Scott D. – Page 37

Recent Arrival – Lord Valentine’s Castle by Robert Silverberg

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Robert Silverberg! W00t!

Lord Valentine’s Castle (Book 1 in the Majipoor Cycle)
By Robert Silverberg; Read by Stefan Rudnicki
19.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2009

The planet Majipoor is shared by humans and several alien races, including four-armed Skandars, three-eyed Liiman, and the native, shape-shifting Metamorphs. All are watched over by the King of Dreams, the labyrinth-dwelling Pontifex, and the priestess of the Isle of Sleep, while the Coronal officially rules from atop Castle Mount.

The Majipoor Cycle begins as young Valentine, a man with no memory, is hired as an apprentice juggler by a group of eccentric performers. While the traveling troupe takes to the road, Valentine’s sleep is disturbed by nightmare visions of warring brothers and difficulties on faraway Castle Mount. In a quest to discover who Valentine really is, his wise and peculiar companions resolve to help him claim the rewards of his birth. But another trial awaits Valentine that will test his belief, resolve, and strength of character.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Recent Arrival – Graceling by Kristin Cashore

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

This title is set to ship on June 30 – preorder from Full Cast Audio before then and receive 25% off!

Graceling
By Kristin Cashore; Read by David Baker and a Full Cast
10.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Full Cast Audio
Published: 2009

Set in a world where some people are born with a Grace—a unique, sometimes uncanny, gift—this is the story of Katsa, whose Grace, demonstrated at an uncomfortably early age, is for killing. This makes her a perfect tool for her uncle, King Randa But Katsa chafes at the way she is being used—and even more at the injustices she sees around her.

Then she meets Prince Po, who has a Grace to match hers… perhaps.

Featuring FCA favorite Chelsea Mixon as Katsa, and sensational newcomer Zachary Exton as Prince Po, the most fascinating and praised fantasy debut of 2008 now springs to life in a sensational full cast recording.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Recent Arrivals from Brilliance Audio

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

On Basilisk Station (Book One in the Honor Harrington Series)
By David Weber; Read by Allyson Johnson
15 Hours, 15 Minutes – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781423393382 (CD)

Honor in Trouble:
• Having made him look a fool, she’s been exiled to Basilisk Station in disgrace and set up for ruin by a superior who hates her.
• Her demoralized crew blames her for their ship’s humiliating posting to an out-of-the-way picket station.
• The aborigines of the system’s only habitable planet are smoking homicide-inducing hallucinogens.
• Parliament isn’t sure it wants to keep the place; the major local industry is smuggling; the merchant cartels want her head; the star-conquering, so-called “Republic” of Haven is Up To Something; and Honor Harrington has a single, over-age light cruiser with an armament that doesn’t work to police the entire star system.

But the people out to get her have made one mistake. They’ve made her mad.

Flinx Transcendent
By Alan Dean Foster; Read by Stefan Rudnicki
16 Hours, 13 Minutes – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781423393153 (CD)

From one of the most brilliant imaginations in science fiction comes Flinx Transcendent, Alan Dean Foster’s thrilling conclusion to the series that began over thirty-five years ago – the epic adventures of Flinx and his flying minidrag companion, Pip.

Flinx is the only one with even the tiniest chance of stopping the evil colossus barreling in to destroy the Humanx Commonwealth (and everything else in the Milky Way). With time running out, Flinx is a man in search of a solution and in search of himself. His efforts take him to the land of his mortal enemies, the bloodthirsty AAnn, where chances are excellent that Flinx’s discovery – and summary execution – will eliminate all his demons and doubts in one masterstroke.

The way Flinx is feeling, that might not be the worst imaginable end. After years of searching for his father, he finally has – and must bear – the truth. And now he must also seek out an ancient sentient weapons platform wandering around somewhere in the galaxy and then communicate with it, a powwow that could very well fry his already frazzled brain. Then there are the oblivion-craving assassins determined to stop Flinx before he can prevent total annihilation.

