio dramas available, Spirit Blade and Spirit Blade:Dark Ritual. He is also working on a modern retelling of Pilgrim's Progress. Frandsen's work contains top-notch production and audio quality.

In terms of short fiction, I am a big fan of sister podcasts Escape Pod (SF) and Podcastle (Fantasy). I am a bit behind, maybe 4 or 5 months on each, but I am slowly catching up. Good stories, good readers, and I appreciate the fact that they rate the stories G, PG, R, etc ... and explain why.

In terms of longer fiction, I have listened to the following Audio Novels:
Archangel and Archangel: Shadow of the Valley, both by Scott Roche
Heaven, Hell, and Playing for Keeps, all by Mur Lafferty
Guild of the Cowry Catchers, by Abigail Hilton
Purgatory, by Tim Dodge

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