SFFaudio essential – Page 10

Review of Into That Darkness Peering: Nightmarish Tales Of The Macabre Vol. 1 by Edgar Allan Poe

SFFaudio Review

Into That Darkness Peering: Nightmarish Tales Of The Macabre – Vol. 1 SFFaudio Essential
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Wayne June
1 CD – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: AudioBookCase.com
Published: March 2008
ISBN: 0977845303
Themes: / Horror / Revenge / Cats / Noir / Wine /

Three tales from the original master of horror fiction, Edgar Allan Poe! Included in this collection are “The Raven”, “The Black Cat” and “The Cask Of Amontillado.”

Three classic tales. These stories are so familiar as to be almost genetic. They are the foundation for whole modern genres. Noir, Crime and Horror fiction were sired by Poe. Hear three of his finest in this, their finest form.

“The Raven” follows the curious events in one evening of unnamed brooding narrator. Whilst reading a tome of “forgotten lore” he hears a knocking on his door. What follows is a rhymed narrative rumination on the portentous meaning of the feathered visitor’s single utterance. Nevermore will you need to wait for another version. This one’s definitive.

“The Black Cat” is a first person account of the alcoholic events leading an animal lover to the depths of depravity and beyond into horror. This tale seems to encapsulate the entire fevered imaginings of the American temperance movement. Its supernatural elements are minor compared to its un-romantic view of an unrestricted humanity stripped of the superego. In other words, it’s a killer story.

“The Cask Of Amontillado” is a strong tale of cold, cavernous revenge served with a very dry sherry, one brick at a time. This is one of Poe’s most enigmatic works. What precisely the revenge is for, or if there indeed was any real vengence required (despite the narrator’s claim) has haunted scholars. However you interpret it, it does push all the “great horror story” buttons in you.

Narrator Wayne June assures us that he’s done his research on this new series of definitive Edgar Allan Poe readings, and in listening you’ll absolutely have to agree. Place names and pronunciations are perfect – accents and action are exact. You can often tell when a narrator is bluffing it, surfing through the sentences blindly. That absolutely doesn’t happen here. In Poe’s most famous narrative poem The Raven, for instance, there’s nary a line that doesn’t contain an archaic word that’d flummox. June never falters. He’s got them all sussed. The Black Cat too, has never sounded better. June captures the sympathetic first person narrative and then drives home the barbarity flawlessly. Light accents make “The Cask Of Amontillado”, the most difficult of the three tales here, flow like an old vintage newly discovered. There are already many versions of these three classics available on audio, but I’d venture not a single one could come even close to match any of these three. Wayne June’s voice is perfectly matched to the melancholic material. As was the case with his superlative Lovecraft recordings, nobody else’s voice is more more morbidly macabre than is Wayne June’s. This is essential listening.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer

SFFaudio Review

Calculating God
By Robert J. Sawyer; Read by Jonathan Davis
Audible Download – 12 hours – [Unabridged]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: 2008
ISBN: None
Themes: / Science Fiction / Aliens / Paleontology / Religion / Philosophy / Space Travel /

One of the things I enjoy most about reviewing audiobooks is that I get to revisit novels that I’ve read and loved in the past. When these beloved novels are given great readers (not always the case), I can’t wait to get at them. Calculating God is one of those novels, and Jonathan Davis is an excellent narrator, so this audiobook leapt to the top of my TBR list the moment I realized it existed.

Jonathan Davis burst onto the science fiction scene with his stellar narration of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash (SFFaudio review here). Since then, in the science fiction genre, he’s been almost exclusively reading Random House’s Star Wars abridgments. He reads them well, but I was thrilled to see him step away from that and narrate another of science fiction’s great novels. He is one of our very best narrators and this is a fine performance. I was rapt the entire time, and even near tears at one moment in the book.

When I read this novel for the first time, I was a bit taken aback. I am a Catholic and I’ve been reading science fiction all of my life. I have never had a problem reconciling science and religion and have been both perplexed and dismayed that Christianity is portrayed so often as being incompatible with science. It’s certainly true that for many Christian churches this conflict is real, but those churches are not Catholic churches, despite the most famous illustration of the conflict being the Catholic treatment of Galileo. I tell everyone who cares that Galileo was an aberration in the history of the Church (not the norm), but still, it was a colossal (though admitted) mistake. But for myself, science and religion are NOT in conflict. I’ve included a link at the bottom of this review to an interview of Brother Guy Consolmagno, a Vatican astronomer that aired on CBC Radio as an illustration of a Catholic’s relationship with science. Robert J. Sawyer is mentioned in the interview as well.

