Since I'm getting published in Dunesteef, I figured I should at least listen to a few episodes (boy, I hope they're not reading this). I listened to the three most recent ones and I have this to say.
First, wow. I was blown away by the production values on this thing. I've listened to every episode of EscapePod and its brethren, but that's all straight story narration - no fluff whatsoever. This... this has SOUND EFFECTS and AMBIENCE. You can hear feet crunching the leaves and they get quicker when someone's running. You hear the bloops and beeps of the computer. You hear the crackle of fire. It's more like an audio drama than a fiction reading.
And that means MY story is going to get SOUND EFFECTS! Squee! You're going to get to hear the sword clang when avatars are fighting. You'll hear the voice of the computer. You'll hear the gurgle when someone drinks a potion. You'll hear the dragon snap its jaws! (And if swords, computers, potions, and dragons don't intrigue you yet, you're on the wrong blog)
Then after the story, you get to hear the hosts ruminate on topics sublime and gross. Meaning they talk about the story, then other stuff like why Comic-con sucks and vacations. It used to be that EscapePod ended with a small commentary on the story and feedback for the previous week's tale. But they don't do that anymore. And that sucks because it was my favorite part (another thing I should have included in my EscapePod rant). But these guys are talking like a radio show, and they're saying interesting things.
My biggest complaint is that the podcast is too long. The three I listened to were more than an hour each. I wouldn't mind it so much if I didn't have hours and hours of other stuff to listen to. I don't think the story should take less than the total time of the podcast. The color commentary overshadows it, not by anything else but sheer length.
But otherwise, listening to The Dunesteef ahs just made me more excited about getting published there. I don't know why it's not more popular than EscapePod - the stories are of just as high a quality and it has sound production, rather than some British guy with poor recording equipment reading into a mic.
P.S. I decided the call the story "Playable Character", which I like more and more each time I hear it, so look for it soon!Labels: dunesteef, escapepod, Playable Character