SFFaudio – Page 893 – 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.

Review of the Audiofy Audiobook Chip

Science Fiction Audiobook Review

Audiofy Audiobook Chip

Amongst other titles, Audiofy has re-released a number of Simon and Schuster’s well-produced Star Trek titles on Audiofy Audiobook Chips. What’s an Audiofy Audiobook chip? Well, it’s an SD chip with an audiobook on it. In my little world, the SD chip works with my laptop (which is my main computer – I’m typing on it now) and my Pocket PC. I inserted the chip first in my Pocket PC, and the audio started to play automatically after asking me if it was OK to do so. After about 15 minutes, I stopped the playback and put the chip in my laptop, where it resumed right where it was playing on the Pocket PC.

Anti-DRM folks will not be pleased to find that the chip is not just a collection of MP3 files – in fact, a quick exploration of the contents of the chip didn’t provide me a clear idea of where the audio files actually are on the chip. The player that plays the files is contained on the chip, and it will work in Pocket PC’s, Palm Pilots, Macs, Smartphones, and PC’s. They also have an application on the chip that allows for easy transfer of the audio to an iPod.

Audiofy Audiobook Chip - Imzadi Overall, I had a good experience with the Audiofy Audiobook Chip. It did what I wanted it to do – played the content, bookmarked where I was from device to device, and sounded pretty darned good – the sound is not of the highest quality, but it’s certainly more than adequate. They are easy to use and are definitely space savers.

Apart from the many Star Trek titles, Audiofy offers some excellent audiobooks in their science fiction collection. Lois McMaster Bujold’s Paladin of Souls and Curse of the Chalion are there, along with The Consciousness Plague by Paul Levinson, several from Edgar Rice Burroughs (Mars and Tarzan), Roger Gregg’s superior audio drama The Last Harbinger, and a couple of Spider Robinson’s Callahan novels.

ADDENDUM: I didn’t explain that picture very well… ok, not at all. What you have there is the Audiofy Audiobook Chip version of Star Trek: The Next Generation: Imzadi by Peter David, read by Jonathan Frakes. You can see the chip itself, and a credit card-sized holder for when you are not using it. The shiny round silver thing is a quarter, provided for perspective. Of course, if you don’t know how big a quarter is, I suppose it won’t help much. –sd

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Launch Party for 7th Son, Book Two

SFFaudio Online Audio

This just in from the Master of all things cloned, J.C. Hutchins:

Find the world of 7th Son … in-world

Six months ago, the 7th Son sci-fi podiobook trilogy began: Seven clones were ripped away from their “normal” lives to hunt a ruthless criminal — the man they were cloned from, the man who masterminded the assassination of the President … John Alpha.

Listeners met John, Father Thomas, Kilroy 2.0, Michael and the other Beta clones. They watched the conspiracy of John Alpha emerge. It was all a story, it wasn’t real.

But for one night … it will be.

On Saturday, Sept. 23, 7th Son fans can become a part of podcast history. They’ll enjoy an exclusive sneak peek of 7th Son, Book Two: Deceit. It’s the first-ever launch party for a podcast novel in the online community Second Life, and everyone’s invited. Folks can meet author J.C. Hutchins in-world, and listen to interviews about Book Two they won’t find anywhere else. Listeners will learn about the upcoming novel, and get hints of the plot twists to come. They’ll even get to hear the first chapter of Deceit days before it’s released as a podcast.

And they’ll see fiction given dimension. In-world, 7th Son fans can step into the memorable “Womb” cloning chamber from Book One: Descent, where the story’s heroes were born. Fans can see the clones. They can be a clone. It’s a new life, there in Second Life.

The party starts at 7 pm Second Life time (10pm EST, 7pm PST) on Saturday Sept. 23, at the Podcast Island. Podcast Island is the Second Life community of Podcast Pickle. As always, the 7th Son experience won’t cost you a dime — all you need is a Second Life account, available for free at secondlife.com.

Fans joined the Descent. Now they can fight the Deceit. All are encouraged to visit Podcast Island at 7pm SL time on Sept. 23 to experience 7th Son for the first time … a second time.

7th Son, Book Two: Deceit debuts on Tuesday, Sept. 26th. The story will be available at jchutchins.net and at Podiobooks.com.

ABOUT SECOND LIFE:
Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by more than 297,400 people from around the globe.

From the moment you enter the World you’ll discover a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. Sign up at secondlife.com/join. It’s free!

