Slan (Dramatized)

By: A. E. van Vogt

Narrated by: Third Ear Radio Theater

Length: 2 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

In the 25th Century mankind fought against the hated telepathic slan race in the fierce slan-wars. The result was the extermination of almost all slans, and the establishment of a world-wide police state. Now in the 30th Century, slan Jommy Cross has escaped extermination and is now living in the world of cruel humans. Jommy was determined to avoid detection, track down other surviving slans and with them, solve the mystery of the slan's strange existence and superiority.

©1993 by Bob E. Flick (P)199 3

Critic reviews

"SLAN is an excellent production with wonderful music, great acting, and realistic sound effects." (A.E. and Lydia Van Vogt)
"Fast paced...enthralling, a sound achievement." (Forrest J. Ackerman)

Parts unhearable

Overall not bad but parts had low volume for some players and normal for others making portions difficult to follow.

Classic pulp sci-fi

Don't expect a literary masterpiece here. This is '40's pulp science fiction at it's best and worst: a magnificent set of ideas and speculations with weak character development and inexpertly written dialog. Still, the basic story about the persecution of genetically engineered humanoids was good enough to be "borrowed" by a number of authors, including the fine folks at Star Trek: The Next Generation. Why three stars: Over-the-top, scenery-chewing acting by a "full" cast of amateur actors and the worst, most-intrusive sound track I've ever heard. Still, if you're looking for a classic wad of adolescent sci-fi pulp, give it a listen.

Not worth it

While the story is still great, the performance was very dated with serious quality issues such as volume and missing segments.

Avoid!

This has to be the worst audio rendition of a book I have ever heard. Easily 25% is wasted pauses and worthless sound effects. Also I did not realize that it was a re-written audioplay. Acting was poor and some dialogue was unintelligable. I was gettig ready for the sequel and should have just re-read the book. This audio is NOT recommended!

Just awful

This was one of favorite books, so I have no qualms with the heavyhanded plot. But this was the worst audiobook I have even listened to. The cast was amateur and the delivery was way over the top. The soundtrack was so bad that some key dialog was even drowned out.

I don't think it even deserves the one star I gave it

Astonishing

I love old sci-fi and I am very forgiving; I can listen to old recordings of arcane bits of literature happily for hours. This work is by far the worst piece of literature that I have ever heard. Please, go look for an audiobook by Robert Heinlein and listen to his work. Today there are 83 titles in the Audible library. Don’t listen to this mess.

Poor adaptation

Avoid. Piece uses sound effects in place of narration -- at some points more than 1 minute long. This makes the story sequence disjointed and hard to follow. And the voice of the villain is lost in the climactic dialogue. Sound levelling is atrocious and the effects are questionalbe (squeaky chair during a confrontation?).

The story channels Heinlein's teen hero genre mixed in with some space opera, and the actors -- who sound like high schoolers imitating 1930's style radio theater -- do their level best to keep the listener engaged.

Their efforts would be acceptable but for the truly awful production quality.

Oh my god that was so bad ...

Having read the book I’m highly disappointed, the sound is horrible the voice acting seems to come from a bad B series, the dramatization is just nonsensical... avoid at all costs