The Leviathan Chronicles

Christof Laputka is in the process of creating an interesting product in The Leviathan Chronicles. Ok, anyone who spends much thing scanning through this blog will see that I have basically ignored independent productions in favor of BBC stuff. There is a lot more to the audio drama world other than BBC and OTR. There are several independent production companies. These seem to go from a guy somewhere with a mic and an internet connection all the way to production companies that seem to have a budget and a company of people to work with. The Leviathan Chronicles, along with Wireless, is in the latter group with an impressive flash web site and professional sounding tech and performances (for the most part, a scene in Chapter 5 could use a little more work).

Well, I have been called out and told to look into The Leviathan Chronicles and I did. This is a long form continuous science fiction story that is said to expand to 50 chapters of 30 minutes or so each. So far we are up to Chapter 9. I have heard the first 5.

Now the thing is. I'm not particularly drawn to serials, as a matter of fact I tend to avoid them. I favor the anthology series, shows that present something new every time. I somehow find it tedious to have to revisit my old friends, the principals on the series. So I say, give me Suspense, The Afternoon Play, The Twilight Zone, that sort of thing.

But The Leviathan Chronicles is quite good. The scenes are paced nicely, the plot interesting, some characters are revealing themselves to be worth following. I'm not a big fan of science fiction in general and I have heard some things that are kind of rushed, cluttered, noisy and not very lucid. I tend toward the more earth based science fiction, don't care much about space. So here we have a little of both with earth based action and undersea playing outerspace.

Being a New Yorker, I particularly enjoy the scene that take place here. Christof Laputka is a New Yorker and he celebrates it in his script setting geographically detailed scenes in his own neighborhood.

The tech of this production is good. There was some very interesting things going on with the musical score in chapter 5 which was nice because the scene it played under could have used a bit of work. Most of the time the acting is fine. It was a good decision to assign the narration to Samantha Turvill. She is terrific and really adds to the production.

The Leviathan Chronicles is not only for the sci-fi crowd, as a matter of fact I wonder how well it would go over in some fan communities. This is crossover material perhaps of interest to the general audio drama listener (is there such a thing?). This is secret society material that plays well in our current confusing WTF world. Although it has been years since I read him, Leviathan brings to mind some of the work of Robert Anton Wilson. Is Leviathan actually the Illuminati? Is this strange character Christof Laputka actually an Illuminati agent whose mission is to spread disinformation?
I guess we should all stay tuned and see what will happen next. It's an entertaining worthwhile ride (dive?).

Here is an interview with Christof Laputka conducted by Steve Riekeberg at Geek Cred.