Ben Bova – Page 6

The SFFaudio Podcast #008

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #008 – here there be podcasts – we’ve adorned ourselves in too much gold, now we can’t move! So join us on our 8th show, where we’re always etymologically correct.

Scott: Oh ya right. I just forgot something man. Uh, before we dock, I think we ought to discuss the bonus situation.

Jesse: Right.

Scott: We think… we think we deserve full shares.

Jesse: Right.

Scott: Pass the cornbread.

Topics discussed include:
42Blips.com, METAtropolis, Jay Lake, John Scalzi, Elizabeth Bear, Tobias Buckell, Karl Schroeder, Mr. Spaceship, Philip K. Dick, Stefan Rudnicki, Wonder Audio, Anne McCaffrey, The Ship Who Sang, Michael Hogan, Battlestar Galactica, 18th Century Spain, Cascadia (Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and sometimes Idaho), Detroit, “Turking”, The Turk (the chess playing automaton), alternative economy, Kandyse McClure, infodump, shared world, Brandon Sanderson, hard fantasy, Elantris, Larry Niven, The Magic Goes Away, manna, unicorns, dragons, Dungeons & Dragons, Mistborn, Robert Jordan, The Wheel Of Time, Writing Excuses Podcast, Howard Tayler, SchlockMercenary.com, Dan Wells, The Dark Knight, Aural Noir, The New Adventures Of Mike Hammer, Stacy Keach, Mike Hammer, Full Cast Audio, Red Planet, Robert A. Heinlein, Bruce Coville, Mars, Heinlein’s Future History sequence, the Red Planet TV miniseries, Princess Academy, Shannon Hale, Blackstone Audio, The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Volume 1, and Volume 2, Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, David Farland, Runelords, Collected Public Domain Works Of H.P. Lovecraft, LibriVox.org, October, Ray Bradbury, “Autumn ennui”, AUTHOR PAGES, LEIGH BRACKETT, FREDERIC BROWN, JAMES PATRICK KELLY, BBC7, RadioArchive.cc, Beam Me Up Podcast, MACK REYNOLDS, Robert Sheckley, Religulous, Constantine’s Sword, The Ultimate Encyclopedia Of Science Fiction: The Definitive illustrated Guide edited by David Pringle, space opera, planetary romance, Julie D., Forgotten Classics podcast, The Wonder Stick, time travel, alien intrusions, metal powers, Slan, The Demolished Man, comedic SF, aliens, artificial intelligence, “cosmic collisions”, Deep Impact, cyborgs, dinosaurs, the dying Earth, Gene Wolfe, elixir of life, immortality, Roger Zelazny, Robert Silverberg, genetic engineering, nuclear war, overpopulation, parallel worlds, robots, androids, Joanna Russ, Ben Bova, space travel, suspended animation, teleportation, transcendence = the Singularity ?, Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke, religion, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Monica Hughes, Crisis On Conshelf Ten, Hard SF, cyberpunk, psychology, New Wave, lost races, military SF, science fantasy, shared worlds, steampunk.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The StarShipSofa podcast metamorphs into a Podcast Magazine

SFFaudio Online Audio

The StarShipSofa podcast is metamorphosing into the StarShipSofa – The Audio Science Fiction Magazine, following in the great tradition of magazines like Analog, Asimovs and Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Each week the StarShipSofa will deliver a full package of SF related audio material all free including audio fiction, fact audio essays, flash fiction and poetry, all by leading names in the SF field.

Many many writers have agreed to let StarShipSofa narrate their works including Ben Bova, Joe Haldeman, Alistair Reynolds and M. John Harrison to name a few.

There will be two shows per week, the Wednesday show, also know as “Aural Delights” will contain narrated audio fiction, fact and poetry and the weekend show will be an in depth look into an author’s life and work.

This week saw the first of the metamorphosing with the StarShipSofa’s Aural Delights show. Fiction was provided by Kage Baker’s fantastic story The Likely Lad, there were two poems by Bruce Boston and Laurel Winter, both winners of the Rhysling Award for SF Poetry. Flash fiction came from a very short but very powerful story called Repeating The Past by Peter Watts, author of the SF novel Blindsight.

In the weeks to come Peter Watts will also be delivering a monthly narrated fact article; this part of the show will be called “Reality, Remastered.”

As for the weekend shows, StarShipSofa has her sights upon writers such as John Scalzi, Robert Charles Wilson and Ken Macleod.

It is a great time for SF at the moment and with the many advantages the Internet can bring, StarShipSofa wants to be one of the very first to deliver the full package in audio science fiction.

Subscribe to the podcast via this feed:http://www.starshipsofa.com/rss

Posted by Tony C. Smith

Review of The Aftermath by Ben Bova

SFFaudio Review

The Aftermath: Book Four of The Asteroid Wars
By Ben Bova; Read by Emily Janice Card, Gabrielle de Cuir, Stephen Hoye, and Stefan Rudnicki
10 CDs – 12 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Renaissance
Published: 2007
ISBN: 1427201064
Themes: / Science Fiction / Space Travel / Asteroid Belt / Politics / War / Survival /

I really enjoy Ben Bova’s vision of humanity’s future in space. That vision is contained in all of his Grand Tour books, and the Asteroid Wars books are part of that larger series. The Aftermath is the fourth, and possibly the last, Asteroid Wars novel. Bova’s future is well considered, and that’s part of the fun of reading his books. To get artificial gravity, a part of the ship needs to spin. Resources are limited. Problems arise – frustrating ones, like when you’ve climbed a ladder to do a job and realize that you’ve forgotten the tool you need to do that job. Only in space, you can’t climb down and get that tool. You have to figure something else.

