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.
The Boat Of A Million Years by Poul Anderson Genesis by Poul Anderson Shadow On The Sun by Richard Matheson Other Kingdoms by Richard Matheson Farnham’s Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted by Harry Harrison The Stainless Steel Rat For President by Harry Harrison The Stainless Steel Rat Sings The Blues by Harry Harrison The Stainless Steel Rat Goes To Hell by Harry Harrison The Stainless Steel Rat Joins The Circus by Harry Harrison Count Zero by William Gibson
Length: 2 hours, 21 minutes Reader: Michael Thomas Robinson
The book: Considered one of the greatest stories in horror literature, The Willows lives up to its reputation. Two friends canoeing down the Danube stop for the night on an island in the middle of a huge expanse of willow trees. The place seems mystic, almost otherworldly, and in the night the two interlopers find out why.
Blackwood could have set this story in any exotic river in the world, but he chose the Danube. This river, which runs through the heart of Europe, is the wildness that runs through what was then the epitome of civilization. As the atmosphere of this turns from idyllic to terrifying, Blackwood is showing that the unknown horrors of the world can be anywhere, even where we should be the most safe. This, I think, is the most horrifying realization of all.
Rating: 9 / 10
The reader: At first, I was not impressed by Robinson’s voice. He’s somewhat nasal, and starts the book with a bored, straightforward style. As the story went on, though, I realized the initial bored tone was probably intentional, contrasting with the building dread of the story. His pace quickens and slows to build the tension, drawing the listener into the horror of what the narrator is experiencing. Despite my early misgivings, I greatly enjoyed this reading.
The SFFaudio Podcast #130 – Scott, Jesse, Tamahome and Jenny discuss Human Man’s Burden by Robert Sheckley.
Talked about on today’s show:
uppity damn robots, hilarious characterization, soulless robots, Galaxy Magazine September 1956, Star Trek, Harry Mudd, Sears Roebuck catalogues, freeze dried vs. flash frozen, Kiln People by David Brin, The Twilight Zone episode “The Lonely“, robot wives, manufactured fingernails, center of gravity, “could she have been a robot?”, Gunga Sam the foreman robot, duenna is Portuguese for chaperone, Gunga Din, the Writing Excuses podcast with Lou Anders, HuffDuffer, John Scalzi, Casablanca, The Dark Knight, Edward Flaswell, “Sure pal. Sure.”, Frontier Bride, mail order bride, freeze dried preacher, programmed by “a human supremacist of the most rabid sort”, was Flaswell talked into feeling bad, what is the Human Man’s Burden?, is it all a marketing ploy?, The Mote In God’s Eye, the Gold Rush, why is the combustion god?, “Him strong him good, believe me brothers, it is even as I say.”, Rudyard Kipling poem’s The White Man’s Burden, the justification for empire, satire, the page 99 illustration, labeling people, ultra deluxe model bride, “oil glistened on their honest faces”, Tama can prove the robots are having sex, “in their carefree robot fashion”, a series of robots on the moon ordering from Sears Roebuck catalogues (15 F&SF covers by Mel Hunter), Charles van Doren, face-parts, “the robot frontier”, Asteroids in fiction (Wikipedia entry), TZ ep.: “Two“, Dumb Martian by John Wyndham, TZ ep.: “The Lateness Of The Hour“, android vs. gynoid, Firefly, Gunga Sam knows best, Sheila was down-selling herself, this is a feminist story?, Human Man’s Burden could be a cartoon, Kindles/Xboxes/Wiis/PS3s are sold as cheaply as possible because of the profit being in the media they play, iTouch vs. iPhone, free robots in our homes selling moon makers and solidovisions, nesting dolls, Human Man’s Burden probably isn’t public domain, Psycho by Robert Bloch, The Status Civilization, Seventh Victim, Mindswap, Warrior Race, The Space Merchants, Blackstone Audio, Charles Stross, Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan.
ISFDB publication history for Human Man’s BurdenHERE.
MP3 – that’s pretty much the best kind of auidobook format. It’ll work on any device, is convertible to any other format, and is completely DRM free. Tantor Media has begun offering them!
There are now more than 1,000 downloadable titles available to choose from.
Use Code: bogo8
Code expires: October 30, 2011
And, here’s the November 2011 Tantor catalogue |PDF| which includes a biography of Nikola Tesla, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of
Human Knowledge (George Berkeley) and a new novel by Jack McDevitt!
The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson, read by Michael Kramer The Hum and the Shiver by Alex Bledsoe, read by Emily Janice Card and Stefan Rudnicki The Apothecary by Maile Meloy, read by Cristin Milioti Why Read Moby Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick, read by the author The Walking Dead: The Rise Of The Governor by Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga, read by Fred Berman Psycho 2 by Robert Bloch, read by Paul Michael Garcia Steel and Other Stories by Richard Matheson, read by Scott Brick We’re Alive: Season Two by Kc Wayland, performed by full cast Bad Moon Rising by Jonathan Maberry, read by Tom Weiner Beggars Ride by Nancy Kress, read by Judy Young Vacation by Matthew Costello, read by Peter Macon To Sail Beyond the Sunset by Robert A. Heinlein, read by Bernadette Dunne
For those that aren’t on Twitter but use RSS readers to read blogs, I suggest you use this link to read the new Twitter feed as an RSS feed:
http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_name=NewAudiobookIn
Stay tuned for other copied innovations, like the new SFFaudio Grill. We’ve also been playing with a new thing all the kids are doing called YouTube. Coming soon!
Here at the SFFaudio Research and Development Lab, we’ve been