SFFaudio essential – Page 11

Review of Princess Academy by Shannon Hale

SFFaudio Review

Princess Academy
By Shannon Hale; Read by a Full Cast
8 CDs – 8 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Full Cast Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 1933322772
Themes: / Fantasy / Young Adult / Magic / Culture / Royalty / Boarding School / Economics /

Earlier this year (2007), the unabridged Full Cast Audio production of Shannon Hale’s The Goose Girl won an Audie Award for Achievement in Production. Now, Full Cast Audio offers another Shannon Hale novel in a production that may be even better. Princess Academy is a wonderful YA fantasy novel that is a sure bet to enthrall readers (and now listeners) of all ages.

It’s become cliché to say that this or that YA novel has wider appeal than their target audience but Shannon Hale’s, without question, fit that description. They are appropriate for young listeners (the box says “ages 10 to adult”) and at the same time are smart enough and, most importantly, true enough for older readers. This novel is entertaining, but the characters live realistic and difficult lives. Through them, Hale helps us understand that there’s nothing more important in life than love.

The main character of the novel is Miri, a fourteen year old girl who is small for her age. She lives in a mountain village, where most of the residents work in the nearby quarry. One day, a herald arrives and announces that priests have determined that the bride of the prince, who lives in a bustling city, will come from the tiny region that Miri lives in, and that all girls 14-18 years old must report to an academy so that they might be educated for the prince’s visit one year later, when he will make his choice. The girls are collected and brought to the academy, some of them willingly, and some of them not.

Miri is not happy about it, and her feelings of inadequacy due to the overprotective way her father treats her are compounded and confused by the fact that he does not put up much of a fight to keep her from going. But once she gets to the academy and learns to read, she realizes the benefit and takes full advantage of the experience, which is made all the more difficult by a very hard headmistress. Throughout the story, Miri learns of a magic called “quarryspeak”, which is a method of psychic communication that seems to work only between quarry workers while in the quarry. She finds that there’s more to it than that, and she finds out there’s a lot more to everything else, too.

The Full Cast Audio team has mastered their unique method of unabridged audiobook production. There is no other company that produces audiobooks the way they do it, and every book they come out with is technically better than the last. Actors are used for all the dialogue, and a narrator reads everything else. An 8 hour production like this would lose its appeal if any of the roles were cast with questionable talent, but that’s not a problem here. Particularly good were Jo D’Aloisio, the young girl who played Miri, Laura Credidio, the narrator, and Alice Morigi, who played Tutor Olana, the icy headmistress. The entire cast deserves kudos. Skilled acting and directing along with perfect music and editing make this production a wondrous experience. Simply excellent, all around.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Voyagers by Ben Bova

SFFaudio Review

Voyagers
By Ben Bova; Read by Stefan Rudnicki
12 CDs -13 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Sample: Click here
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2006
ISBN: 0786167424
Themes: / Science Fiction / Alien Contact / Space Program / Politics / Religion /

Voyagers is a superior first contact novel. It was originally published in 1981, but it holds up extremely well, especially since our space program has not changed all that much in the past 26 years. But the novel’s setting is the now that was then, which means the United States and USSR are the two superpowers and the only two countries with space programs.

The book starts off in a similar way to Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama. An alien craft has been detected, and it’s in the solar system. Those in the know have no clue what the ship wants – are the aliens hostile or friendly? What does this mean for humanity?

From there the story takes a tack similar to another Clarke novel – 2010: Odyssey Two, but Clarke’s book was published a year after Bova’s. The United States and the USSR decide to cooperate rather than fight. The underlings (i.e. the folks doing the actual work) are ready and willing to do so, but the politicians spend their time pulling the other way. Other internal arguments include everything from “when should we tell the public” to “who gets to go”.

Throughout the novel, Bova takes the time to look around at the world’s reaction as they are informed. Rumors fly and some factions of humanity take action based on those rumors. In short, Bova gives us a fascinating and plausible account of the world’s reaction to first contact. Widespread panic? Don’t think so.

All of this builds up to a truly powerful conclusion. The final two CDs of this audiobook contain the most affecting first contact narrative I’ve ever heard or read. I couldn’t help but to play them both again immediately upon finishing, and I’ve resolved myself to keeping them on my iPod indefinitely so that I’m sure to have them with me next time I find myself in a quiet moment under a starry sky.

Stefan Rudnicki continues to impress with this narration, in which he performs many different voices with many different accents, all effective. Though Bova’s story is Clarke-like, there is much more to work with in the character department than in Clarke’s stories, and this allows Rudnicki the opportunity to shine. Also effective in the audiobook are the chapter breaks, each of which is read by a different narrator and each of which contain thought-provoking stuff, from quotes of real-life scientists to news stories that are part of the fiction. I greatly appreciate this kind of thing in an audiobook because it provides a true break as effective as a new chapter in text. All too often, audiobooks don’t create this break for the listener, resulting in a few moments of disorientation as the listener mentally moves to a new setting and/or POV. No such problem here – the prominent breaks are much appreciated.

posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of The Red Panda Adventures – Season 2

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

As a special CANADA DAY treat for everyone worldwide, Podiobooks.com has scored the entire 2nd Season of The Red Panda Adventures! The entire season is up and ready for download today! And here’s our review of it…

The Red Panda Adventures – Season Two
By Gregg Taylor; Performed by a FULL CAST
12 MP3 Files – Approx. 5.5 Hours [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: DecoderRingTheatre.com / Podiobooks.com
Published: 2006/2007
Themes: / Fantasy / Superheroes / Supervillains / 1930s / Toronto / Secret Identities / Hypnotism / Magic / Parallel Worlds /

Mad Monkey: “Security pays, but it can’t live without fear. And all I want is my cut.” -Episode 20: Monkeyshines

Like the first season of The Red Panda Adventures, season two is an incontestably enjoyable frolic through original, but familiar, comic book territory. The Red Panda and his faithful driver, Kit Baxter (AKA Flying Squirrel), patrol Toronto rooftops by static boot, and whunk their way through superhero sized pneumatic tubes concealed about the city, fighting wrongdoers. New and old supervillains, voiced by professional audio actors, execute egregious crimes that can only be foiled by a prosperous panda with hypnotic powers and a volitant rodent with a mean right-hook.

The second season has more of what made the first season so terrific. Standouts in traditional storytelling include episode 14: The Sunday Supplement, Episode 16: The Sweet Tooth, and Episode 20: Monkeyshines. The latter introduces a terrific new antagonist called “The Mad Monkey,” an arch-scoundrel on par with DC Comics rogues like The Joker and The Penguin. Season two also has a few episodes that expand the storytelling in different directions. Episode 18, for instance, was the long requested Secret Origins episode – in which we discover the first ever meeting of Panda and Squirrel. Episode 15: When Darkness Falls tells its tale from the perspective of a young boy in a city with a vigilante superhero. And episode 24: The World Next Door posits the existence of an alternate universe in which the Red Panda is a Nazi fighter and the Flying Squirrel is a teenage boy! In naming this show an SFFaudio essential I’ve got to cite both the writing and the production. The acting here is absolutely tops. Recording the scenes in-studio, together, works. The writing is perky, puissant, perfect, and seemingly effortless. The series scribe, Gregg Taylor, is a master storyteller.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of The Sky People by S.M. Stirling

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

The Sky People
By S.M. Stirling; Read by Todd McLaren
1 MP3-CD or 9 CDs – Approx. 10.5 Hrs [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Published: 2006
ISBN: 140015345X (MP3-CD), 9781400103454 (CDs)
Themes: / Science Fiction / Alternate History / Adventure / Venus / Dinosaurs / Neanderthals / Airships / Cold War / Pulp /

CRACK!

He swayed back against the recoil and worked the bolt with a quick flick of his first three fingers. A body exploded out of the patch of tall grass he’d aimed at. It was a biped, about his own size and covered in yellow-green feathers except for a crest of crimson plumes that snapped out in reflex as the lizard body writhed in death. The jump put it a good twelve feet into the air; a good deal of its length was the powerful digitigrade legs, both with a great sickle-shaped claw held up against the hock. That flashed out in equally automatic reflex as the vicious predator struck out in one last attempt to disembowel whatever had hurt it. A steam-engine hiss escaped the long fanged mouth, scarlet-purple within, and a spray of blood came with it from the lungs shredded by the powerful expanding bullet.

“Raptor pack!” Marc shouted to the herdsman.

