#sablepod

[thatqueerpodcastfan]

Sable

Title: Sable

Person Responsible: Lane Lloyd

Genre: Fiction, Horror, Fantasy/Scifi

Rating: 2.5/5, Meeeh

How far did I get: End of season 2

Warnings: Graphic descriptions/descriptions of body horror and violence, themes of death, extreme psychological distress, gaslight-y themes, and violence

Notes: Sable is a universe of malicious Old Gods, secret societies of magic users, corrupt governments, and more. The first season covers a war between a violent cult and an organization of mages and the violent, horrifying crimes that led up to it. The second season covers how a small town sheriff copes with her town preacher committing unspeakable acts, the zany reality bending that ensues, and the musical smile-worshiping zealots possibly responsible.

This podcast has its ups and downs. To be honest I’ve listened to two seasons and while I’m not sure if I like it or not, I can see why people would like it without reservation.

Episodes are a single voice narrating a given story with very very few background noises, music (sans the main theme), or voice-alteration and are in a way like an audio book. The audio quality and pace of narration is good, however there is a lot of rambling in the outros. Likewise, I sometimes find myself a bit frustrated with the narration. I do not like shock value (i.e. gore) or iconoclasticism much, which seem to be staples in this method of story telling. The first season almost put me off altogether when one of the characters ended up in a mental institution and almost all female characters were either villains or victims. These things did clear up in season two, but I did have to take a long break between seasons. 

However. I said that podcast has its ups and I meant that. For starters, the imagery that Lloyd invokes is inventive and horrifying. I love me a good monster as much as the next person, but Sable scratches a particular itch that I have for new and good horrors. Season plots are multi-faceted and always leave me guessing. The motivations and unique circumstances that characters come from are well-illustrated and consistent. In terms of story and character construction, Sable is a solid podcast.

Also there are multiple non-straight and polyamorous characters! Whoo!

Score Breakdown

Quality: 0.75

Concept: 0.5 (inventive and expandable but not much connective tissue)

Execution: 0.5

Interaction: 0.25 (content warnings would be much, much appreciated)

Miscellaneous: 0.5

[sablepodcast]

Send your questions!

Heyo, haven't done one of these in awhile, but, hey, if you have questions or comments on Sable or anything else I do, ask away! The inbox is open!

[sablepodcast]

TRANSCENDENCE PART 4: The Black Emperium.

Who created the machine? What beings began this mistake? 

  Sable is written and narrated by Lane Lloyd

Sable's Theme was written and performed by Moonplatoon!

Follow us on Twitter! @sablepod and @the_lanelloyd

OUR TUMBLR!

OUR PATREON!

MERCH!

Check out this episode!

[miescattering]

Sable Podcast Review

Sable is a name. A town. A person.

Sable is a fictional podcast that deals with the weirdness surrounding a town, and the personal and colective end-of-the-world-related struggles of its citizens, on the fond of the cyclic destruction and creation of universes. (Don’t laugh, I’m studying for my literature midterm.)

We jump through the history of the town. A “little” weird happening here, a death in there, a normal day, so to speak, regardless of the century.

Expect dubious organizations that try to maintain the stability of the universes’ matrix, feat dark magic, ageless beings, Crow(s) as protectors, weird in-between worlds and “a fucking thing with a TV for a head”.

Queer representation? Checked. A poliamory in which the main character(?) is involved and a sapphic couple (with a kid!!) from the top of my head but kinda everyone is queer. Idk about you but I’m good with that :))

And omg smol lesbian sheriff Serena is sooo cute and brave and strong and capable and bad ass adgsgjsk

And if you like season 1, someBODY ONCE TOLD ME that I’m “gonna flip my lid for season 2”. Lane Lloyd never lies :))

Speaking of the creator/editor/writer/sole voice actor/etc, his voice acting is pretty cool. Sable is somewhere between an audio book and an audio drama. Outside of the theme song(s), there is just one instance to date (up to Transcendence part 3) where any kind of special effect was used. But the different voices for the characters are awesome, to the point where one can know who is speaking without any name being stated. If you’d allow me, imagine somewhere towards the audio book of “Welcome to Night Vale: A Novel”, rather than WTNV itself. But I think that this editing choice is on point. You get the theme song to be introduced, to “know” that you are listening to fiction, but in reality, when something bad happens, you don’t get an orchestra (pun intended, listen to find out :)) ) to announce it.

What to know before listening? There is a lot of graphic violence. A lot of gore, torture and horror, so be careful if that’s not your thing. And when I say a lot. Well. I mean A LOT.

Season 1 has mostly physical torture, while season 2 is light on that in comparison, buuut the psychological torture is even more messed up. Yey?

But Lane’s rambles at the end of the episodes help me not have nightmares after I listen to Sable in the middle of the night. There is also a Tumblr account: @sablepodcast .

I really like this podcast and I encourage you to give it a shot!!

[sablepodcast]

Hey everybody, share the show with your friends so we can have more listeners! Spread it on Tumblr, Facebook, or Twitter with the hash tag #sablepod and if we get enough of a response, we'll release a special trailer for our super secret project!

[sablepodcast]

SABLE'S HALLOWEEN SPECIAL

Sable's Halloween special (going up tonight, hopefully) Is a bloodless, scareless comedy about a ghost detective and bread pudding. And, I would wager that you could play this for anyone and they'd have a good time. (And yes, you're reading all of this correctly)

[sablepodcast]

Hey, Folks!

So, the season finale for Sable is coming up very, very soon. The reason I bring it up is because for the outros segment for that episode, I'd like to read some of your thoughts on the show! So, if you have a review or you'd just like to say you enjoy the show, send your comments here and I'll read them during the season finale!