Review of Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi

Jenny

SFFaudio Review

Agent to the Stars by John ScalziAgent to the Stars
By John Scalzi; Performed by Wil Wheaton
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
[UNABRIDGED] – 9 hours

Themes: / sci-fi / aliens /

Publisher summary:

The spacefaring Yherajk have come to Earth to meet us and to begin humanity’s first interstellar friendship. There’s just one problem: they’re hideously ugly and they smell like rotting fish. So getting humanity’s trust is a challenge. The Yherajk need someone to help them close the deal. Enter Thomas Stein, who knows something about closing deals. He’s one of Hollywood’s hottest young agents. But although Stein may have just concluded the biggest deal of his career, it’s quite another thing to negotiate for an entire alien race. To earn his percentage this time, he’s going to need all the smarts, skills, and wits he can muster.

If taken in a vacuum, knowing this is a novel that Mr. Scalzi wrote to see if he could, it’s pretty good. Of course things aren’t in a vacuum, and given my enjoyment of his later works, this one just isn’t as good.  I liked most of the characters. The normal Scalzi snark is present, but not as funny as in his other works.

The premise itself is an amusing one. Thomas Stein is an up and coming young agent in Hollywood. He works for one of the top agency’s in L.A. His boss is probably one of the best known people in all of Hollywood. It is for that reasons that aliens contact him.

The very benign Yherajk have a problem. Despite being very peaceful, they look terrifying, and smell worse. They’ve been watching our movies and TV for years, and worry about how the human race will react. They decide they need an agent. Tom is chosen by his boss as someone who can spare the time to work the problem without being found out.

Of course things don’t go exactly as planned. Just as I was really enjoying the story, the book took a turn. It really changed the whole tone of the book for me. It went from being a light sci-fi story to something more serious, and characters I liked were pondering actions I didn’t like. Things righted themselves a bit, and the ending saved the story from going completely off the rails for me.  Overall, I’d say this is one that could safely be skipped by all the biggest Scalzi fans. It’s enjoyable enough, but nothing that special.

This is the third audiobook I’ve listened to read by Wil Wheaton think it might be his best of the three. He does a much better job with voice variation for the characters in the book. Voices aren’t his strong suit, especially female voices. I still enjoy him as a narrator however.

##rob

Fishhead by Irvin S. Cobb

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Fishhead by Irvin S. Cobb

Fishhead by Irvin S. Cobb - illustrated by Virgil Finlay

First published in The Cavalier, January 11, 1913, Fishhead (aka Blood-Brother Of The Swamp Cats) is something of an ancestor to H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

In a letter published the same year, a 22-year-old H.P. Lovecraft, wrote, regarding Irvin S. Cobb’s short story Fishhead:

“It is the belief of the writer that very few short stories of equal merit have been published anywhere during recent years.”

Later, when composing his long essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature, Lovecraft described Fishhead as:

“banefully effective in its portrayal of unnatural affinities between a hybrid idiot and the strange fish of an isolated lake, which at the last revenge their biped kinsman’s murder.”

I’m very impressed by it, and so, after gently twisting my friend John Feaster‘s arm, here is his 23 minute unabridged narration of Fishhead by Irvin S. Cobb |MP3|.

You’re welcome.

And, here are two PDFs of it. First an easy reading version |PDF| and second an illustrated version from Famous Fantastic Mysteries |PDF|!

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Black Feathers by Joseph D’Lacey

Jenny

SFFaudio Review

Black Feathers by Joseph D'LaceyBlack Feathers (The Black Dawn #1)
By Joseph D’Lacey; Performed by Simon Vance
Publisher: Angry Robot on Brilliance Audio
[UNABRIDGED] – 11 discs; 13 hours

Themes: / fantasy / apocalypse / post-apocalypse / eco-horror / mysterious figures /

Publisher summary:

It is the Black Dawn, a time of environmental apocalypse, the earth wracked and dying. It is the Bright Day, a time long generations hence, when a peace has descended across the world. In each era, a child shall be chosen. Their task is to find a dark messiah known only as the Crowman. But is he our saviour – or the final incarnation of evil?

