paranormal romance – Page 2

The SFFaudio Podcast #047

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #047 – Jesse and Scott talk audiobooks, The Invention Of Lying (the perfect movie for audiobook fans), and hot blimp on zeppelin action.

Talked about on today’s show:
fantastic coffee, recent arrivals, Penguin Audio, Anita Blake, Laurell K. Hamilton, Bloody Bones, The Killing Dance, Burnt Offerings, narrator Kimberly Alexis, paranormal romance, Sookie Stackhouse, True Blood, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, horror, Full Cast Audio, Emmie And The Incredible Shrinking Rat by Lynne Jonell, Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel |READ OUR REVIEW|, the Matt Cruse series, SFFaudio Essential, Starclimber by Kenneth Oppel,Mainspring by Jay Lake |READ OUR REVIEW|, Blackstone Audio, Planet Of Exile by Ursula K. Le Guin, the Hanish Cycle series, The Word For World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin, Avatar, Audible Frontiers, Book Of The Road, Tales Of Earth Sea by Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard Of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin |READ OUR REVIEW|, Harlan Ellison, Recorded Books, The Dark Design by Philip Jose Farmer, more airships, current listens, Game Change, text to audiobook techniques, Dennis Boutsikaris, Engines Of God by Jack McDevitt, new releases, The Eyes Of Darkness by Dean Koontz, Brilliance Audio, Heroes Of The Valley by Jonathan Stroud, the Bartimaeus Trilogy, fantasy, quest, Jonathan Stroud’s Heroes of the Valley: Thalia Kids’ Book Club, Matthew Cody, Tantor Media, Time Travelers Never Die by Jack McDevitt, SFSignal’s review of Time Travelers Never Die, Battlestar Galactica, “McDevitt is ooh-wow Science Fiction in the Arthur C. Clarke tradition,” Flatland: A Romance Of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott, math-fiction, the LibriVox edition of Flatland, narrator James Langton, did you get your free audiobook from Tantor Media?, Scott Brick, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, The Futurist by James P. Othmer, narrator William Dufris, Richard K. Morgan, narrator Simon Jones, Bill Murray, Robin Williams, Dead Poets Society, Zombieland, The Invention Of Lying is a romantic comedy that’s philosophical Science Fiction, Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Macmillan Vs. Amazon.com: ebook pricing dispute, John Scalzi’s Whatever post on the topic, Apple iPad, Amazon’s deletion of 1984, “bailouts for everyone!”, big evil corporations and the “tyranny of the bottom line”, Brilliance Audio, Killing Floor by Lee Child, one star reviews, the Cynical-C Blog, Daily Dose Of Ingersoll, You Can’t Please Everyone, Letter From Mark Twain To A Snake Oil Peddler, LibriVox: Extract From Captain Stormfield’s Visit To Heaven by Mark Twain, the merits and demerits of the iPad and the iPhone vs. the iPod Classic, Frederick Pohl’s The Way The Future Blogs, Pohl on Isaac Asimov |Part 1|Part 2|, the Moonies, Jerry Pournelle at Brigham Young University with Mormons and Scientologists, Life, The University & Everything 28, Margaret Atwood: History Denier, The Year Of The Flood by Margaret Atwood |READ OUR REVIEW|, Fredösphere, Orson Scott Card’s politics vs. his books, Apollo 11, Apollo 12, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, Apollo 16, Apollo 17, NASA’s Constellation Program, 10 NASA Inventions You Might Use Every Day, Wil Wheaton’s audiobooks are on Lulu.com, Just A Geek by Wil Wheaton |READ OUR REVIEW|, Memories Of The Futurecast, Julie’s Forgotten Classics podcast, Scott’s Pick Of The Week: Scenting The Dark And Other Stories by Mary Robinette Kowal, Subterranean Press, Ronald Rabbit Is A Dirty Old Man by Lawrence Block, epistolary novel, Cinderella Sims by Lawrence Block, Hard Case Crime, Jesse’s Pick Of The Week: Da Vinci’s Inquest, Intelligence, Castle, CSI is “six people standing around telling each other information they all already know,” Da Vinci’s Inquest does not use the pro forma police procedural TV show construction, Da Vinci’s Inquest is like The Wire but set in Vancouver, Acorn Video.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Club Dead by Charlaine Harris

SFFaudio Review

Club Dead by Charlaine Harris Club Dead
By Charlaine Harris; Read by Johanna Parker
Audible Download – 8 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Recorded Books
Published: 2008
Themes: / urban fantasy / paranormal romance / vampires / werewolves / True Blood

The second season of HBO’s True Blood, based on Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels. The show’s first season very loosely followed the first novel in the series, Dead Until Dark, while the second season made significant departures from the second novel, Living Dead in Dallas. Hoping to garner some clues about the show’s third season, I decided this would be a good time to read the third installment in the series. While the flavorful writing and vivid characterization are still top-notch, Club Dead lacks the charm and magic that made the series opener so memorable.

