Hitting Pause

You've probably noticed that I haven't been blogging here all month.

For that, I apologise. I have no real excuse except to say that I have had too much going on to keep this blog or Freshly Ground up and running in November, and the trend will probably continue until the new year.

As well as life catching up with me, I am also working furiously to polish up a manuscript for submission before Christmas. I can't even blame NaNoWriMo, because I wasn't playing that crazy game (but well done to all of you who pulled it off).

However, in brief, here are some of the great podcasts that I started into in November:

Hall of Mirrors, by Mike Bennett. Spooky, well-written and brilliantly delivered tales of the unknown. Chilling stuff, and worth a listen both for the stories and to be entertained by the devilishly talented Bennett.

V & A Shipping, by J.R. Murdock. Lightweight and at times hilarious science fiction, easy on the ears and safe for the family (if you want something to play in your mini-van, as Seth Harwood would say). Very entertaining indeed.

I know I'm behind the ball on this, but I just started into Nathan Lowell's Quarter Share, the first instalment of his Golden Age of the Solar Clipper series. Refreshingly simple, Quarter Share takes a tale of the high seas and the grand old days of tall trading ships, transposes the storyline into deep space, and lubricates the whole thing with lovely mugs full of hot coffee. It's not what we expect from science fiction; there are no deep space battles or alien invasions, but it is unexpectedly entertaining. Lowell's voice is a pleasure to listen to, and his main character and settings are so real that you really feel like you're on board a deep space trader, braving the void. Great stuff.

I'm a big fan of Philippa Ballantine, not just because she's a local Wellingtonian, and I was very excited to hear a sneaky preview of Books and Braun, a steampunk adventure written in collaboration with Tee Morris. If this little teaser is anything to go by, this will be a fantastic book or podcast, however it might end up reaching us. Go check it out - you will be impressed and left wanting more.

Ballantine has also just launched the sequel to her award-winning podcast novel Chasing the Bard, Digital Magic. I haven't started into this yet, but if CTB and Weather Child are anything to go by, Digital Magic is going to be amazing.

So have no fear - I'm still listening to podcasts and I'll still be popping up reviews and recommendations as I have time. Right now, however, I have to focus on getting my own writing up to a level of polish that would make me feel worthy of joining these esteemed writers, and the many others I've hailed here over the past few months, and that means keeping my head down and the keyboard rattling.

Catch you all in 2010!

Sci-Fi/Fantasy Roundup

It has been a big week in Sci-Fi and Fantasy in the podcasting world, but the biggest news has to be the astounding success of JC Hutchins' second novel launch, 7th Son: Descent. The blogosphere and Twitter were virtually on fire yesterday as Hutchins' fanbase rushed bookstores and e-retailers across America to show their support for this storyteller, who has brought so many listeners so much great fiction over the past four years.
Descent rocketed up the Amazon charts, peaking at 188 overall, which is a phenomenal achievement and a credit to Hutchins and the commitment of the Beta Clone Army. Congratulations, Hutch. You worked bloody hard, and you've earned every bit.


While 7th Son is a hard act to follow, I can assure you that there are plenty of other great sci-fi and fantasy podcasts out there, hanging around for free, just waiting for your ears to find them. Here are a few of them.


Top of the charts for in-progress releases in my book right now is The Gearheart, an inspired steampunk novel brimming with brass goggles, grand airships, blazing magic, treachery, gunfights, murder and darkness.
Written, performed and produced by Alex White, with the female parts performed by Renée White, The Gearheart is a sleek production, tightly wrapping up an enthralling and brilliantly narrated piece of steampunk fiction.

Alex White also composes all the music for this podcast, and promos the music of steampunk bands at the end of each show. Never heard of a steampunk band? Well, now's your chance.

Well worth a listen. Also, be sure to hang on for the nifty little alternate universe ads at the end - Hilarious!


If you've ever wondered what a drabble is, I just learned that it's a piece of fiction written in under 100 words. So how do you write a drabble novel?
Jake Bible seems to have the idea over at Dead Mech. Written in 100 word snatches, Dead Mech builds a post-zombie-apocalypse world where the few survivors battle the undead in Mech-Warrior style battle-mechs, but it's not that simple: now the zombies have them too.

The drabble style makes for an urgent, non-stop pace to this story, only in its third episode so far. Brutal and gritty, Dead Mech is a step inside a future we should all hope never comes about. It's early days for Dead Mech right now, but so far, so good.


Scott Roche is currently releasing the second book in his Archangel Series, Legion. I have just finished Book 1, Valley of the Shadow, and it is quite an enjoyable listen. The audio quality starts out a bit patchy, but with a bit of perseverance - and a new mic for Father's Day - this picks up nicely inside of about six episodes.
Archangel is a tale of demons and those who hunt them, but it is more than just action and spectacle. Roche delves into social, spiritual and metaphysical discussions over the course of the story, drawing on the mystic and religious beliefs of several cultures to ask questions that go much deeper than the simple debate between good and evil. Archangel challenges the values of morality and ethics in a world where so much that is corrupt reigns. This is a book that is as thoughtful and incisive as it is a heart-pounding adventure.

The second volume, Legion, is a full voice-cast production, and gets off to an intriguing start as well. Looking forward to getting into that.


