The SFFaudio Podcast #001 – NEW RELEASES / RECENT ARRIVALS

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastHey look! We’ve got our own podcast. This is the very first one, which includes SFFaudio founders Scott D. Danielson and Jesse Willis talking about audiobooks, audio drama, and cease and desist orders. We won’t desist podcasting if you won’t cease downloading them – whatever that means.

This week we talked about the most recent of Recent Arrivals, the newest of the New Releases, and the breaking news about the attempt to break Broken Sea Audio Productions‘ productions.

Topics under discussion include:

Ubik, Philip K. Dick, Joss Whedon, Dollhouse, Babylon Babies, Audible.com, audio drama, The Grist Mill, F. Paul Wilson, Charles de Lint, Robert A. Heinlein, Starman Jones, Mort Castle, Dr. Bloodmoney, Frederik Pohl, Lester del Rey, Arthur C. Clarke, 2000x, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Star Trek, Audible Frontiers, Wonder Audio, The Last Theorem, Preferred Risk, Alfred Bester, Fondly Fahrenheit, The Stars My Destination, Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, Audio Realms, Conan and Mickey Mouse.

Subscribe to the feed:

http://www.sffaudio.com/?feed=podcast

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Release – The Adaptive Ultimate by Stanley G. Weinbaum

New Releases

Stanley G. Weinbaum was a SF sensation when his first story, A Martian Odyssey, appeared in 1934.  In less than two years though, he died of throat cancer.  But he still managed to leave numerous classics and near-classics to posterity.

The Adaptive UltimateThe Adaptive Ultimate
By Stanley G. Weinbaum; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
1 hr. – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes

Dr. Daniel Scott, through experimentation with lab animals, has invented a serum that enables an organism to adapt itself to overcome injuries and disease. He gets his chance to try his experimental drug on a dying tubercular patient named Kyra Zelas.

Scott and his colleague, Dr. Herman Bach, are amazed when the girl recovers, but she soon begins to exhibit strange actions. Her physical appearance can change to hide her abhorrent behavior. She appears to adapt herself emotionally to save herself. But can she love?

Kyra Zelas has become the Adaptive Ultimate. How she adapts to survive may be to the detriment of the human race.

The Adaptive Ultimate originally appeared in the November 1935 issue of Astounding Stories under the pseudonym John Jessel.

New Releases: Clarke and Pohl

New Releases

Science Fiction Audiobook - The Last Theorem by Arthur C. Clarke and Frederick PohlThe Last Theorem
By Arthur C. Clarke and Frederick Pohl; Read by Mark Bramhall
10 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Books On Tape / Random House Audio
Published: August 5, 2008
ISBN: 9780739376959

In 1637, the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat scrawled a note in the margin of a book about an enigmatic theorem: “I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.” He also neglected to record his proof elsewhere. Thus began a search for the Holy Grail of mathematics–a search that didn’t end until 1994, when Andrew Wiles published a 150-page proof. But the proof was burdensome, overlong, and utilized mathematical techniques undreamed of in Fermat’s time, and so it left many critics unsatisfied–including young Ranjit Subramanian, a Sri Lankan with a special gift for mathematics and a passion for the famous “Last Theorem.” When Ranjit writes a three-page proof of the theorem that relies exclusively on knowledge available to Fermat, his achievement is hailed as a work of genius, bringing him fame and fortune. But it also brings him to the attention of the National Security Agency and a shadowy United Nations outfit called Pax per Fidem, or Peace Through Transparency, whose secretive workings belie its name. Suddenly Ranjit–together with his wife, Myra de Soyza, an expert in artificial intelligence, and their burgeoning family–finds himself swept up in world-shaking events, his genius for abstract mathematical thought put to uses that are both concrete and potentially deadly. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to anyone on Earth, an alien fleet is approaching the planet at a significant percentage of the speed of light. Their mission: to exterminate the dangerous species of primates known as homo sapiens.

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases – Lovecraft, Pohl, Williamson, del Rey, Smith

New Releases

[editor’s note-A slew of releases from my audiobook company, Wonder Audio.  A nice range of titles that I’m proud to present.  Vintage Stories+Classic Authors+Great Narrators=Massive Goodness :) ]

Preferred Risk tnPreferred Risk
By Frederik Pohl & Lester del Rey; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
7 hrs. – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes

The Company was a powerful, efficient, and monstrous insurance organization that controlled the entire world, scientifically regulating everything in life: war, epidemics, one-a-day food pills and test-tube sex…all through the use of its patented, terrifying human deep-freeze vault.

Claims Adjuster Wills, a great believer in the Company, begins to have second thoughts when he meets beautiful and sorrowful Rena, whose radical father lies in a frozen subterranean vault.

Scanners Live in Vain tnScanner Live in Vain
By Cordwainer Smith; Read by Jeremiah Costello
1.5 hrs. – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes

Man has conquered space, but not without costs. To maintain the space lanes, Scanners have to undergo an operation in which their brain is severed from their sensory inputs to block the Pain of Space.

Wolves of Darkness tnWolves of Darkness
By Jack Williamson; Read by William Coon
3 hrs. – [UNABRIDGED] 
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes

When Clovis McLaurin receives an urgent letter from his father, Dr. Ford McLaurin, he rushes in the dead of winter to his father’s ranch. Clovis arrives to find the local townspeople being attacked and killed by a pack of wolves. As he journeys to the ranch of his father, a scientist who has been doing revolutionary experiments, he is also attacked.