The Sky People fits into that alternate history sub-genre of SF but not in the usual way. Generally, alternate history tales follow the events of the real world with one event changed in the past that creates a different outcome and changes history from that point forward. This may be the South winning the Civil War or Mary, Queen of Scots, becoming the Queen of England. The departing point for this novel took place approximately 200 million years ago. But it didn’t occur so much on our own planet but on Venus and Mars. This means this alternate Earth’s history doesn’t change until the U.S. and Soviet Union start exploring interplanetary space.

The prologue features the landing of an American rocket ship on Venus in 1962. The planet’s surface appears as a lush jungle – then running into view of the film camera is an exotic and beautiful scantily fur-clad female with her clan’s people.

The novel proper then begins 22 years later in 1988. The Cold War has changed from an arms race into a competitive interplanetary space race to explore and stake their claims on Venus and Mars. Marc Vitrac, a citizen of Jamestown, the U.S.-Commonwealth scientific colony, welcomes the newly arrived rocket passengers. Their mode of transportation from the landing site to Jamestown is on the back of dinosaurs through the jungle lushness of Venus.

Meanwhile, on the nearby Venusian continent, the Soviet bloc has set up their own scientific outpost. When one of their shuttle crash lands in the relative vicinity of Jamestown, a rescue party is put together to search for survivors. They travel via airship, and it does not fair well against the natural hostile environment. What’s more, there is a saboteur among the blimp’s crew.

The story grows more intriguing as Marc Vitrac and the stranded party of the airship meet with a clan of primitive humans. The two parties join forces to face off against a tribe of armed Neanderthals!

As you might imagine, this novel reads as a love letter to the early pulp master, Edgar Rice Burroughs. But it’s no mere pastiche of the creator of Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, and most pertinently, Carson of Venus. Stirling uses hard science justifications for his world building. And there’s also more of an emphasis on cultural diversity that you’d expect from a novel written in the 21st century. Sterling is a capable writer, whether it is a turning of a phrase or a description of lush imagery, he’s able to handle it all without getting too far from the gloriously pulpy action. Burroughs is often mentioned in the book as being a major influence on the many of the denizens of the scientific colony.

What exactly happened those 200 million years ago isn’t exactly clear. Why is the planet’s evolution so closely tied to that of Earth’s? The reigning hypothesis in The Sky People is that aliens seeded the planets nearest Earth. There are mysteries here that are to be answered over the length of the trilogy.

Todd McLaren handles the dialects deftly without overemphasizing the accents. Some novels are well-suited to be adapted to audiobook, as if they were written for that treatment. The Sky People is one of these, it makes an ideal audiobook. The large ranch of characters with multi-cultural backgrounds enables Todd McLaren to apply his talent for dialect and keeping the listening experience fresh and varied. Sterling also writes with sounds effects—meaning, he literally writes “Unnnngg-OOOK!” for a bellowing dinosaur, so it’s like the story has the sound effects built in, which McLaren gets to vocalize.

The Sky People is a rare pleasure—well-written, thrill-ride excitement, fun characters, lush settings, and all wrapped-up in a wonderful vocal performance. This is the first novel in a projected trilogy. I sincerely hope that Tantor Audio, with the talents of Todd McLaren, publishes the complete series.

posted by The Time Traveler of the Time Traveler Show

Review of The Chief Designer by Andy Duncan

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

The Chief Designer
By Andy Duncan; Read by Jared Doreck
2 CDs – 132 minutes – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Infinivox
Published: 2006
ISBN: 1884612547
Themes: / Science Fiction / Alternate History / Space Flight / History / Ghosts / Heroic Journey /

“Tsiolkovsky,” he said. “Your memory is excellent, Comrade Korolev.” The man who had held the open book before Korolev’s face reversed it and examined it himself. He wore a full-dress officer’s uniform, and two soldiers flanked him. “Exploration of Cosmic Space with Reactive Devices, by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. Published 1903.

Though you’d be hard-pressed to spot the fantastic elements this tale is a inspirational and deeply moving for any true Science Fiction fan. I’m not a spiritual person, I think that spirit is bunk and people who believe in spirit are all marks. But in a very deeply emotional sense I can almost understand the need for something like the spiritual when I look up into the deep night. There is nothing more powerful than seeing the immensity of existence and then comparing our thus far pitiful explorations to them. Those persons with the will to embrace the larger goals of space travel, by passing by the little miasma of our insignificant apish little goals, to get a shiny new car, a cell phone or an expensive suit are those worthy of worship. One such man was Sergei Korolev, the “Chief designer” of the secret Soviet space program. This story follows his management of the men who would create the universe’s only known spacefaring species from 1957’s Sputnik forward into what we can only hope would be a bright future. The story spans from World War II, when Korolev was released from a prison camp to design rockets, to 1997 and the Mir space station.

