Author Topic: PC204: The Rowan Gentleman  (Read 12643 times)

DKT

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Reply #25 on: April 24, 2012, 06:56:50 PM
This was my first PodCastle story and I really enjoyed it. Great narration, engaging story, and descriptive imagery. I'll be looking back through the archives for other stories by the same author and narrator.

Thanks!

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it, and hope you enjoy pillaging the archives.

Here are the other stories we've run by Holly Black:
PC 104: The Dog King
PC 116 Paper Cuts Scissors

And here is the other story Kara Grace has read for us:
PC 178: Braiding the Ghosts, by C.S.E. Cooney


merian

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Reply #26 on: April 25, 2012, 07:02:40 PM
I liked this story and disagree with many of the criticisms -- I thought the voice was extremely good for this type of story, the deceptively flat and girlish-but-serious delivery fitting very well with the central character. The plot was clear yet surprising, the world interesting, with a sense of dread.

The main issue I have with the reading was technical: Kara Grace's soft needs a clearer and cleaner recording, with less hiss. So my hearing got a bit tired after a while, and I had to listen several time for my attention not to trail off some time around the 2/3 mark. This is partly my fault as I usually listen while doing other things, and my attention can waver.



BlueLu

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Reply #27 on: April 26, 2012, 03:34:46 PM
I wanted to like this story because I like these authors but I happened to have listened to The Scarlet Pimpernel recently (it was on The Classic Tales podcast) and there were so many parallels that the story didn't seem fresh to me. 

I hesitate to wade into the "girly" fray, but, yes, this story was just too girly.  (I am a girl, btw.) It's a romantic wish-fulfillment story about an average girl pursued by a literally impossibly hot guy. That's just too much Harlequin in my fantasy, thank you.  But that's just my taste.


Lena


childoftyranny

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Reply #28 on: April 26, 2012, 05:14:01 PM
I wanted to like this story because I like these authors but I happened to have listened to The Scarlet Pimpernel recently (it was on The Classic Tales podcast) and there were so many parallels that the story didn't seem fresh to me.  

Gasp, I can blame something on Brandon Sanderson now! I wasn't sure why this story felt so bland until you mention reading something earlier and it hit me, its only been a few weeks since I finished the first Mistborn Mystery Solving Club novel (Alloy of law) and by gosh that's it...the characters aren't doubles by far but it was just that sort feeling to it with the handsome-rich-etc male figure and the nosy young female character and be it the old west or swashbuckling I see it now, I blame you Sanderson.

By the way I would recommend people to read Alloy of Law, its not the same kind of novel as the previous Mistborn books so comparing them isn't quite fair, its a fun wild-west mystery novel though.



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Reply #29 on: May 02, 2012, 06:10:14 PM
I liked the story a fair amount. Although, I also had the Alain/Elaine issue as well.

The other thing that came to mind at the end of the story was that the story felt like a long intro for an RPG videogame. Your character discovers a secret freedom fighting organization and you join them in the fight donning your Guy Fawkes mask and robe!

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Talia

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Reply #30 on: May 08, 2012, 01:32:31 PM
Very strange.

PC204: The Rowan Gentleman and EP340: Golubash played back-to-back on my my playlist.

I've been an escape artist fan for a few years.  Other than one or two pseudopod episodes that were too gory for my taste, the Rowan Gentleman & Golubash were the only escape artist podcasts that completely repulsed me - and listening to them back-to-back was brutal.

But what was really odd ( --I tend to listen to podcasts in bed as I'm falling asleep ---) was that after listening to the Rowan Gentleman & Golubash episodes, I dozed off and dreamt that these two podcasts merged.

And the club/theater that was the setting for the Rowan Gentleman became a wine-bar on a space cruise ship.  And all of the characters in Rowan Gentleman began to use the Spanglish-FrancoVino BabbleTalk from Golubash.

It was a nightmare.

Very strange.  ???

Considering how tame this story is I find it quite bizarre you'd be repulsed by it. What about it was "repulsive" if you don't mind my asking?




DKT

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Reply #31 on: May 08, 2012, 03:57:26 PM
Very strange.

PC204: The Rowan Gentleman and EP340: Golubash played back-to-back on my my playlist.

I've been an escape artist fan for a few years.  Other than one or two pseudopod episodes that were too gory for my taste, the Rowan Gentleman & Golubash were the only escape artist podcasts that completely repulsed me - and listening to them back-to-back was brutal.

