May 2007 – Page 4

Review of Rocket Ship Galileo by Robert A. Heinlein

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

Rocket Ship Galileo
By Robert A. Heinlein; Read by Spider Robinson
5 CDs, 4 Cassettes or 1 MP3-CD – 5.5 hrs [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9780786162765 (CDs), 9780786147892 (cassettes), 9780786172092(MP3-CD)
Themes: / Science Fiction / Young Adult / Space Travel / Rocket Science / Espionage / Moon /

Ross Jenkins, Art Mueller, and Morrie Abrams are not your average high school students. While other kids are cruising around in their cars playing ball, this trio, known as the Galileo Club, is experimenting with rocket fuels and preparing for their future education at technical colleges.

Robert Heinlein created something new when he started writing his “juvenile” SF novels. He wasn’t the first person to write what publishers would categorize as Young Adult SF but he was the first respected SF author to do so. Not only did it not harm his reputation, it actually enhanced it. Some of these, like Citizen of the Galaxy, The Star Beast, and The Rolling Stones still stand as some of his best books and are considered classics.

His first juvenile, from 1947, was Rocketship Galileo. It’s a tale of three young fellows that have their own amateur rocketry club. When one of their rocket experiments go awry with an explosion, they find that one of the boys’ uncles was injured on the grounds. The injured man is Doctor Donald Morris Cargraves. He’s a scientist with his own background in atomic propulsion. With true do-it-yourself ethos, Cargraves recruits the boys to build their own rocket to the moon. There are incidents of sabotage, which creates the mystery of who is responsible for the sabotage.

Eventually the boys with Cargraves in tow head to the moon. On occasion the story seems to stop for a science lesson. Once they reach the moon, they learn they are not alone. I’ll leave the nature of the co-habitants to the listener. I will say the answer that lies behind the sabotage attempts are less than satisfactory. What seems dated and implausible today was likely just as implausible in 1947 when the book was written. Although this novel is not the best of Heinlein’s juveniles, it is still an enjoyable ride with an optimistic future for mankind.

The book is narrated by SF author Spider Robinson. Spider is a gifted narrator with a flair for voice characterizations. His natural narrator’s voice seems a bit nasally at times, but he still conveys ease, and his pacing is unhurried.

This is not the first paring of Robert Heinlein with Spider Robinson. Spider recently coauthored a book with Mr. Heinlein called Variable Star. Using notes and an unfinished outline, Spider Robinson was chosen by Heinlein’s estate to complete it. The story is said to be reminiscent of one of the master’s juvenile novels circa 1955. The good news doesn’t end there. Robinson was tapped by Blackstone Audio to narrate the audiobook for Variable Star, which has just been released.

posted by The Time Traveler of the Time Traveler Show podcast

Noircast podcast talks to Billibub Baddings author Tee Morris

SFFaudio Online Audio

Shannon Clute and Richard Edwards’ have a new website that showcases their two terrific noir related podcasts. Noircast.net is the name, and noir movies and books are their game. Their latest joint podcast is the “Noircast Special #2” in which Clute and Edwards talk to Tee Morris about the wildly popular podiobook Billibub Baddings And The Case Of The Singing Sword. Also on the roster in this special are interviews with Kevin Burton Smith of the irreplaceable ThrillingDetective.com website and Seth Harwood hardboiled podcast pioneer of the podiobook novel Jack Wakes Up. Download the whole show |MP3| or visit the website and subscribe to either, or both, of the podcasts.

posted by Jesse Willis

Canadia: 2056 episode 5 (half-way mark) airing today

SFFaudio OnlineAudio

Canadia: 2056 episode 5 is airing across Canada this morning starting at 11:30 am in all time zones (except Newfoundland). You can hear it ONLINE via the Streaming Radio Map – just click the time zone in your area at 11:30 (you can also time-shift a bit) and a RealAudio stream will be available. Radio stations across Canada are also an option – but as of yet there is no podcast feed! The airing of this episode makes this the half-way point through Canadia: 2056‘s run!

Here’s the official CBC Radio hotsheet description:

“The Captain and Anderson are away from the ship when disaster strikes. It’s a technical malfunction that’s bad enough to destroy the ship. And even moving around onboard requires ingenuity. Head for outer space this morning aboard Canadia 2056, the lone Canadian government spacecraft, sent to support an American space armada fighting hostile aliens. Canadia 2056, this morning at 11:30 (noon NT) on CBC Radio One.”

Hey, does anybody know how to spell the Canadia: 2056 version of their curse-equivalent of “frak”? Is it kruk? Cruc? Here, listen to this MP3 CLIP from episode 2, it’s full of lots of cruc/kruk/krukin’ type swearing.

I need to know how to spell it so I can write CBC an email, as in: “Hey CBC, where’s the crukin’ podcast feed for Canadia: 2056?”

posted by Jesse Willis

Links to James Patrick Kelly’s Burn crash the JPK website

SFFaudio News

James Patrick Kelly with Neubla Award for his novella Burn - photo by Ron Hogan
Photo and grammar by Ron Hogan

James Patrick Kelly has written in to say that you folks are downloading his Nebula Award winning novella Burn like it was a planet on fire!

Jim writes: “I had to move the files because a flood of listeners exceeded my bandwidth and crashed my site. So I moved them to the Internet Archive, which means that the links on your site are broken.”

