science fiction – Page 125

Review of Suicide is Painless by Don Norum

Tuesday, March 16, 2010Monday, March 15, 2010 Scott D.

SFFaudio Review

Back in SFFaudio’s first year, a moose bit my sister…

Suicide is Painless
By Don Norum; Read by Paul Campbell
55 Minutes – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Cossmass Infinities
Published: 2010
Themes: / Science Fiction / Military SF / Battles / Aliens /

If you’ve got circuits installed all over your body, does that make you a cyborg? Or do you need to have metal limbs or something? Not sure, but in “Suicide is Painless”, Don Norum presents us with Lucia, a beautiful female plus circuits. Those circuits allow her to interface with her battle machine in a deep way – submerged in fluid to help with shock absorption, she connects with machine and fights with lots of firepower. I loved the descriptions of how she joined with the machine.

Who’s the enemy? Cockroach-like creatures that infest asteroids in the asteroid belt. They’ve been there for millions of years, but they didn’t originate from there. Bring ’em on!

Paul W. Campbell himself performs the narration of this, the third story in his Cossmass Infinities podcast. He’s paying the authors with donations, so be sure to throw a tip their way if you like the story. I enjoyed Paul’s narration here and in Episode One: “Fluff and Buttons on the Teddy Bear Range” by Matthew Sanborn Smith.

Find Cossmass Infinities |HERE|

And the podcast feed:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/cossmass/infinities

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of The Game of Rat and Dragon by Cordwainer Smith

Friday, March 12, 2010 Scott D.

SFFaudio Review

Gathering, shindig, or hootenanny? You decide!

The Game of Rat and Dragon
By Cordwainer Smith; Read by Matthew Wayne Selznick
32 Minutes – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: 2007
Themes: / Science Fiction / Space Travel / Telepathy / Cats /

Cordwainer Smith (Paul Linebarger) was an interesting guy who wrote very interesting fiction. He was an American intelligence officer during World War II, he traveled the world, and was an advisor to President Kennedy. In science fiction, his most famous work is probably the only novel he ever published: Norstilia. His short fiction is rich and creative.

“The Game of Rat and Dragon” was written in one sitting in 1956, according to J.J. Pierce (writing in another one of those Ballantine Best Of’s). Long distance space travel in this future occurs with the help of telepaths, but there’s a catch. Once a telepath is “out there” skipping along toward a destination, or “planoforming”, the telepath is in danger of being touched by entities called dragons – insanity is the usual result. The solution? Partners. Partners fly alongside ships in football-sized ships of their own, telepathically connected to the pilot. They are quicker than humans, and are able to destroy dragons before they make contact with ships – almost every time. Who are these partners? Purr.

The idea that there’s baddies living in some kind of hyperspacial plane has been visited often. Babylon 5 leaps to mind as a recent example. But Smith’s descriptions of “pinlighting” are poetic and uncommon. There’s not a heck of a lot of conversation in this one, but Matthew Wayne Selznick is up to the narrating challenge. The combination of Smith’s prose and Matthew Wayne Selznick’s voice worked very well – never a dull moment!

Wonder Audio (along with all their audio short stories) can be found: |HERE|

If you want to buy these stories on Audible (this one costs only $2.37), find the whole catalog |HERE|

Want to see the cover of The Best of Cordwainer Smith? Me too!

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of The Scarecrow’s Boy by Michael Swanwick

Thursday, March 11, 2010 Scott D.

SFFaudio Review

7th Anniversary Festivus! For the rest of us.

“The Scarecrow’s Boy”
Contained in We, Robots, edited by Allan Kaster
By Michael Swanwick; Read by J.P. Linton
19 Minutes – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Infinivox
Published: 2010
Themes: / Science Fiction / Robots /

When a robot spends too much time alone, like the Scarecrow in this story, it asks questions like: “Do you think good and evil are hardwired into the universe?” If you are a veteran reader of robot stories, you know that when a robot starts to ask such questions, it’s about to buck its programming. A nice addition to the robot subgenre, and well narrated to boot.

“The Scarecrow’s Boy” is the first story is the almost-available We, Robots collection from Infinivox, edited by Allan Kaster! It will be released on March 23, and be assured that we’ll remind you on release day.

Infinivox releases excellent short fiction. Some of the latest:
“Guest Law” by John C Wright – |REVIEW|
Aliens Rule, edited by Allan Kaster – |REVIEW|
The Year’s Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction, edited by Allan Kaster – |SFFaudio Podcast #036, in which we discuss all the stories with Allan Kaster|

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Short interview with Eric S. Rabkin

Wednesday, March 10, 2010Saturday, November 26, 2011 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Here’s a short 2007 interview with Professor Eric Rabkin. It was broadcast on the Eight Forty-Eight program on Chicago Public Radio (WBEZ). In it Rabkin talks about the typically less than predictive relationship between Science and Science Fiction. |MP3|

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast by Eugie Foster

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 Scott D.

SFFaudio Review

Another entry in the 7th Anniversary Reviewathon!

“Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast”
By Eugie Foster; Read by Lawrence Santoro
57 minutes – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Escape Pod (Ep. 214)
Published: Sep. 2009
Themes: / Science Fiction / Masks / Sex / Passions / Society /

Each morning is a decision. Should I put on the brown mask or the blue? Should I be a tradesman or an assassin today?

Whatever the queen demands, of course, I am. But so often she ignores me, and I am left to figure out for myself who to be.

We all wear masks every day, presenting different faces to the different groups of people we interact with. But what if those masks were literal objects? Eugie Foster presents us with such a society in this intense Nebula-nominated novelette. Each morning, citizens select a mask to wear before moving about among other people – the mask they select determines who they will be that day.

Wearing the masks arouses passions in the wearer, and each section of the story is a heightened emotional experience. The intensity of this story was spectacularly captured by Lawrence Santoro, who narrated in a dramatic manner that reminds me of Harlan Ellison. Bravo to author and narrator – a perfect match. A great story, truly worthy of a Nebula.

This story can be found over at Escape Pod – it’s |Episode 214|.
You can find more Eugie Foster audio |HERE|.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of “The Eternal Wall” by Raymond Z. Gallun

Monday, March 8, 2010Monday, March 8, 2010 Scott D.

SFFaudio Review

SFFaudio’s 7th Anniversary World Tour continues – we’ll have you know that no hotel rooms have been trashed to date. But there’s still time…

“The Eternal Wall”
By Raymond Z. Gallun; Read by Gregg Margarite
26 Minutes – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Librivox
Published: 2009
Themes: / Science Fiction / Time Travel / Evolution / Time /

This story was published in November, 1942 in Amazing Stories magazine. It’s the first story by Raymond Z. Gallun that I’ve read. I was happy to come across it, since I recently ordered the Del Rey The Best of Raymond Z. Gallun paperback. Love those books.

“The Eternal Wall” is not included in that collection, which raises my expectations of the stories that were included, because this is a very good story. It starts with a guy driving a car quickly down the road. He’s late for a date with his girlfriend, so he pushes it too far and ends up flying off a cliff into deep alkali-rich water. Now pick up the story a few million years later. Humans have long since left the Earth, and the next phase of evolution has resulted in a race of prairie dog-like intelligent creatures that find a mummified body at an archaeological dig. Their technology is great, so they figure out how to re-animate the well-preserved body.

The end of the story didn’t ring true to me, but it contained the point of the story, or at least the reason the story was titled “The Eternal Wall”. The wall is time – the main character can’t go back in time, and the new intelligent life on Earth, despite their advanced technology, can’t do it either. It can easily be seen as a response to the time travel stories that permeated science fiction in the 40’s – a dose of scientific realism, perhaps?

But it’s not the view of time presented in the story that doesn’t ring true – it’s the reaction of the man after being re-animated. Oh, the drama! I wanted to slap him.

Gregg Margarite performs the story, hysterical re-animated man and all, and I’ll be looking for more from him. Thanks to Gregg, and thanks to Librivox for making it available!

A reminder – Librivox is looking for your help!

Posted by Scott D. Danielson