Frederik Pohl – Page 14

New Releases – Lovecraft, Pohl, Williamson, del Rey, Smith

New Releases

[editor’s note-A slew of releases from my audiobook company, Wonder Audio. A nice range of titles that I’m proud to present. Vintage Stories+Classic Authors+Great Narrators=Massive Goodness :) ]

Preferred Risk
By Frederik Pohl & Lester del Rey; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
7 hrs. – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes

The Company was a powerful, efficient, and monstrous insurance organization that controlled the entire world, scientifically regulating everything in life: war, epidemics, one-a-day food pills and test-tube sex…all through the use of its patented, terrifying human deep-freeze vault.

Claims Adjuster Wills, a great believer in the Company, begins to have second thoughts when he meets beautiful and sorrowful Rena, whose radical father lies in a frozen subterranean vault.

Scanner Live in Vain
By Cordwainer Smith; Read by Jeremiah Costello
1.5 hrs. – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes

Man has conquered space, but not without costs. To maintain the space lanes, Scanners have to undergo an operation in which their brain is severed from their sensory inputs to block the Pain of Space. Martel has made this sacrifice. He must monitor his vital functions via implanted dials and instruments in his chest. His only respite from this isolated existence is his ability to occasionally “cranch” and return to some sort of normalcy with his wife, Luci. But now a man named Adam Stone has claimed that he has a found a way to travel in the deep of space without the use of the Scanners. Through the twisted logic of the community of Scanners, it is decided that Adam Stone must die. Martel, while cranched, realizes the madness of that solution and that all Scanners live in vain!

Wolves of Darkness
By Jack Williamson; Read by William Coon
3 hrs. – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes

When Clovis McLaurin receives an urgent letter from his father, Dr. Ford McLaurin, he rushes in the dead of winter to his father’s ranch. Clovis arrives to find the local townspeople being attacked and killed by a pack of wolves. As he journeys to the ranch of his father, a scientist who has been doing revolutionary experiments, he is also attacked.

But wolves are not the only thing running with the pack. Stella Jetton, the daughter of his father’s assistant, is running with the wolves, dressed in only a silk slip in the bitter cold. Clovis recognizes the blood-stained face of the girl he loves, but not her eyes. How could his father’s experiment have untapped the unimaginable horror that Clovis is about to confront?

The Colour Out of Space
by H.P. Lovecraft; read by Mark Douglas Nelson
1.5 hrs- [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes

As a man surveys the countryside for the construction of a reservoir, he comes across a stretch of barren farmland leeched of life. An aged survivor of the town tells him the tale of a rural farmer’s family and their path to madness and unspeakable horror.

Lovecraft considered “The Colour Out of Space” to be the best of all his stories. Originally appearing in the September 1927 issue of Amazing Stories, it is one of his most frequently anthologized tales.

Posted by The Time Traveler of the Time Traveler Show

2 Classic Frederik Pohl tales narrated by Spider Robinson

SFFaudio Online Audio

Spider On The Web has some amazing content for us this month. Disappointed at the number of short stories available in audio form Spider Robinson has a plan to solve this. He’s sought out and received permission to read some of his favorite SF short stories. Stories from some of the most influential SF writers of all time! The first is what Spider Robinson describes as “what very well may be the ultimate science fiction short story.” Folks, he ain’t just blowing smoke with that line. Frederick Pohl’s 1966 short story Day Million is a real contender for that accolade! Influential as hell, short, amazing, stunningly futuristic and still modern (except in addressing its audience). A tale will blow your mind! The second story by Pohl, We Purchased People, first published in 1973, has even more taboos broken in it. In fact, far more taboos in are broken in We Purchased People than you can shake any unmentionable body part at. This one was entirely new to me, but upon reflection I think it may be just as powerful. Frankly, it’s more frightening than hell. Science Fiction as Horror.

Day Million and We Purchased People
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Spider Robinson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 67 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: Spider On The Web
Podcaster: August 2008

Here’s the podcast feed:

http://www.spiderrobinson.com/iTunes_feed.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Time Traveler Show has Jack Williamson and Frederik Pohl

SFFaudio Online Audio

Frederick Pohl and Jack Williamson

The Time Traveler has traveled 30 years into the past to record his latest Time Traveler Show podcast (#15). The show is composed of a Science Fiction convention panel with Science Fiction Grand Masters Jack Williamson and Frederick Pohl! It is a panel discussion that was made in 1977 at “ConFusion.” The topic of the panel is “The Art, Science and Combat of Collaboration.” Which is most appropriate as these guys frequently collaborated on novels like Farthest Star and The Starchild Trilogy. They also talk about their experiences with other collaborators like James Gunn, C. M. Kornbluth, and Lester del Rey.

