The pace of work this year seems to have calmed a little, which, after the last couple of years of craziness, is perhaps, not such bad thing. At least now, I feel able to prepare properly for each upcoming event and I'm currently working on several projects, scheduled for recording over the next few months, which are certainly grabbing my attention. In their quite varied ways, each sets a particular challenge and any notion I might have had of working within a 'comfort zone' has long since been abandoned. That's ok; in fact, it's much more than 'ok', it's great fun and it's why I'm loving work so much at the moment.

Perhaps things are slightly less crazy than in previous years; nevertheless, I notice that Daedalus is my 16th audio recording to be released in the first 16 weeks of the year - and there are more audio books and dramas on the way.

Here are details of the latest from The Black Library:

Scythes of the Emperor: Daedalus

A Scythes of the Emperor audio drama

When a lone Apothecary is stranded with vital supplies of gene-seed that could secure new generations of the Scythes of the Emperor, a squad of his battle-brothers enact a daring mission to save him and safeguard their future.

Waging a bitter war of vengeance against Hive Fleet Kraken across Ultima Segmentum, the Scythes of the Emperor must continue to look to the future if the Chapter is to survive. In a distant system of the Sotharan League, a lone Apothecary has become stranded before a fresh tyranid invasion – and the stock of Space Marine gene-seed he bears is too great a treasure to abandon to the xenos.

Striking from the air, Assault Squad Cassander must push deep into enemy-held territory if they are to mount a recovery mission, facing all the winged spawned horrors of the hive ship Daedalus.

John Banks, Antonia Beamish, Robin Bowerman, Cliff Chapman, Steve Conlin, Toby Longworth & Luis Soto

Written by L J Goulding & Produced by Matt Renshaw

Running time approx. 63 minutes

 

...all for now, more just as soon as it happens!

Doctor Who: Dethras

I think I'm losing all track of time; not especially a problem for me, but it obviously would be if I were a Time Lord like the good Doctor. Public Holidays, as we've just been having and are about to have again at the beginning of May, seem to throw my perception of time completely out of kilter, like an extended form of jet-lag. Strange - but true.

Moving on; another audio release this month*, this one from Big Finish Productions, a Fourth Doctor adventure, featuring Tom Baker and Lalla Ward and here are some details:

Doctor Who: Dethras

In the control room of a World War 2 submarine something strange has started to happen. As the ship runs out of control, its crew begin to fall unconscious...

Finding the submarine in the last place they'd have expected, the Doctor and Romana are confronted by a mystery. Once fully populated, there are now only three men on board. And there's now also a chimpanzee. 

What has happened to the rest of the crew? What are the strange noises they can hear outside the hull?

And most importantly, who, or what, is Dethras? 

Tom Baker The Doctor    Lalla Ward Romana    Alistair Petrie John    Shelia Ruskin Flague  

Josh Bolt Philip    Brian Vernel Robert    John Banks Franklin    Jane Slavin Xankari/ Teacher 

Written by Adrian Poynton
  Directed by Nicholas Briggs  

 

*This title was released in April 2017. It will be exclusively available to buy from the BF website until May 31st 2017, and on general sale after this date. 

Despite the fact that Dethras only became available today, there is already a review - and here is a link to it: Indie Mac User - Dethras Review 

...and a little later in the day, here is another: Red Rocket Rising - Dethras Review 

* * * * *

The next thing to mention in this update, is the Combat Phase Podcast that I recorded just over a month ago, during a week of recording at Games Workshop in Nottingham. The story, in a nutshell, is that I was approached by Kenny Lull, 'podcaster master' and Black Library aficianado, to record an interview about the process of acting in Black Library audio dramas and the recording of audio books with them. 

Suspecting that an hour of me blithering on about the intricacies of acting for audio and boring everyone to tears with gushing mentions of David Mamet and the significance of the Aristotelian Unities of Action, (see Aristotle On The Art of Poetry and David Mamet True and False), it occurred to me that it would be much more interesting to have ace BL producer Matt Renshaw join in too and that between the two of us, we might hopefully be able to give an idea of the recording process and include Matt's wider knowledge of the whole process of commissioning, casting and recording. Whether we've been successful or not is for you to decide by listening to the podcast, which can be found via this link:

 Combat Phase Podcast: Episode 190  Hope you enjoy!

There's more to come later in the month, but that's...

...all for now, more just as soon as it happens! 

Warlord: Fury of The God-Machine...

You'd be a bit of an 'April fool' not to give this latest audio book release from The Black Library a listen. Well, if you're a fan of Warhammer 40k stories that is; if you're not a fan, then you might not like it, you might prefer to spend your hard earned cash on something else and save nine hours of your life for something else... I don't know what else... don't ask me... what do I know?

Anyway, here are some details of this story, which I must say, I enjoyed working on very much. I'm looking forward to hearing it and if it's your kind of thing, (see above!), then I hope you'll enjoy it too.

Warlord: Fury of the God Machine

When the battered and bloodied Pallidus Morr demi-legio of the Adeptus Titanicus is assigned to defend a forge world from Chaos, they find their battle made more difficult by the allies they must fight alongside…

The Battle Titans of the Adeptus Titanicus are towering war engines, striding to war as holy effigies of the Omnissiah. Greatest of all are the mighty Warlord Titans, their weapons bringing righteous death to alien and heretic alike. Still reeling from a near disastrous battle against tyranids, the Pallidus Morr demi-legio is assigned to a new warzone, a nearby forge world which has fallen under the sway of Chaos.

Here their battered war-machines must fight alongside another Titan Legion, the Imperial Hunters. As city after city falls before the relentless tread of Chaos war machines, the Imperium’s only chance of victory lies in the two legios putting aside their differences and fighting as one.

 Written by David Annandale, Produced by Matt Renshaw & Narrated by John Banks

 Running time 9 hours

If you're really into the idea of these gargantuan warrior machines, like pretty much everything mentioned in the huge variety of Black Library stories, it's possible to build and 'game' with 'state of the art' models, which are available in Games Workshop stores around the world and directly from The Forge World - here's a direct link to the web site: Forge World

There's a Titan 'maniple' available should you wish to dedicate some time and money to building what will certainly be a hugely impressive kit, or set of kits. To give you some idea of the sheer scale of these amazing models, I have seen completed kits at Warhammer World HQ and the Titan is about half a metre tall!

I'm happily very busy in various recording studios at the moment and working on a number of projects, some very much 'trickier' and more challenging than others - but more of all that in due course. In the meantime, that's ...

...all for now, more just as soon as it happens!