Reviews – Page 134

Review of Wild Magic (The Immortals, Book 1) by Tamora Pierce

Wild Magic (The Immortals, Book 1)
by Tamora Pierce, read by Full Cast Audio
8 CDs – 8 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Full Cast Audio
Published: 2005
ISBN: 1932076832
Themes: / Fantasy / Magic / Wizardry / Youth / Magical Creatures / Horses /

In Wild Magic’s Book One: The Immortals, Tamora Pierce has created a cast of strong women and made a world in which they fit naturally. The whole book takes place from the point of view of Diane (Carmen Viviano-Crafts), a young girl escaping from a dark secret in the highlands. Daine hires on with a horsetrader, Ouna (Raquel Starace) How delightful to meet a female horsetrader in a fantasy novel. Too often, such strong female characters overplay their roles but each of the characters in Wild Magic seems balanced and very real. So it troubles me that I felt like Ms. Pierce was playing games by withholding information that Daine surely knew, especially because she does such a delightful job at inviting me into Daine’s thoughts.

I do not mind the tension she tried to create by keeping Daine’s “dark secret” from me at the beginning, but after a time, it began to wear on me. I spent chapters hearing Daine’s thoughts about how she had to escape her past, without ever knowing what that past was. I finally discovered that she had gone mad and was afraid that it would happen again. Once I knew that, I was able to really worry with Daine. But poor Daine wouldn’t tell her friends what was bothering her. While I can understand her reluctance, as the book continued she was given no reason to continue hiding her secret and plenty of reasons to ask for help. When she finally does reveal her past in all its gory detail, Numair the Mage, basically says, “Oh, well I can fix that.” And does, in two sentences.

So, after all of that build up, Daine’s problem is solved with, almost literally, the wave of a magic wand.

In a similar vein, I listened to paragraphs of buildup as something was attacking the band of travellers over the water without having a clue about what it was. I knew everyone was preparing for an attack. I knew people were frightened, but I had no idea why. It turned out to be a gryphon that Daine was able to befriend.

With that said, the world of Wild Magic is fascinating. I am curious about which of the threads in this volume will carry over to the next books. Many of the scenes were resonant with emotion, I just wish I hadn’t had to guess what was happening in so many of the others.

Full Cast Audio does a fantastic job of bringing Ms. Pierce’s book to audio life. In particular, I need to note Daniel Bostick who played Numair the Mage. His voice built pictures in my head every time his character spoke.

Posted by Mary Robinette Kowal

Review of Nightfall: The Room by Michael McCabe

Nightfall: The Room
By Michael McCabe; Performed by a Full Cast
1 Cassette – 55 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Durkin Hayes
Published: 1996
ISBN: 057943687959
Themes: / Horror / Ghosts / Haunted House /

It was late one night. I mean really late – two-something in the morning late. My eyes opened, I got up for some water, a bathroom break, then back to bed. A minute or so later, I knew that I wasn’t going to get back to sleep quickly, so I got back up to find something to listen to. I found my cassette Walkman, into which I placed Nightfall: The Room. A half an hour later, I was listening for strange noises and thinking that it was awfully dark in the bedroom, for The Room is one heck of a fine ghost story.

In the story, a widow named Ameila Watts explains to a man that several people have stayed in the “yellow room” in her house, but they’ve gone mad in the attempt, because the room is haunted. She offers the man 1000 pounds to attempt it himself, and because he’s a man who does not believe in the supernatural and needs the money, he accepts. What follows is an excellent example of audio drama done right. A first-rate scary production.

On the flip side of the cassette is a story called “Maid’s Bell” by Edith Wharton. Also well-produced, “Maid’s Bell” is the story of the experience of a woman who is hired to be a maid in a mansion. One of the other maids tells her that the previous women who have held the job left quite abruptly, and the mystery unfolds from there.

