science fiction – Page 126

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

Review of Pulp Cover by Gene Wolfe

Tuesday, March 2, 2010Tuesday, March 2, 2010 Scott D.

SFFaudio Review

7th Anniversary Storypalooza continues!

Pulp Cover
By Gene Wolfe; Read by Mike Boris
24 Min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: StarShipSofa (Aural Delights No 120)
Published: 2010
Themes: / Science Fiction /

This brilliantly narrated (by Mike Boris) story was part of the Aural Delights no 120 – Gene Wolfe podcast from StarShipSofa. Thanks Tony and crew for all the great stories and commentary week after week!

“Pulp Cover” is the story of a man who wants to marry his boss’s daughter, but loses out to a perfect man from Yale. At least, that’s what the story is about on the surface, but Gene Wolfe’s stories are much more than the top layer. Subtle and satisfying.

Listening to Gene Wolfe is something I haven’t been able to do often, but his stories are finally starting to show up on audio. Audible Frontiers recently published The Book of the New Sun. “Hunter Lake” appeared in The Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine in 2003, and before that, the only audiobook I know of was a cassette from Audio Prose Library with “The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories” and “The Solar Labyrinth” on it, read by Wolfe himself. “The Tree is My Hat” was made into an audio drama at the World Horror Convention in 2002, and was included in StarShipSofa’s Aural Delights No 49. That’s all the Gene Wolfe audio I know of – any more out there?

Looks like an author page, Jesse!

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

LibriVox: The Dueling Machine by Ben Bova and Myron R. Lewis

Tuesday, March 2, 2010 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVox delivers another retro future audiobook, this time it’s a novellette collaboration between Ben Bova and Myron R. Lewis!

The Dueling Machine
By Ben Bova and Myron R. Lewis; Read by Gregg Margarite
3 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 2 Hours 24 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: February 28, 2010
The Dueling Machine is the solution to settling disputes without injury. After you and your opponent select weapons and environments you are injected into an artificial reality where you fight to the virtual death… but no one actually gets hurt. That is, until a warrior from the Kerak Empire figures a way to execute real-world killings from within the machine. Now its inventor Dr. Leoh has to prevent his machine from becoming a tool of conquest. First published in the May, 1963 issue of Analog Science Fact & Fiction.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/4088

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks also to Betty M. and Barry Eads]

Posted by Jesse Willis