To read the complete show notes for podcast #15 click HERE or download the show in the MP3 format directly by clicking HERE.

To keep the show automatically downloading, subscribe to the podcast feed:

http://www.timetravelershow.com/shows/feed.xml

posted by Jesse Willis

KAMN News! Gateway and Far-Seer in the mix

SFFaudio News

The Ninjas have landed and they have a plan…

KAMN #23: Gateway by Frederick Pohl
KAMN #25: Far Seer by Robert J. Sawyer

I liked Gateway but isn’t my favorite Pohl novel. Pohl has a history of repeatedly using psychotic breaks as a theme in his novels. This one is probably 1/3 set in a psychiatrist’s office. I’m not sure where that would come from, but I liked his The Voices Voices Of Heaven more, also starring a protagonist with a history of mental illness. Interestlingly, Gateway does happen to be Robert J. Sawyer’s favorite Science Fiction novel. And speaking of Sawyer, his first novel in the Quintaglio ascension series, Far Seer, is up for KAMN review shortly after. That novel is set on a very interesting world that parallels our own in many ways. The “far seer” of the title refers to a telescope and the novel itself parallels the events surrounding Galileo Galilei’s discovery of the moons of Jupiter. If you dig science, science history and dinosaurs, you’ll dig Far Seer.

posted by Jesse Willis

The Zombie Astronaut has The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth

Online Audio

SFFaudio reader, Willie, points out that, Zombie Astronaut, one of our favorite mp3 webzines, is still alive and kicking (in an undead and orbiting sort of way). In fact in the latest issue of ZA there’s a two part classic radio drama of Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth’s famous novel The Space Merchants (aka Gravy Planet). This biting satire, that now so closely resembles our world, is set in a future in which the advertisers and ad execs run the world. Their problem, how do you sell people on colonizing Venus, a planet with no breathable air, no water and that’s hideously hot? Tune in and find out with… Part 1 |MP3| & Part 2 |MP3|. Thanks for the reminder Willie!

posted by Jesse Willis

Listen to the GrandMasters of Science Fiction vi…

SFFaudio Online Audio

Listen to the GrandMasters of Science Fiction via online audio
Ever wonder what your favorite Science Fiction authors sound like? We can help. Here’s a complete list of the Science Fiction Writers Of America GrandMasters sorted by the year of their induction and the online audioclips and interviews that we know about.
PLEASE NOTE: File types vary ( .mp3 .m3u .ram .wav ).

Robert A. Heinlein (1974)

Stranger in a Strange Land – Time Enough for Love
“Robert Heinlein Day” – “eggs in one basket”
“colonies beyond Earth” – “through the universe”

Jack Williamson (1975)

-An interview from the Fast-Forward archives

Clifford D. Simak (1976) – None known

L. Sprague de Camp (1978) – None known

Fritz Leiber (1981) – None known

Andre Norton (1983) – None known

Arthur C. Clarke (1985) – None known

Isaac Asimov (1986)
-Asimov interviewed by Terry Gross 1986
-A Wired for Books interview from 1987

Alfred Bester (1987) – None known

Ray Bradbury (1988)
-A Wired for Books interview from 1992
-A Wired for Books interview from 1993

Lester Del Rey (1990) – None known

Frederik Pohl (1992) – None known

Damon Knight (1994) – None known

A.E. van Vogt (1995) – None known

Jack Vance (1996) – None known

Poul Anderson (1997) – None known

Hal Clement (1998)
-An Hour 25 online interview

Brian W. Aldiss (1999)
-A Wired for Books interview from 1984
–A Wired for Books interview from 1986

Philip José Farmer (2000) – None known

Ursula K. Le Guin (2002)
-Three Hour 25 Interviews: Sep 2000 – Oct 2001 – Aug 2003

Robert Silverberg (2003) – None known

Do you know of some other online audio interviews or sound clips featuring the SFWA GrandMasters? Let us know!

Posted by Jesse Willis