Weighing in for good old-fashioned fantasy, AP Stephens' book The Stolen Moon of Londor is now releasing as a podcast novel in weekly installments.
Londor is the tale of a band of heroes, set on a quest to discover what happened to one of their world's moons, which has disappeared from the sky completely. With its disappearance, the magic of the world is fading. It's up to the heroes to find it before the magic of Londor evaporates for good - that is, if they don't strangle each other or get torn apart by rampaging werewolves first.

Rooted deep in traditional sword and sorcery, Londor is a compelling tale, narrated by Richard Webster. If you like your elves dark and your heroes moody, this is the one for you. But beware - here be monsters.

This is by no means all that's going on out there, but it's what I've been soaking up in the past few weeks. If you've got a podcast that I've missed, feel free to drop a comment below with a link so I can check it out.

Hugh Cook: The Wordsmith and the Warrior

This article was produced as part of New Zealand Speculative Fiction Week. For more information, go to Pterodaustro Dreams.

Hugh Cook might not be a name instantly recognised by readers of the fantasy genre, but to his legion of dedicated fans across the world, mention of the man and his work inspires a sense of reverence.

Cook remains one of New Zealand’s unsung heroes of fantasy literature, despite his achievements outshining those of many of our more well-known authors. Between 1986 and 1992 Cook released his Chronicles of an Age of Darkness series, a ten-book cycle of stand-alone fantasy novels. Set on a world ruled by bloodthirsty emperors, threatened by swarms of monsters, and blessedly devoid of goblins and elves, the Chronicles capture a history of Cook’s lands and their people in a multitude of voices, spanning continents, and all occurring roughly within the same timeframe of a decade or two. Characters recur across the books, making cameo appearances from one story to the next, weaving a complex web of events that draws the reader through the series, however unrelated each volume may seem to be at a glance.

Cook was among a group of authors who eschewed the traditions of Tolkienesque high fantasy, choosing instead to write about the dark, unsavoury aspects of human nature in the grim harshness of a world bent on crushing the meek. In Cook’s world, orcs are hunted for their blubber and sea dragons are vain creatures who pretend to recite poetry in their sleep before sinking into snoring heaps. Empires are driven to war by syphilitic emperors, who are in turn murdered by warring sons. Heroism is a constant theme, usually as a partner to vanity, folly and ultimately death, and can be summed up in the immortal line, “vaunting their boasts with the blood of their lungs on their lips.”

Suffice to say that Cook rebelled, writing unorthodox fantasy in an unorthodox world. He dismantled old tropes and bent the genre like light through a smoked lens. He replaced the tired theme of good versus evil with one which instead pitted brutality against barbarism, and rarely delivered a clear victor. Cook not only rejected the clichés of the fantasy genre; he subverted them with an almost malicious glee.

To judge Cook’s success by book sales alone would be misleading, but the numbers are certainly impressive at first glance. Altogether, the Chronicles sold around 450,000 copies, and that in itself is reason for celebration for any New Zealand author. The Wizards and the Warriors, together with its US incarnation, Wizard War, sold over 160,000 copies, a phenomenal sales record for any fantasy author.
Unfortunately, as the Chronicles became less conventional and more obtuse, sales began to decline. This was compounded by the decision made by bookselling chain W.H. Smith to drop Cook’s books from their shelves when sales slowed, which inevitably led to an even steeper fall. Despite a rebounding of style and content in the last three books of the series towards more action-based storytelling, Cook had largely lost the means to supply to his mainstream audience, with sales for these three books falling to between 7,000 and 10,000 copies each. I bought all my copies of Hugh’s books in my local Whitcoulls here in New Zealand, where his books enjoyed pride of place on their shelves with every release. But if the books were not on the shelves overseas, then Cook’s fans had little chance of finding them.

Cook’s prose drew heavily on the landscape, places and mythology of New Zealand, from the legendary Taniwha of Quilth, to the Ngati Moana, to a prison called Maremoremo (after Paremoremo in Auckland). Our native flora and fauna often made cameo appearances in wild locales, including weka, kauri and rimu, to name but a few – all of this well over a decade before Peter Jackson delivered our country up to the world as Middle Earth. Cook refused to suffer from cultural cringe; he embraced our country’s uniqueness and used it to flavour his own inimitable world and style.

China Mieville, author of Perdido Street Station, sums Cook up nicely; “Hugh Cook was one of the most inventive, witty, unflinching, serious, humane and criminally underrated writers in imaginative fiction. Or anywhere.” It remains a shame that so few New Zealanders know that Cook was a Kiwi writer, but there is a good reason for this: Hugh Cook may have lived in New Zealand and written in New Zealand, but I suspect he saw the same tired faults with our nationalistic model of publishing and author recognition as he saw in the failure of the fantasy genre to redefine itself. Accordingly, after publishing Plague Summer here in 1980, he bypassed the New Zealand publishing model and went instead to the London market, where he secured publishing deals almost simultaneously for both his science fiction novel The Shift (Jonathan Cape, 1986) and the first volume in the Chronicles series, The Wizards and the Warriors (Corgi,1986).
What separated Cook from so many of his contemporaries was his ability to alter his prose style from book to book, while he never lost his unique authorial voice. Two of the Chronicles, The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers and The Wazir and the Witch, take the form of actual recorded histories, thick with the idiosyncrasies of both the imaginary scribe and subsequent editors, and are thus peppered with redactions and long, apparently unrelated diatribes. These books are full of acerbic dark wit and bleak philosophies, and represent, in some ways, Cook’s ultimate success at writing fantasy that transcended the sword and sorcery models of the genre. For all their apparently random digressions beyond the story, these two books might be seen as the pinnacle of Cook’s genius, for there is a depth to these tales that no amount of Feistian swashbuckling or Eddingsesque adventuring could rival. Some readers even suggested that ‘Hugh Cook’ was not one writer but many, a collaboration of individuals writing in isolation with a single grand design in mind. But Hugh Cook was just one man, a prolific author and poet, whose storytelling skills ascended beyond the formulaic norm into something infinitely more enduring.

Ironically it was these two books, with their challenging diversions into philosophy and metaphysics, that seemed to undermine Cook’s mainstream success. Book sales for these two volumes showed a steep slide from his earlier highs, and may have contributed to the W.H. Smith decision and its consequences for Cook’s publishing career. Cook did with fantasy what hard science fiction does to that broader genre, by delving into in-depth ruminations of the unknown and fantastical in the body of his storytelling. Cook teased apart the nature of magic and the supernatural as demi-scientific concepts, as well as exploring the brutal underside of human nature as represented by its practice in politics and warfare – stark metaphors for the real world, despite being dished up in the barbaric soup of a fantasy setting. Apparently, booksellers suspected that works of this complexity and wisdom would not be appreciated by fans of the tales of blood-soaked armies, pirates, and torturers that had preceded them. This was truly a pity.

Cook’s epic plan for a sixty book series was accordingly cut short, and after publishing the brilliant conclusion to the Chronicles, The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster, he went on to champion print-on-demand technology and electronic formats, constantly moving into newer and stranger worlds with his writing. He was among the first authors to publish works through Lulu.com with the Oceans of Light trilogy and later, Cancer Patient. Even so, the Chronicles remain Cook’s legacy, and copies of these volumes continue to fetch outlandish prices in second-hand book markets around the world (my own collection must be worth a small fortune, according to Amazon – but it is most certainly not for sale).

Cook was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma in 2005. He endured months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment in Auckland, which briefly sent the cancer into remission. During this ordeal he wrote Cancer Patient, a collection of musings, poetry and recollections which document his struggle with the disease and what he learned about life and the human condition in the process.This book is available for free as an online e-book or as a download from zenvirus.com, one of Hugh’s many websites. Unfortunately in 2007 the cancer returned, and Cook passed away on November 8th, 2008, after bravely battling the disease for so many years. It is a testament to the scope of his fanbase that the obituary I wrote for him, which was published in the New Zealand Herald and which I posted to my blog in December last year, remains one of my most frequently visited pages.

Ultimately, Cook was both Wordsmith and Warrior. Poems, stories and characters were his tools and his weapons. He wrote with a passion, producing fiction at a prolific rate, and the English language would be greatly enriched if all the words and terms he had coined in his oeuvre were to be introduced into common parlance. He fought to find new ways forward in the publishing world, exploiting technologies that are only now starting to establish their true place in the electronic market. He maintained his integrity as an author to the very end, determined to always share the stories he had to tell, and not those that others wanted him to tell. At the end, he fought an unseen enemy – fought it and beat it, if only for a short time. Even in this, he had a story to tell, one that may not have been able to completely defeat that insidious foe, but which may yet bring comfort to others who face those same demons at some stage.

For those of you interested in reading Hugh Cook’s work, samples and full-length copies of some of his books can be found at zenvirus.com. Also, keep an eye out for a reissue of The Walrus and the Warwolf, due for release in 2010 by Piazo Publishing, with an introduction penned by China Mieville.
Walrus is recognised by Hugh’s fans as his finest hour, and well worth a read by any lover of epic fantasy. To quote Mieville again, “To honour the memory of this wonderful and generous-spirited writer and man, those - too bloody few - of us who know his work should do all we can to bring it to the world's attention.”

Hugh Walter Gilbert Cook (1956-2008): Wordsmith; Warrior; New Zealander.

Man’s first death is the random potential
Of aeons before conception,
And the surf, merging life with form,
The surf is creation and rebirth.

(Cicada Sun, Landfall #118, 1976)

I would like to thank Colin Smythe, China Mieville, and the Cook family for their kind assistance in preparing this article.

Podcast Novel Review: "Ancestor" by Scott Sigler

The thing about Scott Sigler's books is the way they hang around in your head, burned into your memory, long after you've finished reading them (or in this case, listening to them).

Ancestor is no exception.

With this book, Sigler takes his twin fascination with science and monsters to new heights.
Ancestor is a more scientifically credible story than Nocturnal or Earthcore, but Sigler still manages to tell a thumping good yarn while sticking to his scientific guns. Drawing on the premise of isolating stem cells as a means of generating cures for all sorts of diseases, Ancestor tells the story of a corporation driven to the edges of the earth to push on with their experiments, while even the CIA are trying to shut them down. But it's not just altruism that motivates the crew to work against all odds to find this semi-mythical cure; it's also greed, and pride, and fear.

Sigler takes a simple science fiction tale of the dangers of technology outstripping ethics, and weaves it into a web of betrayal, deceit, murder, and revenge.

Oh, and there are monsters. But you knew that.

As usual, Sigler's narration and audio production are faultless, though I still wish he'd take a leaf out of Seth Harwood's book and get some female voice talent to read his female characters, or take Jeffrey Kafer's advice and just read them straight (listen to Kronos by Jeremy Robinson for a great example). I still find the whining tone of male readers trying to put on a woman's voice not only distracting but also slightly demeaning.

Aside from that, Ancestor is a thoroughly enjoyable book, and I think it represents a significant maturing of Sigler's writing talent. As Tee Morris suggested to me when we met in Dannevirke a few months ago, Ancestor is sophisticated storytelling that blends sci-fi, horror, and thriller seamlessly. Sigler handles his characters and settings with ease, whipping out clever dialogue as easily as he hammers home blood and violence.

If you haven't listened to any Scott Sigler yet, this is probably a good place to start.

I give Ancestor 4 Stars out of 5.

Ancestor is available as a free podcast novel from scottsigler.com or through iTunes, and will be released in hardcover by Crown Publishing in December 2009 or early 2010.

Classic Podcast Novel Review: '7th Son' Trilogy by JC Hutchins

There are a handful of podcasting authors whom I consider pioneers. At the top of this list are Scott Sigler, now a NY Times Bestselling Author, Mur Lafferty, author of the Heaven series of podcast novels, and JC Hutchins, author of 7th Son.

The 7th Son Trilogy already has a veritable legion of fans, being constantly referred to by commentators across the podcast world as "the hugely popular podcast series" or "the audiobook phenomenon", or words to that effect.

I deduced that my podcast novel education had not even begun until I had listened to this book in its entirety, and so I did. Do you see this grin? I can see why 7th Son is such an enduring and seminal work, such a standout specimen for its genre.

Not only that, but it is a pioneering work. 7th Son was among the first of the free-to-the-wild audiobook releases that have come to characterise and define the podcast novel community in the past couple of years, and continues to rank highly in the charts at Podiobooks.com; at the time of writing this, 7th Son Book 1:Descent features at #4 Overall by Votes, #7 by Subscriptions in the Last 30 Days, and #2 in All-Time Top Subscriptions - while Book 2, Deceit, holds its place at #6.

In large part, I'm sure that this success has to do not only with Hutchins' skill at weaving a narrative and leaving the reader hanging out for more, but also his tireless devotion to promoting both his own books and those of others in the podcast community. Nothing gives back to you like giving something away, be it fiction or help and support.

Hutchins' ability to tease every possible opportunity for exposure out of the emerging social media devices available to him is extraordinary, from his constant presence on Twitter to the transmedia novel experience that is Personal Effects: Dark Art, which brought about an explosion of book trailers and video blurbs by authors and fans alike in its support.

Hutch is the guru of the social media world, and this has paid off for him in spades.

Of course, none of this would be worth a bar of soap if the writing and story aren't fantastic. So what is it about 7th Son that has made it such an instant classic? Hutchins brings the skill of a master storyteller to this tale, weaving a diabolical web of tech-noir, intrigue, science fiction, and a dash of horror for good measure, and wraps it all up with a heart-thumping pace.

In short, this book doesn't know what the phrase "dull moment" even looks like, much less means.

Book 1, Descent, starts with the murder of thePresident of the US by a 4-year old boy, which sets in motion a series of events that leads to seven complete strangers being brought together for the first time - or so they think. As first the US and then the world are thrown into chaos, this group of young men discover that they are not as different as they seem at first; that they are in fact more alike than they could have ever imagined.

They are clones, the product of an uber-secret government project called 7th Son, and it is their Alpha - the man they were cloned from - that is behind the murder of the President. But this murder is only the start of the mayhem that Alpha has in store for the world. As the clones start to track a breadcrumb trail of clues in the hope of finding and thwarting Alpha, more violent and chilling acts are brought down on the world, and time is always running out.
This is the setup, and the story only gets better from there. Hutchins writes his characters with wit, precision, and a depth of character that most novelists should envy. For seven characters all cut from the same cloth, they are remarkably different, yet share enough nuances that it is clear they are brothers, after a fashion, however different their lives may have made them.

The same can be said of Hutchins' performance. Unlike Sigler, whose characters tend to have wildly different voices for the sake of clarity, the Beta Clones are all a subtle variation on the same aural theme, and as the sole voice talent in a book with a huge cast of characters, the author still manages to project something unique with each of the clone's voices. It's one thing to shift accents and drop octaves while jumping between massively different personas, but quite something else to tease out subtle shades of the same voice and manage this consistently over several hours of performance. But Hutch pulls this off with class.
Aside from this victory, Hutchins' audio productions are slick and professional. He opted out of using atmos or sound effects tracks, so the weight of the story rests completely in the power of the narrative, the art of the words used to deliver that narrative, and his own performance. If I have one minor complaint about the mastering, it is that the music that rocks up at every cliffhanger episode ending always seems just a fraction too loud. Captivated by the story and whatever new twist Hutchins has just unleashed, the sudden shock of guitars and drums always had me ripping the headphones from my ears. I learned to watch the time and be ready to get them out ahead of the sudden burst of over-adrenalised rock, but it never stopped me diving into the next chapter as soon as I could.
Hutchins also has a publishing deal with St Martins Press, and 7th Son: Descent is due for release as a real-life book in October. And just to prove that its not just podcast fans who think Hutchins is a genius, Warner Bros have optioned the rights to develop 7th Son as a film, perhaps (hopefully) a series of films.

