BBC7 presents: Down and Safe (Blake’s 7)

SFFaudio Online Audio

BBC Radio 7 - BBC7

Down and Safe: A Celebration of Blake’s 7
Presented by fan Mitch Benn.
Airdate: August 25, 2008 (aired 3 times).

Holy moly, I was busy and away and almost missed this excellent radio retrospective of Blake’s 7. (Fortunately for all of us, it is still available to listen to -see below.) Clocking in at three hours, Down and Safe covers the whole shebang, from the groundbreaking and influential late 70’s television series to the latest version reimagined and presented as audio drama, with clips and snippets and informed commentary and…

…And, speaking of audio drama, well, check out the BBC7 blurb: The BBC 7 bank holiday rebellion starts with the history and rebirth of a sci-fi classic, with episodes including The Syndleton Experiment (1999), Liberator (2007) and When Vila Met Gan (2008).

Yep, you heard right. Three complete full cast audio plays -they form the bulk of the show; three different and very entertaining takes on the Blake’s 7 universe that you shouldn’t miss (unless you have a very good excuse like, say, hives). So, space science fiction luvvers everywhere, be sure to check out Down and Safe here, here, here (RealPlayer required) or here (webpage – RealPlayer required) through Sunday, August 31!

Posted by RC of RTSF

Review of The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks

Science Fiction Audibook Review

Clipper Audiobook - The Algebraist by Iain M. BanksThe Algebraist
By Iain M. Banks; Read by Geoffrey Amis
21 CDs – Approx. 24.25 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Clipper Audio
Published: 2005
ISBN: 9781419353772
Themes: / Science Fiction / Space Epic / Galactic Empires / Aliens / Worm Holes /

This is a space opera on the epic scale. Fassin Taak is a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers. The Nasqueron Dwellers are a very old race, almost as old as the universe itself. They are inhabitants of gas giants all across the universe. Intra-galactic traveling is done by way of wormholes. The Outsiders from beyond the galaxy are sending in military forces and destroying wormholes. The leader of the Mercatoria, the reigning galactic empire, sends Fassin on a quest to find a fabled book. The book is called The Algebraist. As legends have it, it’s a book written by the Dwellers and in it is contained information of a hidden network of wormholes that is held in secret.

The Mercatoria is a corrupt empire headed by the Archimandrite Luseferous. Luseferous is the most evil villain to ever inhabit a galactic empire. Darth Vader couldn’t pack this guy’s lunch. He creates living punching bags out of the heads of his attempted assassins. He can modify the chemical effects of his semen to make courtesans love him or die for him. He’s a false advocate for the official galactic religion. We learn through the course of the book his internalized philosophy that makes his atrocities believable.

This is a long audiobook but it sustains one’s interest through its entirety. The narrator is Geoffrey Amis. Mr. Amis has a fine narrative voice but it doesn’t express a lot of range to differentiate the individual characters. This is a vast canvas with a large cast of characters and this lack of range makes the individual characters harder to remember.

My American bias surfaced into a silly thought. I was thinking how strange it was that the narrator portrays every character in the book with an English accent. Well, the characters aren’t really speaking English in the book but some sort of galactic standard. The author just conveys the dialogue as English as a logical convention. It occurred to me that the many aliens and cultures would have varying accents (as well as languages). I believe it would be impossible to convey alien accents without reference to our own human accents. This would create some rather silly aliens that might be useful in a humorous story, but would undermine a serious work. So the narrator did right to stick to his native accent. I mention my American bias, because if this were read with an American accent it would never have stricken me as strange that all the characters speak with the same accent.

Overall this space opera is a many-layered fugue and Iain Banks pulls out all the stops.