aliens – Page 38

Review of Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

Look to Windward
By Iain M. Banks, read by Robert Lister
10 Cassettes – Approx. 14.25 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Clipper Audio
Published: 1990
ISBN: 1841971839
Themes: / Science fiction / Aliens / Space Travel / War / Afterlife

Civil war has taken its toll on a planet called Chel, whose furry predator-descended people live in a strict caste-based society with an exacting religion. One of them, a famous composer named Ziller, has disowned his home world to live on a Culture orbital called Masaq’. He lives in crusty happiness among the humans and formerly human machines there, composing, exploring, and attending dinner parties. But word has come of a second Chelgrian, a former soldier and monk named Quilan, who appears determined to persuade him to return to Chel. The Culture are partially responsible for instigating the Chelgrian civil war, and it may be that Quilan has a deeper mission that even he knows nothing about.

This is the compelling lead-in to Iain M. Banks’ novel Look to Windward, but it is far from the whole story. The novel takes us far into the future of humanity, across the astoundingly large artificial surface of Masaq’, down deep voids of space on a series of amusingly named spacecraft, through the bitter civil war on Chel, and even into the belly of a large, atmosphere-containing being and the enormous blimp-like life forms inside it. The range of emotion is similarly grand, beginning with a harrowing descent into the war and its aftermath, segueing into an amusing and confusing dinner party, and setting off into stirring adventure and philosophical discussions of risk, war, love, life and death.

This is an introspective novel, and its most involving aspects unfold almost entirely in dialog. Such dependence on conversation demands an author who can produce interesting, distinct, and consistent voices for the various characters. Iain Banks delivers in spades, and Robert Lister interprets his dialog with near-perfection (the notable exception is Kabe, who sounds like a B-grade Igor). Hearing Ziller’s profane peevishness, Quillan’s calm hopelessness, and even Colonel Hyler’s avuncular old war-horse is like perceiving the characters in extra dimensions. In particular, there is a discussion late in the book between Quillan and Hyler that, while horrifying in topic, is presented with such remarkable tenderness that I found it one of the most outstanding scenes of fiction I’ve ever heard.

Look to Windward is part of a larger series of Culture novels, but don’t let that scare you off. I haven’t read any of the others, and you won’t be required to, either. If you like a thoughtfully-paced interplay of characters and ideas in a futuristic but oddly British setting, then you will love this book. And, like me, you’ll soon be trying to get your hands on more.

Posted by Kurt Dietz

Review of Ringworld by Larry Niven

Science Fiction Audiobook - Ringworld by Larry Niven Ringworld
By Larry Niven; Read by Tom Parker
Audible Download – 11 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 1999
ISBN:
Themes: / Science Fiction / Hard science fiction / Physics / Space travel / Aliens /

I’ve started this review several times. I’m honestly not sure what to say about this classic novel. In a word, it’s wonderful. What else can I say? It was originally published in 1970, and won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel. Of course, the awards and all the accolades since were well deserved.

Blackstone Audio published this unabridged version in 1999, and I found it on Audible. Tom Parker does a fine job with this straight narration of the material. Not fantastic, but better than adequate. Once I eased into his flow, I had no problem maintaining attention, but I think a bit more could be asked in the characterization department.

The main character in Ringworld is a 200 year old human named Louis Wu, who is approached by a Puppeteer (one of an alien race) who in turn is building a team to visit a star system that has an fabricated ring around it. The complete team includes Louis Wu, the Puppeteer, a Kzin, and a human female. The reasons for all these choices become clear during the novel.

Niven’s style is such that you can be awed then amused on the same page. His characters are very comfortable with life. They talk physics like we discuss where to have dinner. After more than thirty years, the story remains interesting and the ideas fascinating.

I highly recommend this audiobook, whether you’ve experienced Ringworld already or not.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of The First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells

The First Men in the Moon
By H.G. Wells, performed by a full cast
2 Tapes, Approx. 2 hours – [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Alien Voices
Published: 1998
ISBN: 0671872281
Themes: / Science fiction / Aliens / Sociology / Space Travel /

Oars slap against water and thud against wood, waves lap against a small boat bobbing in the ocean, and shore birds scree along the not-too-distant shore. You close your eyes and are transported to another time and place, a sonic virtual reality in which two fisherman sit to either side of you, discussing the catch and the mysterious steel sphere that falls from the sky. Such richly detailed soundscapes draw you into this adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The First Men in the Moon, and whisk you along from the familiar sounds of earth to the speculative sounds of deep space and the moon.

The acting is uniformly excellent, as well, with Leonard Nimoy and John de Lancie leading a talented cast with their spot-on characterizations of Professor Caver and Mr. Bedford. These two form a buzzing, absent-minded scientist and cool, craven capitalist odd-couple who develop a spaceship built around gravity-blocking shutters and then fly it to the moon. The civilization they discover beneath the moon’s surface is, well, substantially alien. This tale isn’t quite Wells’, but it is told with such ebullience and impressive audio depth that you can’t help liking it. In fact, the genial enthusiasm that suffuses the entire production proves both the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of the work: It makes for fun listening, but it winds up blunting some of Wells’ sharper observations about humanity and reason.

