SFFaudio – Page 890 – 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.

The Time Machine – H.G. Wells Stories on Audible

SFFaudio News

The Commuter’s Library unabridged H.G. Wells Collected Science Fiction: The Time Machine & Stories of the Unusual is Audible.com’s Selection of the Day! That means you can get this classic title for $9.95 today.

H.G. Wells Collected Science Fiction: The Time Machine & Stories of the Unusual
By H. G. Wells, Read by Ralph Cosham
7 hours and 28 min [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Commuter’s Library
Published: 2004
Themes: / Science fiction / Time Travel / Evolution / Future /

In addition to the unabridged reading of The Time Machine this audiobook features 9 stories from Stories of the Unusual:

“The Country of the Blind” takes place in a hidden valley where it would seem that a man with sight would be king.
“The Diamond Maker” tells of a fortune that might have been.
“The Man Who Worked Miracles” recounts the problems of defying nature.
In “Aepyornis Island”, a man has a special relationship with a prehistoric bird.
“The Strange Orchid” tells of the macabre appetite of an exotic plant.
“The Cone” is a shocking story of revenge.
“The Purple Pileus” deals with a life-altering fungus.
“The Truth About Pyecraft” is a classic that explains why an overbearing fat man wears lead underwear.
“The Door in the Wall” captures the pathos of lost youth

The Commuter’s Library audio productions of the works of H.G. Wells were singled out for mention by Allan Kaster in this sffaudio interview. Cosham’s reading of The Time Machine also gets a thumbs up in a collection of reviews of various audiobook editions of The Time Machine at The Time Machine site.

The Commuter’s Library is now known as In Audio and the contents of this download are available for purchase as cassette tapes or CDs as two separate listings: The Time Machine and Strange Fiction: Stories by H.G. Wells

Posted by Moriond

Author Focus: Cory Doctorow

SFFaudio News

Here’s our latest Author Focus and it is on Cory Doctorow. I got to meet Cory Doctorow at WorldCon 2006 but I’ve been listening to his work for years! He’s a dynamo in real life too by the way. Cory’s an audiobook fan, so it is very appropriate for him to have as much of his fiction available in audio as he does. Being that he is also a proponent of the free culture movement it is thus doubly appropriate that all his audio fiction is available for free!

The largest collection of audio fiction comes from his podcast Craphound: The Literary Works of Cory Doctorow you can subscribe to it by using this feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

Here is a complete listing of the short works he’s podcast so far:

After The Siege
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
9 MP3s – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: September – October 2005
Mp3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5|Part 6|Part 7|Part 8|Part 9|
“[After the Siege is]a novelette I’m writing on long-haul flight segments, in 2-5,000 word chunks, for an anthology of optimisitic sf stories. It’s inspired by my grandmother’s stories of living throug the Siege of Leningrad, which she told during a family reunion in St Petersburg, Russia, last summer.”

When Sysadmins Ruled The Earth
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
9 MP3s – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: October – November 2005
Mp3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5|Part 6|
“When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth [is] a new story about an apocalypse that arrives on the heels of a catastrophic Internet worm. When the trump sounds, the world’s systems administrators are all in their sealed data-centers, and so they survive the carnage.”

Anda’s Game
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Alice Taylor
3 Mp3s – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: January 2006
Mp3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part3|
“…a reading of Anda’s Game, my Nebula-Award-shortlisted story about in-game sweatshops.”

Human Readable
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
7 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: January – February 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5|Part 6|Part 7|
“…the tale of a world that’s been upended by hyper-efficient planning algorithms based on ant-colony optimizations, so that Los Angeles has the best traffic in the world. However, when these networks crash, they really crash — cars, surfboards, and many other common conveyances end up catastrophically failing, with concomitant loss of life.”

I, Robot
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
5 Mp3s – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: February 2006
Mp3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5|
“It’s [a novelette, that is] a riff on Asimov’s robots stories, in which only one kind of robot is allowed — I tried to use this to show how such a world would be one of universal, totalitarian Broadcast Flags, technology mandates that restrict innovation and liberty.”

Return To Pleasure Island
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
4 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: February – March 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|
“…a dark and mean fantasy story that was originally published in Realms of Fantasy…”

Nimby And The D-Hoppers
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
3 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: March – April 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|
“…the story of a deep-green alternate future that is being invaded by gun-totin’ yahoos from alternate planes of reality…”

Shadow Of The Mothaship
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
3 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: April – May 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|
“A strange, stylised Scientology/Alien-Invasion/Oedipus story.”

Home Again, Home Again
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
3 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: May 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|
“…a sequel (of sorts) to Shadow of the Mothaship … This one is the autobiography of a child raised in an alien-imposed mental institution, and the mentorship he received from The Guy Who Thought He Was Nikola Tesla.”

