LibriVox: Operation Terror by Murray Leinster

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxThe incomparable, the speedy, the beneficent, MARK DOUGLAS NELSON has TWO brand new audiobooks, NOVELS, for us and for the public domain. I’m stunned! Less than a month in and Nelson’s got the audiobook narrator of the year trophy in the bag (someone should really make one of those for him).



LibriVox Science Fiction - Operation Terror by Murray LeinsterOperation Terror
By Murray Leinster; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
10 Zipped MP3s or Podcast – 5 Hours 16 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 19, 2009
An unidentified space ship lands in a Colorado lake. Equipped with a paralyzing ray weapon, the creatures begin taking human prisoners. A loan land surveyor and a journalist are trapped inside the Army cordon, which is helpless against the mysterious enemy. Can they stop the aliens before it is too late?

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/operation-terror-by-murray-leinster.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: The Creature From Beyond Infinity by Henry Kuttner

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxQuickly fulfilling his staked claim (even before I had a chance to post it) Mark Douglas Nelson, narrator extrodinaire, has completed ANOTHER SFFaudio Challenge audiobook. This time it’s a Henry Kuttner novel! WAY COOL! But that’s not all from Mark today, not one bit, look at the next post too. I think this may be a record or something. Don’t forget to claim your prize Mark!


LibirVox Science Fiction - The Creature From Beyond Infinity by Henry KuttnerThe Creature From Beyond Infinity
By Henry Kuttner; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
7 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 5 Hours 31 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 19, 2009
A lone space traveler arrives on Earth seeking a new planet to colonize, his own world dead. At the same time a mysterious plague has infected Earth that will wipe out all life. Can a lone scientist stop the plague and save the world? Or will the alien find himself on another doomed planet?

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/the-creature-from-beyond-infinity.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

Galaxy News Radio: The Adventures Of Daring Dashwood!

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Adventures Of Herbert Daring Dashwood

The latest dispatch from the Zombie Astronaut includes crystal clear recordings of The Adventures Of Herbert “Daring” Dashwood. This is the “radio drama” found within Fallout 3! Enjoy…

Episode 1 Escape From Paradise Falls |MP3|

Episode 2 Super Mutant Mayhem |MP3|

Episode 3 In The Black Widows Web |MP3|

Episode 4 Between Rockopolis And A Hard Place |MP3|

Thanks ZA!

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Collected Public Domain Works of Stanley G. Weinbaum

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxAvailable now from LibriVox and narrator Gregg Margarite comes the Collected Public Domain Works of Stanley G. Weinbaum. Gregg has a smoky voice and a terrific recording setup – this makes this collection a super-solid listen! Start with the first story A Martian Odyssey which is Weinbaum’s most famous tale. It’s a classic of alien human interaction. Isaac Asimov says of it and of Weinbaum:

“With this single story [A Martian Odyssey], Weinbaum was instantly recognized as the world’s best living science fiction writer, and at once almost every writer in the field tried to imitate him.”

It is also argued that this is the first story to satisfy Astounding editor John W. Campbell’s famous challenge:

“Write me a creature who thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man.”

LibriVox Science Fiction - Collected Public Domain Works of Stanley G. WeinbaumCollected Public Domain Works of Stanley G. Weinbaum
By Stanley G. Weinbaum; Read by Gregg Margarite
6 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 4 Hours 33 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 13, 2009
Stanley G. Weinbaum is best known for his short story A Martian Odyssey which has been influencing Science Fiction since it was first published in 1934. Weinbaum is considered the first writer to contrive an alien who thought as well as a human, but not like a human. A Martian Odyssey and its sequel are presented here as well as other Weinbaum gems including three stories featuring the egomaniacal physicist Haskel van Manderpootz and his former student, playboy Dixon Wells.

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/collected-public-domain-works-of-stanley-g-weinbaum-by-stanley-g-weinbaum.xml

Individual stories:

1.
A Martian Odyssey
By Stanley G. Weinbaum; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 58 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Early in the twenty-first century, nearly twenty years after the invention of atomic power and ten years after the first lunar landing, the four-man crew of the Ares has landed on Mars in the Mare Cimmerium. A week after the landing, Dick Jarvis, the ship’s American chemist, sets out south in an auxiliary rocket to photograph the landscape. Eight hundred miles out, the engine on Jarvis’ rocket gives out, and he crash-lands into one of the Thyle regions. Rather than sit and wait for rescue, Jarvis decides to walk back north to the Ares.

2.
Valley of Dreams
By Stanley G. Weinbaum; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 53 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
A sequel to A Martian Odyssey – Two weeks before the Ares is scheduled to leave Mars, Captain Harrison sends Dick Jarvis and French biologist “Frenchy” Leroy to retrieve the film Jarvis took before his auxiliary rocket crashed into the Thyle highlands the week before. Along the way, the Earthmen stop at the city of the cart creatures and the site of the pyramid building creature for Leroy to take some samples. After picking up the film canisters from the crashed rocket at Thyle II, the two men fly east to Thyle I to look for signs of the birdlike Martian, Tweel.

3.
The Worlds Of If
By Stanley G. Weinbaum; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 35 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

4.
The Ideal
By Stanley G. Weinbaum; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 47 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

5.
The Point of View
By Stanley G. Weinbaum; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 38 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

6.
Pygmalion’s Spectacles
By Stanley G. Weinbaum; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 43 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Forgotten Classics: The Aliens by Murray Leinster

SFFaudio Online Audio

Forgotten ClassicsFor folks who haven’t experienced it, now’s a great time to jump in to the FORGOTTEN CLASSICS podcast!

Here’s why, Julie talks about:

Viking Dawn by Henry Treece!
Greener Than You Think by Ward Moore (LibriVox)!
-Audiobooks vs. “real books”!
-Paperbook Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman vs. the Lenny Henry read audiobook of Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman!
-a podcast highlight of Mark Douglas Nelson’s SciPodBooks podcast!
Space Tug by Murray Leinster!
Space Viking by H. Beam Piper!
The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose Farmer!

The Third Annual SFFaudio ChallengeOh and didn’t I mention? She’s also, with the latest show, finished her reading of The Aliens by Murray Leinster (which was one of our Third Annual SFFaudio Challenge titles!

Exclamation point folks, exclamation POINT!

Forgotten Classics presents… The Aliens by Murray LeinsterThe Aliens
By Murray Leinster; Read by Julie Davis
2 MP3s – 2 Hours 15 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Forgotten Classics
Podcast: January 2009
First published in Astounding SF’s August, 1959 issue.
The human race was expanding through the galaxy … and so, they knew, were the Aliens. When two expanding empires meet … war is inevitable. Or is it …?

Part 1 |MP3| and Part 2 |MP3|

Podcast feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/ForgottenClassics

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Ender In Exile by Orson Scott Card

SFFaudio Review

Ender in Exile by Orson Scott CardEnder in Exile
By Orson Scott Card; Read by David Birney, Cassandra Campbell, Emily Janice Card, Orson Scott Card, Gabrielle de Cuir, Kirby Heyborne, Don Leslie, Stefan Rudnicki, and Mirron Willis
12 CDs – Approx. 14 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Published: 2008
ISBN: 9781427205124
Themes: / Science Fiction / Colonization / Starships / Religion / Politics / War / Aliens /

Over the last six years or so, Orson Scott Card has had nearly everything he’s written published as an audiobook. His writing is particularly suited to audio; his style is dramatic, clear, and driven by conversations, both internal and external. Card’s storytelling ability is also first rate.

The other half of an audiobook is its presentation, and here Card’s audiobooks also excel. In the Ender and Ender’s Shadow series of audiobooks, Stefan Rudnicki has led a talented crew of narrators in expert productions. Ender in Exile is the ninth novel written in the universe started by Ender’s Game, and all of them have been produced in a similar manner – with multiple narrators that change with shifts in the point of view of the story.

The entire novel takes place between the last two chapters of Ender’s Game. I’ll try not to spoil Ender’s Game for those who haven’t read it, but the main events of that book have finished, and the teenaged Ender Wiggin can not stay on Earth for various and interesting reasons. He is put on a colony ship, and much of the book takes place there. The conflict for him is not over. He’s distrusted by powerful adults, and because of his fame he distrusts the motives of everyone else. He’s still very much alone.

You’d think after four novels about Ender Wiggin that there wouldn’t be anything else to say about him. But Ender in Exile is one of the best novels in the series, mostly because of the insight it provides into the most interesting aspect of Ender Wiggin’s life: his transformation from Battle School student to Speaker for the Dead.

An atypical aspect of this novel is that it is really a sequel to two books: Ender’s Game and Shadow of the Giant. Because of the relativistic effects of space travel, three of the four Shadow novels take place while Ender is en route to his colony. Some of the things that happen in those books affect events in this one.

Despite all that, this book can be read standalone, though a good experience is made even better by knowing the whole story.

And, a bonus mini-review from DanielsonKid: It was very good, but I wouldn’t call it one of his best.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson