New Releases – Reynolds, Child, Asimov, Willis

New Releases

Here’s a few new releases that have caught my eyes. There’s also a promise of a title to come that I just have to mention: Tantor Media has Scott Lynch’s The Lies Of Locke Lamora in the pipeline for a spring release! Somebody over in Tantor’s acquisitions department must be listening to our podcast!

Tantor Media - Redemption Ark by Alastair ReynoldsRedemption Ark
By Alastair Reynolds; Read by John Lee
24 CDs or 3 MP3-CDs – 29 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: February 2009
ISBN: 9781400109579 (CD), 9781400159574 (MP3-CD)
The sequel to Revelation Space


Random House Audio - Terminal Freeze by Lincoln ChildTerminal Freeze
By Lincoln Child; Read by Scott Brick
9 CDs – 10 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: 2/24/2009
ISBN: 9780739382028

Four hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle lies Alaska’s Federal Wilderness Zone, one of the most remote places on Earth. But for paleoecologist Evan Marshall and a small group of fellow scientists, an expedition to the Zone represents the opportunity of a lifetime to study the effects of global warming. The expedition changes suddenly, however, with an astonishing find. On a routine exploration of a glacial ice cave, the group discovers an enormous ancient animal encased in solid ice. The media conglomerate sponsoring their research immediately intervenes and arranges the ultimate spectacle—the animal will be cut from the ice, thawed, and revealed live on television. Despite dire warnings of a local Native American village, and the scientific concerns of Marshall and his team, the “docudrama” plows ahead—until the scientists make one more horrifying discovery. The beast is no regular specimen…it may be an ancient killing machine. And they may be wrong in presuming it dead.

BBC Audiobooks America - Pebble In The Sky by Isaac AsimovPebble in the Sky
By Isaac Asimov; Read by Robert Fass
Audible Download, 7 CDs, 1 MP3-CD – 8 Hours 6 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America
Published: January 28, 2009
ISBN: 9780792760504 (cd), 9780792761860 (mp3-cd)
One moment Joseph Schwartz is a happily retired tailor in Chicago, 1949. The next he’s a helpless stranger on Earth during the heyday of the first Galactic Empire. Earth, as he soon learns, is a backwater, just a pebble in the sky, despised by all the other 200 million planets of the Empire because its people dare to claim it’s the original home of man. And Earth is poor, with great areas of radioactivity ruining much of its soil – so poor that everyone is sentenced to death at the age of 60. Joseph Schwartz is 62.

BBC Audiobooks America - The Stars, Like Dust by Isaac AsimovThe Stars, Like Dust
By Isaac Asimov; Read by Stephen R. Thorne
6 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – 7 Hours 22 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America
Published: 2009?
ISBN: 9780792757863 (cd), 9780792758297 (mp3-cd)
Biron Farrell was young and naïve, but he was growing up fast. A radiation bomb planted in his dorm room changed him from an innocent student at the University of Earth to a marked man, fleeing desperately from an unknown assassin. He soon discovers that, many light-years away, his father has been murdered. Stunned, grief-stricken, and outraged, Biron is determined to uncover the reasons behind his father’s death, and becomes entangled in an intricate saga of rebellion, political intrigue, and espionage. The mystery takes him deep into space where he finds himself in a relentless struggle with the power-mad despots of Tyrann.

Blackstone Audio - Bellwether by Connie WillisBellwether
By Connie Willis; Read by Kate Reading
5 Cassettes, 1 MP3-CD, 5 CDs – Approx. 5.6 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: February 2009
ISBN: 9781433246234 (cassette), 9781433246265 (mp3-cd), 9781433246241 (cd)
Sandra Foster studies fads and their meanings for the HiTek corporation. Bennett O’Reilly works with monkey-group behavior and chaos theory for the same company. When the two are thrust together due to a misdelivered package and a run of seemingly bad luck, they find a joint project in a flock of sheep. But a series of setbacks and disappointments arise before they are able to find answers to their questions—with the unintended help of the errant, forgetful, and careless office assistant Flip.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Thousandth Night by Alastair Reynolds

SFFaudio Online Audio

Sam Mowry from the WILLAMETTE RADIO WORKSHOP is the narrator for the latest audio offering from Subterranean Online magazine. That’s good news to people who know his work, and good news to everyone else too because they get to hear it now if that hadn’t previously. Check this out…

Subterranean Magazine - Fall 2008Thousandth Night
By Alastair Reynolds; Read by Sam A. Mowry
16 MP3s – Approx. 2 Hours 54 Minutes ???????? [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Subterranean Online
Published: December 2008
Thousandth Night is a tale, the best in modern space opera. Fans of Alastair Reynolds’ work will notice some strong similarities between it and his most recent novel, House of Suns, which grew out of this novella.

