Seth Harwood storms back on the crime podcast fiction scene with Young Junius. This is the prequel to his “Jack Palms” series.
Before Jack Palms ever shook ‘em down, Junius Ponds came up on tough streets outside Boston way back in the day. In the middle of drugs, gang violence, and the toughest set of tower-projects you ever knew, Young Junius fights to escape the consequences of a murder he had to commit and tries to live long enough to avenge the death of his brother.
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on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 3:26 pm and is filed under New Books.
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September 2nd, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Only three episodes in but already this story is on par with the excellent ‘Jack Palms’ series. More genius from the Kingpin of Crime – Seth Harwood.
September 25th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Another excellent story from the master of crime novel podcasting. Seth draws you from the moment you hear the story and in no time the entire day is gone. Great characters, fine pacing, location, location, location, Seth tells a great story. Can’t wait to see this one in print. What in the ‘Dickens’ is happening here!
November 6th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
this story is badass. Seth does it again. I even talked to my friend from the hood and he says it is straight gansta
December 20th, 2008 at 1:06 am
I think with this novel, Seth got back to the style and quality he showed in the first Jack Palms novel, “Jack Wakes Up.” Sure, there’s violence in this story, but there’s a very serious attitude about violence. One can really see how the younger Junius in this prequel turns into the Junius Ponds in the first Jack Palms novel. It makes sense of that book in the way reading “The Hobbit” makes sense of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, for example. That’s one of the finer things a prequel can do. That’s how you know he got it right.
A good prequel also has to stand on it’s own as an interesting, energetic and vibrant tale in its own right. This one does. It takes the reader into a world that most of us will never visit, and would rather not visit. But it helps, perhaps, understanding how people survive in a world where drugs and guns and blood are always part of business, but not business as usual. Kids still grow up, make mistakes, get into trouble, and survive somehow.
Young Junius is an anti-hero, certainly. But he’s an anti-hero we can respect, who does what he feels he needs to do. He makes wrong choices, but he’s overrun by events outside his control. He feels he must “take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them.” In context, what else could he do?
And without those events, who might he have been, and what might he have become? We’ll never know. But we’re given a glimpse of the potentials and forces that made the scared but determined boy into the fierce and indomitable man.
You should listen.
April 20th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
I just heard that there’s a character with the same name as me in this story. Let me tell you it adds a certain tension to the plot line!
Gotta get started, I’m 28 episodes behind!
May 3rd, 2009 at 4:18 pm
As Scot Sigler says ‘Lots and LOOOOOTS of violence!’
May 27th, 2009 at 8:13 am
This is an excellent story which really manages to get it’s ‘ghetto across’. The attitude and entire swagger of the blocks is definately well portrayed. By any means of a crime story this is up there with the best of them.
As a black male I was quite surprised with the boldness of Seth to use the ‘N’ word as much as he did – but Im not offended in the least as its more than true talk in those situations, big up for the balls but I wouldnt advise presenting an audio demo of this in any hood…
I also dig the story and style of this book, its not the fact that I am of ethnic orgin myself its just the crime and real talk drug wars are very interesting not just for me but for many of my friends of all orgins, I wish there were more books of this dare I say ‘Urban’ genre out there but there are a real lack of black authours which are brave enuff to bring this hard hitting stuff to paper and even less capable aurthors which have the stones to do it… Let alone as well as Seth did.
Great Book. Well Presented.
1
July 3rd, 2009 at 8:58 am
A great story and wonderful prequal ro Jack Wakes Up.
July 20th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
superb- I fell asleep with the dialogue flowing through my head and woke up with it still there- led to some vivid dreams-
as good as anything that Seth has written and I’d go so far as to say his most complete and well rounded book.
urban terror
August 25th, 2009 at 1:49 am
Another story that had me enthused such that despite the numerous chapters I was though whole works in just under a week. There is no questioning Seth Harwood’s ability to spin a good tale. He has done a good job of taking a relatively straight forward plot with very short time line and infused it with realistic and engaging dialogue, a well planned sequence of escalating events, and some fairly violent action. The result is an intense account of (for the most part) black urban ghetto life. There is a depth of realism that drags you into the territorial and tribal disputes of gang warfare, the dark shadows of drug dealing, and the unpleasant consequences it has not only for those involved but to others unfortunate enough to dwell within the bounds of the deprived demographic.
This is a savvier piece of writing than some of Seth Harwood’s other work and it is good to see that he is still improving, but I think there is a way for this author to go before he reaches his full potential, as in my opinion his writing does have a few short comings. Conversely this is quite encouraging as he does have an undeniable flair that allows him to produce gripping pieces such as this.
There are some issues I had with the story but nothing too significant. A far as I can determine the story appears to take place in the early to mid 80′s when crack first emerged, but the colourful street language is definitely closer to the more contemporary style of slang that perpetrates the streets today. Having said that, the dialogue is good, but I think there could be a little more variation in style of speech from the characters, particularly between that of the different generations. No mention of pagers which, with my limited knowledge of drug dealing, is supposedly as essential to the trade as a spanner to a mechanic. There is a degree of repetition which could be cleaned up with some tight editing, and later chapters in particular could definitely benefit from some tightening up in general.
I’m ‘nit picking’ a bit here, but I think this story could certainly benefit from some pre-release scrutiny, both from the writing and recording perspective. Just a few minor improvements would really raise the bar of this piece and remove flaws which really shouldn’t be present in work of this calibre.
The audio for me was the most disappointing aspect of this production. Although the actual recording quality is quite good more work is required to bring it up to acceptable ‘Podiobook’ quality. There is repetition of sentences, some unacceptable gaps in passages, especially when sections are terminated with short inserts of audio. I don’t know what the small music inserts that bridge sections of a story are called, but firstly they are not neatly cropped, and secondly are poorly cued into the story which causes an unpleasant disruption in the tempo.
Seth Harwood does have an appealing sounding voice which plays in favour as a narrator. Here again he has improved vastly as this is a far better reading than ‘Jack Wakes Up’, but he still needs to do some work on his inflection and the consistency of his delivery.
Still, this one gets a firm thumbs up from me.
March 30th, 2011 at 2:28 pm
Seth Harwood is without doubt a crime fiction genious!! Absolutely Brilliant!