Cassandra Clare – SFFaudio

The SFFaudio Podcast #229 – NEW RELEASES/RECENT ARRIVALS

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #229 – Jesse, Jenny, Tamahome, and Paul Weimer talk about NEW RELEASES and RECENT ARRIVALS.

Talked about on today’s show:
Tam is back, Haruki Murakami, Kafka On The Shore, magic realism, Japan, kafkaesque, surrealism, 1Q84, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, pretty books, Chip Kidd, rice paper, Requiem by Ken Scholes, Julie Davis, Tor, magic staff, earth in the future, The Steel Remains, “oh crap this is the future”, Gene Wolfe, Happy Hour In Hell by Tad Williams, Bobby Dollar, The Dirty Streets Of Heaven, urban fantasy, demoness tangling, Lankhmar, urban fantasy => a certain kind of fantasy, noir/detective => hardboiled, Otherland, Luke Burrage, cats, “the Walter Jon Williams effect”, MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood, mostly dystopian, Oryx and Crake, quasi-humans, The Year Of The Flood, genetic engineering, racoon-pigs, storytelling mode, listening at 2X speed, competitive debate, Margaret Atwood’s preview of a review of Doctor Sleep by Stephen King, a sequel to The Shining, Atwood’s weakness for horror and terror, “because he’s Stephen King”, Will Patton, “don’t judge me people”, is there a stigma in literary circles?, Zoomer magazine’s profile of Margaret Atwood as “Queen Of The Nerds”, Twitter, tweetalong?, a genuine literary reputation, poetry, Orson Scott Card, does it matter?, dystopia, Dreamscape Audiobooks, The Night Lands by William Hope Hodgson, The House On The Borderlands, a very daunting book, big and ambitious, Lovecraftian?, The Scarlet Plague by Jack London, Earth Abides, class, mainstream post-apocalypse, Alas Babylon by Pat Frank, a toothless grandfather, Drew Ariana, Goslings by J.D. Beresford, plague talk!, The Children Of Men, Y: The Last Man, the newspapers, HiLoBooks, “Radium Age” Science Fiction, Gweek, The Road To Science Fiction, classicism, sexism, barbarism, The Iron Heel, numeracy and literacy, the size of the universe or the age of the Earth, Simon & Schuster Audio, Rivers by Michael Farris Smith, Jenny loves destroying the earth, wiping the slate clean, Fallout, Tobias Buckell, Interrupt by Jeff Carlson, Hunter Davis, Brilliance Audio, simultaneously published with print, Neanderthals, the pronunciations, Robert J. Sawyer, Discover Magazine, literally means not literally anymore, it’s figuratively raining cats and dogs, The Darwin Elevator by Jason M. Hough, Julie Davis, Simon Vance, science fiction thrillers, John Scalzi, plague, space elevator, working for the enemy?, a compressed schedule, writing 2X, a first novel!, military SF, “we’ve complinished everything”, Reflex by Steven Gould, Jumper, the physical audiobook industry (is it mostly for libraries), Paperback Audio, William Dufris, The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, innate teleportation, the Jumper movie, Portal, post-humans, Nightcrawler without the bad smell, BAMFless, The Clockwork Man by E.V. Odle, Ralph Lister, no introductions makes Jesse sad, are there audio previews?, Affliction: An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Novel (#22) by Laurell K. Hamilton, The Lord of Opium (Matteo Alacran #2) by Nancy Farmer, The Midnight Heir (Bane Chronicles #4) by Cassandra Clare and Sara Rees Brennan, building on The Hunger Games, Untouchable (Immortals After Dark #8) by Kresley Cole, Robert Petkoff, The Hunt or Capture, the reality TV version of The Hunger Games in The Hunger Games would be very boring, The Truman Show would be a very boring show to actually watch, in fiction the TV shows are without narrative, TVtropes show with an show, Hamlet, William Shakespeare did meta 500 years ago, epic traditional fantasy, traditional epic fantasy marriage, Crown Thief (Tales Of Easie Damasco #2) by David Tallerman, Giant Thief, sword and sorcery, golem or gollum?, Witch Wraith: The Dark Legacy of Shannara by Terry Brooks, Rosalyn Landor, , “Tolkien with the serial numbers filed off”, “its all about the elfstones”, The Lord Of The Rings, questing, trilogy vs. endless series, the Wikipedia entry for Shannara, a magical cataclysm, “a richer broader universe”, Revolution, S.M. Stirling, Robert Jordan, the Dragonlance series, Daniel Abraham, subverting the quest trope, The Eye Of The World, George R.R. Martin, gathering forces and subverting expectations, children’s fantasy, Roald Dahl, Matilda is read by Kate Winslet!, the musical of Matilda, The Twits, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator Futurama, Fry and the Slurm factory, Gene Wilder, great character names!, Dickensian names, The BFG, biography, crime, thriller, JFK’s Last Hundred Days: The Transformation Of A Man And The Emergence Of A Great President, Death Angel (Alexandra Cooper #15) by Linda Fairstein, The Kill List by Frederick Forsyth, George Guidall, “now it’s personal”, Penguin Audio, adding heat urgency of character development, adding a baby, Breaking Bad babies, the invisible baby or worse the artificially aging child syndrome, Mork & Mindy, Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson, 30,000 years ago, prehistorical romance, hard edged scientific, Clan Of The Cavebear, Monsters Of The Earth by David Drake, Seanan McGuire, Soldier by Harlan Ellison, The Terminator, The Outer Limits, James Cameron, Philip Wylie, Tomorrow!, John Wyndham, When Worlds Collide, The Answer, nuclear war with angels, The End Of The Dream, The Murderer Invisible.

Dreamscape Audiobooks - Goslings by J.D. Beresford

Posted by Jesse Willis

Recent Arrivals: Welcome To Bordertown edited by Holly Black and Ellen Kushner

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Just crossed the border, literally (it came in the back of a Subaru), here’s a Brilliance Audio audiobook collection that does almost everything right! First, check out the awesome cover art for Welcome To Bordertown:

Next, note the detailed track listings on the back:

So that’s a look at the outside, inside the discs themselves don’t detail their contents, which is bad, but not fatal (considering you’ve got the back of the audiobook to go by). As to the audio content itself, well I’m looking forward to picking up stories here and there as I research the authors more – that’s usually how I listen to collections these days.

This is the official description:

Bordertown: a city on the Border between the human world and the elfin realm. A place where neither magic nor technology can be counted on, where elf and human kids run away to find themselves. The Way from our world to the Border has been blocked for thirteen long years. . . . Now the Way is open once again — and Bordertown welcomes a new set of seekers and dreamers, misfits and makers, to taste life on the Border.

Here are thirteen interconnected stories, one graphic story, and eight poems — all new work by some of today’s best urban fantasy, fantasy, and slipstream writers

Now I’ve already checked out Neil Gaiman’s entry, which is a poem entitled The Song Of The Song. And I listened to Holly Black reading her own introductory essay. In it she credits the original Bordertown books as ‘creating the urban fantasy subgenre’. Ellen Kushner, Black’s co-editor, reads Terri Windling’s introductory essay, which details the background for the Bordertown series itself. It’s is described as a “Thieves’ World for teens.” Windling also talks about the phenomenon of shared worlds. Also, and this is pretty cool, there’s an additional editorial introduction written, and read, by Ellen Kushner (one that’s not found in the paperbook edition at all).

The only thing missing from this great audiobook edition is the story named Fair Trade by Sara Ryan and Dylan Meconis. But that’s probably because it’s actually a comic and so it would have been very hard to translate into audio (there are two panels of it HERE). And finally, here’s a promo video for the book:

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #043

Podcast

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.

