science fiction – Page 120

BBC Audio and RadioArchive.cc: The Taming Of The Shrew and Science Fiction

Thursday, June 10, 2010Thursday, June 10, 2010 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

The "Induction" scene in The Taming of the Shrew

If I asked you to think about “Shakespeare and Science Fiction” you’d probably go with Forbidden Planet (a spacey version of The Tempest). If you’re more TV inclined you’d probably go with Star Trek, maybe even name the episode entitled “The Conscience of the King” outright. That’s the one that features a near perfect inversion of the traveling actors sequence in Hamlet (as well as part of the production of the play itself).

And yeah, Shakespeare himself may appear as a character in Science Fiction stories. Isaac Asimov’s The Immortal Bard is perhaps my favourite example of that. But no actual Science Fiction can be found in any play by William Shakespeare. Right?

Shakespeare’s plays have many fantastic elements (ghosts, magic, witches, prophecy), but those are all Fantasy tropes, not SF. Not one the the plays of William Shakespeare could possibly qualify as Science Fiction outright. Right?

But then, I was thinking about the very Philip K. Dickness of the opening sequence of Shakespeare’s farcical romp called The Taming Of The Shrew. It’s called “The Induction” and features a character named Christopher Sly, a drunkard, who while unconscious, is abducted from the street where he lays and is taken into a mischievous Lord’s home. There, he’s put to bed, and when awakened, is told by the household’s servants that he’s been “asleep” for fifteen years, that he is the lord of the manor, and that he has a beautiful young wife! All the household’s servants are in on the jape and obey his every command. The Lord who arranged this practical joke says,

Persuade him that he hath been lunatic;
And when he says he is, say that he dreams,
For he is nothing but a mighty lord.
This do and do it kindly, gentle sirs:
It will be pastime passing excellent,
If it be husbanded with modesty.

Only then, once the ridiculous question of identity is hatched does The Taming of the Shrew begin (performed by a troupe of traveling actors who visit Christopher Sly’s manor). We’ve talked about Fictional Fictional Characters, on the SFFaudio Podcast before, this is a case of a fictional fictional play. The actors in the play are playing actors in a play.

“Christopher Sly’s presence as a spectator in Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew makes the entire drama of wife-taming into a mere science fiction spectacle of household order.” -From the introduction to Poor Women in Shakespeare by Fiona McNeill

I’m betting that’s as close as The Taming Of The Shrew gets to Science Fiction.

This is all apropos of some recent reading of the play proper and a visit to RadioArchive.cc where you’ll be able to find a terrific sounding 1988, BBC Radio 3 dramatization that faithfully adapts the play to audio.

The Taming of the Shrew
By William Shakespeare; Adapted by Jeremy Mortimer; Performed by a full cast
CD or MP3 (via TORRENT) – Approx. 2 Hours [RADIO PLAY]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 3 / BBC Radio 7
Broadcast: 1988 / 2005
Publisher: BBC Audio
Published: 1999
ISBN: 056355391X
This hearty comedy has always been a favourite with audiences. Three suitors pursue Bianca Minola, but her father won’t let her marry until her older sister, Katherine, is married. Kate is wilful, loud, volatile and above all, shrewish. Her suitor Petruchio is stern, jolly, and somewhat odd. A match made in heaven?
Cast:
Bob Peck, Cheryl Campbell, Moira Leslie, Robert Glenister, Stephen Tompkinson, Douglas Hodge, Christopher Fairbank, Michael Deacon, Anthony Jackson, Willam Simons, John Badley, and Paul Copley
Crew:
Directed by Jeremy Mortimer
Music composed by Mia Soteriou

The Induction scene in The Taming of the Shrew

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases: Sherlock Holmes, Jack London, Hitler vs. Stalin, Alastair Reynolds

Wednesday, June 9, 2010 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

If there’s one public domain novel I don’t mind seeing endless re-releases and re-recordings of it’s this one…

The Call Of The Wild
By Jack London; Read by Jeff Daniels
CDs – Approx. 3 Hours 12 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: May 25, 2010
ISBN: 9780307710260
Sample |MP3|
Jack London’s The Call Of The Wild was written in 1903, but Buck’s gripping adventure makes for a thrilling listen on audio more than 100 years after it was first published. This gripping story follows the adventures of the loyal dog Buck, who is stolen from his comfortable family home and forced into the harsh life of an Alaskan sled dog. Passed from master to master, Buck embarks on an extraordinary journey that ends with his becoming the legendary leader of a wolf pack.