Podagogue gives 7th Son the full 5 Star treatment.

If you're looking for a place to start listening to podcast novels and you enjoy a good tech-noir thriller, you'll be hard pressed to find a series better than 7th Son.

Click on any of the images above to go the Podiobooks.com page for the pictured book.

Phil Rossi's 'Crescent': Now is the Hour

As we speak, Phil Rossi's Sci-Fi Horror Epic Crescent is rushing the Amazon Charts.
If you listened to the Crescent Podcast Novel and have been thinking about buying the book, now is the time. Right now.

If you haven't listened to the podcast, but you are a fan of dark and gritty sci-fi horror, now is the time to buy the book.

Like I said when JC Hutchins stormed the charts with Personal Effects: Dark Art, this is about more than just generating sales for a favourite author.

Supporting podcast fiction authors who break into the market of published books is a validation that the business model, which revolves around giving stuff away for free, can actually work. It proves that the free-to-the-wild audio format is a value-adding aspect of a good book, not a profit-leeching misconception. It's important that the publishers who have the foresight to take this risk see that it is a worthwhile one. It matters to every podcasting author out there, and every podcast fiction fan.

Help make it happen.

I've bought my copy, because I want to see Phil Rossi on book shelves everywhere, for years to come. I'm starting with my own.

Podcast Novel Review: "The Failed Cities Monologues" By Matt Wallace

If you don't like the thought of how blood might taste in your mouth, don't listen to this book.

If you don't like to hear bones snapping inside your head while you listen to a podcast, don't listen to The Failed Cities Monologues.

And just to make it clear, the crew at Variant Frequencies don't need a sound effects library to drop the pit out of your stomach. Matt Wallace does all this and more just by screwing words into your ear, with all the sharp edges and deadly precision of a power drill. TFCM is a bleak and powerful tale of two cities collapsing under their own weight at the nether reaches of a dystopic future that doesn't seem entirely impossible. Assembled as a series of monologues, as the name suggests, TFCM is told from the perspectives of eight characters caught up in events that spiral out of control and lead to a bloody and violent endgame. With each shift of character, Wallace adapts his writing style without missing a beat, capturing each of his unfortunate souls with unique blends of tone, nuance and voice. Different narrators perform specific characters, lending an even greater depth of credibility to the unorthodox story-telling structure.

Hovering somewhere between sci-fi, horror, and action, TFCM pulls no punches whatsoever. Wallace has created a world of shadow, flame, deceit and misery. There is nowhere to run and hide, not for the characters on either side, and not for the reader. But once you start into this book, you won't be able to give it away.

Wallace is more than just a superb storyteller; he is writer of some of the best modern prose I have read or heard in a long time. He gets under his characters' skins, and through them, under his readers'/listeners' skins. You'll feel him crawling around there, wishing you could scratch him out, but not really wanting to either.

The audio production is equally superb. Rick Stringer does a masterful job of producing a clean, clear product, which does Wallace's writing fantastic credit. Music themed to the various characters is woven from chapter to chapter, orienting the listener, and excellently matched to the narrators' voices and delivery. The levels remain impeccable throughout. Thoroughly professional in every regard. I tip my hat.

Fantastic writing, great performances, faultless production.

I give TFCM the full 5 Stars with the following caveat: This one is not for the faint-hearted. This is a brutal world, and Matt Wallace is a merciless god lording over it. He will not treat you kind (but you will beg for more).

Enter at your own risk.

Beware the Invasion

In only a few hours now, an Invasion is going to be unleashed.

I can't say what it will be, our only warning comes from the disturbed genius known as Melzer.

Mur Lafferty tried to get the message out, but they got to her first.




So now we can only lock our doors, load our shotguns, and hope that living on an isolated island at the bottom of the South Pacific will be safe from the horror we can only imagine.

(Apologies to you poor souls who live much closer to the actual Invasion. I'll be thinking of you as the news feeds drop out, one by one.)

Book Review: 'Vacation' by Jeremy C. Shipp

It's hard to say what you should expect of this book, because no matter what you go in thinking, Vacation will defy you.
I first discovered the work of Jeremy C. Shipp when I chanced upon his short story Camp via the mystery that is Twitter. Upon reading this story, I was immediately aware that here was a talent unlike any I had read before. Shipp has a unique and profoundly disturbing voice, one that at once repels the reader and forces them to keep reading, no matter what. Reading Shipp is a bit like watching torture: You know it's awful but you just can't seem to turn away, even though it's you that's being tortured.

This is just the sort of layering that Shipp brings to his work, and he does so with a tight sparsity of language, his prose almost poetic but at once too delicate and too brutal. I immediately sought out more of his work, and gobbled it up hungrily.

Of all his short stories and flash fiction, my favourite remains the creeping and murderous Dog, a coming-of-age tale that is as bloody as it is haunting.

