SFFaudio – Page 812 – News, Reviews, and Commentary on all forms of science fiction, fantasy, and horror audio. Audiobooks, audio drama, podcasts; we discuss all of it here. Mystery, crime, and noir audio are also fair game.

SFFaudio Challenge title: Star Surgeon by Alan E. Nourse COMPLETED

SFFaudio Online Audio

Scott D. Farquhar from Prometheus Radio Theatre has written in with some exciting news. He tells me that his unabridged reading of Alan E. Nourse’s novel Star Surgeon has been completed! This is one of the titles from in our SFFaudio Challenge! Scott took slightly longer than he’d expected to, but it was well worth the wait, the extra and attention Scott put into it has really paid off. The 1959 novel is now a 2007 audiobook!

This is one of those rare novels that tells its story from the point of view of an alien. One of those novels that make you dig deeper. It is the kind of Science Fiction that makes you think harder about human attitudes and prejudices, to really look beyond the surficial.

Star Surgeon is the story of Dal Timgar, a medical student, the first alien to attend a universally prestigious earth medical school. If Dal is to become the first fully-fledged star surgeon, he must fight the prejudices of his superiors, and then the rigors of an interstellar emergency.

This novel is widely respected by readers who’ve read it, and many think it represents Alan Nourse at his very best. In writing it, Nourse is expressing a subject dear to his heart as he himself was a doctor.

Star Surgeon
By Alan E. Nourse; Read by Scott Farquhar
14 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – 5 Hours 25 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 2007
When Dal Timgar, of all in his medical class, was denied assignment to a general practice patrol ship going out from Hospital Earth to serve the medical needs of the Galactic Confederation, it seemed to him that his eight years of study in the great medical center of the galaxy had ended in failure. He had worked hard and stood at the head of his class, but Dal was different from his medical colleagues in one important way. Born on a planet of a distant star, he was the first son of an alien race to attempt to become a qualified physician of Hospital Earth. Dr. Thorvold Arnquist, a power in Earth’s medical council, is determined that Dal Timgar shall have an equal chance with his Earth-born classmates to prove his skill as a physician and to earn his rank as Star Surgeon. He succeeds in getting Dal assigned, under protest, to the patrol ship Lancet, where Dal is faced with the full responsibilities of a patrol physician as well as the hostility of some of his crewmates. As the Lancet responds to calls of all kinds on planets of distant and unknown star systems, Dal’s skill and judgment as a surgeon are tested to the utmost. But it is not until he is confronted with a dreadful decision, which he alone must make, that Dal faces the final test–a test that will determine once and for all whether he is ever to become a Star Surgeon.

Subscribe to the podcast feed via this URL:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/star-surgeon-by-alan-edward-nourse.xml

Scott also sez:

“FYI… I’m doing another edit of the recording to submit to Podiobooks.com. It will be mostly the same, but I’ve cleaned up some minor issues and I’m adding only a bit of effects in some places like filters for loudspeaker and radio dialogue and such. Nothing really fancy, but just a bit cleaner and slicker. If I get a little batch of donations through podiobooks I may just have to pick another one to read….!”

Way to go Scott! Your hear that everybody? As soon as Podiobooks gets a copy of the revised edition of Star Surgeon hit that donation button!

posted by Jesse Willis

Audible.com and Wonder Audiobooks strike a deal.

SFFaudio News

SFFaudio editor, and time traveling podcaster Rick Jackson has posted a story on his podcast’s blog. He has good news! Wonder Audiobooks, Rick’s classic SF short story audiobook company has got stories, both old and new, that will be appearing on Audible.com very soon…

Rick writes:

“Some of you, I know, are wondering where’s the next TT Show. Well, it’s coming. But not until next week. I’ve been busy getting audio stories ready for Wonder Audio. Some of you know that Wonder Audio is the audiobook company of the Time Traveler. Recently I have signed a contract with the ubiquitous Audible.com. I’ve been preparing some new recordings, as well as older ones, for release on Audible.

