The Guardian: Scales by Alastair Reynolds

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Guardian Books PodcastSays The Guardian…

In this new and exclusive short story, the science fiction writer Alastair Reynolds considers the ways in which the pressures of war shape those who fight them

This is Alastair Reynolds’ first foray into militaristic SF. In it, he explores the transformations war imposes on soldiers as his hero Nico’s mission evolves into something stranger than he could have possibly imagined.

Scales
By Alastair Reynolds; Read by Alastair Reynolds
1 |MP3| – Approx. 11 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: The Guardian Book Podcast
Podcast: June 19, 2009
A new recruit is sent out to battle in an interstellar war. This is Alastair Reynolds’ first foray into militaristic SF. In it, he explores the transformations war imposes on soldiers as his hero Nico’s mission evolves into something stranger than he could have possibly imagined.

Podcast feed:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/books/podcast.xml

[via FreeSFblogspot.com]

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBC Radio 4: Journey Into Space and Torchwood

SFFaudio Online Audio

BBC Radio 4Prepare to get the valves warmed up on the wireless set for it looks like a cracking good time on the BBC airwaves next week…

The Saturday Play: Journey Into Space – The Host
Approx. 1 Hour [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: Saturday 27th June 2009 @ 14:30-15:30
Says the Radio Times: “Jet Morgan and his crew get a distress call from an abandoned freighter. They must find a way to defeat the superior ‘Host’ and save mankind from becoming a stepping-stone to a new chapter in evolution. By Julian Simpson from the series created by Charles Chilton.”

Afternoon Play: Torchwood – Asylum
Approx. 45 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: Wednesday 1st July 2009 @ 14:15-15:00
“When PC Andy arrests a teenager for shoplifting, he thinks it’s going to be an open-and-shut case. Then he sees the weapon she’s carrying and decides to call in Torchwood. Anita Sullivan’s sci-fi adventure is the first of three this week.”

Afternoon Play: Torchwood – Golden Age
Approx. 45 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: Thursday 2nd July 2009 @ 14:15-15:00
“The team travels to Delhi in search of a dangerous energy field that triggers the simultaneous disappearance of hundreds of people. Jack discovers that it centres on an old colonial mansion, once the HQ of Torchwood India. Shocked to find that Torchwood India is still going strong – he shut it down over 80 years ago – he’s even more surprised to find that its members, including his old flame the Duchess, haven’t aged a day. Second sci-fi adventure, by James Goss”

Afternoon Play: Torchwood – The Dead Line
Approx. 45 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: Friday 3rd July 2009 @ 14:15-15:00
“When a Cardiff hospital is inundated with patients who have fallen into coma-like trances, The Torchwood team investigates. The trances appear to have been triggered by phone calls, all received on retro phones & made from a number that hasn’t been active for more than 30 years. Sci-fi drama by Phil Ford”

[Thanks so much Roy!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Mark Time and Ogle Winners for 2008

SFFaudio News

Mark Time AwardsWe’ve already mentioned two of the four Mark Time and Ogle Winners for 2008. Here’s the official release:

Here are the winners of this year’s Mark Time Awards for Science Fiction Audio and the Ogle Awards for Fantasy/Horror Audio Productions. They will officially be presented on Thursday, July 2 at Convergence 2009 in Bloomington, MN.
————————-
MARK TIME AWARDS

GOLD

The Outpost
Written & Produced by Julie Hoverson
19 Nocturne Boulevard

SILVER

The Return of the Bogman Mummy
Written & Produced by Roger Gregg
Gaiety School of Acting, Dublin, Ireland

OGLE AWARDS

GOLD

Waiting For a Window
Written by Fred Greenhalgh
Finalrune Productions

SILVER

The Halloween Tree
(based on the novel by Ray Bradbury)
Produced by Chris Snyder
Exec. Producer: Mark Vanderberg
Colonial Radio Theatre

[Thanks Jerry!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Recent Arrivals from Tantor Audiobooks

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Science Fiction Audiobook - The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott LynchThe Lies of Locke Lamora
By Scott Lynch; Read By Michael Page
23 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Audiobooks
Published: 2009