The Zacharias family finds this out the hard way, because the four of them, who run a merchant vessel as a family business, find themselves ready to dock at what turns out to be a military target during the Asteroid War. When they discover their mistake, Victor Zacharias, the father, leaves the ship in a pod in an attempt to lure attackers away, and the rest of the family gets out of there, but not before their ship is damaged, and not before committing to a trajectory that will keep them away from civilization for years.

Victor then finds himself on the attacked habitat in a state of near-slavery while his family does what it can to stabilize their ship and ride out the years in solitude. The story focuses on both of those situations – Victor’s, who never really loses hope, and the family’s, who struggle. In this way, Bova gives us a story of peripheral damage in war.

The audiobook is read by multiple narrators, switching as the point of view of the story shifts. All of the narrators are top-notch, and the style works well with the book. I was particularly enamored with the opening of the book, as the family is introduced, then tossed into peril. Bova’s characters are well-drawn, and the narrators took full advantage in their effective story-telling.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

New Arrivals – Ben Bova and Shannon Hale

Science Fiction Audiobook Recent Arrivals

Two more new arrivals!

The Aftermath: Book Four of The Asteroid Wars
By Ben Bova; Read by Emily Janice Card, Gabrielle de Cuir, Stephen Hoye, and Stefan Rudnicki
10 CDs – 12 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Renaissance
Published: 2007

The final volume of The Asteroid Wars – superior hard SF!

Princess Academy
By Shannon Hale; Read by a Full Cast
8 CDs – 8 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Full Cast Audio
Published: 2007

A 2006 Newbery Honor Book. Shannon Hale’s The Goose Girl (also produced by Full Cast Audio) was an Audie Award winner last year.

posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Voyagers by Ben Bova

SFFaudio Review

Voyagers
By Ben Bova; Read by Stefan Rudnicki
12 CDs -13 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Sample: Click here
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2006
ISBN: 0786167424
Themes: / Science Fiction / Alien Contact / Space Program / Politics / Religion /

Voyagers is a superior first contact novel. It was originally published in 1981, but it holds up extremely well, especially since our space program has not changed all that much in the past 26 years. But the novel’s setting is the now that was then, which means the United States and USSR are the two superpowers and the only two countries with space programs.

The book starts off in a similar way to Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama. An alien craft has been detected, and it’s in the solar system. Those in the know have no clue what the ship wants – are the aliens hostile or friendly? What does this mean for humanity?

From there the story takes a tack similar to another Clarke novel – 2010: Odyssey Two, but Clarke’s book was published a year after Bova’s. The United States and the USSR decide to cooperate rather than fight. The underlings (i.e. the folks doing the actual work) are ready and willing to do so, but the politicians spend their time pulling the other way. Other internal arguments include everything from “when should we tell the public” to “who gets to go”.

Throughout the novel, Bova takes the time to look around at the world’s reaction as they are informed. Rumors fly and some factions of humanity take action based on those rumors. In short, Bova gives us a fascinating and plausible account of the world’s reaction to first contact. Widespread panic? Don’t think so.

All of this builds up to a truly powerful conclusion. The final two CDs of this audiobook contain the most affecting first contact narrative I’ve ever heard or read. I couldn’t help but to play them both again immediately upon finishing, and I’ve resolved myself to keeping them on my iPod indefinitely so that I’m sure to have them with me next time I find myself in a quiet moment under a starry sky.

Stefan Rudnicki continues to impress with this narration, in which he performs many different voices with many different accents, all effective. Though Bova’s story is Clarke-like, there is much more to work with in the character department than in Clarke’s stories, and this allows Rudnicki the opportunity to shine. Also effective in the audiobook are the chapter breaks, each of which is read by a different narrator and each of which contain thought-provoking stuff, from quotes of real-life scientists to news stories that are part of the fiction. I greatly appreciate this kind of thing in an audiobook because it provides a true break as effective as a new chapter in text. All too often, audiobooks don’t create this break for the listener, resulting in a few moments of disorientation as the listener mentally moves to a new setting and/or POV. No such problem here – the prominent breaks are much appreciated.

posted by Scott D. Danielson

AUDIBLE Sponsored Conversation with Orson Scott Card, Stefan Rudnicki and Ben Bova

Online Audio

Audible.com has posted a new FREE audio interview/conversation between audiobook narrator Stefan Rudnicki and SF authors Orson Scott Card and Ben Bova. The talk is predominately about the role and value of audiobooks in the greater reading environment. Also covered is Card’s love of audiobooks (he’s a big big fan), Bova’s role in the creation of the Ender franchise and place of religion is science and Science Fiction. You can get the audio for it right HERE (but of course you’ll need to have an audible account).

Audible also tells us that: “Bova’s new book, The Aftermath (Book Four of The Asteroid Wars), is now available in audio at Audible.” That’s one of the many titles produced by Rudnicki for Audio Renaissance. OSC’s next “Ender” novel, A War of Gifts, will be released through Audio Renaissance and Audble October 30th 2007.

posted by Jesse Willis