With a future that rosy, it’s no surprise he’s flirting with disaster. Still, Flinx is no quitter, and he’s got something else going for him – an uncanny ability to improvise and triumph (or at least survive) in impossible situations. He’s certainly been through enough of them, and now he’s going to need every ounce of that know-how, because he’s venturing to places where the laws of physics fear to tread, where no one’s ever been, to do what no one’s ever done, and where his deadliest enemy is so close it’s invisible.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Recent Arrivals from Tantor Audiobooks

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

The Lies of Locke Lamora
By Scott Lynch; Read By Michael Page
23 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Audiobooks
Published: 2009

An orphan’s life is harsh—and often short—in the island city of Camorr, built on the ruins of a mysterious alien race. But born with a quick wit and a gift for thieving, Locke Lamora has dodged both death and slavery, only to fall into the hands of an eyeless priest known as Chains—a man who is neither blind nor a priest. A con artist of extraordinary talent, Chains passes his skills on to his carefully selected “family” of orphans—a group known as the Gentlemen Bastards. Under his tutelage, Locke grows to lead the Bastards, delightedly pulling off one outrageous confidence game after another. Soon he is infamous as the Thorn of Camorr, and no wealthy noble is safe from his sting.

Passing themselves off as petty thieves, the brilliant Locke and his tightly knit band of light-fingered brothers have fooled even the criminal underworld’s most feared ruler, Capa Barsavi. But there is someone in the shadows more powerful—and more ambitious—than Locke has yet imagined.

Known as the Gray King, he is slowly killing Capa Barsavi’s most trusted men—and using Locke as a pawn in his plot to take control of Camorr’s underworld. With a bloody coup under way threatening to destroy everyone and everything that holds meaning in his mercenary life, Locke vows to beat the Gray King at his own brutal game—or die trying.

The Steel Remains
By Richard K. Morgan; Read By Simon Vance
15 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Audiobooks
Published: 2009

Ringil, the hero of the bloody slaughter at Gallows Gap, is a legend to all who don’t know him and a twisted degenerate to those that do. A veteren of the wars against the lizards, he makes a living from telling credulous travelers of his exploits. Until one day he is pulled away from his life and into the depths of the Empire’s slave trade, where he will discover a secret infinitely more frightening than the trade in lives.

Archeth—pragmatist, cynic, engineer, and the last of her race—is called from her work at the whim of the most powerful man in the Empire and sent to its farthest reaches to investigate a demonic incursion against the Empire’s borders.

Egar Dragonbane, steppe-nomad and one-time fighter for the Empire, finds himself entangled in a small-town battle between common sense and religious fervor. But out in the wider world there is something on the move far more alien than any of his tribe’s petty gods.

Anti-social, anti-heroic, and decidedly irritated, all three of them are about to be sent unwillingly forth into a vicious, vigorous, and thoroughly unsuspecting fantasy world—called upon by an Empire that owes them everything and gave them nothing.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Recent Arrivals – Star Wars

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

As promised, Random House is now publishing the Star Wars titles in Unabridged format! Outcast is the beginning of a new series called Fate of the Jedi. Omen, Book 2 in that series, releases tomorrow! No Prisoners is a Clone Wars novel.

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi (Book 1): Outcast
By Aaron Allston; Read by Marc Thompson
10 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9780739376614 (CD)

After a violent civil war and the devastation wrought by the now-fallen Darth Caedus, the Galactic Alliance is in crisis–and in need. From all corners, politicians, power brokers, and military leaders converge on Coruscant for a crucial summit to restore order, negotiate differences, and determine the future of their unified worlds. But even more critical, and far more uncertain, is the future of the Jedi.

In a shocking move, Chief of State Natasi Daala orders the arrest of Luke Skywalker for failing to prevent Jacen Solo’s turn to the dark side and his subsequent reign of terror as a Sith Lord. But it’s only the first blow in an anti-Jedi backlash fueled by a hostile government and suspicious public. When Jedi Knight Valin Horn, scion of a politically influential family, suffers a mysterious psychotic break and becomes a dangerous fugitive, the Jedi become the target of a media-driven witch hunt. Facing conviction on the damning charges, Luke must strike a bargain with the calculating Daala: his freedom in exchange for his exile from Coruscant and from the Jedi Order.

