Reviews

The Edge of Sleep by Willie Block, Jake Emanuel

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lpk32's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.25

fluffles's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

lit3rallylaur3n's review

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I’ve finally decided life is too short to force myself to read books I don’t care about. I was only trying to finish this one because the podcast series was so good, but the main characters don’t even seem the same to me. I feel like Matteo was just made into an insufferable idiot, while in the podcast he’s my favorite character because of his humor balanced with his ability to actually think. The book is interesting, but not enough to keep my attention and finish the last half of the it, sadly.

thesaltiestlibrarian's review

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dark reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

monopolyllama's review against another edition

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2.0

Gave up about 50% of the way in. It was mildly interesting and the writing style was fairly breezy but I just felt like the book was leading nowhere fast.

pluviosity's review against another edition

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4.0

It's tricky to review this in a general sense. For a QCode production, this is a 5 star, I'd say this is second best after Blackout (season one only). And I only judged that based on the story, because, well, as a QCode audio drama, good audio engineering is kinda expected to the point it's almost negligible to consider—that's to be saying that the sound is damn good as usual, not Ear Epic's Joseph immersive-ness level, but definitely speaks the money.

As for an audio drama/fictional podcast, it's more of a 3 star. The idea is interesting—kinda have The Phenomenon feel on it—the breaking down of the story and the characters are good and strong, it's concise, and almost a perfectly solid storytelling if this not so...QCode. It builds up and builds up, very slowly explaining the mystery, and when the big key finally shown (or dumped out, it's subjective) in the final episode, it just...ends. Imagine if Inception doesn't have Michael Caine character in it, but still has Marion Cotillard yet with complete zero explanation of who she actually is. That's how it feels, but worse.

I have a bit of issue with this company's productions for a very long time, and trust me, EoS is still the mildest case. To be absolutely clear though, when I listened to this, there's no mention about a second season, so knowing how it ends just like that, it's pretty disappointing. No offense to the writers, but comparing to either amateur or professional (mostly amateur though) audio drama out there, Edge of Sleep is pretty average.

As for the acting, well, top-notch. Mark Fischbach a.k.a Markiplier is practically made for this media, and not just because his sweet sweet vocal range. Probably why I'm quite excited for the tv adaptation of this, dude could actually act. I'll even say I would listen to the Season 2 of the audiodrama too—despite however it will turn out, despite QCode's every-five-minutes ads. Yeah, I'm always hopeful when it comes to fictional podcast.