Iain M. Banks – Page 5

New Releases

Here’s an Audible.com/iTunes exclusive that bends the Fantasy genre to the “extreme”…

Deep Inside: Extreme Erotic Fantasies
By Polly Frost; Read by Allison Frasier, Maggie Hoffman, Brian Mendes
Audible Download – 7 Hours 16 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible.com / Macmillan Audio
Published: February 2008
“A dominatrix with a discipline problem. A nervous virgin tempted by an unearthly sacrifice. Lust-crazed Viagra addicts. A sexual psychic who can foresee other people’s erotic adventures. And a street cop hooked on alien ecstasy…. The sensual men and women in this sizzling collection are all in search of the ultimate sexual high. No plain old vanilla sex here; driven by insatiable desires, they push their bodies and souls to the limits, exploring the outer limits of eroticism. From arcane sexual rituals to the heights of Hollywood decadence, Deep Inside breaks every taboo as it takes you inside the throbbing flesh and twisted urges of the kinky, the depraved, and the supernatural. Turn down the lights and enter a new realm of exotic and forbidden pleasures.”

This would be “book eight” of the “Legacy of the Force” series…

Star Wars – Legacy Of The Force – Revelation
By Karen Traviss; Read by Mark Thompson
5 CDs – 6 Hours [ABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: February 2008
ISBN: 9780739324011
In his new mantle as Sith Lord, Jacen Solo’s dark powers reach a peak as he continues to crush opposition across the warring galaxy and bring his dream of a new order closer to fruition. But those who once fought at his side now turn against him, and as his unexpected enemies rally to the Confederation, Ben Skywalker discovers the full and terrible truth of how his mother died.

Announced as exclusive to iTunes UK this “Pre-Release Audiobook” would be lovely if it was released wider…

Matter – A Culture Novel
By Iain M. Banks; Read by Toby Longworth
Audible Download – Approx. 18 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Hachette Audio UK / audible.co.uk
Published: February 2008
There was nobody of her own kind within several thousand light years of where Djan Seriy Anaplian sat. However, news from her home world of Sursamen would still reach her.

“A vivid, funny and utterly original debut novel that’s deeply charming” – and it sounds like a Neil Gaiman novel crossed with the TV show Big Brother…

Gods Behaving Badly
By Marie Phillips; Read by Tom Sellwood
5 CDs – 6 Hours [ABRIDGED]
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Published: December 2007
ISBN: 1600240720
Being a Greek god is not all it once was. Yes, the twelve gods of Olympus are alive and well in the twenty-first century, but they are crammed together in a London townhouse-and none too happy about it. And they’ve had to get day jobs: Artemis as a dog-walker, Apollo as a TV psychic, Aphrodite as a phone sex operator, Dionysus as a DJ. Even more disturbingly, their powers are waning, and even turning mortals into trees-a favorite pastime of Apollo’s-is sapping their vital reserves of strength.

Macmillan Audio has a whole subsite devoted to their Dune audiobooks…

Dune Messiah
By Frank Herbert; Scott Brick and others
7 CDs – 9 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Macmillain Audio / BBC Audiobooks America
Published: October 2007
ISBN: 1427202362
This sequel to Dune explores new developments on the desert planet Arrakis, with its intricate social order and its strange threatening environment. Dune Messiah picks up the story of the man known as Maud’dib, heir to a power unimaginable, bringing to fruition an ambition of unparalleled scale: the centuries-old scheme to create a superbeing who reigns not in the heavens but among men. But the question is: Do all paths of glory lead to the grave?

“magical realism dusted with a bit of erotica” – and the cover is titillating…

Nawashi
By Graydancer; Read by Graydancer
Podcast Novel / Podiobook -[UNABRIDGED?]
Publisher: Podiobooks.com
Published: February 2008 – ????
Nawashi is an erotic urban fantasy, the story of a man who discovers that underneath the world of kink and BDSM lies a global conflict of magical forces. Drawn into it, he struggles to develop his own powers and skill to protect his family from the forces which now consider him a threat.

Nominated for an Audie award…

Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Ravens Of Avalon
By Diana L. Paxson; Read by Lorna Raver
CDs – 16 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: August 2007
ISBN: 140013496X
Diana L. Paxson expands Marion Zimmer Bradley”s beloved and bestselling Avalon series in a dramatic new installment. Marion Zimmer Bradley”s Ravens of Avalon, the prequel to The Forest House, tells the story of the Roman conquest of Britain and the origin of the Forest House that preceded the return to Avalon.

A 1997 Lethem novel, that sounds like it’d fit nicely on a shelf next to Connie Willis’ …

As She Climbed Across The Table
By Jonathan Lethem; Read by David Aaron Baker
CDs – 5.75 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Books on Tape / Random House Audio
Published: September 2007
ISBN: 0739357255
Philip is in love with Alice. As the novel opens, he is beginning to lose her. Not to another man, as he fears, but to, literally, nothing. Alice is a physicist, and a team at the University where both she and Philip work has created a hole, a vacuum, a doorway of nothingness inside the laboratory. They call it “Lack.” Alice becomes obsessed with Lack, as Philip is obsessed by Alice.

Lethem’s 1998 novel, according to wikipedia, is meant to evoke the classic western film The Searchers (1956)…

Girl In Landscape
By Jonathan Lethem; Read by David Aaron Baker
CDs – 6.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Books on Tape / Random House Audio
Published: September 2007
ISBN: 0739357247
At the age of 13, Pella Marsh emigrates with her family to the Planet of the Archbuilders. These enigmatic aborigines have names like Lonely Dumptruck and and Hiding Kneel–and a civilization that baffles and frightens their human visitors.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Iain M. Banks Matter released UNABRIDGED through iTunes UK

SFFaudio News

The Orbit Books blog has announced that iTunes UK is offering a “Pre-Release Audiobook” of Matter by Iain M. Banks. This is the complete, unabridged version. Its priced at £21.95. The abridged hardcopy CD version streets February 7th 2008. No word on a North American release for the unabridged version yet.

[via SFSignal.com]

Posted by Jesse Willis

StarShipSofa Podcast covers James Tripree Jr.

SFFaudio Online Audio

StarshipSofa , the terrific U.K. podcast that specializes in Science Fiction authors has one heck of a show there. The hosts, Tony and Ciaran, have an especially crackin’ show this week, one that I am truly chuffed to tell you about. On offer today is a show on James Tiptree Jr. (AKA Alice Sheldon), a writer who lived a very extraordinary life. As the boys say, she “blazed across the Science Fiction skies” with her short stories of the 1970s. And stay tuned for her shocking ending!

Download the show direct |MP3| or subscribe to the feed:

And don’t forget to revisit their earlier subjects:

Show # 1: Classic Author: Alfred Bester |MP3|
Show # 2: Classic Author: John Brunner |MP3|
Show # 3: Classic Author: Algis Budrys |MP3|
Show # 4: Classic Author: Cordwainer Smith |MP3|
Show # 5: Classic Author: Stanislaw Lem |MP3|
Show # 6: Classic Film: Dark Star |MP3|
Show # 7: Classic Author: Philip K. Dick (Part 1) |MP3|
Show # 8: Classic Author: Philip K. Dick (Part 2) |MP3|
Show # 9: Classic Author: Philip K. Dick (Part 3) |MP3|
Show # 10: Classic Film: Capricorn One |MP3|
Show # 11: Classic Author: Henry Kuttner |MP3|
Show # 12: Classic Author: Robert Silverberg |MP3|
Show # 13: Classic Author: Joe Haldeman |MP3|
Show # 14: Classic Author: L. Ron Hubbard |MP3|
Show # 15: Classic Author: Harlan Ellison |MP3|
Show # 16: Classic Author: Douglas Adams (Part 1) |MP3|
Show # 17: Classic Author: Douglas Adams (Part 2) |MP3|
Show # 18: Classic Author: Robert Sheckley |MP3|
Show # 19: Classic Author: Roger Zelazny |MP3|
Show # 20: Classic Author: Iian M. Banks |MP3|
Show # 21: Classic Author: Ursula K. LeGuin |MP3|
Show # 22: Christmas Special Part 1 |MP3| & 2 |MP3|
Show # 23: Email Show |MP3|

posted by Jesse Willis

Review of The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks

Science Fiction Audibook Review

The Algebraist
By Iain M. Banks; Read by Geoffrey Amis
21 CDs – Approx. 24.25 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Clipper Audio
Published: 2005
ISBN: 9781419353772
Themes: / Science Fiction / Space Epic / Galactic Empires / Aliens / Worm Holes /

This is a space opera on the epic scale. Fassin Taak is a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers. The Nasqueron Dwellers are a very old race, almost as old as the universe itself. They are inhabitants of gas giants all across the universe. Intra-galactic traveling is done by way of wormholes. The Outsiders from beyond the galaxy are sending in military forces and destroying wormholes. The leader of the Mercatoria, the reigning galactic empire, sends Fassin on a quest to find a fabled book. The book is called The Algebraist. As legends have it, it’s a book written by the Dwellers and in it is contained information of a hidden network of wormholes that is held in secret.

The Mercatoria is a corrupt empire headed by the Archimandrite Luseferous. Luseferous is the most evil villain to ever inhabit a galactic empire. Darth Vader couldn’t pack this guy’s lunch. He creates living punching bags out of the heads of his attempted assassins. He can modify the chemical effects of his semen to make courtesans love him or die for him. He’s a false advocate for the official galactic religion. We learn through the course of the book his internalized philosophy that makes his atrocities believable.

This is a long audiobook but it sustains one’s interest through its entirety. The narrator is Geoffrey Amis. Mr. Amis has a fine narrative voice but it doesn’t express a lot of range to differentiate the individual characters. This is a vast canvas with a large cast of characters and this lack of range makes the individual characters harder to remember.

My American bias surfaced into a silly thought. I was thinking how strange it was that the narrator portrays every character in the book with an English accent. Well, the characters aren’t really speaking English in the book but some sort of galactic standard. The author just conveys the dialogue as English as a logical convention. It occurred to me that the many aliens and cultures would have varying accents (as well as languages). I believe it would be impossible to convey alien accents without reference to our own human accents. This would create some rather silly aliens that might be useful in a humorous story, but would undermine a serious work. So the narrator did right to stick to his native accent. I mention my American bias, because if this were read with an American accent it would never have stricken me as strange that all the characters speak with the same accent.

Overall this space opera is a many-layered fugue and Iain Banks pulls out all the stops.

posted by The Time Traveler

Review of Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

Look to Windward
By Iain M. Banks, read by Robert Lister
10 Cassettes – Approx. 14.25 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Clipper Audio
Published: 1990
ISBN: 1841971839
Themes: / Science fiction / Aliens / Space Travel / War / Afterlife

Civil war has taken its toll on a planet called Chel, whose furry predator-descended people live in a strict caste-based society with an exacting religion. One of them, a famous composer named Ziller, has disowned his home world to live on a Culture orbital called Masaq’. He lives in crusty happiness among the humans and formerly human machines there, composing, exploring, and attending dinner parties. But word has come of a second Chelgrian, a former soldier and monk named Quilan, who appears determined to persuade him to return to Chel. The Culture are partially responsible for instigating the Chelgrian civil war, and it may be that Quilan has a deeper mission that even he knows nothing about.

This is the compelling lead-in to Iain M. Banks’ novel Look to Windward, but it is far from the whole story. The novel takes us far into the future of humanity, across the astoundingly large artificial surface of Masaq’, down deep voids of space on a series of amusingly named spacecraft, through the bitter civil war on Chel, and even into the belly of a large, atmosphere-containing being and the enormous blimp-like life forms inside it. The range of emotion is similarly grand, beginning with a harrowing descent into the war and its aftermath, segueing into an amusing and confusing dinner party, and setting off into stirring adventure and philosophical discussions of risk, war, love, life and death.

This is an introspective novel, and its most involving aspects unfold almost entirely in dialog. Such dependence on conversation demands an author who can produce interesting, distinct, and consistent voices for the various characters. Iain Banks delivers in spades, and Robert Lister interprets his dialog with near-perfection (the notable exception is Kabe, who sounds like a B-grade Igor). Hearing Ziller’s profane peevishness, Quillan’s calm hopelessness, and even Colonel Hyler’s avuncular old war-horse is like perceiving the characters in extra dimensions. In particular, there is a discussion late in the book between Quillan and Hyler that, while horrifying in topic, is presented with such remarkable tenderness that I found it one of the most outstanding scenes of fiction I’ve ever heard.

Look to Windward is part of a larger series of Culture novels, but don’t let that scare you off. I haven’t read any of the others, and you won’t be required to, either. If you like a thoughtfully-paced interplay of characters and ideas in a futuristic but oddly British setting, then you will love this book. And, like me, you’ll soon be trying to get your hands on more.

Posted by Kurt Dietz

We’re hard at work building a new online audio pag…

SFFaudio News

We’re hard at work building a new online audio page that will include up-to-date links to streaming genre-related audio sources, including podcasts. We’ll get that up as soon as possible, and are completely open to suggestions and/or items to include on that page – click here to e-mail me, or here for Jesse.

In my ear is an unabridged version of Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks. This is my first Culture novel, and so far (about 10% in) I’m really liking it. I noticed that Banks’ latest Culture novel, The Algebraist, is available in England in unabridged format only. I’m curious – are there a lot of abridgements produced in England?

On or about June 15, you’ll see the return of our popular monthly “New Releases” post. I’ll gather those posts on an archive page as well.

All our best, and thanks for visiting SFFAudio!

Posted by Scott D. Danielson