Sojourns on Mars
Brian Downes’ mystery tale, Sojourns on Mars, is now available:
Murdock Woodman’s life takes a turn when an old school friend asks the investigator to find $105,000 in stolen Disney collectibles, his web researcher is talking to snakes and his wife will hardly talk to him at all.
November 10th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
The story is interesting, but the production quality is lacking. Mouth noises, long pauses, very audible edits all detract from the storytelling. Even audio distortion…sounds like overloading the mic when yelling some lines.
November 12th, 2007 at 9:54 am
I agree with DBruce’s comments. The story is very interesting, but the audio issues are really distracting. I even tried to run the mp3 files through a compressor & limiter chain in an effort to even out the volume levels without much success. I also tried to use the levelator without much luck on the files (after converting the mp3 files to wav files). I suspect that using any one or more of the above mentioned tools on the source files would make a world of difference. Again, the story is very interesting, but the audio issues really detract from my enjoyment of the story. I am no expert, but would be happy to help out the author.
November 15th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
I’d be happy to have some help. I’m a novelist, not an audio engineer. I use Sony Sound Forge 8. What would you suggest? Please direct replies to my MySpace page, myspace.com/ZenShooter01.
January 4th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
I’d agree with the comments above, the audio issues are distracting but I don’t know the first thing about how to fix them.
The story itself was well written. The characters were unique and amusing. The premise of the story and the story line were a bit comical yet in a serious way. There was a small sub plot involving aliens which was never really tied into the bigger story which was a bit odd, I kept expecting something to happen with it but it never did. A few characters just dropped off the face of the Earth which was disappointing. Jamal and his buddy once their fight was over just kinda disappeared.
On the other hand the finale of the book involved a shootout which was fantastically written. I really felt like I was in the action watching it, all the right details were described and the pacing was fast and furious, there was gore, and pain and comedy and it all fit together so well.
January 15th, 2009 at 10:38 am
The audio issues didn’t bother me much (maybe my crummy headphones and cheapo player make all audiobooks equally bad?). The occasional long pauses should have been clipped out, but this wasn’t a deal breaker for me.
Brian has a great reading voice, and is able to comfortably move between male and female roles without sounding weird or affected.
I liked the story, although I wish there could have been a bit more closure at the end – unless this is going to be a series?? If so, I’ll be looking for the next installment!
September 1st, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Brian, if you see this, *please* email me.
dennyw
***************
(at)
***************
zipcon
***************
(dot)
***************
(net)
If you’re wondering why, look at my first name and think about what it might be short for. Hint: not Dennis.
-denny-
(highly amused)