Subterranean Press’ Winter 2008 mag is Trunk And Disorderly thanks to Charles Stross

SFFaudio Online Audio

Subterranean PressSubterranean Press, which produces the “Subterranean Online” magazine, is proving itself a reliable source for excellent (and FREE) audiobooks. The latest proof of this comes from the Winter 2008 issue which includes a Charlie Stross novelette in audiobook form. Trunk And Disorderly was first published in textual form in the January 2007 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine.


Subterranean Magazine - Winter 2008Trunk And Disorderly
By Charles Stross; Read by Sam Mowry
13 MP3s – Approx. 1.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Subterranean Press
Published: December 2007
|Part 1 MP3|Part 2 MP3|Part 3 MP3|Part 4 MP3|Part 5 MP3|Part 6 MP3|
|Part 7 MP3|Part 8 MP3|Part 9 MP3|Part 10 MP3|Part 11 MP3|Part 12 MP3|Part 13 MP3|
“In some distant future, a socialite with the most tenuous of relationships bounces from activity to activity with only the slimmest idea of what is going on. Bringing along his sister’s mini-elephant and his butler, he consumes prodigious amounts of alcohol and still manages to survive a coup masquerading as a wild party.”
[Summary by Jeff of FILLING MY MIND WITH GEH]

Posted by Jesse Willis

audible.com’s big Science Fiction and Fantasy push continues

SFFaudio News

Audible.comWe’ve some exciting news regarding audible.com. Earlier this year we told you about audible’s big push for more Science Fiction and Fantasy. Since then the staff at audible.com have been acquiring new titles and new providers at a serious clip. Now we’ve got more news on that front. Here’s the list of some of the upcoming releases – I’m almost certain these are all ‘exclusive to audible’ titles. Included amongst them are the follow up book to our latest SFFaudio Essential designee!

Macmillian Audiobooks being released exclusively through audible.com:

Escapement
By Jay Lake
Release date: June 2008

Rainbow’s End*
By Vernor Vinge
Release date: December 2007
*this year’s Hugo winner (novel)

Jumper: Griffin’s Story*
By Steven Gould
Release date: January 2008
*the movie comes out Feb 14th

Spin
By Robert Charles Wilson
Release date: Q1 2008

Axis
By Robert Charles Wilson
Release date: Q1 2008

The Ghost Brigades
By John Scalzi
Release date: Q1 2008

Territory
By Emma Bull
Release date: Q1 2008

“In house” produced Audible exclusives:

Saturn Returns (Astropolis Book 1)
By Sean Williams
Release date: soon

Centotaxis*
By Sean Williams
Release date: soon
*a novella related to Saturn Returns (“essentially it’s Book 1.5”)

Posted by Jesse Willis

2nd Completed SFFaudio Challenge title: The Queen Of The Black Coast by Robert E. Howard

SFFaudio Online Audio

SFFaudio’s Make An Audiobook Win An Audiobook Challenge #2Bill Hollweg of Broken Sea Audio Productions is the second challenger to complete a title in the Second Annual SFFaudio Challenge! Available now is a complete and unabridged reading of Robert E. Howard’s Queen Of The Black Coast read by Bill Hollweg!

This is a significant achievment as Queen Of The Black Coast is one of the world’s most important novelettes:

-There is a hefty page on Wikipedia detailing much about this influential tale.

-It took a stunning 40 issues of Conan: The Barbarian (the Marvel comic) to string out just a few lines in this tale.

-In the original Conan movie, which was not faithful to any particular Conan story, there was one clear aspect that was certainly taken from the end of Queen Of The Black Coast.

Broken Sea Audio Productions is “doing a full cast audio drama of this and other tales of Conan” – look for the audio drama version in early 2008.

