Scott D. – Page 20

New Podcast: The Functional Nerds

SFFaudio Online Audio

Patrick Hester and John Anealio have a new podcast they call The Functional Nerds. In Episode 001, they talk about:

In the very first episode of The Functional Nerds, Patrick Hester and John Anealio chat about the new iPad from Apple, what it means to be a ‘functional nerd’, about: science fiction media, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson, Felicia Day and The Guild, SciFi site SFSignal.com, the Atari 2600, old iPods and CD’s, the Whuffie factor from of Cory Doctorow’s science fiction novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Elantris, Steam for the Mac, console gaming, Blizzard, World of Warcraft (for the Horde!), Blizzcon, PhilCon, Gregory Frost, Haze by L.E. Modesitt Jr., J.V. Jones, Dennis L. McKiernan, Dragondoom, TOR books, SciFi Songs, The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon, Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds, Iron Sky by Charles Strauss, Spellwright by Blake Charlton, Hidden Empire by Kevin J. Anderson and NaNoWriMo.

I enjoyed myself! Thanks, guys! Looking forward to future episodes…

Find Episode 001 here: |MP3|

And here’s the podcast feed:
http://functionalnerds.com/feed/

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Recent Arrival: Dimiter by William Peter Blatty

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Dimiter
By William Peter Blatty; Read by William Peter Blatty
8 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Published: 2010

William Peter Blatty has thrilled generations of readers with his iconic mega-bestseller The Exorcist. Now Blatty gives us Dimiter, a riveting story of murder, revenge, and suspense. Laced with themes of faith and love, sin and forgiveness, vengeance and compassion, it is a novel in the grand tradition of Morris West’s The Devil’s Advocate and the Catholic novels of Graham Greene.

Dimiter opens in the world’s most oppressive and isolated totalitarian state: Albania in the 1970s. A prisoner suspected of being an enemy agent is held by state security. An unsettling presence, though subjected to unimaginable torture he maintains an eerie silence. He escapes—and on the way to freedom, completes a mysterious mission. The prisoner is Dimiter, the American “agent from Hell.”

The scene shifts to Jerusalem, focusing on Hadassah Hospital and a cast of engaging, colorful characters: the brooding Christian Arab police detective, Peter Meral; Dr. Moses Mayo, a troubled but humorous neurologist; Samia, an attractive, sharp-tongued nurse; and assorted American and Israeli functionaries and hospital staff. All become enmeshed in a series of baffling, inexplicable deaths, until events explode in a surprising climax.

Told with unrelenting pace, Dimiter’s compelling, page-turning narrative is haunted by the search for faith and the truths of the human condition. Dimiter is William Peter Blatty’s first full novel since the 1983 publication of Legion.

And here’s an excerpt!:

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes by Harlan Ellison

SFFaudio Review

We’re in the home stretch now… Pick up the ball, and throw it to Who.

Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes
Contained in The Voice from the Edge, Volume 3: Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes
By Harlan Ellison; Read by Harlan Ellison
1 Hour – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2010
Themes: / Fantasy / Ghosts / Gambling / Slot Machines /

Why don’t more narrators read stories like Harlan Ellison reads stories? I would say that the insistence with which he reads has to do with the fact that he’s delivering his own material, but he won an Audie Award for his narration of a Ben Bova story a while back. So he pours the same personality – and that’s what the quality really is; a personal one, like he’s right there with you – he pours the same personality into stories other than his own. I would therefore love to hear him read an anthology of his favorite stories from other writers.

But the story at hand is “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes”, a sharp tale about a guy near the end of his luck who pulls the handle on a dollar slot machine and wins the jackpot. Then pulls the handle and wins again. Impossible, you say? Maybe. Maybe not.

I love the fact that after the story Ellison talks about writing it. And that’s an interesting story, too.

Visit the Blackstone Audio website for an audio sample from another of the stories in the Voice from the Edge, Vol. 3 collection.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Recent Arrivals: David Wellington

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

13 Bullets: A Vampire Tale
By David Wellington; Read by Bernadette Dunne
10.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2010

Arkeley nailed the last vampire, in a fight that nearly killed him. But the evidence proves otherwise.

When a state trooper named Laura Caxton calls the FBI looking for help in the middle of the night, it is Arkeley who gets the assignment. Who else? He’s been expecting such a call to come eventually. Sure, it has been years since any signs of an attack, but Arkeley knows what most people don’t: that there is one left. In an abandoned asylum, she is rotting, plotting, and biding her time in a way that only the undead can.