On the plus side, this adaptation does an admirable job of streamlining Wells’ sprawling narrative to lead us effectively from the thrill of invention to the uncertainty of exploration, from budding friendship to estrangement, and from difficult first contact to horrifying understanding. But there are several missteps along the way. For one thing, the voyage to the moon has been clumsily appended with a comet rendezvous that cheerily ignores even Newtonian physics and leads to an incomprehensible predicament with the Caverite shutters. What’s more, a staged “revolution” on the moon is utterly unconvincing, and even more disappointing, the Grand Lunar is transformed from a rational genius to a power-mad egomaniac.

But the most important transformation is thematic. Wells’ original compares human terrestrial civilization with the formic lunar one to contrast life as we know it with his vision of a completely rational society. Both have distinct horrors: We have war and poverty, the Lunarites have de-evolved sub-races and casual deactivation of inconvenient units. In this production, the comparison seems more like one between Capitalism and Communism, and it reverses the threat at the end to be something like a Red Scare, which makes no sense when you consider which society has the more demonstrably violent past.

On the whole, this is a fun production and a treat to listen to. Enjoy it for what it is, but do not attempt to substitute it for a reading of the original.

Posted by Kurt Dietz

Review of Soldier of the Legion by Marshall S. Thomas

Soldier of the Legion
By Marshall S. Thomas, performed by a full cast
MP3 Download – [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Timberwolf Press
Published: 2002
Themes: / Science fiction / Military / Space opera / Aliens / War

“Dat Spitz fight lak hell,” said Perrault…
“An’ dat Buck fight lak two hells,” was Francois’s answer.
— Jack London’s Call of the Wild

War is hell. Ever since Sherman put it so precisely, the rest of us have been forced to merely tip our hats and let the matter rest. Then along comes Marshall S. Thomas’s Soldier of the Legion which can’t help but pick at this scab. But even if comparing war to hell weren’t a holey sock at the beginning of the book, it would be by the end of it. Every time the slightest skirmish breaks out (which is roughly every other chapter), out trots the tired old dog of hell (Cerberus, a holdover from when the Greeks ran the place) to do his duty.

The opening hellish battle is a perfect encapsulation of the kind of mindless action and equally mindless discussion the rest of the audio play offers, proceeding from lurid descriptions of made-up, inexhaustible weapons to the effects of those weapons on the human bodies of the irredeemably evil bad guys (the Systies). Blood splatters, it sprays, it explodes, it flows, it gushes. Sometimes gore does, too, but mostly it’s blood, blood, blood. Then nearly naked women appear, and the hero tries to contain his drool and his bullets as an embarrassingly unconvincing argument breaks out among the blond-haired, blue-eyed heroes.

The rest of the book is exactly the same, with each breakout of violence a laughable attempt to supersede the hell of the previous engagement. The troops fly to another planet, kill dinosaur-like aliens in a deep cave (double hell), save and kill primitive peoples, return to a settled world to “spy” ineptly and engage in a covert operation that plays out as stealthily as a frontal assault (hell squared), and then return to a primitive planet to battle an even worse enemy than they first thought (hell convolved with hell). But it is all just a repetition of the first chapter. In between battles, there will be awkward, pointless conversations; breasts naked and otherwise that the hero will fall in “love” with; love scenes that consist of people telling each other how much they love each other and will die and/or kill for each other; and sexless sex scenes that dither about without titillation or consummation. All acted with a style reminiscent of that seen in movies where people get paid more for how they look without clothing than for how they emote. It’s uncomfortable enough to make you actually look forward to the empty-headed shooting.

Add to this an unthinking first-person narrator called “Thinker” and the attempted multiple use of the adverb “scarily” without ironic intent, and you have a brackish, gritty brew. The story ends, after its single interesting set-piece, with our heroes literally hanging from a cliff over (you guessed it) hell, but I would rather be tasered than be forced to listen to the sequel. This book is like a live grenade: If it comes at you, get the hell out of the way!

This book is available at Timberwolf Press on Audio CD and MP3-CD, or from Audible.com as a download.

Posted by Kurt Dietz

Review of A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

SFFaudio Review

A Princess of Mars
By Edgar Rice Burroughs; Read by John Bolen
6 CD’s – 6 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: 2001
ISBN: 1400100186
Themes: / Science Fiction / Mars / Aliens / Swordplay / Classic /

There are few classic novels with as much influence as Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars. First published in 1912 (serialized in All-Story magazine with the title Under the Moons of Mars), Burroughs sparked the imagination of many of science fiction’s golden age writers, including Ray Bradbury and his Martian Chronicles. The audiobook cover is a detail from the 1919 Grosset & Dunlap cover.

