politics – Page 13

Maria Lectrix: Medal Of Honor by Mack Reynolds

SFFaudio Online Audio

Maureen O’Brien, of the Maria Lectrix podcast, has just wrapped up a short story by one of the truly under-appreciated SF authors. Here’s what Maureen said of him:

“Mack Reynolds was an extremely prolific author who was very popular back in the fifties, sixties and early seventies. (He apparently was a member of the Socialist Labor Party, which surprises me. I always thought he was an early libertarian or something. Well, I’m no pundit.) Anyway, he always struck me as a very Western-ornery sort of writer, and he wrote a lot of military and political sf. It was fairly obvious that he loved throwing what-ifs into the speculation blender. Today he’s almost totally forgotten by younger sf readers, except for his 1968 Star Trek kids’ novel, which was recently reprinted at John Ordover’s behest. (A very nice behest.) I don’t think any of his books were precisely great, but they were all pretty good reads.”

Mack Reynolds also wrote some very readable utopian and dystopian novels that engaged the philosophy of Karl Marx in social Science Fiction thought experiments. No other SF author has engaged communism, socialism and economics like Mack Reynolds did. And that’s not only really strange, it’s really pretty shameful. Economics is a fascinating subject in SF – perhaps the problem is it’s harder to write about?

Here’s Maureen’s latest…

Medal Of Honor
By Mack Reynolds; Read by Maureen O’Brien
4 MP3 Files – Approx. 87 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Maria Lectrix
Podcast: September – October 2009
Provider: Archive.org
If you’d received the Galactic Medal of Honor, you could do no wrong, they said. But what if the wrong man received the award, and still found out that was true? Dallas McCord “Mack” Reynolds was a well-known and prolific writer of military SF and stories of political extrapolation during the nineteen-sixties and seventies. From Amazing Science Fiction Stories November 1960.

Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3| Part 3 |MP3| Part 4 |MP3|

Posted by Jesse Willis

Science Fiction and Politics University Course (has new lectures)

SFFaudio Online Audio

Courtney Brown has added some new classes to his Science Fiction and Politics podcast. Brown is a professor of Political Science at Emory University who posts many of his lectures to his website (he’s actually been podcasting since 2006).

For the first two lectures of the Spring 2009 semester Brown, and class, are talking about Lee Smolin’s The Trouble with Physics. That’s a non-fiction book that bashes the various untestable string theories that physicists have been spinning over the last couple of decades. The second set of two lectures is about a 1991 “feminist science fiction/cyberpunk novel” called He, She And It by Marge Piercy. Next is just one MP3 discussing Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age. And the final two have Courtney and class talking about Philip K. Dick’s Ubik. These are the first new lectures from Courtney Brown talking Science Fiction since 2007.

Here are the new lectures that have been added to course’s podcast:

Lee Smolin’s The Trouble with Physics – Part 1 |MP3|
Lee Smolin’s The Trouble with Physics – Part 2 |MP3|
Marge Piercy’s He, She And It – Part 1|MP3|
Marge Piercy’s He, She And It – Part 2 |MP3|
Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age |MP3|
Philip K. Dick’s Ubik – Part 1 |MP3|
Philip K. Dick’s Ubik – Part 2 |MP3|
Podcast feed:

http://www.courtneybrown.com/classes/scifi/mp3/cb_SciFiPoliticsClass1.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Blake’s 7 – Point Of No Return and Eye Of The Machine

SFFaudio Review

SFFaudio Essential Blake’s 7 – Point Of No Return and Eye Of The Machine (Vol. 1.2 & 1.3)
By Ben Aaronovitch and James Swallow; Performed by a full cast
2 CDs – Approx. 70 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: B7 Media
Published: November 2008
ISBN: 9781906577063
Themes: / Science Fiction / Politics / Crime / Artificial Intelligence / Terrorism / Noir /

‘Blake’s 7 draws much of its inspiration from the legend of Robin Hood. It follows a small band of outlaws, under a figurehead leader, leading a rebellion against a tyrannical regime.’
–A History and Critical Analysis of Blake’s 7 by John Kenneth Muir

This is the second release in the first season of Blake’s 7 prequel stories. For more information on the original the Trilogy Box Set and Volume 1.1 of the prequel series read our reviews HERE and HERE.

