We’ve been adding to our AUTHOR PAGES of late. Just added, FREDERIK POHL – which lists everything audio, that we know about, that’s related to SFWA Grand Master Frederik Pohl. There’s an interview, a convention panel, a radio drama and of course audiobooks listed. Yum yum!
Posted by Jesse Willis
The Words At Large podcast has an interview with Michael Chabon that aired last year on CBC Radio One’s Writers & Company. The interviewer, Eleanor Wachtel, talks to Chabon about his latest novel The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. Here’s the description:
Part science fiction, part hardboiled whodunit, the novel takes place a world where Israel doesn’t exist. Instead, Europe’s Jewish refugees who fled the Holocaust ended up in the “temporary” safe haven of the Federal District of Sitka, in Alaska. Now, six decades later, the district is slated to return to Alaskan control, and the vibrant Yiddish community is threatened. But homicide detective Meyer Landsman’s most immediate concern is figuring out who murdered a former chess prodigy virtually right under his nose.
Chabon is the acclaimed author of seven novels, including The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which won the Pulitzer Prize, as well as two books of short fiction and a collection of essays. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union garnered a fistful of prizes, including the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award and the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. A film adaptation of the book, to be written and directed by the Oscar-winning Coen Brothers, is currently in pre-production and is scheduled for release in 2010.
Michael Chabon spoke to Eleanor Wachtel from a studio in Oakland, California. They discuss where his love of the fantastic comes from and why he takes such pleasure in mixing up literary genres.
Have a listen |MP3| direct, or subscribe to the Writers & Company podcast feed:
http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/includes/writersandco.xml
Posted by Jesse Willis
P.S. CBC Radio One still has Apocalypse Al under lock and key. For shame!
This video appeared in the Hachette Audio podcast feed. It’s a viral video trailer, of sorts, for an upcoming Brad Meltzer audiobook. It features Joss Whedon and Christopher Hitchens, among others – expounding upon or flatly denying the existence of an ancient conspiracy – likely found in the novel itself, The Book Of Lies, releases September 2nd 2008. Meltzer has a previous novel with a similar title, presumably this is the follow up. Check out the vid…
Here’s the podcast feed:
http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/features/rss/hbgusa_podcast.xml
Posted by Jesse Willis
Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Tom Weiner
7 CD – 8.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2008
ISBN: 9781433245503
Themes: / Science Fiction / Telepathy / Post Apocalypse / Nuclear War / Satellites / Psychokinesis / California /
Philip Dick’s post-nuclear-holocaust masterpiece presents a mesmerizing vision of a world transformed, where technology has reverted back to the nineteenth century, animals have developed speech and language, and humans must deal with both physical mutations and the psychological repercussions of the disaster they have caused. The book is filled with a host of Dick’s most memorable characters: Hoppy Harrington, a deformed mutant with telekinetic powers; Walt Dangerfield, a selfless disc jockey stranded in a satellite circling the globe; Dr. Bluthgeld, the megalomaniac physicist largely responsible for the decimated state of the world; and Stuart McConchie and Bonnie Keller, two unremarkable people bent the survival of goodness in a world devastated by evil. Epic and alluring, Dr. Bloodmoney brilliantly depicts Dick’s undying hope in humanity.
The subtitle, of Dr. Bloodmoney is or How We Got Along After the Bomb, the idea for it came from the original publisher (ACE Books) who wanted to capitalize on the subtitle of the movie Dr. Strangelove. I can almost see it too. For me, this wasn’t Philip K. dick’s best novel. But, if you liked his best novel, you’ll like this one. I did. The thing is, no matter which one of Dick’s novels is your favourite, Doctor Bloodmoney will remind you of it – if only for the author’s voice. Dick, more than with any other emotion, writes with sympathy. You feel for his characters, their petty goals, their yearnings, their little prejudices. The plot on this one is almost unimportant, it’s also hard to sum up in a sentence, but I’ll try: A radio repairman with no limbs (due to phocomelia) has superpowers, which he uses to predict/cause WWIII, then becomes ultra-powerful as a big fish in a small pond.
The rule about writing what you know is more difficult in Science Fiction. Nobody’s been to Mars yet. Nobody has met an alien. But you can clearly see what Dick knows showing up on the pages of his SF novels. When he wrote Dr. Bloodmoney he was really into Jungian and Freudian analysis, he was reading Of Human Bondage and was probably an avid mushroom picker. The plot doesn’t really matter as this is a situation with a set of Dickian characters. What stands out, what will remain in my memory are the scenes, characters interacting with each other and themselves. Thinking their thoughts, acting their acts. When we meet the title character, Bruno Bluthgeld, for the second time later in the book, (he’s not the star), he’s showing off his talking sheep dog to a little girl. She asks to hear the dog speak. It does, and the tears came to my eyes. When Stuart McConchie goes into San Fransisco he parks his horse only to come back and find it eaten by the city’s underclass. It really is all there: The salesmen, the repairmen, the cheating wives, the murderous children and the sympathetic animals. Everything we expect from a Dick tale.
Blackstone Audio narrator Tom Weiner is fast becoming a new favourite. His natural timbre is basso but he can do a lot with it. Performance is the key, everybody gets a voice of their own. In this novel that’s especially necessary as there are more than a dozen characters sharing the plot and dialogue. Blackstone has more Dick headed to audiobook too. The Man In The High Castle has already been released. Ubik is winging it’s way to us right now and Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, Valis, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch should be released over the next few months. We are living in very Dickian times my friends.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Gregg Taylor of Decoder Ring Theater has recorded the first three chapters of his first Red Panda novel Tales of The Red Panda: The Crime Cabal! This isn’t audio drama, this is AUDIOBOOK! The print release is already available for pre-order, but I’m going to be lobbying hard for a full unabridged release. If that whole acting gig on RP doesn’t work out Taylor can begin an audiobook narrating career based on this sample alone. Check out the three chapter sneak peak audio version |MP3|.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Released just yesterday, there’s a brand new audiobook in the ever expanding LibriVox catalogue that should draw many a happy ear. Edgar Rice Burrough’s The Land That Time Forgot follows in the long tradition of literature about myserious/lost/previously unknown areas of the Earth visited by regular folks who then write about it, put it in a bottle and then cast it into the sea. In reading The Land That Time Forgot you’ll feel its roots in Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, Poe’s The Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym and De Mille’s A Strange Manuscript Found In A Copper Cylinder.
The Land That Time Forgot
By Edgar Rice Burroughs; Read by Ralph Snelson
10 Zipped MP3s or Podcast -3 Hours 50 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 2008
The Land That Time Forgot is a science fiction novel, the first of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Caspak” trilogy. His working title for the story was “The Lost U-Boat.” Starting out as a harrowing wartime sea adventure, the story ultimately develops into that of a fantastical lost world.
Podcast feed:
http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/the-land-that-time-forgot-by-edgar-rice-burroughs.xml
And, be sure to check out ore new EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS author page, which details as many Edgar Rice Burroughs audiobooks, audio dramas and podcasts as we could find.
Posted by Jesse Willis