Homefront

Homefront is another great installment to the excellent Expeditionary Force series despite changing the format up. Unlike the rest of the series, this one is an audio drama with a full cast rather than novel. While RC Bray is hard to top, I did enjoy hearing some other voices alongside his...especially women's voices reading the women. Most of the narrators really added a lot of value to their roles, and although I'm happy to listen to Bray read all the characters, I'd also be thrilled to listen to these actors read these characters again. That said, I have to admit I'm glad the next few books in the series are regular books, because the format of this audio drama was kind of funky. And not funky like “let's dance to this funky music all night”, no it was much more like “does this milk smell funky to you?” Here's the thing, it sounded over-produced. There were background sounds and musical sections that didn't seem to fit the rest of the recording, and the levels were sometimes odd. Additionally, the whole thing sounded like there was a bit of reverb, not the crisp simple sound we have come to expect from the series. I also prefer the flow of Alanson's usual writing over the audio drama structure. This wasn't bad, I just was much more cognizant of it being composed of “scenes” than I usually am. Admittedly as an actor myself I may be trained to recognize them, but nevertheless I prefer to simply get lost in the story rather than clearly hearing one scene end and another begin.

Overall, this is a solid story and is an interesting listening experience. Great performances and so-so production. This listener would love to hear a regular Expeditionary Force NOVEL read by this cast some day. Sadly, this is probably not economically plausible, but hey - with Skippy the Magnificent, who knows?

P.S. Listen through the credits. I loved hearing the outtakes and funny things some of the actors said.