The best resource I know of if you want to know more about Nightfall, the CBC Radio series of which this is a part, try Nightfall-25. Many of these were published in single cassette editions by Durkin Hayes – they are out of print, but many can be found on eBay. Publishers: A Best-Of collection from these wonderful shows would be very welcome.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Farmer Giles of Ham & Other Stories by J.R.R. Tolkien

Farmer Giles of Ham & Other Stories
By J.R.R. Tolkien; Read by Derek Jacobi
2 Cassettes – 3 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Harper Audio
Published: 1999
ISBN: 0001056107
Themes: / Fantasy / Dragons / Giants / Magic / Humor / Art /

*Includes three tales from The Perilous Realm:

Farmer Giles of Ham
One of Tolkien’s most popular stories. Full of wit and humor and set in the days of giants and dragons, it tells the tale of a reluctant hero Farmer Giles, his grey mare, and his talking dog Garm, who all three conspire to save Ham and the middle kingdom first from the a deaf giant and again from the dreaded dragon Chrysophylax.

Smith of Wootton Major
Tells of baking a Great Cake to mark the Feast of Good Children and the magical events that follow.

Leaf by Niggle
Recounts the adventures of a painter trying to capture a tree on canvas.

A wonderful treat for the lovers of Tolkien. Though far overshadowed by his stories about Hobbits and rings the author of The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit also wrote some great short stories, and here they are! Three amusing and interesting stories, by the greatest English fantasist since William Shakespeare. If you enjoyed The Lord Of The Rings for more than the battle scenes you should definietly try this two little cassette package on for size. Performed by Sir Derek Jacobi, best known for his role in “I, Claudius”, this is a skillful reading that transforms each character into a person, even the dog in the title story has his own voice. Jacobi captured my attention fully, I was really delighted to have a performer of such skill as his read it to me. Worth hunting down!

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
By J.K. Rowling; Read by Jim Dale
17 CDs – 19 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Listening Library
Published: 2005
ISBN: 0307283658
Themes: / Fantasy / Magic / Wizardry / Youth / Magical Creatures / School /

At this point, the Harry Potter universe has become so entrenched in our culture that it’s impossible to approach the newest installment of the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, with anything like objectivity. Most readers already care so much about Harry and his associates that the reading experience has become less like enjoying a good novel and more like continuing the biography of a good friend or beloved celebrity. Which isn’t to say that The Half-Blood Prince isn’t a good novel; on the contrary, it ranks right up there with The Prisoner and Azkaban and The Goblet of Fire, and is a damn sight better than 2003’s gloomy and ultimately disappointing The Order of the Phoenix. For those of us who feel better when things are given in Star Wars terms, The Half-Blood Prince is most similar to The Empire Strikes Back; it advances and complicates our views about the series and its characters, while apparently moving backward from the hero’s inevitable triumph over the villain.

In The Half-Blood Prince, author J.K. Rowling maintains her own tradition of opening the novel without the titular hero in sight. In this case, the muggle Prime Minister of England is anxiously awaiting a visit from the Minister of Magic and reminiscing about their previous, mostly unpleasant, meetings. When Cornelius Fudge arrives, he brings news that the wizarding world is in an uproar; Lord Voldemort is apparently growing more and more powerful, Voldemort’s followers, the Death-Eaters are becoming more brazen in their attacks, and wizards, witches, and muggles are all at increasing risk of severe harm or death.

While Rowling never mentions real-world events in the books, the tone and situations of the two novels published since 9-11 indicate that the world inside her head is not completely insulated from the world outside. It’s telling of Rowling’s own views that the Ministry of Magic is, at best, ineffectual in dealing with these threats, and is often outright dangerous; in The Half-Blood Prince, the Ministry of Magic detains individuals it knows to be innocent, in order to give the appearance of making some progress against the enemy.

The initial expository scene, combined with a tantalizingly ambiguous revelation about one of the Hogwart’s professors, makes for such a dark opening that it’s an almost tangible relief when Harry finally makes an appearance. The likeable young wizard is now 16 years old, and Rowling has again taken pains to ensure that the novel has matured along with Harry. Passages dealing with the magical comeuppance of the Dursleys, the pointless ins and outs of Quidditch matches (why bother with anything but the snitch?), and the minutiae of wizard candy are fleeting and widely spaced, while more chapters are devoted to fairly violent magical battles (a faithful movie adaptation could very well garner an “R” rating), career counseling, and “snogging,” (making out, for those of us on the Yankee side of the pond).