Super-Man And The Bugout
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
3 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: May 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|
“…a superhero story that asks what would have happened if Kal-el had landed in suburban Toronto and been raised by an old Jewish couple. It’s the conclusion of the triad of stories comprised by Shadow of the Mothaship and Home Again, Home Again, about the Canadian response to the invasion of benevolent Scientologist aliens.”

Visit The Sins
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
2 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: June 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|
“This story deals with attention deficit disorder, the effect that cognitive problems have on families, and how your mental state and your technology are intimately related.”

I, Row-Boat
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
4 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: June – July 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|
“…a story about a theological dispute between an artifically intelligent Asimov three-laws cultist and an uplifted coral reef.”

Truncat
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
3 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: August 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|
“…an indirect sequel to my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom… a parable about warez groups and Napster, about generation war and the trouble with power-laws.”

0wnz0red
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
4 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: September 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|
A Nebula award nominated short story. “a story about trusted computing, geek culture, and getting root on your body.”

Cory has also sold one story to Escape Pod:

Craphound
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Jesse Thorn
1 Mp3 File – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast:
Mp3 File: HERE
“Aliens have once again decided to visit Earth in this lighthearted romp. Rather than having conquest on their minds, they merely wish to visit, and explore. Jerry is a junk dealer, a collector, a pack rat of crap and antiques and memorabilia, depending on your point of view.”

Even before podcasting existed Cory took time to record one of his stories and post it on his website:

To Market, To Market: The Branding of Billy Bailey©
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD – 23 Minutes 37 Seconds [UNABRIDGED]
LINK: http://www.craphound.com/audio/Doctorow_-_Billy.mp3
Publisher: www.craphound.com
Published: 2001
Themes: / Science Fiction / Dystopia / Humor / Satire /

Billy Bailey was the finest heel the sixth grade had ever seen — a true artisan who kept his brand pure and unsullied, picking and managing his strategic alliances with the utmost care and acumen. He’d dumped BanginBumpin Fireworks (a division of The Shanghai Novelty Company, Ltd.) in the _fourth_ grade, fer chrissakes. Their ladyfingers were too small to bother with; their M-80s were so big that you’d have to be a lunatic to go near them.

Mark Forman’s Podcast:

Doctorow’s first novel, a Locus Award winner and a Nebula nominee. “It concerns the machinations of technologically immortals who have occupied Walt Disney World’s Haunted Mansion and who aim to preserve it from the depredations of modernizers who would renovate it.”

Voices In The Dark:

Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Sean Puckett
11 MP3 Files – Approx. 7 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
SOURCE: Voices In The Dark

A near-future science fiction tale. In a society where death has been cured, how do you deal with boredom?

posted by Jesse Willis

7th Son: Deceit Podcast Novel Launch Crashes SECOND LIFE

SFFaudio News

According to J.C. Hutchins’ Skype message, yesterday’s Second Life launch party for his new podcast novel 7th Son – Book Two – Deceit crashed the server it was held on! Doubtless the giant clone army of listeners teleporting in that was the cause! Or maybe it was that pesky Kilroy 2.0? Congrats Hutch! I look forward to hearing the new novel when it officially syndicates on September 26th.

You can subscribe, if you haven’t already, by plugging this link into your podcatcher:

http://web.mac.com/wordherder1/iWeb/7Son/Subscribe.html

And if you somehow missed it, the complete run of 7th Son – Book One – Descent is up on J.C.’s website.

posted by Jesse Willis

Rick’s Kleffel’s Agony Column Podcast: Charles Stross

SFFaudio Online Audio

Rick Kleffel’s Agony Column podcast has a new interview with Charles Stross. Rick writes: “We covered all the high points that I suspect listeners will want to hear; space opera, economic genre fiction, gender bending and everything from the status of children in so-called Victorian London to Napoleonic space battles over far-flung planets, from the Cory Doctorow-like lead character of Accelerando to the status of children in so-called Victorian England.”

Click to download the MP3 direct!

posted by Jesse Willis

Bill DeSmedt’s Singularity

I got the honor of meeting Bill DeSmedt author of the podiobook Singularity, at WorldCon! Bill just wrote in and said: “I promised to get back to you once I’d gotten the schedule for the final few episodes of the Singularity podcast worked out. The final ‘episode’ of the podcast will be a Q&A session with the author (me), hosted by Paul Fisher. Questions must be submitted before Oct 28th, and the best one wins an autographed copy of Singularity.” Thanks Bill!

Here’s the schedule:

Episode 41 (Ch 40: Project Report) — 09/25 (Monday)
Episode 42 (Ch 41: The Singularity) — 09/30 (Saturday)
Episode 43 (Ch 42: A Stitch in Time) — 10/05 (Thursday)
Episode 44 (Ch 43: Le Mot Juste) — 10/10 (Tuesday)
Episode 45 (Ch 44: Last Row on the Chessboard) — 10/15 (Sunday)
Episode 46 (Ch 45: Mopping up) — 10/20 (Friday)
Episode 47 (Epilog: The Bridge) — 10/25 (Wednesday)
Q&A Episode — 10/31 (Tuesday)

And you can check out Paul Fischer’s new MP3 promo for Singularity HERE!

posted by Jesse Willis

Review of The Plot to Save Socrates by Paul Levinson

Science Fiction Audiobook Review

The Plot To Save Socrates
By Paul Levinson; Read by Mark Shanahan
7 CDs – 10 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Listen & Live Audio
Published: 2006
ISBN: 1593160747
Themes: / Science Fiction / Time Travel / Cloning / Philosophy / Ancient Greece / Ancient Rome / Ancient Egypt / 19th Century New York /

“Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions;
but those who kindly reprove thy faults.”
–Socrates (c.470 BC – 399 BC) Greek philosopher
2042 AD. Sierra, a young classics scholar has discovered a lost Platonic scroll. Its contents will lead her to attempt to trounce the awful punishment that was imposed upon Socrates, the pre-eminent philosopher of the golden age of Greece. Joining her is her fiance Max, her thesis advisor Tom, Alcibides (a famous Greek orator and friend to Socrates), 19th century New York publisher W.H. Appleton, as well as the famously talented inventor, Heron of Alexandria.

Levinson opens the novel well with grad student Sierra Waters discovering a lost Socratic dialogue. It is a terrific opening, and I think this is what got my hopes so high. This isn’t a terrible novel, it just doesn’t grab me like I wanted it to. It is, rather, a workman-like time travel adventure. I was hoping it would be something deeper. In terms of pace, there is at least one too many characters. And none of them, including Socrates, engaged me as they should have. This is doubly troubling considering that the ideas weren’t sufficent for the novel length. Both the time travel itself and the mechanism of the time travel (a set of chairs created by a mysterious time traveler from the future) are sidelined and remain virtually unexplained. There are some interesting reveals sprinkled here and there and Levinson gives a decent twist-ending but it is only satisfying on one level and doesn’t and fufil the promise I thought it had. I never became enraptured by the story. There are unfilled gaps in the narrative. It feels as if the novel were abridged, though the packaging copy assures me that it wasn’t. The biggest single disapointment for me was the lack of more than a surficial philosophical content. Socrates reasons for allowing himself to be executed by an Athenian jury are only lightly touched upon. Levinson has an interest in philosophy, but Socrates and the Socratic method deserve a stupendous Science Fiction showcase and not this – a light adventure yarn. Had the spartan but solid contents of the plot been rendered to novellete or novella length the story would probably have worked far better. To his credit Levinson includes Socrates’ distrust of the written word. The written word is fixed, something that can’t be quibbled about as easily as can the thoughtful power of spoken word. Had Socrates known about audiobooks I think he’d have questioned the recorded word too.

Narrating duites on this one are by Mark Shanahan. Shannahan has a decent range, offering some distinction between the many characters. His job however was made more difficult than it should have been; Levinson’s characters aren’t fully dimensional. The narration is accompanied by sound effects and a situational background noise. I was disapointed with the inclusion of sound effects. If the text says “the doorbell rang.” you don’t need the sound effect of a doorbell ringing. If the narrator then reads the line “the doorbell rang.” not only don’t you need the sound of a doorbell ringing it interupts the flow of the story to include it. Less intrusive, but certainly no less unnecessary is the occasional inclusion of background noise designed to be appropriate to where a scene takes place. A pub, with a humm of clinking of glasses and the buzz of distant conversations, a seaside with the cry of seagulls and the slosh of waves. I get it, we’re in a pub or on a beach. But the absence from the rest of the narrative makes these scenes stand out in a way they shouldn’t and thus paradoxically distances the listener rather than drawing him or her in. The music is actually pretty good and definitely works better than the rest of the production details. The music fades in and out, bookending scenes. There are also one or two sentences that were missed in the final pass. Shannahan will read a line, and then read it again.

Upon reading other reviews scattered around the net I see that more people seem to have become caught up in the novel than I did. I envy them. I wanted to like this novel a lot more than I did. One reviewer pointed out that Levinson’s characterization and was like that of Isaac Asimov’s. I don’t disagree, I just think that was one of Asimov’s few weakness. Another reviewer pointed out how well constructed the chronology of the time travel was. Again, I don’t disagree, it was well woven. Maybe my problem is that most of my favorite time travel stories are of a much shorter length. If that is your problem too, bear that in mind joining in on The Plot To Save Socrates

Posted by Jesse Willis