We’ve got some more new arrivals. The Tantor titles took the circuitous route to our door, except for Ascent, which came in today. But, by golly, we’re glad to have them!
Second Skin
By Paul J. McAuley; Read by Jared Doreck
1 CD; 64 minutes – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Infinivox
Published: 2007
ISBN: 1884612555
From the cover:
The spy fell toward Proteus in a thin transparent bubble of carbon, wearing a paper suit and trussed up in a cradle of smart cabling like an early Christian martyr. Somewhere down there was Ben Lo’s wife. But he musn’t think of that. If he did…No, he couldn’t remember. Something bad, though. This space opera is part of the author’s Quiet War series.
Ascent
By Jed Mercurio; Read by Todd McLaren
1 MP3 CD or 6 CDs; Approx. 7.5 hrs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 1400153689(MP3 disc); 9781400103683(CDs)
From the back cover:
Fascinated with the secrets still surrounding the Soviet Union’s race against the Americans to put a man on the moon, Jed Mercurio proposes a compelling scenario: What if the Americans weren’t the first? And with its inscrutable but intriguing hero, Yefgeni Yeremin, a brilliant Soviet cosmonaut, Ascent allows us to imagine what that terrifying journey might have been like.
Yeremin, a Soviet MiG pilot, rises from the privation of a Stalingrad orphanage to the heights of the cosmonaut corps. During the Korean War, as a member of an elite squadron, he shoots down the most American fighter jets—a feat that should make him a national hero, but because the Soviets’ involvement in the war is secret, Yeremin’s victories go unreported. When he is recalled from obscurity to join the race to the moon, he realizes it is his chance for immortality. In hypnotic, deceptively spare prose, Mercurio tells a haunting tale that questions the power of ideology and the nature of fate.
The Sky People
By S.M. Stirling; Read by Todd McLaren
1 MP3 CD or 9 CDs; Approx. 10.5 hrs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Published: 2006
ISBN: 140015345X(MP3 disc); 9781400103454(CDs)
Dinosaurs and rockets — Cool!
From the back cover:
Marc Vitrac was born in Louisiana in the early 1960’s, about the time the first interplanetary probes delivered the news that Mars and Venus were teeming with life—even human life. At that point, the “Space Race” became the central preoccupation of the great powers of the world.
Now, in 1988, Marc has been assigned to Jamestown, the US-Commonwealth base on Venus, near the great Venusian city of Kartahown. Set in a countryside swarming with sabertooths and dinosaurs, Jamestown is home to a small band of American and allied scientist-adventurers.
But there are flies in this ointment—and not only the Venusian dragonflies, with their yard-wide wings. The biologists studying Venus’s life are puzzled by the way it not only resembles that on Earth, but is virtually identical to it. The EastBloc has its own base at Cosmograd, in the highlands to the south, and relations are frosty. And attractive young geologist Cynthia Whitlock seems impervious to Marc’s Cajun charm.
Extravagant and effervescent, The Sky People is alternate-history SF adventure at its best.
Fangland
By John Marks; Read by Ellen Archer and others
2 MP3 CDs or 10 CDs; Approx. 12.5 hrs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 140015359X(MP3 discs); 1400103592(CDs)
From the back cover:
In the annals of business trips gone horribly wrong, Evangeline Harker’s journey to Romania on behalf of her employer, the popular television newsmagazine The Hour, deserves pride of place. Sent to Transylvania to scout out a possible story on a notorious Eastern European crime boss named Ion Torgu, she has found the true nature of Torgu’s activities to be far more monstrous than anything her young journalist’s mind could have imagined. The fact that her employer clearly won’t get the segment it was hoping for is soon the very least of her concerns.
The Shadow Killer
By Matthew Scott Hansen; Read by William Dufris
2 MP3 CDs or 12 CDs; Approx. 15 hrs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 1400153255(MP3 discs); 9781400103256(CDs)
From the website:
Bigfoot wants revenge! Just as Jaws terrified people right out of the water, The Shadowkiller will keep readers out of the woods…for good.
The legend continues: The Story of Bigfoot is among the most enduring legends of all time. Sightings are reported every day, and scientists such as Jan Goodall have proclaimed their belief that it exists. The Shadowkiller is reminiscent of early Stephen King—a good, old-fashioned ghost story. This scary, funny, gory tale will make even the most hardcore skeptics think twice before going camping.