science fiction – Page 126

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

Forgotten Classics: Breaking Point by James Gunn

Friday, March 5, 2010Friday, March 5, 2010 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

My friend, Julie D. of the Forgotten Classics podcast, has recently completed her unabridged reading of Dorothy Macardle’s novel The Uninvited. Now she’s working on a pure Science Fiction story, picked from SFFaudio Challenge #4. But that’s not all, Julie begins the podcast with some thoughts on James Gunn’s best known work, a series of scholarly collections entitled: The Road To Science Fiction. I have volumes 3 and 4 in my paperbook collection.

There are also two more recent volumes The British Way (Vol. 5) and the other places Around The World (Vol. 6). But I won’t post their cover art here because they really suck.

Breaking Point
By James Gunn; Read by Julie D.
Podcast – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Forgotten Classics
Podcast: March 2009 –
The ship was proof against any test, but the men inside her could be strained and warped, individually and horribly. Unfortunately, while the men knew that, they couldn’t really believe it. The Aliens could—and did.

Podcast feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/forgottenclassics

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Melancholy Elephants by Spider Robinson

Friday, March 5, 2010Friday, March 5, 2010 Scott D.

SFFaudio Review

Yet another story in SFFaudio’s 7th Anniversary Carnival of Characters!

Melancholy Elephants
By Spider Robinson; Read by Spider Robinson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 34 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Spider on the Web
Published: 2007
Themes: / Science Fiction / Art / Copyright / Human Mind / Mathematics /

The moment I realized that copyright was at the center of the story, I thought: Jesse would love this. I’m fairly certain he’s read it, though. There can’t be a lot of fiction where copyright plays a part, and besides; Spider Robinson is one of his favorites.

A law to extend copyright is proposed, and Dorothy, an artist, visits a Senator in future Washington to persuade him to vote against. The story is not dry exposition about law. It’s about art, the human mind, mathematics, and the universe. A lot to pack into 34 minutes, for certain, and it did leave me feeling melancholy, like the elephants.

It’s important to note that this story won a Hugo Award in 1983, long before copyright ran headlong into the digital age. “Melancholy Elephants” stands beside other great science fiction stories that so clearly saw the future coming.

The story was read by Spider Robinson as part of his Spider on the Web podcast.

Here’s the podcast feed: http://www.spiderrobinson.com/iTunes_feed.xml

And |HERE| is a direct link to the episode with “Melanchoy Elephants”.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Heart of Rage by James Swallow

Thursday, March 4, 2010Thursday, March 4, 2010 Scott D.

SFFaudio Review

Yet another entry in the 7th Anniversary SFFaudio Story Review Marathon! (For the cure!)

Warhammer 40,000: Heart of Rage
By James Swallow; Performed by Toby Longsworth
1 CD – 75 minutes – [AUDIO ORIGINAL]
Publisher: The Black Library
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781844167968
Themes: / Science Fiction / War / Aliens / Cyborgs /

My not-so-vast knowledge of the Warhammer universe stems from two bits of information only; first, it started as a game I’ve seen played at cons with small figures on tabletop landscapes, and second, that it’s about war.

Add this third fact: The Black Library’s Warhammer productions bring mayhem to your ears like nothing else I’ve heard. It all starts with the superior dramatic reading of the narrator, who in this case is Toby Longworth. He performs all of the characters as distinct roles, bringing each one to life as if this were an audio drama. Next, sound is added that pays particular attention to what is being narrated. The sound is also not front and center – the story doesn’t pause so that an effect can be heard. It’s all mixed together in a perfect integration of narrator and sound into one organic production.

This technique does NOT work for everything – in fact, I normally dislike audio drama/audiobook hybrids, but this is done just right. I enjoyed the technique in Star Trek and Star Wars audiobooks, and this is even more skillful.

“Heart of Rage” is a Warhammer 40,000 story that last a bit over an hour. Big battle-ready fellows Nord and Kale come across a tyrannid (satisfactorily nasty baddies) hive ship, and fighting ensues. Fans of this universe should enjoy this production.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Ur by Stephen King

Wednesday, March 3, 2010 Scott D.

SFFaudio Review

Here’s the latest in our 7th Anniversary Festival of Short Stories!

UR
By Stephen King; Read by Holter Graham
2 Hours, 20 Minutes – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Audio
Published: 2010
Themes: / Science Fiction / Time Travel / Multiple Universes / Books / Kindle /

When this story first came out, it was available exclusively for the Kindle, and King made the Kindle itself one of the main characters. A special, one-of-a-kind Kindle, of course, that lets the user flip through universes picking books that brilliant writers wrote in parts of their lives that didn’t exist in this universe. Ernest Hemingway, for example, lived a few years longer in one universe (in one UR, as they are called in the story), and wrote a novel or two more. This description feels a bit like Joe Haldeman’s “The Hemingway Hoax”, and the main character is tempted to take the story in that very direction, but doesn’t. Instead, he reads and reads for his own pleasure. Things don’t get really complicated until he uses his Kindle to take a look at our UR.

I love me some Stephen King, and this is a pretty good science fiction story. It doesn’t offer anything new to the pervasive (and tiresome) “multiple universe” sub-genre, except this is Stephen King writing it, and I like the people he writes about. It’s extremely well-narrated, too, by Holter Graham.

|HERE| is a very cool promo page from Simon and Schuster that contains an excerpt of the audiobook and an interview with Holter Graham.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson