Recent Arrivals: Penguin Audio, Macmillan Audio, Brilliance Audio

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Here are three very different recently arrived audiobooks – one humor, one Fantasy, one Science Fiction. What do they have in common? This post!

Perhaps it’s a contractual obligation? If you work for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart maybe you’re actually required to write and release a short audiobook. Or it may be just a wise decision? What I do know is that we have an obligation to tell you about all the audiobooks we receive, including this one…

PENGUIN AUDIO - I'm Dreaming Of A Black Christmas by Lewis BlackI’m Dreaming Of A Black Christmas
By Lewis Black; Read by Lewis Black
4 CDs – Approx. 5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Published: November 2, 2010
ISBN: 9780142428559
Christmas is supposed to be a time of peace on earth and goodwill toward all. But not for Lewis Black. He says humbug to the christmas traditions and trappings that make the holiday memorable. In I’m Dreaming Of A Black Christmas, his hilarious and sharply observed book about the holiday, Lewis lets loose on all things Yule. It’s a very personal look at what’s wrong with Christmas, seen through the eyes of “the most engagingly pissed-off comedian ever.”* [*Stephen King] From his own Christmas rituals – which have absolutely nothing to do with the presents or the Christmas tree or Rudolph – to his own eccentric experiences with the holiday (including a USO Christmas tour and playing Santa Claus in full regalia). I’m Dreaming Of A Black Christmas is classic Lewis Black: funny,razor-sharp, insightful, and honest. You’ll never think of Christmas in the same way.

This is, apparently, the penultimate book in the Wheel Of Time series. The first book in the series, The Eye Of The World, came out in 1990, that’s twenty years ago. According to the Wikipedia entry it would take 17 days, 11 hours and 30 minutes for you to every unabridged audiobook in the series so far. Based on the price of this one, $91.99 CDN, and the first one, $59.95 USD, I’m guessing a complete set would set you back slightly more than $1,000. Now, based on these statistics, I’m betting that fat fantasy (or phat fiction? or heroic fantasy?) fans must be both extremely patient and very well-to-do.

MACMILLAN AUDIO - Towers Of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon SandersonTowers Of Midnight (Wheel of Time #13)
By Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson; Read by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer
30 CDs – Approx. 38 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Published: November 2010
ISBN: 9781427210227
The Last Battle has started. The seals on the Dark One’s prison are crumbling. The Pattern itself is unraveling, and the armies of the Shadow have begun to boil out of the Blight. The sun has begun to set upon the Third Age. Perrin Aybara is now hunted by specters from his past: Whitecloaks, a slayer of wolves, and the responsibilities of leadership. All the while, an unseen foe is slowly pulling a noose tight around his neck. To prevail, he must seek answers in Tel’aran’rhiod and find a way–at long last–to master the wolf within him or lose himself to it forever. Meanwhile, Matrim Cauthon prepares for the most difficult challenge of his life. The creatures beyond the stone gateways–the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn–have confused him, taunted him, and left him hanged, his memory stuffed with bits and pieces of other men’s lives. He had hoped that his last confrontation with them would be the end of it, but the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills. The time is coming when he will again have to dance with the Snakes and the Foxes, playing a game that cannot be won. The Tower of Ghenjei awaits, and its secrets will reveal the fate of a friend long lost. This penultimate novel of Robert Jordan’s #1 New York Times bestselling series–the second of three based on materials he left behind when he died in 2007–brings dramatic and compelling developments to many threads in the Pattern. The end draws near. Dovie’andi se tovya sagain. It’s time to toss the dice.

Phat Fiction

We talked about this audiobook back in SFFaudio Podcast #074, but somehow it never got scanned – until now! In fact, I’m listening to this one now, and LOVING IT.

