Lamentation
By Ken Scholes; Read by Scott Brick, William Dufris, Maggi-Meg Reed, and Stefan Rudnicki
12 CDs – 15 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781427206251
Woo hoo! Ken Scholes’ debut novel, in bright shiny audio. Ken Scholes is a remarkable short story writer. For a sample story, check out the mesmerizing “Edward Bear and the Very Long Walk” – it’s Episode 146 of Escape Pod, read by Stephen Eley. That one’s science fiction, this novel is epic fantasy, the first of five volumes. I’m eager to hear it.
An ancient weapon has completely destroyed the city of Windwir. From many miles away, Rudolfo, Lord of the Nine Forest Houses, sees the horrifying column of smoke rising. He knows that war is coming to the Named Lands.
Nearer to the Devastation, a young apprentice is the only survivor of the city – he sat waiting for his father outside the walls, and was transformed as he watched everyone he knew die in an instant.
Soon all the Kingdoms of the Named Lands will be at each others’ throats, as alliances are challenged and hidden plots are uncovered.
This remarkable first novel from an award-winning short fiction writer will take readers away to a new world – an Earth so far in the distant future that our time is not even a memory; a world where magick is commonplace and great areas of the planet are impassable wastes. But human nature hasn’t changed through the ages: War and faith and love still move princes and nations.
Find an audio sample |HERE|.
Bones of the Dragon
By Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman; Read by Stefan Rudnicki
16 CDs – 18 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781427204318
From a debut epic fantasy novel to the beginning of a new series by the masters:
Skylan Ivorson is a sea-raider of the Vindras, an undefeated champion of the Torgun clan, and eventually the Chief of Chiefs of all Vindras clans, an honor he truly feels he deserves as one who has been blessed by Skoval, the god of war. But sometimes a blessing is a curse in disguise.
Skoval and the other ancient gods are under siege from a new generation of gods who are challenging them for the powers of creation…. and the only way to stop these brash interlopers lies within the mysterious and hidden Five Bones of the Vektan Dragons.
It will be up to the Vindras, the dragon-goddess’s champion, to undertake the quest to recover all Five. The fate of the Old Gods and the Vindras’ people rests on their recovery, for this is not only a quest to save the world—it is also a quest for redemption.
Filled with heroes and heroines young and old (as well as human and non) spanning locales of exotic adventure in a magic-forged world, this is a series that fully illustrates the mastery of world-building and storytelling that has made Weis and Hickman into the bestselling fantasy co-authors of all time.
Find an audio sample |HERE|
Halo: The Cole Protocol
By Tobias Buckell; Read by Jonathan Davis
9 CDs – 10.5 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781427205285
Despite what you may have heard, listening to a Halo audiobook will NOT make you a better player. I know this from personal experience. Turns out that to play the game well, you have to be able to move AND shoot – at the same time! Impossible, I say! Ah, well. Written by Tobias S. Buckell, read by Jonathan Davis… you simply can’t go wrong here.
In the first, desperate days of the Human-Covenant War, the UNSC has enacted the Cole Protocol to safeguard Earth and its Inner Colonies from discovery by a merciless alien foe. Many are called upon to rid the universe of lingering navigation data that would reveal the location of Earth. Among them is Navy Lieutenant Jacob Keyes. Thrust back into action after being sidelined, Keyes is saddled with a top secret mission by ONI. One that will take him deep behind enemy lines, to a corner of the universe where nothing is as it seems.
Out beyond the Outer Colonies lies the planet Hesiod, a gas giant surrounded by a vast asteroid belt. As the Covenant continues to glass the human occupied planets near Hesiod, many of the survivors, helped by a stronghold of human Insurrectionists, are fleeing to the asteroid belt for refuge. They have transformed the tumbling satellites into a tenuous, yet ingenious, settlement known as the Rubble–and have come face-to-face with a Covenant settlement of Kig-Yar . . . yet somehow survived.
News of this unlikely treaty has spread to the warring sides. Luckily for the UNSC, this uneasy alliance is in the path of the Spartan Gray Team, a three-man renegade squad whose simple task is to wreak havoc from behind enemy lines in any way they see fit. But the Prophets have also sent their best—an ambitious and ruthless Elite, whose quest for nobility and rank is matched only by his brutality . . . and who will do anything to secure his Ascendancy and walk the Path.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson
Posted on February 1 at The Fix: Short Fiction Review is the latest Rocket Science column, which covers 1958 – 1959. The stories covered: “Or All the Seas with Oysters” by Avram Davidson, “The Big Front Yard” by Clifford Simak, and “That Hell-Bound Train” by Robert Bloch.
1958 Best Novel or Novelette:
1959 Best Novel:
