Rish performs "Derai" (Dumarest #2) on Audible.com

So, the second Earl Dumarest book by E.C. Tubb just became available on Audible.  And here I am to plug it.  Coincidence?

In his second book, from 1968, Earl Dumarest continues going from world to world, hoping to find someone who knows about his long lost homeworld.  He meets a girl, Derai, heir to the House of Caldor, on the planet Hive.  He agrees to protect her on her way back to her world, and ends up stranded there, in the middle of scheming noblemen and giant killer bees.  Somewhere along the way, his feelings for Derai become something greater.

I've spoken a lot about these books, and I really do try to give them my all.  They're well-written, and the action sequences in particular tend to be pretty thrilling.  Hopefully, listeners think so too.

Here is the link:
http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Derai-Audiobook/B00G5H9P1C/ref=sr_1_4?qid=1382755603&sr=1-4

A little overdue

Audiobook Adventures: Chapter 27

Not much to report this time around.

I finished recording "Toyman," the third book in the Dumarest series.  I thought I had till a certain day to turn in the completed reading, but in checking today, I discovered I have five days less than I thought I did.  Even if I edit one whole chapter each day (which is unlikely), I won't make the deadline.  I don't know why I can't be a bit more diligent about recording these things; if I just made a point to record the whole book in, say, a week, then I would better remember the character names and their voices, and I could take my time to edit the recordings, which is the worst part about doing these things anyway.


On that note, I haven't taken on any new projects, at least not for Audible.  I've got the three remaining Dumarest books on my contract, all due before the end of the year, and then I can think about the future, Eckhart.

But that's not entirely true, as I, just a couple of days ago, saw that a Ray Bradbury story was looking for auditions.  I thought about it, and figured I may never again get the chance to be the official narrator for a Bradbury project, and that it would be great to say I did that one day, so I went ahead and sent in my audition.  If I say nothing about it, I guess you'll know I didn't get it.

"Toyman" was a really solid book, and it feels more episodic than the last one, where at least Earl Dumarest fell in love.  In this one, he does get one more step toward his goal, but it's a little step, with a heck of a lot of work to get there.  Once again, Tubb did that thing I complained about in my last post about this stuff, except that he did it twice in "Derai," and once in "Toyman," and even then, at the very end of the book.  There is an action scene, it abruptly ends, and then, afterward, the character tells the other characters what happened.  I'm not at all sure why you'd tell a story this way*, but it must be something Tubb enjoys doing, much like when Stephen King will say, "They went their separate ways.  It was the last time Alex and Amanda would ever see each other alive."

In the last book, I chose for all the characters on the Planet Hive to have English accents, except for the villainous Cyber, who had a nasal American one.  In this book, I decided every citizen of the planet Toy would have American accents, and so, gave this particular Cyber a snooty English one.  There have been a Cyber in each of the three books I've read, and instead of giving all three the same voice--which might have been the way to go--I tried to make them each unique.

I also, for some inexplicable reason, chose to pronounce "laboratory" the other way at one point early in this book.  Then, to my horror, I discovered that later scenes actually took place in the laboratory.  Damn my dialectic creativity.

I also had our thirteen Halloween marathon episodes to edit, and that took a huge chunk--a positive, enjoyable one, though--out of my available edit time.  I wonder, is it better to have too many irons in the fire, or too few?

Rish

*The only real reason I can think of is if it's a children's story you're telling, and by having the narrator alive and well, and looking back on a life-threatening experience, it reassures the listeners that he did, indeed survive.

Rish Outcast 3: Beyond the Fence

Rish is back with his brand new edition.  Will he ever stop?  Yo, I don't know.

In this, Rish presents "Beyond the Fence," probably the shortest story he'll ever do on the show, then talks about its (and his own) shortcomings.  It first appeared here on his blog (in the week where he tried to write a story a day).  He also describes a new story idea he had completely forgotten about by the time he typed up this summary.



Right click HERE to download the episode, select Save Link As, and save the file to your hard drive.

If You Can’t Love Yourself . . .

You know me. You know my sense of identity, and how the loudest Rish Outfield detractor will always be me. I’m not one of those guys who can go on and on about how great I am, or how dead-on that impression was, or how the narration for our latest episode was so awesome it really elevated the material (even if I feel that way).

There are people out there who can do that, though, and they are probably more successful than me. If you can say, “Hey, I wrote a story called 'Arse Assault,' and it’s the deepest, best Period Adventure Comedy you’ll ever read, a true bargain at £8.88!” you have to be more likely to sell a copy than my typical, “I don’t know if it’s any good, but I worked hard on it.” And even that is beyond me, since I’d probably add, “Actually, I could’ve worked harder, but I knew I’d never release it if I kept polishing it every time I went to sell it.”

I wrote a story a couple of years ago that I think is really scary, but I’m too afraid to say that in a blogpost. Is that irony?

I mention this because, I’m currently editing a reading of my story “Office Visit” that Bryan Lincoln narrated last January when we were at the New Media Expo. We got together in Abbie Hilton’s room, set up a bunch of microphones, and recorded for ninety minutes on my story. While I’m sure I mentioned it in my blog back then, it was quite an honor to have such a group wasting thei—er, spending their time performing my work. Renee Chambliss and Lauren Harris voiced the main characters, Marshal Latham was the villain, Big Anklevich voiced the love interest, and Abbie and I voiced the rest of the characters.

I finally started putting it together, and when you’ve got everybody live in a room, the editing process is pretty easy. At first, I was somewhat embarrassed by it. The story seems extraordinarily long, and seems to take forever getting started. I wanted to hit the Rish Outfield from a decade ago for writing two pages of exposition before anything happens, and was embarrassed for the Rish Outfield of months ago for sitting in the room there, all too aware of that fact.

But then, something strange happened. Renee and Lauren started in on their characters, best friends on the cusp of adolescence, and suddenly, the story started coming to life. I don’t know if they were trying to one-up one another (and if so, it was surely unconscious), but they brought excitement, humor, and humanity to those two girls, and just as suddenly, I started grinning, telling the ghosts looking over my shoulder, “Wow, this is really good stuff, isn’t it?”

The ghosts did not contradict me.

The story gets funny, and then it gets scary, and hopefully exciting before the end, but I can’t get over how lucky I was to have all these talented people taking time out of their trip to work on my story. For free.

I remember being in college, running auditions for student films I had written, listening to people read the lines I’d given them, and every once in a while, someone would speak them, and they sounded Really Really Good, as though somebody better than me had written them, as though these were real actors in a real movie. It was an exciting feeling, and it never failed to make me feel talented and proud of my work when it happened.

Now I'm older, and somehow less confident in ways than I was then, and am literally incapable of saying, "I wrote something for so-and-so contest, and I think it's really good." Even that sentence was hard to put down (I ended up substituting "so-and-so" for the name of the contest I entered yesterday).

It's sad, really, and just a part of my messed-up personality. I think some of the stuff I write is not only good, but actually pretty somewhat very good. I just can't say it. I can barely accept thinking it. I don't know where that comes from or how to overcome it. But, if in the near future, you see me write a blog post, talking about a story I wrote that I think is really scary, maybe you can nod and say, "That middle-aged boy is making progress."

Rish Outfield, Fan of Frogs

Rish Performs "Stomping Mad" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch on Audible

Another of the short stories I've recorded is available for sale. This one is "Stomping Mad (A Spade Conundrum)" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. The man known only as Spade has an unpleasant encounter with the woman who's known as the Martha Stewart of Sci-Fi, a woman he despises, but someone else (apparently) despises even more.

I believe I mentioned how much easier the last Spade/Paladin story, "Pandora's Box" was to produce than the first one.  Well, this one seemed to be even easier than that.

This is the first story Ms. Rusch wrote (or published) with the Spade character in it, a sort of SF convention detective who solves mysteries in the unique environment of fan conventions.  The story was published in 1997, and I picked up on that as I was narrating it, but when I got to the copyright at the end, it said 2013, so I may not understand the intricacies of copyright law.

I have recorded (and nearly finished editing) one more of these stories, and Ms. Rusch has apparently written a fifth one that is forthcoming.  With a little energon and a lot of luck, I'll be recording that one in the not too distant future.

Check it out here: http://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-Thrillers/Stomping-Mad-Audiobook/B00FKGVAFI/ref=sr_1_3?qid=1380783704&sr=1-3

I hear from some of my podcasting buddies about the hijinks and joys to be had at small conventions, where drinking and mingling are a greater priority than watching movie footage, buying t-shirts, and getting Power Rangers' autographs.  If I had the personality and finances to go to some of those, it might be pretty memorable.

The subculture of conventioneers and convention attendees is actually quite interesting, and when I lived in L.A., there were a couple of familiar faces I'd see every time I went to a convention (include an albino man who sold bootlegs at the Shrine Auditorium).  I became friends with a fantastic artist who I only ever see at conventions, and gave him three hundred dollars this year, which is a record.  I keep meaning to write a short story taking place at a comic book/Sci-Fi convention, and I nearly achieved it this year, but discovered a flooded basement the night I came home, and still haven't repaired all the damage.  If I had the personality and talent to actually write down my story, it might be pretty memorable too.

Rish Outfield, Convention Defective

Audiobook Adventures: Chapter 26 (or Buh +1)

Part One

Nothing new to report this week. I finished my Kristine Kathryn Rusch story, and within two days, had been given another (presumably my last). I've been given a month to do it, so I oughtn't procrastinate, but since this is probably it, I'd sort of like to savor it and do it after my next novel is in.

Speaking of which, I came to the two-thirds done level of recording the next Dumarest book, but when I went to edit, I discovered that, somehow, I hadn't recorded two chapters. I guess I pressed the button, and it didn't start recording. Then, when I got to a character who hadn't appeared since the second chapter, I stopped the recording to go listen to how I did him the first time (I hadn't written it down). Well, THAT'S where the recording starts, with me going to the old files and listening.*

The chapters in this book are massive, about a half-hour long when edited. To lose two of them was pretty damning when it comes to meeting my deadline . . . which is a mere five days away. But ah well.


Part Two

In the end, I focused solely on that book, and got it finished the day before the deadline.  I worry, though, that there were two chapters where you could hear the damned crickets outside (normally, I'd say "the lovely, romantic calls of crickets," but in this one case, they be damned), and it might be too noticeable, despite my attempts to mask them.  This room gets so hot in the summer, because of all the electronics and sexual frustration, and though I often close the windows and turn off the fan when I record, on one night, I guess I forgot.

As I've mentioned, I signed up to do the first five books in the Dumarest series, and when I looked at how much time I have to do the third book, I discovered (to my horror) that the first fifteen minutes was due the same day as the finalized second book was due.  So, no rest for the wicked, I sat down and read most of the first chapter of "Toyman" by E.C. Tubb, only stopping when it was after three in the morning. 

I edited it the next day, and got it in only a day after it was due.

Oh, and let me briefly complain about something.  For some reason, Tubb's chapters are insanely long.  They are broken up in little sections, which gives you time to breathe, but each edited chapter ends up about half an hour long (which is, what, two hours work for each?), and that always makes me think I've made absolutely no progress on the book.

As it stands, I've done two recording sessions on the new book, and all I have done is the credits and the first chapter.