Though forbidden to intervene in Jedi affairs, Luke is determined to keep history from being repeated. With his son, Ben, at his side, Luke sets out to unravel the shocking truth behind Jacen Solo’s corruption and downfall. But the secrets he uncovers among the enigmatic Force mystics of the distant world Dorin may bring his quest–and life as he knows it–to a sudden end. And all the while, another Jedi Knight, consumed by the same madness as Valin Horn, is headed for Coruscant on a fearsome mission that could doom the Jedi Order . . . and devastate the entire galaxy.

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi (Book 2): Omen
By Christie Golden; Read by Marc Thompson
8.5 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9780739376638 (CD)

The Jedi Order is in crisis. The late Jacen Solo’s shocking transformation into murderous Sith Lord Darth Caedus has cast a damning pall over those who wield the Force for good: Two Jedi Knights have succumbed to an inexplicable and dangerous psychosis, criminal charges have driven Luke Skywalker into self-imposed exile, and power-hungry Chief of State Natasi Daala is exploiting anti-Jedi sentiment to undermine the Order’s influence within the Galactic Alliance.

Forbidden to intervene in Jedi affairs, Luke is on a desperate mission to uncover the truth behind Jacen’s fall to the dark side–and to learn what’s turning peaceful Jedi into raving lunatics. But finding answers will mean venturing into the mind-bending space of the Kathol Rift and bargaining with an alien species as likely to destroy outsiders as deal with them. Still, there is no other choice and no time to lose, as the catastrophic events on Coruscant continue to escalate. Stricken by the same violent dementia that infected her brother, Valin, Jedi Knight Jysella Horn faces an equally grim fate after her capture by Natasi Daala’s police. And when Han and Leia Solo narrowly foil another deranged Jedi bent on deadly destruction, even acting Jedi Grand Master Kenth Hamner appears willing to bow to Daala’s iron will–at the expense of the Jedi Order.

But an even greater threat is looming. Millennia in the past, a Sith starship crashed on an unknown low-tech planet, leaving the survivors stranded. Over the generations, their numbers have grown, the ways of the dark side have been nurtured, and the time is fast approaching when this lost tribe of Sith will once more take to the stars to reclaim their legendary destiny as rulers of the galaxy. Only one thing stands in their way, a name whispered to them through the Force: Skywalker.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: No Prisoners
By Karen Traviss; Read by Jeff Gurner
7 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9780739376836 (CD)

The Clone Wars rage on. As insurgent Separatists fight furiously to wrest control of the galaxy from the Republic, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine cunningly manipulates both sides for his own sinister purposes.

Torrent Company’s Captain Rex agrees to temporarily relieve Anakin Skywalker of Ahsoka, his ubiquitous–and insatiably curious–Padawan, by bringing her along on a routine three-day shakedown cruise aboard Captain Gilad Pellaeon’s newly refitted assault ship. But the training run becomes an active–and dangerous–rescue mission when Republic undercover agent Hallena Devis goes missing in the middle of a Separatist invasion.

Dispatched to a distant world to aid a local dictator facing a revolution, Hallena finds herself surrounded by angry freedom fighters and questioning the Republic’s methods–and motives. Summoned to rescue the missing operative who is also his secret love, Pellaeon–sworn to protect the Republic over all–is torn between duty and desire. And Ahsoka, sent in with Rex and six untested clone troopers to extract Hallena, encounters a new and different Jedi philosophy, which shakes the foundation of her upbringing to the core. As danger and intrigue intensify, the loyalties and convictions of all involved will be tested. . . .

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

1882 Time Travel story on Mister Ron’s Basement

SFFaudio Online Audio

When Mark Twain was accused of plagiarizing Max Adeler’s The Fortunate Island for his novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court he responded by saying that he read Adeler’s story, liked it, and thought there was no resemblance. However, the Adeler story he compared to his own that appeared in the 1882 Fortunate Island book was a different one – An Old Fogy – one of the first time travel stories ever written.

For tonight’s Saturday Night Special story we have presented An Old Fogy, the tale of an old man (written in 1882) who wished to return to simpler times of sixty years previously. The old man gets his wish.

If you could imagine a Twilight Zone episode written in 1882, you might have this brilliant tale.

Time: approx forty-one minutes.

The Mr. Ron’s Basement Podcast will be moving to a new server in a couple of months after over four years at slapcast, but the link is certainly good for a while.

You’ll find the story at:

http://slapcast.com/users/revry/7263

Posted by Mister Ron