Review of The Standards of Creation by James Campanella

Scott D.

SFFaudio Review

The Standards of Creation
By James Campanella; Read by James Campanella
MP3 Download – Approx 16.5 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Uvula Audio
Published: 2008
Themes: / Science Fiction / Mars / cybernetics / aliens / telepathy / genetic manipulation /

J.J. Campanella is perhaps best known in audio circles as a frequent narrator on StarShipSofa, which is where I first encountered him. His website, Uvula Audio, features Campanella’s narration of a wide variety of audiobooks ranging from L. Frank Baum to Doc Savage to P.G. Wodehouse. It does not take long to discover that narration is indeed a skill at which Campanella is expert. He handles foreign accents and different voices with an ease that makes it easy for the listener to visualize each speaker.

What is easy to miss, perhaps, is that Campanella’s own written work, The Standards of Creation, is included among the archived files. This is a shame as Campanella has written a fast-paced, multi-layered book that combines the best of action thrillers and science fiction. It definitely deserves to be noticed by more people.

Just a few of the elements woven into the story include:

• Martian colonies of Chinese and Americans, each hiding their secrets while trying to discover those of the other.

• Yarrow Hayes, a Nobel Prize winning biologist born and raised on Mars, who ironically is dying of an incurable disease.

• Alex Arodyne, a young scientific genius whose cynical outlooks threatens to cripple his promise.

• Belle, an undercover NATO agent whose cybernetic enhancements give her unparalleled skills but carry with them a price that lead her to take surprising steps.

• Who are Gabe and his mysterious boss? Is he really an alien using telepathy to speak to Alex in his dreams?

• What is the mysterious alien ship voyaging through the solar system?

• Just what are the standards of creation? How will they change the lives of each person in the story?

All this is set against a background containing some of the most classic science fiction elements: terraforming on Mars, life in the Martian colony, biological scientific development in the future such as the different versions of the cloned NATO officers, and an alien device that looks like a huge black marble silently making its way toward the sun while scientists struggle to communicate. All of this is laced with characters in impossible situations for which there is seemingly no solution.

Above all this is a book of secrets. Every person and every situation has at least one secret beyond those that we think have been revealed. This leads to an indepth look at free will and personal responsibility that both surprisd and delighted me.

I am not even including some of the subplots involving drug trafficking or an order of priests with a surprising yet practical hidden agenda. It might sound as if there is too much crammed into the story to make a good book. However, Campanella handles the many elements with ease to provide us with a truly original novel that is not only thought provoking but which also hearkens back to the times when science fiction included real science. We hope that his future endeavors branch out again from narration to include more novels such as this one.

Posted by Julie D.

StarShipSofa

Tony

SFFaudio Online Audio

Star Ship Sofa Podcast Science Fiction Magazine StarShipSofa: The Audio Science Fiction Magazine has a show to end all shows today. Well, again, I would say that… but, honest… even if I do so… it is a good show! Find out for yourselves.

Aural Delights No 45 Paolo Bacigalupi mp3

Flash Fiction: Reality 2.0 By Ian Creasy 4:00 Shimmer Interview

Flash Fiction: I’m a Stranger Here Myself by Mack Reynolds 09:40

Fact: Fiction Crawler No 2 by Matt Sanborn Smith 24:20

Main Fiction: Pump Six by  Paolo Bacigalupia  34:00 

Narrators: MCL, Lawrence Santoro, Grant Stone

Subscribe to the podcast via this feed:

http://www.starshipsofa.com/rss

Posted by Tony C. Smith

Meatball Fulton’s 90 Second Cellphone Chillin’ Theatre

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

90 Second Cellphone Chillin’ TheatreMeatball Fulton’s podcast, Meatball’s Meatballs, will feature six stories from his series, 90 Second Cellphone Chillin’ Theatre starting on Friday October 10th 2008. In #17 |MP3| Fulton reveals how he came up with ideas for the 50 stories in this series, stories like Drooling Doreen, Ghouls Galore and Zombie Al’s Big Night Out. They are described as “humorous Hollywood influenced horror stories.”

And, be sure to check out podcast #11 which is a “making of” for the classic The Mist In 3-D Sound by Stephen King |MP3| headphones are required for the full effect.

Subscribe to the podcast feed:

http://www.zbs.org/dircast/dircaster.php

[Thanks Julie!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

“Re-Animator” in a “Conan” situation

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio News

io9 a science fiction blogThe io9 blog has a story related to our Broken Sea vs. CPI stories |LINK 1|Link 2| we’ve been running. A corp named Re-Animator LLC has sent a Cease and Desist order, and claimed trademark protection on, the word “Re-Animator” and “is fighting comic book companies from publishing anything having to do with the term.” Re-Animator LLC trademarked the word in 2005. Which is several years after the first two Re-Animator movies were released and nearly 90 years since it was first written by H.P. Lovecraft.

[via Lost Carcosa]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Commentary: Jack London’s The Call Of The Wild is Science Fiction

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Commentary

For almost a year now I’ve been making the argument, to anyone who’d listen, that Jack London’s short story To Build A Fire is Science Fiction.

I’m ready to make the same argument for London’s most famous work, The Call Of The Wild.

First off, the story is told from a dog’s POV. Normally that’d make this a Fantasy novel, in the spirit of Redwall or similar. But, we never hear Buck, the hero, speak, or think thoughts out in words (unlike other anthropomorphic fiction) – yet we are clearly seeing the world through Buck’s alien eyes. Moreover, the premise of the novel, the theme that informs the title of each chapter, was a commonly held idea in fantastic literature of that era. Namely, that ‘barbarism is around every corner, that civilization is a thin veneer, one broken easily.’ You see this in the writings of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. London wrote: “…the reign of primitive law … the facts of life took on a fiercer aspect, and while he faced that aspect uncowed, he faced it with all the latent cunning of his nature aroused.” Jack London’s The Call Of The Wild is Science Fiction. The novel was set in the then recent past, and doesn’t have any future tech or extraterrestrial aliens – but that’s not what makes SF. What makes it SF is what makes The Call Of The Wild a classic – the presentation of bold philosophical ideas informed by science.

Below is a free version read by the talented narrator James Campanella. Unfortunately, for me, the reading is spoiled by two serious problems. First, it has a poor recording environment (rectified in later Campanella releases). Second, Jim has added in sound effects. An, imperfect recording environment I can live with, added sound effects I can’t. Check it out for yourself…

Uvula Audio - The Call Of The Wild by Jack LondonThe Call Of The Wild
By Jack London; Read by James Campanella
7 MP3s – Approx. 3 Hours 44 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Uvuvla Audio
Podcast: 2007
“The Call of the Wild was written by American author Jack London. The plot concerns, Buck, a previously domesticated and even somewhat pampered dog whose primordial instincts return after a series of events finds him serving as a sled dog in the treacherous, frigid Yukon during the days of the 19th Century Gold Rushes in the Northwest. Published in 1903, The Call of the Wild is one of London’s most read books and it is generally considered one of the classics of western adventure literature. Because the protagonist is a dog, it is usually classified as a juvenile novel, suitable for children.”
Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3| Part 3 |MP3| Part 4 |MP3|
Part 5 |MP3| Part 6 |MP3| Part 7 |MP3|

There’s a LibriVox version also available.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Recent Arrivals – Blackstone Audio

Scott D.

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. DickThe Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Tom Weiner
6 CDs – 6.8 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2008
ISBN: 9781433248221

Not too long from now, when exiles from a blistering Earth huddle miserably in Martian colonies, the only things that make life bearable are the drugs. Can-D “translates” those who take it into the bodies of Barbie-like dolls. Now there’s competition: a substance called Chew-Z, marketed under the slogan “God promises eternal life. We can deliver it.” The question is: What kind of eternity? And who—or what—is the deliverer?

In this wildly disorienting fun house of a novel, populated by God-like—or perhaps satanic—take-over artists and corporate psychics, Philip K. Dick explores mysteries that were once the property of St. Paul and Aquinas. His wit, compassion, and knife-edged irony make this novel moving as well as genuinely visionary.
 
 
The Call of Earth by Orson Scott CardThe Call of Earth
By Orson Scott Card; Read by Stefan Rudnicki
9 CDs – 10.5 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2008
ISBN: 9781433218781

For millennia, the planet Harmony has been protected by the Oversoul, an artificial intelligence programmed to prevent thoughts of war and conquest from threatening the fragile remnant of Earth’s peoples. But as the Oversoul’s systems have begun to fail, a great warrior has arisen to challenge its bans. Using forbidden technology, the ambitious and ruthless General Moozh has won control of an army and is aiming it at the city of Basilica.

Basilica remains in turmoil. Wetchik and his sons are not strong enough to stop an army. As Lady Rasa, through whom the Oversoul speaks, attempts to defeat Moozh through intrigue, Naifeh and his family prepare to voyage to the stars in search of the planet called Earth.
 
 
2012 by Whitley Strieber2012: The War for Souls
By Whitley Strieber; Read by Joe Barrett
10 CDs – 11.7 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2008
ISBN: 9781433234842

December 21, 2012, may be one of the most watched dates in history. Every 26,000 years, earth lines up with the exact center of our galaxy. At 11:11 on December 21, 2012, this event happens again, and the ancient Mayans calculated that it would mark the end not only of this age but also of human consciousness as we know it. What will actually happen? Now Whitley Strieber explores 2012 in a riveting roller-coaster ride of fiction.

A mysterious alien presence unexpectedly bursts out of sacred sites all over the world and begins to rip human souls from their bodies, plunging the world into chaos. As courage meets cowardice and loyalty meets betrayal, heroes emerge, villains reveal themselves, and in the end something completely unexpected happens that lifts the characters into a new life—and sounds a real-world warning for the future.
 
Posted by Scott D. Danielson