Day: August 9, 2008

The Mysterious Affair At Styles by Agatha Christie being podcast

Jesse Willis

Aural Noir: Online Audio

Maureen O’Brien, of the Maria Lectrix podcast is reading Agatha Christie! While World War I rages on, an English country town’s peace is broken by murder. So a wounded officer named Hastings asks for help from a Belgian refugee name Poirot! The podcast has just begun (Maureen’s only on Chapter 2). This is pretty exciting stuff my friends…

Here’s the blurb as it appeared on the original 1920 dustjacket:

“This novel was originally written as the result of a bet, that the author, who had previously never written a book could not compose a detective novel in which the reader would not be able to ‘spot’ the murderer, although having access to the same clues as the detective. The author has certainly won her bet, and in addition to a most ingenious plot of the best detective type she has introduced a new type of detective in the shape of a Belgian. This novel has had the unique distinction for a first book of being accepted by the Times as a serial for its weekly edition”.

Mystery Audiobook - The Mysterious Affair At Styles by Agatha ChristieThe Mysterious Affair At Styles
By Agatha Christie; Read by Maureen O’Brien
Podcast – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Maria Lectrix
Podcast: August 2008 –
Join Hercule Poirot, Hastings and Inspector Japp in Christie’s first published novel! Told in first person, by Hastings, it features many of the elements that have become icons of the “Golden Age of Detective Fiction.” It is set in a large, isolated country manor; there are a half-dozen suspects, most of whom are hiding facts about themselves; the book includes maps of the house, the murder scene and a drawing of a fragment of a will; and there are a number of red herrings and surprise plot twists.

Subscribe to the podcast via this feed:

http://marialectrix.wordpress.com/category/mysteries/feed

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of The Dreaming Void by Peter F. Hamilton

Dave

SFFaudio Review

Science Fiction Audiobook - The Dreaming Void by Peter F. HamiltonThe Dreaming Void
By Peter F. Hamilton; Read by Toby Longworth
20 CDs – 23 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Audio UK
Published: February 2008
ISBN: 9780230709829
Themes: / Science Fiction / Aliens / Artifact / Nanotechnology / Politics / Singularity / Space Travel /
AD 3580. The Intersolar Commonwealth has spread through the galaxy to over a thousand star systems. It is a culture of rich diversity with a place for everyone. Even death itself has been overcome. But at the centre of the Commonwealth is a massive black hole. This Void is not a natural artefact. Inside there is a strange universe where the laws of physics are very different to those we know. It is slowly consuming the other stars of the galactic core – one day it will devour the entire galaxy. Inigo, a human, has started to dream of a wonderful existence in the Void. He has a following of millions of believers and they now clamour to make a pilgrimage into the Void to live the life they have been shown. Other starfaring species fear their migration will cause the Void to expand again. They are prepared to stop them no matter what the cost. And so the pilgrimage begins…

The Dreaming Void is a very big book and it’s an even bigger audiobook. Peter F. Hamilton’s story is one of the better recent SF stories that I’ve experienced in any form, full of fascinating settings, situations, and ideas. It has many fully realized subplots and varied characters, too many. What could have been at least two brilliant stories, one of the commonwealth dealing with the potentially disastrous consequences of an attempted pilgrimage into the Void, and one of the much more low-key story of Inigo’s dreams, is instead merely a long opening to a longer trilogy.

The main plot(s) of the story are wonderful. It is science fiction as it should be. It takes the imagination to new vistas, mixing newer ideas (the Void, gaiafield, etc) with core traditions of SF (space travel, aliens, etc). Indeed, the basic story is nearly perfect but with all the stretching, it greatly overstays its welcome. Somewhere around the twelve hour mark, listening to The Dreaming Void became a chore. If I had not already committed so much time to the story, I would have quit then.

Final analysis: The Dreaming Void is just too big a novel, filled with many unnecessary subplots and distractions. It is far too easy loose track of the multitude of characters inhabiting this enormous beginning to the “Void Trilogy.” Yet, it is far from a hopeless audiobook. Throughout the epic story, the skill of both author and the reader are quite apparent and each part of the story is interesting. I am still of very mixed opinions about the story. I will look for more stories written by Peter F. Hamilton and more read by Toby Longworth, but only if they are about half this length or shorter. However, the audiobook might well be worth the effort for someone who has a lot of free time and is willing to take notes.

Posted by David Tackett