Amber Page and the Legend of the Coral Stone
Never let it be said that creating a podiobook is not a learning experience. Almost a year ago, Stacey Cochran started working on the podiobook version of his young adult novel, Amber Page and the Legend of the Coral stone. He ran into some recording problems, production problems and just “problems” in general.
Enter Michael R. Mennenga, of FarPoint Media, onto the scene and into the equation. Mike worked hard with Stacey, cleaning up files, providing extensive audio editing and finally remastering and repackaging the entire story.
So it is with a happy heart I announce the re-launch of Stacey Cochran’s Amber Page and the Legend of the Coral Stone:
On the island of Maui, a sixteen-year-old international spy named Rio Kayenta discovers a two-thousand-year-old coral stone. Legend has it that the stone is meant for a girl named Amber and that with it, she can stop the evil S.H.R.O.U.D. organization. Amber Page lives in the Arizona desert and wants one thing more than anything else in the world: to see her mom and dad back together again. Amber’s mom is a school bus driver who has split with her dad, but Amber believes the two still love one another. When a strange old man stops at nothing to tell Amber that the legendary stone is meant for her, it frightens her and her family deeply. It is a race against the clock to get the stone to Amber and to see if she will realize its legendary powers. For with the stone strengthening her, Amber may be able to save her family and the world.
Enjoy!
Disclosure: I founded FarPoint along with Mike, though am today taking a more “silent partner” role while he and Summer do all of the heavy lifting.
October 20th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
hmm… although it’s obvious who wrote this post, it’s still funny when you guys refer to yourselves in the posts without telling us who you are.
I got to meet Stacey last month and I am very glad to get the opportunity to listen to Amber Page. Congratulation on the relaunch Stacey!!
October 20th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
We really need to get a new template for WordPress that shows the author of the posts.
October 21st, 2006 at 6:40 pm
Hey P.G.,
Thanks, man. I’ve got some good news on the group-bookstore-signing front, we talked about. I’ll be getting an email out to the NC Lulu Authors group in the next day or two about it.
Stacey
December 16th, 2006 at 8:37 am
I agree with David Morrell that this is one heck of a good idea for a novel! In a nutshell, it’s a “James Bond” type tale with a climax reminiscent of “The Matrix’s” flair for bending reality and it’s really hard to stop listing after the first episode. With all the action scenes, running gun battles and explosions this story has all the makings for an action packed, big-screen movie. Before you start listening to this one, make sure you have a large bucket of popcorn and a large drink at hand.
February 9th, 2007 at 8:39 am
I just binged this. Unfortunately the rating system is giving me a bit of trouble at the moment. I was with you right up to episode 12 or so, then the whole storyline fell completely appart. Very disappointing… shrug. It has production going for it though. The naration is excelent. The music and sound effects are tastefully done up to about part 15 or so, and the audio quality is one of the best I’ve heard from the site so far. Thanks for publishing a podiobook. I never would have gotten to read the book otherwise, and I appreciate it.
July 11th, 2007 at 10:22 am
This was my first podiobooks audiobook I’ve listened to and I’d have to say that it wasn’t bad. The audio quality was excellent (no static or hard-to-hear parts). The narrator had lots of energy — sometimes too much when he got excited. The only real thing that I didn’t like was that at the end they started using a bunch of sound effects that took me out of the story. Well, the sound when someone got hurt probably could have gone.
Writing-wise I can see that Stacey has spent a lot of time editing this book. I noticed some redundancy in narration, but not too much. I was impressed with the active voice he used. That’s something I sometimes struggle with.
Story-wise, Amber Page is not what I expected. From the cute little girl on the cover I was expecting something like an elementary school book for young girls, but I soon discovered that the reading level is much higher than that. Lots of fighting and action. Imagine a seven-year old girl beating up grown men with Matrix-style moves.
I did enjoy how Stacey brought everything together at the end. The interactions of the father at the end were probably the best writing in the book, although it might have been nice to introduce him a little earlier (perhaps in a phone call or something).
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:58 am
I’ve made it up to Episode 11 and find that this book has way too much violence for me. There are a lot more guns and shooting than I like, and way more than I expect from a YA book.
Probably a guy thing. You’d probably get more listeners if it were in fiction or SF.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Good story, but sounds like an abridged version. Story jumps around without any “connections”. Reader sounds like a preacher-ah putting a new sylable-ah at the end-ah of many words-ah. However, story is good enough to distract from that. Good story, warrants recommendation.
February 23rd, 2009 at 9:06 am
I had to stop listening after a few minutes because of the narrator adding “ah” at the end of almost every word. It was so annoying I couldn’t focus on the story.