Ancient Rising – Rise of the Ancients Book 1
JC De La Torre adds to our collection of fantasy free serialized audiobooks. He’s releasing Ancient Rising – Rise of the Ancients Book 1:
A widower is set off on an amazing adventure by a man claiming to be a God. Like Indiana Jones meets Clash of the Titans, follow Dan Ryan through Egypt, Greece, and the Mexican jungle as he unlocks the keys to finding the lost continent of Atlantis and the Gods that are imprisoned there.
As per our standing operational orders, the first five episodes are in the default feed. We anticipate JC to add at least one episode per week, but he can do more or less. So if you want to nab them all right and play the waiting game, go ahead. Or you can take a custom feed and get episodes delivered to you one at a time on a schedule you determine. Either way, it’s free.
June 6th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
The recording quality is bad,story may be good but, the reader is reading to fast & speaking too close to the microphone. That Catphone ring just about killed my ears. I couldn’t stand to listen after that. You may consider re-recording.
June 7th, 2009 at 2:23 am
Listened to the first two minutes of the recording and then stopped. The story may be good but the recording is definitely bad. Too many plops and hishes. JC, please get a better microphone and a plop filter and re-record!
June 7th, 2009 at 7:45 am
Thanks for the feedback folks, I’m sorry you had issues with the recording – I do hear some of the plops but as you surmised I don’t have a plop filter. I’ll do my best to re-record and see if we can get a better version. Sorry!
June 7th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Hey folks, just to follow up on these techinical issues – I believe one of the main problems is the levels are way too high. I overcompensated a bit when trying to make sure the entire broadcast was audible. That’s should take care of the hissing and the screeching from the cat effect (the only effect in the broadcast, btw). As for the plops, unfortunately I can’t take care of those until I get better equipment. I’ll do that as quickly as I can and just try to do the best I can with what I have. Once I have the new equipment, I’ll re-record and fix the speech patterns so they’re not as quick. I did notice that in my later episodes my reading definitely slows down and is at a more natural pace. I’m hoping to have the new files uploaded to podiobooks later today and once they’re approved, they should replace the existing files.
Again, sorry for the inconvenience – when you’re so close to the broadcast you don’t really hear these issues until they’re brought to your attention.
JC
June 8th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
The sound is a problem but not enough to put me off listening to the story which so far has been great.
June 9th, 2009 at 6:27 am
I thought the sound problem was a minor issue (okay, the catphone startled me, but I thought that was a pretty good effect, because the mood is like that). I have listened to the two first episodes and will continue listening. The first episode describing the loss of the main character is very powerful and descriptive, I found.
June 9th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Thanks for the feedback Jason and Morten! I’m glad you’re enjoying the story thus far.
June 18th, 2009 at 9:17 am
The reading is so off-putting that it makes the writing hard to evaluate fairly. I think the writing is good.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Listen to this book guys. The recording might not be top of the line but the story is really great. I haven’t really enjoyed a Podiobook other than The House of Grey for a long long time and I am REALLY enjoying this story. It’s not so technical that I lose my focus, it keeps moving, and has a good balance of sadness, adventure, and mystery.
July 15th, 2009 at 12:16 am
Good story. Interesting. Fine listen.
And ja, the pace of the narration is bit hurried, pauses are missing in the appropriate places and emphasis is lacking in others. Still, eminently listenable, you ask me. (It’s like getting a good meal on a paper plate.)
Didn’t notice any extraneous noises.
I like the story very much so far.
August 2nd, 2009 at 7:02 am
There will be a slight delay in the release of this week’s episode as I’ve been concentrating on the launch of the new book.
If you’re interested in the next installment of the series, purchase Rise of the Ancients – Annuna at Amazon and most other book retailers.
Thanks again for the support, we should be back in our normal rotation next week!
JC
September 7th, 2009 at 10:19 am
I’m really enjoying the book except for parts of the latest chapter.
I just wanted to mention that although I’m not a prude and am not against erotic fiction (unless it includes violence), I found the introduction of gratuitous graphic sexual detail to be jarring; it didn’t seem necessary and it doesn’t add to the story. It just didn’t seem logical to suddenly go X-Rated on us. Maybe on the next recording you might just summarize the encounter. IMHO.
Thanks for making your stories available at Podiobooks – I appreciate it.
September 17th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Next week?
NEXT WEEK!?
September 23rd, 2009 at 1:31 pm
I am still waiting for the next episode.
I really wanted to encourage authors to use this approach, so I sent payment just after I started reading the first few chapters. It is very disappointing still waiting for the next chapter 6 weeks later.
I am feeling rather ripped off.
September 23rd, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Rob,
I never fund an incomplete book for this precise reason. If JC doesn’t finish the project, I’ll happily refund your money. Heck, you don’t even have to wait for that. Just let me know. I want you happy with our site, even if an author doesn’t follow through.
November 11th, 2009 at 6:57 am
Glad to see the book has been taken up again.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Hey Suzanne, I debated with the sex scene for quite awhile. I don’t know if you could tell during the broadcast, I wasn’t very comfortable doing it.