So when I saw the opportunity to read and review Shipp's novels, I jumped at it. I finished reading Vacation a couple of weeks ago, but it has stayed with me long since. Wrapped up in a story that traces the main character's awakening to the harsh realities of the world he lives in, Shipp threads philosophy and sociology together with a scathing deconstruction of modern consumerism and the Western world's self-inflicted blindness to the suffering of the rest of the planet at our expense.

At turns surreal and frighteningly real, Vacation challenges the reader to deny that they are in fact living through the same drug-addled haze that Bernard Johnson has been until the time he goes on his own Vacation. Utopia disintegrates into dystopia, and Johnson is thrust into a dark world where life is worthless, minds become the puppets of guerrilla warlords, and the grand illusion of the world he knew is ground to dust.

Vacation is a provocative stream-of-conscious monologue. Shipp stretches the boundaries of the form with care and precision, twisting the point-of-view to his own purposes, more often deluding and deceiving the reader than elucidating, and in this way, draws his style together to complement both the themes and the plot. Vacation is a story that tells of one man emerging from the haze of his past into the bright and painful harshness of the truth. Chapter by chapter, Vacation becomes clearer, crueler, and ultimately draws the reader down into the inescapable fact of the sheer falseness of our existence.

It's hard to describe Vacation in any of the usual ways, as it is not satisfying or compelling in the traditional sense, yet it demands to be read, and it demands that you put it down understanding yourself perhaps better than you did when you picked it up.

And remember, this is a fictional novel, not a self-help motivational piece. Shipp has succeeded where so much fiction fails; he has fleshed layer upon layer of meaning into a fantasy to the point that it is more real than our own realities, yet he does so through a lens that is both distorted and blinding.

I think I enjoyed this book, although enjoyed may not be the best word. I know that I am glad I read it, although glad may not be the best word either. I seriously recommend it, and that is the best way I can put it.

Take it away with you on Vacation, and you may not come back the same - if you come back at all.

Crescent: The Novel, and Phil Rossi's Cover Me Competition

Phil Rossi's Crescent: The Book Launch is Coming (mp3 Promo Link).

On July 9th, the print version of Phil Rossi's awesome Sci-Fi Podcast Novel Crescent will be released on Amazon.com.

Rossi is harnessing the power of his wired-in fanbase to slam the Amazon Charts by encouraging everyone to purchase a copy of Crescent at the same time, 1pm EST, on July 9th.

In yet another example of how this pioneering group of authors are taking the publishing world and reinventing it, Rossi is also running another competition (I honestly don't know how he finds the time!) called RossiCoverMe.

By following Phil Rossi on Twitter, you can have the opportunity to submit suggestions for songs from which Phil, who is also a brilliant musician, will choose one to record a cover version of. His efforts to date have been pretty damned impressive, including a fantastic version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.

The current theme is NIN - Nine Inch Nails. I personally am waiting for the now legendary rendition of Sympathy for the Devil that Rossi is rumoured to play.

Go Phil!

Phil Rossis' "Crescent": One Month To Go

The poster speaks for itself.

That is all.

Review: "Nocturnal" by Scott Sigler

Originally Published at Freshly Ground on May 21st 2009

In the brave new world of the podcast novel, it takes something special to be called a classic. Nocturnal by Scott Sigler is just such a rare creature.
Scott Sigler was among a very small group of writers who literally pioneered the Podcast Novel format, releasing his first book, Earthcore, in 2005. At the end of that podcast there is a very interesting Q&A with Mark Jeffrey, which provides a snapshot of both how small the audiobook market was at the time, and how Sigler envisioned it growing into the creature it has become - and that creature continues to grow.

Nocturnal is Sigler's third podcast novel, and it is a masterpiece of action horror. What starts out as a police procedural detective novel with a paranormal element quickly morphs into a gruesome and electrifying monster story, and from there into an action rollercoaster that would put John Woo to shame.

You'll forgive me if I slip, but I tend to recall Nocturnal as a movie rather than a book. The action and the imagery have seared into my skull, all chiascuro shadows and arcing blood lit by guttering streetlights and gunfire.

Sigler's dark alternate San Francisco is a place of fear and tension, haunted by unseen monsters, remorseless gangsters, ruthless vigilantes, corrupt cops, and a psychotic schoolboy with a god complex. Through this morass of murder two cops face the challenge of trying to solve the murders that have started to plague the city, only to find a conspiracy that even the SFPD doesn't want them to uncover.

This stuff is addictive. I personally neglected family, friends and more important things like writing my own novel to listen to this book. Sigler gets his teeth into your soft, tender flesh and shakes, not letting you go until he's wrenched you through the increasingly brutal and bloody story of the Nocturnals. And he pulls no punches whatsoever. Where Hollywood would turn away or save the day, Sigler just continues to rip shreds, and it is fantastic.

Not for the light of heart, I must emphasise. Nocturnal is R18 on every scale, for language, violence, torture, and even on a conceptual level. Yes, I squirmed more than once. But the payoff is so worthwhile, and nothing in this book is wasted. Every act of brutality, every murder, every fight, every explosion serves a valid and crucial purpose to the story. At the same time, Sigler can do subtext and complexity as well as he does action. I do not understand how Dan Brown sells more books than this guy. Brown is nothing next to Sigler.

