StarShipSofa 503 Zach Chapman

September 20, 2017 by Jeremy Szal


Main Fiction: “Horror on Habitat Seven” by Zach Chapman

This story is original to StarShipSofa

Zach Chapman grew up on a ranch just north of San Antonio, Texas where he could see the cows grazing in the pasture from his bedroom window. In 2011 he graduated from the University of the Incarnate Word with a degree in English, where he won the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) English Award for creative writing. He currently lives in Austin with his Librarian wife Taylor, a cat, a rabbit and a lazy-eyed rescue dog names Dingo. Follow his future publication announcements on twitter: @chappyzach

Narrated by: Matt Dovey

Matt Dovey is very tall, very English, and most likely drinking a cup of tea right now. He now lives in a quiet market town in rural England with his wife and three children, and despite being a writer, he still hasn’t found the right words to properly express the delight and joy he finds in this wonderful arrangement. His surname rhymes with “Dopey,” but any other similarities to the dwarf are purely coincidental. He is the Golden Pen winner for Writers of the Future volume 32 (2016) and was shortlisted for the James White Award in 2016. He has fiction out and forthcoming all over the place; you can keep up with it at mattdovey.com, or follow along on Facebook and Twitter both as @mattdoveywriter.

Comments

  1. I am an American and I am sorry to say that the accent your narrator speaks is just too much for me.

  2. I am American and thought the narrator was great

  3. Yes, accent is fine. listen closely. 🙂

  4. Also an American and although I didn’t always understand the weird confusing accent (it sounds Irish or something) I also thought the narrator was great. But maybe next time speak a little clearer for us?

  5. I had no problem with Matt’s narration. Hope he becomes a regular.

    But I’ve grown up watching shows from the BBC and others. It’s a familiar accent for me.

  6. I am Finnish. All Englishes are Foreign for me. I did not even notice that the narrator was supposed to be difficult to understand. I had difficulties in Edinburgh back streets, I had difficulties at Australian sheep stations. I had no difficulties with this narration.

  7. I’m from US, no problem with accent, very nice narration job! I may be different, I’ve heard a few accents other than ‘murican in my day.

  8. I’m Danish. English isn’t even my native language, and the only thing I don’t understand is how a person who speaks English every day has problems with understanding this. Then again, I may be missing a point somewhere. It has happened before. So, the narrator has an accent which isn’t heard every day in podcast-land, but it sounded like English to me. All the words which ought to be there were in fact, by the sound of it, there. And in the correct order as well.

  9. Little did they know that I wrote the entire story phonetically, and with a country British accent.

  10. I am an American. So “sort of English” is my native language. I work for an international company and so meeting with others, though done in english are sometimes a challenge. I think we Americans have had it easy with all things around us being easy to understand, to the point we don’t really listen, or feel we should work at listening. I thought this narration was wonderful. He was very easy to understand. Easier than Tony in his first years at SSS lol. And certainly better than the French;).

  11. I had no trouble with the accent. I thought it was a great narration. I’m really tired of the Lovecraft mythos sneaking into sf stories though. Wouldn’t Tales to Terrify have been a better venue for it?

  12. For a kiwi it is unfamiliar but easy to understand.

    The accent adds to the story personally taking me out of my day to day, establishing the other-place other-time ness within the first few words.

    Excellent story Zach, you have a new fan.

  13. No problem understanding here. We need to get back to the regional accents here in America. They have all died or been tamed since talkies.

  14. I thought the narration was great. No problems understanding it at all and I thought it added a lot to the feel of the story. Thanks for your hard work. I am from the U.S.A.

  15. good story but hard to understand reading. no hate just my view. paul in Oregon,USA