New Releases – Vintage SF – Frederik Pohl, Robert Bloch, Leigh Brackett and more

New Releases

Wow! Five Great New Titles from Wonder Audio!

This Crowded EarthThis Crowded Earth and Other Stories
By Robert Bloch; Read by William Coon
6hr, 39 min.- [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: 2009Available at Audible & iTunes

Life changes on Earth when the population tips the scales at over X billion people. Harry lives in a single room without a window and hates the commutrain ride, which is like the black hole of Calcutta on wheels. If he can get his private car out of commugarage, he might be able to get to work on time. If only it wasn’t for his headaches….

Also included are the stories “The Old College Try”, “Black Bargain”, “Founding Fathers”, and “A Good Imagination”.

WolfbaneWolfbane
By Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
5hr, 34min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: 2009

Available at Audible & iTunes

“A work of sheer, exuberant imagination.” (Arthur C. Clarke)

The Earth has forcibly been taken from its orbit. It began with an extra-terrestrial pyramid on top of Mt. Everest. And then a “runaway planet” took the Earth as its binary. And now harsh generations have passed since the inhabitants last saw the light of their sun, Sol.

Society has grown rigid. The meek lambs have inherited the Earth, even if it’s a very poor Earth, indeed. It’s a hard world for all. But Glenn Tropile is no lamb, and if his citizens finds out he’s a wolf, it will be the wolf that goes to slaughter.

Four Sided Triangle The Four-Sided Triangle
By William F. Temple; Read by Tim Rowe
53min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: 2009

Joan Leeton was certainly a lovely girl. A perfect girl for an English scientist to fall in love with. Unfortunately for Will Fredericks and Bill Josephs that’s exactly what happened, to both of them – and to the same girl too, Joan! But they were no ordinary scientists, and they created the most marvelous invention. A device that could perfectly replicate anything. But could it replicate a lovely girl named Joan Leeton? Could they create a love triangle with four people?

A classic story from Science Fiction’s Golden Age. First published in Amazing Stories in 1939.

The Vanishing Venusians The Vanishing Venusians
By Leigh Brackett; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
1hr 20min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: 2009

Matt Harker and his people have journeyed for far too long. They’re a rag-tag group of Earthmen and Venusians floating on the Sea of Morning Opals… floating without a home and with very little hope, victimized by hostile natives, burning fevers, bad soil, and bad luck.

When land is sighted, Harker makes the decision to scale the mountainous terrain in the dim hopes of finding a new home. With two companions, he ascends to encounter unknown malevolent alien beings. Harker thought he’d be lucky to find a habitable land – but now he thinks he will be lucky to just survive!

Plague of Pythons Plague of Pythons
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
4hrs 9min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: 2009

The pythons had entered into Mankind. No man knew at what moment he might be possessed! On Christmas, the world’s freedom died. Every man, woman and child lay in the grip of fear, for no one knew at what moment his nearest friend or a casual stranger might suddenly be possessed by some brutal mind… and begin to murder and destroy.

For Chandler it was worse than for most. He was both victim and executioner. He had suffered himself, and he had committed a violent crime while under the strange domination. Accused of hoaxing, he was driven from his home. He wandered the world and found it smashed like a spoiled child’s plaything. Now Chandler was in the very presence of the destroyers! But what could one person do against such power? The power of gods!

Did you know you can get either of these titles, as well as any other Wonder Audio title for just $7.49? Just sign up at Audible.com/WonderAudio

Posted by The Time Traveler of the Time Traveler Show

New Releases – Wonder Audio; Fredric Brown & Keith Laumer

Aural Noir: New Releases

One mystery classic and one SF Alternate History classic. That’s like two classics, huh?

Fabulous Clipjoint

The Fabulous Clipjoint
By Fredric Brown; Read by William Coon
Audible Download – 5 Hours 36 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: 2009

Available at Audible & iTunes

Winner of the Edgar Award

You’ll hear the soft, lazy voice of a dame who’s been around, and you’ll meet up with a beautiful heller. You’ll learn the lurid secrets of a man’s locked past, and you’ll prowl dark alleys with two men–two men turned hunters. And you’ll wonder–why Ed and his Uncle Am didn’t level with the cops; what business a gang would have with Ed’s dead father; and where the killer thought the hunters would go wrong. Here are your answers, in this fast-spinning, two-fisted mystery about thugs, molls, and carnival folks.

And now the SF Alternate History classic by

Worlds of the ImperiumWorlds of the Imperium
By Keith Laumer; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
Audible Download – 5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: 2009

Available at Audible & iTunes

When Brion Bayard was kidnapped and brought to the alternate world where Earth’s history took a different turn, it was not a pleasant experience. It was, however, a startling experience. Here was a world that was just like the Earth he was taken from–with just a few subtle changes. On top of all this, Brion was given a puzzling assignment by his captors. He was to secretly enter a palace, and kill a dangerous and tyrannical dictator. There was one, small catch–the hated dictator in this world was the mirror image of Brion Bayard. For on an Alternate Earth, Brion’s is his own worst enemy!

Posted by The Time Traveler of the Time Traveler Show

New Releases – Torchwood: Lost Souls

New Releases

Coming June 9, 2009 from BBC Audiobooks America: Torchwood: Lost Souls

Torchwood: Lost SoulsThe Torchwood team and Martha face danger at CERN in this special BBC radio episode, starring John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Gareth David-Lloyd and Freema Agyeman. Following the tragic deaths of two of their colleagues, only Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones remain of Torchwood, protecting humanity against the unknown. Martha Jones, ex-time traveler and now working as a doctor for UNIT, has been called to CERN — the world’s largest particle physics laboratory. They’re about to activate the Large Hadron Collider, designed to recreate conditions after the Big Bang and thus give an insight into what the Universe is made of. But so much could go wrong: it could open a gateway to a parallel dimension, or even create a black hole. Voices from the past are calling out to people from the LHC, and scientists have started to disappear. Where have they gone? What is lurking in the underground tunnel — and do the dead ever really stay dead?

