Hope Runners of Gridlock Audiobook
When I escape into a story, I usually, where possible also listen to it: sometimes shuffling between text and audio. I enjoy the additional texture of audio. Making an audiobook of “Hope Runners of Gridlock” was always something I wanted to do.
Today, it’s finally complete, narrated by Heather Nichols.
It can be listened to on YouTube (which includes a GAN generated image for each chapter):
It is also available as a podcast here (it’s on spotify and google too): https://feeds.captivate.fm/hope-runners-of-gridlock/.
Chapter 1 starts here:
Or, if you want the files themselves, you can download it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R0AUOZ2zH6SYitryA-txBmH22fUy4mhk/view
GAN + Audio + Themes
There’s more here than just a narration. Part of the additional exploration includes: adding audio backtracks & GAN imagery. In a way, I feel we are eventually heading to a future where one can with limited effort create wonderful stories from AI guided aids.
The VQGAN+CLIP imagery is a testament to that, creating moodboards for each chapter. In this case, each chapter is modified to add elements from Mondrian into it, because Saga, a character in the novel enjoys drawing/painting her world like this.
Visions of Gridlock by Saga (2021).
On top of that, with services like SudoWrite allowing easy style transfer and lyrical aid, it can really help anyone to flesh out a story with fairly minimal lift.
Who knows, maybe in the future, we can even do easier voice transfer (or spawning), allowing more people access to voice narration options?
Themes + Scoring
One thing I hoped to do was also attempt to score the audiobook. Unfortunately, it takes a huge amount of time to get this properly right. I would not have enough time now to do it full justice. Thus, I opted for something simpler: thematic backtracks. For each PoV character, there’s a primary & secondary backtrack based on their character change during the novel. There’s a few special backtracks for special parts in the novel.
I can give you an example of what it could’ve sounded like if I scored the entire novel. But, to get to this quality takes a lot of time. It’s a lot of fun, but it takes a lot of editing and detail. Maybe for a future project. :)
The backtracks consists primarily of my own compositions with added usage of samples from Splice.
Thank you to those who’ve read and listened to this book. Even more than a year later, I’m still running with the characters through the city of Gridlock!
Enjoy!
