Scott D. – Page 28

Recent Arrivals – Brilliance Audio

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Fall With Honor (Volume 7 of The Vampire Earth)
By E.E. Knight; Read by Christian Rummel
10 CDs – 11 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781441808448

Freedom is on the march as the rebellion against the Kurian Occupation of Earth takes the offensive. David Valentine has recruited an ad hoc company of former Quisling soldiers to put them through a trial by fire with a successful raid against an enemy armory. Now they’re ready to join forces with a guerrilla army planning to establish a new freehold in the Appalachian Mountains.

Valentine knows that a permanent outpost near the East Coast would provide a strategic victory over the Kurians—and he believes that only his old friend and ally Ahn-Kha could possibly be leading the guerrillas on such a daring endeavor. But nothing could prepare Valentine’s fighters for what awaits them at the end of their journey.

Winter Duty (Volume 8 of The Vampire Earth)
By E.E. Knight; Read by Christian Rummel
10 CDs – 11 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781441808493

The cause of freedom in Kentucky balances on a knife-edge. Major David Valentine and his fugitive battalion are all that is left of an expeditionary force shattered in its long retreat from disaster in the Appalachians. Between a raging blizzard, the remnants of the brutal and fanatic Moondaggers—bands of headhunters kidnapping entire towns to sell to the Kurians—and the need to recover wounded soldiers lost during the retreat, Valentine is in for the toughest winter of his life.

And Valentine is losing allies fast. Some of the clans in the region have declared themselves in favor of the Kurians, throwing Kentucky into civil war. But the Kurian overlords have determined that the region isn’t worth the effort of another conquest. Their order: extermination. By whatever means necessary…

The Shadow of Saganami
By David Weber; Read by Jay Snyder
26 CDs – 31 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781423395386

The Star Kingdom of Manticore is once again at war with the Republic of Haven after a stunning sneak attack. The graduating class from Saganami Island, the Royal Manticoran Navy’s academy, are going straight from the classroom to the blazing reality of all-out war — except for the midshipmen assigned to the heavy cruiser HMS Hexapuma, that is.

They’re being assigned to the Talbott Cluster, a backwater far from the battle front. With a captain who may have seen too much of war and a station commander who isn’t precisely noted for his brilliant and insightful command style, it isn’t exactly what the students of Honor Harrington expected.

But things aren’t as simple — or tranquil — as they appear. Pirates, terrorists, genetic slavers, smuggled weapons, long-standing personal hatreds, and a vicious alliance of corporate greed, bureaucratic arrogance, and a corrupt local star nation with a powerful fleet, are all coming together, and only Hexapuma, her war-weary captain, and Honor Harrington’s students stand in the path.

They have only one thing to support and guide them: the tradition of Saganami. The tradition that sometimes a Queen’s officer’s duty is to face impossible odds . . . and die fighting.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Recent Arrivals – Arthur C. Clarke

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Childhood’s End
By Arthur C. Clarke; Read by Eric Michael Summerer
7 CDs – 8 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio / Audible Frontiers
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781423395034

The Overlords appeared suddenly over every city – intellectually, technologically, and militarily superior to humankind. Benevolent, they made few demands: unify earth, eliminate poverty, and end war. With little rebellion, humankind agreed, and a golden age began.

But at what cost? With the advent of peace, man ceases to strive for creative greatness, and a malaise settles over the human race. To those who resist, it becomes evident that the Overlords have an agenda of their own.

As civilization approaches the crossroads, will the Overlords spell the end for humankind…or the beginning?

Rendezvous with Rama
By Arthur C. Clarke; Read by Peter Ganim
8 CDs – 9 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio / Audible Frontiers
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781423394983

At first, only a few things are known about the celestial object that astronomers dub Rama. It is huge, weighing more than ten trillion tons. And it is hurtling through the solar system at inconceivable speed. Then a space probe confirms the unthinkable: Rama is no natural object. It is, incredibly, an interstellar spacecraft.

Space explorers and planet-bound scientists alike prepare for mankind’s first encounter with alien intelligence. It will kindle their wildest dreams…and fan their darkest fears. For no one knows who the Ramans are or why they have come. And now the moment of rendezvous awaits – just behind a Raman airlock door.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Recent Arrivals – Audible Frontiers

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Memoirs Found in a Bathtub
By Stanislaw Lem; Read by Jeff Woodman
6 Hours, 38 Mins – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: 2009

The year is 3149, and a vast paper destroying blight-papyralysis-has obliterated much of the planet’s written history. However, these rare memoirs, preserved for centuries in a volcanic rock, record the strange life of a man trapped in a hermetically sealed underground community.

His Master’s Voice
By Stanislaw Lem; Read by Nick Sullivan
9 Hours, 17 Mins – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: 2009

Here is a witty and inventive satire of “men of science” and their thinking, as a team of scientists races to decode a mysterious message from space. “I had the feeling that I was standing at the cradle of a new mythology. A last will and testament…we as the posthumous heirs of Them….”

Fiasco
By Stanislaw Lem; Read by Oliver Wyman
14 Hours, 43 Mins – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: 2009

The planet Quinta is pocked by ugly mounds and covered by a spiderweb-like network. It is a kingdom of phantoms and of a beauty afflicted by madness. In stark contrast, the crew of the spaceship Hermes represents a knowledge-seeking Earth. As they approach Quinta, a dark poetry takes over and leads them into a nightmare of misunderstanding.

Diving Into the Wreck
By Kristine Kathryn Rusch; Read by Jennifer Van Dyck
9 Hours, 45 Mins – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: 2009

Boss loves to dive historical ships, derelict spacecraft found adrift in the blackness between the stars. Sometimes she salvages for money, but mostly she’s an active historian. She wants to know about the past – to experience it firsthand. Once she’s dived the ship, she’ll either leave it for others to find or file a claim so that she can bring tourists to dive it as well. It’s a good life for a tough loner, with more interest in artifacts than people.

Then one day, Boss finds the claim of a lifetime: an enormous spacecraft, incredibly old, and apparently Earth-made. It’s impossible for something so old, built in the days before Faster Than Light travel, to have journeyed this far from Earth. It shouldn’t be here. It can’t be here. And yet, it is. Boss’s curiosity is up, and she’s determined to investigate. She hires a group of divers to explore the wreck with her, the best team she can assemble. But some secrets are best kept hidden, and the past won’t give up its treasures without exacting a price in blood. What Boss finds could rewrite history, cost lives, and start an intergalactic war.

Shadows Return: Nightrunner, Book 4
By Lynn Flewelling; Read by Adam Danoff
12 Hours, 6 Mins – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: 2009

With their most treacherous mission yet behind them, heroes Seregil and Alec resume their double life as dissolute nobles and master spies. But in a world of rivals and charmers, fate has a different plan.

After their victory in Aurnen, Alec and Seregil have returned home to Rhminee. But with most of their allies dead or exiled, it is difficult for them to settle in. Hoping for diversion, they accept an assignment that will take them back to Seregils homeland. En route, however, they are ambushed and separated, and both are sold into slavery. Clinging to life, Seregil is sustained only by the hope that Alec is alive.

But it is not Alecs life his strange master wants – it is his blood. For his unique lineage is capable of producing a rare treasure, but only through a harrowing process that will test him body and soul and unwittingly entangle him and Seregil in the realm of alchemists and madmen and an enigmatic creature that may hold their very destiny in its inhuman hands. But will it prove to be savior or monster?

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Recent Arrivals – Edgar Allan Poe

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Deus Et Machina
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Christopher Aruffo
4 CDs – 4.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Acoustic Learning
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9780980058161

Edgar Allan Poe, 19th-century high-tech correspondent, reports on recent advances in science and metaphysical knowledge.

THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR: By the power of a mesmeric spell, an invalid’s soul is trapped at the exact moment of death.

VON KEMPELEN AND HIS DISCOVERY: The legendary formula– pursued by alchemists throughout the ages– will finally be secret no more.

