Friday, 18 May 2018

Blackshields: Red Fief


A Horus Heresy Audio Drama

Endryd Haar leads his battered warband of renegade Blackshields into battle once more. Answering a distress call from an old friend, Haar seeks out the tithe-world of Duat, intent on plunder.


As the forces of the Warmaster close in on Terra, Endryd Haar leads his warband of renegade Blackshields into battle once more. With his forces battered in the wake of their raid on Xana, Haar finds himself in desperate need of warriors.

Answering a distress call from an old friend, Haar seeks out the tithe-world of Duat, intent on plunder. But when he discovers what is hidden there, Haar is faced with a decision that will determine his fate – and perhaps that of Terra itself.


Performed by Gareth Armstrong, John Banks, Toby Longworth, Andrew Wincott, Tim Bruce & Steve Conlin

Written by Josh Reynolds and Produced by Matt Renshaw 

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Shockingly, this audio drama was released a week ago and I've only just been able to upload details of it here. This is the second of Josh Reynolds' 'Blackshield' adventures and I'm truly delighted to be playing Endryd Haar, the anti-hero of the stories. There's a fabulous cast for this drama too and as I got a very rare early copy, I can honestly say that I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it. Part of the enjoyment was of course, thinking back to the fun we had in the studio, but it's also very pleasing to listen to a piece of work that stands up and plays well. I enjoyed it and hope, if it's your kind of thing, that you will too.

I've been away from home for the last couple of weeks, being busy in the studio with some fabulous audio drama projects and the continuation of a long story arc in audio book format and now I'm just catching up with all the stuff I've neglected recently - like this blog!

Further busy times ahead in the very near future, though I do now have some time at home to start prepping again for the next tranche of recording, which, again, shockingly, will take me all the way through to mid October!

There's some new Sigmar stuff coming from the Black Library, which lots of folks are excited about and I was asked to record a 'trailer - reveal' with regard to what's happening - and here it is:



Thanks for stopping by -

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

Tuesday, 1 May 2018

Skald: The Short Story Collection


Skald: 6 Original Crime & Thriller Short Stories


Commissioned by Audible and written especially for audio format this collection brings together six crime stories through the themes of discovery, destination and arrival.

Top narrators bring these gripping tales to life acknowledging the Scandinavian tradition of oral storytelling.


In this collection Ben Okri and Martin Edwards explore 'discovery' in their stories; Sophie Hannah and Emma Dibdin each draw on 'destination' for their tales of painful pasts; and Elly Griffiths and Parker Bilal tackle the theme of 'arrival' in their stories.

Skald is one of three short story collections written by our favourite best-selling novelists and emerging authors, and curated based on the themes of arrival, discovery and destination. Jali collates science fiction tales while Bard collates contemporary fiction.



Stories written by Martin Edwards, Ben Okri, Sophie Hannah, Emma Dibdin, Elly Griffiths & Parker Bilal 

 Narrated by John Banks, Jessica Dennis, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Damian Lynch, Colleen Prendergast & Katy Sobey

Running Length 4 hours - 30 minutes

©2018 Audible, Ltd. (P)2018 Audible, Ltd.
 
 
I must say, it was great fun to record 'Bully The Blue Bear' by Sophie Hannah for this series. I narrated the story, directed by Tamsin Collison and then Colleen Prendergast (in the photo, right) came in and the two of us recorded the rest of the story together in dialogue.

We were subsequently interviewed for a short promo by Audible Studios, which was a hoot and, as usual, I blathered on for ages. The amount they eventually used in the video was tiny in comparison to the deluge of noise I came up with. Colleen, in contrast, was concise and sensible and I'm very glad she was there, otherwise, I might still be talking and pontificating on life and the universe - as one does!

Alas, the video is bigger than the upload limit for this site (!); though it can be viewed at the Audible web site (Skald: The Short Story Collection) or on my Twitter feed (top left on this site).


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On a different subject; the last couple of weeks have been very busy in the recording studio and the latest audio book was finished on Saturday evening. The dealine for publishing on this one is quite tight and in addition to actual recording, editing and checking also take up a chunk of time, so, we had to get it recorded asap, hence a late Saturday completion.

This week is mostly about prepping for the next two weeks in studio, so I'd better sign off now and get on with some work!


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