Black Feathers is the first in the Black Dawn series by eco-horror writer Joseph d’Lacey. It follows two timelines, one about a present day boy Gordon Black whose birth marks the end of the world and one about Megan Maurice who lives in a post-apocolyptic future. They are connected in their search for the Crowman, a mysterious figure who will either save the world or destroy it. And if you were hoping to find that out, or anything else for that matter, you’ll have to wait for the next book.

This book sets up tone really well. It’s moody and dark and a little bit creepy without being cheap. And as great as the idea of the Crowman and the parallel timelines are it all falls apart in the lack of plot. After all, just because I will watch a movie with a shirtless Jude Law doesn’t mean I want to be forced to spend a day with him. And that was kind of how this was. After a while I was just waiting to see if anything would happen that would be more than a “previously on” could sum up. The answer is no. Not even in the last chapter. This is probably also because I had trouble connecting with Gordon and Megan. We are told that they are special and important without being shown. Why does Gordon’s coming mark the end of the world? Why do crows follow him around wherever he goes? Why was Megan chosen by the Crowman to receive visions when no girl has been chosen before her? It’s a mystery! But we know that all this has been foretold so that makes them special. Unfortunately, they are not special enough for me to want to stick around through Gordon wondering what to do when his family is taken away and meeting some random strangers in the woods. Or to see Megan wandering around a forest while her teacher whispers enigmatic things at her.

Along those same lines, this book also commits the cardinal sin of being worthless on its on. Without a sequel, this book does not have a complete story. There is not a single resolved plot element or character arc which makes the whole thing an overly long set up for the next book.

As a side note, d’Lacey takes the eco part of his chosen genre seriously. There are times when it gets a bit preachy about how we have destroyed the earth and we are horrible, irresponsible creatures. This actually gives it a bit of a Happening feel. Anyway, if you enjoy composting on your days off, this is the book for you.

The audiobook is narrated by Simon Vance who was amazing and perfect for this book. He loans it an almost storybook quality that enhanced the overall tone and emphasized the youthfulness of the protagonists. Even if the book is mediocre, I could listen to him for hours. Which is, in fact, exactly what I did.

Posted by Rose D.

The Coming Of The Ice by G. Peyton Wertenbaker

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Coming Of The Ice - illustrated by Frank R. Paul

I posted about this story, as part of a larger LibriVox collection, back in 2009. Then, I described it thusly:

The Coming Of The Ice explains the strange and sad fate of a man who undergoes an operation to make him immortal (and sterile).

I had somehow forgotten about it. But, as I heard someone describe it recently I was reminded of it, tracked it down again, and enjoyed it wholly afresh today.

The Coming Of The Ice deserves to be far better known. Not only is it a really terrific story, but the narration, by Giles Baker, is absolutely outstanding too!

Sam Moskowitz, in his introduction to the 1961 reprint of The Coming Of The Ice wrote the following about it:

One of the gravest editorial problems faced by the editors of AMAZING STORIES when they launched its first issue, dated April, 1926, was the problem of finding or developing authors who could write the type of story they needed. As a stop-gap, the first two issues of AMAZING STORIES were devoted entirely to reprints. But reprints were to constitute a declining portion of the publication’s contents for the following four years. The first new story the magazine bought was Coming Of The Ice, by G. Peyton Wertenbaker, which appeared in its third issue. Wertenbaker was not technically a newcomer to science fiction, since he had sold his first story to Gernsback’s SCIENCE AND INVENTION, The Man From the Atom, in 1923 when he was only 16! Now, at the ripe old age of 19, he was appearing in the world’s first truely complete science fiction magazine. The scope of his imagination was truly impressive and, despite the author’s youth, Coming of
the Ice builds to a climax of considerable power.

Back in 1926 the editorial introduction, presumably by Hugo Gernsback himself, said this about The Coming Of The Ice:

This powerful and tragic story by the author of “The Man From The Atom” tells of a man who acquired terrestrial immortality – tells of a world many centuries hence – a time when everything is changed. This one man remains as a relic of the 20th century, He is alone with strangely developed human beings, the product of ages of evolution. Climactic changes are taking place. The world begins to grow cold. New York is almost in the Arctic region and Italy is covered with snow all the year around. In spite of their enormous intellectual development, all human beings must perish. Our hero alone can withstand the intense cold. He wanted eternal life – and he got it – eternal life, purely intellectual. What does he do with all his years? And how does he enjoy them?, Read this powerful story.

LibriVoxThe Coming Of The Ice
By G. Peyton Wertenbaker; Read by Giles Baker
1 |MP3| – Approx. 40 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: February 4, 2009
“Strange men, these creatures of the hundredth century, men with huge brains and tiny, shriveled bodies, atrophied limbs, and slow, ponderous movements on their little conveyances … it was then that I was forced to produced my tattered old paper, proving my identity and my story.” First published in Amazing Stories, June 1926.

|ETEXT|

Here are two PDF versions:

Amazing Stories, June 1926 |PDF|
Amazing Stories, July 1961 |PDF|

[Thanks also to David T. and Carlo!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Future Tense: Richard Matheson’s Born Of Man And Woman

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Richard Matheson’s first published story, Born Of Man And Woman, is a powerful three page Science Fiction Horror tale written in the form of a diary. An uneducated and abused child, our protagonist, is kept chained in the basement by his or her parents, he or she has never been outdoors or upstairs. It’s a thoughtful tragic masterpiece.

Though I take the title as an allusion to a line in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth it also, I think, adds a layer of depth to the story’s sketch.

Born Of Man And Woman by Richard Matheson from Fantasy & Science Fiction, Summer 1950


Future TenseFuture Tense – Born Of Man And Woman
Adapted from the story by Richard Matheson; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 10 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcast: WMUK Special Projects
Broadcaster: May 30, 1974
Provider: SciFi Friday
First published in Fantasy & Science Fiction, Summer 1950.

External |PDF|

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Legion by Brandon Sanderson

Jenny

SFFaudio Review

Legion by Brandon SandersonLegion
By Brandon Sanderson; Read by Oliver Wyman
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
[UNABRIDGED] – 2 discs; 2 hours

Themes: / fantasy / magic / hallucinations / special powers / novella /

Publisher summary:

Brandon Sanderson is one of the most significant fantasists to enter the field in a good many years. His ambitious, multi-volume epics (Mistborn, The Stormlight Archive) and his stellar continuation of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series have earned both critical acclaim and a substantial popular following. In Legion, a distinctly contemporary novella filled with suspense, humor, and an endless flow of invention, Sanderson reveals a startling new facet of his singular narrative talent. Stephen Leeds, AKA “Legion,” is a man whose unique mental condition allows him to generate a multitude of personae: hallucinatory entities with a wide variety of personal characteristics and a vast array of highly specialized skills. As the story begins, Leeds and his “aspects” are drawn into the search for the missing Balubal Razon, inventor of a camera whose astonishing properties could alter our understanding of human history and change the very structure of society. The action ranges from the familiar environs of America to the ancient, divided city of Jerusalem. Along the way, Sanderson touches on a formidable assortment of complex questions: the nature of time, the mysteries of the human mind, the potential uses of technology, and the volatile connection between politics and faith. Resonant, intelligent, and thoroughly absorbing, Legion is a provocative entertainment from a writer of great originality and seemingly limitless gifts.

Legion is a short, interesting, 2-disc novella by Brandon Sanderson about a man with a unique mental disorder that allows him to do extraordinary things. Sanderson develops some fun characters, interesting abilities (of course this is typical for him), and drops them in a mysterious adventure. My only real complaint about this novella is that I wish there was more.

Those familiar with Sanderson’s style know to expect a unique magic/ability system that leads to an interesting plot. In this case, Stephen Leeds has many hallucinations that all serve as experts in some way that is useful to him such as weapons, knowledge, psychology, etc. People come to Stephen with problems and he can serve as a team of experts to solve whatever case/mystery needed. The trick is that only he can see these hallucinations (think A Beautiful Mind) which can lead to some interesting conversations.

Oliver Wyman does a great job narrating this novella. He did a great job with all the voices and accents from the novella. He does a great vocal equivalent of a skeptical look when characters are dealing with someone talking to hallucinations. I would listen to books narrated by Oliver Wyman again.

Posted by Tom Schreck