March 2007 – SFFaudio

SFFaudio: Our 4 Year Mission

SFFaudio News

Happy birthday to us! It’s SFFaudio.com‘s fourth birthday. We’ve been through a lot in these four short years. But our mission isn’t over, not by a long shot. That said, we can probably sit back for a few minutes to celebrate with this cake…

SFFaudio.com's Fourth Birthday

“Audio…the aural frontier. These are the voyages of the website SFFaudio. Our continuing mission: to explore cool new audiobooks; to seek out new audio drama and new podcast… to boldly post stories that no-one has posted before.”

Thanks so much to all the SFFaudio staff. You are both beautiful and smart. And to our readers… I must compliment you on your extremely good taste in websites. Please, keep visiting. No presents are necessary, but if you’ve really got the urge to give… consider this:

Starting tomorrow, and for the entire month of April, we’ll be bringing you stories, reviews, online audio and more focused the works of H.G. Wells. If you know of some H.G. Wells audio out there, please clue us in! Thanks again.

posted by Jesse Willis

The Time Traveler Show has Jack Williamson and Frederik Pohl

SFFaudio Online Audio

Frederick Pohl and Jack Williamson

The Time Traveler has traveled 30 years into the past to record his latest Time Traveler Show podcast (#15). The show is composed of a Science Fiction convention panel with Science Fiction Grand Masters Jack Williamson and Frederick Pohl! It is a panel discussion that was made in 1977 at “ConFusion.” The topic of the panel is “The Art, Science and Combat of Collaboration.” Which is most appropriate as these guys frequently collaborated on novels like Farthest Star and The Starchild Trilogy. They also talk about their experiences with other collaborators like James Gunn, C. M. Kornbluth, and Lester del Rey.

To read the complete show notes for podcast #15 click HERE or download the show in the MP3 format directly by clicking HERE.

To keep the show automatically downloading, subscribe to the podcast feed:

http://www.timetravelershow.com/shows/feed.xml

posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases

SFFaudio New Releases

Five new titles have been released recently – we haven’t heard any of these in yet, but if you have, let us know what you think of them!

Second Skin
By Paul J. McAuley; Read by Jared Doreck
MP3 Download or 1 CD – 64 minutes
Publisher: Infinivox
Published: March 2007
ISBN: 1884612555
The spy fell toward Proteus in a thin transparent bubble of carbon, wearing a paper suit and trussed up in a cradle of smart cabling like an early Christian martyr. Somewhere down there was Ben Lo’s wife. But he musn’t think of that. If he did…No, he couldn’t remember. Something bad, though. This space opera is part of the author’s Quiet War series.

Terra Nova
By Tom Williams; Read by ????
MP3 Download- Approx. 13.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED?]
Publisher: Awe-Struck E-Books / Fictionwise.com
Published: March 2007
ISBN: 1587491338
Humanity is all but annihilated by a mysterious, alien race, known as the Enemy. Military pilot Mikael Svensson narrowly escapes destruction, only to land on the paradise planet Terra Nova. He seeks to do the impossible: oust the enemy from Terra Nova.

True Caderi
By Michelle Levigne; Read by ????
MP3 Download – Approx. 9 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Awe-Struck E-Books / Fictionwise.com
Published: March 2007
ISBN: 1584293098
A ruthless pirate of space, Adlan Caderi, searches for his long lost daughter, Qinda, and seeks to use her special mind talents, unique to a race of female pilots known as Leapers, to dominate the universe. However, Qinda, unaware of her Leaper talents, and her husband and infant son are fleeing their own enemy, Haynash, who also wants Qinda for her special genetics. To escape Haynash, Qinda seperates from her husband and son only to become Caderi’s unwilling guest. Qinda must find a way to reunite her family, escape Haynash and decide if she will aid in her father’s quest for domination by becoming a true Caderi.

Over Flat Mountain
By Terry Bisson; Read by Alec Rowell
1 MP3 Download – 34 Minutes 4 Seconds [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Fictionwise.com / ElectricStory.com
Published: February 2007
“CD” is one of those few bold truckers who make the run over Flat Mountain, a gigantic peak that thrusts beyond the atmosphere in what had once been the Appalachians.

Heaven - Season Two: Hell Heaven – Season Two: Hell
By Mur Lafferty; Read by Mur Lafferty
12 MP3s – [UNABRIDGED PODCAST NOVEL]
Publisher: Podiobooks.com
Completed: March 2007
Kate and Daniel are reunited at last, but they have to return to their
duties in traveling the afterlife. There are stolen souls suffering
without cause in Hell, and only they can help. Kate is back in her
corporeal body, but keeping memories of her time as pure soul energy,
recently touched by the divine. Daniel carries the magic of an old god
and the sword of a death goddess, as well a grudge against the deity
who tricked him into losing nearly everything. As they search for the
missing souls, Kate and Daniel have to come to terms with themselves
and see if their friendship – not to mention the cosmos – can handle
everything they’ve been through thus far.

posted by Jesse Willis

Mark Nelson narrates 3 more SCIENCE FICTION audiobooks

SFFaudio Online Audio

Mark Nelson is my favorite amateur narrator, he’s a terrific reader, his recording environment is dead-silent and he’s reading great stuff at a champion’s pace. I bring this up because Mark has written in to inform me that he’s recorded three new additions for LibriVox‘s library of FREE SCIENCE FICTION AUDIOBOOKS! One of them was even on our SFFaudio Challenge list. Way to go Mark!

Plague Ship by Andre Norton is a complete novel from 1956, originally published under the Norton’s “Andrew North” pseudonym. Also completed are two H. Beam Piper novellettes: Oomphel In The Sky and Omnilingual. Compiled below are the details for each along with some art…

Plague Ship
By Andre Norton; Read by Mark Nelson
18 Zipped MP3s – Approx. 7 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 2007
Lured by its exotic gems, the space trader Solar Queen lands on the little-known planet of Sargol, only to find the ruthless Inter-Solar Company there ahead of them. Adapting quickly to the culture of Sargol’s feline inhabitants, the crew of the Queen beat out their rivals and successfully make a deal with the natives. But soon after takeoff, the Queen’s crew is stricken with a plague, and they are now banned from landing on any inhabited planet. Will the Queen’s crew save themselves, or be condemned to drift forever through space?

Oomphel In The Sky
By H. Beam Piper; Read by Mark Nelson
4 Zipped MP3s – Approx. 2 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 2007
Natives of the distant planet of Kwannon believe that their world is about to end, and in preparing for the apocalypse, may be unnecessarily bringing about their own demise. The planetary government can’t overcome its own bureaucracy to help them, and the military is overwhelmed. Can a single newsman change the course of a whole people, and save their world.
http://librivox.org/oomphel-in-the-sky-by-h-beam-piper/

Omnilingual
By H. Beam Piper; Read by Mark Nelson
5 Zipped MP3s – Approx. 2 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 2007
An expedition to Mars discovers the remains of an advanced civilization, which died out many thousands of years ago. They recovered books and documents left behind, and are puzzled by their contents. Would the team find their “Rosetta Stone” that would allow them to unlock the Martian language, and learn the secrets of this long-dead race?

posted by Jesse Willis

BBC Radio 3 to a new Karel Capek RADIO DRAMA

Online Audio

All honourifics for this nice find go to our eagle-eyed U.K. contributor, “Roy”…

BBC Radio 3 will be re-airing a 2005 dystopian satire, a Radio Dramatization of Karel Capek’s War With The Newts. We suspect this will be available via the Radio 3 “Listen Again” for 6 days following the transmission but there are no guarantees so observe these details if you’d like to listen to the live broadcast:

War With The Newts
By Karel Capek; Dramatized by George Poles; Perfomed by a full cast
Radio Broadcast – Approx. 1 Hour 30 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
BROADCASTER: BBC Radio 3
BROADCAST: Sunday April 1st 2007 20:00-21:30 (U.K. Time)
When humanity encounters another race of intelligent bipeds sharing the Earth, what choice is there but to exploit it? When the existence of a group of speaking newts comes to the attention of the ruthless GH Bondy and his Salamander Syndicate, they find themselves turned into a commodity as the nations fight over them. At its heart, this joyously funny satire is a plea for decency and tolerance towards others, as relevant now as when it was first written in the 1930s.

posted by Jesse Willis

BBC announces Douglas Adams RADIO DRAMAS

News

The BBC has written in to tell us that there are three new dramatisations of Douglas Adams’s novels in the works! The two Dirk Gently novels (previously released as unabridged audiobooks) will be adapted into Radio Dramas! Also in the works is a Radio Dramatization of Adams’ last, and unfinished novel: The Salmon Of Doubt. These will all be published by BBC Audiobooks, beginning later this year and are being produced by Above The Title Productions with Dirk Maggs on board as director!

Maggs and Above The Title are the team responsible for the The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy‘s Tertiary, Quandary and Quintessential Phase productions. The three new series will also be broadcast on BBC Radio 4, beginning with Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency in October 2007. The other two titles are The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul and Adams’s unfinished novel The Salmon Of Doubt. Each series will be comprise of six 30 minute episodes. Recording begins in May 2007. BBC Audiobooks will publish Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency on November 8th 2007 .

Personally I’m super-juiced at the prospect of hearing dramatizations of the Svlad Cjelli adventures – I still haven’t heard much about The Salmon Of Doubt though. Is that a Dirk Gently novel too?

posted by Jesse Willis