News, Reviews, and Commentary on all forms of science fiction, fantasy, and horror audio. Audiobooks, audio drama, podcasts; we discuss all of it here. Mystery, crime, and noir audio are also fair game.
Jim Warren’s cover illustration for Tor Double #26 excites me:
The original illustrations, by Virgil Finlay, from the publication in Galaxy excite me:
And this episode of Escape Pod, a novella by Robert Silverberg (!) REALLY, REALLY excites me!
Escape Pod #346: Hawksbill Station
By Robert Silverberg; Read by Paul Tevis
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour 46 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Escape Pod
Podcast: May 24, 2012
First published in Galaxy, August 1967.
Just crossed the border, literally (it came in the back of a Subaru), here’s a Brilliance Audio audiobook collection that does almost everything right! First, check out the awesome cover art for Welcome To Bordertown:
Next, note the detailed track listings on the back:
So that’s a look at the outside, inside the discs themselves don’t detail their contents, which is bad, but not fatal (considering you’ve got the back of the audiobook to go by). As to the audio content itself, well I’m looking forward to picking up stories here and there as I research the authors more – that’s usually how I listen to collections these days.
This is the official description:
Bordertown: a city on the Border between the human world and the elfin realm. A place where neither magic nor technology can be counted on, where elf and human kids run away to find themselves. The Way from our world to the Border has been blocked for thirteen long years. . . . Now the Way is open once again — and Bordertown welcomes a new set of seekers and dreamers, misfits and makers, to taste life on the Border.
Here are thirteen interconnected stories, one graphic story, and eight poems — all new work by some of today’s best urban fantasy, fantasy, and slipstream writers
Now I’ve already checked out Neil Gaiman’s entry, which is a poem entitled The Song Of The Song. And I listened to Holly Black reading her own introductory essay. In it she credits the original Bordertown books as ‘creating the urban fantasy subgenre’. Ellen Kushner, Black’s co-editor, reads Terri Windling’s introductory essay, which details the background for the Bordertown series itself. It’s is described as a “Thieves’ World for teens.” Windling also talks about the phenomenon of shared worlds. Also, and this is pretty cool, there’s an additional editorial introduction written, and read, by Ellen Kushner (one that’s not found in the paperbook edition at all).
The only thing missing from this great audiobook edition is the story named Fair Trade by Sara Ryan and Dylan Meconis. But that’s probably because it’s actually a comic and so it would have been very hard to translate into audio (there are two panels of it HERE). And finally, here’s a promo video for the book:
Brilliance Audio sent us this audiobook: Warriors 2 (aka Warriors Volume 2) edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois – 9 CDs, 10 Hours 45 Minutes, UNABRIDGED.
This audiobook is titled Warriors 2 on the box, and titled Warriors: Volume 2 in the narration. Either way it’s a collection of seven novelettes, novellas and short stories. The readers are Patrick Lawlor and Christina Traister.
It’d be hard to tell which stories are included in the collection from a quick look at the packaging, but they are there, buried in the miniature copyright text at the bottom left of the back:
And, as is all too typical with audiobook releases of collections, once yopu’ve opened it up the discs themselves don’t help either – none of them say anything about which story can be found on which disc. Which is where your friendly neighbourhood SFFaudio comes in…
Disc 1:
Track 2: Introduction: Stories From The Spinner Rack by George R.R. Martin – Read by Patrick Lawlor
Track 4: Seven Years From Home by Naomi Novik – Read by Christina Traister
Disc 2:
Track 7: Dirae by Peter S. Beagle – Read by Christina Traister
Disc 3:
Track 5: Ancient Ways by S.M. Stirling – Read by Patrick Lawlor
Disc 4:
Track 7: The Scroll by David Ball – Read by Patrick Lawlor
Disc 5:
Track 8: Recidivist by Gardner Dozois – Read by Patrick Lawlor
Disc 6:
Track 3: Ninieslando by Howard Waldrop – Read by Patrick Lawlor
Track 12: Out Of The Dark by David Weber – Read by Patrick Lawlor
Back in April CBC’s Spark#178 did a show all about the proto-internet.
There’s talk about lots of cool pre-web, pre-internet precursors, but the most interesting among them, for me, was the segment on Pump Up The Volume, a 1990 comedy drama starring Christian Slater. I hadn’t seen the film, but became intrigued by it’s description as being very “internety.” Now, having tracked down a copy and having seen it, I agree, many elements of it will remind you of both blogs and podcasts.
I was surprised we received it, but I’m glad they sent it.
Penguin Audio sent us this 5 CD, 5 Hour, UNABRIDGED audiobook version of Bill Maher: The New New Rules – as I opened up the box I was thinking that the jokes might not work as well without the live audience reaction – but now, sitting here listening to the first disc, I’m laughing at the jokes – it works.
The subtitle: “A Funny Look At How Everybody but Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass”
One of the podcasts I listen to isn’t really a podcast, it’s a TV show. I used to listen to it religiously religulously, but then there were problems with it’s feed and it disappeared out of iTunes completely. Despite it’s spotty record the content itself is worth it. Few television shows produced in the USA seemed little more than “dispatches from the bubble” – too few would acknowledge the massive blindspot that us foreigners can see as glaringly obvious, few others than Real Time with Bill Maher.
So when the feed went kaput in iTunes I turned to torrents – using the websites EZTV.it and ThePirateBay.se to pick up the portable versions of the show itself and the webshow Overtime.
But if you’re not techy enough for that there’s still good news, Real Time with Bill Maher is again available through iTunes as a podcast (at least in Canada and the USA). But, I suspect it isn’t available in other countries so if that’s the case, try this workaround:
To get the show go into the “iTunes Store” section of iTunes and click on the flag at the bottom right of the page. Switch it to Canada or the USA. Then do a search, for “Maher” and it should be your first hit under podcasts. The main show, by the way, is audio only, like CBS’s 60 Minutes podcast.
Escape Pod #346: Hawksbill Station
