Stacey Cochran returns to us again, this time making his novel, The Colorado Sequence, available as a serialized free audiobook.
Physicist Dr. Amy Levine has discovered a mathematical sequence–the Colorado Sequence–that describes an underlying pattern and a guiding force within the very fabric of reality. Now she’s on the verge of an astonishing breakthrough, and the U.S. government wants to know how she has done it. How has Dr. Levine learned to accurately predict the future? And they’re willing to kill her to find out. Levine and a group of friends escape to Colorado to unravel the mystery of the sequence, but there they become snowbound. They must locate a secret treasure room, find a hidden key, and answer an ancient riddle before a devastating eruption destroys them all … and the power of the Colorado Sequence is lost forever.
He’s got quite a few raving reviews from folks who have previewed the work prior to it’s launch here, so give it a shot if you’re a science fiction buff. New episodes will be posted weekly, he assures me!
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on Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 8:42 am and is filed under New Books.
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May 9th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Thanks, Evo. This afternoon, I’ve been working on a video introduction to the podiobook version of The Colorado Sequence, which I plan to place at the top of the homepage on my website http://www.howtopublishabook.org
Hopefully, this will start drawing folks from howtopublishabook.org to podiobooks.com
I need your feedback, folks. Tell me what you think of The Colorado Sequence. I’m totally stoked with the narrator I’m working with on this.
Stacey
May 9th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Hey folks, I’ve made a video introduction and book trailer for The Colorado Sequence. Check it out: http://youtube.com/watch?v=uHM5iko0Irg
June 20th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
I’ve really enjoyed this book so far; Lots of action and a complex and mysterious plot line have kept me quite entertained. I still can’t quite put all the pieces together, and I think that’s the point! If you like the Da Vinci code, but would like a scientific angle versus a religious one, this is a good choice for you.
June 26th, 2008 at 11:27 am
I’ve reached chapter 3 of the book, and I’m loving it so far.
My two previous experiences here on Podiobooks were “Earthcore” and “Ancestor” (Scott Sigler). I came back looking for something entertaining, well written & plotted with a quality presentation and so far I’ve not been disappointed.
Keep up the good work!
June 27th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
The Colorado Sequence is been a great listen so far, it really grabbed me from the get go. The characters are interesting, engaging and have depth. The story line is intriguing and has alot of possibilities. The author keeps you hanging on. I can’t wait to hear what happens.
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Puzzling. Started very well, but seems to have gotten sillier and more predictable as the episodes progressed. The ideas are interesting but the characters and conversations seem cartoonish sometimes. Maybe it’s me. Others seem to reallly like it.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
I am listening to episode 6 and I am really enjoying this story. My only small problem is with the narrator. It just seems to me that his style of reading doesn’t fit the story very well. At times, the naration sounds comical when the actual story line is serious in nature. Nothing personal against Mr. Daily, I just think I would like the story even more if it were read by Stacey himself.
September 11th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
I’m into episode 14 and although I’ve been occassionally confused (not necessarily a bad thing!) and the story is certainly engaging. I have your basic Science Channel grasp of string theory, but I would have liked a bit more explanation along the way. I enjoy it when the hard science is weaved into the story (Singularity, for example). I personally find the narrator very natural and I appreciate his ‘light tough’ when reading the female characters….nothing is more distracting than those “minnie mouse” sounding faux women! Keep up the good work Stacey, I’m in for the duration.
October 2nd, 2008 at 2:33 am
This story grabbed my attention at the beginning, and has kept me engaged throughout. It has a fascinating plot, sympathetic charactors, and a blend of science and imagination that is intelligent and fun. Its fast paced, and very well produced and read. I look forward to each new chapter.
October 11th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
I have really enjoyed this story and find that I look forward to the next episode as soon as I finish the current one. I do have to point out an inconsistency. The thermonuclear self-destruct would have taken down the jet since this type of blast emits an electromagnetic pulse that wipes out all forms of electronics. I do not see how the jet would have been able to continue flying without avionics and functioning control systems.
At any rate, I am really enjoying the story. It reads with a fast pace that would make it ideal for a feature length movie.
Thanks for the entertainment.
December 4th, 2008 at 6:10 am
I find the multiples uses of so and so said in all the dialogues irritating. There are other words to use for people “saying” something, like replied, answered, interjected, etc. Some variety would break up the monotony of some of the conversations between the characters and add to the story.
January 16th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Started well. When you introduce stuff like “..it is written…12 signs of the zodiac..” you enter the realm of the silly. I can take weird 20 ft monsters chasing people, that is just fine, but Zodiac nonsense..uggh.
February 9th, 2009 at 8:05 am
I have really enjoyed the story but the frequency of new chapters posted has me forgetting about this audiobook. It started out with a regular schedule but updates have slowed to a near dribble. I am about to give up on this one as I find myself re-listening to prior chapters to catch up. Hope all is well.
February 17th, 2009 at 1:06 am
i like it!
February 18th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Thanks so much for the feedback, guys. The new episodes should be coming along with more frequency in the next 6-12 weeks. And hopefully this book will be complete by May. If you like my writing, you might consider checking out AMBER PAGE AND THE LEGEND OF THE CORAL STONE, which serves as a prequel to THE COLORADO SEQUENCE. Also, I have short story collection here at Podiobooks.com THE KIRIBATI TEST. Again, thanks for the feedback. I really want to tell the best stories that I can for you.
February 23rd, 2009 at 11:59 am
Very nice book, and it serializes very well. Only 2 minor points, cause we all have to have minor points. First, don’t say gun-metal gray anymore. Second, ease up on the eye color thing, it’s a bit repetitive. Otherwise wonderful, and I be proud if I were you.
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:15 am
Thanks, craigr1971. Yours is a great point. I hate it when I’m reading a novel, and I find the writer falls in love with a pet phrase like “gun-metal sky” and uses it six or seven times. It’s a great lesson to have it pointed out to me that I’m doing the exact same thing:)
Thanks so much. I’m glad you’re enjoying THE COLORADO SEQUENCE otherwise.
March 6th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
I was really digging it, but the episodes don’t come out regularly, and since the story is so involved, it’s easy to forget what happened without a “story so far” at the beginning of each new episode.
March 12th, 2009 at 2:41 am
It’s really a nice submission. I have really enjoyed this story and find that I look forward to the next episode as soon as I finish the current one Very nice book, and it serializes very well.
Thanks for the entertainment.
Jeremy
Drug Intervention Colorado
March 12th, 2009 at 9:39 am
Thanks for the feedback, Jeremy and Octopon. I just received the CD with the final chapters of narration… so we really are coming down to the end of this book. You might look for the final chapters to come out in the next 4-6 weeks. Stay tuned!
May 4th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
While each chapter is entertaining, the story seems to move along way to slowly. Furthermore, the recent chapters don’t really seem to connect with the first part of the book. If it all comes together at the end great, but then I have already forgot the beginning. Still I’m glad to be able to listen to it. Thanks.
May 17th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
After a year, I’m done. I’ve tried to stick with this work because I really, really *wanted* to like the story and the characters, but…
…the plot meanders, the characters have little personality, and the story just isn’t compelling. “The Colorado Sequence” reminds me of Stephen King’s “The Talisman”, stripped of its tapestry of fantastic characters and sense of wonder at the portrayal of parallel worlds and an unlikely hero’s journey. Add in far too much monologuing to explain plot points and background (ala Mark Jeffrey in the “The Pocket and the Pendant” and its sequel) plus the pacing of “Apocalypse Now), and you’ve got a train wreck.
Maybe it’s partly Owen Daly’s Eeyore-esque narration, with occasional coughs, throat-clearings and rustling of his script, but in the end, I blame the source material (which wasn’t edited for audio presentation at all…far, far too many “…he/she said”‘s in there. If Mr Daly portrayed the characters with far more unique voices, you’d not need the “‘X’ said” convention nearly as much).
Stacey, it feels like you don’t know what story you want to tell. Many disparate ingredients (or genres) make for a great Mulligan Stew, but Mulligan Stew thrown in a blender and put on puree just makes for a mess.
Was this originally envisioned as a trilogy? Because there’s enough material for one, that’s for sure! As it is, though, it’s a chore (for me) to listen to.
May 17th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Airman, actually The Colorado Sequence is the third novel in a series of four early novels I wrote. CULPEPPER was the first, AMBER PAGE the second, THE COLORADO SEQUENCE was the third, and there’s a fourth book DR. PLANT (which hasn’t been published). Word count of TCS is about 143,000. For DR. PLANT it’s closer to 230,000. All four books combined come out a little longer than King’s THE STAND, and I guess I kind’a saw them all as one big book.
