Review of Ur by Stephen King

SFFaudio Review

Here’s the latest in our 7th Anniversary Festival of Short Stories!

Science Fiction Audiobook - Ur by Stephen KingUR
By Stephen King; Read by Holter Graham
2 Hours, 20 Minutes – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Audio
Published: 2010
Themes: / Science Fiction / Time Travel / Multiple Universes / Books / Kindle /

When this story first came out, it was available exclusively for the Kindle, and King made the Kindle itself one of the main characters. A special, one-of-a-kind Kindle, of course, that lets the user flip through universes picking books that brilliant writers wrote in parts of their lives that didn’t exist in this universe. Ernest Hemingway, for example, lived a few years longer in one universe (in one UR, as they are called in the story), and wrote a novel or two more. This description feels a bit like Joe Haldeman’s “The Hemingway Hoax”, and the main character is tempted to take the story in that very direction, but doesn’t. Instead, he reads and reads for his own pleasure. Things don’t get really complicated until he uses his Kindle to take a look at our UR.

I love me some Stephen King, and this is a pretty good science fiction story. It doesn’t offer anything new to the pervasive (and tiresome) “multiple universe” sub-genre, except this is Stephen King writing it, and I like the people he writes about. It’s extremely well-narrated, too, by Holter Graham.

|HERE| is a very cool promo page from Simon and Schuster that contains an excerpt of the audiobook and an interview with Holter Graham.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Books In Motion: 40% off sale

SFFaudio News

Books In MotionBooksInMotion.com, a publisher we clearly don’t link to enough, is having a:

“Incredible 40% Off St. Patrick’s Day Sale!”

Now through St. Patrick’s Day (March 17, 2010) get 40% OFF your purchase of library, retail and downloaded audiobooks at BooksInMotion.com. Use coupon code “PADDY” at checkout. Offer not available for rental orders.

[Thanks to Erik Burggraaf for the tip!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Pulp Cover by Gene Wolfe

SFFaudio Review

7th Anniversary Storypalooza continues!

Science Fiction Audiobook - Pulp Fiction by Gene WolfePulp Cover
By Gene Wolfe; Read by Mike Boris
24 Min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: StarShipSofa (Aural Delights No 120)
Published: 2010
Themes: / Science Fiction /

This brilliantly narrated (by Mike Boris) story was part of the Aural Delights no 120 – Gene Wolfe podcast from StarShipSofa. Thanks Tony and crew for all the great stories and commentary week after week!

“Pulp Cover” is the story of a man who wants to marry his boss’s daughter, but loses out to a perfect man from Yale. At least, that’s what the story is about on the surface, but Gene Wolfe’s stories are much more than the top layer. Subtle and satisfying.

Listening to Gene Wolfe is something I haven’t been able to do often, but his stories are finally starting to show up on audio. Audible Frontiers recently published The Book of the New Sun. “Hunter Lake” appeared in The Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine in 2003, and before that, the only audiobook I know of was a cassette from Audio Prose Library with “The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories” and “The Solar Labyrinth” on it, read by Wolfe himself. “The Tree is My Hat” was made into an audio drama at the World Horror Convention in 2002, and was included in StarShipSofa’s Aural Delights No 49. That’s all the Gene Wolfe audio I know of – any more out there?

Looks like an author page, Jesse!

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

LibriVox: The Dueling Machine by Ben Bova and Myron R. Lewis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVox delivers another retro future audiobook, this time it’s a novellette collaboration between Ben Bova and Myron R. Lewis!

LIBRIVOX - The Dueling Machine by Ben Bova and Myron R. LewisThe Dueling Machine
By Ben Bova and Myron R. Lewis; Read by Gregg Margarite
3 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 2 Hours 24 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: February 28, 2010
The Dueling Machine is the solution to settling disputes without injury. After you and your opponent select weapons and environments you are injected into an artificial reality where you fight to the virtual death… but no one actually gets hurt. That is, until a warrior from the Kerak Empire figures a way to execute real-world killings from within the machine. Now its inventor Dr. Leoh has to prevent his machine from becoming a tool of conquest. First published in the May, 1963 issue of Analog Science Fact & Fiction.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/4088

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks also to Betty M. and Barry Eads]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Audio Drama Review: a new blog

SFFaudio News

Jack J. Ward, of The Sonic Society podcast points me toward this new blog that reviews audio drama.

