It's a full life, if a trifle banal

The Story of Marli-hrair and the Black Rabbit of Inle by Edo no Hana.

This is an amazing Watership Down fanfiction. I think it might be one of the best short stories I've read this year. It's so simple and beautiful and mythic. Gosh. Fanfiction. Isn't it a hell of a thing?

I listened to luzula's gentle careful reading, available for download here.

I have committed more podfic. The City and Star Island Line by maelipstick: "Faramir tells a ghost story shortly after the war of the ring. Beware modern English and anachronisms as well as unexpected additions to the fauna of Middle earth. It's told in fun."

Probably my favourite story about Faramir and Eowyn, certainly the funniest story about the pyre that I've read. Very tender, very sweet, very witty. Download from here; read here.

The day was breaking. In the disfigured street
He left me, with a kind of valediction,
And faded on the blowing of the horn.

To my absolute delight, greyonblue has recorded my short story A Kind of Valediction. Link to download here.

A Kind of Valediction was the fevered product of too much immersion in:- TS Eliot's Little Gidding; minutiae relating to the Ruling Stewards of Gondor; thorts about history; and some misty November evenings. It's my own favourite of my Tolkien fanfics, and I'm incredibly grateful to greyonblue for all the work she has put into this.

Right, my next podfic attempt is a recording of a Blake's 7 story and, at toft_froggy's request, it's about Anna Grant. It's called Run, Anna, Run, and you can download it from Megaupload here (15.13mb) and there's a permanent link here, courtesy of Jinjurly's awesome audio archive.

I've been a bit more ambitious this time: for one thing, it's much longer (16:32mins). I've used a different mike and also fiddled around with noise reduction effects in Audacity. I was also speaking more quickly, so enjoy the fluffs.

This turned out to be a pretty complicated story to record. Its inspiration is Tom Tykwer's fantastic film Lola Rennt, which has all these fast edits and interludes (I won't say more because you have to see it). I kept them in the story, and what's easy to do in text turns out to be a lot trickier in audio! I ended up doing something simple but I hope it's effective. Let me know what you think. You might find it helps to have the text to hand.

Encouraged by toft_froggy and various other posters to this journal, I've taken the plunge into podficcing.

I've started a community, tolkien_podfic, and I'd love it if other people did some readings too, either of their own stories, or of their favourites (ask the author's permission first).

At edge_of_ruin's request, and because it's very short, I've started with a piece called Flowers of the Forest. It's a bit of a scrappy recording (sorry about the pops), but I'm learning as I go along!

Either go to this post on tolkien_podfic, or else get it straight from Megaupload here.

And please do pimp this community far and wide!