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.
There’s a brief “open mic” segment on today’s episode of NPR’s Morning Edition that I think you’d all like to hear:
Neil Gaiman, a self professed lover of audiobooks, is evangelizing the audiobook. For his segment he’s done some interviews with some audiobook movers and shakers. He’s spreading the good word, taking on the specific arguments of the unbelievers, and generally praising the audio medium. Have a listen…
Memoirs Found in a Bathtub
By Stanislaw Lem; Read by Jeff Woodman
6 Hours, 38 Mins – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: 2009
The year is 3149, and a vast paper destroying blight-papyralysis-has obliterated much of the planet’s written history. However, these rare memoirs, preserved for centuries in a volcanic rock, record the strange life of a man trapped in a hermetically sealed underground community.
His Master’s Voice
By Stanislaw Lem; Read by Nick Sullivan
9 Hours, 17 Mins – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: 2009
Here is a witty and inventive satire of “men of science” and their thinking, as a team of scientists races to decode a mysterious message from space. “I had the feeling that I was standing at the cradle of a new mythology. A last will and testament…we as the posthumous heirs of Them….”
Fiasco
By Stanislaw Lem; Read by Oliver Wyman
14 Hours, 43 Mins – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: 2009
The planet Quinta is pocked by ugly mounds and covered by a spiderweb-like network. It is a kingdom of phantoms and of a beauty afflicted by madness. In stark contrast, the crew of the spaceship Hermes represents a knowledge-seeking Earth. As they approach Quinta, a dark poetry takes over and leads them into a nightmare of misunderstanding.
Diving Into the Wreck
By Kristine Kathryn Rusch; Read by Jennifer Van Dyck
9 Hours, 45 Mins – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: 2009
Boss loves to dive historical ships, derelict spacecraft found adrift in the blackness between the stars. Sometimes she salvages for money, but mostly she’s an active historian. She wants to know about the past – to experience it firsthand. Once she’s dived the ship, she’ll either leave it for others to find or file a claim so that she can bring tourists to dive it as well. It’s a good life for a tough loner, with more interest in artifacts than people.
Then one day, Boss finds the claim of a lifetime: an enormous spacecraft, incredibly old, and apparently Earth-made. It’s impossible for something so old, built in the days before Faster Than Light travel, to have journeyed this far from Earth. It shouldn’t be here. It can’t be here. And yet, it is. Boss’s curiosity is up, and she’s determined to investigate. She hires a group of divers to explore the wreck with her, the best team she can assemble. But some secrets are best kept hidden, and the past won’t give up its treasures without exacting a price in blood. What Boss finds could rewrite history, cost lives, and start an intergalactic war.
Shadows Return: Nightrunner, Book 4
By Lynn Flewelling; Read by Adam Danoff
12 Hours, 6 Mins – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: 2009
With their most treacherous mission yet behind them, heroes Seregil and Alec resume their double life as dissolute nobles and master spies. But in a world of rivals and charmers, fate has a different plan.
After their victory in Aurnen, Alec and Seregil have returned home to Rhminee. But with most of their allies dead or exiled, it is difficult for them to settle in. Hoping for diversion, they accept an assignment that will take them back to Seregils homeland. En route, however, they are ambushed and separated, and both are sold into slavery. Clinging to life, Seregil is sustained only by the hope that Alec is alive.
But it is not Alecs life his strange master wants – it is his blood. For his unique lineage is capable of producing a rare treasure, but only through a harrowing process that will test him body and soul and unwittingly entangle him and Seregil in the realm of alchemists and madmen and an enigmatic creature that may hold their very destiny in its inhuman hands. But will it prove to be savior or monster?
Deus Et Machina
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Christopher Aruffo
4 CDs – 4.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Acoustic Learning
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9780980058161
Edgar Allan Poe, 19th-century high-tech correspondent, reports on recent advances in science and metaphysical knowledge.
THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR: By the power of a mesmeric spell, an invalid’s soul is trapped at the exact moment of death.
VON KEMPELEN AND HIS DISCOVERY: The legendary formula– pursued by alchemists throughout the ages– will finally be secret no more.
Also includes:
The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion
The Power of Words
The Colloquy of Monos and Una
Cabs
A Moving Chapter
Street Paving
Wooden Pavement
Try a Mineralized Pavement
The Daguerreotype
Anastatic Printing
A Chapter on Science and Art
The Cask of Amontillado and Other Stories
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Christopher Aruffo
3 CDs – 3.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Acoustic Learning
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9780980058147
Includes:
Message Found In a Bottle
The Oblong Box
The Light-House
The Oval Portrait
The Cask of Amontillado
The Premature Burial
Ligeia
Eleonora
The Pioneers
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Christopher Aruffo
6 CDs – 7.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Acoustic Learning
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9780980058154
Travel with Poe across the vast Atlantic, to the wild uncharted regions of the Americas, and even to the moon!
Includes:
The Unparalleled Adventure of Hans Pfaal
The Balloon-Hoax
The Journal of Julius Rodman
Some Account of Stone-Henge
The Island of the Fay
Harper’s Ferry
The Capitol at Washington
The Elk, or Morning on the Wissahickon
The SFFaudio Podcast #043 – Jesse and Scott talk about all the Recent Arrivals and New Releases that have been piling up while Scott’s been away fiddling on a roof.
The Iron Heel, one of the books that we’re turning into AUDIOBOOKS for the 4th Annual SFFaudio Challenge. It is being posted bit by bit, to a new website called TheIronHeel.net. The audiobook’s narrator and site runner, Matt Soar, is asking for feedback feedback on what he’s done so far. Here’s my feedback on your new site Matt:
Nice layout – simple and clean, with a blog format for easy RSS following. But! There is one serious deficiency that I see. There are simply not enough graphics!
<--So, I've made some for you!
Let's really jazz up this very modern themed (but old aged) novel about a dystopian 20th century that (sort of) never was.
Maybe someone out there on the internets has a cool map or something?
Matt's also looking for feedback on the audio. Have a listen to Matt's reading of the Foreword |MP3| and Chapter 1 |MP3|.
Personally, after listening, I think you’re doing a very good job. It sounds like the mic or the mic setup could use a tweak in some way – there’s something not 100% right there. Otherwise the voicing sounds really terrific Matt!
Karen Savage, one of the participants in this year’s SFFaudio Challenge, has completed her narration of Ultima Thule by Mack Reyolds and placed it on LibriVox.org! This is absolutely terrific! We’ll be sending Karen her choice of prize soon. If you’d like to hear this BRAND NEW, UNABRIDGED, FREE and PUBLIC DOMAIN audiobook you now have a half dozen ways do it. The files are available as a Zipped Folder full of MP3 files, via an iTunes 1-Click subscription, a regular podcast feed, or as individual file downloads. In fact I expect to see this as a torrent soon too.
In addition to being a really terrific narrator, Savage is a blogger, knitter and avid audiobook listener (check out her recent post about the less restrictive DRM on Net Library). Thanks so much Karen!
Ultima Thule
By Mack Reynolds; Read by Karen Savage 13 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 2 Hours 29 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 23, 2009 Ronny Bronston has dreamed all his life of getting a United Planets job that would take him off-world. He finally gets the opportunity when he is given a provisional assignment with Bureau of Investigation, Section G. But will he be able to complete his assignment and find the elusive Tommy Paine?