ABOUT PODCAST ISLAND:
Podcast Island was created by Gary “P. Dilly” Leland, the founder and owner of the Podcast Pickle podcast directory. Everyone is welcome on Podcast Island; podcasters and listeners as well as those not yet familiar with podcasting. This island exists as as a meeting place and virtual directory dedicated to bringing podcasting into the virtual realm of Second Life.

How to get to Podcast Island:
When you enter Second Life, simply click on the Search button near the bottom of your screen and select the “Places” tab at the top. Then enter in “Podcast Island” for a search term. There will be a button on the results which will allow you to teleport directly to the island … and to the party.

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For more informaton, please contact J.C. Hutchins at [email protected]. Visit jchutchins.net for additional news about the 7th Son podiobook trilogy.

posted by Dani

Commentary: Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Podcast Directories

SFFaudio Commentary

Other than our recently updated Online Audio directory, there are several options for finding Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror related podcasts…

Oldest among the specialized driectories is TSFPN.com, which started strong last year and then too rapidly expanded into other categories of podcasting – this seems to have hurt their Speculative Fiction listings. A useful feature for some is their listing of podcasts by age appropriateness (General Audience, Safe For Age 14 and Not Work Safe) unfortunately they no longer include what I would consider some of the top podcasts (if you don’t list Escape Pod there has to be something wrong) though to be fair there are still some truly great podcasts listed on TSFPN, The Rev-Up Review, fior instance. Unfortunately the categories are not strictly SF, F and H related. Skepticality is listed and I think it is a terrific show, and I know it to be beloved by many speculative fiction fans, but it has no speculative fiction content at all.

SciFiPods.com, a new venture that started just one week ago, is a daughter site of PodcastPickle.com. Strangely it also lists Skepticality, just because the show is awesome doesn’t make it speculative fiction. This is a nit-pciky thing, I love skepticality but I’ve never found a away to mention my favorite no Speculative Fiction podcast on SFFaudio’s Online Audio page, sure History According To Bob is an awesome podcast, but it just isn’t related. Like TSFPN, SciFiPods also gives an explicit content ranking system to their 139 currently listed podcasts. You’ll find more content listed here than anywhere except for iTunes. Unfortunately the site has a flash intro, that while entirely skippable, serves no purpose.

iTunes’s Music Store (so named in spite the fact that the podcasts are all free), offers a comprehensive search feature that will dig into the podcast descriptions and find some excellent obscure podcasts. iTunes also offers featured podcasts picked by some nameless Apple folks. There are some terrific picks in there, but if a podcast doesn’t have a decent looking logo, the chances of being featured approach zero. There is a new feature tyhat alows you to browse by category too. By clicking around in there you may be able to find their “Arts : Literature” section, which lists many interesting podcasts.

Podiobooks.com gets short shrift in listings, it isn’t a podcast per se, though it does have a “what’s happening at podiobooks” podcast. Instead it is a podcast provider, a collection of podcast fiction, one like no other. Listed among its dozens and dozens of podcasts are three solid categories, Horror/DarkFantasy, Science Fiction, and Fantasy sections. In them are dozens of excellent podcast novels and books. Sure, some of the podcasts listed on Podiobooks.com get attention elsewere, 7th Son for example is currently listed at #1 on SciFiPods.com’s top 100 podcasts. But if you want to find some of the older titles, still available to your podcatcher Podiobooks.com is the place you need to go.

There is also the venerable, PodcastAlley.com, the oldest of all podcast directories. But they do not list “Science Fiction,” “Fantasy,” or “Horror” categories. The closest they come to making navigation managable is a “storytelling” category. There they do list many excellent podcasts, but the ranking system puts DVD review podcasts ahead of actual storytelling podcasts. Its more of a popularity ranker than a podcast directory in that respect.

So which directory should you be using? Here’s my opinion:

1. Use iTunes and slog through their massive listings using as many related search terms as you can. But be warned, they don’t always bring results, to find the Yog Radio podcast, for instance, you can’t use “Lovecraft” as a search term, even though Yog Radio releases unabridged H.P. Lovecraft stories, instead you’ll need to use the term “Cthulhu.”

2. Keep visiting SciFiPods.com, maybe they will become the resource in the months to come. But for that to happen they’ll probably have to dump that annoying intro.

3. Visit Podiobooks.com or subscribe to their blog’s RSS feed. The Podiobooker podcast is also useful, though it is currently on hiatus (I’m told it is coming back).