Thanks for the new links Jim! I’ve now changed the post that includes the four MP3s that make up Burn.

For more James Patrick Kelly goodness try out his FREE READS podcast or subscribe to his StoryPod podcast on Audible, which is soon to include his best known novelette: Think Like A Dinosaur won the 1996 Hugo Award, the Asimov’s Reader’s Poll Award, and the SF Chronicle Award. It was also nominated for the Locus Poll Award, the HOMer Award and the Nebula Award.

posted by Jesse Willis

SFFaudio in Salt Lake City, Utah May 2th – 27th 2007

SFFaudio News

CONduit is an annual general interest Science Fiction and Fantasy convention held every May in Salt Lake City, Utah. Conduit 17 (called “Shadows Of Conduit”) runs this year between May 25th and 27th. We’ll be there, represented by our resident Web Kzin, SFFaudio co-founder, and professional SF author Scott D. Danielson.

If you’re going to be there too, look for Scott at one or all of these panels:

Friday, 3:00PM Podcasts: SF On The Web
Panel: Pam Oberg, Scott Danielson
Imagine listening to your favorite authors, artists, actors, and professionals talk about their work while you are at work or driving to work. Imagine listening to a convention panel, a decades-old radio interview, or a group of fans raving about the latest games while you
clean, jog, or mow the lawn. Enter the brave new world of podcasts. Our panelists discuss what podcasts are, where to find them, what to expect, and will even peer into the shadowy realm of iTunes voodoo.

Friday, 4:00PM The Viability Of Artificial Intelligence
Panel: Eric Swedin, James Brown, Scott Danielson (M), Eric James Stone
Research into artificial intelligence has been criticized for not advancing at the same rate as much of computing. Some have theorized that this is because we are simply incapable of creating intelligence — at least in the way we understand it. Will we ever see a Neuromancer?

Saturday, 11:00AM Take Me To Your Leader
Panel: James Brown, Scott Danielson, Eric James Stone (M), Ann Sharp
The Aliens Have Landed! Now what? Let’s have fun talking about what
impact the alien invasion (or a friendly visit) would realistically have on Earth. And what WOULD an alien really say at first contact?

Sunday, 10:00AM The Movies Of M. Night Shyamalan
Panel: Eric Swedin, Scott Danielson, Janus Daniels
The Sixth Sense. Unbreakable. Signs. The Village. Lady in the Water. M. Night Shyamalan has been hailed as the next Alfred Hitchcock. Is that accurate? Will he be able to keep the freshness of his directorial vision or is he destined to be just another Hollywood director? What are the themes that frequent his work? We discuss this intriguing newcomer to the movie scene.

posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Here Today …Gone to Tomorrow edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin Greenberg

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

Here Today …Gone Tomorrow (Asimov’s All Time Favorite Time Travel Stories)
Edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin Greenberg; Read by various
4 Cassettes – Approx. 6 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Dercum Audio
Published: 1998
ISBN: 1556562586 [out of print]
Themes: /Science Fiction /Time travel /Anthology /

Stories: “Try and Change the Past” by Fritz Leiber, read by Bill Fantini; “A Loint of Paw” by Isaac Asimov, read by Bill Fantini; “The Long Remembering” by Poul Anderson, read by Nelson Runger; “There Is A Wolf In My Time Machine” by Larry Niven, read by Bill Fantini; “The Light Of Other Days” by Bob Shaw, read by Nelson Runger; “The Kings Wishes” by Robert Sheckley, read by Nelson Runger; “The Little Black Bag” by C.M. Kornbluth, read by Ann Wilcox.

Old school. That’s what this collection of time travel stories is, with all the blessings and baggage that implies. The stories concern mainly white men, with women appearing mostly as henpecking baffles for their claustrophobic concerns, and, in general, the voices presenting the stories are brusque and hairy-chested, like those from a third grade filmstrip on pool safety (and if that simile has any resonance for you, then I think you appreciate what I mean by “old school”). A female voice does narrate C.M. Kornbluth’s “The Little Black Bag”, but the story is so piquant with elitism and misogyny, it might as well be read by a Victorian-era Harvard College president.

The cover claims the stories were hand selected by Isaac Asimov from his own personal library, and the photo shows the great one with his trademark facial fur and engaging grin in front of a tall shelf packed with his own works.* Happily, his own works do appear in this collection, but only in the delightful – a word to describe almost anything Asimov uttered aloud – introduction he delivers himself, and the brief, forgettable story “A Loint Of Paw” which he does not.

The list of authors is impressive. The stories, however, while enjoyable, are neither essential nor groundbreaking. The best of them, and the only one to offer even a glimpse of the wistful ache that is the primary motivation for the idea of time travel, is Bob Shaw’s “The Light Of Other Days.” I was caught off guard after the relatively bland intellectual exercises of the forgoing stories because this one starts out looking similarly simple and heartless, yet builds to a subtle and profoundly moving finish.

As a whole, this is a decent collection, but not one I’d risk any injury rushing out to acquire. If it falls in your lap, or if you are a rabid fan of old school SF, I’d give it a listen. Otherwise, I think you could easily find something more satisfying to fill your ears with.

[editor’s note – the cover depicted above does not match Kurt’s description. Kurt’s scan of his copy of this audiobook was not available at the time of this post]

Posted by Kurt Dietz