Point of No Return and Eye Of The Machine are two more rousing and unconventional adventures in the Blake’s 7 reimaginging. As is typical with most excellent series the music, sound design and acting are absolutely stellar. But, it is the writing which amazes me the most. There are two ways you can go with remakes of old television series. One is to write it so that the dumbest people in your audience won’t have any trouble following it (New Doctor Who I’m looking at you). The other is to re-imagine, re-construct and re-engage with those who loved a smart Science Fiction series for its intelligence. I’m happy to say that this new Blake’s 7 series is in the latter category. Feelings of surprise and utter engagement followed from the opening moments of a rainswept city soundscape to the final credit sequence. I was rapt, imagining the goings-on as vividly as if they were projected onto 1,000 foot screen. Here are my thoughts on each of the two episodes in this set…

Point of No Return – (Episode 1.2)
Written by James Swallow, directed by Andrew Mark Sewell

Point of No Return depicts a critical juncture in the life of Major Stefan Travis. Travis is a Blake’s 7 baddie, the Guy of Gisborne to Roj Blake’s Robin Hood. In this prequel story we find Travis assigned to investigate Carl Varon. Varon is a kind of proto-Blake – a political troublemaker who claims to have been setup by the powers that be. The evidence is against Varon is damning. There’s a laundry list of horrific charges against him. Plus, there’s all the video evidence. So what’s Travis’ problem? Just that Varon may be entirely innocent. Travis has two duties. 1. A duty to the state. 2. A duty to the truth. Which will he choose?

Actor Craig Kelly plays Travis. To my ears his voices sounds pretty similar to the original TV series actor Brian Croucher. What benefits Kelly here is that he gets a much meatier role than poor Croucher (the TV Travis) ever got. He also benefits by playing against a veteran like Peter Guinness. Guinness has a Jekyll And Hyde-like role in this story, we get him as the innocent man in jail and as a political terrorist (during some video playback sequences). Jake Maskall has the least to do here, playing Sub-Lieutenant Garcia. His role being to mostly act as a naive assistant to Travis.

Eye Of The Machine – (Episode 1.3)
Written by Ben Aaronovitch, directed by Andrew Mark Sewell

Eye Of The Machine also follows a baddie (but one of the less bad baddies). Kerr Avon (the Will Scarlet of Blake’s 7) in this prequel story is a brilliant and geeky post-graduate student at Oxford in 2230. The university’s campus, like so many on Earth, is roiling with political protest movements. Avon wants nothing to do with politics, but a fellow student is hot for two things – political change and Kerr Avon. Meanwhile Avon’s brilliance in his chosen studies has caught the eye of a respected cyberneticist professor. Professor Ensor is working on an artificial intelligence breakthrough – he needs a mind like Avon’s. Will Avon’s attendance at Freedom Party meetings or the ambitious Professor Ensor be his undoing?

Colin Salmon (playing Avon) is a movie star with stage acting chops. Anna Grant (played by Keeley Hawes) is fast talking and passionate. She’s terrific. Ensor, is played by Geoffrey Palmer, a veteran of virtually every television series made in the U.K.. In this he’s slimy, mean-spirited and perfect. The script jumps back and forth between the events as they unfolded chronologically and sometime shortly after ‘what happened’ wherein Ensor and Grant give one sided answers to an interrogator’s questions. Both Episode 1.2 and 1.3 use just three actors each but we don’t need even more. These scripts are perfectly polished audio drama gems. Highly recommended.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of On Basilisk Station by David Weber

SFFaudio Review

Ed. – Welcome to Paul [W] Campbell, prestidigitator with Cossmass Productions. This is his first review for SFFaudio.

