Jesse Willis – Page 193

New Releases: Blake’s 7, Sum, Greater Good

New Releases

The back-story of an artificial intelligence begins…

Blake’s 7: The Early Years: Zen: Escape Velocity (Volume 2.1)
By James Swallow; Directed by Andrew Mark Sewell; Performed by a full cast
1 CD – Approx. 1 Hour [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: B7 Productions
Published: April 26, 2010
ISBN: 978190657709
Based on Terry Nation’s seminal 70s science fiction TV series, The Early Years is a prequel series of audio stories that explores the origins of key Blake’s 7 characters prior to them meeting rebel leader Roj Blake. This latest entry to the ever-expanding series takes a new twist, concentrating on a character that doesn’t breathe or have any parents, the synthetic intelligence known only as Zen. When Roj Blake first stepped on board the mysterious, derelict alien spaceship Liberator, his every movement was monitored by the ship’s controlling intelligence, Zen Luckily, Blake and his rebel crew managed to gain the ‘confidence’ of this creation from an alien world and so he was able to use the Liberator in their quest for justice against the Federation. But the origins of Zen have remained a mystery, until now. What terrible catastrophe left the Liberator drifting and shattered? What drove the ship’s intelligence to murder its original crew? What dark secrets lie at the heart of this alien machine? And are Blake and his crew really safe on board the Liberator? Featuring Zoë Tapper, Jason Merrells, Tracy-Ann Oberman and Alistair Lock as Zen.

An audiobook by a neuroscientist…

Sum: Forty Tales From The Afterlives
By David Eagleman; Read by Gillian Anderson, Emily Blunt, Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker, Noel Fielding and Stephen Fry
Audible Download or CDs – Approx. 2 Hours 42 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Canongate Books / Brilliance Audio
Published: March 31, 2010 / June 2010
In this astounding book, David Eagleman entertains 40 fictional possibilities of life beyond death. With wit and humanity he asks the key questions about existence, hope, technology and love. These stories are full of big ideas and bold imagination.This audiobook assembles a stellar cast of readers who bring the scenarios of SUM brilliantly alive: Gillian Anderson, Emily Blunt, Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker, Jack Davenport, Lisa Dwan, David Eagleman, Noel Fielding, Kerry Fox, Stephen Fry, Clarke Peters, Lemn Sissay and Harriet Walter.

After spotting a glowing review, I had to add this to the list…

Greater Good
By Nathan P. Butler; Read by Nathan P. Butler
34 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Podiobooks.com
Published: November 2009
In the world of tomorrow, the American Regime dominates our hemisphere, ruled by a new nobility: telepaths. While this powerful new minority rules over the normal human majority, society enjoys stability and security. However, with this new world comes new prejudices and oppression. Now, a powerful telepathic killer from the future has come to our present to eliminate this new world – a serial killer today, a genocide for tomorrow. It is up to a law enforcement officer from the future and an unwitting FBI agent to stop him before he can act in the name of the… Greater Good.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Little Atoms podcast interviews David Eagleman

SFFaudio Online Audio

Little Atoms is a podcast radio show from Resonance FM. It’s a “live discussion show, produced and presented by Neil Denny and Padraig Reidy. Little Atoms is a show about ideas. Each show features a guest from the worlds of science, journalism, politics, academia, human rights or the arts in conversation.” one of their older podcasts features an interview with author David Eagleman and a reading of one of the stories in his book. Here’s the description:

“David Eagleman [talks] about time perception, synesthesia and many possible afterlives. The interview includes David reading one of the short stories from his new book [Sum: Forty Tales From The Afterlives].”

Have a listen |MP3|!

[Thanks Luke!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Readalong: a reminder

SFFaudio News

SFFaudio Meta As I mentioned last Thursday an upcoming SFFaudio podcast, scheduled for an April 26 release, will be on the topic of Robert Sheckley’s novel The Status Civilization.

If you’re like me, you like doing the homework you’ve assigned yourself, so you’re probably furiously riffling through the pages of any and all SF reference books that you can get your grubby mitts on.

Here’s a relevant passage from one of my reference books, a sketched briefing on the planet Omega, and the city of Tetrahyde. These are the setting of The Status Civilization:

OMEGA – An EARTH -clone prison planet patrolled by guardships armed with, beam-weapons, which were programmed to annihilate anything rising above an altitude of five hundred feet. Its only city was Tetrahyde, located on a narrow peninsula whose landward side was bounded by a high stone wall.

Tetrahyde’s largest building was the Arena, site of the annual gladiatorial games. The Mutant Quarter – which was nasty and dangerous even by Omegan standards – was virtually a city within the city.

