We (as listeners) are inside her head and learn things as she learns them. Answers will not come easy for her or anyone else she meets on her quest. She is thrust into an unfamiliar situation and doesn’t even know her name. Our main protagonist has virtually a blank slate and nothing to help her as she begins her journey. With that in mind, I am going to do my best to keep things as spoiler free as possible. Scott Sigler’s Alive is all about momentum and what I like to call structured discovery. It will be the first of many choices to be made. But when she realizes she is surrounded by “total darkness” and is unable to move thanks to metal bars, she is forced to make a decision. Maybe the pain was just from a dream, she thinks. “A stabbing pain jolts me awake.” So begins the story of a girl on what is an exciting day in her young life her twelfth birthday. Or maybe a reality they cannot comprehend lies just beyond the next turn. Maybe there’s a way out, a rational explanation, and a fighting chance against the dangers to come. If she has to lead, she will make sure they survive. Whatever the truth is, she is determined to find it and confront it. Now, if they’re to have any chance, she must get them to trust one another. ![]() ![]() She is not the biggest among them or the boldest, but for some reason the others trust her. Savage, which was engraved on the foot of her coffin. She knows only one thing about herself – her name, M. Beyond their room lies a corridor filled with bones and dust but no people and no answers. Fighting her way free brings little relief – she discovers only a room lined with caskets and a handful of equally mystified survivors. She has no idea who she is, where she is, or how she got there. Themes: / young adult / survival / horror /Ī teenage girl awakens to find herself trapped in a coffin. The original, unedited story can be found |HERE|. The website has an audio sample as well as a history of the story, which was written sometime in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s by Louis L’Amour, then revised and expanded to novella length by Beau L’Amour. The story retained much of the pulp quality of the original story, which was welcome. I haven’t heard any other titles by this skilled team, but I’d love to hear one in which they rely more on the superb sound than on narration to establish setting and action. Their methods sound excellent in the final production. On the video page of The Diamond of Jeru Audio Project site, Writer/Director Beau L’Amour and Producer/Editor Paul O’Dell discuss the making of the sound effects. This cast is among the highest quality group of actors I’ve ever heard doing audio drama. In fact, all of the actors in this are top notch. He was perfect in some of Simon and Schuster’s Star Trek audio titles, and is excellent again here. Joe Morton is the narrator, which is terrific because I can’t hear enough of that guy. It’s presented as a “Dramatized Audio”, which I would describe as a rich audio drama with heavy narration. There’s a touch of magic in the story, so I’d call it a fantasy adventure. He is hired by a Helen and John Lacklan (Traci Dinwiddlie and Time Winters) to guide them deep into the island to find a diamond. It’s set in Borneo in 1955, where our hero Mike Kardec (played by Joel Bryant) finds himself after the Korean War. ![]() The Diamond of Jeru is also not a Western. I enjoyed all of the above, which is why I greeted The Diamond of Jeru with a smile. ![]() Later I read The Lonesome Gods (1983), which, though there were gunfights and horses, I assumed was still one of L’Amour’s atypical works. Last of the Breed (1986) was about a Native American pilot downed in Russia during the Cold War, and The Walking Drum (1984), a historical novel set in the 12th century. Louis L’Amour (1908 – 1988) is best known for his Western novels, but for a long time I knew him only for a couple of his non-westerns. There were times Mike Kardec thought he could feel the magic of this place, a vague sense that just beyond his perception vast but subtle forces were at work… there was power out there, a great organic engine of death and rebirth. Themes: / Audio Drama / Adventure / Magic / Fantasy / Pulp / By Louis L’Amour Performed by a Full Cast
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