Audio Drama ReviewIt’s called Audio Drama Review, and the reviewer blogs under the name “AudioDramaReviewer” – hey are you sensing a pattern here?

Audio Drama Review’s moto is:

“Reviews of Audio Drama, Radio Plays, old and new. Current companies and shows both professional and amateur.”

If you’re a fan of audio drama you should definitely check out this new blog!

Already reviewed are:

Icebox Radio Theater

Lightning Bolt Theater Of The Mind

Decoder Ring Theatre

Dream Realm Enterprises

Children Of The Gods

Gaia’s Voyages

My favourite part about this new blog is that the reviewer is taking the time to pointing out how much the website for each show sucks (or doesn’t). Making a decent show isn’t enough, it has to be accessible too!

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases – Philip K. Dick, Jack Vance & Andre Norton

New Releases

Three fantastic new releases from Wonder Audio, plus news on one eBook!

The Men Return & Worlds of Origin
By Jack Vance; Read by Tim Rowe
1 hr, 10 min.- [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: 2010

Available at Audible

Two vintage stories from the 1950s by science-fiction Grand Master Jack Vance, who wrote stories of adventure, detection, horror, and humor.

What the Critics Say:

“‘Worlds of Origin’: A mystery novel and a fine example of Vance’s trademark imagination with worlds and customs of alien origin. No less than a dozen wholly unique Vance worlds come to light during Magnus Ridolphs’ inquiry into the mysterious death of a man on a space-station retreat. ‘The Men Return’: [A] completely alien earth where our universal rule of cause and effect no longer has any meaning and only the insane flourish in the new dynamics.” (Amazon reviewer “Coriolous”)


The Defenders
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
61 min.- [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: 2010

Available at Audible

Taylor felt life was pretty good. Sure, living in an underground bunker developing more sophisticated weapons to bomb the Soviets was less than ideal. But he had a pretty wife, and he was safe from the radioactive poisoned environment that existed above ground. The leadies, sophisticated robot servants, could inform them of the devastating destruction, the bombed out cities, and the further Soviet attacks. But it was a strange fact that the latest leadie to return to the bunker showed no sign of radioactivity. Strange enough for Taylor to be ordered above ground in a lead-lined suit to investigate. That Taylor didn’t want to go, wasn’t really an option!


People of the Crater
By Andre Norton; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
1hr, 44min.- [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: 2010

Available at Audible

A flight to a lost world of Antarctica. Garin Featherstone has been sent to explore a mysterious blue haze that was spotted in the polar region. There he discovers a lost civilization and a strange environment of vivid green lands, crimson tree trunks, and golden rivers. He must save Thrala of the light against the lizard men.

This is Andre Norton’s first professional published story from 1947. Even the Grand Dame of science fiction had to have her first sale. And she shows her strengths in her first fantastic adventure story.

Did you know Wonder Audio also publishes eBooks and print books under the name of Wonder Publishing Group? Here’s one of their many new eBooks. And yes, that’s one sweet cover. :)

Venus is a Man’s World and Other
by William Tenn

Wry, brilliant stories from the late William Tenn. Stories of irony, poignancy, humor and satire. Vampires, time travel and paradoxes, government projects, war, and the battle of the sexes. Stories included are: VENUS IS A MAN’S WORLD, OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS, NULL-P, BROOKLYN PROJECT, SHE ONLY GOES OUT AT NIGHT, PROJECT HUSH, ME MYSELF AND I, and RICARDO’S VIRUS. The Science Fiction Encyclopedia ranked Tenn as “one of the genre’s very few genuinely comic, genuinely incisive writers of short fiction.”

FICTIONWISE | AMAZON KINDLE

Posted by Rick Jackson