Audiobook - Extermin-8
Susan Omand gets the bug-zapper going and listens to the audio short from Neil Gardner...
I will say right now that I am a big fan of Neil Gardner’s writing, having listened to everything I think he has written for audio so far, and this new audio short proves no exception to that. Told from the point of view of a pest controller, Extermin-8 goes through a normal day, from what he had for breakfast to dealing with the latest job from a client, a swarm of bugs destroying a plant filled habitat, and how he finally gets rid of the persistent infestation.
The writing is as sublime as I have come to expect from Neil, and comfortably read by Terry Molloy, who made the pest controller sound very matter-of-fact, like you would expect a normal white-van-man tradesman to sound (without swearing). In fact everything about this audio is smooth, comfortable, familiar and normal, apart from the music. The skitter-scatter sound of dissonant pizzicato really keeps you on edge and is very reminiscent of an army of insects scuttling over the walls and ceiling. It is highly disturbing in a very good way and makes that one throwaway line in the story, that changes the whole narrative, all the more telling.
One final thing though that made me smile a lot, was the inspiration in casting Terry Molloy, the voice of Davros, as the reader for Extermin-8. Just brilliant.
Image - Spokenworld
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