The next Time Traveler Show is going to have a fantastic story by Mack Reynolds that was first published in 1957 and never reprinted. It’s a lot fun and I’m really excited about it. It’s read by voice talent Jeremiah Costello, who kicks butt on it.”

We’d known that Audible.com was making a big push to capture more Science Fiction audiobooks, previously announced was Scott Danielson and his Deuce Audio. I believe there are more companies out there considering contracts and we’ve heard very interesting back channel info about how this new Audible.com acquisition hunger came to happen. It seems that audiobooks of the fantastic persuasion are extremely popular, we’d have never guessed, and somebody (or bodies) pointed out SFFaudio to some of the big wigs at Audible! Thanks whoever you are! Just think of SFFaudio as the unofficial talent scout for the big league.

posted by Jesse Willis

CBC Radio alert: Canadia: 2056 episode 9 airs today

SFFaudio OnlineAudio

The penultimate episode of Canadia: 2056 airs today on every CBC Radio One stations across Canada. Tune in and listen @ 11: 30am or hear it ONLINE via the Streaming Radio Map. Only one more episode left after today.

Here’s the official CBC Radio hotsheet description:

“The captain takes drastic action when his relationship with the computer goes too far. Faverau gets a promotion. Anderson and Lewis try to modify the robot. The captain uncovers the real reason the Americans declared war on the Ipampilashians. As they approach the end of the mission, the relationships between the crewmembers intensify. Canadia:2056, this morning at 11:30 (noon NT) on CBC Radio One.”

posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases June/July

SFFaudio New Releases

A golden age of audiobooks is upon us! Just look at these beauteous new releases for June and July! It’s as if the gods of Science Fiction are smiling down upon us all!

First up, thanks to Tantor, is a long awaited Asimov mystery, with robots…

The Naked Sun
By Isaac Asimov; Read by William Dufris
7 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – 8 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: June 2007
ISBN: 140010422X (CDs), 1400154227 (MP3-CD)
A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the Galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. On the beautiful Outer World planet of Solaria, a handful of human colonists lead a hermit-like existence, their every need attended to by their faithful robot servants. To this strange and provocative planet comes Detective Elijah Baley, sent from the streets of New York with his positronic partner, the robot R. Daneel Olivaw, to solve an incredible murder that has rocked Solaria to its foundations. The victim had been so reclusive that he appeared to his associates only through holographic projection. Yet someone had gotten close enough to bludgeon him to death while robots looked on. Now Baley and Olivaw are faced with two clear impossibilities: Either the Solarian was killed by one of his robots—unthinkable under the laws of Robotics—or he was killed by the woman who loved him so much that she never came into his presence!

Then, we head back in time, courtesy of the good folks at Blackstone Audio, to

The Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
By Jack Finney; Read by Kristoffer Tabori
1 MP3-CD or 6 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: June 2007
ISBN: 9780786169559 (MP3 CD), 9780786157815 (CDs)
On a quiet fall evening in the small, peaceful town of Mill Valley, California, Dr. Miles Bennell discovered an insidious, horrifying plot. Silently, subtly, almost imperceptibly, alien life-forms were taking over the bodies and minds of his neighbors, his friends, his family, the woman he loved—the world as he knew it.

Next, my fellow droogs, is a classic from Harper/Caedmon, never before released unabridged…

A Clockwork Orange
By Anthony Burgess; Read by Tom Hollander
7 CDs – 8 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Harper Audio / Caedmon
Published: June 2007
ISBN: 0061170623
A vicious fifteen-year-old droog is the central character of this 1963 classic. In Anthony Burgess’s nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends’ social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. And when the state undertakes to reform Alex to “redeem” him, the novel asks, “At what cost?” *This edition includes both the controversial last chapter and Burgess’s introduction “A Clockwork Orange Resucked.”

