ChronoRadio: Serial Edition: Parallels
A Review by Jay Mustered

The Serial Editions of Nathan Butler's ChronoRadio are "enhanced audiobooks" or "audio drama lite." The role of the narrator is greatly expanded, essentially reading the book. However, voice actors do the speaking roles. Except during the introduction and credits, there are no background music tracks or sound effects.

Each part of the story Parallels tells the same story, each from the perspective of one of the three main characters. Using the same technique used in Rashomon (the 1951 Akira Kurosawa film), that is the same event told from three different perspectives. Part I contains Kiran's perspective. Part II is Danner's perspective. Part III is Taleena's perspective.

I won't ruin the story by summarizing it, except to say that no one character has a full understanding of the situation, which brings around the age-old questions about truth and point of view.

The technical side of this production is simplistic; the voices are recorded and mixed reasonably well. The lack of background noise helps bring the words of the story into focus. The voice acting is good. However, since the clips are the same for each episode, and because of the change in perspective in each part, in different episodes they sound almost out of place.

This series is well worth a listen, especially if you are interested in wonderful storytelling or enjoy the device of multiple perspectives of the same scene.