religion – Page 30

Review of By Heresies Distressed by David Weber

SFFaudio Review

By Heresies Distressed
By David Weber; Read by Jason Culp
Approx. 25 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781427206794 (CD)
Themes: / Science Fiction / Empires / Religion / War /

The Empire of Charis has been founded out of the marriage between King Cayleb of Charis and Queen Sharleyan of Chisholm, and further expanded by the annexation of Charis’ enemy Emerald. Now Cayleb and Merlin go on the offensive. Sharleyan stays behind to construct the new government out of the former Kingdoms, while Cayleb leads their Navy and tens of thousands of Charisian Marines against the League of Corisande and Prince Hektor. Hektor was the willing puppet of the Church of God Awaiting when he led an armada from several of Safehold’s nations against Charis. That armada was defeated with the aid of the technologies introduced by Merlin, but not before Cayleb’s father, King Haarahld, was killed.

Retribution is also dealt against the Kingdom of Delferahk, greatly offending the Church in the process when the priests responsible for the massacre are called to account. Merlin’s SNARCs, autonomous flying, invisible spy cameras, continue to provide a massive tactical advantage and help to solidify Cayleb’s reputation as a master tactician especially as the battle moves onto land. Some of the advances hinted at in the previous books are seen in action and their effects, amounting to almost two centuries of advancement in our history, are somewhat predictable. Unfortunately, the SNARCs can’t be everywhere, and Merlin and his A.I., Owl, can’t review everything that they record. The Church loyalists manage to slip past Merlin’s security, and target Empress Sharleyan in an attempt to break the new Empire.

Being the third book in the series, Weber brings the anticipated final conflict with Mother Church several steps closer. There is less focus on the new technologies being introduced in this book than in those that proceed it. The tactics and politics assume much more the focus. The land battles are clearly drawn, and the narrator, Jason Culp, keeps the back and forth between the combatants clear.

There are a noticeable number of lengthy monologues, in some cases in the middle of what was a normal conversation. They could have been more concise, however Jason delivers them well. He brings all of the many characters to life with ease, from the lowest soldier in the middle of a battle to the nobility and the priesthood.

Merlin is a magical character to the inhabitants of Safehold, but of Arthur C. Clarke’s variety: sufficiently advanced technology. Although that technology plays an important part in the events, it doesn’t really intrude. Merlin’s visions are provided by his SNARCs and the explanation of, what amounts to a mobile phone, in one scene is as intrusive as it gets. Weber’s Safehold series should appeal to fans of alternate history as well as fantasy and Science Fiction.

Posted by Paul [W] Campbell

Review of The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick

SFFaudio Review

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Tom Weiner
6 CDs – 6.8 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2008
ISBN: 9781433248221
Themes: / Science Fiction / Religion / Drugs / Mars / Aliens /

Not too long from now, when exiles from a blistering Earth huddle miserably in Martian colonies, the only things that make life bearable are the drugs. Can-D “translates” those who take it into the bodies of Barbie-like dolls. Now there’s competition: a substance called Chew-Z, marketed under the slogan “God promises eternal life. We can deliver it.” The question is: What kind of eternity? And who—or what—is the deliverer?

Reading Philip K. Dick is the literary equivalent of taking deliriants in church. Dick’s world is fully realized, his characters being windows into Dick’s own sympathies, his own passions. Dick seems to have observed the writing advice that goes: “Write what you know.” What Dick knows about is drugs, suburban druggie life, revealed religion, the conflict between an individual and the group, between women and men. If you look at the basic plot The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch scans as most similar to Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man, in that a corporate war between the solar system’s two biggest multi-planetaries drives the action. But it doesn’t feel that way, it feels like a scaled-up version of Dick’s short story Wargame. Sure, the novel is supposed to be about life on Mars and big corporate business, but Dick’s Mars is mostly confined to a few intemperate draftees who couldn’t fake their way out of the draft. Upset with their new colonial life they spend all their time playing with Barbie style playhouses and taking mind altering drugs. I can almost picture Dick sitting in his living room watching his young daughters playing with their Barbie dolls. They sit on the floor, coveting their Barbie corvettes, their Barbie clothes and decorating their Barbie dream houses while Dick, sitting in an armchair above, looks down compassionately and philosophicaly as he reaches for the typewriter. Strangely, the novel also feels extremely prescient. At multiple times throughout I paused and thought about the PC game called The Sims – a game where your avatar must eat, sleep, and furnish her virtual home with virtual goods as you plan her idealized life. We seem to have gotten what Dick was driving at. For what is World Of Warcraft if not a Dickian reality minus the drugs? William Gibson would describe it as “a consensual hallucination” – Dick called it The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch.

Originally published in 1965, this is the first commercial audiobook release of The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch. Narrator Tom Weiner seems to be Blackstone Audio’s go-to guy when it comes to narrating the heavy hitters of Science Fiction. This is a good thing as Weiner brings a vast gravitas to his reading. Fans of George Guidall’s narrations will find Weiner similarly impactful. The cover art for The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch is all original for this production. This is more and more the case at Blackstone, which makes me happy, for I am covetous.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Lecture – Necronomicons: The Scariest Book in the World

SFFaudio Online Audio

Necronomicons: The Scariest Book in the World
By Dan Harms
1 |MP3| – Approx. 79 Minutes [LECTURE]
Provider: Yog-Sothoth.com
Recorded: May 28th, 2009
The Necronomicon was once the most famous book that never existed – until a few decades ago, when the first copies appeared on the market. From Lovecraft to Grant to… well, you name it! This is the story of their non-existence, their existence, and their secret stories. Dan Harms reveals the history of these books, their relevance in the broader current of the grimoire tradition, and their impact upon magical practice. Recorded at Treadwell’s bookshop, London.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Elantris, Part 1 by Brandon Sanderson

SFFaudio Review

We are so pleased to post this review by Susan Dunman, aka AudiobookDJ. You can find her at her wonderful AudiobookDJ blog, or over at SF Site talking audio. Thanks Susan!

Elantris, Part 1
By Brandon Sanderson; Performed by a Full Cast
Adaptation by Johann Dettweiler
6 CDs – 7 hours – [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Graphic Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781599505558
Themes: / Fantasy / Audio Drama / Religion / Romance / Leadership / Magic /

Elantris was once the city where all men dreamed of living. Full of magic and marvels, its citizens were godlike in their appearance and had superhuman abilities. But now, Elantris is a place for the damned, offering only misery and despair for those unfortunate enough to be locked inside the walled city.

For something is terribly wrong with the Dor, a mysterious force that randomly and instantaneously changes individuals from mortals to immortals. Now that change, called the shaod, transforms people, not into gods, but into grey-skinned, hairless creatures whose bodies cannot heal from wounds or illness. However, those same pain-racked bodies cannot die and are banished to the crumbling city of Elantris, away from the “normal” population of Arelon.

The Crown Prince of Arelon awakens one morning to find his skin covered in the black splotches that are the first signs of the shaod’s transforming power. That same day his father orders the priests to perform a funeral service and send Prince Raoden to Elantris – a fate that befalls all who are considered “dead” after their transformation because they cease to have a heart-beat and do not need food or water to survive.

This turn-of-events is not only disastrous for Prince Raoden, but also for his fiancee, Princess Sarene. She has just arrived from a neighboring country to meet her soon-to-be husband for the first time. Serene is only told that the prince is dead – not that he has been condemned to Elantris. But the suspicious Serene decides to remain in Arelon despite her betrothed’s death, vowing to uncover the truth about Prince Raoden’s untimely demise.

This sets the stage for listeners to experience a remarkable story – made even more enticing by this audio adaptation. With a full compliment of narrators (28 to be exact), sound effects and background music, listeners can hear a three-dimensional production of Sanderson’s work – it’s like wearing 3-D glasses for your ears. To do justice to the book, this adaptation is produced in three parts, each approximately seven hours long.

I know some audiobook fans prefer single voice narration, but if you do enjoy audio drama, or have never tried it, then you should listen to a Graphic Audio production. The sound effects can be powerful,
but only rarely do they invade the narrator’s sound space. In addition, the background music really sets the tone for the various scenes. And if you listen closely, you might find surprises. For example, in one ballroom scene, the music playing softly in the background is The Blue Danube Waltz, making me wonder if Johann Strauss, Jr. had done some kind of universe/time shift maneuver to get his music played in Arelon.

Elantris was Sanderson’s first published work, coming out in April of 2005. He explores themes of love, politics, religion, and eternity in intriguing and imaginative ways. This audio production compliments his work in a very satisfying way and I’m looking forward to hearing part two!

Note: For those who do prefer single-voice narration, Recorded Books offers an unabridged narration by Jack Garrett.

Posted by Susan Dunman

Review of Lamentation by Ken Scholes

SFFaudio Review

SFFaudio Essential Lamentation
By Ken Scholes; Read by Scott Brick, William Dufris, Maggi-Meg Reed, and Stefan Rudnicki
12 CDs – 15 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781427206251
Themes: / Fantasy / Epic Fantasy / Religion / Politics /

A pillar of black smoke rises from the plains where the ruins of a city lie. Four people watch it. Petros, an old fisherman; Nebios, a boy who is the only eyewitness; Rudolfo, the Gypsy King and Lord of the Ninefold Forest; and Jin Lee Tam, consort of a powerful madman. Each takes up the story in turn and we learn as they do what has happened and what changes it bodes for the Named Lands.

Through their eyes, Ken Scholes masterfully unfolds layer upon layer of complexity to reveal an epic tale of the struggle not only for power but to serve the Light. This struggle between vengeance, knowledge, mercy, and justice is what drives the main characters. Scholes takes us into a world where Machiavellian politics are constantly intertwined between characters’ motivations. However, because he uses interesting characters to tell his story, it always feels personal and we realize the “epic” quality only as we look back over storyline development. As well, he skillfully manipulates these believable people (and, let us admit it, his readers as well) so that I literally went from worrying about one character being killed to hating him to coming back into sympathy and understanding again by the end of the book. In the end, what we see is that despite epic qualities, the question the book is asking is a simple one. Who was the evil mastermind that destroyed Windwir and why?

Scholes’ world is a mesh of societies that come from disparate sources but which blend seamlessly into an intriguing whole. Reminiscent of medieval times are the city-states and trading factions wielding great power. The people of the Ninefold Forests put one in mind of Robin Hood with their wood-wise ways that shun large, established cities. The Church has a pope and an Androfrancine order that seeks ceaselessly to acquire knowledge and store it for the common good. This too hearkens back to our historical past, yet there are also distinct elements informing us that this is instead a distant future after mankind’s knowledge was used to wreak a terrible calamity resulting in The Time of Laughing Madness. There is a distinctive steam-punk flavor to be found in the inventions that are discovered and released by the monks into general society.

This is a world in which long distance communication is done by messenger bird but where robots exist (mecho-servitors). As well as spoken, coded conversation, there is a fascinating finger tapping code used by those in the know. We also meet one of the mecho-servitors, Isaak, whose suffers from extreme guilt over possibly being used for the destruction and who seems to be developing a soul.

Finally, although we breathlessly follow the characters on their journeys, knowing that there are several books to follow in the series, Scholes does us the courtesy of tying up the story lines for all but a very few situations. This was extremely refreshing and much appreciated. Simultaneously, he opened a few intriguing threads of possibility that lead us to eagerly await the next novel. True to the mastery that we saw in the rest of the book, he does so with a few well written scenarios that leave the reader realizing that these are situations that were hinted at but essentially “hidden in plain sight” until the author decided to pull them into use.

Narration was brilliantly voiced by Stefan Rudnicki, Scott Brick, William Dufris, and Maggi-Meg Reed. All were perfect for their parts, with Brick doing the heavy lifting on any sections told from a point of view that came from other than the main four characters. What I found most interesting was the opportunity for comparison between how the four readers interpreted different characters. The book changes point of view between characters by stating the person’s name and then using what might be called over-the-shoulder story telling in third person from that point of view. Therefore, each of the narrators is called upon to do dialogue for various characters as they engage in conversation with the protagonist of the moment. Hearing how each interpreted Isaak’s robotic voice or Petros’s aged tones provided fascinating contrasts.

Highest recommendations go to this audio book and author Ken Scholes.

Posted by Julie D.

Review of Star Wars: Millennium Falcon by James Luceno

SFFaudio Review

Star Wars: Millennium Falcon
By James Luceno, Read by Marc Thompson
8 CDs – 10 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: 2008
ISBN: 9780739377130
Themes: / Star Wars / Science Fiction / Fantasy / Religion / Space Travel / Adventure / Hardware /The Star Wars audiobook has been around for a long time. I use them often to illustrate the evolution of the audiobook: they started with two cassette abridgments, moved to CD, then the abridgments got longer, and now, as we are seeing the rest of the industry move (nearly) completely away from abridged audio, Star Wars novels are now… unabridged.

Marc Thompson does the reading here, after a very long stretch of excellent Star Wars narration by Jonathan Davis. The series is in good hands. Marc Thompson is a bit of a impressionist, able to invoke Harrison Ford’s Han Solo merely by the tone and meter of his voice. Most of the time it works great, but every now and then I got a clear view of David Puddy in my head (Elaine’s boyfriend from Seinfeld, played by Patrick Warburton). Who knew that Ford’s and Warburton’s voices were so near each other? These times are few, though, and Marc Thompson is a narrator I’d listen to any time.

Star Wars: Millenium Falcon spans a lot of history. The famous ship has been around, and James Luceno takes us on a tour of its busy life. Han Solo and Leia are married, for those who haven’t been keeping up, and have grandkids (yes, a LOT has happened), one of which is named Allana. One day she asked Han about the history of the ship, which prodded him into looking more into it.

In the meantime, a previous owner of the ship (before Lando) has been in stasis for quite a few years. He wakes up and immediately goes after something he left on the ship. Eventually, their paths cross.

This is an entertaining adventure that ties together the whole Star Wars saga through the history of the Millenium Falcon. It’s extremely well done, and lots of fun for a fan like me.

Random House Audio Star Wars page

After listening to this audiobook, I was curious – did the Millennium Falcon make an appearance in Episodes I, II, or III? The answer is yes, but only briefly:

Posted by Scott D. Danielson