Scott D. – Page 24

Review of Ur by Stephen King

SFFaudio Review

Here’s the latest in our 7th Anniversary Festival of Short Stories!

UR
By Stephen King; Read by Holter Graham
2 Hours, 20 Minutes – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Audio
Published: 2010
Themes: / Science Fiction / Time Travel / Multiple Universes / Books / Kindle /

When this story first came out, it was available exclusively for the Kindle, and King made the Kindle itself one of the main characters. A special, one-of-a-kind Kindle, of course, that lets the user flip through universes picking books that brilliant writers wrote in parts of their lives that didn’t exist in this universe. Ernest Hemingway, for example, lived a few years longer in one universe (in one UR, as they are called in the story), and wrote a novel or two more. This description feels a bit like Joe Haldeman’s “The Hemingway Hoax”, and the main character is tempted to take the story in that very direction, but doesn’t. Instead, he reads and reads for his own pleasure. Things don’t get really complicated until he uses his Kindle to take a look at our UR.

I love me some Stephen King, and this is a pretty good science fiction story. It doesn’t offer anything new to the pervasive (and tiresome) “multiple universe” sub-genre, except this is Stephen King writing it, and I like the people he writes about. It’s extremely well-narrated, too, by Holter Graham.

|HERE| is a very cool promo page from Simon and Schuster that contains an excerpt of the audiobook and an interview with Holter Graham.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Pulp Cover by Gene Wolfe

SFFaudio Review

7th Anniversary Storypalooza continues!

Pulp Cover
By Gene Wolfe; Read by Mike Boris
24 Min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: StarShipSofa (Aural Delights No 120)
Published: 2010
Themes: / Science Fiction /

This brilliantly narrated (by Mike Boris) story was part of the Aural Delights no 120 – Gene Wolfe podcast from StarShipSofa. Thanks Tony and crew for all the great stories and commentary week after week!

“Pulp Cover” is the story of a man who wants to marry his boss’s daughter, but loses out to a perfect man from Yale. At least, that’s what the story is about on the surface, but Gene Wolfe’s stories are much more than the top layer. Subtle and satisfying.

Listening to Gene Wolfe is something I haven’t been able to do often, but his stories are finally starting to show up on audio. Audible Frontiers recently published The Book of the New Sun. “Hunter Lake” appeared in The Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine in 2003, and before that, the only audiobook I know of was a cassette from Audio Prose Library with “The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories” and “The Solar Labyrinth” on it, read by Wolfe himself. “The Tree is My Hat” was made into an audio drama at the World Horror Convention in 2002, and was included in StarShipSofa’s Aural Delights No 49. That’s all the Gene Wolfe audio I know of – any more out there?

Looks like an author page, Jesse!

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Week 1: Think Like a Dinosaur by James Patrick Kelly

SFFaudio Review

SFFaudio celebrates its 7th anniversary this month! What better way to celebrate than with more posts? I’m going to listen to one short story every weekday through the month of March, and tell you all about it here. Here’s the first!

Think Like a Dinosaur
By James Patrick Kelly; Read by James Patrick Kelly
1 Hr – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: James Patrick Kelly
Published: 2007
Themes: / Science Fiction / Aliens / Physical Laws / Morality / Teleportation /

Before the rest of us knew what this podcasting stuff was all about, James Patrick Kelly was busy reading his stories into a microphone and publishing them over in the “Free Reads” section of jimkelly.net. Many stories have reached his Free Reads listeners, including his Hugo-winning novella Burn. And he’s still at it; his current Nebula nominee, “Going Deep” can be found over there too, free for the downloading.

“Think Like a Dinosaur” was part of another fine audio delivery innovation. In partnership with Audible.com, Jim published 4 sets of stories, called StoryPods, as podcasts-for-purchase delivered through Audible. You can still buy the StoryPods or the individual stories at Audible.

But the story – this is one of those stories that keeps you thinking long afterwards. Like Tom Godwin’s “The Cold Equations” (JPK explains in the afterword exactly how that story influenced this one), the main character is presented with a moral dilemma of the highest order. Things are not exactly the same as in “The Cold Equations”, though, because it’s not clear if the concept of “harmony” is something invented by the aliens in the story, or is an actual, unbreakable physical law.

On thing is for certain, though. “Think Like a Dinosaur” has become as much a part of science fiction’s Great Conversation as Godwin’s story. Required reading!

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

SFFaudio Review

The Gathering Storm – Book Twelve of The Wheel of Time
By Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Read by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer
26 CDs – 34.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781593977672
Themes: / Fantasy / Epic fantasy / Good and Evil / Power / Politics / Religion / Magic /

The Gathering Storm is the first of the final trilogy of The Wheel of Time series. It was a long time coming, and I am pleased to report that Brandon Sanderson did an outstanding job. I actually spent part of my listening time looking for stylistic differences from the other books, but hats off to Sanderson for pulling this off. He nailed the tone of the other books, and tells a good story.

There are so many characters in these books, with different styles of speaking, that Michael Kramer and Kate Reading would be forgiven for inconsistencies in their narration, as they’ve done all 11 volumes that come before this one. That’s over 230 hours of audio! But they were right on, too. Their professional, enjoyable narration gave the book an additional source of continuity. These two are the voices of the Wheel of Time series.

So much has happened in this series that to say much about the plot here will spoil previous volumes. It should suffice for me to say that I enjoyed this book enough that I’ve started the series over from the beginning, in anticipation of the upcoming pair of concluding novels.

Posted by Tricia

Infinivox TOC for The Year’s Top Ten Tales of SF 2

SFFaudio News

Infinivox has announced the Table of Contents for The Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction #2. Can’t wait!

“Erosion” by Ian Creasey

“As Women Fight” by Sara Genge

“A Story, with Beans” by Steven Gould

“Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance” by John Kessel

“On the Human Plan” by Jay Lake

“Crimes and Glory” by Paul McAuley

“Mongoose” by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear

“Before My Last Breath” by Robert Reed

“The Island” by Peter Watts

“This Peaceable Land; or, The Unbearable Vision of Harriet Beecher Stowe” by Robert Charles Wilson

We spent an hour talking to Allan Kaster about the first Top Ten Tales in SFFaudio Podcast #36. Great stuff!

Via [SF Signal]

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Reading at the Speed of Sound at Tor.com

SFFaudio Online Audio

Over at Tor.com, a new podcast called Reading at the Speed of Sound, with Susan Dunman at the helm. In the first episode, Susan reviews The Sword-Edged Blonde by Alex Bledsoe, read by Stefan Rudnicki. |MP3|

Here’s the podcast feed:

http://www.tor.com/rss/category/SpeedOfSound

Posted by Scott D. Danielson