Review of Blake’s 7 – Cally: Blood & Earth / Flag & Flame (Vol. 1.4)

SFFaudio Review

Blake's 7 - Blood And Earth and Flag And FlameBlake’s 7 – Cally: Blood & Earth / Flag & Flame (Vol. 1.4)
By Ben Aaronovitch and Marc Platt; Directed by Dominic Devine; Performed by a full cast
1 CD – Approx. 60 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: B7 Productions
Published: August 24, 2009
ISBN: 9781906577070
Themes: / Science Fiction / Space Opera / Telepathy / Survival / Noir / War /

Blake’s 7 – Cally contains two plays on one CD. I am reviewing them individually and in the order they appear on the disc.

Blood & Earth
On Auron, every clone lives in a world buoyed by the constant murmur of telepathic support, gossip and opinions. When Ariane Cally’s plane crashes in the middle of a wilderness park she finds herself cut off not only from rescue, but the voices that have sustained her all her life. Her only hope is the mysterious Aunty, the single voice she can still hear, a woman who claims to have been the second Cally ever to be born on Auron. From Aunty she will learn the true and secret history of her people, but only if the wilderness doesn’t kill her first.

You’d think that any audio drama featuring four characters, three with the same and similar voices there’d be some difficulty in following the story of who’s talking to who, what’s happening and to whom. No such problems exist in Blood & Earth and neither does the story suffer in the telling. Jan Chappell, who was the original Cally from the TV series Blake’s 7, takes on a new role as a new Cally – one of the original clones of the Auron colony. In this adventure she’s mentoring one of her sister clones who has crash landed in a wet and remote jungle. Meanwhile, another Cally is on a search and rescue mission high above the jungle looking for the crashed Cally any other survivors. The theme of telepathy is a hard one to convey very successfully in an audiobook – but the Blake’s 7 producers have done a terrific job with it in this audio drama. In between the action we get a good sense of the culture of Auron – how a few early decision in the colony’s history have determined the colony’s present and how they may determine its future.

Cast:
Jan Chappell AUNTY
Amy Humphreys ARIANE CALLY
Barbara Joslyn JORDEN CALLY
Julian Wadham COMMISSIONER VAN REICH

Flag & Flame
Twins are special; Auronar clone twins doubly so. They’re grown that way. Pilot Skate Cally and Operative Merrin Cally are a Flight Team on the Auronar cruiser Flag of Hope. They’ve been in each other’s heads, living each other’s lives, the same feelings, differences, orders and taste buds, since they were first poured out of a vat. But after High Command sends Skate on a one-way mission investigating Federation incursions in the Dancer Cluster, Merrin faces a bleak new future on her own, uncovering the dark half of the sister she thought she knew.

In this play, somewhat reminiscent of an episode of the new Battlestar Galactica, clone sisters Merrin Cally and Skate Cally are teamed up for a top secret scouting mission that needs to operate under a strict radio silence. Skate Cally, having had her uniform ‘sanitized,’ is placed into a space fighter that has also been stripped of insignia and identifying numbers. Meanwhile, Merrin Cally is taken to the bridge of Auron’s carrier flagship. She’s there to communicate everything Skate sees in the mysterious Dancer Cluster, their target. This is an excellent setup for an audio drama, we get both sides of the conversation, vivid description and ripe storytelling. Robert A. Heinlein’s 1957 novel Time For The Stars utilizes this same meme (genetically identical siblings sharing a telepathic bond) and so similar tensions apply – but unlike Heinlein’s adventure, Flag & Flame delivers a message of moral ambiguity. The cast does great work with the tight script, both Callys have distinct voices, and a subtle telepathic modulation tells us which viewpoint we’re in. After hearing this second dramatization set on Auron I have plenty of questions. Presumably these will be filled in with future B7 installments (when one Cally joins up with Blake and the Liberator’s crew).

Cast:
Susannah Doyle SKATE CALLY
Natalie Walter MERRIN CALLY
Michael Cochrane COMMANDER GRESHAM

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #040

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #040 – Jesse and Scott are joined by Steve Feldberg of Audible.com to talk about Audible Frontiers and other Audible.com projects. We talk audiobooks the whole show, giving particular attention to those produced by Audible.com itself. Steve tells us all about a bunch of the upcoming Science Fiction, Fantasy, espionage, and crime audiobooks we can expect to see showing up in the Audible catalgoue this year and next!

Talked about on today’s show:
Audible.com, Audible Frontiers, Gateway by Frederik Pohl, Robert J. Sawyer, Frederik Pohl, how to translate font and textual changes to audio, Oliver Wyman, Jonathan Davis, METAtropolis |READ OUR REVIEW|, Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer |READ OUR REVIEW|, narrator performance, The Wind Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, how do you pick stuff?, Battlestar Galactica, Mike Resnick‘s Starship series, space opera, dialogue driven audiobooks, David Weber‘s Honor Harrington series, female protagonists, Mike Shepherd‘s Kris Longknife series, military SF, Elizabeth Moon’s Vatta’s War series, novella and novelette length audiobooks, METAtropolis, Michael Hogan, Alessandro Juliani, Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer, Stefan Rudnicki, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card |READ OUR REVIEW|, Scott Brick, Hopscotch by Brian Garfield, espionage novels, Death Wish by Brian Garfield, Hopscotch (1980) starring Walter Matthau, Six Days Of The Condor by James Grady, mystery and thriller audiobooks, Jim Thompson, copyright disambiguation, Hard Case Crime, BBC Audiobooks America, Christa Faust, The Ghosts Of Belfast by Stuart Neville, Gerard Doyle, Eragon by Christopher Paolini, Jeremy Gage, Lawrence Block, pseudonymous narrators, Grover Gardner (aka Tom Parker), Mercedes Lackey‘s Elemental Masters series, fairy tales, Starplex by Robert J. Sawyer, WWW: Wake by Robert J. Sawyer |READ OUR REVIEW|, Golden Fleece by Robert J. Sawyer, Kristine Kathryn Rusch‘s Retrieval Artist series, William Gibson, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Count Zero, All Tomorrow’s Parties are all coming to audiobook, wouldn’t a multi-voiced version of Neuromancer be great? Yes it would!, Stanisław Lem, audiobooks are coming, Gene Wolfe‘s The Book Of The New Sun is coming to audio, epic fantasy is hard to turn into audiobooks, David Eddings, Subterranean Press, how the audiobook experience is different than the paperbook experience, Harlan Ellison as a narrator, we need some Jack Vance audiobooks, Brilliance Audiobooks, On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, Seeing Ear Theatre, audio drama, James Patrick Kelly, copyright disambiguation part II, the Bradbury 13, J. Michael Straczynski‘s City Of Dreams, Mary Burkey’s Audiobooker Blog, audiobook reading groups, The Help by Kathryn Stockett, Audible.com’s internal book club.

Posted by Jesse Willis

CBC: Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer COMPLETED

SFFaudio Online Audio

CBC Radio - Between The Covers podcastCanada’s book reading radio show, Between The Covers, has just finished adding all 25 parts of Robert J. Sawyer‘s novel Rollback to its podcast.

For my own listening pleasure I’ve gone through and stripped out all the intros and extros so as to make it into one big clean audiobook file.

You can, and probably should, do the same to your own files if you’re planning to listen to this audiobook straight through. Here’s my suggestion:

Downloading the files from the feed (or HERE), dragging them into Audacity (a free digital audio editor) one at a time and snip-off the first and last 30 seconds (or so from) from each file. Then plop the resulting (shortened) MP3 files into another piece of software called MP3 to iPod Audiobook Converter. Export as one big M4B and drag into itunes under as a single new playlist. The above may seem slightly complicated (at least the first time around) but it’s not really that tough and it will improve your enjoyment of the audiobook.

Alternatively, I think Julie from Forgotten Classics has figured out a similar (or reverse) system using iTunes 9. That might work. But myself I like the idea that I can drag a single DRM-free file into Skype and send it out immediately to a friend (who uses iTunes) and have it show up in the right category, ready for bookmarked listening.

So, get downloading from the feed people! And hurry it up, because those files will only be there for a limited time – and that’s your only option at this point, at least until some thoughtful person (cleverer than me in the ways of torrent assemblage) puts a tracker for the novel up on RadioArchive.cc website. CBC should really be doing it actually, but that’s probably expecting a little to much at this point.

CBC Between The Covers - Rollback by Robert J. SawyerRollback
By Robert J. Sawyer; Read by Alessandro Juliani
25 MP3s via Podcast – Approx. 6 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: CBC / Between The Covers
Podcast: September 7 – October 9, 2009
It’s 2009. Sarah Halifax decodes the first radio transmission from aliens. Thirty-eight years later a second message is received and Sarah – now 87 – may have the key to deciphering this one too …if she lives long enough. What would you do differently if you suddenly had another 60 or 70 yrs of life? Hugo and Nebula award-winner Robert Sawyer explores ethics on both the human and cosmic scale in this novel about becoming young again.

