Audible.com, which long ago had much original SFF content, may be gearing up for a renewed push to get more. I have evidence: First there’s James Patrick Kelly’s StoryPod – Volume 1 of which has just wrapped. Second, there’s a new and exclusive Orson Scott Card audiobook on Audible now. These two facts, combined with some other evidence I’m not able to disclose at this time, make me fairly confident that Audible is looking to expand their original SFF content. WOOHOO!
The new Card story is called Pretty Boy. It first appeared in Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show issue #2. Unfortunately it is very expensive through Audible. It sells $17.95 on Audible.com itself and $15.95 on iTunes (Audible has a monopoly on audiobooks in the iTunes store). I can’t imagine other circumstances I’d do this, needless to say audio is the medium we prefer, but for the sake of budgets, you can get the original text version for only $2.50 through Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show (and it comes with a bunch of other choice content- including another OSC story in audio AND SFFaudio co-founder Scott Danielson’s excellent short story: Adrift). Here’s the detail on the audio edition…
Pretty Boy
By Orson Scott Card; Read by Scott Brick
1 AA File – 47 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible.com
Published: 2007
How do you systematically destroy a child with love? It’s not something that any parent aspires to do, yet a surprising number come perilously close to achieving it. So begins Orson Scott Card’s new story from the Ender Universe, a profound meditation on parents and offspring focusing on the childhood of one of Ender’s Battle School challengers, Bonzo Madrid, and the circumstances that lead him to his unique place in the Game.