Once the novel starts in earnest, Rowling doesn’t stray from Harry’s point of view, but she cheats somewhat by using the “pensive,” a magical device that allows Harry to explore the memories of others. The pensive is put to good use in the book, as its main function is to investigate the background of “He-who-must-not-be-named.” Readers who are hoping for a complicated, even sympathetic, take on Lord Voldemort (ala Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon) will be disappointed. It turns out that Voldemort is just plain bad, always has been, and apparently, always will be. More psychopath than sadist, Voldemort never hurts or kills just for enjoyment, his villainies are always means to an end. Voldemort’s particular brand of evil means that the guilt that might be expected to accompany these activities just isn’t there.

Other magical items are used less effectively in the story. An episode involving a bottle of “liquid luck”, called “felix felicis,” (the letters of which do not rearrange to spell deus ex machina) feels so contrived, requires a such a lengthy and complicated set-up, and requires Harry, Ron, and Hermione to act so outside their characters, that it’s one of the few times the book feels like something that somebody made up, rather than a description of actual events.

All told, however, the sixth installment in the Harry Potter series is excellent, and the unabridged recording of the novel makes for a very enjoyable listen. The folks at Listening Library made an inspired choice when they chose Jim Dale to read The Sorcerer’s Stone, and, five books, two Audie Awards, five Headphone Awards, three Grammy nominations and one actual Grammy later, his performance of The Half-Blood Prince is, to borrow a word from Harry, brilliant. Even without sound effects, music, or multiple actors, The Half-Blood Prince plays like a good BBC radio drama. Dale lends nuance and individuality to each of the characters, while his “normal,” narration voice is dignified, yet accessible. Dale also has an uncanny knack for interpreting speech adverbs; where Rowling writes “reprovingly,” or “reminiscently”, Dale puts reproach or reminiscence into the dialogue, so much so that very often the listener will be able to predict Rowling’s choice of adverb before Dale reads it. Maybe the highest compliment that can be paid to the audio book is that at no point is the reader reminded of the sub-par (but increasingly better) film adaptations of the books. While listeners who desire an experience closer to reading, with more neutral performances that allow for more personal interpretation, might resent having Dale’s vigorous interpretation thrust upon them, most listeners, particularly younger ones, will enjoy all 19 hours of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

posted by Cory

Review of Ender’s Game: Special 20th Anniversary Edition by Orson Scott Card

Ender’s Game: Special 20th Anniversary Edition
By Orson Scott Card; Read by Stefan Rudnicki, Harlan Ellison, Gabrielle de Cuir, David Birney and a FULL CAST
9 CDs – 10.5 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Renaissance
Published: 2004
ISBN: 1593974744
Themes: / Science Fiction / War / Children / Military / Politics / Spaceships / Space Station / Aliens /

Andrew ‘Ender’ Wiggin isn’t just playing games at Battle School; he and the other children are being tested and trained in Earth’s attempt to find the military genius that the planet needs in its all-out war with an alien enemy. Ender Wiggin is six years old when his training begins. He will grow up fast. Ender’s two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world–if the world survives.

Many male children covet uniforms and the manly art of war – and on the surface that is what Ender’s Game appears to be about, a wish-fulfillment novel for the pre-teen set. But it isn’t only that. Science Fiction is an accumulative literature, perhaps more so than any other kind. Good creations stick in SF and accumulate and grow. Robots once invented, need not be reinvented. Faster than light travel, time travel or Asimov’s “three laws” are tools which once created need not be ignored as outside the scope of another SF novel, quite the contrary in fact. Simply ask yourself; in what other literature could a constructed story device like an “ansible” (invented by Ursula K. Le Guin in 1966 but used in Ender’s Game) be mentioned without renaming it? But it is not just the story props that SF shares, the concepts and themes of science fiction can never be fully appreciated in isolation. Every science fiction story is in dialogue with another.

Ender’s Game is especially engaged with two other superlative science fiction novels that preceded it, namely Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, and like those two masterpieces of science fiction Ender’s Game has something new and unique to say. Whereas Starship Troopers can be viewed as the relationship between a teenager’s individualism and his relationship to society (a neo-Hobbesian social contract concept typical of mid-career Heinlien), and The Forever War as a discussion of that same relationship but with a college aged young man and his more skeptical worldview (the post Vietnam influence) Ender’s Game engages neither an adult’s nor a teen’s relationship to his society its war. Instead Ender’s Game is that relationship from a child’s perspective. It is also, paradoxically, not a grunt’s view of a war, as was the case with both Heinlein’s and Haldeman’s novels, but rather is about how the supreme commander of an interstellar war is created.

Orson Scott Card has not ignored the disconnect between a child’s desire to play at war and the brutal cost of killing, and the burden of ultimate responsibility. We primarily follow Ender and his classmates as they train to command Earth’s military in a genocidal war against a hostile alien threat, but the parallel story of his two siblings back on Earth compels equally. Each character in this novel is in a chess match of emotional and philosophical conflict with one another and their society. There are a few better hard science fiction stories, and a few better soft science fiction stories, but there are fewer science fiction stories as well constructed and emotionally satisfying as this one.

The 20th anniversary of the novel’s re-publication brought about this audiobook. It is regrettable that the cover art of this edition is as generic as it is because the folks at Audio Renaissance have quite literally have brought greatness to the text. They’ve included an introduction and a postscript read by Card himself, both of which place the novel and the audiobook in its context as well as enlightening us to the author’s method of its construction. Multiple readers lead by Stefan Rudnicki work perfectly to vocally illustrate each chapter, character and scene. Stefan Rudnicki, Harlan Ellison, Gabrielle De Cuir, David Birney and the rest of the readers have given us an audiobook perfectly rendered. In what is the pattern for the Enderverse novels adapted for Audio Renaissance readers trade off at the ends of chapters, and when two unplaced voices are unattributed – except by what they actually say – two actors engage in conversation. Multi voiced readings have never been better.

And so it is with great pleasure that we enter this Special 20th Anniversary edition of Ender’s Game as the first into the ranks of the SFFaudio Essential audiobooks.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Here at SFFAudio, we have considered several different ways to present what we think are the finest audiobooks out there. At one time we had a favorites list, then we considered rating each audiobook using a 5-star system. The SFFAudio Essential designation is what we landed upon. An audiobook earning a place on the SFFAudio Essential list is a five-star gem of an audiobook – a great place to start if you are new to science fiction and fantasy audio, and a necessary addition for collectors.

Review of Imagination X: The First Album by Jeffrey Adams

Imagination X: The First Album
By Jeffrey Adams; Performed by a Full Cast
1 CD – 1 hour [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Bud C. Productions
Published: 2003
ISBN: 0974201200
Themes: / Fantasy / Horror / Ghosts / Artificial Intelligence / Dreams /

If you are a fan of Twilight Zone fiction, you are going to enjoy Imagination X. There are eight dramatized stories included in this 1-hour album, each performed by a full cast:

“The House in the Woods” – A woman is haunted by visions in her dreams of a house in the woods.

“Box Love” – A hilarious look at love between two artificially intelligent kitchen appliances.

“Up on the Rooftops” – Something’s moving up on the roof – is it Santa Claus?

“Background” – A researcher goes to a haunted house and tape records notes while he looks around. But the tapes contain more than his voice…

“Mandible Hill” – Do you know what the person sitting next to you is capable of?

“The Prisoner” – A tortured soul cries out his torment – or does he?

“Distance” – A space traveler deals with his computer which is also trying to deal with him.

Find this audio at Bud C. Productions – you’ll be glad you did. The website leaves quite a bit to be desired, but there is some interesting information there. If you click on an episode, you can find some of Jeffrey Adams’ notes on the production along with cast info. A piece of data I found interesting: The computer voice was played by the ‘Speakable Items’ function of my iMac computer, the existence of which was the inspiration for the episode, and, to some extent, for the entire series.

I enjoyed the time I spent with these stories, and am looking forward to more from Jeffrey Adams and crew.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson