fantasy – Page 91

LibriVox: The Shadows by George MacDonald

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Shadows
By George MacDonald; Read by Catherine Eastman
2 Zipped MP3s or Podcast – Approx. 1.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 27, 2007

Though no longer well known, his works (particularly his fairy tales and fantasy novels) have inspired admiration in such notables as W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Madeleine L’Engle. The Shadows is one such fairy tale. The strange Shadows spend their existence casting themselves upon the walls and forming pictures of various sorts: mimicking evil actions of those who have done wrong in the hopes of causing their repentance, playing a comic dumb-show to inspire a playwright and dancing to inspire a musician, nudging a little girl to comfort her grandfather, and playing with a sick little boy as he waits for his mother to return home. For all that their forms are black, their hearts are of the whitest.

This fantasy for younger readers/listeners has a couple of things in its favor for adults other than just the historical interest in its author. The reader here, Catherine Eastman, does an outstanding job and the story is quite imaginative. Highly recommended for younger listeners and not too bad for adults either.

Complete Audiobook [zip], individual MP3s here.

And here’s the podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/the-shadows-by-george-macdonald.xml

Posted by Dave Tackett

Challenger begins podcasting: Queen Of The Black Coast by Robert E. Howard

SFFaudio Online Audio

Are you ready to hear the first ever podcast of a Conan tale? Are you ready for some furious freebooting? What about serious corsairage? Would it bother you if it were buccaneering? Are you truly ready for the blazing prose of the undisputed master of pulp fiction in one of his best loved tales? If the answer is yes to all of these questions then prepare yourself for the first chapter in…

Queen Of The Black Coast
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Bill Hollweg
Podcast – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Broken Sea Audio Thursday
Podcast: Started November 29th
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|

Subscribe to the podcast feed:

http://brokensea.com/feed

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Arrivals – Christmas “Card” and more

Science Fiction Audiobook Recent Arrivals

The holiday season is upon us. Don’t forget that favorite stocking stuffer―audiobooks. The gift of the word that can be heard!

A War of Gifts
By Orson Scott Card; Read by Scott Brick and Stefan Rudnicki
2 CDs, 2.5 hrs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9781593976316
LISTEN TO A CLIP!

The children come from many nations and many religions; and while they are being trained for war, religious conflict between them is not on the curriculum. But Dink Meeker, one of the older students, doesn’t see it that way. He thinks that giving gifts isn’t exactly a religious observation, and on Sinterklaaus Day he tucks a present into another student’s shoe.

This small act of rebellion sets off a battle royal between the students and the staff, but some surprising alliances form when Ender comes up against a new student, Zeck Morgan. The War over Santa Claus will force everyone to make a choice. This audiobook is a must-give stocking stuffer for every Ender fan on your Christmas list.

Magic Kingdom for Sale – Sold
By Terry Brooks; Read by Dick Hill
12 CDs -14 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audiobooks
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9781423350125

Landover was a genuine magic kingdom, with fairy folk and wizardry, just as the advertisement promised. But after he purchased it, Ben Holiday learned that there were a few details the ad had failed to mention.

The kingdom was in ruin. The Barons refused to recognize the king, and the peasants were without hope. A dragon was laying waste the countryside, while an evil witch plotted to destroy everything.

Ben’s only followers were the incompetent Court Magician; Abernathy, the talking dog who served as Court Scribe; and the lovely Willow – but she had a habit of putting down roots in the moonlight and turning into a tree. The Paladin, legendary champion of the Kings of Landover, seemed to be only a myth and an empty suit of armor.

Metal Swarm; Book Six in the Saga fo Seven Suns
By Kevin J. Anderson; Read by David Colacci
16 CDs -19 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audiobooks
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9781597372275

For years, the alien Klikiss robots have pretended to be humanity’s friends, but their seeming “help” allowed them to plant an insidious Trojan Horse throughout the Earth Defense Forces. Now, in the aftermath of a devastating war, swarms of ancient black robots built by the lost insectoid Klikiss race continue their depredations on helpless worlds with stolen and heavily armed Earth battleships.

Among the humans, the Hansas’ brutal Chairman struggles to crush any resistance even as King Peter breaks away to form his own new Confederation among the colonies who have declared their independence.

And meanwhile, the original, voracious Klikiss race, long thought to be extinct, has returned, intent on conquering their former worlds and willing to annihilate anyone in the way.

Stoneheart; Book One in the Stoneheart Trilogy
By Charlie Fletcher; Read by Jim Dale
Playaway Digital-10 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Scholastic
Published: 2007.

Here’s an audiobook we received from Playaway. We reviewed the Playaway earlier this month. Read the review.

We also have a special discount code for first time purchasers.

To receive 20% off, just go to www.playawaydigital.com and during checkout enter this code:

SFFaudio20

This title is also available as a 6 CD set from the publisher, Scholastic. And yes, Jim Dale is the ever-popular narrator of the Harry Potter series.