On Basilisk Station (Book One in the Honor Harrington Series)
By David Weber; Read by Allyson Johnson
15 Hours, 15 Minutes – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781423393382 (CD)
Themes: / Science Fiction / Military SF / War / Space Opera / Politics /

On Basilisk Station is the first of Weber’s Honor Harrington series. A great space opera that quickly builds up to a full out war between the Star Kingdom of Manticoran and her allies against the aggressive and expansionist Republic of Haven. So far there are eleven main novels in the series in print, plus over a half-dozen anthologies and spin-offs.

Mankind has spread out into the stars using a form of Hyperspace which offers the ability of sail along dangerous gravity waves at hundreds, even thousands, of times the speed of light. Some star systems are linked by wormhole termini that offer instantaneous travel between their end points. The benefit to interstellar trade and to fleet maneuvers that this offers is significant. Thus, Basilisk Station is the Royal Manticoran Navy’s picket at one such wormhole. In fact it is a collection of several wormholes that turn the star system of Basilisk into a major hub for commerce. Unfortunately the Republic of Haven’s economy is straining and they are looking at the worlds on the
far side of Basilisk as candidates to bolster their economy. Of course, having Basilisk Station under their control would make their annexation efforts and resultant ‘trade’ much simpler.

Commander Honor Harrington finds her aged and understrength ship being responsible for the entire picket On Basilisk Station. Her crew blame her for their posting to this punishment detail. Honor has been set up to fail. The Havenites are plotting to invade, the aboriginals on the planet below are taking homicide inducing drugs and her Executive Officer hates her.

As an opening volume in a series of this size, On Basilisk Station sets the initial pieces on the board for the following books and the war that develops. However, it doesn’t feel like that is what it is doing. The story is self contained and complete, as are all of the books in the series. Later books do benefit from reading the preceding ones, but it isn’t required. But, I’m not reviewing the series here. It can be a little heavy on the info-dumps at times, such as the history of the Founding of the Manticoran Nobility, Gravity Sails and a few others. Allyson Johnson gets through them well enough, but in audio they do interrupt the flow of the story. Otherwise she brings all the characters to life very well and covers quite a range, from Honor’s soprano all the way down to some gruff old sailors indeed.

Actually hearing Honor’s dialog in a soprano was quite jarring at first as I had read the books before and hadn’t properly assimilated that aspect of her character. Allyson stays truer to the characters and their voices than I had when reading myself. A good performance overall.

There was some slight confusion at times during the climactic battle as the point of view jumped from ship to ship. In print there would be a clear break in the text, but here the scenes flow together perhaps a little too quickly. They do resolves with a few seconds that there has been a scene change, but it still threw me a couple of times.

If you like your space opera with a well thought out political backdrop and with space battles that take into account the danger aboard ship and the scale of space, then On Basilisk Station should keep you happy.

Posted by Paul [W] Campbell

Review of Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson

SFFaudio Review

Julian Comstock: A Story of the 22nd Century
By Robert Charles Wilson; Read by Scott Brick
21 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Published: 2009
Themes: / Science Fiction / Government / Aristocracy / History / Politics / Global Warming / Civilization / Theocracy /

The United States of America has changed. Global warming fears have come to pass, Christian groups have become a stronger part of the government (practically its own branch, called The Dominion), aristocracy has ascended because fewer and fewer have access to so much. The average citizen in this 22nd century view of the future have taken a step backward. The scientific past has retreated into myth, and superstition rules the day.

In short, Robert Charles Wilson has taken a particular view of what the United States is and has taken it to extremes in “if this should continue” science fiction tradition. The characters do not feel futuristic – instead they feel historical. Like Firefly in a way, the characters are straight from the 19th century. This creates a very interesting juxtaposition of time: A possible future that’s really a look at the present, but with characters that feel historical. Sci-Fi Wire quotes Wilson on this:

The past regarding the present from the future—that’s a literary effect only science fiction can achieve, and that’s what I was aiming for, a kind of simultaneous triple perspective. We think of the past as quaint and the present as mundane and the future as, well, futuristic—but so did our great-grandparents, and so will our great-grandchildren. ‘All times have been modern,’ as the French composer Nadia Boulanger said.

