News Picard Audio Drama Announced - No Man's Land

[Therin of Andor]

I didn't know those were a thing.

Original to audio - "A Captain Sulu Adventure" trilogy (1994-95):
Were available on both cassette and CD back in the day, but the then-new "3-D sound" only worked successfully on CD, and with headphones recommended. I started with the first cassette, then rebought on CD - and purchased my first CD player.

∗ "Transformations" by Dave Stern, performed by George Takei, Dana Ivey and Daniel Gerroll, 1994, 70 min. (3-D sound.)

∗ "Cacophony" by J.J. Molloy (Early drafts written by Peter David, who requested he remain uncredited when he was dissatisfied with Molloy's rewrite to exaggerate the sound effects). Performed by George Takei, Simon Jones, Maryann Plunkett, Lynne Thigpen and Lee Wilkof, 1994, 70 min. (3-D sound.)

∗ "Envoy" by L.A. Graf with additional dialogue by George Truett, performed by George Takei, Essene R., Jenifer Lewis, Nan Martin, Howard McGillan and Meredith Monk, 1995, 70 min. (3-D sound.)

 

[James Swallow]

∗ "Cacophony" by J.J. Molloy (Early drafts written by Peter David, who requested he remain uncredited when he was dissatisfied with Molloy's rewrite to exaggerate the sound effects).

That's interesting. I always thought that the 'Molloy' byline was a pseudonym used by Peter David as his version of an "Alan Smithee" type credit (maybe referencing the character of J.J. O'Molloy from Joyce's Ulysses?) but his PeterDavid.net website seems to suggest Molloy is an actual person...

 

[Serveaux]

Well, I wrote Tangent Knights Book 1 as a prose novel manuscript, and most of my prose narration was adapted verbatim (though I took care to avoid "said" tags, and in retrospect I would've used less of it, and have done so in books 2 & 3).

That's not responsive to the observation.

 

[GaryH]

More Jeri Ryan as Seven is always a good thing, especially if it is a character focus story that the second season probably won’t have as much time for, assuming it is one large plot as suggested by the trailer,

 

[Eduardo]

Excerpt up at the official site:

https://intl.startrek.com/news/excl...rom-audio-drama-star-trek-picard-no-mans-land

 

[Kor]

I'm looking forward to this. I love full-cast audio drama. I enjoy it much more than audiobooks read by one person.

Kor

 

[Charles Phipps]

I admit, Picard is the place I want to read novels about the most timeline wise.

 

[Reanok]

I've liked the Picard books that I've read so far. I still hope No Man's land will come out on cd to listen to this story.

 

[FreddyE]

Judging from the trailer it seems this is in "Big Finish"-Style without narrator. I really prefer it that way nowadays. But that style seems to become more and more common.

 

[coryjosb]

They even have the Big Finish-styled excerpt/trailer centered on action so without context you have no idea what's going on.

Always felt kind of silly to me to market a non-narrated audio drama on action considering that's by far the point at which they're weakest, so hopefully they don't go too heavy on that.

 

[Elwro]

I loved the Big Finish Stargate and Doctor Who audiobooks, I hope this one will be of similar quality...

 

[Christopher]

Judging from the trailer it seems this is in "Big Finish"-Style without narrator. I really prefer it that way nowadays. But that style seems to become more and more common.

I don't like that style at all. It's too vague and hard to follow. It's trying to pretend that you're listening to the soundtrack of a TV show, which seems dishonest to me, as well as self-defeating. Nothing is at its best when it's trying to be something it isn't. Audio drama works best with at least a modicum of narration.

Heck, having narration isn't even incompatible with pretending to be like TV. "Captain's log," anyone? Lots of TV shows and movies have had narration, though it's less common than it used to be.

 

[FreddyE]

I don't like that style at all. It's too vague and hard to follow. .

Well it depends if its written well enough. For example the Doctor Who audio dramas are written in a way that you really get all information you need thru the dialog. Granted, that style needs some getting used to and you need to be more attentive.

On the other hand narration can be good too. One of my favorite audio series with narration is based on the "The Three Investigators" (Robert Arthur) with now over 200 episodes. Mostly the only times it has narration nowadays is when there is a longer "time jump" in the story or if stuff happens simultaniously.

 

[JWolf]

It's great to see this finally out in the world! I've always held that audio is a perfect medium for Star Trek and I hope this will be the first in many more stories to come...

Side note: the terms audiobook and audio drama aren't interchangeable - these are two different things. Audiobooks are generally one voice actor, reading out a text with little or no accompaniment, whereas audio dramas are more like radio plays, with shorter duration and a cast of multiple actors, sound effects and music, etc. No Man's Land is going to be the latter, something we haven't seen in Trek lit since the Sulu audios nearly 30 (!) years ago... I'm excited to hear it!

The His Dark Materials novels by Philip Pullman are read with a full cast and Pullman doing the narrating. They are excellent and they do feel like an audio drama even though they are a reading of the books. In this case, you can interchange audiobook and audio drama as they are both.

 

[Christopher]

Well it depends if its written well enough. For example the Doctor Who audio dramas are written in a way that you really get all information you need thru the dialog. Granted, that style needs some getting used to and you need to be more attentive.

On the contrary -- it was specifically the Doctor Who audios that I was criticizing, because they're my only experience with non-narrated audio drama. It is absolutely not true that you get all you need through the dialogue; there are quite a few where there's nothing but sound effects for long stretches and the best you can hope for is a vague explanation after the fact. And when visuals are explained in dialogue, it's often in a stilted and unrealistic radio-writing way, like "Look! The spaceship! It's huge! It's coming toward us! It's landing!" That's even worse than having no description at all. I've listened to hundreds of the things and I'm quite attentive, but there's only so much you can discern from unexplained sound effects, at least when they represent alien or futuristic things rather than recognizable things like cars or gunshots or whatever.

You say "if it's written well enough," but doing things well means understanding that balance is better than extremes. Good audio writing means using narration judiciously but including it when it serves a purpose. I've learned that myself in writing Tangent Knights for GraphicAudio. I've enjoyed learning how to convey things with sound effects instead of narration, but only when they're clear enough from the sound effects alone. Sacrificing clarity out of some kind of purist rejection of narration is foolish. I mean, how do you let the listener know what a location looks like, how a room is laid out, what an alien or a robot or a vehicle looks like? Descriptions like that are important in science fiction, fantasy, and action, and you hobble yourself by depriving yourself of that tool in the storyteller's kit.

 

[Stevil2001]

I can think of maybe two Big Finish audios where I was alienated by "nothing but sound effects for long stretches and the best you can hope for is a vague explanation after the fact."

 

[FreddyE]

Sacrificing clarity out of some kind of purist rejection of narration is foolish..

I never ment to say that I am rejecting narration outright. It just works better for me without narration in some instances. In my favorite "teenage / young adult / nostalgic adult" crime / mystery audio drama series the narrator is a big part of the atmosphere. Newer episodes use him more sparingly...and it actually feels a bit like something is missing.

A problem I actually have with the Doctor Who audio dramas is more a production thing. The audio mix tends to be a bit off for my tastes...music and sfx sometimes almost drown out the dialog. But that´s a problem that I also have with the TV shows and most other british TV shows.

 

[Christopher]

I never ment to say that I am rejecting narration outright.

I was talking about Big Finish, not about you. I'm critiquing their choice to go without narration at the expense of clarity.

 

[FreddyE]

Oh okay. :-) In one episode of the "Missy"-Series they had a character write letters to another character and "packed" the narration in there. I thought that quite clever. Actually an episode I would recommend...they go "all in" on the "evil / twisted Mary Poppins"-vibe.

 

[Jinn]

I absolutely love the Big Finish Missy series. I should probably get around to the second volume sometime.