Category: News

Cory Doctorow loves the Little Fuzzy audiobook

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio News

Science Fiction Audiobook - Little Fuzzy by H. Beam PiperCory Doctorow posted this to BoingBoing.net today:

I just finished listening to the Audio Realms audio edition of H Beam Piper’s classic science fiction novel Little Fuzzy and fell in love with the book all over again. Little Fuzzy was the first book I ever bought for myself: it was on my first trip to Bakka, the world’s oldest surviving science fiction bookstore, at the age of nine or ten. Tanya Huff — now a bestselling writer in her own right — was working that day and I asked her for some recommendations. She marched me back to the used section of the store and took down a copy of Little Fuzzy, promising that I’d love it.

I did.

Little Fuzzy is Piper’s masterpiece, a tight, neat science fiction story that epitomizes the golden age of sf. It concerns a prospector on a distant world who discovers a potentially sentient aboriginal race (the “Fuzzies), and his ensuing fight — fists, lawyers and even guns — to get them recognized as sentient beings. Along the way, Piper explores the nature of colonial economies, the deepest questions of consciousness and intelligence, paternalism and self-determination, and the nature of the rule of law. All in a package that a nine-year-old will find riveting and delightful.

The Audio Realms 5-CD unabridged recording just won Publishers Weekly’s annual Fantasy Audiobook of the Year award (why “fantasy” I’m not sure), and it’s easy to see why. Brian Holsopple’s reading brings the characters — warm, human, flawed and passionate — to life. The editing is not exactly perfect (there’s a couple of pickup lines that Holsopple recorded that are left in, which is a little distracting), but the story is every bit as wonderful as I remember it, and the reading is a great match.

Little Fuzzy is in the public domain, so there’s both a free ebook and a free recording available of the text. And for the record, I got Tanya Huff’s job at Bakka when she retired to write full time.

[via BoingBoing.net]

Posted by Jesse Willis

CBC Radio will broadcast and podcast Robert J. Sawyer’s Rollback

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio News

CBC Radio One - Between The Covers podcastRobert J. Sawyer has a contract in hand from CBC Radio One’s Between The Covers program. BTC will broadcasting Robert J. Sawyer’s novel ROLLBACK! I asked Heather Brown, a producer at Between The Covers for more details on the distribution method and she had this to say:

“Yes, we will be podcasting as well as broadcasting Robert J. Sawyer’s novel ROLLBACK. At the moment there is no firm date for the broadcast/podcast although it won’t be presented until much later this year and perhaps not til early next year. The book will be abridged somewhat but Mr. Sawyer will be a full participant in those choices.”

That’s very cool! I’ve long enjoyed Between The Covers, but it was their broadcast of Connie Willis’ Bellwether that cemented my love of this long running CBC Radio show. We’ll keep you updated on the broadcast and podcasting dates for this.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Kevin J. Anderson @ audible.com: “From My Ear to the Keyboard” an essay about audiobooks

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio News
Kevin J. Anderson @ Audible.com
the Sci-fi Guest Editor over at Audible.com this month is Kevin J. Anderson. For that position he’s written an essay entitled “From My Ear to the Keyboard” which is about his relationship with audiobooks. Here are a few choice lines:

…

I have read fine literary masterpieces that simply don’t do well in an audio format. The sentences are too burdensome, the metaphors too heavy to grasp without straining, the self-referential convolutions too tortured for any listener to make heads or tails of the plot. Unfortunately, I tried to read Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment as an audiobook.

On the other hand, I listened to Larry McMurtry’s magnificent Lonesome Dove, an indescribably amazing and engaging book that seemed to go on for an infinite number of cassettes that consumed months and months of commutes to work. The conversational tone, the folksy narrator, and the clear and compelling writing swept me along so that I felt I was actually there in the Old West. This, too, is the way I’ve read most of the thrillers by Dean Koontz, the science fiction of Orson Scott Card. And I’ve recently reread Frank Herbert’s Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune, books that I have read many times already, but the spoken performance adds an entirely new character to these familiar classics.