Back to the novel at hand: The reason I was taken aback when I first read this book was that it’s the first novel I’ve ever read in which the aliens believe in God. That in itself makes this book interesting enough to pick up. Imagine – an alien lands on your front doorstep and starts to question your doubts about the existence of God. Most science fiction portrays religion as something that is grown through or evolved past. By the time an alien species is mature enough for stellar travel, surely they have jettisoned religion? There’s no place for such a thing in a rational, scientific universe. Right?

Well, not according to this novel. Sawyer presents, in a very entertaining and interesting way, arguments for and against God’s existence. The main character (Tom Jericho) is a paleontologist who is dying of cancer. An alien (named Hollus) lands near the Royal Ontario Museum and strolls right in, asking to see the fossils. And off the novel goes. Jericho and Hollus spend much of the novel together looking at fossils and discussing various topics that range from the wide, including mass extinctions and evolution, to the intimately personal, like the approaching death of Jericho. I can think of no better way to present these topics than this lively novel, and I’ll recommend it to anyone interested in thinking about these things, no matter which side of the fence they are on.

Sawyer uses science fiction to create circumstances that make us readers think about important ideas in different ways and from different perspectives. That’s exactly the kind of science fiction I love to read, and why I’ll keep coming back to Robert J. Sawyer for more. I’m very happy to have had a chance to revisit this novel, and even happier to be able to award it our SFFaudio Essential designation.

Audible.com has published a few more of Robert J. Sawyer’s novels: The Neanderthal Trilogy is there (Hominids, Humans, and Hybrids). They also have his Nebula winning novel The Terminal Experiment, published by Recorded Books. We reviewed it back in 2003.

Robert J. Sawyer’s Calculating God page: LINK

A link to a CBC interview of Brother Guy Consolmagno, Vatican Astronomer: LINK

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Blake’s 7 – Audio Adventures

SFFaudio Review

Blake’s 7 – Audio Adventures (Trilogy Box Set)
By Ben Aaronovitch, Marc Platt and James Swallow; Performed by FULL-CAST
3 Audio CDs & 1 CD-ROM – Approx. 225 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: B7 Media
Published: 2007
Themes: / Science Fiction / Space Opera / Galactic Civilization / Politics / War / Terrorism / Spaceships /

In the third century of the second calendar, the galactic Federation, once a beacon of democracy and peace, has become a corrupt tyranny. Roj Blake stood up for the ordinary people. The establishment framed him for crimes he didn’t commit and sentenced him to permanent exile on the notorious prison planet of Cygnus Alpha. The Federation thinks it has seen the last of Roj Blake. The Federation will wish it had.

The producers of this stunning re-imagining Terry Nation’s late 1970s television series have improved upon the original Blake’s 7 in the same way as Battlestar Galactica was improved upon in its new TV series. This set, contains the three re-cut episodes Rebel, Traitor, and Liberator (and 40 minutes of bonus features). It is absolute audio drama perfection. The show is fast, surprising, darkly thrilling and utterly unflinching. Roj Blake is a folk hero, like Robin Hood or Pancho Villa. His struggle to free the deluded citizens of the galactic federation is full of ambiguities not found in the simplistic Star Wars films. If you like audio drama, you’ll love Blake’s 7 – Audio Adventures!

Alistair Lock, responsible for sound effects, fills the soundscape with original and re-worked B7 sounds. The music is orchestral, and reminiscent of the original show. The acting in all three stories is absolutely top-shelf, Derek Riddell (Doctor Who) is the hardened, yet compassionate, Roj Blake. The treacherously reliable Kerr Avon is played by Colin Salmon (Tomorrow Never Dies). Michael Praed (of Robin Of Sherwod fame) guest stars, it’s a real who’s who of British Actors! Even Carrie Dobro (last seen in Babylon 5’s Crusade), playing Jenna, gets a meaty role she can really sink her teeth into.
I first listened to the Blake’s 7 – Audio Adventures on the Sci Fi channel UK’s website as the five minute episodes were released. They sounded great! But, because they were released three times a week, and because each episode began and ended with lengthy intros and outros (lasting a minute or so) it was nigh impossible to follow the story. NOT SO with this re-cut version!

