Blackstone Audio – Page 41

Review of Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold

Fantasy Audiobooks - Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold Paladin of Souls
By Lois McMaster Bujold; Read by Kate Reading
13 CDs – Approx. 15 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2005
ISBN: 0786181397
Themes: / Fantasy / Religion / Magic / Demons /

Paladin of Souls is the second book in Bujold’s series involving the country of Chalion. A minor, troubled character in the first book, The Curse of Chalion, is the heroine, or the champion of souls, in this remarkable tale. Lady Ista is an intriguing forty-something lead character and is best described by her own words: “I have always been a drab sort of thing; the only thing that has improved is my wits.” She is intelligent and witty and uses these talents to deal with devastating events from her past.

The setting for this story is a medieval-style world with a polytheistic religion in which men and women choose one of five Gods, each with unique callings and characteristics, to worship. In addition to this, there are demons and demon magic creating opposition for the plot. The story centers around Ista and her relationship with the Gods. She is disillusioned with them as a result of her past involvement that had deadly and heartbreaking consequences, but is dragged kicking and screaming back into their service. She is given the tasks of rescuing souls being destroyed by demons and sorting out a deadly triangle of demon magic and deception.

As the story unfolds Ista not only finds a calling that gives her life meaning, she finds devoted friends, forgiveness, and love. Within the story are several very moving interactions between her and the Gods wherein she comes to have a deeper understanding of their plans and their love for the men and women who serve them. Bujold has composed a beautiful novel that is at once compelling, humorous, and touching. Her characters are not only heroic, but fantastically multidimensional. They are by turns noble, compassionate, selfish, stubborn… human.

The audio version of Paladin of Souls is a wonderful example of the perfect pairing of story and voice. Kate Reading sounds like royalty in every book she narrates. Some may recognize her performances with Michael Kramer in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. She also has been the primary voice of Dr. Kay Scarpetta in Patricia Cornwell’s murder mysteries. Ms. Reading’s ability to enunciate without sounding like she is working at it lends itself beautifully to Lady Ista, whom we can assume would behave and sound like a person of the ruling class. With all this said, Paladin of Souls is a step above the ordinary in fantasy literature and audiobooks. It is a delight to experience.

posted by Tricia

Here are the New Releases for this month: The Con…

New Releases

Here are the New Releases for this month:

The Consciousness Plague
By Paul Levinson, Read by Mark Shanahan
ISBN: 1593160380
Abridged
Listen and Live Audio
Scott: This is an 8 hour abridgement… Amazon shows that the book is 340 pages long, so it’s almost all here.

Dead as a Doornail
A Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mystery
By Charlaine Harris, Read by Johanna Parker
ISBN: 1419337300
Recorded Books

Empire of the East
By Fred Saberhagen, Read by Raymond Todd
Unabridged
ISBN: 078134976
Blackstone Audio
Scott: This one’s on my TBR shelf… Saberhagen is a writer I haven’t read (or heard).

The Historian
By Elizabeth Kostova, Read by Rosalyn Landor and Jim Ward
Unabridged
ISBN: 1594830363
Time Warner Audiobooks

Pendragon Book 3: The Never War
By D.J. MacHale, Read by William Dufris
ISBN: 1597372510
Brilliance Audio

Pendragon Book 4: The Reality Bug
By D.J. MacHale, Read by William Dufris
ISBN 1597372596
Brilliance Audio

Tolkien’s Ordinary Virtues
By Mark Eddy Smith, Read by Simon Vance
Unabridged
ISBN: 0786178299
Blackstone Audio
Scott: This one caught my eye – it’s a kind of “Life Lessons from Lord of the Rings”

Velocity
By Dean Koontz, Read by Michael Hayden
Unabridged
ISBN: 0739315552
Random House Audio

The Vor Game
By Lois McMaster Bujold, Read by Grover Gardner
Unabridged
ISBN: 0786177330
Blackstone Audio
Scott: Blackstone will be releasing several of Bujold’s Vorkosigan novels – this is the first!

Wee Free Men
By Terry Pratchett, Read by Stephen Briggs
ISBN: 0060785985
Harper Audio

In the podcasting world, here’s some of the titles that have been published:

Escape Pod
“In His Footsteps” by Paul E. Martens, Read by Stephen Eley
“Oasis” by Greg van Eekhout, Read by Stephen Eley
“Snow Day” by Jennifer Pelland, Read by Deborah Green
“Strange Girlfriend” by Scott Janssens, Read by Stephen Eley

Podiobooks continues their serials of Morevi: The Chronicles of Rafe and Askana by Tee Morris & Lisa Lee, The Pocket and the Pendant by Mark Jeffrey, and Earthcore by Scott Sigler.

Other new developments – Timberwolf Press is now offering some of their titles for sale at Paperback Digital, which has also branched out into eBooks.

If you’d like to be included in future New Releases posts on SFFAudio, please click here to e-mail Scott.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of The Worthing Saga By Orson Scott Card

The Worthing Saga
By Orson Scott Card; Read by Scott Brick
Additional Readers: Emily Card, Harlan Ellison, Aaron Johnston, Eric Luke, Corinne Melançon, Stefan Rudnicki, and Orson Scott Card.
15 CD’s – 18 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
ISBN: 0786181869
Themes: Science Fiction / Pain / Organization and Destruction / Telepathy / Space Travel

“If you try to eliminate the pain from your life, you destroy all hope of pleasure too.” This is from the character Stipock, and summarizes the main theme of the story. Like C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain, Card’s work makes an interesting argument for the function of pain in our lives. Mr. Card effectively tears us from the safe, innocent comfort of Eden into an existence filled with overwhelming pain and genuine joy.

Like the author’s tales of Alvin Maker, this story explores tensions between forces that create and forces that destroy. It unfolds as a world previously spared suffering is allowed to experience pain and loss. Jason and Justice come to Flat Harbor for Lared, a boy who would write for them the story of how people had come to be spared suffering, and why that protection ended on the Day of Pain. It highlights the importance of human attachments and the destruction that comes from a society in which human relationships are sacrificed for more self-serving interests.

It had been a few years since I read the book in print, and I’d forgotten how good it is. The book is an interesting mix of stories, and like Hoom’s boats, Mr. Card fits them together “tight as a barrel”. It’s a gripping story, and after following the climax and denouement you realize, “wait, I’m only two-thirds of the way through the book!” The story of Jason and Lared ends there, but the book includes a number of stories of people living their lives in the worlds presented in The Worthing Saga. Even though the book is decades old, it could pass for being written this year. Technology advances but relationships and moral dilemmas are timeless, and both are Mr. Card’s stock in trade.

Scott Brick does a great job on the audio. I enjoyed his voice without being unduly distracted by it. Others read the later stories. None of them are unpleasant, and one of them added a great deal of personality to the story by sounding more like Jeff Foxworthy than Leonard Nimoy. Orson Scott Card himself read the introduction.

posted by Mike

Review of Very Bad Deaths by Spider Robinson

Very Bad Deaths
By Spider Robinson; Read by Spider Robinson
10 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2005
ISBN: 0786182431
Themes: / Science Fiction / Serial Killer / Psychic /

Many listeners don’t like it when the author narrates his own story. I’ve never understood this, especially when it comes to science fiction, which has a long history of this. Early Caedmon titles featured Frank Herbert, Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov reading their own works. Live readings are common events at science fiction conventions. And I find that I usually like author-read audiobooks. The author lends an extra dimension to the reading that a third-party narrator simply can’t provide.

Every now and then you run across an author/narrator who is good enough at narrating that you’d like to see him narrate some other author’s books too. Harlan Ellison is that good, for example. And so is Spider Robinson. He reads in such a comfortable, personable way that it’s easy to imagine that this guy you know popped in for lunch and is telling you this story over the kitchen table. I enjoyed his reading so much that I wondered first how good his Callahan Chronicals would be read by him (not that Barrett Whitener did a bad job – he didn’t), and further, how Spider would be narrating another author’s work, like, say, a Heinlein novel. The answer? He’d be pretty damn good. I found myself eager to return to this audiobook every time I was forced to put it down.

Along with Russell, who is the loosely autobiographical main character, the story involves a serial killer with a fetish for inflicting pain, a psychic roommate who is appropriately named “Smelly”, and a female cop who is not a lesbian. The story flits from the past, where Russell first met Smelly, to the present, where Smelly seeks him out to tell him that he read the mind of the serial killer as he flew over his house in an airplane and they better by God do something about him.

