BBC7’s The Seventh Dimension has a Brian Aldiss short story!

Online Audio

BBC 7's The 7th DimensionI missed telling you about a cool tale broadcast last Sunday. Though I have been remiss, all is not lost, you can still listen to this specially commissioned reading through the “Listen Again” service of BBC Radio 7. The story is Song Of The Silencer and it is a “chilling account” of man’s attempt to make order out of chaos by constructing an ‘ultimate machine.’ First Published in 1979. The reader is Nigel Anthony, a winner of both Sony award and Radio Times awards for radio performances.

BBC Radio 7 - Song Of The SilencerSong Of The Silencer
By Brian Aldiss; Read by Nigel Anthony
1 Broadcast – Approx. 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED?]
Broadcaster: BBC7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Sunday May 20th, 2007 @ 6.30pm and 12.30am (U.K. Time)
Humanity has built a massive computer out in space simply called the Ultimate Machine, that perfectly mimics the human brain — but some are predicting disaster once it is activated.

The Adventure Hear Podcast – Lets you Hear Adventures!

SFFaudio Online Audio

Podcast - Adventure HearThe Adventure Hear podcast’s and its host Jamie Monroe goal is to “share and expand the exciting world of Audio Drama and Audio Books.” Each episode brings you a new or classic audio drama or audiobook. Also on tap are reviews, interviews, news, commentary and a “unique behind the scenes look at what goes into producing audio drama and audio books.” Have a look at their first half-dozen shows listed below…

Episode 1: Children Of The Gods – [AUDIO DRAMA] |MP3|

Episode 2: “The Watchbird” (from Come Let Me Whisper) by Russell L. Burt [AUDIOBOOK] |MP3|

Episode 3: Star Wars: Nothing Changes – [AUDIO DRAMA] & an interview with Russell L. Burt |MP3|

Episode 4: The Room – [AUDIO DRAMA] |MP3|

Episode 5: Broken Sea‘s Grog & Gryphon – Episode 1 – [AUDIO DRAMA] |MP3|

Episode 6: An interview with Bill Hollweg creator of Grog & Gryphon and a chapter of Mur Lafferty‘s podiobook Heaven|MP3|

A couple of notes:

#1. If you’ve already heard the Come Let Me Whisper podiobook be sure to listen to second episode show just to hear what the host thinks about “What’s Wrong With Audio Drama Today.” Then head back in time to read my thoughts on that same topic (our most controversial post of 2006).

#2. If you’re unsure where to start with the above shows, I recommend Episode 5 which features the first episode of – Grog & Gryphon. It’s not just the name of a show, its also the name of the tavern located out on the edge of the civilized lands. Listeners are invited to grab a tankard of ale, sit back and listen to heroic tales of yore. Plus, it has a crackerjack opening song by the soon-to-be-massive Brobdingnagian Bards!

Subscribe to the Adventure Hear podcast by plugging this feed into your podcatcher:

http://adventurehear.mypodcast.com/rss.xml

posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases April/May

SFFaudio New Releases

Lots of new release out right now. First up is a FREE one. A podiobook that took nearly a year to finish. Tracy Hickman’s near future dystopia The Immortals is now COMPLETE! Point your web-browser towards Podiobooks.com, sign-up and subscribe.

Podiobook - Immortals by Tracy HickmanThe Immortals
By Tracy Hickman; Read by Tracy and Laura Hickman
40 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED?]
Publisher: Podiobooks.com
Started: April 2007
It’s 2020, and an attempted cure for AIDS has mutated into a deadlier disease, V-CIDS. The U.S., under martial law, has set up “quarantine centers” in the Southwest. Searching for his gay son, Jon, media mogul Michael Barris smuggles himself into one of centers only to discover that it and the other centers are actually extermination camps. With a strange assortment of allies, including the leader of the camp’s gay barracks, an army officer and a local cowboy, Barris precipitates an inmates’ rebellion that promises the unraveling of the death-camp system and the overthrow of the government that established it.