Sigler's writing is also a pleasure to listen to, his dialogue sharp and his prose as witty as it is tight. He carries a vast cast of characters, voicing each with confidence and consistency. As usual, I cringe a little when a grown man puts on a woman's voice, but if I could do any better, I'd have some grounds to complain. I can't, so good on you Scott for giving it your all.

The audio production is clean and professional, relying almost entirely on Sigler's voice to carry the story. I can only recall one location that was augmented by a creepy harpsichord music track, and that really stood out for its oddity. As I've said, Sigler is a clever writer and a powerful performer, and thus requires little in the way of bells and whistles to bolster his efforts.

Again, for a free work, this is just brilliant. It is said that Sigler doesn't have fans; he has junkies. I just finished Earthcore today, and I still have four podcasts by Sigler to listen to. The future is bright.

5 Stars.

Nocturnal is an instant classic. Available as a free podcast download through iTunes and Podiobooks. Swing by Sigler's site for more info on this modern literary maestro, one of the true pioneers and energetic advocates of this great artform.

Review: "The Zombie Chronicles" Book 1 - Escape by James Melzer

Originally Published at Freshly Ground on May 14th 2009

Here's a podcast you can really get your teeth into.

James Melzer is one of a new breed of writers who are finding success by eschewing the traditional methods of shopping a manuscript to agents and editors, and are instead puffing out their lungs, warming up their vocal chords, and releasing their works into the wild - in the form of free podcast downloads.

As you know, I've been going on about this for a while now. As anyone who follows me on Twitter will know, I'm pretty much obsessed with podcast novels at the moment.The Zombie Chronicles - Book 1: Escape has continued to feed this addiction. This is storytelling with bite.

I had my reservations, as I greatly fear all the cliches that are associated with zombies. Zombies have gone so far into the laughable in the past twenty-odd years that it's a he!! of a job trying to make them scary again. Somehow, Melzer has written a zombie book that at once encapsulates all those worn-out tropes and injects the zombie genre with a new lease on life.

(Ah, will the puns never end?)

From the first chapter, I was grabbed by the freshness of Melzer's writing, his wry wit and the way he pulls a middle finger at all the stale baggage that zombies bring with them. Despite the title, this is no 28 Days Later. Without wanting to bring any spoilers to the table, I think it's safe to say that Melzer has single-handedly reinvented the zombie genre, while never abandoning everything we love about zombie stories - decaying flesh, the lust for human meat, brains exploding under well-aimed headshots.

TZC brings unexpected twist after twist, none of which have any place in the story you think you're listening to. But Melzer pulls it off with style, wit and lots of disintegrating sinew. I almost panicked when iTunes wouldn't give me the last chapter. Desperate measures were taken to hear the last part of this book, I guarantee you.

If you're into zombies even a little bit, you must listen to this podcast - or buy the book, when it comes out later this year (full disclosure - I get nothing from promoting any of the podcasts I review. I just dig that these guys and girls are so cool about it). If you like a good action story, or anything with a twist, this is also brilliant.

The audio quality is faultless. Melzer pulls off his voices without any problem, and has chosen not to clutter up the soundscape with effects. I think that if a podcaster/audio producer has the means and the ear to do good music and effects, and it doesn't cut drastically into their available timeframes, and that if adding M&E really fleshes out the world, then they ought to do so. But if a writer embarking on the huge task of recording a podcast feels they don't have the means or the skills to do this well, I thank them for not ruining an otherwise good production with a subpar effects track. It's nice to just appreciate the writing and the performance for what they are.

(To those podcasters who do put in the effort and do it well, keep up the good work. I love it all!)

I highly enjoyed this podcast. What it may have lacked in substance, it made up for in plot twists, gunfights, and exploding heads. Having said that, I felt close enough to all the characters to really want to root for them, although I was never really sure if I could trust anyone at all. Fantastic stuff.

TZC gets a solid 4 1/2 Stars out of 5 from me.

Review: "Eden" by Phil Rossi

Originally Published at Freshly Ground on April 28th 2009

A few weeks ago I wrote what I have decided, in hindsight, was an unnecessarily harsh review of the Sci-Fi/Horror epic podcast novel Crescent, by Phil Rossi. As I've said before, there is a huge difference between highly engineered audiobooks and works of individual labour, and having now thoroughly doused myself in hours of both, I can say with confidence that Crescent is a standout of the latter species.

On that note, anyone who has gone on to listen to Crescent, or anyone who may not be into audiobooks but loves to read a good bit of sci-fi, the book version of Crescent is going to be available on Amazon soon. Phil would like his fans who plan on buying a copy of the book to hold back until July 9th, and then to descend on Amazon like a swarm of angry hornets, pushing the book up the charts. I'll remind you all again closer to the time.

What I like about Rossi is how he has clung tight to everything about the internet that says "you can do it, if you stick with it." He's put everything out there for free, he's made himself accessible to his ever-growing fanbase, and he deserves to reap the rewards. It also proves that the cream really can rise to the top, and that there is no better weapon at a writer's disposal (good writing aside) than the art of self-promotion.
So, moving on. Eden is complete at 8 episodes and available free either on Rossi's website, or through iTunes, or at Podiobooks.com. It's free in all of these places, and Podiobooks.com provides a donation service, from which the majority of the money goes direct to the author.