A Princess of Mars is an imaginative adventure novel in which John Carter, a Virginian military man who starts the story running from Indians in the Arizona desert, is magically transported to Mars. Burroughs does not go into detail on the mechanics of the transportation, but does go into great detail about the inhabitants of Mars, called “Barsoom” by its natives.

There are two races on Mars – a four-armed green warrior race, and a red human-like race. The princess of the title is Dejah Thoris of Helium, whose beauty captures John Carter when he sees her taken by him in chains by some four-armed Barsoomians.

The novel is filled with damsel-in-distress/derring-do-male-hero sensibility that is laughable at times, but still the story holds up as a classic of the genre. Burroughs’ description of an alien culture is a forerunner of an entire category of science fiction, and I found it entertaining on that level. I also felt a great deal of nostalgia, because I read this book a few times as a early teen, along with the other ten Mars volumes, and a Tarzan or three.

John Bolen performs the whole book as John Carter, with a southern gentlemanly manner that the character demands. This means not only Carter’s attitude, but his southern accent, which took me a few minutes to settle into.

Check out Tantor’s science fiction and fantasy section for more Edgar Rice Burroughs titles.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of The Pocket and the Pendant by Mark Jeffrey

The Pocket And The Pendant
By Mark Jeffrey; Read by Mark Jeffrey
13 MP3 Files – 10 Hours 25 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: markjeffrey.typepad.com / Podiobooks.com
Published: 2005
Themes: / Science Fiction / Young Adult / Physcics / Immortality / Time Travel / Aliens / Time / Ancient Astronauts /

“On April 8th at exactly 3:38 in the afternoon the world STOPPED.”

It is one of the fundamental constants of the universe – every second thrift store one enters will contain a lonely shelf somewhere in the back with a battered paperback copy of Chariots Of The Gods? by Eric von Däniken on it. That is a terrible, terrible book. I encourage you – only partially in jest – to burn down any store that has one. Chariots Of The Gods is a massive failure in every way but one, it’ll help me tell you about a certain 1970s pop culture concept – the “ancient astronauts” theory. This is a speculative/delusional hypothesis that posits that extraterrestrial aliens are responsible for the ancient civilizations of Earth. Basically it argues that ancient people with their distinctive lack of heavy diesel powered machinery, could not possibly have constructed things like the Pyramid of The Sun at Teotihuacán and so the relics of archeological wonders throughout the world must have been constructed by aliens with a ‘higher’ technology. It is of course a ridiculous notion, wholly unsubstantiated by any evidence that wasn’t manufactured by fraudsters. That said, it can occasionally makes for a cool basis for fiction.

Mark Jeffrey’s The Pocket And The Pendant uses the concept of ancient astronauts to very good effect. This is the story of Max Quick a very odd little boy and his companions, other children who’ve found themselves trapped living in a frozen instant of time. Has this time “pocket” has been caused by the strange aircraft in the skies above the USA? What about the almost magical books that everyone who isn’t frozen seem to be after? Only the aptly named “Mr. E.” knows the answer. Weaving together a carefully researched history with an intriguing and well executed scenario Mark Jeffrey has put together an engaging and satisfying adventure that while aimed at a younger audience never talks down to it. Basically Jeffrey does for science fiction what Harry Potter does for fantasy – I’d say he does it better by layering in facts and mythology from many sources. He takes the whacked out theories of Zecharia Sitchin and asks “what if they were true?”, mixes it up with action like The Matrix, the premise of the Doctor Who “Key To Time” arc and with a couple dutiful nod to the 1959 and 1985 The Twilight Zones.

Jeffrey is very inventive with solving the problems he’s created. But there was one thing that bothered me about the story, if Max and his companions are trapped in time how can they see? Let me explain, this is basically the same nitpick I had with H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, without light hitting a retina you can’t see. If time is stopped then the light has stopped (in The Invisible Man the title character’s retinas are transparent!). I’m nitpicky.

Jeffrey reads the novel himself, doing accents, adults children boys girls and aliens. The sound quality is very good and well leveled, but there is one caveat, a constant musical score underlies the reading (almost always keyed to characters and events in the tale). In this case it is fairly benign, and certainly allows an atmosphere of emotion to build in the story – but not having heard the tale without music I’m not sure if it wouldn’t have been better just as a clean reading.

SFFaudio COMMENT: This is the second “Podiobook” we’ve reviewed on SFFaudio, and the quality is WAY, WAY UP THERE, not just in terms of podcast novels, but in terms of novels on audio. Combine this fact with the price, which is just a request for a donation if you enjoyed the experience, and you’re literally crazy by not listening to them. The worst that can happen is you listen, enjoy the heck out of it and then feel guilty for a few years because you were to cheap to throw a few $$$ towards the producers. Go ahead now, give yourself a gift, subscribe to Morevi: The Chronicles Of Rafe And Askana and The Pocket And the Pendant you’ll marvel at your own generosity.

Posted by Jesse Willis