Let’s not forget the venerable and always reliable TellTaleWeekly, selling short stories for great prices!

H.G. WellsThe Star
By H.G. Wells; Read by Alex Wilson
1 MP3 , Ogg Vorbis or AAC File – Apprx. 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: TellTaleWeekly.org
Published: April 2007
Just $1.00 payable via PayPal. One hundred and one years before the films Armegeddon and Deep Impact entered U.S. theaters, the father of modern Science Fiction scared the crap out of Victorian London with this, the first of such death-from-above SF tales.

Hurray for Tantor Media! They’ve got lots of waycool stuff in the works including lots of Asimov…

Audiobook - No Humans Involved by Kelly ArmstrongNo Humans Involved
By Kelley Armstrong; Read by Laural Merlington
10 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – Approx. 12 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: May 2007
ISBN: 1400104416 (CDs), 1400154413 (MP3-CD)
Jaime knows a thing or two about showbiz, as a woman whose special talent is raising the dead, her threshold for weirdness is pretty high: she’s used to not only seeing dead people but hearing them speak to her in very emphatic terms. But for the first time in her life—as invisible hands brush her skin, unintelligible fragments of words are whispered into her ears, and beings move just at the corner of her eye—she knows what humans mean when they talk about being haunted.

The Caves Of Steel by Isaac AsimovThe Caves of Steel
By Isaac Asimov; Read by William Dufris
6 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – 7 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: May 2007
ISBN:1400104211 (CDs), 1400154219 (MP3-CD)
A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. Isaac Asimov’s Robot novels chronicle the unlikely partnership between a New York City detective and a humanoid robot who must learn to work together. Like most people left behind on an over-populated Earth, New York City police detective Elijah Baley had little love for either the arrogant Spacers or their robotic companions. But when a prominent Spacer is murdered under mysterious circumstances, Baley is ordered to the Outer Worlds to help track down the killer. The relationship between Baley and his Spacer superiors, who mistrusted all Earthmen, was strained from the start. Then he learned that they had assigned him a partner: R. Daneel Olivaw. Worst of all was that the “R” stood for robot—and his positronic partner was made in the image and likeness of the murder victim!

Simon & Schuster Audio even has a new title!

City Of Bones by Cassandra ClareCity Of Bones
By Cassandra Clare; Read by Ari Graynor
12 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: March 2007
ISBN: 0743566572
When 15-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder — much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It’s hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing — not even a smear of blood — to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?

And of course, nobody is publishing more Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror audio than the wonderous Blackstone audio…

Science Fiction AudiobookWhere’s My Jetpack?
By Daniel H. Wilson; Read by Stefan Rudnicki
3 Cassettes, 1 MP3-CD or 4 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: April 2007
ISBN: 9780786148707 (Cassettes), 9780786171606(MP3-CD), 9780786160822 (CDs)
It’s the twenty-first century and let’s be honest—things are a little disappointing. Despite every World’s Fair prediction and the advertisements in comic books, we are not living the future we were promised. By now, life was supposed to be a fully automated, atomic-powered, germ-free Utopia, a place where a grown man could wear a velvet spandex unitard and not be laughed at. Where are the ray guns, the flying cars, and the hoverboards that we expected? What happened to our moon colonies and servant robots?

Science Fiction Audiobook - Variable Star by Robert A Heinlein and Spider RobinsonVariable Star
By Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson; Read by Spider Robinson
8 Cassettes, 1-MP3-CD or 10 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: May 2007
ISBN: 9780786149384(Cassettes), 9780786170159 (MP3-CD), 9780786158843 (Cds)
At his death in 1988, Robert A. Heinlein left a legacy of novels and short stories that almost single-handedly defined modern science fiction. But one of Heinlein’s masterpieces was never finished. In 1955, he began work on Variable Star, a powerful and passionate tale of two young lovers driven apart by pride, power, and the vastness of interstellar time and space. Then he set it aside to focus on other novellas. The detailed outline and notes he created for this project lay forgotten for decades, only to be rediscovered almost a half century later. Now the Heinlein estate has authorized award-winning author Spider Robinson to expand that outline into a full-length novel. The result is vintage Heinlein, faithful in style and spirit to the Grand Master’s original vision.