I complained to Big about a strange tendency in Tubb's writing that bothered me to no end in the second book, and has already continued in the first chapter of the third.  He starts his narrative after major action has already taken place, and has characters talk about it, or sums it up himself.  There was some exciting action and strong dramatic moments in "Derai" that happen in between chapters, that I would guess were due to editorial excisions, except that he does it in the OPENING of the third book.  I think I could probably do a whole post about it, because I just don't get it.  I consider myself a pretty experienced writer (whether that makes me good or not, I won't venture to guess), but I can't understand why the man would make the choices he makes, in describing the buildup to a big disaster, then cutting to its aftermath and having Earl Dumarest explain how everybody else was killed.**

I just read yesterday a screenwriting expert instructing that you want your story to begin as late as it possibly can, and that lengthy prologues or backstories are bad screenwriting.  I thought--as I always do--of STAR WARS, and how it begins with the Imperials having tracked down the Rebels, and that there would be "No escape for the Princess this time."  That certainly seems to follow that, and it made me think of my recent story "Unreleased," and how I cut out the entire first section (basically a prologue) to make it closer to the length requirement of the podcast that ran it, figuring me telling how the old man gets the bottle back was less important than what he does with it once he's got it.  I am 94% ready to put that story up for sale (I'm going to try Smashwords first on this one, then Amazon), but that the longer version of the story breaks that screenwriting rule . . . and may be weaker because of it.

I say may be.  I don't know for sure.

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK starts with the Imperials releasing probes, then cuts to the planet Hoth, where Luke and Han are already out patrolling on their tauntauns.  Luke talks to Han and is immediately attacked.  I suppose you could easily have begun with Luke, Han, and Leia in the Echo Base, and General Reikkan asking for volunteers to go out on patrols.  But they didn't.

Conversely, RETURN OF THE JEDI originally began with Luke on Tatooine, putting the finishing touches on his new lightsaber, and inserting it into Artoo's dome.  Vader, communicating via the Force, tells Luke that he a) is his son, and b) must turn to the Dark Side.  This scene was shot, edited, and even scored by John Williams before George Lucas ultimately cut it, deciding to simply show the droids on their way to see Jabba the Hutt.  Obviously, Lucas was trying to start the story as late as possible, though the screenwriter might suggest he could've cut the journey to Jabba's palace and simply started with Artoo and Threepio arriving at the big gate.  I don't know, but now I'm paranoid about my writing.

I need to just post this, because once I start talking about STAR WARS, forever will it dominate my destiny.  Consume me, it will.

The point is, E.C. Tubb has a strange habit of cutting out the expensive action sequences and focusing on the cheap conversation afterward, which is totally understandable if you're a low-budget filmmaker.  Not that he is.

And now I'm outright criticizing, which was not my intention.  The man's writing is really strong, and I do feel honored to be able to read (at least) these first five books.  And that reminds me, I really ought to get to work on that, if I'm to finish the whole book before Halloween.

Rish Outfield, Audiobook Reader

*I guess it's fortunate, in retrospect, that I stopped the recording for that, or all of the sixth chapter would've been lost, instead of just most of it.

**I remember that Rolling woman doing something similar in "Harry Potter 7," where the battle is ended, and suddenly both Lupin and Tonks lie dead, having been killed while she was describing other action.  I understand that it's Harry's story (and secondarily, Ron and Hermione's), but when interviewed, Jo Rolling stated exactly who killed Lupin and his new wife, and how they died, leading me to think it was a deliberate decision not to include it.

Rish Performs "The Last Man" on Audible.com

When I first moved to Los Angeles, one of my jobs was with the F/X Network, a cable channel located on the 20th Century Fox lot.  I worked in the F/X vault, which was an underground, cooled room with thousands of oversized videotapes.  Each day, I'd be given the programming schedule for the next day, and have to find all the tapes and put them in order, on a trolley, and then they'd be put it cartons and taken (via golf cart) to the broadcast center.  Each day, I'd be responsible for returning the previous day's tapes, and even though it was an easy job, the hours I spent in that vault, alone, were really monotonous.  To pass the time, every day for a couple of weeks, I imagined that some kind of huge bomb went off outside while I was down there, and it had somehow sheltered me.  When I emerged, I found that L.A. was in ruins, and it appeared I was alone.  After exploration, I discovered there were only a handful of people left who had survived (due to happenstance like mine).  Among them were my old boss at the production company that made my life hell (she was the villain of the piece), homeless cannibals, and Katie Holmes.

Yeah, I probably need counseling.

I mention this because I recently narrated a book by Ryan King called "The Last Man," wherein a husband and father, Sam, finds himself the only survivor of a plague that wipes out literally every other human being within hundreds of miles.  The story picks up a couple of years after the holocaust, with Sam traveling along the East Coast with a bunch of friendly dogs.  Sam longs to find a purpose in life now that everyone else is gone, and mostly just drives or walks from town to town, finding (or catching) food, and encountering various obstacles.

The idea of being alone in the world is not a new one, and I knew it was inevitable he would encounter somebody else alive before the book's end (though probably nobody who had appeared on "Dawson's Creek").  It therefore surprised me that it happened almost immediately, within the first dozen pages of the book, and pleased me to no end to discover that the people he ran into were only figments of his imagination.  All too easy to believe, from someone who had adventures exploring abandoned mansions in Beverly Hills, bicycling unmolested to the ocean in Santa Monica, and traveled to the exotic pet store over by the Mormon temple to feed the fish each day, all in my mind.

I previously narrated Ryan's book "No Kinda Life," and if I had a complaint about the two books, it's that I was left wanting more when the stories ended.  That's not not really a criticism so much as a desire to experience more in those two post-apocalyptic worlds.

Here is the link: http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-Last-Man-Audiobook/B00EV18WJK/ref=sr_1_19?qid=1380324057&sr=1-19.

I got paid to read it, so I get nothing if you buy it, but it might bring us closer together.  And who knows, like me, you may also sit up and say, "Wait, Mary Shelley wrote a post-apocalyptic novel called 'The Last Man' two centuries ago?"

Rish Outfield, The Last Boy

The Podcast That Dares Not Speak Its Name 5: The Signalman

It has been many months since I put out an episode of my original solo podcast, the one which should not be named aloud.  It's been so long that I can't remember if I used to post them here or just send them out to Dunesteef subscribers.

But, I recorded these before I ever had my Rish Outcast, so I need to release them somewhere.  In this one, I perform and discuss Charles Dickens's "The Signalman."  Hilarity does not ensue.



Right click HERE to download the episode, select Save Link As, and save the file to your hard drive.

Rish Performs "The Backworlds" on Audible.com

I know it hasn't been, but it seems like a long time since I've done one of these.

A while back, I finished production on "The Backworlds," by M. Pax.  It's one of the last novels I auditioned for, before realizing I was crazy to be taking on so many projects, and I'll admit that it's taken me longer than it should have (I still made it in before the deadline, though, which is a record I'm oddly proud of, considering nobody else knows, and few seem to care about due dates).

Initially, I believe the author told me it was a cross between "Star Trek" and "Firefly."  How could one resist?  The author had very little direction for me (which is usually nice), except for the kind of voices to give three or four of the characters.  I have to warn you, though, that one of those is highly annoying (or has the potential to be, anyway).  My fault, not the author's.

So, a couple friends of mine have talked about how sexist the world, and by association, the fiction community is, and how women from far and near have to use initials instead of their first names, use photographs of their fathers for the book jacket, and are required to wear a banana in their pantaloons when doing public appearances.  This particular author has been forced to use the initial "M." instead of his/her first name, because of this sad tendency.*

This is a shame, and I hope, with the advent of J.K. Rolling, Stephenie Meyer, and Suzanne Collins, the stigma against female writers is extinguished.

Regardless, "The Backworlds" is a fun Science Fiction book about the son of a barman, who is forced to go out into the big, scary galaxy to make his fortune.  He's basically chased off his world, and left to his own wits to get ahead.  Fortunately, he immediately meets up with a couple of similar youths, both with aspirations of wealth and adventure.

The main character is pretty decent and gormless, and unprepared for those who would take advantage of his naivete.  In trying to find his destiny, he makes enemies and friends along the way . . . and then the story ends.

That's my main criticism with this book, and it's really not a criticism at all.  I wanted to read more about the adventures of Craze and Talos and Lepsi, etc..  Luckily, this was just the first book in a series, as they all are, and lots more fun is to be had.

Here's the link: http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-Backworlds-Audiobook/B00F3JRSEE/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1379192882&sr=1-1  If this sells, you never know, Ms. Pax may ask me to narrate another.

Rish Outfield, Hackworlds

*I'm reminded of the Hispanic actor A. Martinez, who had to do the same with his first name when he first started his career, because, well, the world is so sexist that nobody would accept an actor with the name Adolf.

Audiobook Adventures: Chapter Buh

After editing thirteen That Gets My Goat marathon episodes, it was surprisingly easy to make the shift over to editing books for Audible again.  For a while.

I finished one book the other day, and need to choose a five minute excerpt to use as my audio sample for it.  I'm also on Chapter Four of "Derai," the second book in the Dumarest of Terra series, where I have a five-book contract.  I was excited the other day to be reading user comments on io9 and see the Dumarest series mentioned.  On the downside . . . I was reading user comments on an io9 article.

"Derai" has been slow-going, mostly because of my own lack of dedication.  There are so many characters, and again, not having read more than a synopsis of the book before beginning (rather than the entire book), I don't know which characters are important and which are incidental.  Hence, I gave one of the main characters one of my standard Evil British voices, only to discover that he is the good member of that family, and I have to temper that bad guy voice so as not to sound misleadingly sinister.  Sigh.

Here's a little aside, though: man, I have so many plates in the air.  I wish I had some kind of switch in the back of my head that said, "Nope, you are never going to finish that, do not start.  I mean it, you already have a huge list of projects you're in the middle of, and you have way less ambition than you think you do.  Stop beginning new projects."  But I don't.

Oh, and one other challenge on this book: it turns out that the title character is a mind-reader.  This is revealed early enough on that I realized I was going to have to differentiate between spoken lines and inner monologues.  In text, it's traditionally been conveyed simply by having the thoughts be in italics, and "the spoken phrases in quotation marks."  I have chosen to put an echo on the characters' thoughts, despite having heard that that's "corny" or "cliched" or "childish" or "unprofessional" in audiobook circles.  I have listened to many books, however, where the ear cannot differentiate between the spoken dialogue and the thoughts of characters, and I become confused, or just as often, infuriated, because it sounds as though the inspector just called his supervisor a cowardly ponce, and got away with it.

I made the decision to do the echo in "Derai" because it simply has to be understood that when Earl thinks something, and Derai responds to it, that he did not say it, but she eavesdropped into his thoughts.  I know it's possible to convey that by simply changing the tone of my voice in the narration, but I challenge any of you to do so, and be confident the listener will realize that's what you're doing.  In fact, I challenge you to go out and start doing audiobooks yourself, if you're so frigging smart. 

Whoops, I guess I went a bit astray, didn't I?  The consequence of this decision is that, now, every single character's thought will have to be echoed, because it's the precident I have set.  Again, it may be possible to only echo the "transmitted thoughts," if you will, but I am not merely the narrator, I'm the producer as well, and just like television, the producer is king.

I am close to finishing editing another short story for sale.  I prefer short stories to novels, simply because of my aversion to hard work, but I reached a sentence that was so unacceptably false in the story that I heard myself say, "Oh, fuck you!" during the narration.  It made me laugh hard enough that I stopped editing and got on here to blog about it.

It's something I've complained to Big about before.  Just like bad special effects, I have a low tolerance for Oh Fuck You moments in audiobooks.  There have been some which made me push eject and throw the disc (or cassette in my younger years) into the back seat.  Just thought I'd share that.

I've got another deadline looming, and unless I reeeeally change my ways, it's going to be the first one since I started this that I miss.  I really ought to stop typing this and go to work.  Sorry.

Rish Outfield, Actually About To Log Into Facebook