Coincidentally, telling stories aloud—writing them by speaking the words instead of typing them—is my preferred method of creation. I have written most of my hundred or so published novels while on long walks with tape recorder in hand. I like to sink down into the story, become so immersed in what’s happening that I forget about the actual words; I forget about the mechanics of preserving my thoughts. I simply think up the sentences and dialog—and talk. It’s as if I’m telling you, the reader, the story that is playing so vividly in my head.

…

To read the whole essay, and Anderson’s picks, check it out HERE.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Audible.com and Blackstone Audio Royalties

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio News

Audible.comBlackstone AudiobooksRobert J. Sawyer, in answer to a question about the royalties he gets on the sale of his audiobooks, writes:

“…on royalties, Audible pays –% (either of the flat-out purchase price, or the purchase cost of the applicable “Audible Listener Credit” applied). Audible doesn’t do any physical product. Blackstone Audio does, though, and they pay:

Rental and Retail 10% of net receipts
Direct internet download 15% of net receipts
Download via (sublicensed) 3rd party 40% of net receipts (that is 40% of whatever they get from Audible or other online retailers).

Net receipts is a tricky phrase: it’s NOT that I get 10% of the price you, the consumer, pays on the cassettes/CDs, but 10% of the portion of that price the bookseller passes on to the publisher — making the effective royalty about 6% of cover price.

So, the royalties are pretty darn small, but, then again, they’re small on books, too (8% on mass-market paperbacks is typical; 7.5% on large format trade-paperbacks; 10% on hardcovers – although at least those amounts are percentages of cover price).

All that said, I’m into five figures on audio-book income actually received so far this year, so I’m not complaining too much (although all of that is advances against royalties, or other licensing fees).”

$??,??? just in audiobook revenues in less than 5 months!

[via the Robert J. Sawyer Yahoo! Group]

Posted by Jesse Willis

UPDATE ON JUNE 4th 2008 Rob Sawyer asked me to remove the Audible.com figures from this post (due to a non-disclosure agreement he has with Audible.com). I’ve done so because I’m nice and he asked me nicely. I like Rob and don’t want to screw up something he was kindly, but mistakenly, telling his readers about.

RadioArchive.cc a torrent portal for BBC Radio

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio News

RadioArchives.ccRadioArchive.cc is a torrent portal specifically devoted to spoken-word radio. The site deals primarily with content from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC Radio) but also dips into spoken-word material from other public radio networks. One thing for seeders to remember, RadioArchives.cc “ONLY ACCEPTS AUDIO MATERIAL WHICH HAS BEEN DERIVED FROM FREE-TO-AIR BROADCASTS VIA ANALOGUE RADIO / DIGITAL RADIO / DIGITAL TV / INTERNET STREAMING.” Those seeders who post audio from retail products will be banned from the site.

Some current torrents in the “Audiobook – SciFi & Fantasy” section included:

H.G. Wells – Sea Raiders
Isaac Asimov – Gimmicks Three and Light Verse
CS Lewis – Perelandra
Summertime on Icarus – Arthur C Clarke
The Green Hills of Earth – Robert A Heinlein
Ordeal in Space – Robert A Heinlein
2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C Clarke
Wee Free Men – Terry Pratchett
Methuselah’s Children – Robert Heinlein
Soldier – Harlan Ellison
The Last Days of Shandakor – Leigh Brackett
Jokester – Isaac Asimov
Arthur C. Clarke – The Parasite
Arthur C. Clarke – All the Time in the World
Brian Aldiss – Man in His Time
Burning Chrome – William Gibson
Brian Aldiss – Song of the Silencer
John Wyndham – Survival
Pattern Recognition – William Gibson
I Am Legend – Richard Matheson
We Can Remember It for You Wholesale – Philip K. Dick

[via The Website At The End Of The Universe]

Posted by Jesse Willis