Harlan Guthrie (he/him) is a creative, nerdy, medium sized dynamo. He is a writer, voice actor, editor, and creator of a number of different shows and streams. He has a Dungeons & Dragons Actual Play Podcast called Dice Shame that has been featured on Wizards of the Coast Podcasts of the Frostmaiden event and you can find him pulling the strings in the Audio Drama “Malevolent” or streaming Wednesday nights on The INVICTUS Stream.
Great job!!
Looking forward to episode 2 and 3
Top quality audio storytelling
Seance is fun, funny, exciting, and well produced. Hats off to the writer on this one
Intriguing
Very curious how things will unfold. I love the mysterious effects. It keeps you on the edge. Lina definitely is hiding something. So much more to her character as she plays a well truly good victim to assumptious words slandering her character. She seems like a force to be reckoned with once she gets going.
Oliver salvaged it...
Don't read this if you don't like spoilers. Fair warning. Don't do it, back away, go read some other review if you don't like spoilers... So, I'll start this off with I'm a *really* harsh critic of entertainment...for reasons. I recognize this about myself, and generally give an extra star than I originally plan to because I'm just a picky bitch that way and I know it. Anyway, when it comes to entertainment, I want a character I can care about right off the bat, and unfortunately I didn't get that here except for brief snippets of Oliver. Most of the episode was focused on Lina Fox, who I literally give two shits about. (Very hard to make people care about con artists, especially in such a limited amount of time, and literally no effort was made to make us care about the con artist's victims as an alternative, so that fell flat too. We were just...listening to Lina do shit, which I found incredibly mind-numbingly boring.) I probably would have shut it off had it not been for the initial glimpse into Oliver's childhood and the final scene with him and his 'manager', which salvaged it in my mind. Entertainment-value-wise, I feel like introducing Lina as the lead-in to the series was a poor choice in an otherwise stellar production. It would've made a good flashback or a good Part 2 or even a good kill-your-darlings moment altogether, to be shown from Oliver's or his 'manager's' POV later. The hook of Oliver's existence and (I'm assuming) trek towards Lina's little town makes it interesting enough that I'm looking forward to the next one. However, I feel like it could have been done better, with having to listen to less stuff I don't care about (temperance, whether or not a mill will be built in town, Lina's ambition) and focusing more on (what I assume) is to be the main protag of the series, Oliver and his future clash with Lina (guessing). Spending literally like 40 of the 45 minutes of the first episode (the hook) on an unlikeable antagonist was, in my view, a mistake. But I'm interested enough to listen to the next one. Four stars because the production quality was mesmerizing and Oliver's character was pretty awesome, and the voice actors were amazing. I think the Lina stuff could've been cut, easy, and people would like it more.
Instantly compelling
I fell into the action of this plot without hesitation. I’ve always been fascinated by the spiritualist movement, seances, and the people who lead them, but this story does so much with it. The addition of political manipulation, the temperance movement, and the birth of American feminism round out a full and compelling drama. The acting is excellent, the sound quality is beautiful, and I can not wait to listen to the next episode - now please!