4. Keep us subscribed, or occasionally visit our Online Audio page. It is organized visually with logos from the listed podcasts and other online audio sources. It is by no means exhaustive, but we have tried to include many of the best podcast and online audio resources that deal in Speculative Fiction.

posted by Jesse Willis

CBC Radio Podcast: Sounds Like Canada plugs Science Fiction Podcasts

Online Audio

Sounds Like Canada, CBC Radio One’s feature morning program has a podcast. The SLC’s “Digital Extra” features stories of what happens off the air. The latest podcast features three podcasters from the Podcasters Across Borders event that happened in June. Tim Campbell was one of the guests (his is a motorcycle podcast, The Twisted Wrist) but he gave a good plug for Science Fiction. Tim writes: “I listen to a lot of SF on podcasts, most notably Slice of SciFi and Escape Pod, and wanted to represent a little bit of the SF podcast world in the interview.”

Download the MP3 direct, or subscribe to the podcast via this feed:

http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/includes/slc.xml

posted by Jesse Willis

Elric of Melnibone on Audible

SFFaudio News

Thanks to SFFaudio reader Esther for pointing out that the Audio Realms unabridged (and Excellent) Elric of Melnibone by Michael Moorcock is Audible.com‘s Selection of the Day! That means you can get this Excellent title for $9.95 today only. Don’t miss it!

Elric of Melniboné
By Michael Moorcock, Read By Jeffrey West and Michael Moorcock
5 CD’s – 5.5 Hour [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Realms
Published: 2003
ISBN: 097315960X
Themes: / Epic Fantasy / Magic / War / Gods /

Click here for SFFaudio’s rave review of this title, from 6/29/2005.

Ed – $9.95 is the non-member price. The member price is only $6.97.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card

Science Fiction Audiobook Review

Shadow of the Hegemon
By Orson Scott Card; Read by David Birney, Scott Brick, Gabrielle de Cuir, and Stefan Rudnicki
11 CDs – 13 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Renaissance
Published: September 2006
ISBN: 1593974809
Themes: / Science Fiction / War / Politics / Youth / Strategy /

In Ender’s Game, Ender Wiggin and his jeesh won the war against the buggers. From there, the story of Ender and his sister Valentine continues in Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind. But what of the people Ender left behind? What of Ender’s power hungry older brother Peter? What of Bean and the other Battle School kids? Orson Scott Card gives us that story beginning with Ender’s Shadow, then continuing with this novel, Shadow of the Hegemon, and on to Shadow Puppets and Shadow of the Giant. (NOTE: Shadow Puppets is the only novel mentioned here that has not yet been released in unabridged format on CD by Audio Renaissance, but it is in their schedule for January 2007.)

One of the things I admire about the Ender novels as a whole is that Orson Scott Card has not written the same novel twice. Speaker for the Dead is a different kind of novel than Ender’s Game, and Xenocide different again. Ender’s Shadow marked a return in tone to Ender’s Game, but this book was different again. Shadow of the Hegemon is boardgame of a novel, a sort of international chess match between nations battling for dominance after the outside threat of the Buggers has been eliminated.

The Battle School kids are 14 or so now, and have all returned to Earth. Achilles (a failed Battle School student from the previous novel) works for Russia and is given a LOT of power. He orchestrates an operation to kidnap all of Ender’s jeesh from wherever they are in the world, then proceeds to convince these kids that they need to help Russia or rot in a cell where no one else can use them. I had tough time believing that this young man would be given authority to do what he does – what kind of government would give such power to a young teen? Even though history is full of young men in positions of great power, it didn’t ring true for me. The actions of all the other characters in the book were not problematic for me, but I couldn’t help but feel that Achilles just had too much authority, and I just couldn’t see adults readily giving that authority to someone that young.

The main character in the book, and in all the Shadowbooks, is Bean, who is a fascinating and engaging character throughout the series. He manages to figure out what’s going on before getting kidnapped himself, and thus starts the story.

The book switches point of view frequently, moving from Bean to Petra to Peter Wiggin. Scott Brick read the Bean chapters, Gabrielle de Cuir read the Petra chapters, and David Birney the Peter Wiggin chapters. Card provided plenty of dramatic moments in the novel for these performers, most notably the first meeting between Bean and Ender Wiggin’s mother, powerfully read by Scott Brick.

Card kept the scale of the novel both personal and global, and mentions Tom Clancy in his afterword as an influence. The book is an enjoyable addition to the Ender universe, and I’m eager to hear the next book, Shadow Puppets, when it is released. In fact, when it is, I may treat myself to the entire Shadow series again. They are superb productions, every one.

Audio Renaissance’s website has a page dedicated to the entire audio Ender series – find it here.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson