The Phantastic and Wondrous Adventures of Mr. Jonathan Darby
Writing and Direction by Austin Sirkin
Narration and Audio Production by Matt Weller

(Disclosure Notice: I payed five dollars of my hard earned money for this that I wish I could have back.)

Now, I will freely admit, I normally give “for the love of it” audio producers a bit of a pass on things when I review there work. Which is what The Phantastic and Wondrous Adventures of Mr. Jonathan Darby (which I will refer to as PWAMJD for the remainder of this review) should have been. Unfortunately, the creators of PWAMJD decided to charge for it, and, therefore, I will not be overlooking some production problems I might have otherwise.

So in a nutshell, PWAMJD is the story of Jonathan Darby a Victorian (or maybe Edwardian, I aways get those mixed up) clerk who finds himself through no fault of his own drawn into a time travel adventure as he and his companions, Henry Furnace, a thug from his own time, and Key, a woman from the future, chase the evil genius Nichols. This adventure was released in eight audio episodes done in standard audio book style, and the whole thing can be your’s for the small fee of five dollars.

First the story. There is not much I can say here. The first episode made me curious enough to buy the whole set, but as a whole I was bored. (Your can listen to the first episode free at the PWAMJD website.) The writing seemed to get worse as the story when on. All the interesting characters, outside of Henry Furnace, disappeared after the first couple of chapters, and rest felt flat and stereo-typical. The plot was hackney and has been done time and time again.The dialog was stiff and annoying in places. And the title of the whole piece is too long as are all of the chapter titles. (I suspect the chapter titles in many cases where intended to be funny, but they came across as lame.) On the plus side, I think all historical stuff was accurate.

I give PWAMJD zero out of five snark bites for story and writing.

Now the audio. The audio for PWAMJD was actually pretty good for the most part. It was clean. The narrator did a nice job with the actual text, and it was fairly easy to tell the characters apart by voice. But in episode three and eight, there are dialog errors that were not clean up during the editing process: In both cases, it was lines that were miss-read and read again. These errors should not have been in the final cut of a product that is charged for. I also did not like the theme song chosen for the work, but I will not hold that against the author and/or narrator.

I give PWAMJD three out of five snark bites for audio.

In the end, I just can’t recommend PWAMJD, at least not as a piece you have to pay for. (Although with the story issues, free is still a pretty high price for this piece.) The flat characters and predictable plot lead to an experience I wished I had passed on. I did listen to the whole thing in the hope that it would get better, but it didn’t. So I give The Phantastic and Wondrous Adventures of Mr. Jonathan Darby one out of five snark bites wholly for the quality of the audio production.

Normally, I would not lump book reviews together like this, but, well, I am behind, so I am going to give you three quick reviews here in order to catch up.

(Disclosure Note: I received free copies of Morning is Dead from Grindhouse Press to give away at CONvergence 2010, but I did buy a Kindle copy of Morning is Dead, which is the copy I used for this review. I purchased Sparrow Rock for my Kindle. And I received The Dreaming Pool as a gift.)

SparrowRock by Nate Kenyon

Sparrow Rock is a novel of the nuclear apocalypse as seen through the eyes of teenagers. The bombs fall as a group of teenager lead by Pete decided to use there friend Sue’s grand father’s bomb shelter to get high. The group of four friends, now trapped in the bomb shelter, are forced
to deal with the realities of nuclear winter, cabin fever, friendship under stress, mental illness, disease, love, and survival.

This novel explores the realities of what friendship and love mean in a world gone mad as well as the consequences of child abuse and mental illness. It is written as a first person narration by Pete, a teenage boy with a dark history. It is well written and an interesting story with a semi-zombie twist I did not expect. And I have to admit I had a hard time putting it down. The book is broken into three parts, and I read the final part in one sitting.

Unfortunately, I felt a bit cheated at the end of the novel. The twist at the end was a shock as it should be, but in look back at the story I didn’t find evidence to back it up. That might be chalked up to the first person narration, but I was still disappointed.

In the end, I give Sparrow Rock 3 out of 5 Snark Bites. It is a wild ride that is down right scary in places, but it lost me at the end.

Morning is Dead by Andersen Prunty

This was my first exposure to the work of Andersen Prunty, and if Morning is Dead is representative then he has definitely gained a fan. Morning is Dead is two linked stories in one. One story is set in the world we know with a wife, April Blue, dealing with events that lead up to her affair with Doctor Morning and the accident that put her husband, Alvin, in a coma. The second story is that of Alvin’s adventures in the surreal world of Night populated by zombie like radiation victims, corrupt cops, drugs, random house demolitions, and simulacra.

I really enjoyed Morning is Dead. It was odd. It was violent. It was well paced. And it was fun. I didn’t want to put this down. I highly recommend this novel.

I give Morning is Dead 5 out of 5 Snark Bites.

The Dreaming Pool by Gary Greenwood

And finally we have The Dreaming Pool. This book was gifted to my by Brian Keene. It is a supernatural horror story set in Wales and London. It follows Jack Bradley who is called home when his father is mysterious, and brutally, murdered. Jack is pulled into maze of conspiracy and supernatural evil by his father’s death which leads him to The Dreaming Pool and a long buried secret.

I enjoyed The Dreaming Pool. It is not the most original story, but it is well told with a couple of nice twists and turns. It is a bit predictable in places and some of the characters are a bit two dimensional, but it was still a fun read. The print edition I have is from Razorblade Press, a small press in England, and has a few typos and small formatting errors. If you can find a copy I would say check it out.

I give The Dreaming Pool 4 out of 5 Snark Bites