Also, the good folks over at Broken Sea Audio Productions have fenced off a separate page for what they are calling “Hooligan Audiobooks”, there you’ll find all the BSAP single voiced narration tales. If you’ve never tried a Howard story, or never read a Conan tale, have a listen to this unabridged beauty:

Queen Of The Black Coast by Robert E. HowardQueen Of The Black Coast
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Bill Hollweg
Podcast – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Broken Sea Audio Thursday
Podcast: November – December 2007
In the seacoast kingdom of Argos, after a brush with the Hyborian legal system, Conan hops aboard a southward bound ship. Off the coasts of Kush the ship is boarded by black corsairs under the Shemitish she-devil, Bêlit. Conan joins her crew, becomes her consort, and for a long time they harry the Hyborian and Stygian ports. During this stage of his career, Conan gains the name of Amra, the Lion, which is to follow him throughout his later life.

Chapter 1 |MP3| Chapter 2 |MP3| Chapter 3 |MP3|Chapters 4 & 5 |MP3|

Subscribe to the podcast feed:

http://brokensea.com/feed

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of The Dream-Time by Henry Treece

SFFaudio Review

The Dream-Time by Henry TreeceThe Dream-Time
By Henry Treece; Read by Tim Bentinck
2 Cassettes – Approx. 2 Hours 25 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Chivers Audio Books
Published: 1987
ISBN: 0745185894
Themes: / Science Fiction / Young Adult / Prehistorical / Art / Language / Magic /

“The Dream-time is a story of people in the very early morning of humanity, when they were not really used to being people at all, and so everything had a strangeness about it, and nothing was quite certain; not even that the spring would come again next year. They were so near the beginning that they can have had only the fewest and simplest of words with which to talk to each other and share their thoughts and feelings and ideas. And yet we know, from the things to do with their religion and way of life that they left behind them, and from Stone Age people who are alive today, such as the Bushmen of the Kalahari, that they had all kinds of complicated thoughts and fears and longings in their heads and hearts.”
-Postscript to The Dream-Time written by Rosemary Sutcliffe

At the dawn of human existence a young boy named Crookleg has mastery over a new kind of magic. His people, deeply superstitious, curse him for they fear his magic will harm the barley crop and the community. But Crookleg finds himself not agreeing with their opinions. His magic, the ability to make pictures of animals eventually finds him cast out. When he ventures into the dangerous lands beyond his home he finds danger, a new name, starvation and eventually family.

First published in 1967 The Dream Time was the last novel written by Henry Treece, a specialist in historical fiction. I first encountered Treece in the early 1980s after hearing the entirety The Lord Of The Rings. My uncle, looking for another book to read to me, produced a slim boxed trilogy of paperbacks that were themselves thinner than just The Fellowship Of The Ring alone. But as my uncle read me the story I soon learned that what Treece lacked in wordiness he made up for in craft. Treece was a poet, a surrealist of prose and had a gift for maximizing the value of words by careful selection and placement. Hearing Treece’s Viking Trilogy it felt as deep as The Lord Of The Rings – no small feat. To be fair though The Dream Time isn’t very long at all. At just two hours it feels only just longer than a short novel. The world Treece describes in The Dream Time is one full of primitive beliefs. Its inhabitants have an ultra-limited technology, none can write, little metal exists and communication with neighboring tribes is as dodgy as communicating with animals. The Dream-Time feels as universal and surreal as one can imagine for a history based book. One blogger described the way Treece writes as “Romantic Surreal dreamshock … [Treece’s characters] were human too, he suggests; they understood things differently but their ideas seemed as valid to them as ours seem valid to us.” – and that is a good way to describe it. Narrator Tim Bentinck gives a sympathetic reading, even the villains in The Dream-Time understandable. If you want an artful living breathing history (or in this case prehistory) look to Treece.

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases – 5 Classic SF Titles – Wonder Audio

SFFaudio New Releases

Five classic Science Fiction tales. Five more reasons to set up an audible.com or iTunes account.