Now this should be interesting…

Wolf: The Lives of Jack London
By James L. Haley; Read by Bronson Pinchot
10 CDs or 1 Mp3-CD – Approx. 13 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: May 25, 2010
ISBN: 9781441758965 (cd), 9781441758972 (mp3-cd)
Jack London was born a working-class, fatherless San Franciscan in 1876. In his youth, he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling west coast—by and by playing the role of hobo, sailor, and oyster pirate. From his vantage point at the margins of Gilded Age America, he witnessed such iniquity and abuses that he became a life long socialist and advocate for reform. His adventures in the American wilderness and underworld informed his fiction, and his writing came to captivate the nation as it defined his era. Within his own short lifetime, London became the most popular, and bestselling, author of his generation. By adulthood he had matured into the iconic American author of such still-universally loved books as The Call Of The Wild, White Fang, and Sea Wolf, but in spite of his success, he was at war with himself. The highest-paid writer in America, he was constantly broke. Famous as he was for conjuring the brutality of nature in story after story and novel after novel, upon the actual deaths of his favorite animals he would dissolve into helpless tears. Sick, angry, and disillusioned, after a short, breathless life, he passed away at age forty, but he left behind him a glorious literary legacy. Award-winning author James L. Haley explores the forgotten Jack London—a man bristling with ideas, whose passion for social justice roared until the day he died. In Wolf, Haley returns Jack London to his proper place in the American pantheon, resurrecting the author of White Fang in his full fire and glory.

Made by makers…

Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World
By Mark Frauenfelder; Read by Kirby Heyborne
7 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – Approx. 8 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: June 07, 2010
ISBN: 9781400117819 (cd), 9781400167814 (mp3-cd)
From his unique vantage point as editor in chief of Make magazine, the hub of the newly invigorated do-it-yourself (DIY) movement, Mark Frauenfelder takes listeners on an inspiring and surprising tour of the vibrant world of DIY. The Internet has brought together large communities of people who share ideas, tips, and blueprints for making everything from unmanned aerial vehicles to pedal-powered iPhone chargers to an automatic cat feeder jury-rigged from a VCR. DIY is a direct reflection of our basic human desire to invent and improve, long suppressed by the availability of cheap, mass-produced products that have drowned us in bland convenience and cultivated our most wasteful habits. Frauenfelder spent a year trying a variety of offbeat projects, such as keeping chickens and bees, tricking out his espresso machine, whittling wooden spoons, making guitars out of cigar boxes, and doing citizen science with his daughters in the garage. His whole family found that DIY helped them take control of their lives, offering a path that was simple, direct, and clear. Working with their hands and minds helped them feel more engaged with the world around them.
Frauenfelder reveals how DIY is changing our culture for the better. He profiles fascinating “alpha makers” leading various DIY movements and grills them for their best tips and insights. Beginning his journey with hands as smooth as those of a typical geek, Frauenfelder offers a unique perspective on how earning a few calluses can be far more rewarding and satisfying than another trip to the mall.