An orphan’s life is harsh—and often short—in the island city of Camorr, built on the ruins of a mysterious alien race. But born with a quick wit and a gift for thieving, Locke Lamora has dodged both death and slavery, only to fall into the hands of an eyeless priest known as Chains—a man who is neither blind nor a priest. A con artist of extraordinary talent, Chains passes his skills on to his carefully selected “family” of orphans—a group known as the Gentlemen Bastards. Under his tutelage, Locke grows to lead the Bastards, delightedly pulling off one outrageous confidence game after another. Soon he is infamous as the Thorn of Camorr, and no wealthy noble is safe from his sting.

Passing themselves off as petty thieves, the brilliant Locke and his tightly knit band of light-fingered brothers have fooled even the criminal underworld’s most feared ruler, Capa Barsavi. But there is someone in the shadows more powerful—and more ambitious—than Locke has yet imagined.

Known as the Gray King, he is slowly killing Capa Barsavi’s most trusted men—and using Locke as a pawn in his plot to take control of Camorr’s underworld. With a bloody coup under way threatening to destroy everyone and everything that holds meaning in his mercenary life, Locke vows to beat the Gray King at his own brutal game—or die trying.
 
 
Science Fiction Audiobook - The Steel Remains by Richard K. MorganThe Steel Remains
By Richard K. Morgan; Read By Simon Vance
15 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Audiobooks
Published: 2009

Ringil, the hero of the bloody slaughter at Gallows Gap, is a legend to all who don’t know him and a twisted degenerate to those that do. A veteren of the wars against the lizards, he makes a living from telling credulous travelers of his exploits. Until one day he is pulled away from his life and into the depths of the Empire’s slave trade, where he will discover a secret infinitely more frightening than the trade in lives.

Archeth—pragmatist, cynic, engineer, and the last of her race—is called from her work at the whim of the most powerful man in the Empire and sent to its farthest reaches to investigate a demonic incursion against the Empire’s borders.

Egar Dragonbane, steppe-nomad and one-time fighter for the Empire, finds himself entangled in a small-town battle between common sense and religious fervor. But out in the wider world there is something on the move far more alien than any of his tribe’s petty gods.

Anti-social, anti-heroic, and decidedly irritated, all three of them are about to be sent unwillingly forth into a vicious, vigorous, and thoroughly unsuspecting fantasy world—called upon by an Empire that owes them everything and gave them nothing.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

China Mieville interviewed about his novel The City & The City

SFFaudio Online Audio

Recorded at the BookExpo America, China Mieville talks about his novel The City & The City |MP3|

And be sure to take note that the audiobook came out recently…

Random House Audio - The City & The City by China Mieville
The City & The City
By China Mieville; Read by John Lee
Audible Download – 10 Hours 18 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: May 26, 2009
Provider: Audible.com
ISBN: 9780739384251
When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he investigates, the evidence points to conspiracies far stranger and more deadly than anything he could have imagined. Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own.

Also be sure to check out Mieville’s 5 part defense of J.R.R. Tolkien (as opposed to Richard K. Morgan’s attack).

[via Omnivoracious]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Author Pages: George R. Stewart

SFFaudio News

Just added to our AUTHOR PAGES section…

George R. StewartGEORGE R. STEWART (1895-1980) Was an American novelist, toponymist, and professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. His entire SFF output consisted of one Science Fiction novel Earth Abides (1949) and two mainstream novels with fantastic elements. Earth Abides is set in a post-apocalyptic landscape and depicts the remnants of humanity recovering from a global environmental disaster. A year after it was published it was turned into a two-part radio drama for the program Escape. It also served as inspiration for Stephen King‘s The Stand. Two of Stewart’s other novels (Storm and Fire) have elements of Fantasy (eponymous anthropomorphized characters). The former features a Pacific storm named Maria as its protagonist. This indirectly lead to the curious practice of the American National Weather Service using personal names to designate storms.

Listed on the new GEORGE R. STEWART page is the new Audible Frontiers audiobook version of Earth Abides as well as the 1950 radio drama.

Posted by Jesse Willis