Prisoners deported to Omega were stripped of their specific memories but left with the knowledge that they had somehow proved themselves incapable of following the rules of civilized society. In consequence, they established a society of their own whose customs and mores were formed in frank opposition to those whose violation had resulted in their condemnation.

This rigidly stratified society relegated new arrivals to the bottom rank, below established Residents, who were themselves inferior to Free Citizens and Privileged Classes. Order was strictly and sternly maintained by armed Free Citizens known as Quaestors but rapid social advancement was available to those who demonstrated their prowess as killers.

Omega’s established religion was Satanism and its legal establishment was the Kangaroo Court, which administered Trials by Ordeal as well as handing down arbitrary judgments. Pleasure-seekers, ever-careful to avoid prosecution for non-addiction to drugs patronised the Dream Shop, the Euphoriatorium and the vacation resort at the Lake of Clouds, whose Satyr’s Grotto hosted an orgy every Saturday night. Average life-expectancy in Tetrahyde was about three years- a figure whose low value was maintained by such institutions as Hunt Day as well as the Lottery and the Games- but remained in spite of all its best efforts merely a distorted mirror image of the society that had spawned it.

(The Status Civilization, Robert Sheckley. 1960; Omega was also one of the alternative names of COLMAR; other locations harboring calculatedly oppositional cultures include TRANAI, Satirev (see VERITAS) and WALPURGIS III.)

-From The Dictionary Of Science Fiction Places by Brian Stableford (page 222)

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley

SFFaudio Online Audio

If you follow SFFaudio at all closely you’ll know we’re going to be recording a podcast talking about Robert Sheckley’s The Status Civilization. And while we’re all making plans to read a book and record a podcast about it Gregg Margarite, one of LibriVox’s finest narrators, has actually recorded the book and made it available as a podcast! Now if you’re a fan of Gregg Margarite’s narration (and the audiobooks he records) you’ll probably appreciate what he has to say about his recording. Namely, he’d prefer you listen to the commercial release or, at the very least, consider purchasing another audiobook from the same company. Sez Gregg:

“My version of The Status Civilization is now available at LibriVox.org.

I do not wish it to compete with the commercial version, which I believe to be superior to my proletarian alternative. I am a fan of both Mark Douglas Nelson [the commercial release’s narrator] and Wonder Audio, and I want to see both prosper. So if you are going to listen to my version I request you to pledge the purchase of another title from Wonder. We need the professionals…”

The Status Civilization
By Robert Sheckley; Read by Gregg Margarite
6 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 4 Hours 55 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 2010
Will Barrent awakes without memories just before being deposited on Omega, a planet for criminals where the average life expectancy is 3 years. He’s listed as a murderer and released into the illicit society as a “peon” the lowest class imaginable. A mysterious girl gives him a weapon that starts him on his path to status, a path that requires constant brutality. But it must be borne if our hero is to discover the reason for his imprisonment; A reason that pits him against himself, and involves the sardonically similar but devoutly different creeds of Omega and Earth. – The Status Civilization was first published as “Omega!” in the August and September 1960 issues of Amazing Science Fiction Stories Magazine.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/4220

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks also to Betty M. and Annise]

Posted by Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Readalong: The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley

SFFaudio News

The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley

SFFaudio Meta We’ve got a plans!

Specifically, we’re doing a readalong. That is, we get a few podcasters and bloggers together reading the same book (or listening to the same audiobook) and then talk about it on the SFFaudio Podcast.

Our first official readalong will be:

The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley (read the |WIKIPEDIA| entry)

First published as Omega! in the August and September 1960 issues (a two-part serial) of Amazing Science Fiction Stories, The Status Civilization has been reprinted more than a dozen times.

If you’d like to have read the novel by the time of the podcast’s release, on April 26, you can either find a paper edition, get the ebook from |PROJECT GUTENBERG| and/or get the unabridged audiobook from Audible.com or iTunes:

The Status Civilization
By Robert Sheckley; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
5.5 hrs. – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes
Will Barrent has no memory of the murder for which he was convicted. He will now have to live his life sentence on the prison planet Omega. The few that survive there do it by committing crimes. And the more adept the planet inmates are at higher crime, the more they climb their bizarre anti-social ladder. They all must live in a society where drug addiction is mandatory, as is the worship of the Dark One. Barrent’s goal is to find why he was sent to this mad world and to clear his name and return to Earth. But first he must survive – for a life sentence on Omega is usually a short sentence indeed.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Random House Audio: 5 FREE Audiobooks

SFFaudio Online Audio

Random House Audio is offering five FREE audiobooks to promote their “Carshare Program.” One of the titles, Percy Jackson and The Sword Of Hades had been FREEly released previously, the rest should all be newly FREE. Start your HuffDuffing!