I always bet on the man with the bigger mustache…

Deathride: Hitler vs. Stalin—the Eastern Front, 1941-1945
By John Mosier; Read by Michael Prichard
10 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – Approx. 12.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: June 15, 2010
ISBN: 9781400117369 (cd), 9781400167364 (mp3-cd)
John Mosier presents a revisionist retelling of the war on the Eastern Front. Although the Eastern Front was the biggest and most important theater in World War II, it is not well known in the United States, as no American troops participated in the fighting. Yet historians agree that this is where the decisive battles of the war were fought. The conventional wisdom about the Eastern Front is that Hitler was mad to think he could defeat the USSR because of its vast size and population, and that the Battle of Stalingrad marked the turning point of the war. Neither statement is accurate, says Mosier; Hitler came very close to winning outright. Mosier’s history of the Eastern Front will generate considerable controversy both because of his unconventional arguments and because he criticizes historians who have accepted Soviet facts and interpretations. Mosier argues that Soviet accounts are utterly untrustworthy and that accounts relying on them are fantasies. Deathride argues that the war in the East was Hitler’s to lose, that Stalin was in grave jeopardy from the outset of the war, and that it was the Allied victories in North Africa and consequent threat to Italy that forced Hitler to change his plans and saved Stalin from near-certain defeat. Stalin’s only real triumph was in creating a legend of victory.

We’ve talked about it on the podcast, and here it is…

Terminal World
By Alastair Reynolds; Read by John Lee
15 Audio CDs or 2 MP3-CDs – Approx. 19.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Publisher: June 1, 2010
ISBN: 9781400117116(cd), 9781400167111 (mp3-cd)
Spearpoint, the last human city, is an atmosphere-piercing spire of vast size. Clinging to its skin are the zones, a series of semi-autonomous city-states, each of which enjoys a different—and rigidly enforced—level of technology. Following an infiltration mission that went tragically wrong, Quillon has been living incognito, working as a pathologist in the district morgue. But when a near-dead angel drops onto his dissecting table, Quillon’s world is wrenched apart one more time. If Quillon is to save his life, he must leave his home and journey into the cold and hostile lands beyond Spearpoint’s base, starting an exile that will take him further than he could ever imagine. But there is far more at stake than just Quillon’s own survival, for the limiting technologies of the zones are determined not by governments or police but by the very nature of reality—and reality itself is showing worrying signs of instability.

Death Cloud is the first in a series of novels in which Sherlock Holmes is re-imagined as “a brilliant, troubled and engaging teenager”…

Young Sherlock Holmes: Death Cloud
By Andrew Lane; Read by Dan Stevens
3 CDs – Approx. 3 Hours [ABRIDGED?]
Publisher: Pan Macmillian Audio
Published: June 2010
ISBN: 9780230745124
The year is 1868, and Sherlock Holmes is fourteen. His life is that of a perfectly ordinary army officer’s son: boarding school, good manners, a classical education – the backbone of the British Empire. But all that is about to change. With his father suddenly posted to India, and his mother mysteriously ‘unwell’, Sherlock is sent to stay with his eccentric uncle and aunt in their vast house in Hampshire. So begins a summer that leads Sherlock to uncover his first murder, a kidnap, corruption and a brilliantly sinister villain of exquisitely malign intent…

[via Bish’s Beat]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper

Monday, May 24, 2010Tuesday, May 25, 2010 Seth Wilson

SFFaudio Review

Little Fuzzy
By H. Beam Piper; read by Jim Roberts
Audible Download – 6 hours 45 mins [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Jincin Recordings
Published: 2010
Themes: / science fiction / philosophy / extraterrestrial / sentience

Little Fuzzy is a poor man’s, a thinking man’s, Avatar. It tells the story of a capitalistic corporation exploring a far-off planet with a classical name, Zarathustra. While harvesting the planet’s unobtanium brightly-colored sunstones, prospector Jack Holloway discovers a stange new species, and makes it his life’s work to defend the new creatures. Missing are Avatar‘s flashes, bangs, and rich world-building, but the novel more than compensates with intriguing storytelling that both challenges the mind and touches the heart.

Events in Little Fuzzy take place on the planet Zarathustra. The Chartered Zarathustra Corporation owns the world in all but name, and harvests its resources for trade on the intergalactic market. The world itself is poorly realized. Apart from anti-gravitational devices, hovering cars, and super-advanced CCTV lie detectors, very little in the novel suggests a science fiction setting. Guns, paper, and cigarettes predominate. The novel hints at a rich and storied history of the galaxy with its mentions of the Atomic Era, but these allusions never find ample explanation. The novel does take place in Piper’s Terro-Human Future Universe, however, so readers eager to learn more can probably do so in other novels and short stories.

