Introducing Distant Spires

So far i've used this blog to promote my experiences, mainly with Big Finish, but of all thing's i've enjoyed and thought noteworthy. On the internet exposure is everything so i've just been reiterating aloud my love of these products to give them a little more shelf life.

Now however, briefly, i'm going to talk about my own work:

http://www.distantspires.com/ is a website I have prepared in collaboration with another author (Glen Delaney) in order to publish audiobook short stories. This summer we intend to release a collection (Monsters) which will feature six original short stories. The website should go live today and a short audio trailer for all six stories has just gone live on youtube and soundcloud.

We intend to sell these for download over the internet at a very cheap, reasonable price. This isn't specifically a profit organising website, we aim just to cover the cost of putting them online but if you do purchase them it will allow us to write, record and publish more over the coming years.

Please, check the website out and enjoy. And follow our website specific blog http://www.distantspires.blogspot.com/.

The Last Story

It feels a little unfair to constantly compare ‘Last Story’ to ‘Xenoblade Chronicles’ which was without a doubt the seminal RPG of the Wii last year. The games have a lot in common; but boast fundamentally different goals. Whilst ‘Xenoblade’ told a story epic on scope and depth, ‘Last Story’ contents itself with a much smaller, more personal setting, yet one that boasts just as many shocking revelations as it’s predecessor.

Nightwish - Imaginaerum

No review... Not right now, can't form enough words.

I listened to this in a car journey with my girlfriend, arguing about the bass levels throughout. Was kind of happy, kind of ambivilent, the road noise made some of the trickier vocals hard to make out...

This album cant be done like that. It needs your time, your respect, your patience. It's not a typical album, a body of music you can pick up and play. It's a high concept peice. It's an 'experience'. I've relistened to it alone, trying to appreciate it more carefully and the results was a thousand times better.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

The Natural History of Fear

During my run of Big Finish’s Bernice Summerfield in 2010 I said once before that I struggled to review their main range of Doctor Who stories. This is because more than any other series the format of Doctor Who is so variable, so flexible, that pinning a consistent style in it is impossible. Doctor Who is unique in that though there are some stories I prefer over others, I struggle to call many of them truly ‘bad’, just ‘different’. Every other series I can try to judge what they’ve achieved compared to what I thought they were meant to, but the intention of Doctor Who varies so wildly from one moment to the next that this becomes almost impossible. The Natural History of fear represents this, and so much more. More than anything else it is ‘different’. In truth the reason you are seeing this review is because it is not, in any sense of the word, a traditional Doctor Who Story.

The Longest Journey

The Longest Journey, released over a decade ago in 1999, is an old game now. The Developer Funcom has moved on to larger action adventure titles and large MMORPGs but in many ways ‘The Longest Journey’ is still as relevant now as it was when released. Sure it looks dated, with PS1 level graphics, and despite a talented vocal group the dialogue is stilted compared with some of the more dramatic modern games released today, but there’s no denying this is an adventure with a heart and soul eager to be unleashed.

The Sound of Speed - An Album by OverClocked Remix Review

The first Sonic the Hedgehog is the last to be formally tackled by OCRemix, and it’s the tightest of the three albums so far weighing in at a paltry thirteen tracks. Led by one of the rising masters of chiptunes style remixing, halc, this album may take some people by surprise with its very interpretative approach to the source material but it certainly ticks many of the required boxes that launch it to stellar status. However this albums central hook, dividing into three separate acts and using the Special Theme as an omnipresent chorus, may prove to be divisive.

Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream - An Album by OverClocked Remix Review

Voices of the Lifestream is a pretty epic undertaking. Rolling in just short of three and a half hours of music it covers all the major areas of its source. Unfortunately this strength is also its weaknest; Final Fantasy VII had a fairly varied soundtrack and whilst in the context of a game most of it works, as a cohesive body of music the album struggles to remain focused, particularly around the third disc.

Bernice Summerfield and the Criminal Code

Bernice Summerfield and the Criminal Code is something of a slow burner. Over the course of an hour Lisa Bowerman, as Bernice Summerfield, tells us a tale that’s clearly designed to evoke memories of the ‘Virgin New Adventures’. It’s heavy on big, alien, metaphysical ideas too vague to be comprehended by puny mortal brains, although Eddie Robson has a good go at it. And by the nature of the stories huge, huge scope boiling down to an interplanetary war and the peace conference designed to prevent it, things become very heavy on the exposition.

Joyland - An Album by the Bedford Incident

The Bedford Incident is a small band from Sheffield, signed to the newly formed label Sci-Fi Records. The first album of the band and indeed the publisher is Joyland, ten completely original songs written by the band with lyrics from vocalist Jamie Lisle and co-composer Jill Farrar. The album has an eclectic, slightly off kilter feel to it sure to make even the most cynical listener feel at least a tinge of nostalgia.

Shadow the Hedgehog

Shadow the Hedgehog is not the thoroughly awful game some people have made it out to be, but is marred by a lacklustre effort on Sega’s half in the presentation and some poor design choices. Unfortunately there are just too many mistakes, errors, and flaws that cover up what could have been a relatively solid platformer…

Jak II

It’s rare in the history of gaming has everything come together so spectacularly to make a game which is, to all intents and purposes, perfect. A radical departure from its predecessor in both tone, mechanics and intent it manages to be both respectful to the franchise and bright, bold and brilliantly inventive in new ways.

Tomb Raider II



Some people believe that Lara Croft peaked after Tomb Raider three, whilst others believe nothing captured the original games ambition, and a few more suspect the series was never really that good anyway. Obviously all of these people have forgotten the glory that is Tomb Raider II, for me the best in the series. Well, the best from the days before Crystal Dynamics took the reigns and reimagined the series as a world not entirely as built of square boxes, but even against modern competition I would argue it holds its own.

Heroes vs Villains - An Album by the Bad Dudes and OverClocked Remix Review

My mind feels like it’s just blown…

The Book Thief

I wrote this review back in 2008 when i was young and naive, and it was lost when reformatting this blog not long after. However it's one of the first reviews I made and I poured my soul into it. So after much scouring of the internet for a copy I can now present to you one of the best stand alone books I touched in the last decade. Definitely my best impulse buy from a train station.

Bernice Summerfield - Series Seven and Eight

In 2006 Simon Guerrier became producer of the Bernice Summerfield range for Big Finish, a post he held for two years and two very strong series. Have a look for yourself:

Series Seven: 6 audios, 1 book, 1 novella collection, 1 short story collection

With Irving Braxiatel gone the Collection faces an uncertain future. Series six bosts some of the best releases of the range and for the first time everything ties together fantastically to make a cohesive whole.

Series Eight: 6 audios, 1 book, 1 novella collection, 1 short story collection

Leaping back to the Collection Bernice faces a home at war. A stunning climax to the previous seven series and everything changes across six tumultous releases and a couple of seminal books.