[editor’s note – These titles below all come from a fellow editor’s audiobook company (Wonder Audiobooks). I’m begging you to give them a try. Its hard to appear purely fannish about these stories (given that I’m such good friends with the publisher) so I’ll just forget about trying to appear altogether unbiased and say these are really terrific listens. Fondly Fahrenheit alone will make you scream for joy. Reet!]

fondly_fahrenheit_150.jpgFondly Fahrenheit & Will You Wait?
By Alfred Bester; Read by Pat Bottino
70 min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audiobooks
Availiable at Audible and
Androids cannot kill! Yet that is the case for James Vandaleur’s rare multiple-aptitude android. Feeling he has no choice, Vandaleur flees the authorities, and finds himself in encompassed in even more horrendous murders. The heat is affecting the man-made servant, but scarier still is what is effecting Vandaleur’s mind. A pyrotechnic tour de forceby one the greatest writer and stylist of science fiction.

Chosen by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America as one of the greatest science fiction stories.

Cover - It's a Good LifeIt’s a Good Life
By Jerome Bixby; Read by William Dufris
51 min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audiobooks
Availiable at Audible and
What is more idyllic than a small mid-western agricultural town? Peaksville would sound like a scene right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Except , little Anthony is a monster! What happens when a child is omnipotent, and with his mind he can execute his every desire and petulant whim? Tonight, there’s a birthday party for Dan Hollis at Anthony’s house. It’s a party all the townspeople will remember . . . always!

Another story voted as one of the greatest stories by SFFWA. The story was adapted into a classic Twilight Zone episode.

devil-on-salvation-bluf-150.jpgThe Devil on Salvation Bluff
By Jack Vance; Read by Candace Platt
61 min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audiobooks
Availiable at Audible and
On the planet, Glory, missionaries live in a constant unpredictable environment. Sister Mary and her husband, Brother Raymond, try to contend with the flits, which live satyr-like existences. The missionaries are exasperated with this world’s seemingly disregard for cause and effect. The only constant is the clock that they brought with them. And therein lies the problem.

the-game-of-rat-and-dragon-150.jpgThe Game of Rat and Dragon
By Cordwainer Smith; Read by Matthew Wayne Selznick33 min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audiobooks
Availiable at Audible and
Future humanity has found the secret of faster-than-light travel, but it comes with great dangers. To minimize these dangers, man can pilot ships through the up-and-out with cats as their partners. Underhill share his mind with his cat-partner, the Lady May, and must travel to the terrible open places between the stars. Only be working together can they defend themselves and the ship’s passengers against the dragons in the emptiness of space.

last-of-the-deliverers-150.jpgThe Last of the Deliverers
By Poul Anderson; Read by William Coon
32 min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audiobooks
Availiable at Audible and
A small town in Ohio leads a peaceful Utopian existence in a world after the collapse of the super powers. Their pastoral existence is rattled when an old communist comes to their village. Uncle Jim, the resident old capitalist wages an ideological battle with the traveling guest to the townspeople’s dismay.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Time Traveler has FREE STORIES by Alfred Bester, James H. Schmidtz and Mack Reynolds!

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Time Traveler Show PodcastOur favorite Time Traveler is back from a forced hiatus (those darned time blisters) but he’s doing us right with the dispensation of three early Christmas gifts! As he himself puts it:

Three big stories for the price of none. Makin’ up for lost time. Read by three excellent narrators.

Now would be the perfect time to subscribe to the The Time Traveler Show podcast via this feed:

http://www.timetravelershow.com/shows/feed.xml

Or if you’re still in the downloading by the digital stone-age route:

The Time Traveler show Podcast #21: An SF TrilogyAn SF Trilogy
By various; Read by various
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: The Time Traveler Show
Podcast: December 4th 2007

Prone
By Mack Reynolds; Read by Corey Redekop
If Ringworld‘s Teela Brown was on the extreme right of the bell curve of luckiness who was on the extreme left? This story will tell ya.

An Incident on Route 12
By James H. Schmidtz; Read by Mark Nelson
A gangster makes good, with the goods, only to get car trouble along the way.

Will You Wait?
By Alfred Bester; Read by Pat Bottino
Deals with the devil may be hard to get in the modern era, but they’re harder to enforce in the modern business climate.

Subscribe to the Time Traveler Show via this feed:

http://www.timetravelershow.com/shows/feed.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis