July 2008 – SFFaudio

Recent Arrival from Macmillan Audio

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Big science fiction from David Weber!

By Schism Rent Asunder
By David Weber; Read by Oliver Wyman
20 CDs – 25.5 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Published: 2008
ISBN: 9781427204295

The world has changed. The mercantile kingdom of Charis has prevailed over the alliance designed to exterminate it. Armed with a multitude of small technological improvements—better sailing vessels, better guns, better devices of all sorts—Charis faced the combined navies of the rest of the world at Darcos Sound and Armageddon Reef, and broke them. Despite the implacable hostility of the Church of God Awaiting, Charis still stands, still free, still tolerant, still an island of innovation in a world in which the Church has worked for centuries to keep humanity locked at a medieval level of existence.

But the powerful men who run the Church aren’t going to take their defeat lying down. Charis may control the world’s seas, but it barely has an army worthy of the name. And as King Cayleb knows, far too much of the kingdom’s recent good fortune is due to the secret manipulations of the being that calls himself Merlin—a being that, the world must not find out too soon, is more than human. A being whose very existence is the result of a centuries-ago final desperate roll of the dice. A being on whose shoulders rests the last chance for humanity’s freedom.

Now, as Charis and its archbishop make the rift with Mother Church explicit, the storm gathers. Schism has come to the world of Safehold. Nothing will ever be the same.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

LibriVox: The Exiles Club by Lord Dunsany

SFFaudio Online Audio

Quasar Dragon is pointing at LibriVox’s just catalogued Short Story Collection Vol. 32, in which you’ll find a classic Lord Dunsany “dark fantasy” called The Exiles Club.

Sez wolfkahn:

“This is a story of dark gods worthy of H.P. Lovecraft.”

Check it out for yourself…

The Exiles Club
By Lord Dunsany; Read by James Christopher
1 |MP3| – Approx. 10 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 29th 2008

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Beyond The Aquila Rift by Alastair Reynolds

SFFaudio Review

Beyond the Aquila Rift
By Alastair Reynolds; Read by Tom Dheere
1 CD – 72 min [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Infinivox
Published: Feb 22, 2008
ISBN: 9781884612770
Themes: / Science Fiction / Space Travel / Suspended Animation /

Beyond the Aquila Rift. It’s shorthand for the trip no one ever hopes to make by accident. The one that will screw up the rest of your life, the one that creates the ghosts you see haunting the shadows of company bars across the whole Bubble. Men and women ripped out of time, cut adrift from families and lovers by an accident of an alien technology we use but rarely comprehend.

Fiction editors. I don’t know much about how they work and I don’t much care to. More than anything in an editor, I want a gatekeeper who consistently picks stories that I like. Thinking about who that might be, I always bring one name to mind: Isaac Asimov. If Asimov liked the story then I usually did too. But Asimov is dead. If it’s new stuff today, it has to be one guy very few readers have heard of. His name is Allan Kaster. Kaster edits an ongoing anthology (released one tale at a time) entitled Great Science Fiction stories. Nowhere on the package of any Infinivox title does it say “Allan Kaster, Editor”, but he’s definitely the guy making this series live up to it’s title. I can’t remember a single Infinivox production that left me cold. They often leave me confused, frightened, hurt, awed, satisfied, or unsatisfied (but not in the wrong way). Mostly though they leave me thinking: “Please, sir, can I have another?”

Beyond The Aquila Rift is another little known novelette deserving the title “Great Science Fiction.” I say this because this story got me thinking thoughts about the nature of reality that not even Philip K. Dick couldn’t conjure. Most tales that deal with “what is reality?” type scenarios come up with a weak endorsement of something I’ll call “real reality.” Sometimes they end in another way, one more noir than mainstream. This one has it both ways and I like that. The ambivalence is itself novel, and makes the story work. This isn’t the best of Infinivox’s Great Science Fiction Stories, but it is a worthy listen. Thanks Allan!

Narrator Tom Dheere, another in Infinivox’s stable of previously unknown narrators, delivers this reading straight. It is a good reading. This is 72 minutes of thought provoking modern SF. Have a listen to a sample |MP3|.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Tor.com has FREE Scalzi and Stross audio shorts

SFFaudio Online Audio

Esther writes…

“You’ve probably caught the news about the launch of the new look of the Tor web site, but you might not know about the audio versions of the featured stories.”

WOW! I certainly did know about the Tor launch, but hadn’t been too excited about it. A free ebook giveaway isn’t all that exciting to me, because no matter how fancy the ebook reader you have, the file is still essentially a .txt and that’s about 10,000 times less interesting than an .mp3 – but now we all have reason to be excited about Tor.com!

“After the Coup”
By John Scalzi; Read by John Scalzi
1 |MP3| – Approx. 47 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tor.com
Published: July 2008
“A story in the world of Old Man’s War.” This short story features Harry Wilson, one of the
characters in Old Man’s War.

“Down on the Farm”
By Charles Stross; Read by Charles Stross
1 |MP3| – Approx. 78 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tor.com
Published: July 2008
“A new tale of the Laundry.” This is one of Stross’ Lovecraftian inspired stories. Well, a cross between Lovecraft and Jeeves anyway.

[Thanks Esther!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

FREE LISTENS Review: King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard

Review

King Solomon’s Mines
By H. Rider Haggard

Source: Librivox | Zipped MP3
Length: 9 hr, 52 min
Reader: John Nicholson

The book: Set in British colonial South Africa, King Solomon’s Mines tells of the extraordinary adventures of big game hunter Allan Quatermain. Sir Henry Curtis hires Quatermain as a guide for an expedition to find Curtis’s brother, who disappeared while searching for the biblical King Solomon’s fabled diamond mines. Joining them in the expedition are Curtis’s friend Captain Good and Umbopa, a porter with mysterious purposes.

The action is told in an unadorned style that, along with the descriptions of Africa and its inhabitants, makes this Lost Civilization fantasy seem real. A major part of this realism is the character of Quatermain, who narrates the adventure in the first person with a sense of dry humor and a matter-of-fact tone. Quatermain is not a hero in the traditional sense – he admits to being a coward. Instead of a hero, he is someone that the reader can positively identify with: fair, practical, smart, and opposed to injustice, racism and greed. This enlightened protagonist, the fresh writing style and exciting plot make King Solomon’s Mines a great read.

Rating: 9/10

The reader: Nicholson has a deep plain voice that is a perfect match for Allan Quatermain. The book is filled with difficult-to-pronounce names and words in Afrikaans and Zulu, but Nicholson says them with confidence. Whether or not he’s right, I have no idea. The pace is sometimes too slow for my taste, but he does vary both the pace and volume. The recording has some background whine and a hiss on the esses.

Posted by Seth

The Dragon Page Interviews Mike Carey

SFFaudio Online Audio

The latest Dragon Page Cover To Cover podcast features an interview with Mike Carey (Vicious Circle).

You can download the |MP3| directly or subscribe to the show’s XML feed:

http://www.dragonpage.com/podcastC2C.xml

Posted by Charles Tan