SFSignal.com has posted a DETAILED REVIEW of Infinivox’s new Mini-Masterpieces of Science Fiction collection. This isn’t the first review of it, a little while back we told you that SFSite had one too. And remember, one story from the collection, Kin by Bruce McAllister, is available FREE for you to enjoy.
Posted by Jesse Willis
We’ve been adding to our AUTHOR PAGES of late. Just added, FREDERIK POHL – which lists everything audio, that we know about, that’s related to SFWA Grand Master Frederik Pohl. There’s an interview, a convention panel, a radio drama and of course audiobooks listed. Yum yum!
Posted by Jesse Willis
The Words At Large podcast has an interview with Michael Chabon that aired last year on CBC Radio One’s Writers & Company. The interviewer, Eleanor Wachtel, talks to Chabon about his latest novel The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. Here’s the description:
Part science fiction, part hardboiled whodunit, the novel takes place a world where Israel doesn’t exist. Instead, Europe’s Jewish refugees who fled the Holocaust ended up in the “temporary” safe haven of the Federal District of Sitka, in Alaska. Now, six decades later, the district is slated to return to Alaskan control, and the vibrant Yiddish community is threatened. But homicide detective Meyer Landsman’s most immediate concern is figuring out who murdered a former chess prodigy virtually right under his nose.
Chabon is the acclaimed author of seven novels, including The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which won the Pulitzer Prize, as well as two books of short fiction and a collection of essays. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union garnered a fistful of prizes, including the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award and the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. A film adaptation of the book, to be written and directed by the Oscar-winning Coen Brothers, is currently in pre-production and is scheduled for release in 2010.
Michael Chabon spoke to Eleanor Wachtel from a studio in Oakland, California. They discuss where his love of the fantastic comes from and why he takes such pleasure in mixing up literary genres.
Have a listen |MP3| direct, or subscribe to the Writers & Company podcast feed:
http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/includes/writersandco.xml
Posted by Jesse Willis
P.S. CBC Radio One still has Apocalypse Al under lock and key. For shame!
The Greatest Science Fiction Stories Of The 20th Century
By various; Read by various
4 Cassettes – 6 Hours [Unabridged]
Publisher: Dove Audio
Published: 1998
ISBN: 0787116807
Themes: / Science Fiction / Magical Realism / Aliens / Time Travel / Parallel Worlds / Space Travel / Mutation / Nuclear Winter /
What would a long time SF fan consider a collection called The Greatest Science Fiction Stories Of The 20th Century when none of the stories would make his top ten list, and some aren’t even SF? In this case, I consider it a very good collection of stories. If anything, this seems a collection of well-read and written, but randomly chosen, speculative fiction stories.
Clearly intended to present a wide variety of “Science Fiction,” this audio-anthology has neither theme nor consistency but it doesn’t need them. The stories, with only two exceptions, are quite entertaining. They are all extremely well read, my quibble with a poor attempt at an accent notwithstanding, ranging from Harlan Ellison’s wonderfully passionate reading of his story to Nana Visitor’s aesthetically perfect interpretation of “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.”
Each story is briefly commented on below.
“Jeffty Is Five”
By Harlan Ellison; Read by Harlan Ellison
Reality is distorted around a boy who doesn’t age. This is Magical Realism, not SF, but an amazing story nonetheless. Ellison’s response to the bitter cynicism of modernity will tear at the core of your soul unless A) you’re very young or B) you don’t have a soul. The best story in the collection.
“Twilight”
By John W. Campbell; Read by Richard McGonagle
A good early SF story but not quite great. It feels a bit to much like Wells’ The Time Machine, but it entertaining enough. A retelling of a time traveler’s visit to the twilight of humanity.
“The Ones Who Walk Away Fom Omelas”
By Ursula K. Le Guin; Read by Nana Visitor
Virtually everyone knows this Fantasy, again not SF, story. It has all the strengths and weakness of Le Guin’s writing, amazing authorial voice and great storytelling, but a strong tendency to be overly didactic to the point of sanctimoniousness. Still as with most of her stories, the strengths far outweigh the weaknesses.
“Bears Discover Fire”
By Terry Bisson; Read by Arte Johnson
Bears start using fire in an otherwise normal Kentucky. This Magical Realism, not an SF. This story was the only one that bored me. It also had my only, relatively minor, reading complaint. The reader’s Kentucky accent is a bit off and sounds a bit condescending.
“The Crystal Spheres”
By David Brin; Read by Alexander Siddig
A very interesting, though highly implausible, story about a universe in which all stars are encircled by invisible, impenetrable, crystal spheres.
“That Only a Mother”
By Judith Merril; Read by Terry Farrell
Due to radiation poisoning, a baby is born mentally gifted but physically impaired. A disturbing, unpleasant story that is only marginally SF.
“Allamagoosa”
By Eric Frank Russell; Read by James A. Watson
Wonderful over-the-top humor. This story of a spaceship facing an inspection while missing an offog, an item no one knows what is, is a gem.
“Tangents”
By Greg Bear; Read by Melissa Manchester.
A boy can see into the the fourth physical dimension and a scientist helps him play music for the beings there. Interesting enough, but forgettable.
“The Nine Billion Names of God”
By Arthur C. Clarke; Read by Alexander Siddig
Tibetan monks have a computer print out all the names possible names of God with the intent of fulfilling the purpose of creation. Good enough but not even Clarke’s best short story.
“Huddling Place”
By Clifford D. Simak; Read by David Ackroyd
In a future with robots and space travel agoraphobia has become a serious threat. This story would have been just acceptable filler except for the fact that in this story from 1944, Simak predicts the internet, though he describes it in terms of a television with knobs.
“Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Diner”
By Lawrence Watt Evans; Read by Wil Wheaton
A fun, interesting take on the the idea of parallel universes. Certainly an enjoyable story.
“Fermi And Frost”
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Denise Crosby
Icelanders face the prospects of nuclear winter in the post-apocalyptic tale. A good downbeat story to balance some of the lighthearted stories.
Conclusion: This is a very good anthology. It definitely isn’t a collection of the best stories, but it may be the best collection of stories available. Highly recommended.
I started reviewing this collection on the expectation that it was out of print and I would have to recommend Amazon or eBay as a source of a used cassette copy. So imagine my surprise when a mere day after finishing it, I hear an Audible.com ad for it on Pseudopod. So, it is easily available for those interested.
Posted by David Tackett
This video appeared in the Hachette Audio podcast feed. It’s a viral video trailer, of sorts, for an upcoming Brad Meltzer audiobook. It features Joss Whedon and Christopher Hitchens, among others – expounding upon or flatly denying the existence of an ancient conspiracy – likely found in the novel itself, The Book Of Lies, releases September 2nd 2008. Meltzer has a previous novel with a similar title, presumably this is the follow up. Check out the vid…
Here’s the podcast feed:
http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/features/rss/hbgusa_podcast.xml
Posted by Jesse Willis
[editor’s note-A slew of releases from my audiobook company, Wonder Audio. A nice range of titles that I’m proud to present. Vintage Stories+Classic Authors+Great Narrators=Massive Goodness :) ]
Preferred Risk
By Frederik Pohl & Lester del Rey; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
7 hrs. – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes
The Company was a powerful, efficient, and monstrous insurance organization that controlled the entire world, scientifically regulating everything in life: war, epidemics, one-a-day food pills and test-tube sex…all through the use of its patented, terrifying human deep-freeze vault.
Claims Adjuster Wills, a great believer in the Company, begins to have second thoughts when he meets beautiful and sorrowful Rena, whose radical father lies in a frozen subterranean vault.
Scanner Live in Vain
By Cordwainer Smith; Read by Jeremiah Costello
1.5 hrs. – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes
Man has conquered space, but not without costs. To maintain the space lanes, Scanners have to undergo an operation in which their brain is severed from their sensory inputs to block the Pain of Space.
Wolves of Darkness
By Jack Williamson; Read by William Coon
3 hrs. – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes
When Clovis McLaurin receives an urgent letter from his father, Dr. Ford McLaurin, he rushes in the dead of winter to his father’s ranch. Clovis arrives to find the local townspeople being attacked and killed by a pack of wolves. As he journeys to the ranch of his father, a scientist who has been doing revolutionary experiments, he is also attacked.
But wolves are not the only thing running with the pack. Stella Jetton, the daughter of his father’s assistant, is running with the wolves, dressed in only a silk slip in the bitter cold. Clovis recognizes the blood-stained face of the girl he loves, but not her eyes. How could his father’s experiment have untapped the unimaginable horror that Clovis is about to confront?
The Colour Out of Space
by H.P. Lovecraft; read by Mark Douglas Nelson
1.5 hrs- [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes
As a man surveys the countryside for the construction of a reservoir, he comes across a stretch of barren farmland leeched of life. An aged survivor of the town tells him the tale of a rural farmer’s family and their path to madness and unspeakable horror.
Lovecraft considered “The Colour Out of Space” to be the best of all his stories. Originally appearing in the September 1927 issue of Amazing Stories, it is one of his most frequently anthologized tales.
Posted by The Time Traveler of the Time Traveler Show