A city has many lives and layers. London has more than most. Not all the layers are underground, and not all the lives belong to the living. Twelve-year-old George Chapman is about to find this out the hard way. When George breaks the head from a stone dragon he awakes an ancient power that has been dormant for centuries. Now that George has disturbed the fragile truce between the warring statues of London, he is forced into a race for survival where nothing is what it seems and and it´s never clear who to trust. And this is just the beginning as the statues of London awake…

posted by The Time Traveler of the Time Traveler Show

Review of the The Secret World Chronicle by Mercedes Lackey and Steve Libbey

SFFaudio Review

The Secret World Chronicle – Book One – Invasion
By Mercedes Lackey and Steve Libbey; Read by Veronica Giguere
8 MP3 Files (podcast) – Approx. 10 Hours 16 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: SecretWorldChronicle.com / Podiobooks.com
Podcast: 2006 – 2007
Themes: / Fantasy / Superheroes / Supervillains / Nazis / Communism / Invasion /

The Secret World Chronicle opens with a metahuman named Eisenfaust (“Iron Fist”) warning of an imminent Nazi invasion. Of course the invasion occurs (from another spacetime) and this forms the backdrop for the story, in which heroic deeds are done – if at the high cost of both civilian and metahuman lives. Echo is an organisation of ‘metahumans’ (a word which you can freely translate into ‘superheros’ for our purposes). There are Echo offices and campuses around the world, from which private individuals, non-governmental orginizations and governments can hire superheroes to do good deeds. The Echo mandate is “To support security and peace through intervention by and collaboration between metahumans and international law enforcement.” Comprising over forty separate bases of operation across six continents. This plot may remind some of Jeffrey R. DeRego Union Dues stories that have been heard on Escape Pod. Like DeRego’s tales, The Secret World Chronicle superhumans all have comic book names and costumes, Handsome Devil, Red Saviour, Shahkti, and Yankee Pride. At the end of “book one” there are unresolved story threads around the whys and wherefores of the Nazi invasion, but it just feels like more to look forward to. It may have improved the telling to get inside the lives of the ordinary people, to understand just how the phenomena of the metahumans impacts the regular folks – perhaps that will happen in later books. I can’t say I’m very familiar with either Mercedes Lackey or Steve Libbey individually, but together they tell a good story. Characters are reasonably well drawn and sufficiently believable, but don’t expect any in-depth character analysis. Don’t listen to The Secret World Chronicle to learn about yourself, or the human condition, listen for fun.

People have different ways of classifying the content they put onto their MP3 players. I typically use either ‘drama’ or ‘books’ – the latter consisting of anything that’s read by one person. I break this rule for The Secret World Chronicle. Narrator Veronica Giguere does mostly a solo act in telling the story, the result though is that of discrete characters with whom we can really identify. It is an immersive experience. Veronica Giguere’s pacing is flawless, the variety of intonations and accents sufficient for the story. She gets the story straight into the brain’s pleasure zone with her terrific performance.

You can subscribe to the podcast feed for the series via this URL:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/secretworldchronicle

You can also get the complete book one via this feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/SecretWorldChronicleBookOne

Posted by Nick Gassman

National Review Online: Conan and George R.R. Martin

SFFaudio Online Audio

The National Review Online, the web-version of the National Review magazine, has an audio program called Between The Covers (not to be confused with the CBC Radio One book reading program of the same name). Available now, for online listening in the Flash audio format (SWF) are:

Paul M. Sammon on Conan: The Phenomenon:

“John J. Miller asks Paul M. Sammon, author of Conan: The Phenomenon, just why Conan is still a phenomenon after so very long. Sammon responds that these stories, which date back to the 1930s, ‘featured vivid storytelling, compelling characters, exotic locales, horrible creatures, delectable damsels; and all of this was wrapped up in propulsive prose and a consistent worldview.'” |SWF|

George R.R. Martin on Dreamsongs:

“George R.R. Martin, author of Dreamsongs (Vols. I and II), has been called the ‘American Tolkien.’ But he tells John J. Miller that science fiction, horror fiction, and fantasy were all his first loves, and that he his written in each of these genres. ‘It was all ‘weird stuff’ as my father liked to call it; imaginative literature as opposed to realistic literature — just different flavors thereof.'” |SWF|

Posted by Jesse Willis

Subterranean Press’ Fall 2007 mag has Promises To Keep by Charles de Lint

SFFaudio Online Audio

Subterranean Press, which produces the “Subterranean Online” magazine, the Fall 2007 issue includes another free audiobook! Colour me impressed. This isn’t the first time the prestige paperbook press has released free audio versions of their wares. There was Wax by Elizabeth Bear, Rude Mechanicals by Kage Baker and The Sagan Diaries John Scalzi. I’m just wondering when full fledged audiobook lineup will appear in the Subterranean catalogue.

Promises To Keep
By Charles de Lint; Read by Yanni Kuznia
7 MP3s – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Subterranean Press
Published: Fall 2007

Posted by Jesse Willis