Here’s a breakdown of what’s in the set…

Disc 1: Rebel by Ben AaronovitchRebel is not only easy to follow, it is impossible not to follow! The show is super-compelling – like a tractor beam sucking you in. The adventure starts on Earth with a government special-ops team trying to capture the elusive Roj Blake. Blake was an opposition leader, now he’s an accused pedophile and terrorist. He’s soon caught, but not cowed. At his sham trial he acquits himself well, but still gets convicted after the fair judge (played by Frances Barber) gets re-programed. Blake is sentenced to exile on a prison planet, but instead of being neutralized he and some fellow prisoners manage to find what may turn out to be a real source for change in the Federation – an alien ship of immense power!

Disc 2: Traitor by Mark Platt
Blake and company, now in possession of a starship with tech beyond that of the Federation, must master the artificially intelligent and suicidal computer. Traitor is action packed, scene transitions take micro-seconds, point of view shifts by sound (you can tell where you are by what the voice of the speaker sounds like). As in Rebel the physics and science are done in a deliberate “hard SF” style. Unbeatable audio action.

Disc 3: Liberator by James Swallow
In part three, the Scottish accented Supreme Commander Servalan (Daniela Nardini) and her lackey Space Commander Travis (Craig Kelly) hatch a plan to eliminate Blake and steal his new ship. Meanwhile, with their ship now in fully working order Blake’s seven argue as to the best course of action. Should they, as Avon suggests,turn pirate? Or should they, as Blake wants, turn “Liberator” into a flagship of resistance? A few light-years away something is waiting…

Special Features [CD-ROM]:

Blake’s 7: A Rebellion Reborn – [VIDEO]
A terrific 17 minute video documentary offering behind the scenes studio footage, on camera interviews and commentary on what made the old television series so great. Watching this will sell any old Blake’s 7 fan on this new series!

Sci Fi 360 – [VIDEO]
A short (4 Minutes 16 Seconds) video about Blake’s 7 – Audio Adventures that aired on the Sci-Fi Channel UK, shot at the Sci-Fi-London 6 Festival.

Sci Files – [VIDEO]
Another short video (2 Minutes 1 Second) promoting the show. It too aired on the Sci-Fi Channel UK.

Blakes 7 Theme – [MUSIC]
An MP3 featuring an extended (2 Minutes 10 Seconds) version of the new B7 theme!

Blooper Reel -[AUDIO BLOOPERS]
An MP3 (5 Minutes 43 Seconds) of outtakes from the recording of the three episodes.

“He’s The One” – [MUSIC]
An MP3 rock ballad about Roj Blake performed by Slashed Seat Affair.

Wallpaper
Various sizes of desktop wallpaper featuring B7 art.

The producers tell me we haven’t heard the last of the Blake’s 7 Audio Adventures! So, get on board citizens, the rebels need your strength.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Canadia: 2056 – Season One

SFFaudio Review

Canadia: 2056: Season 1
By Matt Watts; Perfomed by a full cast
5 CDs – Approx. 5 Hours [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: CBC Audio
Published: January 21, 2008
Product ID: ERART00217
Themes: / Science Fiction / Humor / Canada / War / Toilets / Audio Drama / CBC /

This entertaining sci-fi comedy series is written by one of Canada’s best-loved comedy writers, Matt Watts. The United States has launched an armada to destroy an alien threat. Canada sends the nation’s only publicly-funded spacecraft, The Canadia – a ship with a single purpose – to plunge the Americans’ toilets.

There are lots of audio dramas out here on the internet, but if you want to hear a professional piece of work that will make you laugh out loud, you should give Canadia 2056 300 minutes of your time. Matt Watts and the entire cast and crew of Canadia 2056 have created something special. The show is an absolute gem.

The Canadia of the series is a Canadian spaceship that has been sent to war with a United States fleet, which in turn has been sent to perform a pre-emptive strike on a planet called Ipampilash. Midshipman Max Anderson is the only American member of the crew, and his relations with all of the Canadians is central to the comedy of the show. I’m not a Canadian, so I’m certain that I’m missing the deeper meaning of some of the jokes, but the scripts are crafted and performed in such a way that I really didn’t feel I was missing out.

