Comments on: Aliens and Satanic Creatures Wanted: Humans Need Not Apply

By: Audri Celeste

Audri Celeste — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:00:46 +0000

I love this podiobook, and it’s kept me good company while i’m sick and stuck in bed recovering. My only issue with it is the sound quality and the narration style; namely the frequent stumbling over words while reading. If you ever re-record any of these, you might play with redoing lines if you flub them up and editing them in to replace the bad spots. Otherwise, i’m a big fan! These are great stories, and right up my alley too!

By: __Jim_

__Jim_ — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 02:51:29 +0000

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_

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:58:41 +0000

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.

By: Scott Cushman

Scott Cushman — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 17:01:48 +0000

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.

By: BarbaraJ

BarbaraJ — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:22:41 +0000

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.

By: Zach

Zach — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 01:22:49 +0000

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.

By: Tony Ruggiero

Tony Ruggiero — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 13:21:18 +0000

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

By: Melissa

Melissa — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 02:02:29 +0000

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!

By: Dana

Dana — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 23:05:27 +0000

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.

By: Tom Brannan

Tom Brannan — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 20:38:17 +0000

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.

By: Alex

Alex — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 05:42:59 +0000

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.

By: JClark

JClark — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 22:42:24 +0000

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 Luciferâ€™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.

By: Nick

Nick — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 21:13:14 +0000

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.

By: Evo

Evo — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 01:51:07 +0000

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.

By: mondeis

mondeis — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 00:19:11 +0000

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

By: Nick

Nick — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 21:40:14 +0000

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.

By: Tony Ruggiero

Tony Ruggiero — Tue, 16 May 2006 12:45:00 +0000

George:

Thanks for the wonderful comments and glad you enjoyed it!

Tony Ruggiero

By: George

George — Thu, 11 May 2006 04:30:07 +0000

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

By: Tony Ruggiero

Tony Ruggiero — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 21:17:34 +0000

George & Paul:

Hopefully the problem with “The Gift Of Christmas” has been resolved with the file. Thanks for listening!

Tony

By: Paul Campbell

Paul Campbell — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 09:38:30 +0000

@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’.