City of Masks
Welcome to the site Mike Reeves-McMillan with his tale, City of Masks:
City of Masks is a swashbuckling adventure in a setting reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Italy (complete with twins).
In the city-state of Bonvidaeo, by custom and law everyone must wear a mask and act in character with it, or face civil, social and religious penalties.
Gregorius Bass is sent to Bonvidaeo as the Envoy of Calaria, primarily to get him out from underfoot. Masked as the Innocent Man, and in the company of his radical young Bonvidaoan servant, Bass stumbles into mystery, intrigue, heresy and murder.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
March 13th, 2008 at 7:26 am
>reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Italy (complete with twins).
Well you know I’m gonna be all over that!
Linked.
Duane
http://www.shakespearegeek.com
March 13th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Oh I love a good Swashbuckler.
April 10th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Great story so far. Very engaging, a most intriguing world Mr. Reeves-McMillan has created! He also has a wonderful reading voice it’s a pleasure to listen to. Looking forward to more!
April 15th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Thanks, Samantha, it’s encouraging to know that my slowly-but-steadily-growing audience at Podiobooks enjoys what they’re hearing. We’re halfway through the story now and the plot will thicken rapidly from here on. You’ll also start to get more of the promised swashbuckling and Shakespeareousness.
April 16th, 2008 at 11:49 am
I’m really enjoying this, I find the concept to be very interesting. I do wish the audio quality was a bit clearer.
April 16th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Thanks, Metahari, I’ll see what I can do to improve it. Am I talking too quietly? Is it my accent? Or does it seem to be a technical problem with the recording?
June 7th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Mike, I know what he’s talking about. It’s not the accent or the volume (though that is pretty soft), there seems to be a faint fuzziness and/or distant sound to the quality, sort of a muted sound. It doesn’t make it hard to hear really, it’s just fairly noticeable. So yeah, a problem with the recording, or perhaps whatever microphone you are using (my first thought was that it was a mic issue).
June 7th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Actually to correct myself, it might be more like there is an ever so slight echo.
June 9th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
I’m sorry about that. It must be coming in during the transition to MP3 or one of the subsequent transformations, because it’s clear as a bell when I’m editing it.
I’m not sure what I can do about that but I’ll see if I can find anything.
June 18th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
A truly interesting book. I loved the idea of the city of masks, so unique and quirky.
June 22nd, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Thanks, Chris.
By the way, folks, I don’t know if there’s a lot I can do about the sound at this point – it sounds OK when I listen to it through headphones rather than speakers, if that’s any use to you. If I figure it out in the future I’ll reload the episodes.
July 10th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I really liked this story. It’s written in a perfectly executed old world style that is not difficult for the reader/listener to understand and is a testament to the author’s literary skill. The story is excellent. The characters blossom subtly as the story progresses making each more interesting from one chapter to the next. I love the idea of a society of people living as the face they portray and following the rules set out for their chosen character. There was a wonderful [ironically] poetic nature to this story and hints of the influence of Shakespeare.
I always listen to my podcasts via headphones so I had no issues with the sound quality. No odd hums or echoes. When I began listening I was a bit disheartened by the lack of impact the narrators voice had on me but I try to give every podcast a few episodes before giving up on it. I find that if the story is good the narration is usually something I can get past. Sometimes it just takes a while to get used to a person’s voice. For example, before listening to City of Masks I had been listening to a podcast with much louder, sometimes brash narration. Switching from that to Mike’s softer, gravely voice was almost a shock to the system. I’m so glad I gave this podcast a chance.
July 13th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Thanks very much for the great review, Onion Girl.
As a New Zealander, an introvert and a hypnotherapist I do tend to talk quietly (also, I was trying to avoid clipping by overloading my mic).
November 15th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Mike,
This was wonderful. The voice work, while unconventional, worked for me. The story was compelling and I loved the twists at the end.
Nicely done!
NL
November 17th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Thanks, Nathan, glad you enjoyed it.
December 9th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
This book had everything I want in a novel well developed characters, an intricate story and a fantastic setting. I also found your voice to be very soothing and had none of the audio problems other people reported. I look forward to seeing more of your work, especially any further adventures of Sir Bass.
December 14th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Thanks, John, appreciate the good review.
As you may be aware, you can keep track of what else I’m working on at the City of Masks blog (http://city-of-masks.blogspot.com, also linked from my name above).
I have no immediate plans for a sequel involving the good Gregorius Bass, but I do have an idea that there might be one, and that it could involve pirates.
February 18th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Anyone who’s enjoyed City of Masks and would like to help propel it towards potential print publication by HarperCollins – please go to http://authonomy.com/ViewBook.aspx?bookid=6633, log in, and click the “Back the Book” link.
Authonomy is a fairly new website that HarperCollins is using as, basically, a slushpile filter. It uses the “wisdom of crowds” and the principles of Web 2.0 to find books that their market will actually like (instead of just guessing, which is the traditional method in the publishing industry).
I’d really appreciate it if you could take a few moments to do this for me. Thanks.