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

The Wall Street Journal: Fred Greenhalgh’s Audio Dramas

Jesse Willis

Aural Noir: News

Today’s Wall Street Journal, page A1 (the front page), has a well written article by Barry Newman on modern audio drama entitled: Return With Us to the Thrilling Days Of Yesteryear—Via the Internet. It is subtitled “Fred Greenhalgh’s Audio Dramas Hark Back To Radio Golden Era; It Sounds Like Snow” and thus you know the subject of the piece is Fred Greenhalgh (who we had as a guest on SFFaudio Podcast #039). It details Fred’s new project with the Mad Horse Theater Company, to create an audio drama production of the novel Open Season by Archer Mayor. You can read the entire article HERE. There’s also an accompanying video…

Here is the pilot episode of the Joe Gunther Open Season series |MP3|

And here’s a bit more video showcasing how it was made:

For more details visit the Final Rune website HERE.
Posted by Jesse Willis

Golden Age Stories: FREE AUDIOBOOK – The Devil’s Rescue by L. Ron Hubbard

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

GoldenAgeStories.com, which is a site promoting Galaxy Press audio and ebooks, is offering a FREE audiobook download to visitors who “sign up for the Stories from the Golden Age newsletter.” To get the audiobook you need to answer a couple innocuous-sounding questions and type in your name, mailing address, email. Here is the result…

GOLDEN AGE STORIES - The Devil’s Rescue by L. Ron HubbardThe Devil’s Rescue
By L. Ron Hubbard; Read by R.F. Daley
Zipped MP3 Download – Approx. 43 Minutes [UNABRIDGED NARRATION WITH SOUND EFFECTS]
Publisher: Galaxy Press
Published: 2009?
Edward Lanson has been drifting in a lifeboat far below the Cape of Good Hope for weeks and seems destined for the watery depths until an ancient clipper ship rescues him. But what seemed to be salvation may indeed be his destruction when he is confronted with the captain of a crew of faceless sailors—a man known only as the Dark One—who has his own plans for Edward. First published in Unknown Fantasy Fiction, October 1940.

[via Bish’s Beat]

Posted by Jesse Willis