Tag: Brilliance Audio

Recent Arrivals from Brilliance Audio

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Hyperion by Dan SimmonsHyperion
By Dan Simmons; Read by Various
19 CDs – 21 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781423381402

On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of Time Tombs, where huge brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope–and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands.

A stunning tour-de-force filled with transcedent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable new science fiction epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man.

Genesis by Bernard BeckettGenesis
By Bernard Beckett; Read by Becky Wright
4 CDs – 4 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781423381501

Candidates for The Academy must endure a grueling entrance exam, and young Anaximander has chosen as her special subject the life of Adam Forde, her long-dead hero. She begins by telling Forde’s story:

Late in the twenty-first century the island Republic has managed to survive a devastating worldwide plague by isolating its citizens completely from outside contact. For many years, approaching ships and planes are gunned down, refugees are shot on sight. No one is allowed in or out. The islanders are safe, but not free. Until a man named Adam Forde rescues a girl from the sea…

“Anaximander, we have asked you to consider why it is you would like to join The Academy. Is your answer ready?”

To answer that deceptively simple question, Anaximander finds she must struggle with everything she has ever known about herself and her beloved Republic’s history. What is the nature of being human, of being conscious? What does it mean to have a soul? And when everything has been laid bare, she must confront The Republic’s last great secret, her own surprising link to Adam Forde, and the horrifying truth about her world.
Genesis is a provocative novel of ideas that forces us to contemplate the very essence of what it means to be human. You will want to finish it in one sitting, and you will want to listen to it again and again.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Blood Noir by Laurell K. Hamilton

SFFaudio Review

Blood Noir by Laurell K. HamiltonBlood Noir
By Laurell K. Hamilton; Read by Cynthia Holloway
11 CDs – 13 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
ISBN:  1-59737-895-6
Published: 2008
Themes: / paranormal romance / vampires / shapeshifters / mystery / sex / BDSM / urban fantasy

Blood Noir is the sixteenth installment in Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. Thats an impressive track record for any writer–and somehow Hamilton has found time to work on several other series as well. This particular Anita Blake novel is heavy on the romance and emotional development of its characters. It’s fairly light on the “paranormal” or “supernatural” element until it nears its conclusion. While a fun emotional and sexual romp, Blood Noir lacks the intellectual teeth to be called “fantasy” in any meaningful sense of the word.

The book opens with a bang of the Jenna Jameson variety, as Anita Blake comforts her grieving werewolf friend Jason in the most intimate way possible, while her more regular lover Nathaniel looks on and later joins in. Libido calmed, for the moment at least, the story then commences in earnest, and Blood Noir actually presents an intriguing premise. Jason’s estranged father is dying of cancer, and Jason wants to patch up the relationship while he still can. Jason’s father, despite much evidence to the contrary, labors under the delusion that Jason is gay. To dispel this misperception, Jason brings Anita to his home in North Carolina to present as his girlfriend, a front that is only half a lie. The plot thickens further when Jason is mistaken by hometown residents for the son of the state governor.

You might be wondering how the supernatural fits into all this. So was I. While the story is well-told and the characters are emotionally complex, the fantastic elements of Anita Blake’s world don’t really manifest themselves for the first two-thirds of the novel. Sure, we’re told that Jason is a werewolf and that Nathaniel her lover is a were-leopard, and we witness several telephone conversations between Anita and her protector Jean-Claude, one of the vampire masters of St. Louis. But Hamilton is breaking the writer’s axiom of “show, don’t tell.” The early parts of the novel play out like any romance-cum-mystery, with only the barest of supernatural trappings.

Once “the metaphysical shit”, as Blake utters several times, does finally hit the fan, the action ramps up and Blood Noir becomes a thriller on par with other urban fantasy, replete with shapeshifting, vampire charms, and a bit of old-fashioned gun play. The payoff is worth waiting for. The novel draws its title from Marmee Noir, an ancient vampire who, despite slumbering somewhere in Europe, manages to wreak havoc in the lives of characters halfway around the world. The book advances the larger Vampire Hunter story arc, and promises an intriguing direction for future books in the series.

There’s no getting around it, Blood Noir is about sex. Anita Blake is possessed by the ardeur, an urge that requires her to “feed” periodically through sexual acts. Yes, Anita’s come a long way since her celibate days of the first few novels. She openly maintains several serious sexual partners, and she engages in sadomasochism and other “non-standard” sexual practices. The emphasis on eroticism feels mostly in line with the plot, and seldom ranges into the realm of over-indulgence. What saves Blood Noir from devolving into a wholly superficial sexual dog pile is Anita’s self-awareness. Anita is mostly comfortable with her open lifestyle, but she occasionally expresses misgivings about its potential negative impact on herself and others. Her external sensual and erotic lust is also complimented by a fine-tuned emotional sensitivity.

Brilliance Audio has made a modest effort to put some production shine on its audio version of Blood Noir, with some minimal distortion effects when characters speak on the phone or overhear a television news report. Cynthia Holloway’s narration tackles the novel’s sexuality head-on; she doesn’t flinch at even the most graphic scenes. Holloway especially succeeds in capturing Anita Blake’s wide expressive range, from her angry outbursts to her few moments of vulnerability.

Long-time readers of the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series will doubtless wish to follow the heroine’s latest adventures, and fans of paranormal romance who have somehow missed Hamilton’s work will probably want to jump into the series as well. Other readers of fantasy, even of urban fantasy, should approach Blood Noir with caution. The book provides a solid plot and well-rounded characters, but Hamilton’s hit-and-miss writing fails to conjure up the magic that fantasy, even dark fantasy, should.

DISCLAIMER: Any sexual puns or double-entendres contained in this review were purely inadvertent.

Posted by Seth Wilson

Recent Arrival from Brilliance Audio

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Arch Wizard by Ed GreenwoodArch Wizard
By Ed Greenwood; Read by Phil Gigante
11 CDs – 13 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781423351153

This is Volume 2 in the Falconfar series. Volume 1, Dark Lord, is also available from Brilliance Audio. Holy cow! It’s on sale for $8!

Having been drawn into a fantasy world of his own creation, Rod Everlar continues his quest to defeat the corruption he has discovered within. He sets off in pursuit of the dark wizard Malraun, only to find that he has raised an army of monsters and mercenaries in order to conquer the world…
 
 
Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Phantoms by Dean Koontz

SFFaudio Review

Brilliance Audio - Phantoms by Dean KoontzPhantoms
By Dean Koontz; Read by Buck Schirner
12 CDs – 15 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: January 2008
ISBN: 9781423339267
Themes: / Horror / Suspense / Science Fiction / Mass Disappearance / California /

They found the town silent, apparently abandoned. Then they found the first body strangely swollen and still warm. One hundred fifty were dead, 350 missing. But the terror had only begun in the tiny mountain town of Snowfield, California. At first they thought it was the work of a maniac. Or terrorists. Or toxic contamination. Or a bizarre new disease. But then they found the truth. And they saw it in the flesh. And it was worse than anything any of them had ever imagined…

I went into this novel with low expectations. Our resident Dean Koontz aficionado was telling me that Phantoms wasn’t one of Koontz’s best works. That’s the bright side about low expectations – it makes the mediocre seem better. My biggest complaint isn’t really with the story at all – but rather with its length. 15 hours is a bit too long for a novel with this content and plot – there’s a whole separate subplot about an escaped criminal and his subsequent interactions with a biker gang. These parts of the book get mentioned a couple of times by the main narrative – but are otherwise un-interactive until the end of the novel. That whole subplot might have made an interesting short story, if separate, but it ends up being a side-note that doesn’t come to any real fruition, except in what felt like a tacked on end piece. Still, the main narrative is rather compelling. Dr. Jennifer Page, who lives and works in the small resort town of Snowfield, California, is returning from the big city and in doing so she’s taking with her much younger sister Lisa. Their mom has recently died and Jenny plans to raise her younger sister in the small town. Unfortunately, their arrival in Snowfield yields a much more horrifying and surprising disaster than the mere death of their mom. Everyone in town is missing! Well, almost everybody is missing anyway, with those few who aren’t entirely disappeared being completely dead – having been killed in grisly or bizarre fashions. The only clue to what has happened in Snowfield, while Jenny has been out of town, is a near incomprehensible message scrawled onto a bathroom mirror.

Fans of certain H.P. Lovecraft stories, John Carpenter’s The Thing, and Stephen King‘s The Mist will likely quite enjoy this tale. Thinking back on myself, it feels as if Phantoms would have made an excellent late 1960s or early 1970s Doctor Who serial. What I liked most about it was not the atmosphere of spookiness (that seems a high point to a lot of folks), but rather the care and attention to the back story and the explanations which Koontz put into the lead up to the events in snowfield. I can’t recall a lot of other novels that have dealt with the “mass disappearance” phenomenon. I do recollect one film on the topic, The Quiet Earth (it is terrific) but has a far different execution and feel than does Phantoms. Speaking of film, I recommend you shy away from the film version of Phantoms entirely – it trims down the plot (which you’d think would be good) – but manages to feel rather crappy all-around, despite being adapted to film by Koontz himself.

Phantoms gave Dean Koontz a reputation as a horror writer, Koontz describes the novel as “one of the ten biggest mistakes” of his life because, it earned the label horror writer, which he says he “never wanted, never embraced, and [has] ever since sought to shed.” I can see it. The actual novel is definitely working within the rules of Science Fiction. Sadly, suspense, which Koontz does embrace, is often confused with horror – and hence his problem. The initial publication of Phantoms in 1983 garnered the novel several positive reviews. But only Analog’s review clearly recognized Koontz’s attempt to put technology and science to the fore in Phantoms. Narrator Buck Schirner sounds a whole lot like Mel Blanc. He’s got a good range, and changes his voice for different character genders, ages, and accents. The cover on this audiobook is sadly wholly uninformative, as is the bland title. The novel should have been called “The Ancient Enemy” and the cover should have depicted an open sewer grate, or a sink full of jewelry.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #021

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #021 – Jesse and Scott are joined new SFFaudio contributor Carsten Schmitt! It’s a show full of participatory enjoyment and less about equipment love.

Talked about on today’s show:
Macmillan Audio, Halo: The Cole Protocol, Tobias S. Buckell, METAtropolis (now is a paperbook), Subterranean Press, Canadia: 2056 – Season 2 now on CD, The indefensible Zombie Astronaut, livejournal sucks, The unofficial podcast feed of Canadia 2056, radio drama, Steve: The First, Steve: The Second, Matt Watts, post-apocalypse, C.H.U.D., H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society‘s audio theatre At The Mountains Of Madness |READ OUR REVIEW|, The Dunwich Horror, Dark Adventure Radio Theatre, digital downloads vs. CDs, The Shadow Out of Time, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Call Of Cthulhu Role Playing Game, Yog Radio, The Dragonships Series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Dragonlance, Brilliance Audio, DoOon Mode, Piers Anthony, On A Pale Horse, George Guidall, Recorded Books, The Dolphins Of Pern, Anne McCaffrey, Phantoms, Dean Koontz, The Dean Koontz Companion (a paperbook), small towns in fiction, Salem’s Lot, German radio drama, Gabriel Burns, Vancouver, Seeing Ear Theatre, we need an unofficial podcast feed for Seeing Ear Theatre, J. Michael Straczynski, Tales From The Crypt, City Of Dreams, Neil Gaiman, Secret Army, ‘Allo ‘Allo!, WWII evasion lines, Louis de Funès, tea for two and two for tea, Yog Radio, Charles Tan (Bibliophile Stalker blog), actual play session podcasts, Wil Wheaton plays D&D 4th Edition (to Carsten’s dismay), celebrity RPG play session (Vin Diesel etc.), Fallout 3 vs. Age Of Conan, The Scarifyers, BBC 7, Rich Carlson, RadioArchive.cc, Billy Boyd, pirate radio, Sealand, what Jesse fears most (finger losses).

Posted by Jesse Willis