Blowing the cobwebs away – The last Year

Wow, a long long time has passed since I sat at my keyboard and talked about podcasting. Let us just recap.

• Palms Sunday – Seth Harwood had great success and Jack Wakes Up is to be re-released by Crown next Palm Sunday
• April 1st – Scott Sigler’s Infected was released leading to Contagious coming out at the end of December.  Also (if memory serves me well) it almost cracked the New York Times best seller list
• Billi’s crazy Eights / Double Trouble – Pip Valentine Ballantine and Tee Morris both released their books on the same day 08/08/08 and both books broke into the top 20 on Amazon
• Playing For Keeps – at the end of August Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps was released on Amazon which cracked the top 10 on Amazon
• Phil Rossi has had his Crescent novel in the throws of publication and a film deal as well

Congratulations to all those authors, all their books have pride of place on my book shelf.

I am going to be changing things up on here, I am still listening to PodioBooks and short story anthologies and really do admire the time and effort the various authors spend on their podcasts.  So rather than commenting on every episode I will over the coming months mention the podcasts that I am listening to and I feel warrant a mention.

Also, the “All Podcast” feed has been running without fail, Google Reader churns that out for me.  The “Featured Podcast” feed used to reflect the blog – I will start updating that again however I will not necessarily be posting about every entry in that feed.

Steve Saylor: Black Shadow Chapter 2

Also over the weekend the second chapter of Steve Saylor’s Black Shadow novel arrived and i finally got round to listening to it on my way to work this morning.

The story focuses on Black Shadow and his tracking down of BlackBlood

Episode Link

it was a short episode this week, which actually managed to fit quite nicely into my day – i am sure Steve did that to accommodate me… Seriously though it seems Steve is doing exams at the moment so best of luck with those Steve, I suppose one of the advatages of getting old is that it seems like an awfully long time ago that i had any exam and assignment worries…

Tee Morris: MOREVI Chapter 1

So last week I caught the first chapter of MOREVI and we meet the Queen and find out about Rafe’s task

Episode Link

I loved this chapter it is really setting the story up, this weeks MOREVI is going to be delayed but it is in two parts so that is good news

A small absence

I have been quiet for a week, Christmas party season is upon us and work has become insane again – I haven’t had a lunch yet this week but that is no real excuse.  The posts to follow will be pretty brief but I figured I would split them out a bit, I will try to get back onto a normal schedule but it will probably be into the new year when things settle back down again

Steve Saylor: Black Shadow Episode 1

Also over the weekend the first episode of Steve Saylor’s Black Shadow dropped.  I had already listened to the prologue on Seth Harwood’s feed over the weekend, but I caught the first episode over lunch today.

In this first episode we are introduced to Black Shadow, the stories hero and go back in time to when he was 5…

Episode Link

The story starts of well, and I am looking forward to future episodes – the novel is ‘only’ 50,000 words I am not sure how that translates into episodes, I would guess at around 12-15 but I could be way off base with that.  Make sure you stick around to listen to Steve’s closing remarks, as he gives some insight into how the book came into being and nods to various podcasts that inspired him.

Tee Morris: MOREVI – Prologue

As mentioned in my crazy week post, Tee Morris’s MOREVI remastered has started. I listened to the preview on JC Hutchins 7th Son feed, and but on Friday I saw that the prologue had dropped in the MOREVI feed and with a slightly different intro in Tee Morris’s Billi feed. Well I finally got around to listening to the entire prologue on the way to work this morning.

The story starts with Tudor pirates in the realm of Henry VIII escaping the Spanish fleet. They travel through a portal into a new world…

Episode Link

As I have mentioned elsewhere I was not on board with podcasts back in 2005 – I didn’t even own an iPod until the mini’s came onto the market – and I first heard of Tee Morris on Valentines Day this year with the launch of Billibub Baddings and the Case of the Singing Sword. I the past when I have found ‘new’ authors I have gone back and listened to their previous work (usually through podiobooks), however in Tee’s case he was talking about what he has learnt while producing Billi he was going to do MOREVI remastered, so I resisted and today my wait paid of as I caught this fantastic production. The story sounds great, I will be buying it once the podcast is over, but the effects in the podcast had me ducking the cannon fire on the way to work!

This should be in your podcatcher, I see it is top on Podiobooks and number 14 on iTunes – great stuff. Thanks Tee

What a crazy week

What a manic week, we had a software release at work on Tuesday and it didn’t go well to say the least.  Where it affects this blog is that I haven’t had a lunch break for three days, and as I have been getting into work early and leaving late my commute is down to 30 minutes each way (as opposed to an hour each way at rush hour).

It is really disappointing as there is some great stuff sitting on my iPod, Tee Morris MOREVI remastered has cropped up in JC Hutchins feed (a 20 minutes preview) but it has also arrived in the Billi feed and of course the MOREVI feed, I am hoping that I can catch it tomorrow.

Also sitting in Seth Harwood’s feed is a 10 minute Black Shadow pre release prologue (Steve Saylor’s debut podcast novel which launches on the 1st).  I will hopefully be able to catch that tomorrow as well.

Anyway onto what I have caught this week…

Mike Bennett: Hall Of Mirrors – Hair and Skin (part 4)

Over the weekend the final part of Mike Bennett’s Hair and Skin, from his Hall of Mirrors short story collection dropped, and I caught it on the way to work yesterday morning (I know I am late but there we go).

This long episode (around 40 minutes) finished of the beard transplant story excellently and I think it comes a strong second to “The Grave”.

Episode Link

I am not too sure what is next, my memory is letting me down, I think Mike said that there are some more short stories coming, I sure hope so

Mike Bennett: Hall Of Mirrors – Hair and Skin (part 3)

The third instalment of Mike Bennett’s Hair and Skin short story from his Hall of Mirrors collection dropped last night and I caught it over lunch.

You will notice I said the third instalment and not the final one, that is because there is still another episode, I will not explain why as I could not possibly compete with Mike’s fantastic intro.

Episode Link

I am still enjoying this story, Mike writes some strange and fantastic stories but next week we find out what happens to Charles and De Vere’s and those beards…

Steve Saylor: Black Shadow – Pre-release cast

Yesterday was a new podcast in Steve Saylor’s Black Shadow feed. It serves as an introduction to Steve but no hints to the story, but gives us a chance to hear his voice and his obvious enthusiasm for this project.

This cast also includes the intro theme in full from ‘One Day Remains’ called ‘Overdrive’ and another listen to Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff’s promo, so roll on the 1st December.

Steve also mentioned that this podiobook is with podshow press that Mark set up to get (if memory serves me correctly) six podiobooks ito press, so best of luck with that Steve, I guess you can get more info at stevesaylor.net

Episode Link