BRILLIANCE AUDIO - The Speed Of Dark by Elizabeth MoonThe Speed Of Dark
By Elizabeth Moon; Read by Jay Snyder
12 CDs – Approx. 14 Hours 47 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: August 27, 2010
ISBN: 9781441875068
Sample: |MP3|
Thoughtful, poignant, and unforgettable, The Speed Of Dark is a gripping exploration into the world of Lou Arrendale, an autistic man who is offered a chance to try an experimental “cure” for his condition. Now Lou must decide if he should submit to a surgery that may change the way he views the world — and the very essence of who he is.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Graphic Audio: Interview with Elizabeth Moon

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Graphic AudioGraphic Audio‘s podcast has a very interesting and informative interview with Elizabeth Moon. They talk about the Graphic Audio adaptations of Moon’s Vatta’s War and Serrano Legacy series of novels, cochlear implants, cyborgs, facial recognition, math, horses, embryonic livestock transport, selective breeding, genetic engineering, post-traumatic stress disorder, realistic villains, faster than light travel, and a whole lot more!

|MP3|

Podcast feed:

http://www.graphicaudio.net/t-rss.aspx

Posted by Jesse Willis

A conversation between Wernher von Braun and Willy Ley

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Archive.org has a wonderful 90 minute English language conversation between two famous German rocket scientists!

Check it out |MP3|

A historic conversation between German rocket scientists Wernher von Braun and Willy Ley. Highlights include the development of the German rocket programs during WWII, and the space program in the 1950’s. Recorded June 9th and 23rd, 1959, in New York City and Redstone Arsenal, Huntstville, Alabama.

Indeed hearing Wernher von Braun and Willy Ley talk is very cool.

Ley and von Braun talk about:
old school days in Germany, Hermann Oberth‘s influential book Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (“By Rocket Into Interplanetary Space“), Fritz Lang movie Woman In The Moon, rocketry and rockets from the V-2 to the Saturn rocket family, geosynchronous satellites, the Mercury project, space stations, weather satellites, the Van Allen radiation belt, the role of humans in space, sending men around the Moon, the logistics of photographing and visiting Venus and Mars, space probes, a “semi-philosophical question about Man’s rights in space”, theological objections (and blessings), the compatibility between religion and science, Blaise Pascal, extraterrestrial life, vegetation on Mars, smart aliens, Arthur C. Clarke’s first law.

As you can see it is very historic!

Wernher von Braun (left) and Willy Ley (right)

I won’t say much more about the fascinating Wernher von Braun as I recently posted a biographical radio dramatization about him. But I will point out that Willy Ley is pretty damn amazing. Ley was an avid reader of Science Fiction, contributed science articles to Astounding Stories and Galaxy Magazine and was a member of the Trap Door Spiders – there is a wonderful Wikipedia entry about him to explore HERE.

Posted by Jesse Willis

My Destiny, The Stars: A 1969 South African radio drama about Wernher von Braun

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

In researching for another post, on an obscure Science Fiction radio drama called SF’68, I discovered a cool website about a South African radio station called “Springbok Radio” and one of its other programmes: The Challenge Of Space!

Here’spart of their description of The Challenge Of Space:

“Sponsored by Carling Black Label Beer, this series examined man’s early ventures into space. The space race of the 1950’s and 1960’s spawned this series, especially the Apollo missions to the moon in the late 1960’s. … recorded at the AFS Studios in Johannesburg… Many of the stories were dramatisations of true events and also included futuristic tales of space exploration of the future.”

Reading that, I was excited to hear the only extant episode, the second one broadcast, which is about Wernher von Braun!

After hearing the episode I am reminded of one of the few movies I’ve been waiting more than a decade to see, a 1960 biographical film about von Braun called I Aim At The Stars. I was convinced it sounded like a fun film when one comedian pointed out that it should have been subtitled “But Sometimes I Hit London.” Have a listen to My Destiny, The Stars.

Springbok Radio - The Challenge Of SpaceThe Challenge Of Space – My Destiny, The Stars
By June Dixon; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 28 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: Springbok Radio
Broadcast: May 26, 1969
Cast:
Donald Monat as Charles B. Ryan
Clive Parnell
George Korelin
Kerry Jordann
Hal Orlandini
Diane Wilson

After hearing this episode I am reminded of one of the few movies I’ve been waiting more than a decade to see, a 1960 biographical film about von Braun called I Aim At The Stars. I was convinced it sounded like a fun film when one satirist noted that I Aim At The Stars should be subtitled “But Sometimes I Hit London.”