Further, we travel with BBC Audiobooks America to the golden age of SF for one of the pillars of A.E. van Vogt’s mighty career…

Slan
By A.E. van Vogt; Read by Oliver Wyman
6 CDs – 7 Hours 40 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9780792748946
Jommy Cross is a slan, a genetically bred superhuman whose race was created to aid humanity but is now despised by normal humans. Slans are usually shot on sight, but that doesn’t stop Jommy’s mother from bringing him to see the world capital of Centropolis, the seat of power for Earth’s dictator, Kier Gray. But on their latest trip to Centropolis, the two slans are discovered, and Jommy’s mother is killed. Jommy, only 9 years old, unwittingly becomes caught up in a plot to undermine Gray, who may be more sympathetic to slans than the public suspects. The nonstop action and root-for-the-underdog plot has made Slan a science fiction favorite.

Now with a quick jump forward with Books On Tape, to the modern sequel…

Slan Hunter
By Kevin J. Anderson and A.E. Van Vogt; Read by Scott Brick
8 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Books On Tape
Publication date: July 10, 2007
ISBN: 1415940320
“This startling SF adventure novel is a collaboration between the classic SF grand master A. E. van Vogt and contemporary master Kevin J. Anderson. At the time of his death in 2000, van Vogt left a partial draft and an outline for the sequel to his most famous novel, Slan. Now the story is completed by Anderson and is sure to be one of the most popular SF novels of the year. Slans are a race of superior mutants, smarter and stronger than homo sapiens and able to read minds. Thousands of years in the future on Earth, the Slan Wars are over, and the slans were largely wiped out, but people still fear and distrust them. They are now a persecuted minority who live in hiding from the greater population. Slan Hunter tells of this towering conflict in the far future, a war among the races of mankind, as humanity–all types of humanity–struggles to survive. Mutant Jommy Cross, the hero of Slan, and the other great characters from that book return, including Kier Gray, Gray’s beautiful daughter Kathleen, and the villainous John Petty. The final Slan War now begins.”

And what Golden Age would be complete without a revist to an audiobook that’s probably had more incarnations than your average time lord? Yep, it’s Dune, this time done up in an unabridged multi-voiced version…

Dune
By Frank Herbert; Read by a full cast
? CDs – 27 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Renaissance
Published: June 2007
ISBN: 1427201439
Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud’dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family—and would bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream. A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction. Frank Herbert’s death in 1986 was a tragic loss, yet the astounding legacy of his visionary fiction will live forever.

And finally we conclude with respected first novel in a new fantasy series that Books On Tape is offering…

His Majesty’s Dragon
By Naomi Novik; Read by Simon Vance
9 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Books On Tape
Release Date: June 26, 2007
ISBN: 1415940142
Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors rise to Britain’s defense by taking to the skies … not aboard aircraft but atop the mighty backs of fighting dragons. When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes its precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Capt. Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future–and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature. Thrust into the rarefied world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France’s own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte’s boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.

My ears are tingling just thinking about all these!

posted by Jesse Willis

1970 Kurt Vonnegut speech on KPFA.org website

SFFaudio Online Audio

Radio station KPFA‘s “cover to cover OPEN BOOK” program has posted a 1/2 hour speech given by Kurt Vonnegut in 1970. Have a listen |MP3| to what one listener described this way: “After a rather fumbling introduction by the KPFA announcer, a somewhat rambling but interesting lecture by KV. He describes The Big Space Fuck among other matters…from 1970, with the scary words pre-empted by the sound of a plate smashing.”

posted by Jesse Willis

Unproduced Norman Spinrad RADIO DRAMA available for FREE

SFFaudio News

Norman Spinrad, the respected SF author, has posted the complete text for a short unproduced radio play on one of his websites. Spinrad is probably best known as the author of one of the best hours of television ever produced (he wrote the script for “The Doomsday Machine” episode from the original Star Trek television series). The play’s called Voice Over. About it, Spinrad writes:

“A little 3-5 minute radio play, commissioned by OMNI for the anniversary of Orson Welles’ WAR OF THE WORLDS broadcast. Never produced for broadcast. Any radio station interested, can contact me by e-mail here. Money need not change hands.”

Interested parties can contact Spinrad by email.

posted by Jesse Willis