Audio Drama Review: a new blog

Jesse Willis

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

Time Traveler

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

Week 1: Think Like a Dinosaur by James Patrick Kelly

Scott D.

SFFaudio Review

SFFaudio celebrates its 7th anniversary this month! What better way to celebrate than with more posts? I’m going to listen to one short story every weekday through the month of March, and tell you all about it here. Here’s the first!

Science Fiction Audiobook - Think Like a Dinosaur by James Patrick KellyThink Like a Dinosaur
By James Patrick Kelly; Read by James Patrick Kelly
1 Hr – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: James Patrick Kelly
Published: 2007
Themes: / Science Fiction / Aliens / Physical Laws / Morality / Teleportation /

Before the rest of us knew what this podcasting stuff was all about, James Patrick Kelly was busy reading his stories into a microphone and publishing them over in the “Free Reads” section of jimkelly.net. Many stories have reached his Free Reads listeners, including his Hugo-winning novella Burn. And he’s still at it; his current Nebula nominee, “Going Deep” can be found over there too, free for the downloading.

“Think Like a Dinosaur” was part of another fine audio delivery innovation. In partnership with Audible.com, Jim published 4 sets of stories, called StoryPods, as podcasts-for-purchase delivered through Audible. You can still buy the StoryPods or the individual stories at Audible.

But the story – this is one of those stories that keeps you thinking long afterwards. Like Tom Godwin’s “The Cold Equations” (JPK explains in the afterword exactly how that story influenced this one), the main character is presented with a moral dilemma of the highest order. Things are not exactly the same as in “The Cold Equations”, though, because it’s not clear if the concept of “harmony” is something invented by the aliens in the story, or is an actual, unbreakable physical law.

On thing is for certain, though. “Think Like a Dinosaur” has become as much a part of science fiction’s Great Conversation as Godwin’s story. Required reading!

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

LibriVox: Talents, Incorporated by Murray Leinster

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Yum yum!

LIBRIVOX - Talents, Incorporated by Murray LeinsterTalents, Incorporated
By Murray Leinster; Read by Mark Nelson
12 Zipped MP3 Files – Approx. 6 Hours 9 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: February 14, 2010
Bors felt as if he’d been hit over the head. This was ridiculous! He’d planned and carried out the destruction of that warship because the information of its existence and location was verified by a magnetometer. But, if he’d known how the information had been obtained–if he’d known it had been guessed at by a discharged spaceport employee, and a paranoid personality, and a man who used a hazel twig or something similar–if he’d known that, he’d never have dreamed of accepting it. He’d have dismissed it flatly!

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/3832

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks also to Tricia G]

Posted by Jesse Willis

CBC: A Christmas Carol: Redux

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Ready, Set, Panic wrote, produced, and directed a one-hour radio special for CBC Radio that aired on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day 2009. They describe it as “a modern spin on the classic Scrooge tale, with 98.4% more comedy than the original.” Here is clip from the start of the program, featuring narrator Russell Thomas:

And here’s the podcast, just 302 days early for Xmas:

A Christmas Carol: ReduxA Christmas Carol: Redux
Loosely adapted from the story by Charles Dickens; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 54 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: CBC Radio
Podcast: January 6, 2010
“A Christmas Carol: Redux” gives a 21st century, dark comedic spin to the Charles Dickens classic. Set in the present day, with a crumbling economy and skyrocketing unemployment, cheapskate Scrooge refuses to share his wealth with those less fortunate. Join our narrator, Russell Thomas, as he recounts this classic Christmas tale with visits by The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future (all while he battles his own ghost: The Ghost of Recent Divorce).

Podcast feed:

http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/includes/xmascarolredux.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Jesse Willis

P.S. CBC Radio is being very Scrooge-like by not releasing The Adventures Of Apocalypse Al!

Review of The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

Scott D.

SFFaudio Review

Fantasy Audiobook - The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon SandersonThe Gathering Storm – Book Twelve of The Wheel of Time
By Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Read by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer
26 CDs – 34.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781593977672
Themes: / Fantasy / Epic fantasy / Good and Evil / Power / Politics / Religion / Magic /

The Gathering Storm is the first of the final trilogy of The Wheel of Time series. It was a long time coming, and I am pleased to report that Brandon Sanderson did an outstanding job. I actually spent part of my listening time looking for stylistic differences from the other books, but hats off to Sanderson for pulling this off. He nailed the tone of the other books, and tells a good story.

There are so many characters in these books, with different styles of speaking, that Michael Kramer and Kate Reading would be forgiven for inconsistencies in their narration, as they’ve done all 11 volumes that come before this one. That’s over 230 hours of audio! But they were right on, too. Their professional, enjoyable narration gave the book an additional source of continuity. These two are the voices of the Wheel of Time series.

So much has happened in this series that to say much about the plot here will spoil previous volumes. It should suffice for me to say that I enjoyed this book enough that I’ve started the series over from the beginning, in anticipation of the upcoming pair of concluding novels.

Posted by Tricia