As the novel opens, telepath human Sookie Stackhouse is finding her vampire boyfriend Bill Compton a bit distant. He’s exhibiting the characteristics of an internet addict, spending hours on his computer and hiding his activities from her. Without warning Bill announces he’s going away on business, and leaves a set of computer disks in Sookie’s protection. As if this isn’t disconcerting enough, Bill’s vampire boss Eric Northman from Shreveport soon calls on Sookie to tell her that Bill has vanished somewhere in the town of Jackson, Mississippi, and charges the werewolf Alcide Herveaux with helping Sookie find her squeeze. The city of Jackson, and its supernatural-friendly night dive Club Dead, serve as the setting for most of the novel’s action.

Sookie Stackhouse is a fantastic character, and it’s always a treat to spend more time with the strong-willed yet insecure waitress from Bon Temps, Louisiana. The vampire Eric Northman, a shadowy figure of great power in the first two novels, also finds more development here. He becomes more three-dimensional, but at the cost of losing some of his mystique. Newcomer Alcide Herveaux, who introduces Sookie to Jackson’s werewolf community, fits comfortably among the series regulars. Sookie’s love interest, Bill Compton, is absent for much of the novel, but he does resurface near the book’s conclusion. Relationships among these principal personalities shift significantly during the course of the book. I’m not sure I approve of the shifts in affiliation and allegiance, but they certainly made for some moments of powerfully emotional storytelling.

Charlaine Harris’s writing is superb, especially her ear for dialogue and her liberal use of local color. Having spent many years in East Texas, which in many ways lies in the same cultural sphere as the book’s setting, I can attest to the verisimilitude Harris achieves in her prose, accentuated by the first-person storytelling from Sookie’s perspective.

The problem with Club Dead, as with its predecessor, is that it removes too much of the human element from the story. Urban fantasy is at its best when it juxtaposes the supernatural and magical against the backdrop of the commonplace and mundane. The first novel, Dead Until Dark, achieved this brilliantly, introducing vampires into the sleepy village of Bon Temps. This powerful quality of urban fantasy is lost in Club Dead among all the machinations within and between the werewolf and vampire communities, fascinating though they may be. Indeed, the eponymous Club Dead itself exemplifies this. Whereas Fangtasia, or even Merlott’s, in the preceding novels were melting pots of the races, Club Dead is an almost-exclusively supernatural hangout, sprinkled only here and there with the presence of humans.

The audiobook version is narrated brilliantly by Johanna Parker, who perfectly captures Sookie Stackhouse’s spunky fire and angsty gloom. The southern colloquialisms roll off Parker’s tongue like sweet lemonade on a hot Texas summer day. Her portrayal of the dark, menacing power of the vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, and other supernatural beings is no less impressive. Often the force of her narration made me jump or sent tingles down my spine, which is just what you want from a good audiobook.

Even with its lackluster plot, Club Dead is a worthy addition to the Southern Vampire Mysteries, and anyone who has enjoyed the first two novels will certainly want to continue the adventure. Fans of the TV show True Blood should also pick up these novels and experience firsthand the witty, brilliant, sometimes-twisted mind of Charlaine Harris.

Posted by Seth Wilson

FREE @ Audible.com – My Soul To Lose by Rachel Vincent

SFFaudio Online Audio

Harlequin Books has been releasing audiobooks through Audible.com for a while now. They’ve even got an official webpage for their wares. What is new is that they’ve got a new “paranormal romance” series aimed at teenagers. It’s called “SOUL SCREAMERS.” Is this the start of a new sub-genre? A Sweet Valley High with witches? A Buffy with pining? Is there a market for YA Paranormal Romance? Would PG-13 Anita Blake interest you? If so, Audible.com’s got a novelette length tale to try out for free…

My Soul to Lose
By Rachel Vincent; Read by Amanda Ronconi
Audible Download – Approx. 1 Hour 48 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Harlequin Audio
Published: 2009
Provider: Audible.com
Kaylee Cavanaugh’s trip to the mall ends with a brutal panic attack and a brainscrambling shriek she can’t stop. Her secret fear is exposed. It’s the worst day of her life. Until she wakes up in the psychiatric unit. But the hospital isn’t a safe place for Kaylee, and getting out won’t be easy because everyone thinks she’s crazy. Everyone except Lydia, who has a secret of her own…

Here’s a sample |MP3|.

