The Strange Disappearance and Equally Strange Reappearance of David Gerrold

De: David Gerrold

Narrado por: Daniel Penz

What happens when a science-fiction writer takes a wrong turn? David Gerrold writes to his editor about his bizarre peripatetic journey through the Northwest wilderness and his accidental encounter with one of the legendary "green people" and his even more bizarre trek to uncover the truth behind the mystery. Originally published in two parts in the January 2007 and the April 2007 issues of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, this novelette reveals the author's keen eye for detail as well as his mordant sense of humor. A deliciously vicious journey! Warning: There are terrible puns in this tale.

©2011 DG Media (P)2021 DG Media

David Gerrold as David Gerrold in a shaggy…something…story

This purports to be a true story told as fiction (and a giant belles-letres conceit to boot) in which David takes an old ratty-looking camper and sails off down the blue roads to decompress and recharge. Whereupon he runs into…something. He also runs into nasty hick cops. Emboldened by curiosity he heads back into the NW wilds with a slightly mysterious support group. It’s pretty much a novella about characters, and life, with the central mystery a macguffin. The occasional hail of puns and dad jokes suggest a lighter note, too, despite the run-in with a homophobic sheriff who literally gives him a sundown order.

This would have been a much better experience, though, had the narration been better and the audio not mangled. I’m surprised that Daniel Penz did such a dull job here, with pacing that had me checking speed settings on the app. He’s also tonally even to the point of boredom — I’ve heard David speak, and he’s nothing like this. It’s a relief whenever a different voice shows up. This isn’t helped by audio that not only sounds over-compressed but keeps sounding out of phase, leading to patches of noisy swirling tinny speech. Definitely something that needs to be fixed.

Strange

I have no idea what I just listened to but the author has always been a favorite so I gave it a shot. It was very slow moving and the narrator was too monotone for my taste. Also the bass kept dropping out in the sound every few seconds on the last half of the reading. That was my main reason for a 4* rating. Very annoying. The story however was definitely a David Gerrold story. Very original.

Good short

Pretty good short story. Quirky characters and unreal events.
Narration was great by Daniel Penz

Much more interesting than I had anticipated

I had no idea what this book was about when I started listening. It turned out better than I had hoped. I will add David Gerrold to my list of authors I am interested in.