Also includes:
The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion
The Power of Words
The Colloquy of Monos and Una
Cabs
A Moving Chapter
Street Paving
Wooden Pavement
Try a Mineralized Pavement
The Daguerreotype
Anastatic Printing
A Chapter on Science and Art

The Cask of Amontillado and Other Stories
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Christopher Aruffo
3 CDs – 3.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Acoustic Learning
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9780980058147

Includes:
Message Found In a Bottle
The Oblong Box
The Light-House
The Oval Portrait
The Cask of Amontillado
The Premature Burial
Ligeia
Eleonora

The Pioneers
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Christopher Aruffo
6 CDs – 7.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Acoustic Learning
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9780980058154

Travel with Poe across the vast Atlantic, to the wild uncharted regions of the Americas, and even to the moon!

Includes:
The Unparalleled Adventure of Hans Pfaal
The Balloon-Hoax
The Journal of Julius Rodman
Some Account of Stone-Henge
The Island of the Fay
Harper’s Ferry
The Capitol at Washington
The Elk, or Morning on the Wissahickon

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Recent Arrival: The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

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

Here’s the first of the final three novels of the massive Wheel of Time series. Kate Reading and Michael Kramer continue narrating, which is great news.

Tarmon Gai’don, the Last Battle, looms. And mankind is not ready.

The final volume of the Wheel of Time, A Memory of Light, was partially written by Robert Jordan before his untimely passing in 2007. Brandon Sanderson, New York Times bestselling author of the Mistborn books, was chosen by Jordan’s editor—his wife, Harriet McDougal—to complete the final book. The scope and size of the volume was such that it could not be contained in a single book, and so Tor proudly presents The Gathering Storm as the first of three novels that will make up A Memory of Light. This short sequence will complete the struggle against the Shadow, bringing to a close a journey begun almost twenty years ago and marking the conclusion of the Wheel of Time, the preeminent fantasy epic of our era.

In this epic novel, Robert Jordan’s international bestselling series begins its dramatic conclusion. Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, struggles to unite a fractured network of kingdoms and alliances in preparation for the Last Battle. As he attempts to halt the Seanchan encroachment northward—wishing he could form at least a temporary truce with the invaders—his allies watch in terror the shadow that seems to be growing within the heart of the Dragon Reborn himself.

Egwene al’Vere, the Amyrlin Seat of the rebel Aes Sedai, is a captive of the White Tower and subject to the whims of their tyrannical leader. As days tick toward the Seanchan attack she knows is imminent, Egwene works to hold together the disparate factions of Aes Sedai while providing leadership in the face of increasing uncertainty and despair. Her fight will prove the mettle of the Aes Sedai, and her conflict will decide the future of the White Tower—and possibly the world itself.

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Genesis by Bernard Beckett

SFFaudio Review

Genesis
By Bernard Beckett; Read by Becky Wright
4 CDs – 4 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781423381501
Themes: / Science Fiction / Philosophy / Artificial Intelligence / Freedom /

Anax is a student who wants to enter the prestigious Academy and who is undergoing her final exam. A grueling oral presentation of several hours long given before examiners who conduct question and answer sessions is the device used by Bernard Beckett to show us Anax’s world. Anax’s presentation is about an almost mythological figure of history, Adam Forde. Adam lived in a time when the outside world suffered from catastrophic plagues which were responded to by building a wall around their island republic and shooting anyone who tried to break through. When he breaks one of the republic’s most sacred laws, Adam is put on trial. It is Adam’s crime and trial that Anax analyzes.

As Anax takes us further into Adam’s story we gradually become engrossed in questions of personal freedom versus safety and quality of life that arise. Beckett pushes this question further toward the end where Adam becomes engaged in a life-and-death game of wits that turns on the differences between mechanical intelligence and human intelligence. As Adam struggles to find a defining difference we become involved as well in considering what it is that makes us human.

The examiners are philosophers which, as Plato imagined in The Republic, are the rulers of Anax’s society. The emphasis on philosophy in the question and answer session is anything but dry. Anax is forced to push her knowledge and logic past any limits she has previously imagined in order to perform adequately. Ultimately Anax is forced to the same sorts of examinations that we have been doing through the story, which culminate in an interesting twist.

Becky Wright’s narration perfectly points up the elegant prose and superb style of writing. She does an excellent job especially since there is not a lot of action in the novel and most of it is told through conversation or Anax’s presentation of her story.

This is a short audiobook at only four hours long. Yet it is a gripping four hours. Highly recommended.

Posted by Julie D.