But wolves are not the only thing running with the pack. Stella Jetton, the daughter of his father’s assistant, is running with the wolves, dressed in only a silk slip in the bitter cold. Clovis recognizes the blood-stained face of the girl he loves, but not her eyes. How could his father’s experiment have untapped the unimaginable horror that Clovis is about to confront?

The Colour Out of Space TNThe Colour Out of Space
by H.P. Lovecraft; read by Mark Douglas Nelson
1.5 hrs- [UNABRIDGED] 
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes

As a man surveys the countryside for the construction of a reservoir, he comes across a stretch of barren farmland leeched of life. An aged survivor of the town tells him the tale of a rural farmer’s family and their path to madness and unspeakable horror.

Lovecraft considered “The Colour Out of Space” to be the best of all his stories. Originally appearing in the September 1927 issue of Amazing Stories, it is one of his most frequently anthologized tales.

Posted by The Time Traveler of the Time Traveler Show

New Releases – Allen M. Steele, James Patterson, Star Wars

New Releases

This story was nominated for a Hugo award and is part of the author’s popular “Coyote Trilogy”…

Science Fiction Audiobook - The Days Between by Allen M. SteeleThe Days Between
By Allen M. Steele; Read by Tom Dheere
1 CD – 72 minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Infinivox
Published: July 2008
ISBN: 9781884612817
Three months after leaving Earth, the URSS Alabama had just achieved cruise velocity when the accident occurred: Leslie Gillis woke up. His first lucid thought was: Thank God, I made it. His next thought was: Something’s wrong. Everyone was still asleep. Everyone except himself. This story was nominated for a Hugo award and is part of the author’s popular Coyote Trilogy.
*The first 20 orders will receive a signed copy!

And, since when is James Patterson a YA novelist? Well, in audio, since now! He’s got three titles out…

The Dangerous Days Of Daniel X by James PattersonThe Dangerous Days Of Daniel X
By James Patterson; Read by Milo Ventimiglia
4 CDs – [ABRIDGED?]
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Published: July 2008
ISBN: 9781600242007
The greatest superpower of all isn’t to be part spider, part man, or to cast magic spells — the greatest power is the power to create. Daniel has that power. Daniel’s secret abilities — like being able to manipulate objects and animals with his mind or to recreate himself in any shape he chooses — have helped him survive. But Daniel doesn’t have a normal life. He is the protector of the earth, the Alien Hunter, with a mission beyond what anyone could imagine.

Maximum Ride - Book 1 by James PattersonMaximum Ride – (Book 1) The Angel Experiment
By James Patterson; Read by Evan Rachel Wood
4 CDs – [ABRIDGED]
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Published: July 2008
ISBN: 9781600242267
Fourteen-year-old Maximum Ride, better known as Max, knows what it’s like to soar above the world. She and all the members of the “Flock”–Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman and Angel–are just like ordinary kids–only they have wings and can fly.

Maximum Ride - (Book 2) School’s Out by James PattersonMaximum Ride – (Book 2) School’s Out – Forever
By James Patterson; Read by Valentina de Angelis
4 CDs – [ABRIDGED]
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Published: July 2008
ISBN: 9781600242625
The Flock members are taken under the wing of an FBI agent and try to live “normal” lives by going to school, making friends–and continuing their relentless search for their parents.

Released in anticipation of the new Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV series and the new SW game….

Star Wars Audiobook - Star Wars: The Force UnleashedStar Wars: The Force Unleashed
By Sean Williams (based on a story by Haden
Blackman); Read by Jonathan Davis
5 CDs – 6 Hours [ABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: August 19th 2008
ISBN: 978073935808-5
The overthrow of the Republic is complete. The Separatist forces have been smashed, the Jedi Council nearly decimated, and the rest of the Order all but destroyed. Now absolute power rests in the iron fist of Darth Sidious–the cunning Sith lord better known as the former Senator, now Emperor, Palpatine. But more remains to be done. Pockets of resistance in the galaxy must still be defeated and missing Jedi accounted for . . . and dealt with. These crucial tasks fall to the Emperor’s ruthless enforcer, Darth Vader. In turn, the Dark Lord has groomed a lethal apprentice entrusted with a top-secret mission: to comb the galaxy and dispatch the last of his masters’ enemies, thereby punctuating the dark side’s victory with the Jedi’s doom.

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases – The Retrieval Artist Novels by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

New Releases

Science Fiction - The Retrieval Artist Novels by Kristine Kathryn RuschI’m thrilled to let you know about these novels by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, which have not been getting nearly enough attention on audio or otherwise. These books are part of Rusch’s wonderful Retrieval Artist series, and Audible.com has exclusively published 5 of 6 them on unabridged audio (so far). The novels are science fiction police procedurals. A more accurate description: part Star Trek, part CSI, part The Big Sleep. In short, they are excellent, and I urge you to check them out.

If you’d like just a taste of what these novels are like, Audible.com also offers Rusch’s original novella, called “The Retrieval Artist”, read by Stefan Rudnicki. Click here to get it.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson