Rocket Science 1966 – 1967

SFFaudio News

The Fix - Short Fiction ReviewRecently posted over at The Fix: Short Fiction Review is my latest Rocket Science column, covering Hugo-winning short fiction from 1966 and 1967.

From 1966: “”Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman” by Harlan Ellison. Ellison reads this himself in the Voice from the Edge: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream audio collection. |SFFaudio Review|

From 1967: Novelette: “The Last Castle” by Jack Vance. I don’t know of an audio version of this one. The only Jack Vance audiobook I know of is from Wonder Audio – “The Devil on Salvation Bluff”. I’d certainly welcome a Vance audio collection – he’s great.

Also from 1967: Short Story: “Neutron Star” by Larry Niven. The only audio version of this one that I’m aware of is from an old Books on Tape version of Niven’s Beowulf Schaeffer collection called Crashlander. Long out of print, and I can’t think of any other versions.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

New Releases – 5 Classic SF Titles – Wonder Audio

SFFaudio New Releases

Five classic Science Fiction tales. Five more reasons to set up an audible.com or iTunes account.

[editor’s note – These titles below all come from a fellow editor’s audiobook company (Wonder Audiobooks). I’m begging you to give them a try. Its hard to appear purely fannish about these stories (given that I’m such good friends with the publisher) so I’ll just forget about trying to appear altogether unbiased and say these are really terrific listens. Fondly Fahrenheit alone will make you scream for joy. Reet!]

fondly_fahrenheit_150.jpgFondly Fahrenheit & Will You Wait?
By Alfred Bester; Read by Pat Bottino
70 min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audiobooks
Availiable at Audible and
Androids cannot kill! Yet that is the case for James Vandaleur’s rare multiple-aptitude android. Feeling he has no choice, Vandaleur flees the authorities, and finds himself in encompassed in even more horrendous murders. The heat is affecting the man-made servant, but scarier still is what is effecting Vandaleur’s mind. A pyrotechnic tour de forceby one the greatest writer and stylist of science fiction.

Chosen by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America as one of the greatest science fiction stories.

Cover - It's a Good LifeIt’s a Good Life
By Jerome Bixby; Read by William Dufris
51 min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audiobooks
Availiable at Audible and
What is more idyllic than a small mid-western agricultural town? Peaksville would sound like a scene right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Except , little Anthony is a monster! What happens when a child is omnipotent, and with his mind he can execute his every desire and petulant whim? Tonight, there’s a birthday party for Dan Hollis at Anthony’s house. It’s a party all the townspeople will remember . . . always!

Another story voted as one of the greatest stories by SFFWA. The story was adapted into a classic Twilight Zone episode.

devil-on-salvation-bluf-150.jpgThe Devil on Salvation Bluff
By Jack Vance; Read by Candace Platt
61 min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audiobooks
Availiable at Audible and
On the planet, Glory, missionaries live in a constant unpredictable environment. Sister Mary and her husband, Brother Raymond, try to contend with the flits, which live satyr-like existences. The missionaries are exasperated with this world’s seemingly disregard for cause and effect. The only constant is the clock that they brought with them. And therein lies the problem.

the-game-of-rat-and-dragon-150.jpgThe Game of Rat and Dragon
By Cordwainer Smith; Read by Matthew Wayne Selznick33 min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audiobooks
Availiable at Audible and
Future humanity has found the secret of faster-than-light travel, but it comes with great dangers. To minimize these dangers, man can pilot ships through the up-and-out with cats as their partners. Underhill share his mind with his cat-partner, the Lady May, and must travel to the terrible open places between the stars. Only be working together can they defend themselves and the ship’s passengers against the dragons in the emptiness of space.

last-of-the-deliverers-150.jpgThe Last of the Deliverers
By Poul Anderson; Read by William Coon
32 min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audiobooks
Availiable at Audible and
A small town in Ohio leads a peaceful Utopian existence in a world after the collapse of the super powers. Their pastoral existence is rattled when an old communist comes to their village. Uncle Jim, the resident old capitalist wages an ideological battle with the traveling guest to the townspeople’s dismay.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Starship Sofa podcast talks about Science Fiction’s authors and author/editors

SFFaudio Online Audio

Starship Sofa PodcastTony and Ciaran’s Starship Sofa podcast is chugging along, talking about Science Fiction in literate hour (or so) long chats. Below we’ve linked to the latest author and author/editor shows but you’ll also find email shows, shows on TV programmes and movies, a couple Christmas specials and even a theme show on religion in Science Fiction in their podcast feed. And if you surf over tho their website you’ll find the links to their older episodes too!

Recent shows author and author/editor shows:

Show #32: Classic Author: Jack Vance |MP3|
Show #33: Classic Author: Clark Ashton Smith |MP3|
Show #34: Classic Author: H.G. Wells |MP3|
Show #35: Classic Author: Charles Beaumont |MP3|
Show #37: Classic Author/Editor: John W. Campbell |MP3|
Show #38: Classic Author: Harry Harrison |MP3|
Show #39: Classic Author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |MP3|
Show #40: Classic Author/Editor: Frederick Pohl |MP3|
Show #41: Classic Author: Damon Knight |MP3|

To subscribe to the Starship Sofa podcast plug this feed into your podcatcher:

http://starshipsofa.libsyn.com/rss

The Time Traveler Show Podcast # 9: Features Sam Mowry & a Jack Vance short story!

SFFaudio Online Audio

Podcast - The Time Traveler ShowThe Time Traveler Show podcast #9 is out, this one’s a “Halloween Special.” The featured tale is a short story by the legendary Jack Vance. Entitled When The Five Moons Rise it is read by Sam A Mowry of The Willamett Radio Workshop. When The Five Moons Rise first was first published in the March 1954 issue of “Cosmos Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine.”

Oh and stay tuned to the end of the podcast to hear a special H.G.Wells & Orson Welles duo radio interview from 1940!

The Time Traveler Show #9 When The Five Moons Rise by Jack VanceWhen The Five Moons Rise
By Jack Vance; Read by Sam A. Mowry
1 MP3 File – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: October 2006
Podcast: TheTimeTravelerShow.com

To read the complete show notes for podcast #9 click HERE.

Subscribe to the podcast to listen for free:

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

A FREE Philip K. Dick Audiobook Kicks Off A New Audiobook Company

Online Audio

Online Audio - Wonder AudiobooksWonder Audiobooks is the BRAND NEW audiobook company owned by the SFFaudio reviewer known as The Time Traveler. To promote his new site and his upcoming first release Wonder Audio has released a free audiobook! In the past other companies have given away audiobooks as promotions as well, but I’ve never seen a better title by a better author given away for free for such a promotion – this one is truly a stunner folks, a previously unrecorded Philip K. Dick story, Dick’s first published short story in fact, complete, unabridged and read by a professional narrator in a studio setting … best of all it is 100% FREE! This is truly an SFFaudio listener’s dream come true!

Beyond Lies The Wub by Philip K. DickBeyond Lies The Wub
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Mac Kelly
1 MP3 File – 17 Minutes 40 Seconds [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audiobooks
Published: June 2006
Themes: / Science Fiction / Aliens / Colonialism / Interplanetary Travel /Mars /

The arrogant Captain Franco and his crew of earthmen land on Mars to take on provisions – there they purchase a half ton pig-like creature called a “wub.” They think it a meat animal but when Franco starts to discuss exactly how to butcher the creature the Wub protests! The Wub is not as intellectually starved as it at first appears – indeed the classics, especially Homer’s Odyssey are of special interest to the wub – which makes it doubly ironic that the humans aboard Franco’s ship didn’t remember about what the dread goddess Circe did to Odysseus’ poor crew…

Folks, Beyond Lies The Wub will be just one story in an exclusive short fiction collection called Among The Aliens coming soon from Wonder Audiobooks. Other stories included in the collection will be:

Green Patches by Isaac Asimov
Lover When You’re Near Me by Richard Matheson
Anthropological Notes by Murray Leinster
Arena by Fredric Brown
The Monsters by Robert Sheckley
The Martian Odyssey by Stanley G. Weinbaum
The Hanging Stranger by Philip K. Dick
The Wind People by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Captains Mate by Evelyn E. Smith
The Devil On Salvation Bluff by Jack Vance

All these and an as yet unnamed short story by Alfred Bester will come in a 6 CD set!

WOO HOO!

by Jesse