There’s a |PDF| version available too.

[via Mary Burkey’s Audiobooker Blog]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Blood Noir by Laurell K. Hamilton

SFFaudio Review

Blood Noir by Laurell K. Hamilton Blood Noir
By Laurell K. Hamilton; Read by Cynthia Holloway
11 CDs – 13 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
ISBN: 1-59737-895-6
Published: 2008
Themes: / paranormal romance / vampires / shapeshifters / mystery / sex / BDSM / urban fantasy

Blood Noir is the sixteenth installment in Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. Thats an impressive track record for any writer–and somehow Hamilton has found time to work on several other series as well. This particular Anita Blake novel is heavy on the romance and emotional development of its characters. It’s fairly light on the “paranormal” or “supernatural” element until it nears its conclusion. While a fun emotional and sexual romp, Blood Noir lacks the intellectual teeth to be called “fantasy” in any meaningful sense of the word.

The book opens with a bang of the Jenna Jameson variety, as Anita Blake comforts her grieving werewolf friend Jason in the most intimate way possible, while her more regular lover Nathaniel looks on and later joins in. Libido calmed, for the moment at least, the story then commences in earnest, and Blood Noir actually presents an intriguing premise. Jason’s estranged father is dying of cancer, and Jason wants to patch up the relationship while he still can. Jason’s father, despite much evidence to the contrary, labors under the delusion that Jason is gay. To dispel this misperception, Jason brings Anita to his home in North Carolina to present as his girlfriend, a front that is only half a lie. The plot thickens further when Jason is mistaken by hometown residents for the son of the state governor.

You might be wondering how the supernatural fits into all this. So was I. While the story is well-told and the characters are emotionally complex, the fantastic elements of Anita Blake’s world don’t really manifest themselves for the first two-thirds of the novel. Sure, we’re told that Jason is a werewolf and that Nathaniel her lover is a were-leopard, and we witness several telephone conversations between Anita and her protector Jean-Claude, one of the vampire masters of St. Louis. But Hamilton is breaking the writer’s axiom of “show, don’t tell.” The early parts of the novel play out like any romance-cum-mystery, with only the barest of supernatural trappings.

Once “the metaphysical shit”, as Blake utters several times, does finally hit the fan, the action ramps up and Blood Noir becomes a thriller on par with other urban fantasy, replete with shapeshifting, vampire charms, and a bit of old-fashioned gun play. The payoff is worth waiting for. The novel draws its title from Marmee Noir, an ancient vampire who, despite slumbering somewhere in Europe, manages to wreak havoc in the lives of characters halfway around the world. The book advances the larger Vampire Hunter story arc, and promises an intriguing direction for future books in the series.

There’s no getting around it, Blood Noir is about sex. Anita Blake is possessed by the ardeur, an urge that requires her to “feed” periodically through sexual acts. Yes, Anita’s come a long way since her celibate days of the first few novels. She openly maintains several serious sexual partners, and she engages in sadomasochism and other “non-standard” sexual practices. The emphasis on eroticism feels mostly in line with the plot, and seldom ranges into the realm of over-indulgence. What saves Blood Noir from devolving into a wholly superficial sexual dog pile is Anita’s self-awareness. Anita is mostly comfortable with her open lifestyle, but she occasionally expresses misgivings about its potential negative impact on herself and others. Her external sensual and erotic lust is also complimented by a fine-tuned emotional sensitivity.

Brilliance Audio has made a modest effort to put some production shine on its audio version of Blood Noir, with some minimal distortion effects when characters speak on the phone or overhear a television news report. Cynthia Holloway’s narration tackles the novel’s sexuality head-on; she doesn’t flinch at even the most graphic scenes. Holloway especially succeeds in capturing Anita Blake’s wide expressive range, from her angry outbursts to her few moments of vulnerability.

Long-time readers of the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series will doubtless wish to follow the heroine’s latest adventures, and fans of paranormal romance who have somehow missed Hamilton’s work will probably want to jump into the series as well. Other readers of fantasy, even of urban fantasy, should approach Blood Noir with caution. The book provides a solid plot and well-rounded characters, but Hamilton’s hit-and-miss writing fails to conjure up the magic that fantasy, even dark fantasy, should.

DISCLAIMER: Any sexual puns or double-entendres contained in this review were purely inadvertent.

Posted by Seth Wilson