Intro |MP3|
Part 01 |MP3| Part 02 |MP3| Part 03 |MP3| Part 04 |MP3| Part 05 |MP3|
Part 06 |MP3| Part 07 |MP3| Part 08 |MP3| Part 09 |MP3| Part 10 |MP3|
Part 11 |MP3| Part 12 |MP3| Part 13 |MP3| Part 14 |MP3| Part 15 |MP3|

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Beyond The Aquila Rift by Alastair Reynolds

SFFaudio Review

Beyond the Aquila RiftBeyond the Aquila Rift
By Alastair Reynolds; Read by Tom Dheere
1 CD – 72 min [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Infinivox
Published: Feb 22, 2008
ISBN: 9781884612770
Themes: / Science Fiction / Space Travel / Suspended Animation /

Beyond the Aquila Rift. It’s shorthand for the trip no one ever hopes to make by accident. The one that will screw up the rest of your life, the one that creates the ghosts you see haunting the shadows of company bars across the whole Bubble. Men and women ripped out of time, cut adrift from families and lovers by an accident of an alien technology we use but rarely comprehend.

Fiction editors. I don’t know much about how they work and I don’t much care to. More than anything in an editor, I want a gatekeeper who consistently picks stories that I like. Thinking about who that might be, I always bring one name to mind: Isaac Asimov. If Asimov liked the story then I usually did too. But Asimov is dead. If it’s new stuff today, it has to be one guy very few readers have heard of. His name is Allan Kaster. Kaster edits an ongoing anthology (released one tale at a time) entitled Great Science Fiction stories. Nowhere on the package of any Infinivox title does it say “Allan Kaster, Editor”, but he’s definitely the guy making this series live up to it’s title. I can’t remember a single Infinivox production that left me cold. They often leave me confused, frightened, hurt, awed, satisfied, or unsatisfied (but not in the wrong way). Mostly though they leave me thinking: “Please, sir, can I have another?”

Beyond The Aquila Rift is another little known novelette deserving the title “Great Science Fiction.” I say this because this story got me thinking thoughts about the nature of reality that not even Philip K. Dick couldn’t conjure. Most tales that deal with “what is reality?” type scenarios come up with a weak endorsement of something I’ll call “real reality.” Sometimes they end in another way, one more noir than mainstream. This one has it both ways and I like that. The ambivalence is itself novel, and makes the story work. This isn’t the best of Infinivox’s Great Science Fiction Stories, but it is a worthy listen. Thanks Allan!

Narrator Tom Dheere, another in Infinivox’s stable of previously unknown narrators, delivers this reading straight. It is a good reading. This is 72 minutes of thought provoking modern SF. Have a listen to a sample |MP3|.

Posted by Jesse Willis

StarShipSofa’s Aural Delights: Passion Ploy by Matthew Hughes

SFFaudio Online Audio

Star Ship SofaThe StarShipSofa Audio Science Fiction Magazine goes out of her way to bring you a fantastic show this week in her Aural Delights.

Main Fiction: Passion Ploy 12:20
by Matthew Hughes
“What exactly is it?” Luff Imbry said. He walked around the object that occupied the center of the small table in the secluded rear room of the tavern known as Bolly’s Snug, viewing it from several angles and blinking at the way it caught the light.

Flash Fiction: Fresco by Alastair Reynolds

Poetry: Spacer Compass by Bruce Boston

They Arrived by Mark Rich

Narrators:
Diane Severson,
Jim Campanella,
Gareth Stack,
Julie Davis

Subscribe to the podcast via this feed:

http://www.starshipsofa.com/rss

Posted by Tony C. Smith

StarShipSofa wants you to pick the BSFA Best Short Story of 2007 winner

SFFaudio Online Audio

Star Ship SofaStarShipSofa now puts her money on the line and tries to pick the winner of the BSFA Best Short Story 2007.

Join Tony and guest listener Fred as they blast off into the unknown and try and name the winner. Someone help them – please!
If you missed any of the other posts, here are all stories and links to mp3’s:

Pop over to the StarShipSofa forums and cast your vote. You can subscribe free via iTunes or direct from the StarShipSofa website.

Subscribe to the podcast via this feed:www.starshipsofa.com/rss

Posted by Tony C. Smith

StarShipSofa and the BSFA

SFFaudio Online Audio

Star Ship SofaStarShipSofa has now uploaded the last of the short stories that are up for BSFA Best Short Story 2007. Today is Alastair Reynolds and his story The Sledge-Maker’s Daughter. First published in Interzone #209

She stopped in sight of Twenty Arch Bridge, laying down her bags to rest her hands from the weight of two hogs’ heads and forty pence worth of beeswax candles. While she paused, Kathrin adjusted the drawstring on her hat, tilting the brim to shade her forehead from the sun. Though the air was still cool, there was a fierce new quality to the light that brought out her freckles.

Tony sez “Well that is all the short stories up online that have been nominated for the BSFA Award for Best Short Story 2007. It’s been fun getting them out everyday. Hope you have enjoyed this little diversion from the normal? Join myself and Fred Himebaugh next week as we try and pick the winner.”

If you missed any of the other posts, here are all stories and links to mp3’s:

Pop over to the StarShipSofa forums and cast your vote. You can subscribe free via iTunes or direct from the StarShipSofa website.

Subscribe to the podcast via this feed:www.starshipsofa.com/rss

Posted by Tony C. Smith