June 6th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Could we have the end of the book, please? The time between episodes cannot be helping the book’s popularity.
June 8th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Hey Stacey, I am really enjoying the book!! I just have one minor suggestion. As a colorado native, the pronunciation of Ouray by Owen Daly is “Oooh-ray”, and it’s actually pronouced “Yer-ay”. Other than that, really enjoying the story and characters. Keep up the great work!!
June 15th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Can we have the ending of the story please. You are not going to let us hanging with to chapters to go are you?
June 16th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
I commented almost 10 months ago and was enjoying the book, but the combination of long gaps between episodes and lack of ‘connective tissue’ between the early and later storylines has left me disconnected with the story.
June 16th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
The last episode will be live by the end of the weekend, folks. Thanks so much your patience during this real life cliff-hanger.
June 20th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
I for one have enjoyed the book. While it has been frustrating waiting for the next chapter to be published we all should keep one thing in mind… IT’S FREE. Mr. Cochran has been kind enough to give this content away and is getting next to nothing for it (beyond publicity, you didn’t think he was completely altruistic did you?) So let’s cut him some slack, if you don’t like the book, stop listening. If your frustrated with the lack of consistency it the releases of the episodes, remember it’s free (beyond a donation if the urge moves you). I for one am glad that Mr. Cochran has afforded me with hours of, what has turned out to be a pretty good story. Thank you Mr. Cochran.
June 20th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Thanks, Ken. Yes, FYI, I’ve been publishing on podiobooks for 4 years. I think I’ve made 10 dollars in donations. On Kindle, on the other hand, selling at just 1 dollar per copy, I’ve made 400 dollars in the past 2 weeks.
I am tweaking the final episode as I’m writing this post and will upload in a few minutes!
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:31 pm
In the process of downloading what Appears to be your entire book (I don’t like to get them serialized, but wait till they’re complete) and what appears to be a good read.
Thanks for all of your hard work. I look forward to listening to ‘The Colorado Sequence’.
John
August 25th, 2009 at 8:09 am
i have to agree with airman’s assessment. i did listen to the whole book as i wanted to know ‘what happened’ but there were just too many things going on. from physics to fantasy, the book didn’t seem to really know what it wanted to be.
there were some continuity issues i didn’t understand. (going from a faulty memory here) the women were diving underneath Prince Osoro Santana’s mountain in their underwear. but barely made it out to fly a plane out of the mountain – in their underwear i figure since they were on the run and didn’t have time to change.
then rented a car? did they find clothes and money on the plane?
i realize these are small issues, but they jumped out at me in the middle of the story.
there were some questionable actions during the blizzard too – how were they going to get the gas after they dug down to the station. and if they could dig down for gas, why couldn’t they have found food in the same manner if there was not enough in the hotel to support them.
lara
August 26th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
This work shows that you don’t need a mass of sound effects and a flock of voice actors to do a good audiobook. A straight reading is often more immersive than inserting a sound effect after every sentence, which some producers seem to be doing.
As for the story… I’m not sure. I like the basic concepts, many of the ideas, but the author’s fondness of BANG BANG RATATATA BOOM CRASH sometimes turns me off. Also, the story often falls into the trap of “but professor, tell us…” exposition.
Something to listen to during the commute, but did not grip me enough to want to have the book on my shelves.
October 31st, 2009 at 2:51 am
As is my normal practice, I downloaded the entire book before listening. I have enjoyed the book and would rate it 4 out of 5. this is a very high rating for someone who not only is above the target age for this book, but someone who loves mystery and science fiction, but hates magic and fantasy tales.
This story is so well written in parts that the “adventure” is good enough to entertain me.
I do think that a good editor could have tightened the narrative and would surely put a red pen through the he said, she said problems.
February 23rd, 2010 at 9:13 am
I just wanted to say that we enjoyed the audio book so much that we are ordering the print copy from Amazon! This action sequences and the use of real site (ouray, colorado) to describe the story is simply outstanding. i was using google street view to check out the location, the road (550), the sprial staircase in the
Hotel etc… We have listened to a lot of audio books over the years, everthing to Harry potter/Maximum ride/Stainless steel rats etc….., the editing on those books were better, but the tension/emotion/story line/fantasy land/the line(worm hole?) generated in this book combined to make one very enjoyable listen. We really loved it! Thank you. Now where is the next part, Amy looking for her (undead)father….?
July 17th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
The story started OK and was only marred by a bit too much of ‘”he said, she said’ during the dialogue that spoiled the flow.