An example of this occurs in the very first episode. The captain of the Canadia (hilariously performed by Paul O’Sullivan) is choosing a voice for the computer. He goes through a few, then settles on a gravelly female voice. I found the scene funny without knowing what I was told later – the voice selected was Shauna MacDonald, who is known as the Promo Girl in Canada. Apparently, her voice was heard all the time on CBC, and the debate between the folks that wanted her off the air and the folks who wanted her to stay made her famous. (I’d have wanted her to stay, by the way. I adore her voice.)

Max Anderson (played by series writer Matt Watts) makes an interesting representative of the United States. He’s cowardly, geeky, selfish, and his mother is an admiral in the US fleet. He feels his way around the crew, and finds his place among them eventually. Holly Lewis was captivating as Amanda Lewis, the engineer that Max spends the most time with. There’s a lot of tension between the two, and it’s wonderfully played.

I could sit here and start listing my favorite moments, but it’s suffice to say that I loved these shows enough that I listened more than once. There’s a short list of audio drama that’s really excellent, and even a shorter list of comedic audio drama that’s really excellent. Canadia 2056: Season One is one of those, and I urge you to give it a listen. It’s cruckin’ fanatastic!

Season Two of Canadia: 2056 starts next week on CBC Radio! It looks like the first airing will be at 11:00pm, Wednesday, March 19th. Click here to keep your eye on the CBC Radio schedule.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

SFFaudio Review

Old Man’s War
By John Scalzi; Read by William Dufris
Audible Download – Approx. 10 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: macmillan audio / audible.com
Published: October 2007
Themes: / Science Fiction / Military SF / War / Telepathy / Space Travel / Galactic Civilization /

John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First, he visited his wife’s grave. Then he joined the army. The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce – and alien races willing to fight us for them are common.

There’s an excellent subgenre of science fiction that produces a novel every dozen years or so. “Tributes to Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers“, I call it. First in this subgenre was The Forever War (1974) – a kind of anti-Starship Troopers novel. Second was Ender’s Game (1985) a kind of micro/macro version of ST. There was even a satire called Bill The Galactic Hero (1965), which parodied ST. The latest novel in this little branch of SF is Old Man’s War, a faithful ode to Heinlein’s original tale of Earther civilian turned hardened space soldier. The war of the title is both familiar and different. Gone are the powered armor and accompanying fission bomb launcher of Heinlein’s mid-twentieth century novel. In are genetically engineered soldiers and nanotech weapon systems. Another innovation in Old Man’s War includes is the BrainPal™, a neural implant that makes battlefield communication exacty like telepathy. Tech and lineage aside this is one hell of a story all on its own. All of the previous novels in this niche spent a great deal of time in training their protagonist. Same goes here, Old Man’s War has the requisite gruff staff sergeant of the “Colonial Defense Forces” who trains the hero, John Perry, and his fellow recruits. It also has the first shock of combat, a learning curve towards mastery and some twists and turns you can’t see coming. Old Man’s War also has the pure brutality of war, the comradely companionship a love story (of sorts). New to the series is a light touch of humor here and there, John Perry was writer before he joined the army. The alien enemies he fights aren’t bugs (nor “buggers”), but are memorable and varied. The Consu, for instance, are deeply religious, and though having a superior technology to every known alien race – including humans – will fight only with roughly equal technology to any species they encounter. The Salong, meanwhile, are a deer-like species that while appearing shyly doe-eyed, fight humans because they find us extremely tasty – a case of the hunters become the hunted. One scene of combat has Perry and his platoon stomping like Godzilla a city of lilliputian aliens that the Humans have somehow made a grudge with. Later in the book we discover that there are some soldiers in the CDF who don’t share the common background of Perry and his platoon. These “Ghost Brigades” as they are called, are a fascinating new twist all on their own, and judging by the title of the already written sequels (The Ghost Brigades, The Sagan Diary and The Last Colony) were going to be learning more about them. This is delightfully compelling listening, like any little genre it comforts with the familiarity of form and entertains with the variations on the theme.

Audible.com (and the iTunes Audiobook Store) has made itself a must-try service by the very exclusivity of this audiobook. If you want to hear this Hugo nominated adventure, you have to sign up with audible.com or iTunes to get it. Narrator William Dufris is his reliable self, injecting battalions of charm and humor into the voices of John Perry and his various companions. Old Man’s War is a righteous addition to Heinlein’s Troopers legacy. The name of John Scalzi can now stand in Science Fiction pantheon proudly beside the likes of Orson Scott Card, Joe Haldeman and Robert A. Heinlein.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Billibub Baddings And The Case Of The Singing Sword by Tee Morris

SFFaudio Review

Billibub Baddings And The Case Of The Singing Sword
By Tee Morris; Read by Tee Morris and others
16 MP3 Files – Approx. 11 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: TeeMorris.com / Podiobooks.com
Published: 2007
Themes: / Fantasy / Mystery / Magic / Alternate World / Chicago / 1920s /

It is The Era of Prohibition, where crime runs rampant in the streets and a city divided into territories serves as the ultimate prize. Somewhere in this Underworld of Chicago, an enchanted weapon holds the key to ending The Gangland Wars. In the wake of The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, only one is man enough to stand up against Al Capone … a four-foot-one dwarf named Billibub Baddings.

That Baddings character, he isn’t your regular dwarf. Hell, he’s not even from planet Earth at all. He’s the other kind of dwarf, one of those Tolkienesque creatures. Baddings is a short but stocky humanoid, like the ones you’d find inhabiting the mountains and mines of role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons and World Of Warcraft. So how’d he end up in Chicago? Well, during one of his very real adventures Billi crossed a dimensional gate and found himself flung far from home into the bowels of the Chicago Public Library building. Stranded in 1929, on a planet without any Elves, Hobbits or trolls, Billi has had to acquire a massive new skill-set in his adopted urban home. And even though we know from his own accounts that he was what D&D players might have called a “high-level character” to begin with, it isn’t a piece of cake. Luckily, finding himself an avid reader, after teaching himself to read English, Billi sets out to become a professional private investigator, just like in the books he’s discovered. Fortunately, whatever Billi sets his mind to doing, sooner or later gets done. And then, just like in the books, a dame enters Billi’s office with a case – a case which will eventually pit lil’ Billi against the biggest mobster of all, namely old Al “Scarface” Capone himself!

The background for the tale is 1929 Chicago, but Billibub tells us what the place is like from his 4 foot 1 first person point of view. Even better is the attention to detail on Billi’s own homeworld, we get plenty of info on what his land was like – it is richly imagined, a fantasy landscape with multiple alliances, plenty of battle history and their own philosophical beliefs. I’d warrant a future novel in this series (and make no mistake, this is a series character if we’ve ever seen one) will warrant an extended visit to Acryonis. The plot is swift, and flows as if it was always a cinch that hardbolied mystery and fantasy went to together like ham and eggs. You’ll find yourself swept along, cheering for the know-it-all dwarf right to the very end.

With Billibub Baddings And The Case Of The Singing Sword Tee Morris has written another terrific fantasy novel that blazes trails in genre bending – combining mystery and fantasy – as well as medium stretching – this is an audiobook enhanced with music and sound effects. Tee started the whole podcast novel revolution way back in 2005 with Morevi: The Chronicles Of Rafe And Askana, two years later he’s now mastered it. Billibub Baddings And The Case Of The Singing Sword will indubitably become known as the “first great enhanced drama podiobook.”

Tee Morris performs the book himself, but he’s brought a who’s-who of guests podcasters in to perform most of the other characters (including one of our own SFFaudio editors). As the tale is told first person the enthusiastic self-confidence of Tee spills over onto Billi. Billi is ultra-competent. That ultra competence (there isn’t any point in time where we think Billi is out of his depth) and an over use the colloquial 1920 terms (everyone has “peepers”, nobody has “eyes”) are the only seams in an otherwise smooth production. Scene music, sound effects and the occasional voice effect, often created through editing alone makes this unabridged novel come alive in an atypical but extremely enjoyable auidobook-like experience. For those used to audiobooks there is an option through podiobooks.com to download the entire audiobook in one day. For those who prefer to take the book at a slower pace you can set your customizable podcast feed to deliver at your own pace.

Highly recommended!

Posted by Jesse Willis

ALSO: Avid Tee Morris fans will be delighted to learn Tee’s next podiobook release will be an extended and UNABRIDGED version of Tee’s first novel (and first podiobook) Morevi: The Chronicles Of Rafe And Askana. Have a listen to the promo |MP3|.

It starts ~~just ONE WEEK from today on October 29th!~~ on November 29th 2007.

For more info on Morevi REMASTERED, visit the offficial website at Morevi.net.