science fiction – Page 108

LibriVox: Operation: Outer Space by Murray Leinster

Sunday, June 26, 2011 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVox Here’s a vintage 1954 Murray Leinster novel that’ll make for some perfect summer listening (sorry folks on the bottom hemisphere of Earth, you’ll have to wait). Now if that’s not enough you may be interested to know that Operation: Outer Space is actually the third public domain Murray Leinster novel narrated by Mark Douglas Nelson! Check out our extensive AUTHOR PAGE for MURRAY LEINSTER to get the other two novels – and there’s lots more Leinster listening there too.

Operation: Outer Space
By Murray Leinster; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
10 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 6 Hours 48 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 25, 2011
|ETEXT|
Jed Cochrane is about to take off on man’s first interstellar voyage. His mission: Make sure it’s good television!

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/5252

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Here’s the cover of the 1957 Signet paperback edition:

SIGNET - Operation: Outer Space by Murray Leinster

And here’s the UK hardcover edition, by Grayson & Grayson, also published in 1957:

Grayson & Grayson - Operation: Outer Space by Murray Leinster

Here’s Groff Conklin’s review of Operation: Outer Space from Galaxy Magazine’s March 1955 issue:

Groff Conklin's review of Operation: Outer Space from Galaxy Magazine's March 1955 issue

[Thanks also to Betty M. and Barry Eads ]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Peter Watts’s The Things on Escape Pod

Saturday, June 25, 2011Saturday, June 25, 2011 Tamahome

SFFaudio Online Audio

New on Escape Pod: Peter Watts – The Things (The Thing from the alien’s point of view, Hugo nominated). I was gonna read this in Strahan’s Best of. Saw it on Sfsignal’s Free Stuff. Originally from Clarkesworld, narrated by Kate Baker.

I remember liking the old black and white ‘The Thing‘ movie, just for the banter.

By the way, Jesse posted this story when it came out on Clarkesworld.

Posted by Tamahome

StarShipSofa No 194 Eric James Stone

Wednesday, June 22, 2011Wednesday, June 22, 2011 Scott D.

SFFaudio Online Audio

The 194th StarShipSofa contains Eric James Stone’s Nebula Award winning (and Hugo nominated) novelette “That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made”. Great story, well worth a listen!

|CLICK HERE|

You can find another of his great stories at Escape Pod: EP277: Rejiggering the Thingamajig by Eric James Stone

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

2010 Mark Time and Ogle Award winners and honorable mentions

Monday, June 20, 2011 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio News

The 14th annual Mark Time Awards and Ogle Awards, presented at Convergence 2011, June 30th, in Bloomington, MN, are from “a wider range of countries than ever before.” Both awards are juried. The Mark Time Award is for distinguished achievement in Science Fiction audio theater production. The Ogle Award is presented for Fantasy and Horror audio theater production. The awards presentation will take place at Convergence 2011, June 30th, 2011 in Bloomington, MN. Six of the eight producers are scheduled to be in attendance as well as three of the five judges.

Mark Time Award:

GOLD
The Truth: Moon Graffiti
Written & Produced by Jonathan Mitchell
New York, NY

SILVER
The Cleansed, Pilot Episode
FinalRune Productions
Written & Produced by Fred Greenhalgh
Alfred, ME

HONORABLE MENTIONS
1918
Aural Stage
Written by Richard Lovejoy
Producers, Matthew Boudreau, Samantha Mason
Buffalo, NY

Brad Lansky And The Anti-Starc
Protophonic
Written by J.D. Venne
Producer, Dieter Zimmermann
Cape Town, South Africa

Ogle Award:

GOLD
Whoever Wishes
Tekdiff
Written & Produced by Cayenne Chris Conroy
Minneapolis, MN

SILVER
We’re Alive, Chapter 17, “There Might Be Others”
Zombiepodcast
Written by Kc Wayland
Producers, Kc Wayland, Shane Salk
Orange, CA

HONORABLE MENTIONS
Soul Survivor
Sonic Society
Written & Produced by Jack. J. Ward
Bedford, Nova Scotia, Canada

The Witch Hunter Chronicles
Audio-epics
Written and Produced by Domien de Groot
Deurne, Belgium

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #112 – AUDIOBOOK: The Marching Morons by C.M. Kornbluth

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #112 – a complete and unabridged reading of The Marching Morons by C.M. Kornbluth. It is wonderfully narrated for us by William Coon of Eloquent Voice.

The Marching Morons is a Science Fiction novella written by Cyril M. Kornbluth, originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction’s April 1951 issue. It has been famously anthologized in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two (B).

The story is set hundreds of years in the future: the date is 7-B-936. Its protagonist is John Barlow, a man from the past put into suspended animation by a freak accident involving a dental drill and anesthesia. He is revived in a dystopic future where the dysgenic breeding of humans has, in combination with intelligent people not having many children, overwhelmingly populated the world with morons. An elite few non-idiots must work slavishly to keep the world productive. Barlow, who was a shrewd con man in his day, has a solution to sell to the elite.

In his introduction to The Best Of C.M. Kornbluth Frederik Pohl explains some of the inspiration to The Marching Morons. Apparently the work was written after Pohl suggested that Kornbluth write a follow-up story to The Little Black Bag (a classic Kornbluth short story). In contrast to the “little black bag” arriving in the past from the future, Kornbluth wanted to write about a man arriving in the future from the past. To explain sending a man to the future, Kornbluth borrowed from David Butler’s Just Imagine (1930) science fiction film in which a man is struck by lightning, trapped in suspended animation, and reanimated in the future.”

The Marching Morons by C.M. Kornbluth - illustrated by Don Sibley

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases: Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

Saturday, June 11, 2011 Jesse Willis

New Releases

Steve Feldberg, a past guest on the SFFaudio Podcast (#40), writes in to tell us about a new Audible Frontiers audiobook:

Hi Jesse –

I wanted to draw your attention to our all-new, unabridged recording of Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris. Not only is this the first time in audio for this classic – and not only is it narrated wonderfully by Alessandro Juliani of Battlestar Galactica – and not only is 2011 the 50th anniversary of the book’s publication – but this is a brand-new translation – and the first time the book has been translated directly from Polish to English. (The existing book is a translation from Polish to French and then to English; Lem always disavowed it as being incomplete.) Audible, in cooperation with the Lem Estate, commissioned this new translation by Bill Johnston of the Univ. of Indiana.

This is an audio exclusive; there are no current plans to publish this translation in any other form.

We’re really excited about this project. I hope you’ll give it a listen!

Thanks Steve!

And yeah, Solaris looks like it will make a really terrific listen. Early reviews are positively glowing. Check out including this compelling quote from Jason (in Kansas City, MO):

“Wow! Wow! and Wow! Brainy stuff for thinking people.”

Solaris: The Definitive Edition
By Stanisław Lem; Translated by Bill Johnston; Read by by Alessandro Juliani
Audible Download – Approx. 7 Hours 48 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: June 7, 2011
At last, one of the world’s greatest works of science fiction is available – just as author Stanislaw Lem intended it. To mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Solaris, Audible, in cooperation with the Lem Estate, has commissioned a brand-new translation – complete for the first time, and the first ever directly from the original Polish to English. Beautifully narrated by Alessandro Juliani (Battlestar Galactica), Lem’s provocative novel comes alive for a new generation. In Solaris, Kris Kelvin arrives on an orbiting research station to study the remarkable ocean that covers the planet’s surface. But his fellow scientists appear to be losing their grip on reality, plagued by physical manifestations of their repressed memories. When Kelvin’s long-dead wife suddenly reappears, he is forced to confront the pain of his past – while living a future that never was. Can Kelvin unlock the mystery of Solaris? Does he even want to?

Posted by Jesse Willis