Posted by Jesse Willis

CBC Spark: Nora Young interviews David Fewer about Bill C-32

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

CBC Radio - SparkYep, it’s another post on Bill C-32, Canada’s upcoming copyright legislation. Perhaps you are already aware that C-32, as currently written, exists to enshrine legal punishments for the circumvention of “technological protection measures [TPMs].” TPM, by the way, is a less sullied acronym for the widely opposed DRM (Digital Rights Management) – which is another word, in turn, for copy protection. Here is CBC’s Nora Young interviewing David Fewer, the director of The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, for an upcoming Spark radio broadcast (and podcast).

The Canadian government is taking another crack at reforming our nation’s extremely outdated copyright laws. Two previous bills died when Parliament dissolved. But Bill C-32 is bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and before committee. How necessary are these changes? The current legislation includes mention of Beta Max machines. Meanwhile, Bill C-32 would finally make it legal to record a program on your VCR to watch at a later time. Yes – a practice that is technically illegal in Canada.

|MP3|

Or, as one of my friends put it, “It has to be simple Jesse”. Maybe this simple…

Related posts: Bill C-32 |HERE|, copyfight |HERE|

Posted by Jesse Willis

P.S. find an unrelated protest HERE.

The SFFaudio Podcast #083 – TALK TO: Jeremy Keith

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #083 – Jesse talks with Jeremy Keith of HuffDuffer.com about his website. HuffDuffer can turn any MP3 file on the web into a podcast! HuffDuffer lets you make your own curated podcasts and share them with the world.

Talked about on today’s show:
HuffDuffer.com, turning loose mp3 files on the web into podcasts, “the benefit of the website happens when you’re not at the website”, maybe planning ahead just isn’t popular?, the HuffDuffer extension for Firefox, Mozilla Firefox vs. Google Chrome, Bookmarklet, “HuffDuffer is the perfectly developed website”, website design, “all software evolves until it becomes an email client” (or Facebook), interacting with iTunes, “it just works”, you can HuffDuff any audio extension (no video thanks very much), audio vs. video, the stigma of audio (and radio), adactio.com (Jeremy Keith’s website), SalterCane.com, BBC, CBC, tagging your podcasts, the Science Fiction tag on HuffDuffer, Sage an RSS catcher for Firefox, the HuffDuffer people page, the HuffDuffer tag cloud page, the use of machine tags, flickr.com, the Philip K. Dick tag, each tag makes its own feed, the Orson Scott Card Selects podcast feed, get satisfaction from HuffDuffer, HuffDuffing computer voiced MP3 files (please don’t), exploring HuffDuffer as a social network, ClearLeft.com and Jeremy Keith’s profile there, the philosophy of website design, how to design a website for every browser, designing SFFaudio’s design, inertia of website design and designers, “website development is the most hostile environments”, three things have changed the internet for me: 1. podcasting 2. HuffDuffer 3. RSS readers, consuming the content the way you want, the Readability bookmarklet, Safari 5, sustainable business models, Dark Roasted Blend, why isn’t HuffDuffer HUGE?, you aren’t competing on the web, niche websites are empowering, what happens if Jeremy Keith gets hit by a bus?, the demise of websites, is Wikipedia too big to fail?, the further demise of websites, “feature creep“, you don’t buy a domain name (you rent it), the Seeing Ear Theatre story, Archive.org, the Science Fiction mindset, The Wayback Machine, the death of Geocities was a tragedy for the future archaeologists of the web, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr., Anathem by Neal Stephenson, The Long Now Foundation, we need servers on the moon, bury archive.org under the Sea Of Tranquility, Carl Sagan, the Voyager record (it’s the longest of the LPs), reconstructing the phonograph 10,000 years down the road, does Science Fiction make you smarter? Jeremy Keith’s answer: “Only Science Fiction fans can be smart.”

Posted by Jesse Willis