audiobook – Page 186

New Releases

SFFaudio New Releases

Newcomer ElectricStory.com (through Fictionwise.com) has a Hugo and Nebula award winning story for just $0.99…

Bears Discover Fire
By Terry Bisson; Read by Alec Rowell
1 MP3 Download – 27 Minutes 35 Seconds [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Fictionwise.com / ElectricStory.com
Published: February 2007
– Listen to an MP3 sample –
The title pretty much says it. Whether because of climate change or some even more mysterious cause, bears have discovered fire. This affords the Southern-gentleman narrator new opportunities to teach his nephew about life, death, and how, more than ever, “it’s best not to alarm bears.” This audiobook comes bundled with an afterword read by Bisson himself at RustyCon 2007.

The New Moon’s Arms
By Nalo Hopkinson; Read by Gin Hammond
8 CDs – 10 Hours 15 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America
Published: February 2007
ISBN: 0792747356
– Listen to an MP3 sample –
What’s in a name? A lot, according to Caribbean-born Chastity, who has adopted the more fitting moniker Calamity. Now in her fifties, true to her name, Calamity is confronting two big life transitions: Her beloved father has just died, and she is starting menopause, a physical shift that has rekindled her special gift for finding lost things. Suddenly she is getting hot flashes that seem to forge objects out of thin air. Only this time, the lost item that has washed up on the shore is not her old toy truck or her hairbrush, but a 4-year-old boy.

posted by Jesse Willis

Florida’s Government provides Free Audibook Downloads

Online Audio

As much as I complain about amateurs rehashing readily available commercial public domain audiobooks like Dracula and Frankenstein when there are solid versions available for free I can’t fault em. Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 format designed for use in Florida’s public schools (the service is funded by a grant from the Florida Department of Education). Typical of the audiobooks available for download is the one below:

Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus
By Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

Preface And Letters |MP3|
Chapter 1 |MP3|
Chapter 2 |MP3|
Chapter 3 |MP3|
Chapter 4 |MP3|
Chapter 5 |MP3|
Chapter 6 |MP3|
Chapter 7 |MP3|
Chapter 8 |MP3|
Chapter 9 |MP3|
Chapter 10 |MP3|
Chapter 11 |MP3|
Chapter 12 |MP3|
Chapter 13 |MP3|
Chapter 14 |MP3|
Chapter 15 |MP3|
Chapter 16 |MP3|
Chapter 17 |MP3|
Chapter 18 |MP3|
Chapter 19 |MP3|
Chapter 20 |MP3|
Chapter 21 |MP3|
Chapter 22 |MP3|
Chapter 23 |MP3|
Chapter 24 |MP3|

To search the archives for more Speculative Fiction like Edgar Allan Poe, L. Frank Baum and Beatrix Potter in the public domain (and other less interesting genres) click HERE. But remember these are for educational use only. A maximum of twenty-five (25) mp3 files may be used in any non-commercial, educational project without special permission. The use of more than twenty-five mp3s in a single project requires written permission from the Florida Center for Instructional Technology.

Posted by Jesse Willis

UPDATE: Here’s the podcast feed for Lit2Go’s reading of Frankenstein:

http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/rss/frankenstein.xml

FREE MP3 NOVELETTE: The Sagan Diairy by John Scalzi

Online Audio - Free Science Fiction Audiobook

John W. Campbell Award winning author John Scalzi writes:

“I have something special for you today, and something I am extraordinarily proud of. To celebrate the release of [The Sagan Diary] I and Subterranean Press have arranged for a reading of the book — the entire novelette — here on the Whatever. But it’s not me who will be reading the book. The Sagan Diary is meant to be the thoughts of Jane Sagan, as she looks over her life after the events of The Ghost Brigades and prepares for the life which will be detailed in The Last Colony. I wanted voices closer to hers than my own. So I asked some friends if they would speak for Jane Sagan: I asked Elizabeth Bear, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ellen Kushner, Karen Meisner, Cherie Priest and Helen Smith. Happily for me (and for you) they said yes. Each of them recorded a chapter (or more, in the case of Mary Robinette Kowal), and took the words I wrote for Jane and gave them extra dimensions — made more of them than I would be able to make of them myself. If you’ve wondered what Jane Sagan sounds like, she sounds like this. I was delighted to hear her voice coming through these readings, and deeply humbled by the efforts these women provided in letting Jane speak with them and through them. Without prejudicing your own hearing, let me say that I found myself getting emotional listening to these words given voice.”

