Aliens and Satanic Creatures Wanted: Humans Need Not Apply
A collection of short stories by Tony Ruggiero. Your comments are welcome!
Do you think its easy being an alien, a satanic creature or anything else not considered part of the Homo sapiens only club? They have tough days just like humans do and their frustration is growing. Don’t believe it? Well, what about Lucifer, the prince of darkness, who runs a car dealership–what about his feelings when he is faced with that impossible sale and he can’t get that signature on form 666, the standard soul contract? Or maybe you wondered about how an extremely vain alien copes with having a bad hair day as he tries to alter the future of Earth? Will his cosmetic problems be our problems in other ways? Perhaps you heard about the opposite vampire who loves to give blood, hates the darkness and has a fetish for garlic - how does he get through a bad relationship? How about a DNA altered cat that has been given the personality of one of the world’s most fearsome criminals? Will its human owners understand or will it be a less then purr-fect arrangement?
What’s the common thread do all this discontent, you ask? What is it about most stories that stay the same? It’s the human! These aliens and demonic creatures are sick and tired of being the second fiddle in the story. They want what everybody wants: to be the center of attention of the stories instead of the pesky humans for a change…and now they finally get their wish. In Aliens and Satanic Creatures Wanted: Humans Need Not Apply, they finally get top billing and they exploit it as far as they can.
January 26th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
…Is it just me or has the last two chapters been recorded at 1/2 speed?
January 27th, 2006 at 9:55 am
Well, “last two” is completly subjective. In the PB.com world, each person has their own subscription. So the ‘last two’ for you will be very different from the “last two” of a new subscriber.
I’ve check the most recent files and all seems to be well. If you can ID the chapters by name or title, we’ll double check for you.
E.
January 27th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Last two for me Equals “Going Up?” and “Reap What You Sow”
These have been at half speed here as well. I have tried to play these in iTunes, Quicktime (same really as iTunes), along with VLC. All play at half speed. I mentioned this to the PB.com staff 5 days ago, and Chris said he will get on it.
January 27th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
Looks like Tony managed to squeak a few files by our system with the wrong sample rate. We’ll get on it this morning. You may have to redownload the files…
Thanks for letting me know! We’ll make it right.
January 27th, 2006 at 4:18 pm
And it looks like Chris, the Code Shaman himself, has already corrected the problem. *HOWEVER*… due to the way our content delivery partner caches files, some of you still may get the old files. It may take a day or two for them to clear out of the system. All we can do is cross our fingers several times and hope for the best!
E.
January 30th, 2006 at 11:33 am
I’ve had the same trouble with “Going Up? But also with “Have a Nice Flight”.
However, I had no trouble with “Reap What You Sow”.
P.s. Love Aliens &SCW: and PodioBooks, and all that it stands for. Keep up the great work.
January 30th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
Tony,
Great stories. I am having a great time with this collection. My problem is with your volume and production quality. Is there anything you can do? It is very hard to hear in transit.
January 30th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Thanks for the feedback. I will try and boost the volume on the remaining stories.
January 30th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
Whoops…didn’t mean to type the name “Mike” where I should have typed mine.
February 3rd, 2006 at 9:48 am
I guess some mirrors are out of sync with others, or maybe not fully updating.
I had issues with “Going Up”, “Reap What You Sow” and “Have a Nice Flight”
Today, I re-downloaded these three, and the first two still have the sample rate issue, but the third was corrected. Any idea what is going on here?
February 3rd, 2006 at 10:21 am
Graham (and everyone else)…
I’ve just made
a post about this over here, to try to help explain what is happening.
February 14th, 2006 at 10:51 am
I love these stories, but there is something about the recording that does wear on me and gets annoying. I can hear every breath, smacking of lips, every swallow. Perhaps moving back from the microphone a bit?
February 14th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
Hey Beth:
Thanks for the comment. I hope you find that the later stories are getting better. It’s been a learning process for me and I try to improve on each one. Let me know what you think…
Thanks again.
Tony
February 14th, 2006 at 6:24 pm
Being a podcaster myself, I certainly understand the learning curve! And there are several episodes already recorded that are waiting for me, so maybe it’s already better and I just haven’t gotten there yet…
Really enjoying the stories!
March 7th, 2006 at 8:55 am
Is it just me or is there something seriously wrong with the audio file for today’s new story “The Gift of Christmas”? About the last 3-4 minutes of the download I got was totally garbled. Am I doing something wrong here?
Thanks,
George
March 7th, 2006 at 10:06 am
I just re-read my post and realized that it looks, sounds and feels like criticism. That was definitely not my intention! I’ve really enjoyed these stories! Great job, Tony. I know how hard production and post can be; I’m currently working on the first episode of my own podcast, and really appreciate all the hard work you put into yours.
Thanks again,
George B.
March 15th, 2006 at 2:38 am
@George B.: It isn’t just you. My copy of ‘The Gift of Christmas’ gets all chewed up about half way through the episode. It was sounding really good up to that point. Hope a fix is uploaded soon.
@Tony: Enjoying the stories. Keep ‘em comin’.
March 25th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
George & Paul:
Hopefully the problem with “The Gift Of Christmas” has been resolved with the file. Thanks for listening!
Tony
May 10th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
Went to work, listened to “Aliens” et al, and was CRUSHED to find out that this was the last story! I’ve loved this series, and sincerely hope Mr. Ruggiero posts more of his fine work on Podiobooks.com. My favorite would have to be “Lucky Lucifer’s Car Emporium”. Brilliant stuff! Being in retail, I can certainly understand how hard it can be to close that important sale…. Again, I hope to see more of Mr. Ruggiero’s work very soon! Thanks again, sir.
-George B., Texas
May 16th, 2006 at 5:45 am
George:
Thanks for the wonderful comments and glad you enjoyed it!