Podcast feed:
http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/includes/betweenthecovers.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBCRIBE|

[Thanks to Heather Brown for making this happen at CBC!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

P.S. CBC is still sitting on it’s J. Michael Straczynski radio drama series. I protest this inaction! Do something with it CBC!

CBC’s Between The Covers podcasts Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer

SFFaudio Online Audio

CBC Radio - Between The Covers podcastCanada’s only book reading radio show, Between The Covers, no longer airs on CBC Radio One’s terrestrial radio network. But, it is still in production as a weekly podcast and continues to air on CBC Radio’s Sirius Satellite Radio channel 137. There, beginning tomorrow, you’ll hear daily 15 minute installments of Robert J. Sawyer’s 2007 novel Rollback. It’s being read by Battlestar Galactica‘s own Mr. Gaeta, Alessandro Juliani! You have to love taxpayer funded Science Fiction.

CBC Between The Covers - Rollback by Robert J. SawyerRollback
By Robert J. Sawyer; Read by Alessandro Juliani
25 MP3s via Podcast – Approx. 6 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: CBC / Between The Covers
Podcast: September 7 – October 9, 2009
It’s 2009. Sarah Halifax decodes the first radio transmission from aliens. Thirty-eight years later a second message is received and Sarah – now 87 – may have the key to deciphering this one too …if she lives long enough. What would you do differently if you suddenly had another 60 or 70 yrs of life? Hugo and Nebula award-winner Robert Sawyer explores ethics on both the human and cosmic scale in this novel about becoming young again.

Podcast feed:
http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/includes/betweenthecovers.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBCRIBE|

Posted by Jesse Willis

P.S. Hey CBC! Why don’t you put that J. Michael Straczynski radio drama series (that’s just gathering dust) onto your Sirius 137 station? I dare you!

The SFFaudio Podcast #026

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #026 – Jesse and Scott argue about how long books should be, talk about audiobooks, audio panels, Audible’s new audio format (higher quality). We also ask the questions:

“If Stephen King was your dad and reading you a bedtime story, would you ever get to sleep?” and “Why does Epic Fantasy have to be so long?”

Talked about on today’s show:
Science Fiction Symposium @ BYU, Writing Excuses podcast, Brandon Sanderson, I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, The Immortals by Tracy Hickman, The Science Fiction Hall Of Fame Vol. 1, Elantris |READ OUR REVIEW|, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., David Farland, Eric James Stone, James Dashner, Orson Scott Card, Audible’s new Enhanced Audio Format, Blackstone Audio‘s forthcomings: new Harlan Ellison (and old), Stir Of Echoes by Richard Matheson, Passage by Connie Willis, Bellwether by Connie Willis, CBC Radio Between The Covers, Wake by Robert J. Sawyer, Battlestar Galactica, the Story Speiler podcast, And All The Earth A Grave by C.C. MacApp, The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill |2 FREE STORIES|, Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill, On Writing by Stephen King, Telling Lies For Fun And Profit by Lawrence Block, Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle |READ OUR REVIEW|, Escape From Hell, Wikipedia is full of spoilers, Exit Door Leads In by Philip K. Dick [is full of swearing], The Most Brilliant Sci-Fi Mind on Any Planet: Philip K. Dick |PDF|, Starship Rebel by Mike Resnick |READ OUR REVIEW|, and a 5 sound review of Babylon 5, A Song Of Ice And Fire by George R.R. Martin, Wild Cards would make good audio, HBO’s True Blood, is it all ‘too much conversation, not enough sword?’

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #010 – Bill Hollweg from BrokenSea Audio Productions

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #010 – In what may be our smurfiest show ever we’ve dropped the usual format for an exclusive interview with Bill Hollweg from BrokenSea Audio Productions. It’s a Texas sized show in which we get Bill to spill the beans on upcoming BSAP projects like the retro-Battlestar Galactica, an all new Mad Max adventure and the audio drama version of Escape From New York!

We also hear about:
Me gushing over the ongoing 7 part BSAP miniseries of Conan: Queen Of The Black Coast, then I compare BSAP’s Jake Sampson: Monster Hunter to Tales Of The Gold Monkey and Bill compares it to Temple Of The Vampire, listen for the description of Beta Flight (you’re thinking Alpha Flight‘s cheaper cousin right?), Body Slam Alley (No one expects a wrestling audio drama!), newcomer 19 Nocturne Boulevard, Maudelayne featuring J.R.R. Tolkien, and plenty more!

Posted by Jesse Willis