Caxton is out of her league on this case and more than a little afraid, but the Fed has made it plain that there is only one way out. The worst thing, though, is the feeling that the vampires want more than just her blood. They want her for a reason, one she can’t guess…a reason her sphinxlike partner knows but won’t say…a reason she has to find out—or die trying.

Now there are only thirteen bullets between Caxton and Arkeley and the vampires. There are only thirteen bullets between us, the living, and them, the damned.

Frostbite: A Werewolf Tale
By David Wellington; Read by Tai Simmons
8 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2010

There’s one sound a woman doesn’t want to hear when she’s lost and alone in the Arctic wilderness: a howl. When a strange wolf’s teeth slash Cheyenne’s ankle to the bone, her old life ends, and she becomes the very monster that has haunted her nightmares for years. Worse, the only one who can understand what Chey has become is the man—or wolf—who’s doomed her to this fate. He also wants to chop her head off with an axe. Yet as the line between human and beast blurs, so too does the distinction between hunter and hunted, for Chey is more than just the victim she appears to be. But once she’s within killing range, she may find that—even for a werewolf—it’s not always easy to go for the jugular.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Identity Theft by Robert J. Sawyer

SFFaudio Review

Beginning the fourth week of this SFFaudio 7th Anniversary Story-a-Day Celebration! Be careful out there…

Identity Theft
By Robert J. Sawyer; Read by Anthony Heald
2 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2010
ISBN: 9781441716729
Themes: / Science Fiction / Robots / Consciousness / Mystery / Detectives /

This is a great story. It originally appeared in Down These Dark Spaceways, and anthology edited by Mike Resnick and published by the Science Fiction Book Club. This version is read by Anthony Heald, a terrific narrator who was once the voice of choice for the Star Wars universe. He reads with energy and verve, great characterization and accents as needed.

Sawyer has said before that he feels that science fiction has more in common with the mystery genre than it does the fantasy genre, and this isn’t the first time he’s written an effective science fiction mystery. In the future Mars he presents, people can trade their bodies in for artificial ones, providing long life and more reliable body parts. The process requires making a copy of a person’s conscious mind, and imprinting that copy into the brain of the new body.

Like in many Sawyer stories, many of the implications of such a world are explored. What happens to the originals? What about unauthorized copies? In addition, there is a very interesting human settlement on Mars, and some fossil finding there. “Identity Theft” is a very entertaining novella, very well presented.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of A Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe

SFFaudio Review

Another short story! Will he ever stop?

The Cask of Amontillado
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by B.J. Harrison
17 Minutes – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: The Classic Tales Podcast
Published: 2008
Themes: / Horror / Murder / Revenge / Pride / Bricklaying /

It must be understood, that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.

From the two birds, one stone department, this classic story by Edgar Allan Poe. I wanted to read it again because it is the first story covered in a Teaching Company course I bought a while back called Masterpieces of Short Fiction, taught by Michael Kransky. I selected this particular audio version because I like the stories I’ve heard on B.J. Harrison’s The Classic Tales Podcast, and expected that he’d be particularly good with this one. I wasn’t disappointed! Very well done.

I’m enamored with this story, and not because I’d like to brick someone in myself. It’s a perfect little story, and horrifying. An inner portrait of a murderer, who calmly does his thing, and is disturbingly resolute. At one point, Fortunato refuses to speak to him. All he hears is the jingling of the bells on the victim’s cap in the dark. The story works so well.

The Teaching Company lecture was good. I looked at the Wikipedia entry for “Cask” and learned that Poe wrote this story as a response to a rival named Thomas Dunn English. The explanation is very clear, and things like the wild masonic gesture made by Fortunato make sense in that context. The lecture didn’t mention that, even though the origin of the story was discussed. Kransky said that it’s origin lay in an anecdotal story that Poe heard about someone who got buried alive, combined with class envy. Does the Wikipedia article overstate the case? Something to look into.

I’d love a course on the science fiction short story. I wonder which stories should be included in such a course? Click here to see which stories Michael Kransky included in Masterpieces of Short Fiction.

And be sure to check out B.J. Harrison’s The Classic Tales. I got this story from Audible.com, which is where The Classic Tales go after they are podcast. Here’s the podcast feed:

http://classictales.libsyn.com/rss

Posted by Scott D. Danielson