Audition Notice – Fiction (Science Fiction) Audiobook – PFH

THIS AUDITION IS NOW CLOSED.

Title: Transient (Click here to view this title on Amazon.com)

Word Count: Approx. 49,000

Rate: $200 PFH (payments are made via electronic bank transfer)

Narrator Summary: Male, Strong Character Skills, Standard American (A very small amount of Russian accent needed. Guidance provided.)

Audio Required: Raw WAV, Punch & Roll.

Audition Deadline: January 31st, 2023

Full Recording Due: March 31st, 2023

Pickups: April 15th, 2023

Submit the audition as mastered MP3 plus your latest resume (if available) to team@royalwavemedia.com.

Click to download this audition notice as a PDF

Thank you.

Character and Setting Notes

The setting is a “blood bar” about 500 years in the future. Jonus is a human successfully masquerading in the now dominant vampire culture.

Jonus: Male, human, young adult, American accent. Cagey, rational, empathetic.
Doren: Male, vampire. Witty, likable, but slightly obnoxious.
Anna: Female, vampire. Gracious, practical, loyal.

Audition Script

As the evening hours drew to a close, most eternals retreated to the safety of home with time to spare. Blood bars, on the other hand, seemed immune to this unspoken rule. Crowds drank and socialized up to the very last minute, often pushing their luck with sunrise. The first chime signaled last call, resulting in the largest exodus.
Jonas and Anna chatted around a table, enjoying the last hour of safety. Iron Works rum-bled with activity, enough to warrant a decent amount of staff. But unlike the midnight peak, one could talk without shouting.
“Hola bitches,” Doren said as he strolled up and took a seat.
“Well look who finally showed up.” Jonas glanced at a wall clock with an exaggerated lean. “And only 40 minutes late.”
“I know, I know. Work shit, the onerous life of an entrepreneur. I now return you to whatever I interrupted.”
“We were just chatting about my conversion,” Anna said with a giddy smile.
“Ah, this old song and dance.” Doren groaned with annoyance. “Don’t you ever get tired of these stories? I was human, I was scared, I got infected, now I’m cool. The end.”
“Oh hush,” Anna said. “You don’t have to shit on everything just because you’re an ass-hole.”
Jonas laughed.
“Zing,” Doren said. “Very well, hands in the air. Please resume your enthralling tale of intrigue.”
Jonas motioned to the waitress for another round, plus one. She nodded and disappeared behind the bar.
“I still have flashbacks to that day,” Anna said. “I was scared out of my mind. It’s hard enough to wrap your head around immortality, but at 19 years old? I hadn’t even left my town yet. I didn’t know a damn thing about the world. Seems almost unfair, y’know?”
“Time is relative,” Jonas said, trying to sound enlightened. “With enough time, 19 will seem hollow by comparison, like trying to recall the first hour of birth.”
“I guess,” Doren said.
“Do you ever think back on your time?” Anna said to Jonas.
Doren turned a wide-eyed gaze to Anna.
“What?” she said with a shrug. “We’re all friends here. Screw the PC police, maybe Jonas wants to talk about it. Ever think of that?”
Doren’s saucer-like eyes slogged over to Jonas.
“It’s okay,” Jonas said, waving off the infraction. “I don’t think much about it, to be honest. Bits and pieces will pop into my head from time to time. I’ll see a familiar face, a random object, something that jogs a memory, only none of it is worth remembering. There’s not much I can say about the Savage Gap that you wouldn’t already know. I just try not to think about it.”
“I hear you,” Doren said. “I can only imagine what times were like back then. You got to see some serious shit, my friend.”
Jonas nodded and took a swig, trying to convey that any further details were off-limits. Anna gripped his hand, as if to congratulate a breakthrough in group therapy.
“What about you Doren?” Anna said. “Do you remember much from Alaska?”
Doren snorted. “I remember being super fucking happy that it was warm for once.”
They all shared a chuckle.
The waitress arrived with three frosty pints. She lowered them to the table and smiled around the group. “Enjoy.”
“Spasibo, dear,” Doren said, then took a hearty swig. He grunted with delight and sank into his chair with beer in hand. “Hell, I was just a kid when they raided the camp, so I don’t remember much of my childhood, if you could even call it that. I do remember the whole ‘hu-mans good, vamps bad’ mind-fuck they beat into your head from birth. Even in my diapers, I was like, ‘I got the fucking memo. Can we talk about something else, please? Rocks maybe? Perhaps dirt? I will literally talk your ears off about the wonders of dirt if means that you shut the fuck up.’” Doren huffed and shook his head. “Holy shit on a stick, it was like living with broken records of hate vomit.”
“That must have been hell,” Anna said with a laugh.
“Yeah, only much colder.”
“Well I’m happy you made it out despite the work woes,” Jonas said in an effort to change the subject.
“Ah yes, sorry about that. Fremont had some accounting issues, which I cleared up like a champion. I threw down some heroic math skills, you should have seen it.”
“I’m sure it was a sight to behold,” Anna said.
“What was the problem?” Jonas said.
“Minor mischarge, nothing serious. The auto-ledger coughed up a kooky error that Shinji couldn’t troubleshoot, hence mighty Doren to the rescue. But enough work shit, raise ‘em up.”
They all raised their pints.
“To the horses,” Doren said.
“To the horses,” Anna and Jonas replied in unison.
They clanked glasses and tossed back a collective swig.
Doren’s trademarked toast was a nod to his early days in Alaska. It referenced the old bor-ough town of Skagway. Dead Horse Gulch, a ravine north of town, earned its nickname after 3,000 pack animals perished there during the infamous Gold Rush. The area served as a short but treacherous passage to the Yukon. The steep terrain was so dangerous that overburdened horses often broke their legs on jagged rocks. Trekkers refused to waste ammunition to put suffering animals out of their misery. Instead, they dispersed their loads onto the other animals and let the injured fall to their deaths in the ravine. This happened so often that the stench of the rotting corpses polluted Skagway a dozen miles away. The story horrified Doren, who pledged to toast every brave horse that died. He had long passed the 3,000-drink mark, but he continued the ritual nonetheless.