Talked about on today’s show:
Fiddler On The Roof, Salt Lake City, Pride And Prejudice, Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, zombies, SuperFreakonomics, Freakonomics as psychohistory, Foundation by Isaac Asimov, altruism, Luke Burrage’s SFBRP #072.5, Isaac Asimov’s writing style, Hari Seldon is not much of a character, The Caves Of Steel by Isaac Asimov, |READ OUR REVIEW|, Black Destroyer by A.E. van Vogt, the “fix-up” novel, The Voyage Of The Space Beagle, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, Nightfall by Isaac Asimov, Nightfall by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, Books On Tape, a movie version of Foundation, FlashForward, TV is cops and doctors so SF on TV is cops and doctors SF, I, Robot (the movie), New Releases, Audible Frontiers, Stanislaw Lem, Memoirs Found In A Bathtub by Stanislaw Lem, Foundation Ziggurat Productions, Solaris (2002), Solaris (1972), Solaris by Stanislaw Lem, Andrei Tarkovsky, His Masters Voice by Stanislaw Lem, Fiasco by Stanislaw Lem, Diving Into The Wreck by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Badge Of Infamy by Lester del Rey (audible.com version), Badge Of Infamy by Lester del Rey (podiobooks and LibriVox), Jimcin Recordings, Armor by John Steakley, Vampire$ by John Steakley, John Carpenter’s Vampires, The Blue Tower by Evelyn E. Smith (audible), The Blue Tower by Evelyn E. Smith (LibriVox), Recent Arrivals, Fall With Honor by E.E. Knight, Winter Duty by E.E. Knight, E.E. Knight, The Shadow Of Saganami by David Weber, the Honorverse, Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke, Rendevous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Fallout 3, the onion spoofs Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, V (the remake), The Prisoner (the remake), Edgar Allan Poe audiobooks, PoeAudio / Acoustic Learning, the exploration of North America, daguerreotype, Poe as a non-fiction author, The Cask Of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe, A Manuscript Found In A Copper Cylinder by James De Mille, the 4th Annual SFFaudio Challenge, Swoon by Nina Malkin, ghosts, Earth Abides by George R. Stewart, The “Erec Rex” series by Nina Malkin, Simon Jones (actor narrator extraordinaire), Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, the beautiful illustrations in Leviathan, steampunk, airships!, my Zeppelins post, The Hindenburg (1975), movie director Robert Wise, Jesse professes his love of airships, Airborn by Kenneth Oppel |READ OUR REVIEW|, Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel, Science Fiction vs. alternate history vs. Fantasy, blue gas, the Alcatraz series by Brandon Sanderson, the Chronicles Of The Imaginarium Geographica series by James A. Owen, dragons, Charles Williams, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, The Inklings by Humphrey Carpenter, Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick, Simon & Schuster Audio, The House Of The Scorpion by Nancy Farmer, cloning, The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare, Stephanie Meyer, Dark Adventure Radio Theatre, At The Mountains Of Madness, The Complete Ripley Radio Mysteries based on the novels of Patricia Highsmith, BBC Audio, Catwings by Ursula K. Le Guin, Recorded Books, Under The Dome by Stephen King, The Simpsons Movie, Born Standing Up by Steve Martin (autobiography), Roxanne, Programmable Logic Control, Picasso at the Lapin Agile (a play), Cruel Shoes by Steve Martin, Shopgirl, The Pleasure Of My Company, Cult Holmes, The Further Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes RADIO DRAMA, John Joseph Adams, The Improbable Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, Mary Robinette Kowal, watches are only for affectation now.

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases April/May

SFFaudio New Releases

Lots of new release out right now. First up is a FREE one. A podiobook that took nearly a year to finish. Tracy Hickman’s near future dystopia The Immortals is now COMPLETE! Point your web-browser towards Podiobooks.com, sign-up and subscribe.

Podiobook - Immortals by Tracy Hickman The Immortals
By Tracy Hickman; Read by Tracy and Laura Hickman
40 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED?]
Publisher: Podiobooks.com
Started: April 2007
It’s 2020, and an attempted cure for AIDS has mutated into a deadlier disease, V-CIDS. The U.S., under martial law, has set up “quarantine centers” in the Southwest. Searching for his gay son, Jon, media mogul Michael Barris smuggles himself into one of centers only to discover that it and the other centers are actually extermination camps. With a strange assortment of allies, including the leader of the camp’s gay barracks, an army officer and a local cowboy, Barris precipitates an inmates’ rebellion that promises the unraveling of the death-camp system and the overthrow of the government that established it.

Let’s not forget the venerable and always reliable TellTaleWeekly, selling short stories for great prices!

The Star
By H.G. Wells; Read by Alex Wilson
1 MP3 , Ogg Vorbis or AAC File – Apprx. 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: TellTaleWeekly.org
Published: April 2007
Just $1.00 payable via PayPal. One hundred and one years before the films Armegeddon and Deep Impact entered U.S. theaters, the father of modern Science Fiction scared the crap out of Victorian London with this, the first of such death-from-above SF tales.