The novelette in question is set in the same universe as Scalzi’s novels Old Man’s War and The Ghost Brigades…

The Sagan Diary
By John Scalzi; Read by various readers
9 MP3 Files – Approx. 81 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Subterranean Press / Scalzi.com/whatever
Published: February 2007

Download the entire audiobook:
Preface |MP3| Chapter 1 |MP3| Chapter 2 |MP3| Chapter 3 |MP3| Chapter 4 |MP3| Chapter 5 |MP3| Chapter 6 |MP3| Chapter 7 |MP3| Chapter 8 |MP3|

And as a point of interest you can click on over to SFFaudio’s own Mary Robinette Kowal’s blog to read and hear about her reading of The Sagan Diary – in that post Mary shows how just a few stumbling words can make a relatively short audiobook much longer.

posted by Jesse Willis

Review of The Magic Tree House Collection by Mary Pope Osborne

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

The Magic Tree House Collection
By Mary Pope Osborne; Read by Mary Pope Osborne
5 CDs – 5 Hours 40 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Listening Library
Published: 2001
ISBN: 0807206121
Themes: / Fantasy / Children’s Fantasy / Time Travel / Magic / Dragons / Knights / Pirates / Prehistoric /

This delightful children’s fantasy series features Jack and Annie. They’re siblings that find a tree house full of books. By opening the books the children are transported across time and space. This collection contains the first eight books of this popular kids series. In each book the children find themselves going to a different place. The books contained in this audiobook are:

1. Dinosaurs Before Dark
2. The Knight at Dawn
3. Mummies in the Morning
4. Pirates Past Noon
5. Night of the Ninjas
6. Afternoon on the Amazon
7. Sunset of the Sabertooth
8. Midnight on the Moon

Each book’s setting contains the tropes you’d expect to find. So in Pirates Past Noon, for instance, you have pirates, sailing ships, booty and treasure maps. There are story arc’s that stretches over a number of the books. The first concerns—who is the owner of the Magic Tree House.

Mary Pope Osbourne does a wonderful job of narration. Her pacing is excellent and her voice characterization are right on the mark. She has a gentle, soothing voice that children will love.

If you know or have a young person, of about five to ten years old, that you want to turn on to audiobooks, this audio collection is a perfect introduction. For my eight year old, we used it as part of our bedtime story ritual. I’ve bought the books so we can read along some nights. Other nights we take turns reading the books out loud.

posted by The Time Traveler of the Time Traveler Show

LibriVox: Warlord Of Kor by Terry Carr

SFFaudio Online Audio

Over 6 months in the making…

Science Fiction Audio Book - Warlord of Kor by Terry Carr

Thistlechick, a LibriVox Admin, spearheaded the campaign for this multi-reader audiobook. She reads the first 4 chapters herself and other LibriVox participants pick up the baton from there. Warlord Of Kor was originally published in 1963 as half of an Ace Double (# F177). It’s an interplanetary adventure in which humans probe the mysteries of the planet Hirlaj and the few remaining aliens who live there.

Warlord Of Kor
By Terry Carr; Read by various readers
10 Zipped MP3 Files – 3 Hours 26 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Completed: January 19th 2007
Backward world — or secret outpost of another galaxy? …Now they would attempt further to discover the forbidden directives of Kor. Horng remembered, somewhere far back in the fossil layers of his thoughts, a warning. They must be stopped! If he had to, he would stamp out these creatures who were called ‘humans.’

I had listed this novel on our first SFFaudio Challenge, but it doesn’t qualify because of the multiple narrators. Warlord Of Kor by Terry Carr, is still, therefore, listed on the challenge list. Thistlechick sez: “I completely mispronounced the main character’s name throughout my readings… and I suspect that some of the alien names will be pronouced differently by everyone… you are welcome to pronounce the names however you like, or you may download and listen to one of my recordings to hear how I have pronounced them… but I’m not splitting hairs on this one” If someone wants to take up a single voiced reading for our challenge, we should probably first get a good answer on how to pronounce the names: “Hirlaj, Rynason, Malhomme and Horng.” Anyone have any opinions?

posted by Jesse Willis

More FREE Science Fiction Audio: Star Hunter by Andre Norton

SFFaudio Online Audio

Maureen O’Brien, has wrapped up another public domain Science Fiction novel and posted it on the Internet Archive!

Science Fiction Audiobook - Star Hunter by Andre Norton

You may remember Maureen from her readings of H. Beam Piper’s classic Science Fiction novel Little Fuzzy, (find that one HERE) and Stanley G. Weinbaum’s The Dawn Of Flame (find that post HERE). I’m really looking forward to listening to this one!

Star Hunter
By Andre Norton; Read by Maureen O’Brien
13 Zipped MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
PODCAST: Maria Lectrix
COMPLETED: January 2007
Ras Hume’s an Out-Hunter, but once he was a star pilot. Now he’s found the perfect way to get revenge against the company that blacklisted him. All he needs to do is brainwash some kid into thinking he’s the shipwrecked heir to the company fortune, and let his off-world safari members ‘find’ the fake-castaway. But something on the safari planet is hunting humans….

posted by Jesse Willis