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases – Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

New Releases

Elantris by Brandon SandersonElantris, Part 1
By Brandon Sanderson; Performed by a full cast
6 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – 6 hours – [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Graphic Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781599505558

This is wonderful news. Graphic Audio has been publishing a bunch of material as full cast dramatic reading – the ones that interested me most were the superhero stuff, but now they are publishing Brandon Sanderson’s Elantris, an epic fantasy novel. This is the first of three parts.

The city of the gods. Elantris once stood as the symbol of all that is beautiful. A sprawling metropolis of unrivaled grandeur, it was a symbol of power and strength, built to be as imposing as it was magnificent.

The only thing more glorious than the city itself was its inhabitants, Godlike beings, with silvery skin and hair of the purest, flowing white. Able to create powerful magics with a mere wave of their hands, the Elantrians were able to heal mortal wounds and create any object they desired. To be an Elantrian was to be without sickness, without pain and without want.

And anyone could become a god. Through a process known as the “Shaod”, a normal person could go to bed one night, and awake the next morning to throw away the shackles of mortality and become a being of incomparable power and grace. With Elantris as their beacon, the light inside all humanity was allowed to shine, elevating it to new heights.
 
CLICK HERE for all of Graphic Audio’s new releases.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson

New Releases – Reynolds, Child, Asimov, Willis

New Releases

Here’s a few new releases that have caught my eyes. There’s also a promise of a title to come that I just have to mention: Tantor Media has Scott Lynch’s The Lies Of Locke Lamora in the pipeline for a spring release! Somebody over in Tantor’s acquisitions department must be listening to our podcast!

Tantor Media - Redemption Ark by Alastair ReynoldsRedemption Ark
By Alastair Reynolds; Read by John Lee
24 CDs or 3 MP3-CDs – 29 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: February 2009
ISBN: 9781400109579 (CD), 9781400159574 (MP3-CD)
The sequel to Revelation Space


Random House Audio - Terminal Freeze by Lincoln ChildTerminal Freeze
By Lincoln Child; Read by Scott Brick
9 CDs – 10 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: 2/24/2009
ISBN: 9780739382028

Four hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle lies Alaska’s Federal Wilderness Zone, one of the most remote places on Earth. But for paleoecologist Evan Marshall and a small group of fellow scientists, an expedition to the Zone represents the opportunity of a lifetime to study the effects of global warming. The expedition changes suddenly, however, with an astonishing find. On a routine exploration of a glacial ice cave, the group discovers an enormous ancient animal encased in solid ice. The media conglomerate sponsoring their research immediately intervenes and arranges the ultimate spectacle—the animal will be cut from the ice, thawed, and revealed live on television. Despite dire warnings of a local Native American village, and the scientific concerns of Marshall and his team, the “docudrama” plows ahead—until the scientists make one more horrifying discovery. The beast is no regular specimen…it may be an ancient killing machine. And they may be wrong in presuming it dead.

BBC Audiobooks America - Pebble In The Sky by Isaac AsimovPebble in the Sky
By Isaac Asimov; Read by Robert Fass
Audible Download, 7 CDs, 1 MP3-CD – 8 Hours 6 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America
Published: January 28, 2009
ISBN: 9780792760504 (cd), 9780792761860 (mp3-cd)
One moment Joseph Schwartz is a happily retired tailor in Chicago, 1949. The next he’s a helpless stranger on Earth during the heyday of the first Galactic Empire. Earth, as he soon learns, is a backwater, just a pebble in the sky, despised by all the other 200 million planets of the Empire because its people dare to claim it’s the original home of man. And Earth is poor, with great areas of radioactivity ruining much of its soil – so poor that everyone is sentenced to death at the age of 60. Joseph Schwartz is 62.

BBC Audiobooks America - The Stars, Like Dust by Isaac AsimovThe Stars, Like Dust
By Isaac Asimov; Read by Stephen R. Thorne
6 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – 7 Hours 22 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America
Published: 2009?
ISBN: 9780792757863 (cd), 9780792758297 (mp3-cd)
Biron Farrell was young and naïve, but he was growing up fast. A radiation bomb planted in his dorm room changed him from an innocent student at the University of Earth to a marked man, fleeing desperately from an unknown assassin. He soon discovers that, many light-years away, his father has been murdered. Stunned, grief-stricken, and outraged, Biron is determined to uncover the reasons behind his father’s death, and becomes entangled in an intricate saga of rebellion, political intrigue, and espionage. The mystery takes him deep into space where he finds himself in a relentless struggle with the power-mad despots of Tyrann.

Blackstone Audio - Bellwether by Connie WillisBellwether
By Connie Willis; Read by Kate Reading
5 Cassettes, 1 MP3-CD, 5 CDs – Approx. 5.6 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: February 2009
ISBN: 9781433246234 (cassette), 9781433246265 (mp3-cd), 9781433246241 (cd)
Sandra Foster studies fads and their meanings for the HiTek corporation. Bennett O’Reilly works with monkey-group behavior and chaos theory for the same company. When the two are thrust together due to a misdelivered package and a run of seemingly bad luck, they find a joint project in a flock of sheep. But a series of setbacks and disappointments arise before they are able to find answers to their questions—with the unintended help of the errant, forgetful, and careless office assistant Flip.

Posted by Jesse Willis