Tony Ruggiero
June 4th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
This series of stories is well worth listening to. I don’t think the quality of the stories is entirely consistent. Sometimes I get the feelling that there’s a common theme here that I’ve heard before, or there’s a kind of ’so what’ feeling at the end. But there are some good tales, and overall it’s a rewarding listen.
It would help if Tony took a bit more care over the reading - which is true of so many non-professional readers. He tends to rush a bit, and stumble over his pronunciation, which can be a bit wearing at times. Other readers edit out mis-pronunciations and slips of the tongue, but that doesn’t happen here. It doesn’t help when there are words that the reader clearly isn’t familiar with in speech, and doesn’t know how to pronounce it.
Each story is introduced as a short story from a novel. A novel to me is one story from beginning to end, and not a collection of short stories, so I’m actually not clear whether this is a collection of short stories, or whether it’s excerpts from a novel. It sounds like the former, as there isn’t a common theme in what I’ve listened to so far.
June 24th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
um i would like to get this all the episodes in this whole book but i dont know how to get more than one episode
June 25th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
Mondeis - I’m assuming you’ve successfully subscribed to the show and have found the magical “release all episodes” button. Great, but did you check to see if your PODCATCHER (like iTunes, Juice… whatever) is set to “download all available files”? If not, you may get only one or three.
July 8th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
Further to my comments about the quality of the narration, I do, in fairness, need to point out that this does improve a lot after the first few stories.
September 6th, 2006 at 3:42 pm
I agree with Nick’s assessment so far. There are some good stories here, but a number of them just don’t really work. The most glaring example, in my opinion, is “Lucky Lucifer’s Car Emporium”. The ending just doesn’t work. Discovering that a character isn’t what they appear is fine, but not when you’ve been privy to that character’s thoughts all along. That’s a cheat.
On the other hand, there are a number of clever ideas here. “Inhuman Or Inhumane” is a good example. The ending twist is clever and amusing and makes a kind of sense. It works.
December 1st, 2006 at 10:42 pm
I feel weird, because I know that Tony is reading this, but I can’t say that I liked these stories very much. I feel like he is using a formula, set us up, have twist at end. Knowing that the twits is coming makes it predictable, and not a twist. Tony, I’d love to see you abandon the formula in favor of more character driven stories. I think Scott Sigler is a good example of character driven, even though he puts his characters in some f**k up’d situations, it is who they are as people who drive the stories. Keep at it Tony. I will download you again next time you podiobook.
March 26th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Aliens and Satanic Creature Wanted: Humans Need Not Read! Nothing here worth reading/listening unless you are from another realm. Low quality stories, low quality narration, low quality production.
April 2nd, 2007 at 4:05 pm
I’m not far enough into the stories to offer any CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. I see above that sound quality improvements were made along the way. I look forward to hearing more, though.
Short, entertaining, yet sometimes disturbing stories are right up my alley!
As far as the insulting commentary, I see the usual suspects. Don’t let them discourage you.
June 17th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
I love this podiobook! I was craving a good scary story and this was great. These stories are really best when you listen to them at night because they make you think and it freaks you out when you have to go to sleep. “Freddy” was the one that creeped me out most - especially at the end. Frankly, I don’t get how people could not like this!
August 6th, 2007 at 6:21 am
Glad you enjoyed the book Melissa. I have to tell you that I have a novel in work of an expanded version of Freddy. MAybe I can get you to test read it for me:)
Take care and thanks for listening.
Tony
August 12th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Wow! I really loved listening to all of these. My favourite was ‘Reap What You Sow’. You have a really inspiring imagination, and I liked your voice. I hope you continue to write and record. Frankly, I found the quality and the volume to be negligible in the whole scheme of things. The stories were just so much fun. Thank you for brightening my days.
February 25th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Tony: Great stories - I really enjoyed them. Most were really great and some were just great enough to make me smile. Some gave me the willies and some make me laugh outloud.
I do have to say that as wonderful as the stories are, you aren’t a great reader. You seem to take a big breath and read until your oxygen is gone. Then you take another deep breath then start over again.
I’ve spent several years recording books for the blind and am an active member of multiple podcasts where most of my time is spent recording essays or the occassional role in an audio play.
Here’s my advice for your next book: Have a full glass of water at your elbow and the lip balm of your choice (Burt’s Bees!!).
If time allows, look the story over and familiarize yourself with the natural breaks. Periods, paragraphs, quotes, etc. Slow down and look at where the natural breaks are. Follow what you’ve written and the story will tell itself.
July 6th, 2008 at 10:01 am
These are fun stories that continue the tradition of modernist Sci-Fi. If you enjoyed The Outer Limits or Twilight Zone, you’ll probably enjoy this podcast. While the stories are fun, like the shows mentioned above, the twists become predictable after you get used to the writing style. The stories don’t really stretch the genre of Sci-Fi nor do they include new and thoughtful social commentary, in fact, some of the stories even deal in the same sexism, exoticism and specism that was so common in modernist Sci-fi. All in all, it’s not literature, but it is a fun listen … except for the recording quality. The volume is low, the ambient noise is high.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:58 am
I enjoyed all the stories. It’s like fast food… short-term self-indulgence. I look forward to more. Although in the future, I’ll be more likely to just read the book. Unfortunately, the Tony Soprano/Joe Pesci accent is a bit like fingernails on a chalkboard to my Colorado ears.
August 14th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Tony, the stories started of interesting, but I had to quit after about 3-4 of them, simply because of the background noise and the low volume of your voice. Sorry…! I know it would be a serious chore to re-record the stories, but a lot of us listen to the Podcasts in a seriously noisy environment, and need all of the volume we can get… I.E. the cab of a truck, in a glass plant, etc… Take Care, and thanks, __Jim_