However, I wanted to stay true to the book, thus I put it in there.
I will tell you it’s the only graphic scene in the book.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Hey foks,
I just wanted to again apologize for the delay between the broadcasts. Technical issues effecting both the software and hardware of my recording equipment prevented my ability to record new episodes.
I had thought I had them fixed, but when I recorded, the sound quality of the broadcasts were horrible.
Rather than subject you to sub par broadcasts, I asked Evo to temporarily suspend the broadcasts until something could be worked out.
Eventually, I found a solution.
While using Daniel and company, there won’t be my character emphasis, I sincerely hope you’ll continue to enjoy the broadcasts.
The good news is since we’re recording with Daniel, the production time is significantly less. We should have an episode a week, starting with the first two already released.
Again, I’m so sorry for the delay. If there was any way to avoid it, I certainly would have.
Thanks so much for the interest and for listening.
Sincerely,
JC De La Torre
Author of Ancient Rising and the Rise of the Ancients saga
November 12th, 2009 at 6:11 am
Thanks for the note and glad you’re back. It’s not easy being a Podiobook author!
November 20th, 2009 at 7:04 am
I have really enjoyed listening to this book, the characters are interesting, and the story is great!
Unfortunatly, I had to stop at episode 12, when the author stopped narrating and someone else took over. Daniel, the new narrator, does not seem to put emphasis on any words, he just kind of drones on in the same monotonous voice.
I admit that I don’t know much about narration or voice acting, but the new narrator does not seem to make any effort at all to make the book entertaining. The emotion-less, droning voice just makes the story too hard to follow.
I will buy the book, so that I can finish the story, but I can’t bring myself to listen to anymore episodes of the podiobook.
November 20th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
The story is interesting and well worth listening to if you enjoy fantasy. This is the first time I’ve come across the use of synthesised voices for a podiobook. It’s not too bad and the enunciation of some words is entertaining.
November 27th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Glad to see the book is back online again…
The synthesized voices are actually quite good, but still not as good as real humans. Some are quite a bit better than others. The professor is very hard to hear and understand.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Dan, I’m sad to see you go. I knew this approach wouldn’t be for everyone.
As the others have mentioned – Daniel and his friends are computer generated voices. They’re the best that money can buy, but even that doesn’t top a real person. (Although, some say that Daniel is better than I am at narrating – I don’t necessarily disagree with that, either).
I’ve tried, with the tricks of editing to make them sound more lifelike but it is what it is.
Evo has told me he is against me continuing on in this format.
Unfortunately, due to my PC issues and the lack of funds to be able to hire a live voice actor, this is my only solution.
I plan on finishing the story, whether it be here or on my website at http://www.jcdelatorre.com.
I’m hopeful it will be here but that’s up to Evo, it’s his site and if he feels this is not up to the quality he wants on here, then that’s his call.
The one question I have for you, my beloved listeners. Do you want me to continue with the character voices (the professor, mina, ect.) or just have Daniel read the entire thing?
You won’t get the full effect with Daniel, with Doc Constant’s accent and Mina’s female voice, it will seem a little weird.
However, you’ll definitely be able to understand the speech much more clearly as Daniel annunciates extremely well.
Let me know what you think!
Once the book is finished, I plan on re-recording the original episodes with Daniel so they are uniform and you don’t have half the episodes be me while the other half is Daniel.
I don’t think that will be allowed on this site, so if interested, you’ll need to look for it on my site down the line.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Oh and just an FYI…we’re getting close to the end. I estimate about four more episodes to go…
December 20th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Hey Folks, we haven’t forgotten about you – in fact, I’m trying to finish up the book before next Friday.
You should see some episodes released in a day or two, followed by the final two before Friday (depending on quality control).
Thanks for listening!
December 20th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Hey gang, as promised the final episodes have been uploaded and are passing QC muster.
Please note, it appears Episode 17 has shown up before Episode 16 due to some issues with Quality Control. If you don’t want to lose your spot in the story, please wait until Episode 16 is released (should be today or tomorrow) before continuing on to Episode 17 and the rest.
December 30th, 2009 at 6:51 am
First off, let me say that I hope you’ll rresolve the technical difficulties and re-record the last chapters, because the stilted voices really work hard to take away some of the joy of the story. Good thing the story’s so good! It’s a brililant twist on the Indiana Jones-theme! Congrats! (and will Annuna also be available as an audiobook? (doesn’t have to be free, look at veinarmor.com – I’d happily pay the $3 for it – just make it available with some real-human’s voices!)
January 2nd, 2010 at 9:38 pm
Marco,
Thanks so much for listening, I’m really glad you enjoyed the book.
We’ll definitely be fixing up Ancient Rising as soon as possible. As for Annuna being on audiobook, right now it’s undecided.
My focus right now is fixing Ancient Rising’s podcast and finishing up my short story collection which was originally scheduled to be out in December but again…I’ve fallen behind my deadlines.
If Annuna is going to be done, it’s going to be completely pre-recorded (with real voices) before ever coming to podiobooks.
It makes it easier for everyone that way.
Thanks again!