Isaac Asimov – Page 27

Recent Arrivals – Asimov, Richard K. Morgan & Audiodrama

Science Fiction Audiobook Recent Arrivals

Tears of the Tin God
By T. Ray Gordon; Narrated by Richard Sellers, Full Cast
1 CD, 80 min.- [AUDIODRAMA]
Publisher: Apex Audio Theatre
Published: 2007

Honorable Mention for the 2006 Mark Time Science Fiction Award.

On a distant world, monolithic alien machines are discovered, some as large a skyscraper. The spacecraft Columbus and her sister ship, the Magellan, are dispatched to investigate. Upon arrival, contact is lost with one ship and an astrornaut is dead, or is he? Soon it is revealed that at least one of the great machines is operational.

Commander Gina Adams must now determine the purpose of the alien mechanisms. . . even at the cost of the lives of her crew and the safety of her ship. A giant has awoke from it’s eons of slumber. . . now the universe itself will tremble.

A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the Galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain.

On the beautiful Outer World planet of Solaria, a handful of human colonists lead a hermit-like existence, their every need attended to by their faithful robot servants. To this strange and provocative planet comes Detective Elijah Baley, sent from the streets of New York with his positronic partner, the robot R. Daneel Olivaw, to solve an incredible murder that has rocked Solaria to its foundations.

The victim had been so reclusive that he appeared to his associates only through holographic projection. Yet someone had gotten close enough to bludgeon him to death while robots looked on. Now Baley and Olivaw are faced with two clear impossibilities: Either the Solarian was killed by one of his robots—unthinkable under the laws of Robotics—or he was killed by the woman who loved him so much that she never came into his presence!

Thirteen
By Richard K. Morgan; Read by Simon Vance
18 CDs or 3 MP3-CDs -Approx. 23 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Published: July 2007 (�)
ISBN: 1400104319 (CDs), 1400154316 (MP3-CDs)

Thirteen is near-future science fiction, very much in the vein of Bladerunner. A failed government program to produce a more violent, aggressive form of military fighter has resulted in the U.S. rounding up most of the test subjects and isolating them on Mars, a place where no one with any sense would wish to spend their days. But not all of the government subjects have been caught and shipped out to Mars. Enter Carl Marsalis, a hit man who would like nothing more than to stop killing and put his past behind him—and when he’s eventually captured in Miami, it seems like the government might take care of his problems for him.

Unfortunately, around the same time a transport from Mars arrives back on earth. The entire crew has been killed by a stowaway who turns out to be one of these violent superhumans—and maybe something worse. Now Marsalis is given a choice: use his heightened powers to hunt down the killer, or face a fate worse than death.

posted by The Time Traveler of the Time Traveler Show

New Arrivals – Asimov, Novik, Harrison, and Bear, Oh My!

Science Fiction Audiobook Recent Arrivals

Received some nice goodies this week at SFFaudio HQ.

The Caves of Steel
By Isaac Asimov; Read by William Dufris
6 CD, 7 hrs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9781400104215

It’s nice to see this SF classic get the audio treatment.

A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. Isaac Asimov’s Robot novels chronicle the unlikely partnership between a New York City detective and a humanoid robot who must learn to work together.

His Majesty’s Dragon
By Naomi Novik; Read by David Thorn
5 CD, 6.5 hrs – [ABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9780739354131

Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors rise to Britain’s defense by taking to the skies . . . not aboard aircraft but atop the mighty backs of fighting dragons.

When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes its precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Capt. Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future–and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature. Thrust into the rarified world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France’s own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte’s boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.

For a Few Demons More
By Kim Harrison; Read by Marguerite Gavin
14 CD, 17 hrs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 978006788384

Despite dating one vampire and living with another, Rachel Morgan has always managed to stay just ahead of trouble…until now. A fiendish serial killer stalks the Hollows, claiming victims across society, and the resulting terror ignites a vicious Inderland gang war. And when the vampire master Piscary is set free and the demonic Algaliarept dares to walk openly under the sun, even Rachel Morgan can’t hide forever.

Quantico
By Greg Bear; Read by Jeff Woodman
11 CD, 13.5 hrs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9780792748441

It’s the second decade of the twenty-first century, and terrorism has escalated almost beyond control. The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem has been blown to bits by extremists, and, in retaliation, thousands have died in another major attack on the United States. The War on Terror has reached a deadly stalemate. Now the FBI has been dispatched to deal with a new menace. A plague targeted to ethnic groups–Jews or Muslims or both–has the potential to wipe out entire populations. But the FBI itself is under political assault. There’s a good chance agents William Griffin, Fouad Al-Husam, and Jane Rowland will be part of the last class at Quantico. As the young agents hunt a brilliant homegrown terrorist, they join forces with veteran bio-terror expert Rebecca Rose. But the plot they uncover–and the man they chase–prove to be far more complex than anyone expects.

posted by The Time Traveler of the Time Traveler Show

New Releases June/July

SFFaudio New Releases

A golden age of audiobooks is upon us! Just look at these beauteous new releases for June and July! It’s as if the gods of Science Fiction are smiling down upon us all!

First up, thanks to Tantor, is a long awaited Asimov mystery, with robots…

The Naked Sun
By Isaac Asimov; Read by William Dufris
7 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – 8 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: June 2007
ISBN: 140010422X (CDs), 1400154227 (MP3-CD)
A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the Galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. On the beautiful Outer World planet of Solaria, a handful of human colonists lead a hermit-like existence, their every need attended to by their faithful robot servants. To this strange and provocative planet comes Detective Elijah Baley, sent from the streets of New York with his positronic partner, the robot R. Daneel Olivaw, to solve an incredible murder that has rocked Solaria to its foundations. The victim had been so reclusive that he appeared to his associates only through holographic projection. Yet someone had gotten close enough to bludgeon him to death while robots looked on. Now Baley and Olivaw are faced with two clear impossibilities: Either the Solarian was killed by one of his robots—unthinkable under the laws of Robotics—or he was killed by the woman who loved him so much that she never came into his presence!

Then, we head back in time, courtesy of the good folks at Blackstone Audio, to

The Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
By Jack Finney; Read by Kristoffer Tabori
1 MP3-CD or 6 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: June 2007
ISBN: 9780786169559 (MP3 CD), 9780786157815 (CDs)
On a quiet fall evening in the small, peaceful town of Mill Valley, California, Dr. Miles Bennell discovered an insidious, horrifying plot. Silently, subtly, almost imperceptibly, alien life-forms were taking over the bodies and minds of his neighbors, his friends, his family, the woman he loved—the world as he knew it.

Next, my fellow droogs, is a classic from Harper/Caedmon, never before released unabridged…

A Clockwork Orange
By Anthony Burgess; Read by Tom Hollander
7 CDs – 8 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Harper Audio / Caedmon
Published: June 2007
ISBN: 0061170623
A vicious fifteen-year-old droog is the central character of this 1963 classic. In Anthony Burgess’s nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends’ social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. And when the state undertakes to reform Alex to “redeem” him, the novel asks, “At what cost?” *This edition includes both the controversial last chapter and Burgess’s introduction “A Clockwork Orange Resucked.”

Further, we travel with BBC Audiobooks America to the golden age of SF for one of the pillars of A.E. van Vogt’s mighty career…

Slan
By A.E. van Vogt; Read by Oliver Wyman
6 CDs – 7 Hours 40 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9780792748946
Jommy Cross is a slan, a genetically bred superhuman whose race was created to aid humanity but is now despised by normal humans. Slans are usually shot on sight, but that doesn’t stop Jommy’s mother from bringing him to see the world capital of Centropolis, the seat of power for Earth’s dictator, Kier Gray. But on their latest trip to Centropolis, the two slans are discovered, and Jommy’s mother is killed. Jommy, only 9 years old, unwittingly becomes caught up in a plot to undermine Gray, who may be more sympathetic to slans than the public suspects. The nonstop action and root-for-the-underdog plot has made Slan a science fiction favorite.

Now with a quick jump forward with Books On Tape, to the modern sequel…

Slan Hunter
By Kevin J. Anderson and A.E. Van Vogt; Read by Scott Brick
8 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Books On Tape
Publication date: July 10, 2007
ISBN: 1415940320
“This startling SF adventure novel is a collaboration between the classic SF grand master A. E. van Vogt and contemporary master Kevin J. Anderson. At the time of his death in 2000, van Vogt left a partial draft and an outline for the sequel to his most famous novel, Slan. Now the story is completed by Anderson and is sure to be one of the most popular SF novels of the year. Slans are a race of superior mutants, smarter and stronger than homo sapiens and able to read minds. Thousands of years in the future on Earth, the Slan Wars are over, and the slans were largely wiped out, but people still fear and distrust them. They are now a persecuted minority who live in hiding from the greater population. Slan Hunter tells of this towering conflict in the far future, a war among the races of mankind, as humanity–all types of humanity–struggles to survive. Mutant Jommy Cross, the hero of Slan, and the other great characters from that book return, including Kier Gray, Gray’s beautiful daughter Kathleen, and the villainous John Petty. The final Slan War now begins.”

And what Golden Age would be complete without a revist to an audiobook that’s probably had more incarnations than your average time lord? Yep, it’s Dune, this time done up in an unabridged multi-voiced version…

Dune
By Frank Herbert; Read by a full cast
? CDs – 27 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Renaissance
Published: June 2007
ISBN: 1427201439
Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud’dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family—and would bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream. A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction. Frank Herbert’s death in 1986 was a tragic loss, yet the astounding legacy of his visionary fiction will live forever.

And finally we conclude with respected first novel in a new fantasy series that Books On Tape is offering…

His Majesty’s Dragon
By Naomi Novik; Read by Simon Vance
9 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Books On Tape
Release Date: June 26, 2007
ISBN: 1415940142
Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors rise to Britain’s defense by taking to the skies … not aboard aircraft but atop the mighty backs of fighting dragons. When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes its precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Capt. Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future–and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature. Thrust into the rarefied world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France’s own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte’s boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.

My ears are tingling just thinking about all these!

posted by Jesse Willis

German language Radio Drama alive and well

SFFaudio Commentary

“Der Himmel ueber dem hafen hatte die farbe eines fernsehers, der auf einen toten kanal eingestellt ist.”

Neuromancer Radio Drama in GERMAN

If regular old Neuromancer is just too prosaic for your discerning tastes might I recommend the German language radio drama version?

Have a listen to a sample RealAudio track, its an urbane, laid-back delivery of William Gibson’s familiar story in audio dramatization form. The production is speckled with subtle musical cues and unexpected lines in English. It’s awesome. Thanks to Carsten Schmitt for the tip-off!

The entire drama is available on a 3-CD set through Der Audio Verlag (which translates into “The Audio Publishinghouse”). Also in the Der Audio Verlag catalogue are more German language radio dramatizations of the works of Isaac Asimov, Stanislaw Lem and many others. Especially cool sounding is the one titled Erinnerungsmechanismus by Philip K. Dick (which translates back into English as “Memory Mechanism”) There’s something comforting about the idea that radio drama is alive and well in Germany… aber es drückt mich nieder, daß mein Deutscher nicht bis zur Aufgabe ist.

posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases April/May

SFFaudio New Releases

Lots of new release out right now. First up is a FREE one. A podiobook that took nearly a year to finish. Tracy Hickman’s near future dystopia The Immortals is now COMPLETE! Point your web-browser towards Podiobooks.com, sign-up and subscribe.

Podiobook - Immortals by Tracy Hickman The Immortals
By Tracy Hickman; Read by Tracy and Laura Hickman
40 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED?]
Publisher: Podiobooks.com
Started: April 2007
It’s 2020, and an attempted cure for AIDS has mutated into a deadlier disease, V-CIDS. The U.S., under martial law, has set up “quarantine centers” in the Southwest. Searching for his gay son, Jon, media mogul Michael Barris smuggles himself into one of centers only to discover that it and the other centers are actually extermination camps. With a strange assortment of allies, including the leader of the camp’s gay barracks, an army officer and a local cowboy, Barris precipitates an inmates’ rebellion that promises the unraveling of the death-camp system and the overthrow of the government that established it.

Let’s not forget the venerable and always reliable TellTaleWeekly, selling short stories for great prices!

The Star
By H.G. Wells; Read by Alex Wilson
1 MP3 , Ogg Vorbis or AAC File – Apprx. 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: TellTaleWeekly.org
Published: April 2007
Just $1.00 payable via PayPal. One hundred and one years before the films Armegeddon and Deep Impact entered U.S. theaters, the father of modern Science Fiction scared the crap out of Victorian London with this, the first of such death-from-above SF tales.

Hurray for Tantor Media! They’ve got lots of waycool stuff in the works including lots of Asimov…

No Humans Involved
By Kelley Armstrong; Read by Laural Merlington
10 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – Approx. 12 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: May 2007
ISBN: 1400104416 (CDs), 1400154413 (MP3-CD)
Jaime knows a thing or two about showbiz, as a woman whose special talent is raising the dead, her threshold for weirdness is pretty high: she’s used to not only seeing dead people but hearing them speak to her in very emphatic terms. But for the first time in her life—as invisible hands brush her skin, unintelligible fragments of words are whispered into her ears, and beings move just at the corner of her eye—she knows what humans mean when they talk about being haunted.

The Caves of Steel
By Isaac Asimov; Read by William Dufris
6 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – 7 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: May 2007
ISBN:1400104211 (CDs), 1400154219 (MP3-CD)
A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. Isaac Asimov’s Robot novels chronicle the unlikely partnership between a New York City detective and a humanoid robot who must learn to work together. Like most people left behind on an over-populated Earth, New York City police detective Elijah Baley had little love for either the arrogant Spacers or their robotic companions. But when a prominent Spacer is murdered under mysterious circumstances, Baley is ordered to the Outer Worlds to help track down the killer. The relationship between Baley and his Spacer superiors, who mistrusted all Earthmen, was strained from the start. Then he learned that they had assigned him a partner: R. Daneel Olivaw. Worst of all was that the “R” stood for robot—and his positronic partner was made in the image and likeness of the murder victim!

Simon & Schuster Audio even has a new title!

City Of Bones
By Cassandra Clare; Read by Ari Graynor
12 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: March 2007
ISBN: 0743566572
When 15-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder — much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It’s hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing — not even a smear of blood — to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?

And of course, nobody is publishing more Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror audio than the wonderous Blackstone audio…

Where’s My Jetpack?
By Daniel H. Wilson; Read by Stefan Rudnicki
3 Cassettes, 1 MP3-CD or 4 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: April 2007
ISBN: 9780786148707 (Cassettes), 9780786171606(MP3-CD), 9780786160822 (CDs)
It’s the twenty-first century and let’s be honest—things are a little disappointing. Despite every World’s Fair prediction and the advertisements in comic books, we are not living the future we were promised. By now, life was supposed to be a fully automated, atomic-powered, germ-free Utopia, a place where a grown man could wear a velvet spandex unitard and not be laughed at. Where are the ray guns, the flying cars, and the hoverboards that we expected? What happened to our moon colonies and servant robots?

Variable Star
By Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson; Read by Spider Robinson
8 Cassettes, 1-MP3-CD or 10 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: May 2007
ISBN: 9780786149384(Cassettes), 9780786170159 (MP3-CD), 9780786158843 (Cds)
At his death in 1988, Robert A. Heinlein left a legacy of novels and short stories that almost single-handedly defined modern science fiction. But one of Heinlein’s masterpieces was never finished. In 1955, he began work on Variable Star, a powerful and passionate tale of two young lovers driven apart by pride, power, and the vastness of interstellar time and space. Then he set it aside to focus on other novellas. The detailed outline and notes he created for this project lay forgotten for decades, only to be rediscovered almost a half century later. Now the Heinlein estate has authorized award-winning author Spider Robinson to expand that outline into a full-length novel. The result is vintage Heinlein, faithful in style and spirit to the Grand Master’s original vision.

Komarr
By Lois McMaster Bujold; Read by Grover Gardner
8 Cassettes, 1 MP3-CD or 9 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: May 2007
ISBN: 9781433202575 (Cassettes), 9781433202599 (MP3-CD), (CDs)
Komarr could be a garden with a thousand more years’ work, or an uninhabitable wasteland if the terraforming fails. Now, the solar mirror vital to the terraforming of the conquered planet has been shattered by a ship hurtling off course. The Emperor of Barrayar sends his newest imperial auditor, Lord Miles Vorkosigan, to find out why.

posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Here Today …Gone to Tomorrow edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin Greenberg

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

Here Today …Gone Tomorrow (Asimov’s All Time Favorite Time Travel Stories)
Edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin Greenberg; Read by various
4 Cassettes – Approx. 6 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Dercum Audio
Published: 1998
ISBN: 1556562586 [out of print]
Themes: /Science Fiction /Time travel /Anthology /

Stories: “Try and Change the Past” by Fritz Leiber, read by Bill Fantini; “A Loint of Paw” by Isaac Asimov, read by Bill Fantini; “The Long Remembering” by Poul Anderson, read by Nelson Runger; “There Is A Wolf In My Time Machine” by Larry Niven, read by Bill Fantini; “The Light Of Other Days” by Bob Shaw, read by Nelson Runger; “The Kings Wishes” by Robert Sheckley, read by Nelson Runger; “The Little Black Bag” by C.M. Kornbluth, read by Ann Wilcox.

Old school. That’s what this collection of time travel stories is, with all the blessings and baggage that implies. The stories concern mainly white men, with women appearing mostly as henpecking baffles for their claustrophobic concerns, and, in general, the voices presenting the stories are brusque and hairy-chested, like those from a third grade filmstrip on pool safety (and if that simile has any resonance for you, then I think you appreciate what I mean by “old school”). A female voice does narrate C.M. Kornbluth’s “The Little Black Bag”, but the story is so piquant with elitism and misogyny, it might as well be read by a Victorian-era Harvard College president.

The cover claims the stories were hand selected by Isaac Asimov from his own personal library, and the photo shows the great one with his trademark facial fur and engaging grin in front of a tall shelf packed with his own works.* Happily, his own works do appear in this collection, but only in the delightful – a word to describe almost anything Asimov uttered aloud – introduction he delivers himself, and the brief, forgettable story “A Loint Of Paw” which he does not.

The list of authors is impressive. The stories, however, while enjoyable, are neither essential nor groundbreaking. The best of them, and the only one to offer even a glimpse of the wistful ache that is the primary motivation for the idea of time travel, is Bob Shaw’s “The Light Of Other Days.” I was caught off guard after the relatively bland intellectual exercises of the forgoing stories because this one starts out looking similarly simple and heartless, yet builds to a subtle and profoundly moving finish.

As a whole, this is a decent collection, but not one I’d risk any injury rushing out to acquire. If it falls in your lap, or if you are a rabid fan of old school SF, I’d give it a listen. Otherwise, I think you could easily find something more satisfying to fill your ears with.

[editor’s note – the cover depicted above does not match Kurt’s description. Kurt’s scan of his copy of this audiobook was not available at the time of this post]

Posted by Kurt Dietz