Now releasing The Ballad of Iron Percy by Edward Clark
The lovely sounds of Veronica Giguere are back! She’s narrating Edward Clark’s novel, The Ballad of Iron Percy:
It has been twenty years since the island nation of Great Hale conquered the New World and became an empire. Lord Percival Wilmore, the Hero of Naruna Isle, has been the governor of the New Jucata since the war’s end, and it has been his life’s work to make the colony a peaceful and prosperous part of the Halan Empire. By all accounts, he has succeeded. The city-states of Old Jucata have been dominated utterly, the old religion has been completely supplanted by the Halan faith of the White Veil, and Jucatan goods have made Great Hale the envy of the world. He is beloved by the people, and he has ensured that this Halan colony is built to last.
But New Jucata’s future is not as secure as it seems. As the head of state for the colony, Lord Wilmore is the highest legal authority in the land, and he is called upon to try a most curious prisoner. The events and outcome of this interrogation threaten to tear Halan Rule of Law apart and bring anarchy to the region.
Pandemona stands accused of being a Pak Shar – a dangerous and seductive demon previously seen only in Veil mythology. With her scarlet skin, lithe tail, and dainty set of horns, she certainly looks the part. Her way with words and alluring demeanor only serve to underscore this perception. Under Halan law, the punishment for being a demon is death by fire at the stake, but Pandemona is entitled to a fair trial by Lord Wilmore and the colony’s Curate before she can be convicted and executed. This interrogation is her only chance to escape. She must use all of her wit and guile to survive.
Is Pandemona really what she appears to be? What is she here to accomplish? Is she an evil and subversive creature, sent from the Abyss to torment mankind? Or is she simply disfigured and misunderstood? Whatever the truth may be, her presence is not a good omen.
The Ballad of Iron Percy is a song of glorious triumph, written to honor Lord Wilmore’s victory against overwhelming odds in the Conquest War. It is an iconic tune in New Jucata. The specifics of the verses vary in each separate rendition, but the overall tone is one of bravery, achievement, and joy.
Unfortunately for Iron Percy, his Ballad is not yet over…
She’s got the first five episodes up as of this posting and will be doing one a week. Or more. So nab a custom feed and you can start from the beginning. The default feed is also available if that’s how you prefer it.
May 12th, 2010 at 5:54 am
looking forward to more episodes.
June 7th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
I really like the story so far, The characters are great and professionally read but the audio is terrible! its almost impossible to listen too at times which is too bad because this is one of the better story’s on podiobooks
June 8th, 2010 at 6:55 am
Heya,
Glad you’re enjoying the story. There are many more episodes to come.
With regard to the audio, my voice talent and producer, Veronica Giguere, recently invested in a new studio. There were some equipment kinks that needed working out when we recorded the opening episodes – we think we have now fixed all of the issues that were interfering with the audio quality.
What do you think of episodes 11 and 12? Future content should be at that level of quality or higher. Once we are finished releasing the book, we intend to revisit and re-record those opening chapters.
Thanks for the feedback,
Edward Clark
June 10th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Edward,
Thanks for your response and the audio is better on 12, I wonder if your audio issues could have been due to files being overly compressed or a low bit rate. I had that happen on a sound file I e-mailed to someone for a video a few years ago.
June 13th, 2010 at 9:11 am
Heya,
At first, we thought it was an issue with wiring. As it turns out, the issue had something to do with a bad interaction between my producer’s sound card, her wireless card, and Windows 7. Everything sounds a whole lot better when she turns off the wireless while recording. (Check here for a more complete and technical description of the problem and its solution: http://tinyurl.com/38phbhj) She’s told me that she’s going to redo and repost those chapters as soon as she can – we hope to have them finished in the next couple of weeks.
Cheers,
Edward Clark
July 1st, 2010 at 6:41 pm
keep it coming
September 23rd, 2010 at 8:49 pm
This pod cast is absolutely delightful and different. I love it and can’t wait for more. Veronica is very good in all her character renditions but I adore Pandemona. The author’s writing style is also top notch. Can’t say enough but I better stop as I am drooling!`
October 18th, 2010 at 5:58 am
The Ballad is complete! Looks like I missed a couple episodes so I’m going back now to catch up. Noticed the improved sound quality, great job.
Ed’s imagination is robust and Veronica’s vocal talents almost place you in the room with the characters.
Can’t wait to see what you two do next.
October 19th, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Great Book, Great Ending. The characters are great. This is one of the best books Ive listened to on this site. Is this the first in a series of novels?
October 20th, 2010 at 1:42 am
Anthony,
Thank you for saying so! Yes, this is the first in a series. The second book is currently in its first draft, and there will be at least one more after it.
October 21st, 2010 at 1:00 pm
One of my favorites on podiobooks. I will certainly come back to listen to it again sometime in the future.
October 26th, 2010 at 10:15 am
3 cheers for the sequel!!!
November 23rd, 2010 at 8:40 pm
A great story with a well developed set of characters.
I’d agree that the audio had some problems, and even after the problems were resolved I thought that at times the audio was too quiet and would sometimes fade in and out as if the narrator was changing her distance from the microphone.
December 27th, 2010 at 11:12 am
The writing and story are extremely engaging. Veronica Giguere does exceptional work with characterization. I found the editing (not removing some outakes) more frustrating than audio quality–a striking return from the world of the story to reality. I look forward to more of Ms. Giguere’s narration/reading and Mr. Clark’s writing. I would have preferred cross-leveling across all the tracks, please.
August 31st, 2011 at 9:32 am
I have just listened through the complete book and I loved it! I like the characters and the narration of Pandemona was great. The story is very different from most fantasy books and I appreciate that the characters are both female and male with strengths and weaknesses of their own, no stereotypes.
Even though this book contains some violence it is not dwelling in grouse scenes which is something that I appreciate.
The story is catching and I long for more, when can we hear more about Pandemona?
I do not like to complain to much when someone has done such a massive effort to provide a book like this for free but the editing noises and the repetition of lines