Komarr by Lois McMaster BujoldKomarr
By Lois McMaster Bujold; Read by Grover Gardner
8 Cassettes, 1 MP3-CD or 9 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: May 2007
ISBN: 9781433202575 (Cassettes), 9781433202599 (MP3-CD), (CDs)
Komarr could be a garden with a thousand more years’ work, or an uninhabitable wasteland if the terraforming fails. Now, the solar mirror vital to the terraforming of the conquered planet has been shattered by a ship hurtling off course. The Emperor of Barrayar sends his newest imperial auditor, Lord Miles Vorkosigan, to find out why.

The L.A. Times Fesitval Of Books

SFFaudio Online Audio

L.A. Times Festival Of BooksThe L.A. Times Festival Of Books had a panel that SF author Cory Doctorow got permission to post as an MP3. It’s called “Science Fiction: The Road From Here to There.” The panel featured John Scalzi, Cory Doctorow and Kage Baker and Harry Turtledove. Snag the entire |MP3|. If this panel piques your interest browse through the previous Festival Of Books catalogues. I’ve selected a number of SF & Fantasy related recordings and detailed them below. Item numbers are in either square brackets “[]” to indicate cassette only options, numbers with round brackets “()” indicate a CD edition.

2006 PDF Catalogue:
(1064) Young Adult Fantasy Writing
(2092) Fantasy & Time Travel

2005 PDF Catalogue:
(1061) Science Fiction – Worlds Of The Future

2004 PDF Catalogue:
(1136) William Gibson (A Barnes & Noble Stage Presentation)
(2033) William Gibson & Bruce Wagner
(2074) Clive Barker & Brien Lopez
[2111] Fables & Fantasies
(2132) Dean Koontz (A Barnes & Noble Stage Presentation)
(2133) Neal Stephenson (A Barnes & Noble Stage Presentation)

2002 Catlaogue:
[1112] Utopias, Hysterics and the Great Con
[2021] Science Fiction Writing

2001 Catalogue:

[1121] The Face of the Frantastic: Fantasy Writing

2000 Catalogue:
[1061] Terry Brooks
[1082] Michael Crichton
[2082] Ray Bradbury
[1013] Clive Barker
[2063] Harlan Ellison
[2064] Ursula Le Guin
[2082] Ray Bradbury

posted by Jesse Willis

New Arrivals – Laurell K. Hamilton and William Nicholson

Science Fiction Audiobook Recent Arrivals

Fantasy Horror Audiobook - The Harlequin by Laurell K HamiltonThe Harlequin
By Laurell K. Hamilton; Read by Cynthia Holloway
14 CDs; Approx. 16 hrs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN-13: 9781596000469

From the back cover:
Malcolm, head of the vampire Church of Eternal Life, is no particular friend to Anita Blake. So when he shows up in her office, to ask for her help against creatures so feared that no vampire will willingly speak their name, Anita is surprised. But she believes him. Malcolm may not be a Master of the City, but he’s an old and powerful vampire, a leader of men, and he does not easily ask for help – especially from Anita and Jean-Claude, whose power Malcolm considers corrupt. That was the first warning of The Harlequin.

The second warning is presented like a gift, left where she’d be sure to find it, with “Anita” printed on the box. Inside, carefully wrapped in folds of pristine tissue paper, is a white mask, utterly plain. The fact that it’s white, Jean-Claude tells her, is the good news. White means they are only being watched.

The flow of power that connects Anita Blake with Jean-Claude, vampire Master of the City, and with Richard, Ulfric of the werewolves, has been growing and changing, increasing exponentially. Their power seems to have attracted attention, and it’s a kind of attention no one would desire. Jean-Claude and Richard need to be strong allies now. Nathaniel and Micah need to give all their love and aid. And Anita will need to call on Edward, whose utterly human ruthlessness in her defense makes him the right man for the job.

