Blood Oath: The President’s Vampire
By Christopher Farnsworth; Read by Bronson Pinchot
10.5 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2010
In 1867, a sailor was caught drinking the blood of two dead men on a whaling vessel. He was pardoned for insanity and died in an asylum. At least, that’s the cover story. In fact, nineteen-year-old vampire Nathaniel Cade was secretly recruited by the president to defend the United States against “unnatural” threats. Cade is the ultimate secret agent, battling nightmares before they can break into the daylight world of the American dream.
When Zach Barrows, an ambitious twenty-six-year-old White House staffer, is assigned as Cade’s new handler and presidential liaison, he soon learns that the world is far stranger and far more dangerous than he ever imagined. Their mission reveals the truth about the real Dr. Frankenstein, a shadowy conspiracy within the government, and a plot to attack the United States with a gruesome biological weapon: an army of undying, unstoppable killers.
Enchantment
By Orson Scott Card; Read by Stefan Rudnicki and Gabrielle de Cuir
16.7 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2010
The moment ten-year-old Ivan stumbled upon the clearing in the Carpathian forest, his life was forever changed. Atop a pedestal encircled by fallen leaves, a beautiful princess lay still as death, but a malevolent presence nearby sent Ivan scrambling for safety.
Years later, Ivan is an American graduate student, engaged to be married. Yet he cannot forget that long-ago day in the forest nor convince himself it was merely a frightened boy’s fantasy. Compelled to return to his native land, Ivan finds the clearing just as he left it. This time he does not run. This time he awakens the beauty with a kiss — and steps into a world that vanished a thousand years ago.
A rich tapestry of clashing worlds, Enchantment is an original novel of a love and destiny that transcends centuries and the dark force that stalks them across the ages.
The Bradbury Report
By Steven Polansky; Read by Stefan Rudnicki
11.7 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2010
The year is 2071. It is a world very recognizable to our own, only now the United States has implemented a wide-scale, government-run cloning program that is tied directly to health insurance. Each U.S. citizen has a “Copy” living separately in a cleared zone in the Midwest. If an “Original” is sick or injured and requires surgery, whatever he or she needs is taken from their clone. In the two decades since the program’s inception, no person outside the government has ever seen their Copy or been inside the Clearances, and no clone has ever successfully escaped—until now. The Bradbury Report is a fascinating meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of as a race and society. It is a powerful work of speculative fiction, beautifully written, about love, identity, free will, aging, and intelligence that will linger with you long after reading.
The Musashi Flex
By Steve Perry; Read by Joe Barrett
9.3 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2010
In the early twenty-third century, one of very few ways to rise above your caste is to become a player in the extreme martial-arts game known as the Musashi Flex. Now, three people will enter its violent culture.
Lazlo Mourn is ready to hang up his blades when his moves suddenly evolve toward a form of fighting unlike any the galaxy has ever seen. Journalist Cayne Sola is determined to get the big story on the games, and not even the most blood-hungry Flex fighter will stop her. Billionaire Ellis Mtumbo Shaw has everything money can buy except fame on the Flex fields of combat, but an untested drug may put that within his reach.
Their fates will entwine and be decided in the bloody arena of the Flex. And if they survive, their story will become legend.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson
Blackstone Audio classifies The Bradbury Report as “General Fiction” and Polansky himself writes: “This book, if one can call it that, is not science fiction, or fantasy.” I’m skeptical of both claims. Anyone read it yet?