The major exception to the book’s lack of world-building is the wild flora and fauna on Zarathustra around which Little Fuzzy ultimately hinges. Prospector Jack Holloway finds one of the titular foot-high golden-furred creatures, and soon realizes that the fuzzy fuzzy Holloway Zarathustra (yes, that becomes its official classification) exhibits behavior that may point to sapient consciousness. One of the fuzzies soon meets its demise at the hands of a Zarathustra Corporation agent, and Jack Holloway kills another agent in the ensuing scuffle. The rest of the novel explores the question of consciousness through the narrative framework of a criminal trial. Like the works of Isaac Asimov, Little Fuzzy abounds with cerebral dialogue that, at times, reads like a philosophical proof, but never drones on long enough to become monotonous.

The real show-stopper is Jack Holloway’s emotional connection to his newly-discovered species. At various points he fulfills the roles of teacher, champion, and father to the beleaguered little fuzzies. Thiis emotional power pulls the reader by the heartstring’s through the book’s one or two bare spots to a satisfying conclusion.

Little Fuzzy is also a brilliantly-written novel. Some of the fathers of science fiction appear to take themselves far too seriously, but this certainly can’t be said of H. Beam Piper. While the novel hardly qualifies as a comedy or satire, colorful splashes of humor indicate that, though the book addresses intriguing intellectual issues, at the end of the day Piper is having fun as a writer and a storyteller.

Jim Roberts’s performance of Little Fuzzy for Jincin Recordings won’t win any awards, but his tone fits the mood and content of the novel. His reading is strong enough that even the book’s few tedious passages won’t put the listener to sleep.

Originally published in 1962, just two years before H. Beam Piper’s suicide, Little Fuzzy was written at the zenith of his writing career, and it shows. As a proof-of-concept novel about the nature of consciousness, the book could have easily crossed the line between fiction novel and science lesson, as do some of the other science fiction novels of Piper’s era. Sprightly writing and emotion that almost, but not quite, verges on sentimentality make Little Fuzzy a stand-out novel of its time, and indeed for all ages.

As a footnote, John Scalzi recently announced that he’s written a reboot of the series with the blessing of the Piper estate, dubbed Fuzzy Nation, and that he’s currently shopping it around to publishers. The franchise is certainly in capable hands.

Also be sure to take a look at Jesse’s review of the Audio Realms edition of Little Fuzzy

Posted by Seth Wilson

The SFFaudio Podcast #059

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #059 – Jesse and Scott talk with Science Fiction author David J. Williams about his recently completed Autumn Rain trilogy.

Talked about on today’s show:
Mirrored Heavens (book 1 in the Autumn Rain trilogy), The Burning Skies (book 2 in the Autumn Rain trilogy), The Machinery Of Light (book 3 in the Autumn Rain trilogy), writing in the present tense, memory, espionage, using past tense is “privileging the narrative”, cold war, cyberspace, cyberpunk, space as the ultimate high ground, militarizing space, satellites, “rods from god“, the straylight run scene from William Gibson’s Neuromancer, war, Future Of War by David J. Williams |PDF|, WarGames (1983), The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein, lagrange points, space elevators, skyhooks, space stations, The Fountains Of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke, terrorism, Philip K. Dick, the Vietnam War vs. the Korean War, Kahlil Gibran, China, 2008 South Ossetia War, Clarion Workshops, Richard K. Morgan, all good series should end.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Librivox: Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 030

Saturday, May 22, 2010Wednesday, May 26, 2010 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

I’m still got several of the new to LibriVox recordings in this collection to listen to. But I’ve made a few notes on a few of them:

The Beast Of Space by F.E. Hardart is a tale of a woman hating asteroid miner who finds himself on a rescue mission. The writing is fairly clunky, but the ideas aren’t too bad.