Anita Blake has the authority to pass judgment on vampires. The Harlequin have the authority to pass judgment on her. It is forbidden to speak of The Harlequin unless you’ve been contacted.

And to be contacted by The Harlequin is to be under sentence of death.

Fantasy Horror Audiobook - Jango by William NicholsonJango; Book Two of the Noble Warriors
By William Nicholson; Read by Michael Page
8 CDs; Approx. 10 hrs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN-13: 9781423318446

From the back cover:
In joining the warrior society of the Nomana, Seeker, Morning Star, and the Wildman have achieved everything they thought they desired. Yet, as hidden doubts develop, the three friends find themselves pulled in separate directions.

Seeker has gained more power in their training than he or anyone ever imagined, and with this, a new responsibility that isolates him from the others.

Morning Star is consumed with unexpected feelings of love for a friend and begins to lose faith in her abilities.

The Wildman’s hunger for power puts him at odds with the teachings of the Nomana, and he struggles to understand his purpose.

But the three heroes’ fates again intertwine when an evil plan is set in motion that would destroy everything they have ever known, and this enemy is one that the Nomana may not be able to stand up to alone.

A story of friendship and love, strength and courage, faith and redemption, Jango is a mesmerizing sequel to the acclaimed Seeker.

Review of Rocket Ship Galileo by Robert A. Heinlein

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

Science Fiction Audiobook - Rocket Ship Galileo by Robert A. HeinleinRocket Ship Galileo
By Robert A. Heinlein; Read by Spider Robinson
5 CDs, 4 Cassettes or 1 MP3-CD – 5.5 hrs [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9780786162765 (CDs), 9780786147892 (cassettes), 9780786172092(MP3-CD)
Themes: / Science Fiction / Young Adult / Space Travel / Rocket Science / Espionage / Moon /

Ross Jenkins, Art Mueller, and Morrie Abrams are not your average high school students. While other kids are cruising around in their cars playing ball, this trio, known as the Galileo Club, is experimenting with rocket fuels and preparing for their future education at technical colleges.

Robert Heinlein created something new when he started writing his “juvenile” SF novels. He wasn’t the first person to write what publishers would categorize as Young Adult SF but he was the first respected SF author to do so. Not only did it not harm his reputation, it actually enhanced it. Some of these, like Citizen of the Galaxy, The Star Beast, and The Rolling Stones still stand as some of his best books and are considered classics.

His first juvenile, from 1947, was Rocketship Galileo. It’s a tale of three young fellows that have their own amateur rocketry club. When one of their rocket experiments go awry with an explosion, they find that one of the boys’ uncles was injured on the grounds. The injured man is Doctor Donald Morris Cargraves. He’s a scientist with his own background in atomic propulsion. With true do-it-yourself ethos, Cargraves recruits the boys to build their own rocket to the moon. There are incidents of sabotage, which creates the mystery of who is responsible for the sabotage.

Eventually the boys with Cargraves in tow head to the moon. On occasion the story seems to stop for a science lesson. Once they reach the moon, they learn they are not alone. I’ll leave the nature of the co-habitants to the listener. I will say the answer that lies behind the sabotage attempts are less than satisfactory. What seems dated and implausible today was likely just as implausible in 1947 when the book was written. Although this novel is not the best of Heinlein’s juveniles, it is still an enjoyable ride with an optimistic future for mankind.

The book is narrated by SF author Spider Robinson. Spider is a gifted narrator with a flair for voice characterizations. His natural narrator’s voice seems a bit nasally at times, but he still conveys ease, and his pacing is unhurried.

This is not the first paring of Robert Heinlein with Spider Robinson. Spider recently coauthored a book with Mr. Heinlein called Variable Star. Using notes and an unfinished outline, Spider Robinson was chosen by Heinlein’s estate to complete it. The story is said to be reminiscent of one of the master’s juvenile novels circa 1955. The good news doesn’t end there. Robinson was tapped by Blackstone Audio to narrate the audiobook for Variable Star, which has just been released.