Over on the Anklecast, Big has been presenting segments of his novella "Digital Wizards," month to month. In the newest episode, Rish joins him to talk about the completed story, where the idea came from, and how you are supposed to feel about the main character.
I thought it was an interesting discussion, but of course, I have a bias. Maybe you could go over and judge for yourself, RIGHT HERE.
When an online investigative journalist is approached about a mysterious object being kept under wraps by the government, she is surprised to find something truly otherworldly, not to mention dangerous. For her.
*Perhaps that's why they never come to me anymore. There may be folks out there who can do a dozen voices and accents, instead of my usual three.
Rish here. One of the podcast anthologies that asks me to do narrations for them--the last one being the unfortunately-located "The Cat That Went To Uranus"--is Cast of Wonders.
Recently, they had me narrate "Silver Screen Syndrome" by Mia Xuan. The father of the narrator is suffering from an uncommon mental (or physical?) disorder wherein he only comes alive and alert when cameras are on him, to increasingly diminishing results.
It's one of those Science Fiction stories that is clearly about Something Else, but cloaked in the fantastic so as to make the subject more palatable to a 1950s audience. Having to be around someone you love when their mind is deteriorating has got to be difficult, and I can imagine the writer of this story dealing with that by creating a malady that's distant from reality, yet just as baffling and/or frustrating as the real thing.
The story is extremely short, and yet it had half a dozen words in it I did not know how to pronounce, which is pretty rare nowadays. I did the best I could with it, but whether my performance is affective (or affecting) or not really depends on the listener. Find out for yourself HERE.
Rish here. I often mention it when I narrate or lend my voice to a story on other podcasts, but I suppose I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Emerian Rich has recently put out a collection of stories that she performed on the HorrorAddicts podcast, many of which feature my voice as well.
Rish here. Hey there, sir, would you take a look at that portrait there? What shape would you say it is? Not a square or a rectangle, but definitely not a circle. Hmmm.
The other day, I sat down to record some audio (I finished another reading of a Lara & The Witch story), when I got a text from Marshal Latham, reminding me it was Poe Month on his podcast.* He was thinking of running "The Gold Bug" again (Princess Leia forbid), and I told him I could record something. While I waited for his reply, I did a search for Edgar Allan Poe stories, and found "The Oval Portrait," which I had never read. It was short, so maybe I could record and edit it in time.
A minute later, I got the message from Marshal, "How about The Oval Portrait?"
Well, it was Karma, I suppose, so I quickly performed the story, got it edited, and sent to Marshal the same day. Like I said, it's real short.
So, the newest episode of Journey Into... is up and available. Feel free to check it out HERE, and feel free-er to go HERE and support Marshal's fine podcast on Patreon. Tell 'em Large Marge sent ya.
*To all who celebrate.
Rish here. So, another of my readings is available for you to listen to. This one is "The Cat That Went To Uranus," by Dan Peacock. It's over at the Cast of Wonders podcast now.
In editing my reading, I questioned the voice I assigned the main character (if it's set today, no way would a NASA mission have a commander with an English accent), but the story's author is OBVIOUSLY not American, by the words, spelling, and phraseology he uses, and things sounded more natural with that accent*, so that's the choice I made.
I did two other voices for the other human characters, as well as meowing for the cat, and my own made-up language for the remaining character. Feel free to check it out HERE.
*Can you imagine if the American actors in THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING had retained their filthy Yank accents while delivering that odd pseudo-medieval dialogue? Can you imagine it?????
If you like, check out last week's Tales To Terrify podcast, where you can hear me perform the story "The Sin Eater's Chrysalis" by Matt Hollingsworth.
It tells the story of a lonely, bitter man who, like his father before him, is able to consume the sins of the recently-dead so that they can go to Heaven, using some pretty disgusting supernatural methods. But every consumption takes its mental and spiritual toll on the sin-eater, so he determines that nobody will follow in his footsteps. It's a dark one, more so than . . . gee, any story in memory I've been asked to do, and way more so than anything I've written.
Sound fun? Go TO THIS LINK to find out.
Rish here. The last time "Cast of Wonders" asked me to narrate a story was "My Hilt Itches" in May of 2022. Seems like longer, but hey, better late(ish) than never.
Every writer has his or her strengths and weaknesses. There are naturally subjects and scenarios I am drawn to, and some I tend to stay as far away from as I can. One of those that I've struggled with is the dystopian future of Science Fiction or Horror.
This story, "Window Boy" by Thomas Ha, is a pretty masterful attempt at the age-old idea of a utopian future story . . . where it becomes clear that it's not a utopia at all. It's also a fanciful Sci-Fi tale about an innocent child that becomes a truly chilling Horror piece by the end.*
Jakey lives with his parents in a world where you don't go outside, but there are TV shows about cybernetic mailmen that protect the outside world from the monsters that roam its streets. And pretty much every night, Jakey has a conversation with the boy who comes to the window, shares a sandwich with him, and asks him questions about the house he lives in.
Dang, this was a good one--in fact, I'm going to interrupt this blog post and write the author an email about it. Well, that felt good. I suggest you do the same, if there's a writer you know of that could use a word of appreciation for their work. In the meantime, check out my performance of "Window Boy" HERE. But don't get too close.
*That is, if I interpreted it the way the author intended. Maybe I didn't. But if that's the case, well, that would mean the story was much less than the sum of its parts. And I don't think so.
Rish here. Another of my performances is available on the Tales To Terrify podcast. This times it's "Don’t Go in the Woods…or Do, See If I Care!" by Patrick Barb.
An old man tries to warn young people about the local cursed summer camp, but will they listen? Do they ever?
If you've ever seen the first two FRIDAY THE 13TH movies, you'll recognize who this story is from the point-of-view of. And that makes it quite unique. You can check it out RIGHT HERE.
For the record, this is my seventh story for them, the others being:
Eric J. Guignard’s A Case Study in Natural Selection and How It Applies to Love
Warren Benedetto’s Something’s Wrong with Mom
Edith Nesbit’s Man-Size in Marble
Tyler Jones’ Who Built the Moon?
Carrie Lee South’s Feeding On Ourselves
Emily J. Weisenberger’s The Prairie’s Song
I suggest you check them all out; the narrator is excellent.
Rish here. All four versions of my "Female Protagonist" collection are available to purchase.
If you'd rather buy it for a Kindle, phone, or tablet, it's HERE.
If you prefer a paperback version, go HERE.
And for the crazy ones, there's a hardcover available HERE.
Thanks for looking (and listening)!
Has Big Anklevich gone too far? Well, that's up to you, but the most recent episode of the Anklecast is the first one I can remember with a content warning.
Misguided Trent and brilliant Brent are two childhood friends whose lives go in very different directions as they grow up. While Trent seems to make all the wrong decisions, Brent uses his genius to create a way for his friend to go back, all those years ago, and maybe do something about it. Maybe.
It's a rough story, but it was apparently meant to (I can't remember what the exact prompt was both of us were writing to), and we talk about that afterward. Check it out HERE.
Rish here. Big and I are back together, doing what we do best, on the newest Anklecast (Episode 65). Big tells the tale "Servants of the Master," his dip of the toe in the pool of vampire fiction.
Jerome and Kirk attempt to do battle with an infestation of vampires, but before they do, they get advice from famous YouTuber, Johnny Staker, he who's staked a hundred vampires.
Afterward, we talk about vampire fiction, clichés, and pet peeves. Check it out HERE.
Warning: The podcast is something from inside the house.
The suspense was killing you, but Big has finally published the second half of his story "Karma Is My Boyfriend" over on the Anklecast podcast. Rish voices Thor again, as well as two other characters, then hangs out to talk about Big's story in the rest of the episode (and Big's reputation as a cruel and heartless bastage).
Check it out HERE . . . if you dare.
Marshal "The Acupuncturist" Latham has finally put out the second-place winner in his (cursed) Quardle Quell story contest. It's by R.C. Anderson, called "The Decline of the West (And Other Terrorist Photo Galleries)," about a computer programmer who stumbles upon a pattern that might be a far-reaching conspiracy.
Rish voices Zoltan, an Eastern European computer hacker, which, yeah, is typecasting. Also featured are Bria Burton, Josh Roseman* and Marshal himself.
Check it out HERE.
*Not THAT Josh Roseman, though.
Over at the Anklecast, Big is presenting a novella he just wrote, called "Karma Is My Boyfriend," about a dude who discovers his crazy ex is dating . . . well, let's just say it's the physical embodiment of the Buddhist concept of deserved consequences. Rish voices a character named Thor, and Big voices all the rest. Afterward, we talk about the story's origin, and bad-mouth Marshal Latham.
Oh, and there's more to come! Check it out HERE.
Recently, Marshal Latham had a rather diabolical writing contest over at the Journey Into... podcast, call the Quordel Quell. Each entrant was given four words, generated by a game of Quordel, that we were supposed to craft a story around. After a lot of struggle, Rish submitted a story called "With A Banjo On My Knee," which tells of Garrett McClaren's discovery of a banjo that seems to have an unusual, maybe even magical effect on people.
Well, Marshal has created a production of that story over on the Journey Into... podcast, and it's available now, if you'd like to listen to it. He went nuts with full-cast (again), and there are a bunch of familiar faceless voices in this one, like Dave Thompson, Rene Chambliss, Gino Moretto, Bria Burton, and both Big and Rish.
Feel free to check it out HERE.
Norm continues to do fine work, which you can check out at THIS LINK.
As you know (Robert), Campfire Radio Theater continually presents the highest-quality audio dramas in podcast form, usually in disturbing and/or totally effed-up ways. This month's story is called "Desecrate," and I know nothing about the plot, because I'm too scared to listen to it. But if you're braver than me, and want to hear Rish voice the sheriff, check it out HERE.
Writer/director John Ballentine proves that anyone can be prodigious, as long as they're 40% talented, 50% hard-working, and 10% stark, raving mad. These guys always do, hands-down, the highest-quality audio drama, and show no signs of stopping.
Rish here. I've got another reading up at New York's Kaleidocast. Sam Schreiber sent us a couple of stories back in the Dunesteef days, so it was a pleasure to get to record his story "And the Raucous Depths Abide" for Kaleidocast. Of course, they commission their episodes so far in advance (I believe this one came to me in September or October of 2022) that I could barely remember the plot--something about two alien machines that come to earth to observe our evolution, only to have one lose its mind and become a threat.
It's packaged as a double-feature with a story called The Tallest Doll in New York City, so that sounds like a win-win to me. You can check it out HERE.
Rish here. Hey, do you remember that Luc Besson movie, VALERIAN & THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS (the first installment in the vaunted Valerian and Lorelei series)? Well, once upon a time, Marshal Latham and I watched it, then talked about it on the Outfield Excursions podcast.
Is it as awful as we'd been lead to believe? Come along with us, to at least fifty or sixty planets, won't you? Check it out HERE.
