Sorry about the lateness of this posting; the virus which I spoke of last week ended up being rather more vigorous than I had thought, and I wasn't able to have it entirely expurgated until late on Saturday, and I knew there was no way I would be able to have it up in any reasonable time.

But we return, now, with chapter 14, in which, I fear, Reginald and his crew come off as a trifle unsympathetic in places. But I suppose that's for you, the audience, to decide for yourselves.

And lo! Chapter 12 cometh!

I wish to extend my sincere thanks to Paula West, who responded admirably to my request for a female voice actor some days ago, the first fruits of whose labours can be heard here.

People sometimes ask me how I can get through some of my lines without laughing, and I'm usually rather blase about this; I laugh out loud when I think of the lines in the first place, but usually by the time it comes to actually recording them, I'm familiar enough with them that I'm no longer that effected by them.

This is the first chapter I really had difficulty getting through some of the lines; they were funny enough that I kept on laughing as I was delivering them. Take that for what it's worth.

A bit of historical esoterica here: The Charles Kingsley referenced in this chapter was a real person, though he did not have a seditious brother named Frederick. I learned of this man as I was researching the life and times of King Edward, and knew immediately how I wanted to incorporate him into the story.




( Read the Full Text of Chapter 12 below the Cut )

This one has one odd little moment which I feel is worth commenting on. There's a minor and nameless character who appears around 3/4 of the way through the chapter, and I was working on this at the time that my friend Heather and her friend Jesse were briefly visiting. I asked Jesse if he'd do the voice of this character for me, and he agreed. There was one line, though, which begins "I suppose there's sense in that, sir...", which, even after twenty or so takes, he just COULD NOT NAIL. Each and every time, he inserted the word "a" between "there's" and "sense", eve though I corrected him after each and every take. Finally, I realized that there was simply something mis-wired in his head, and he would never get the line right, even if we did a thousand takes, and left it alone.

True story.

Anyways! I put a ton of work into this one, for reasons which will become clear at around the half-way mark. So, while I always appreciate those two or three people who regularly comment on new chapters, I would LOVE to hear from a couple of the others out there who are listening to and enjoying this work.
( Read the Full Text of Chapter 10 Below the Cut!  )

This chapter contains not only my single favourite line of exposition in the entire series, and the birth of not one, not two, but three of my favourite running gags. Enjoy!
( Read the Full Text of Chapter 9 Below the Cut )

Men!

Do you have some modicum of vocal talent? Do you own a microphone? If so, you may be in a position to aid me in that grandest of ambitions: the Audio-Rama component of The Curse of the Rhino King.

There's a couple of parts to be filled, the details of which I'll go into in private, for the moment. I'm open to broad interpretations of the characters, so feel free to let your creative impulses run wild on this.

Let me know ASAP, for time waits for no man!

Oh, and also: There's a small part coming up in a while for a female voice actor, if there are any women interested in making a contribution.

Oh, I have been eagerly awaiting this chapter's release.

It's a longer one than usual - both longer than previous chapters and longer than future ones - because I needed to introduce most of the remaining main cast in this chapter, and I didn't want to give any of them short shrift. There's also, as a consequence, a considerably larger voice cast than usual for this one, including a memorable if brief performance by Reginald's soft-headed trollop of a maid, Pansie, by izuma_yaki , who responded to a post here some time ago in which I cryptically asked for a female voice actor with a british accent.

Anyways, without further ado...

( Read the Full text of chapter 8 below the cut!  )

Today's Chapter sees (or perhaps more accurately, hears) the return of lenimonkey as Miss Rita Elliot.

This is something of a defining moment for the story in a couple of ways. First, I just had a tremendous amount of fun writing it, because the bulk of the chapter grew out of a single joke which was just so funny and so bizarre that it not only ended up dominating virtually the entire chapter, it ended up being a character-defining moment for Miss Elliot and Reginald both.

Also, the end of this chapter - specifically around the 8:20 mark - contains perhaps the most outlandish conceit in the entire story so far, which, I feel, more than anything else, makes it plain just what sort of a world we're looking at in this story.

And so, without further ado...



Comments, as always. are appreciated and welcome.

A conversation I had with my friend Ray yesterday - yes, two posts in one day based upon yesterday's conversations; we're talkative guys - recounted in part here, and with me maybe misrepresenting Ray slightly for comedic effect.

I'm sure he understands.

Chapter 6






Download Chapter 6 directly here

Download Chapter 5 directly here

Download Chapter 4 directly here

Download Chapter 3 directly here

Download Chapter 2 directly here

Download Chapter 1 directly here


( Read the Full Text of Chapter 6 Below the Cut! )

Chapter Three begins a brief prologue, of sorts. One might argue that a prologue more properly belongs before the beginning of chapter 1. Such a one fails to grasp the avant-garde nature of what I'm doing here.

Even if you haven't checked out chapters 1 or 2, I would strongly recommend you give this one a whirl. Not only do I consider it the funniest chapter so far, it's also the most technically challenging to have created in Audio-Rama Format. Moreover, it's more purely representative of what the story is like from here on out; where I think I really hit my stride writing it.

And, as always, let me know what you think of the end result.