Hurray for Tantor Media! They’ve got lots of waycool stuff in the works including lots of Asimov…

No Humans Involved
By Kelley Armstrong; Read by Laural Merlington
10 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – Approx. 12 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: May 2007
ISBN: 1400104416 (CDs), 1400154413 (MP3-CD)
Jaime knows a thing or two about showbiz, as a woman whose special talent is raising the dead, her threshold for weirdness is pretty high: she’s used to not only seeing dead people but hearing them speak to her in very emphatic terms. But for the first time in her life—as invisible hands brush her skin, unintelligible fragments of words are whispered into her ears, and beings move just at the corner of her eye—she knows what humans mean when they talk about being haunted.

The Caves of Steel
By Isaac Asimov; Read by William Dufris
6 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – 7 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: May 2007
ISBN:1400104211 (CDs), 1400154219 (MP3-CD)
A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. Isaac Asimov’s Robot novels chronicle the unlikely partnership between a New York City detective and a humanoid robot who must learn to work together. Like most people left behind on an over-populated Earth, New York City police detective Elijah Baley had little love for either the arrogant Spacers or their robotic companions. But when a prominent Spacer is murdered under mysterious circumstances, Baley is ordered to the Outer Worlds to help track down the killer. The relationship between Baley and his Spacer superiors, who mistrusted all Earthmen, was strained from the start. Then he learned that they had assigned him a partner: R. Daneel Olivaw. Worst of all was that the “R” stood for robot—and his positronic partner was made in the image and likeness of the murder victim!

Simon & Schuster Audio even has a new title!

City Of Bones
By Cassandra Clare; Read by Ari Graynor
12 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: March 2007
ISBN: 0743566572
When 15-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder — much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It’s hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing — not even a smear of blood — to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?

And of course, nobody is publishing more Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror audio than the wonderous Blackstone audio…

Where’s My Jetpack?
By Daniel H. Wilson; Read by Stefan Rudnicki
3 Cassettes, 1 MP3-CD or 4 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: April 2007
ISBN: 9780786148707 (Cassettes), 9780786171606(MP3-CD), 9780786160822 (CDs)
It’s the twenty-first century and let’s be honest—things are a little disappointing. Despite every World’s Fair prediction and the advertisements in comic books, we are not living the future we were promised. By now, life was supposed to be a fully automated, atomic-powered, germ-free Utopia, a place where a grown man could wear a velvet spandex unitard and not be laughed at. Where are the ray guns, the flying cars, and the hoverboards that we expected? What happened to our moon colonies and servant robots?

Variable Star
By Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson; Read by Spider Robinson
8 Cassettes, 1-MP3-CD or 10 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: May 2007
ISBN: 9780786149384(Cassettes), 9780786170159 (MP3-CD), 9780786158843 (Cds)
At his death in 1988, Robert A. Heinlein left a legacy of novels and short stories that almost single-handedly defined modern science fiction. But one of Heinlein’s masterpieces was never finished. In 1955, he began work on Variable Star, a powerful and passionate tale of two young lovers driven apart by pride, power, and the vastness of interstellar time and space. Then he set it aside to focus on other novellas. The detailed outline and notes he created for this project lay forgotten for decades, only to be rediscovered almost a half century later. Now the Heinlein estate has authorized award-winning author Spider Robinson to expand that outline into a full-length novel. The result is vintage Heinlein, faithful in style and spirit to the Grand Master’s original vision.

Komarr
By Lois McMaster Bujold; Read by Grover Gardner
8 Cassettes, 1 MP3-CD or 9 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: May 2007
ISBN: 9781433202575 (Cassettes), 9781433202599 (MP3-CD), (CDs)
Komarr could be a garden with a thousand more years’ work, or an uninhabitable wasteland if the terraforming fails. Now, the solar mirror vital to the terraforming of the conquered planet has been shattered by a ship hurtling off course. The Emperor of Barrayar sends his newest imperial auditor, Lord Miles Vorkosigan, to find out why.

posted by Jesse Willis