Andy Duncan is not someone I’d read anything of prior, but his work here is remarkable. If this wasn’t supposed to be Alternate History, and it is very subtle if it is even that, I’d have said the story of Koralev’s life history was massaged to provide a more ballistic plot. Though Koralev was sent to the Gulag, as depicted in the opening sentences of this novella, the reason for his departure from it didn’t happen, in real life, for the reasons stated in the story.

Michael Swanwick called The Chief Designer, “A portrayal … of the single most positive enterprise of the twentieth century”, and he is right, but too limiting, Koralev’s genius, along with men like Wernher von Braun was to expand the meaning of humanity from mere animal to demi-god. Before these men, their vision and action, we were just animals with tools and language, afterwards we became creatures capable of refining the metal of the crust of the planet upon which we were born, shaping it into cylinders filled with explosives and sending our representatives to other worlds. The Chief Designer is a portrayal of the single most important enterprise in human history! Koralev is in a very real sense our real life Titan, our very real and historical Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods and giving it to humanity.

The Chief Designer is winner of the 2002 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, the Southeastern Science Fiction Achievement Award, a 2003 Nebula Award finalist and a 2002 Hugo Award finalist. Today we can add SFFaudio Essential to its many achievements.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of The Prestige by Christopher Priest

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

The Prestige
By Christopher Priest; Read by Simon Vance
10 CDs – 12 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2006
ISBN: 0786168412
Themes: / Science Fiction / Magic / Magicians / 19th Century / Electricity / World Fantasy Award /

It’s difficult to say how long it’s been since I’ve been so enthralled with an audiobook as I was with this unabridged version of the World Fantasy Award-winning The Prestige. In very few words, the production was excellent. Simon Vance narrated, and since the story is primarily told through journal entries of the two main characters, he was basically called upon to portray these two dark, intricate magicians. He unreservedly succeeded – his performance was stellar. Because of his subtle care, the surprises of the novel were enhanced by his reading. And there are many surprises.

The main characters are late 19th century stage magicians (or “prestidigitators”, as they call themselves) named Alfred Borden and Rupert Angier. They perform in London, but at the height of each magician’s popularity, they tour America and Europe. But not together. No, these two guys are mortal enemies, out to better the other by whatever means necessary. Each one in turn performs a trick on stage that seems impossible to the other, and their personal quests are rooted in finding out how the other does it, and then to perform it better.

The novel is filled with fascinating detail about these magicians and their tricks. But even more interesting are the journals themselves. It becomes quickly apparent that the journal writers are not reliable. Christopher Priest was masterful in the way he made sure that the journal writers were speaking squarely from their own point of view, which was not always technically true; rather, like journal writers everywhere, they would write something about their own motives that justified events to themselves. The result is an intricate web that is slowly unraveled throughout the book. It’s an audiobook that merits a second listen; knowing what I know now, having finished, a second listen would reveal the breadcrumbs I missed along the way. I suspect I left several on the trail.

Also prominent is Priest’s portrayal of life in the 19th century. The values, the language, and the daily life of the characters all feel accurate, though I am no 19th century historian. The world’s reaction to the advent of electricity is a fascinating example. I couldn’t help but to think of modern parallels with the advent of the internet.

At first glance, this novel is fantasy. It even won the World Fantasy Award in 1996. But is this a fantasy novel? It really isn’t. Yes, there are magicians here, but they are stage magicians. As such, their tricks have perfectly reasonable explanations. Each of the main characters do specific remarkable things, but the reasons given for the way these things work are not magical, but scientific. More, I will not say, because this is a novel to be discovered for yourself, not to be read about. After I finished the book, I watched the recent film version. Be assured that there are enough major differences that a listen to this book will be a different (though similar) and very worthwhile experience – worthwhile enough to be the latest addition to SFFaudio’s Essential List.

Audio Sample: LINK

Posted by Scott D. Danielson