( Read the full text of chapter 3 below the cut )

Because a dead horse which has not been beaten is no dead horse at all, I have, for the past couple of months, been working on something for you all, and incidentally, for myself.

Some of you may recall - and some fewer of you may have commented on - my serialized pulp adventure series, "The Curse of the Rhino King". It failed to make the splash that I thought it should, and so I took the pulse of the readership, and came up with a couple of possible reasons why. First: Digestibility. I've touched upon this before, but not everyone is looking to read four pages of text as they skim their friends page. Second: Schedule. Not everyone wants to wait four weeks between chapters. Third: Convenience. Maybe some people would like to be able to take it in in different manners. Fourth: Presentation. It needs a spiffy title graphic.

Therefore, a group of friends and colleagues of mine have been busily working behind the scenes for months now on this project, building up a great and powerful backlog of story for you. The current plan is this: Every Tuesday and Saturday for the foreseeable future, you'll get a new chapter, in text format, in MP3 format (which can be played directly with the touch of a button), and in podcast format, which is to say "download the latest chapter from this link" format, so if you should wish to listen to it later, in an MP3 format, you can do so.

We've put many, many hours of work into this, we have, and I'm quite proud of what we've accomplished creatively. Already, some twenty chapters have been banked, with more on their way. I only ask that you give it a go.

With this having been said, I'm going to begin with the audio version of chapter 2, as the audio version of chapter 1 is already out there. Further chapters will be forthcoming on a regular and predictable schedule. And so, without further ado...

I've said time and time again that my favoured approach to the customer/customer service employee relationship is a faintly adversarial one, and there is perhaps no group of people on earth who could speak to this effect with quite so much authority as the cashiers at my local grocery stores. They've come to expect me to put on a bit of a performance when I get up to the cash register, and so they've gotten to the point where they can accept with equanimity epic rants like the one I had the other day when one of the cashiers missed a couple of items and needed to ring them up separately for me.

And which I faithfully reproduced for your enjoyment thus:

I've been meaning to record this for quite some time now. There's a movie which my friend BJ and I will never make, but which you should still hear about, because it would be awesome.

I have noted with some considerable distress that the various chapters of The Curse of the Rhino King have received somewhat less n the way of accolades than would seem its due. I don’t now exactly what to attribute this dearth of positive attention to; certainly no lack of quality on the part of the narrative itself. I’ve read it aloud to any number of friends and seen with my own eyes that they’ve enjoyed it. I’m willing to entertain the possibility that there’s a large number of you who have something physically wrong with the pleasure centers of your brains which renders you incapable of experiencing joy, but for the many times you’ve expressed it at other appropriate times.

To me the most likely scenario is one which revolves around the labour involved with actually reading large blocks of text. Peter David on his blog has lately been running a serialized story entitled “Potato Moon” which is up to something like chapter 55 now, and which I have yet to read even a single chapter of; when I’m reading my friends page I’m not necessarily in the right mood or head-space to entertain that sort of focus or effort. It is my expectation and hope that some significant portion of those of you who have not been reading or commenting upon this opus are of a similar mind-set.

There is a ready cure for this deficiency, however! A detour around this speed-bump. A monkey wrench by means of which this nut may be tightened. A lubricant by means of which this penetration may take place with a minimum of tearing and strain. In this I speak of the magic of audio. For some time I have planned to re-create my narrative success in reading these thrilling tales aloud to my friends for the benefit of my readers and indeed had enlisted the aid of my good friend lenimonkey in narrating those parts which are too feminine for the booming issue of my own throat to manage.

I had at one time planned on creating YouTube videos from this material (with some minimal graphics to supplement the audio) and I may yet do so (which would also serve the purpose of giving those dozens-or-hundreds- I -don’t-even-now-anymore of people who subscribed to my channel after my penis videos something to loo at). However, with the discovery of this delightful audio tool things become a great deal more streamlined and convenient for all involved.

Anyways. if this is more warmly received than the text-only versions (which is explicitly meant to be read as “If I receive more comments posted) then you can be certain that more will be forthcoming.

This having been said, and without further ado...

For the benefit of those of you who for whatever missedyesterday's post, or else didn't pay it the attention it only-in-the-loosest-possible-of-terms-deserved, I present it once again, in a much more easily-absorbed form, since I have just now mastered a charming little applet which ought to make these audio posts significantly more satisfying for all involved.

In an act of nearly unmitigated cockpunching irony, I shall require my readers in this singular instance not to look, but to listen, as I wax poetic on the topic of looking, rather than listening.

Edit: Upon review, I do believe this may actually be my most bizarre blog post ever, finally displacing my previous title-holder, which among other things contained visions of a giant, orgasming space-bear made up of stars and human souls.

Some year or so after I recorded the voice acting for this vieo game character, apparently he's just about ready for release, and I must say, I'm pretty happy to see how well he's turned out; a very smooth-playing and well-realized effort here.

As with one of my previous efforts in this field, Crashman here is a character who originates with Mega Man 2, which was the first Nintendo game I ever bought, back when I was a wee tyke of 12, and as such, there's some considerably pleasing nostolgia involved here.