Justin D. Hill’s 27-minute audio drama The Deserter holds the honour of being the first ever Necromunda audio drama from Black Library, and delivers a character-driven story that cuts to the heart of life in the underhive. Corenne and her mother have been driven out of their home and forced to scrape a living in Dust Falls, scrabbling in the dust and hawking what few possessions they still have. Starving and desperate, Corenne turns to a strange, barely-lucid ex-soldier in the hope that he can help her reclaim her home, but the Deserter seems bound to let her down.
It’s a spot-on Necromunda story, full of rough-edged and worn down characters living on the fringes and somehow surviving, and an engaging opportunity to live inside the everyday struggles of the underhive a little. Ambient SFX and subtle music provide an immersive backdrop to Hill’s grounded, natural dialogue and some typically impressive performances – Toby Longworth’s Deserter is brilliantly twitchy and unpredictable, while Jo Woodcock is sharp and lippy as Corenne. In the absence of a narrator there’s the occasional bit of obvious exposition for Corenne to chew through, but overall it’s a satisfying and remarkably understated little story which nicely captures the feel of Necromunda.
This was released as day 11 of the 2018 Black Library Advent Calendar – click here to see the main page for the Advent Calendar, with links to all of the reviews.