Lester del Rey’s Dead Ringer is about an alien invasion by things that look like, but aren’t, human. The hero of the story, Dane Phillips, began gathering the evidence after a grenade tore the throat out of one of his buddies on Guadalcanal. This tale, as read by Gregg Margarite, is well worth a listen! In fact it’s a first rate short story, quite evocative, kind of The Twilight Zone-esque and would make an excellent audio drama.

tabithat’s reading of Herbert D. Kastle’s The First One is also worth checking out. Set in 2020, it features an astronaut who has returned from long space voyage. It should be a time of celebration, he is the first one to return, but after the parade a troubling uncertainty grips his family members – does it have something to do with the long frightening scars all over the astronauts body? You bet it does!

Pushbutton War, by Joseph P. Martino (a retired USAF Colonel), is a story about an Apache astronaut who takes inspiration from his grandfather’s warrior code to count coup on a hydrogen bomb. It’s a kind of Strategic Defense Initiative story but it also makes a nice companion piece to one of the Malcolm Gladwell-style anecdotes about radar screen operators and their ability to discern, in the blink of an eye, between enemy missiles and friendly aircraft. And I like the idea of a Space Apache!

It took me a couple of attempts to get into The Skull by Philip K. Dick. But with PKD you have to keep trying, so I kept trying. Reading along with the text helped, and after about 150 words or so I could manage the story without the extra textual assistance. I guess this is one of those stories that doesnt translate to audio that well. That said, once I got into it it was worth it. The Skull is a time travel story that makes a nice companion piece to Michael Moorcock’s Behold The Man. It’s about a future criminal who goes on a mission to kill a religious revolutionary from the 1960s.

Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 030
By Various; Read by various
15 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – 6 Hours 36 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 01, 2009
Science Fiction is speculative literature that generally explores the consequences of ideas which are roughly consistent with nature and scientific method, but are not facts of the author’s contemporary world. The stories often represent philosophical thought experiments presented in entertaining ways. Protagonists typically “think” rather than “shoot” their way out of problems, but the definition is flexible because there are no limits on an author’s imagination. The reader-selected stories presented here were written prior to 1962 and became US public domain texts when their copyrights expired.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/short-science-fiction-collection-030.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

As Long As You Wish
By John O’Keefe; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 13 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 01, 2009
If, somehow, you get trapped in a circular time system . . . how long is the circumference of an infinitely retraced circle? First published in Astounding Science Fiction, June, 1955.

The Beast Of Space
By F.E. Hardart; Read by Mark Nelson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 31 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 01, 2009
A tale of the prospectors of the starways—of dangers— From Comet July 1941.

The Big Trip Up Yonder
By Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 23 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 01, 2009
If it was good enough for your grandfather, forget it … it is much too good for anyone else! From Galaxy Science Fiction January 1954.

Cost Of Living
By Robert Sheckley; Read by tabithat
1 |MP3| – Approx. 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 01, 2009
If easy payment plans were to be really efficient, patrons’ lifetimes had to be extended! From Galaxy Science Fiction December 1952.

Dead Ringer
By Lester del Rey; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 24 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 01, 2009
There was nothing, especially on Earth, which could set him free—the truth least of all! From Galaxy Science Fiction November 1956.

The Doorway
By Evelyn E. Smith; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 12 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 01, 2009
A discerning critic once pointed out that Edgar Allan Poe possessed not so much a distinctive style as a distinctive manner. So startlingly original was his approach to the dark castles and haunted woodlands of his own somber creation that he transcended the literary by the sheer magic of his prose. Something of that same magic gleams in the darkly-tapestried little fantasy presented here, beneath Evelyn Smith’s eerily enchanted wand. From Fantastic Universe September 1955.

The First One
By Herbert D. Kastle; Read by tabithat
1 |MP3| – Approx. 26 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 01, 2009
The first man to return from beyond the Great Frontier may be welcomed … but will it be as a curiosity, rather than as a hero…? From Analog July 1961.

Grove Of The Unborn
By Lyn Venable; Read by tabithat
1 |MP3| – Approx. 24 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 01, 2009
Glamorous Lyn Venable of Dallas, Texas, makes a first appearance in these pages (but by no means her first appearance in this field), with this sensitive story of a young man who needn’t have run. A contributor to William Nolan’s (Of Time And Texas, November, 1956, Fantastic Universe) famous Ray Bradbury Review, Miss Venable wants, very very much, to be a part, albeit small, of the comeback of science fiction that is seen today, as she wrote us recently. From Fantastic Universe January 1957.

The Hour Of Battle
By Robert Sheckley; Read by Megan Argo
1 |MP3| – Approx. 14 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 01, 2009
As one of the Guardian ships protecting Earth, the crew had a problem to solve. Just how do you protect a race from an enemy who can take over a man’s mind without seeming effort or warning? From Space Science Fiction September 1953.

The Man From Time
By Frank Belknap Long; Read by Norm
1 |MP3| – Approx. 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 01, 2009
The method by which one man might be pinpointed in the vastness of all Eternity was the problem tackled by the versatile Frank Belknap Long in this story. And as all minds of great perceptiveness know, it would be a simple, human quality he’d find most effective even in solving Time-Space. From Fantastic Universe March 1954.

The Meteor Girl
By Jack Williamson; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 46 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 01, 2009
Through the complicated space-time of the fourth dimension goes Charlie King in an attempt to rescue the Meteor Girl. From Astounding Stories, March 1931.

Pushbutton War
By Joseph Paul Martino; Read by FNH
1 |MP3| – Approx. 40 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 01, 2009
In one place, a descendant of the Vikings rode a ship such as Lief never dreamed of; from another, one of the descendants of the Caesars, and here an Apache rode a steed such as never roamed the plains. But they were warriors all. From Astounding Science Fiction August 1960.

Satellite System
By Horace Brown Fyfe; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 31 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 01, 2009
Fyfe’s quite right … there’s nothing like a satellite system for a cold storage arrangement. Keeps things handy, but out of the way… From Analog Science Fact & Fiction October 1960.

The Skull
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 50 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 01, 2009
Conger agreed to kill a stranger he had never seen. But he would make no mistakes because he had the stranger’s skull under his arm. From If Worlds of Science Fiction September 1952.

Star Mother
By Robert F. Young; Read by TC Parmelee
1 |MP3| – Approx. 12 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 01, 2009
A touching story of the most enduring love in all eternity. From Amazing Stories January 1959.

[Thanks also to Wendel Topper and Lucy Burgoyne]

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases: For The Win by Cory Doctorow

Friday, May 21, 2010 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

I really enjoyed Cory Doctorow’s novel Little Brother |READ OUR REVIEW|, and I am looking forward to reading his latest novel For The Win.

For The Win
By Cory Doctorow; Read by George Newbern
CDs – Approx. 16.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Listening Library
Published: May 11, 2010
ISBN: 0307710696
Listen to a sample |MP3|
At any hour of the day or night, millions of people around the globe are engrossed in multiplayer online games, questing and battling to win virtual gold, jewels, and precious artifacts. Meanwhile, millions of “gold farmers” toil in electronic sweatshops harvesting virtual treasure that their employers sell to First World gamers for real money. Mala is a brilliant fifteen-year-old from rural India whose leadership skills in virtual combat have earned her the nickname “General Robotwalla.” In China, Matthew defies his former bosses to build his own gold-farming crew. Leonard lives in Southern California and spends his nights fighting virtual battles alongside his buddies in Asia. All of these young people, and more, become entangled with the mysterious woman called Big Sister Nor, who builds them into a movement to challenge the status quo. Fighting pitched battles in the virtual worlds of every MMORPG worth playing, Nor’s network of gamers is so successful that it incurs ruthless opposition. Ultimately, Big Sister’s people devise a plan to crash the economy of every virtual world at once—a Ponzi scheme combined with a brilliant hack that ends up being the biggest, funnest game of all.

Doctorow has read a segment for his podcast |MP3| and another one for an Electronic Frontier Foundation fundraiser |MP3|.

[via SFSignal.com and Open Buddah]

Posted by Jesse Willis