The story is mainly about these characters going after the serial killer, having many conversations about whether they should go after him. Robinson keeps it interesting throughout, but doesn’t hesitate to move off the plot for some tangential opinion dumps, or some science fiction references, or some puns. The story moves, and is personal, enjoyable, often funny, and touching. And the bad guy is flinchingly bad. Enjoy this one.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Renting audiobooks

SFFaudio Commentary

Renting audiobooks is a cost-effective way of getting your hands on some very good stuff. How does it work? With the companies listed here, you select a book or two that is sent to you in a self-addressed stamped box. Usually you keep the book for 30 days, after which you put the book back in the box, tape it closed, then drop it in a mailbox.

Blackstone Audio
Blackstone Audio has been building a fantastic science fiction and fantasy collection. Their narrators are generally good. Some of their latest include Spider Robinson’s Callahan books and Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy. They also carry titles by Catherine Asaro, Charles Sheffield, Robert Silverberg, and Lois McMaster Bujold. They also produce MP3-CD versions of much of their catalog, which makes purchasing the titles outright very attractive.

Recorded Books, Inc.
Recorded Books has the biggest collection of high quality science fiction and fantasy titles out there. Their narrators are just excellent, and include Frank Muller, George Guidall, Rob Inglis, and Richard Ferrone, among many others. To name a few titles: Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, several Robert A. Heinlein titles, Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality series, and Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis are also here. Their rental plan now includes a Netflix-style option – for $30/month you can have as many titles as you can hear.

Simply Audiobooks

Simply Audiobooks has taken the Netflix model and applied it to audiobooks. Unlike the two options above, who with just a few exceptions rent only their own titles, Simply Audiobooks has a very nice Science Fiction and Fantasy selection from publishers across the spectrum. They currently charge $19.95 per month for unlimited rentals, and they invite you to try it out FREE.

And last, don’t forget to check out your local library. Many libraries are building fine audiobook collections in response to patron requests.

NOTE: Books on Tape no longer rents audiobooks.

Review of Callahan’s Con by Spider Robinson

Callahan’s Con
By Spider Robinson; Read by Barrett Whitener
8 CDs – Approx. 10 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2004
ISBN: 0786183470
Themes: / Science Fiction / Humor / Crime / Time Travel / Immortality / Telepathy / Florida /

Jake Stonebender, our favorite intergalactic barkeep, rivets us to our stools with yet another wild and wooly yarn about the goings on of his Key West cantina. This time though, it isn’t the end of the world that is the trouble. Instead, it’s a mountainous mole-hill of a thug named Tony Donuts Jr. who wants to make his bones by fleecing Jake and his neighboring businesses for “protection money”. Jake could solve this problem with straight-on firepower, but that’d only bring down more government attention on him and his hippie clientele. And more heat is what he doesn’t need – because wouldn’t you know it – a dedicated bureaucrat from the Florida family services department has been sniffing around to find out why Jake’s only daughter has not been to school since she was born some thirteen years ago! So Jake and his extended family set about concocting a sting so devious it will make Florida Swampland real estate look good. The grift involves, among other things, time-travel, the Russian Mob, and the Fountain of Youth!

Full of brain-smearing puns and gawdawful song parodies Callahan’s Con is guaranteed to entertain anyone who enjoys Robinson’s Hugo award winning fiction. Myself, I come for the jokes and stay for references. In this case a nice homage to literature’s most unlucky master criminal: John Dortmunder. Callahan’s Con is proof that not only can Robinson like to write in the style of Heinlein – as he did in the previous installment, Callahan’s Key, – but also that he can write in the style of Mystery Writers Of America Grandmaster Donald E. Westlake! Interestingly this means that that Jake’s first person perspective is stretched-out to include multiple viewpoints – as is the Westlake’s Dortmunder novels. I’m not sure how Robinson did it, but he managed to convey other character’s perspectives in a way I can only describe as fictionalizing the fiction. I should also note that in a break with tradition Robinson hasn’t merely added to the seeming ever growing entourage surrounding Jake – for a major of character in the series dies. Though this could be troubling it is handled with grace and a few tears.

Reader Barrett Whitener, in this third Blackstone Audio Callahan audiobook does his familiar and fun vocal gymnastics routine – spouting off one liners in a dozen comic voices. Whitener, an Audie Award winner, is well matched with comic material – it really and truly is his forte. Blackstone Audio has been known to use a mix of art from the hardcover or paperback and their own original cover art. Their own art has been steadily improving and I’m pleased to say this is the nicest original cover so far!

Posted by Jesse Willis