But what was really odd ( --I tend to listen to podcasts in bed as I'm falling asleep ---) was that after listening to the Rowan Gentleman & Golubash episodes, I dozed off and dreamt that these two podcasts merged.

And the club/theater that was the setting for the Rowan Gentleman became a wine-bar on a space cruise ship.  And all of the characters in Rowan Gentleman began to use the Spanglish-FrancoVino BabbleTalk from Golubash.

It was a nightmare.

Very strange.  ???

Considering how tame this story is I find it quite bizarre you'd be repulsed by it. What about it was "repulsive" if you don't mind my asking?



I just assumed it was the idea of a group of young thespians trying to re-enact the Phantom Menace...


childoftyranny

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Reply #32 on: May 10, 2012, 12:33:02 AM
I've been quite surprise by how many people disliked this story, as I said in my original comments I didn't like it per se, but that's just because I thought is was decent rather than notable, very odd!



Listener

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Reply #33 on: May 11, 2012, 03:52:15 PM
I did find it a bit confusing that Alain was pronounced throughout as Elaine; it took me a while to realise the character was male and I had to keep mentally switching the name to Alain to remind myself!

I mentally read it as Allayne.

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Listener

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Reply #34 on: May 11, 2012, 03:56:59 PM
I found the story to be about average. The concept of the Rowan Gentlemen made me think it was a Phantom of the Opera takeoff at first, having never read/seen The Scarlet Pimpernel (I only know of it in passing). The MC becoming a Rowan Gentlemen was a good ending, but I almost feel like the rest of the story was spent just getting us to the point where the MC and Alain go on their date.

For some reason in the beginning all I could think of was the PatD song "That Green Gentlemen".

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Unblinking

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Reply #35 on: May 16, 2012, 02:30:34 PM
I don't know what y'all are talking about with the audio quality.  I didn't notice anything, though maybe the road noise proved beneficial this time and blocked it out.  I had no trouble understanding any part of the story.

I'm pretty lukewarm on this story, as I was with the other Bordertown story run on EA.  I don't know, I guess I just don't love Bordertown, and I'm in no rush to pick up the book.  (The Amal-El-Mohtar song was awesome, but since the audio recording is not part of the book I'm still not rushing to pick it up.  I would pay some money to get that song as a standalone on an mp3 though)

As with the other Bordertown story, things happen, and there are characters who seem like real people.  But as with that story, in the end, nothing happened that I had any interest in.  In this one it seemed like it was too unfocused, too many plotlines without devoting enough time to any of them for me to really give a crap, and made even less compelling by the fact that I'm not intimately familiar with this world.  The three main plots I saw:
--The mystery of who attacked Ashley, who killed the girl, and why.  At the beginning this seemed to be the central drive of the plot, but then they solve it nonchalantly and the story goes on.  "Oh, he's drying out Mad River water and selling it as drugs and was using the girl as a drug mule."  So... what is Mad River water?  Is that supposed to mean something to me?  It seemed like it was making a profound solution to the question of why she was coughing red, but I didn't feel like I had enough information for this to be anything profound.  Like solving a murder mystery with "The butler did it.  Oh, by the way, there is a butler, who no one has mentioned."
--The mystery of the Rowan Gentleman.  So someone claims they've seen some mythical figure.  It seemed like it was supposed to be a huge reveal when the League of Extraordinary Rowan Gentlemen were revealed, but I was like "Wait, who is the Rowan Gentleman supposed to be again?  Why do I care?"  I have not read the Scarlet Pimpernel, but this still seemed overly familiar to me, from Batman, V for Vendetta, Phantom of the Opera, other movies where a masked figure is revealed to be more than one person wearing similar masks.
--The romance with Alain (which I too kept hearing as Alain).  So, at the end, the aloof lazily courting uncaring elf trying to court her turns out that this was all to maintain his identity.  I found him such a boring character throughout, such a strict stereotype of an elf character with no discerning qualities that when he suddenly revealed "I'm really different from all the other elves" this still didn't convince me that he wasn't boring and without appeal.  Especially since this is all something that a stereotypical elf might say, since at this point it's only words and not actual action.

I did listen all the way through, so I guess that says something, but in the end I found it very unremarkable.



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Reply #36 on: June 11, 2012, 04:13:10 PM
I agree with Unblinking. The main character felt like a Mary Sue to me. I spent more time being annoyed with her than caring for the story.

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