I wasn’t so keen on the story when it seems that Yoda’s brother entered the story in the other world and there was also the strong influence it seemed to me of the Philip Pullman Dark materials books.
This wasn’t *bad* as a podcast story but the weak ending and the other niggles stopped me from enjoying it fully.
I do expect stories from Stacey Cochran to get better though as he has some interesting ideas.
November 27th, 2010 at 6:17 am
Where’s the sequel? I have been waiting a long time? My last comment was feb of this year?!
December 5th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
And I’m the first comment in a year! I’m a bit slow onto the comment thread. I downloaded the Colorado Sequence a couple years back (along with a number of other podiobooks) in anticipation of a long road trip. I didn’t get to it during the trip, so it’s been lingering on my hard drive for a while.
The short:
Good-to-great description (occasionally bordering on purple), a good hook at the beginning, but the characters are generally cookie-cutter and the plot becomes progressively more ridiculous as time goes on. Was this inspired by a fever dream? Too much deus ex machina, and the deus in question is a dick.
Setting:
Mostly really nifty and very vividly painted. I don’t think I ever had a moment where I couldn’t picture who was where and what was happening (which is a rarity for my spatial-reasoning-challenged self). Even the later thoroughly fantastical (and outright ridiculous) settings were clear and well-described. It seems like description is Stacey Cochran’s strong point. . . I just wish he would polish his plot and flesh out his characters!
Characters:
The main characters felt flat to me, and the secondary characters were almost all completely cookie cutter. I could start linking the appropriate pages on TV Tropes for all the characters, but that would take too much time. Suffice to say, the characters do not seem to transcend or poke fun at their very cliche nature, they seem to sink into it.
The book also suffered from “House of the Dead syndrome,” where the characters are cutouts on a rail with the plot slamming them from one plot point to another in a sometimes confusing fashion. Even though there was *telling* about a character’s motivation and backstory, (1) it was largely tell, not show, and (2) the motivation explanation usually came just a few minutes or even seconds before it became relevant. In several cases, it felt like the “and here’s their motivation” was tacked on at the moment because the plot needed them to do something specific. What characterization was there was interesting, but it mostly left me wishing for more.
Plot:
It definitely started out compelling for me. I did finish listening to the audiobook, after all, so something must have grabbed me in the first few episodes. And really, the beginning grabbed me by the collar and yanked me in. Who is this Dr. Math Geek, why has she done all these crazy things, what crazy secret of the universe has she discovered? Unfortunately, it held my attention less and less as time went on. I think I listened to the last few episodes (at 2x speed) because I didn’t want all those hours spent listening to be wasted. I’m not sure if I would have enjoyed the story more if I’d stopped without the whole sequence of our crazy troupe of characters on the desert planet.
Things frequently feel contrived. It started out a touch unbelievable but compelling (as much good fiction does), but the ridiculous and inexplicable villainy/chance meetings/inconsistent monsters/minor characters’ deaths/almost-tragedies piled on top of each other to the point of outright silliness. I’m sad to say that I just stopped caring about the characters or the plot resolution several episodes from the end (the key room is what did it). So many things felt like they were in there just because the author thought it would be cool, and it feels like the universe can only be explained by the existence of a nearly all-powerful being who creates all these crazy things for the sole purpose of screwing with the main characters. And despite this, the stakes never really felt high at all after the arrival in Ouray, CO.
The bullet-points:
-I wanted to like this. And while I liked parts of it, the whole just doesn’t do it for me.
-I like character-driven stories, and I feel like this is where the Colorado Sequence fell down. If you like plot-driven stories, you may just love this, particularly if you like/can tolerate the author pulling crazy twists and settings out of his hat.
-This feels like it was inspired by a series of fever-dreams. Why? I’ve written a story with many of the weaknesses that I’m complaining about here that was inspired by exactly that.
-I wish there’d been an editor/a more aggressive editor involved. Even cleaning up some of the more minor stuff (the said said said in dialogue, some smaller plot holes, some science stuff that either needs correction or obfuscation) would have improved this book. It’s got a lot of makings of a good story, but it needs a lot of work to be a story I’d tell my friends to read. Of course, I may not be the target audience.
Do keep writing, Mr. Cochran. First off, the only way to improve is to practice. And secondly, you’ve obviously got some enthusiastic fans, and you’ve got a lot the makings of a great story here.