Tag Archives: Alleged Real World

Sounds of the Season 6: Bringing it Together (Men’s Room!)

Because Sometimes Only Hearing is Believing

I’m featuring sounds from my recent audiobook projects, just for fun, and I hope that this feature of my narration work will resonate with authors and listeners. Here are some of the others.

Many times my FX are drawn from a marvelous website called Freesound.org.  I cut, slice and alter them using effects found in the Audacity tool (also free to download and use). Sometimes I create the sound myself, using my voice or things to hand.

Featured Sound: Men’s Room

I’ve been doing really short sounds recently, and wanted to go to the other side of the spectrum, something longer and showing how the sounds ideally can fit into the background and enhance the listening experience. Enter DL Ashmore, one of my most faithful and enthusiastic author clients, who is continually crafting new ads for his “Business” series available both on Amazon and Audible.

When he sent me his first in the series, Unfinished Business,  I thought “ah, police procedurals”. I’m starting to record his fourth book today, and my sense of the genre has sharpened a bit. I now call it “ex-military pseudo-vigilante porn”. There are good cops, who’ve been raised right and know how to enforce the law, including creatively at times. Bad guys abound, but they generally get theirs, as in the clip below about an arrogant young gun who has vulture-capitalized a children’s hospital and plans to fire all the staff to finance his dissolute lifestyle. Yeah, like that’s going to happen.

Here’s the sound, “Men’s Room” from Taking Care of Business (linked to his Facebook post, might have to scroll down a bit to see it):

Excerpt from “Taking Care of Business” (DL Ashmore)

How It Sounded

The sounds here are all pretty mundane; opening and closing the heavy bathroom door, unzipping pants, and then the semi-limp body of a vulture capitalist hitting the tile floor. The trick was to keep them slotted tightly into the narration (without long beats between the words, and so forth) so that the listener might feel really there. At the end of the clip, the venue actually shifts in and out of the men’s room, from the ladies’ conversation to the dope’s last thoughts.

How It Looks

Women may wish to avert their eyes. It’s the row of urinals that makes a men’s room unique. I only found about a thousand and six pictures that would do the trick. Here’s one from iStock:

Bathroom for men, especially clean, spacious

The Business series by DL Ashmore is available at both Amazon for e-book and paperback, as well as on Audible for the a-books. The fourth audiobook in the series, Ugly Business, is at Amazon now and will be out on audio later this fall.

Hope for the Holidays

I’d better come clean at the very beginning. I write about a world called the Lands of Hope, and alright, sometimes I hype a blog-title to attract attention. Capeesh? So sue me.

But spin isn’t always a lie. Personally, I struggle with shopping nearly as much as I do against Despair, and I dare to believe you might find some relief for a few items on your list by giving the gift of Hope.

Here you can find links to my recent works as author and narrator, pulling in the various outlets where you can find them.

All the Tales of Hope

If you know someone who’s read one of my stories and would like to get them another, here’s a chrono-list:

 

 

 

The Book of Tales (from earliest history to the Fourth Age, animal and hero tales told across the Lands- nice supplement with illustrations!)

Three Minutes to Midnight (1992 ADR, a dark sword-and-sorcery novelette)

Judgement’s Tale (1995 ADR, epic fantasy novel that starts the new age moving)

The Eye of Kog (1995 ADR, conclusion to Judgement’s Tale)

The Plane of Dreams (2001 ADR, epic fantasy of the Tributarians)

Shards of Light (2002 ADR, heroic fantasy series set in Cryssigens)- available as a bundled set or individually. Either of the first two can stand alone quite well, for readers with little time to spare.

The Ring and the Flag
Fencing Reputation
Perilous Embraces
Shards of Light (finale)

The Test of Fire (2002 ADR, heroic fantasy demi-sequel to The Plane of Dreams)

= Available as an e-book

= Also available as audiobooks

With the exception of The Eye of Kog and the latter two books of the Shards of Light series, any of these tales can serve as an introduction to the Lands of Hope.

Zero-Patience Reader? Three Minutes to Midnight

Wants to Start at the Beginning? Judgement’s Tale

Needs a Quick Burst of Hope? The Ring and the Flag

Likes Something Different in a Hero? Fencing Reputation

A Just-Right Feast of Fantasy? The Test of Fire

 

Tales of Other Lands

I have also been privileged to narrate audiobooks for some fine indie colleagues, with quite a varied palate of adventure between them.

Gilbert M. Stack is the author (inter alia) of the incredible Legionnaire series about a kind of alternate-Rome where a loyal young tribune must struggle against politics at home and evil sorcery abroad to serve his empire and preserve his life.

 

 

Michael R. Mathias has penned many bestselling fantasy classics, including the gaslamp epic tale Fantastica, all of which are now available as audiobooks either separately or as a collection.

 

 

Debbie Bishop has crafted the tale War Eagles, based on a vision by Merian C. Cooper (the creator of King Kong), an Indiana-Jones era tale of lost Vikings, their heroic mounts, and the fight to stop a secret Nazi weapon at the outbreak of World War 2.

 

 

Something for every listening taste! Check out the links for easy shopping.