“Mercy Watson To The Rescue” from The Mercy Watson Collection Volume I
By Kate DiCamillo; Read by Ron McLarty
1 |MP3| – Approx. 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Listening Library
Published: 2006
To Mr. & Mrs. Watson, Mercy is not just a pig–she’s a porcine wonder. And to the portly and good-natured Mercy, the Watson’s are an excellent source of buttered toast, no to mention that buttery-toast feeling she gets when she snuggles in to bed with them. This is not, however so good for the Watsons’ bed. BOOM! CRACK! Welcome to the wry and endearing world of Mercy Watson.

The Geometry Of Sisters
By Luanne Rice; Read by Bernadette Dunne and Jaclyn Gaines
1 |MP3| – Approx. 10 Hours 48 Minutes
Publisher: Books On Tape
Published: 2009
Set amid the opulent mansions on the Rhode Island coast, Newport Academy is a private high school like no other. In the wake of the unthinkable loss of her husband and eldest daughter, Maggie Shaw has come to the school to teach English–and to start a new life with the remnants of her shattered family, her two teenage children. But ghosts from her past await Maggie in Newport, especially the unresolved equations of her breach with her sister years ago. Once again, Luanne Rice exhibits her singular insight into the bonds among friends, lovers and families for which she is so acclaimed

“Percy Jackson And The Sword Of Hades” from The Demigod Files
By Rick Riordan; Read by Jesse Bernstein
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour 17 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: 2009
Persephone calls Percy, Thalia and Nico, all the children of the Big Three, into the Underworld to retrieve Hades’s new sword from a demigod spy who stole it. The problem is that Hades’ keys, which let anyone out or into the Underworld, are in it. Persephone gives them a flower to track the half-blood. When all of the petals fall off, the sword thief has made it out of the Underworld. Percy, Nico and Thalia must retrieve the sword before time runs out. They catch the thief, Ethan Nakamura, but all the petals fall off because Ethan has raised the Titan Iapetus. Percy flings Iapetus into the river Lethe, a river that makes one forget their identity, during a fight. Although Percy also falls in, he stays dry because of his powers, being the son of Poseidon. Percy tells Iapetus that he is Bob and Iapetus believes him and is now harmless. When they return to Hades and Persephone with the sword, Hades is very unhappy about the sword and leaves in anger, threatening Persephone never to disobey him again. They later find out that Persephone requested the sword against Hades’s orders. Rick Riordan wrote this story for World Book Day 2009 it is set between the events of The Battle Of The Labyrinth and The Last Olympian (books 4 and 5 of the Percy Jackson series).

“Including One Called Hell” from Fraud
By David Rakoff; Read by David Rakoff
1 |MP3| – Approx. 35 Minutes [UNABRIDGED SELECTION]
Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio
Published: 2001
Wherever he is, David Rakoff is a fish out of water. Whether impersonating Sigmund Freud in a department store window during the holidays, climbing an icy mountain in cheap loafers, playing an evil modeling agent on a daytime soap opera, or learning primitive survival skills in the wilds of New Jersey, Rakoff doesn’t belong. Nor does he try to. Still, he continually finds himself off in the far-flung hinterlands of our culture, notebook or microphone in hand, hoping to conjure that dyed-in-the-wool New York condescension. And Rakoff tries to be nasty; heaven knows nothing succeeds like the cheap sneer, but he can’t quite help noticing that these are actual human beings he’s writing about. In his attempts not to pull any punches, the most damaging blows, more often than not, land squarely on his own jaw – hilariously satirizing the writer, not the subject. And therein lies David Rakoff’s genius and his burgeoning appeal. The wry and the heartfelt join in his prose to resurrect that most neglected of literary virtues: wit.

The Alibi Man
By Tami Hoag; Read by Beth McDonald
1 |MP3| – Approx. 6 Hours 2 Minutes [ABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: 2007
The Palm Beach elite go to great lengths to protect their own – and their own no longer includes Elena Estes. Once upon a time a child of wealth and privilege, Elena turned her back on that life and chose the life of an undercover cop, with the hunt for justice her personal passion. Then a tragic, haunting mistake ended her career. Now Elena exists on the fringes of her old life. But a shocking event is about to draw her back into the painful vortex she’s fought so hard to leave behind. First she finds a body – not just a victim, but a friend. As Elena delves into her dead friend’s secret life, she discovers ties to a group of powerful and wealthy Palm Beach bad boys…a group that includes Elena’s former fiancé. Finding her friend’s killer will put Elena at odds with her old life, with her new lover, and with herself. But she is determined to reveal the truth – a truth that will shock Palm Beach society to its core, and could very well get her killed.

[via Audiobook DJ]

Posted by Jesse Willis