Podfic Critical Feedback Exchange Review - reading by Diurnal lee

[josieb1.livejournal.com]

I love Podfics, have adored them since I listened to my first one, I mainly listen to Supernatural, J2, plus a smattering of Stargate Atlantis. I have only ever listened for pleasure though, usually it’s the first time I experience a story.

I recently took part in the Podfic Critical Feedback Exchange and here is my review 'of Dice and Jensen' read by Diurnal Lee. 

It’s the first time I have ever reviewed a Podfic of this size and complexity and found it really difficult; hopefully my review will make sense to everyone, apologies if it doesn't

I was going to post a link to the review on my journal but I am having so many problems I gave up. Here the full review:-

Podfic Critical Feedback Review of ‘Of Dice and Jensen’ read by Diurnal lee, author Epeeblade 

http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/search/node/of+dice+and+jensen 

Presentation and general reading/flow etc

Diurnal lee’s reading style, speed and presentation, is very good and she is very well spoken, however I did find her tone a little bit too precise and clipped at the beginning of the story, but as she got further into it she relaxed and her tone softened and it sounded  much better.   

There are 16 characters in this story, and although I could tell she was trying to change tone for certain characters, again this got better as the story progressed, but in the end there were just too many for it to work very well. 

Story Suitability      

I found this story very confusing; and difficult to follow, it’s a colleague AU about a group of friends in a LARP, which stands for Live Action Role Playing. Each person in the story was playing themselves and another character, for example Jared was also playing Sam, and Jensen was also playing Dean, so in the end they all blended together and it became too confusing. It was like trying to listen to two separate stories that weaved between each other.  

I had a look at the author’s livejournal; she has produced some great documentation to go with this story, a character listing and a glossary of terms. I think a warning that perhaps someone new to the story should view these pages before listening, would have been a good idea, or maybe a brief summary/explanation, at the beginning, just something setting the scene.  

I am intrigued enough to want to go and read the story now, but this is probably a podfic that would have been easier to listen to if the listener was already familiar with the story.

 
I would like to finish off by saying that there is nothing wrong with the reader or the story in general its just this is a podfic I had to abandon listening to, as I was just too confused. I don't normally listen to College AU's anyway (Think mid forties, English, never got beyond Secondary School, and you should see why an American College AU would be difficult to understand), and add into that mix a LARP and it just got way too over my head.