New Releases – Lovecraft, Pohl, Williamson, del Rey, Smith

New Releases

[editor’s note-A slew of releases from my audiobook company, Wonder Audio.  A nice range of titles that I’m proud to present.  Vintage Stories+Classic Authors+Great Narrators=Massive Goodness :) ]

Preferred Risk tnPreferred Risk
By Frederik Pohl & Lester del Rey; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
7 hrs. – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes

The Company was a powerful, efficient, and monstrous insurance organization that controlled the entire world, scientifically regulating everything in life: war, epidemics, one-a-day food pills and test-tube sex…all through the use of its patented, terrifying human deep-freeze vault.

Claims Adjuster Wills, a great believer in the Company, begins to have second thoughts when he meets beautiful and sorrowful Rena, whose radical father lies in a frozen subterranean vault.

Scanners Live in Vain tnScanner Live in Vain
By Cordwainer Smith; Read by Jeremiah Costello
1.5 hrs. – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes

Man has conquered space, but not without costs. To maintain the space lanes, Scanners have to undergo an operation in which their brain is severed from their sensory inputs to block the Pain of Space.

Wolves of Darkness tnWolves of Darkness
By Jack Williamson; Read by William Coon
3 hrs. – [UNABRIDGED] 
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes

When Clovis McLaurin receives an urgent letter from his father, Dr. Ford McLaurin, he rushes in the dead of winter to his father’s ranch. Clovis arrives to find the local townspeople being attacked and killed by a pack of wolves. As he journeys to the ranch of his father, a scientist who has been doing revolutionary experiments, he is also attacked.

But wolves are not the only thing running with the pack. Stella Jetton, the daughter of his father’s assistant, is running with the wolves, dressed in only a silk slip in the bitter cold. Clovis recognizes the blood-stained face of the girl he loves, but not her eyes. How could his father’s experiment have untapped the unimaginable horror that Clovis is about to confront?

The Colour Out of Space TNThe Colour Out of Space
by H.P. Lovecraft; read by Mark Douglas Nelson
1.5 hrs- [UNABRIDGED] 
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes

As a man surveys the countryside for the construction of a reservoir, he comes across a stretch of barren farmland leeched of life. An aged survivor of the town tells him the tale of a rural farmer’s family and their path to madness and unspeakable horror.

Lovecraft considered “The Colour Out of Space” to be the best of all his stories. Originally appearing in the September 1927 issue of Amazing Stories, it is one of his most frequently anthologized tales.

Posted by The Time Traveler of the Time Traveler Show

The Time Traveler Show has Jack Williamson and Frederik Pohl

SFFaudio Online Audio

Frederick Pohl and Jack Williamson

Podcast - The Time Traveler ShowThe Time Traveler has traveled 30 years into the past to record his latest Time Traveler Show podcast (#15). The show is composed of a Science Fiction convention panel with Science Fiction Grand Masters Jack Williamson and Frederick Pohl! It is a panel discussion that was made in 1977 at “ConFusion.” The topic of the panel is “The Art, Science and Combat of Collaboration.” Which is most appropriate as these guys frequently collaborated on novels like Farthest Star and The Starchild Trilogy. They also talk about their experiences with other collaborators like James Gunn, C. M. Kornbluth, and Lester del Rey.

To read the complete show notes for podcast #15 click HERE or download the show in the MP3 format directly by clicking HERE.

To keep the show automatically downloading, subscribe to the podcast feed:

http://www.timetravelershow.com/shows/feed.xml

The Time Traveler Show #14

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Time Traveler Show #14The Time Traveler Show podcast #14 came out yesterday. Along with the customary unabridged classic Science Fiction story:

Doom From Planet 4 by Jack Williamson was featured on the cover of Astounding magazine’s July 1931 issue. The story is read by Bill Coon (a favorite narrator over on LibriVox). Interestingly this story also ties in nicely with my commentary from yesterday (Doom From Planet 4 is set on a remote and mysterious volcanic island in the South Pacific – a possible “phantom island” in fact). To listen download the show directly |MP3| or plug this this podcast feed into your podcatcher to get the show:

http://www.timetravelershow.com/shows/feed.xml

Also, be sure to listen to the new Time Traveler Show PROMO |MP3|!

Review of The Stonehenge Gate by Jack Williamson

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

Science Fiction Audiobook - The Stonehenge Gate by Jack Williamson, read by Harlan EllisonThe Stonehenge Gate
By Jack Williamson; Read by Harlan Ellison
7 CDs – 8.5 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2006
ISBN: 9780786146550 (Cassette), 9780786174119 (MP3-CD), 9780786167784 (CD)
Themes: / Science Fiction / Stargate / Journey / Slavery / Evolution / Aliens /

Click here for audio sample.

This is Jack Williamson’s last book, at least it’s the last book published in his lifetime. The man has had a long career, a very long career. Jack’s first story was published in the fairly new Amazing Stories in 1928. Jack has been able to adapt his fiction to the changing and maturing literature that we call Science Fiction, again and again.

One admirable quality of Jack’s work that remained consistent over the nine decades in which he wrote, was his ability to tell a good yarn. His stories can always hold your attention, and he never forgot to have a beginning, middle and an end. This may sound like a trait that all writers should have, but it is really not the case. This always kept Jack’s works above the average SF writer.

In The Stonehenge Gate, we have four poker buddies that find a gateway into other worlds. The four characters are academics who are excavating a site under the sands of the Sahara. Will is an English Professor who narrates the story. Ram is an African professor who has a strange birthmark that mimics the shape of the Stonehenge Gate that they find. Stranger still is that the birthmark seems to be hereditary.

They soon pass into many new worlds throughout this novel. The majority of the novel takes place in a world inhabited by a preindustrial society with institutionalized black slavery. The characters have to grapple with functioning in this world while supporting abolishinest causes. There’s a dark quality to this part of the journey that has more than a passing nod to Joseph Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness.

Harlan Ellison’s narration is spectacular. This is likely the only audiobook that is written by one SF Grand Master and read by another. Of course, there aren’t any SF Grandmaster’s that have also won an Audie award like Harlan has. Harlan throws himself into his acting. He’s energized and seems to be convincingly living the parts he’s portraying to a greater degree than can be said of most voice actors.

How does this book stack up against the rest of the Williamson cannon? I don’t believe this is one of Jack’s best books nor one of his lesser efforts. Placing it somewhere in the middle. But in the case of Jack, that’s a pretty damn good book.

Jack Williamson, Grand Master of Science Fiction, has died

SFFaudio News

Science Fiction grandmaster - Jack WilliamsonJack Williamson (April 29, 1908 – November 10, 2006)

Science Fiction Grand Master Jack Williamson has passed away. Williamson had a long, long legacy in Science Fiction. His first story, The Metal Man, was published in Amazing Stories in 1928. Jack not only wrote iconic SF stories but he penned such horror classics as Darker Than You Think. His most recent book was The Stonehenge Gate. I’m currently listening to it and will post a review soon.

Few of Jack’s works have thus far been adapted to audio. But hopefully that will be rectified in the near future. Here’s a few:

Radio Drama:
Dimension X – With Folded Hands |MP3|

Audiobooks:
The Stonehenge Gate
By Jack Williamson; Read by Harlan Ellison
7 CDs – 8.5 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2006
ISBN: 9780786146550 (Cassette), 9780786174119 (MP3-CD), 9780786167784 (CD)

The Humanoids and With Folded Hands
By Jack Williamson; Read by Stefan Rudnicki
8 CDs – 10 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2004
ISBN: 078612332X (Cassette), 0786191058 (MP3-CD), 0786193468 (CD)

Thanks for all the wonderful stories Jack!

Recent Arrivals from Blackstone Audio

Science fiction audiobook - The Stonehenge Gate by Jack Williamson, read by Harlan EllisonThe Stonehenge Gate
By Jack Williamson; Read by Harlan Ellison
7 CDs – 8.5 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2006
ISBN: 9780786146550 (Cassette), 9780786174119 (MP3-CD), 9780786167784 (CD)
Click here for audio sample.


Science fiction audiobook - Superman Returns by Marv Wolfman, read by Scott BrickSuperman Returns
By Marv Wolfman; Read by Scott Brick
8 CDs – 9.5 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2006
ISBN: 0786145455 (Cassette), 0786171332 (CD), 0786175729 (MP3-CD)
Click here for audio sample.