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I started listening to Eden, but I figured out pretty much straight away that this was not going to be a rehash of Crescent, despite my initial impressions. Eden is also set on a space station, but there the similarities with Crescent begin and end. I was expecting another action story, but Eden with its dark mystery delivered a much richer experience, which had me hanging out for each new episode.

Where Crescent is visually evocative and a tour-de-force of action and horror, Eden advances at a more cerebral pace. From the outset, Rossi's writing has improved by several degrees, so much so that I felt like I was listening to a different writer. As the writing has matured, so too has the story. Focused intently on the first-person narrator, Malcolm, who is dispatched to a tiny space station near the planet Uranus, Eden is as much about the enormous, mysterious tree that has been found growing in the void of space as it is about Malcolm, his failings, his self-doubt, and his weaknesses.

Woven into this is Rossi's blend of science fiction and Lovecraftian horror, as the station spirals further from safety and sanity and into the consuming madness of Eden. The first-person perspective also keeps you relentlessly close to the action, which makes listening to this story a painfully emotional journey, in a way that all but the best sci-fi and fantasy fails to do.

Eden doesn't drag you through the chapters with blood pumping in your ears and air rasping in your throat like Crescent. Rather, you find yourself being led, trying to turn away, your stomach a hollow pit, afraid of where the next turn is going to lead you, and cursing Malcolm for his crippling self-pity.

I score Eden 4 1/2 stars out of 5, and I seriously rate the quality of Rossi's writing on this novella. It is a good length; any longer and it would have needed a faster pace, any shorter and it would have felt rushed. Overall, and given that it is not a studio production but an individual effort, Eden is a stunner. Give it a listen.

Review: "Crescent" by Phil Rossi

Originally Published at Freshly Ground on March 1st 2009

Phil Rossi's Crescent is the second full-length podcast I've listened to, after the brilliant Hoad's Grim, which I'm still listening to as the episodes come down.

The quick review: Crescent was an enjoyable "read", keeping in mind that it is intended for a mature audience. It told a pacy and chilling tale of terror in deep space, carefully balancing horror with action. The characters were generally well-rounded and portrayed with a deft hand, and there are moments where the writing really shines. If you have the time to listen to the thirty-odd half-hour segments, and you can handle a bit of audio scare, then do yourself a favour and start downloading Crescent. It's free, BTW.

I've been playing them through my car radio on the way to work and home again. It's a great way to kill the commute.

In recent news regarding Crescent, it has apparently been picked up as both a book and a movie, which is fantastic news for the author, and further proof of how it can be really worthwhile to use the internet to build an audience by putting a product out there for free. I remember thinking to myself as I was listening how it might adapt well as a screenplay, so I wasn't actually surprised to hear this development.

Now, the longer review. Yes, I liked Crescent and I listened all the way to the end. I won't toss in any spoilers here, but I will just make mention of a few things I wasn't impressed by.

Admittedly, being hooked on Hoad's Grim - which is absolutely stunning as far as the story, writing, voice talent and audio production go - puts Crescent on a back foot from the word go. The Crescent podcast series utilises music from just one song throughout it's entire length, and this gets a bit repetitive. But it's a good song, so that's not a complaint. It's just that a bit of variety might have been better.

My main niggle with Crescent was that the author, Phil Rossi, made a decision to voice all the characters himself. OK, stop me please if this is common practice for podcasting and audiobooks, but I found it a bit frustrating. Particularly the women's voices all tended to sound the same. Like I've said, the vocal talent on Hoad's Grim leaves you in no doubt whatsoever who is talking at any point in time. I think that it might have been to the author's advantage to have drafted in some other voices for this job, just for the sake of clarity. However, this didn't make the story un-followable, it just made it obscure in places.

It was nice to hear, in the Notes from the Vault, which are a series of short fiction pieces written by the same author, that he did indeed bring in some other voice talent from time to time during their production. The Notes deserve a review too, but it won't be tonight.

As a writer, I felt that in places Rossi might have profited from having a keen editorial hand run over his work. There were occasional pieces of clunky dialogue and prose, and sections of writing which I can imagine working well on the page but which didn't translate to the soundwave very well. Still, this was a free work, a work of passion, and Rossi's writing seems to get better the more I listen to it, so that's a good sign.

I'm now listening to Eden (mp3 promo link), and I have yet to make a judgment. So far, it seems to be about a ... hmmm ... haunted space station ... with ... wait for it ...

No, no spoilers. Suffice to say that I'll be downloading the new chapter very shortly.

My last word on Crescent, after all that good stuff, is sadly one of just the mildest disappointment, not in the work itself, but in an epilogue that was released some time after the final chapter. Crescent ended with a hint of irresolution - of the temerity of the immortal, and the infinite hunger of the unknown, leaving the reader only with the comfort of knowing that our lead characters, whom we have grown to care for, will at least be free and clear of the horrors they have faced, even if those horrors do live on somehow. Then the epilogue unwound this comfort, which replaced that feeling of catharsis with one of frustration, as if we were suddenly back in the middle of a story that had yet to be told.

As underhanded openings to sequels go, this one really kicked sand in the listener's ears. I would rather not have listened to the epilogue. So if you decide to give Crescent the time it's worth, my one piece of advice is this: Don't download the Epilogue. It's a spoiler all of its own.

Apart from all that: 4 Stars from me.