The novel is told by Adam Hazzard, a friend of Julian Comstock, who is aristocrat (the Comstock family has held the Presidency for years and years). Hazzard tells us right up front that he’s writing this biography of Comstock because Comstock has become a great man.

The first scenes have the two as young men looking through a pile of discarded books. They take what they can carry, but Comstock gives a specific book to Hazzard; a history of manned exploration of the Moon. Hazzard doesn’t believe such things actually happened, but accepts the book anyway, and wonders.

From there, Hazzard uses events like this one to show readers the life of Comstock, but everything is colored through Hazzard’s point of view. In a way, the book is like a Sherlock Holmes novel, but Wilson has created a much more interesting character in Hazzard than Doyle ever did with Watson.

Scott Brick takes full advantage of the Hazzard character, and does well with the 19th century sensibility of all the characters. This book has a whole lot of detail and a whole lot of lengthy conversation between the main characters about various subjects. Brick keeps it interesting, like he always does. We even get to hear him speak French when the characters spend time in Montreal.

This novel is rich and draws on a rich tradition. A Canticle for Leibowitz, The Postman, and Earth Abides all leap to mind, but this isn’t a homage or a retelling of those books. This is a story that looks at the present in a way that only science fiction can.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

LibriVox: Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 013

SFFaudio Online Audio

Here’s another recent collection from the good people at LibriVox.org. I’ve made a few notes on just a few of these tales. Feel free to add your own as comments (we all should do more of that).

So here are those notes: My listening of Faithfully Yours was slightly distracted, but from what I heard it was a pretty good tale. I’m going to have to listen to it one more time to come to any final judgments about it. Unfortunately many mispronunciations mar Blair Buckland’s reading of The Invaders – but, the story still works – it would make a great tale to re-record. The Next Logical Step, by Ben Bova, is a very solid cold war piece that feels rather more modern than its 1962 vintage would normally suggest. It has an almost cyberpunk feel with its VR computer equipment – and the ending is absolutely rock solid. It has a great title too!

Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 013
By various; Read by various
10 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 4 Hours 31 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 24, 2009
Science fiction (abbreviated SF or sci-fi with varying punctuation and case) is a broad genre of fiction that often involves sociological and technical speculations based on current or future science or technology. This is a reader-selected collection of short stories, first published between 1951 – 1962, that entered the US public domain when their copyright was not renewed.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/short-science-fiction-collection-vol-013.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Faithfully Yours
By Lou Tabakow; Read Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 40 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 24, 2009
If it’s too impossibly difficult to track down and recapture an escaped criminal … there’s a worse thing one might do…
From “Astounding Science Fiction” December 1955.

The Golden Judge
By Nathaniel Gordon; Read by Hollis Hanover
1 |MP3| – Approx. 44 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 24, 2009
A suggestion and a highly intriguing one–on how to settle the problems that involve face-saving among nations! From Astounding Science Fiction December 1955.

The Invaders
By Benjamin Ferris; Read by Blair Buckland
1 |MP3| – Approx. 34 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 24, 2009
Magic—there’s no such thing. But the crops were beginning to grow backwards… From Weird Tales March 1951.

Moment Of Truth
By Basil Wells; Read by Betsie Bush
1 |MP3| – Approx. 10 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 24, 2009
“Basil Wells, who lives in Pennsylvania, has been doing research concerning life in the area during the period prior to and following the War of 1812. Here he turns to a different problem—the adjustment demanded of a pioneer woman, not in those days but Tomorrow—on Mars.” From Fantastic Universe December 1957.

The Next Logical Step
By Ben Bova; Read by Bill Ruhsam
1 |MP3| – Approx. 14 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 24, 2009
Ordinarily the military least wants to have the others know the final details of their war plans. But, logically, there would be times— From Analog Science Fact & Fiction May 1962.

Pandemic
By J.F. Bone; Read by Hollis Hanover
1 |MP3| – Approx. 45 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 24, 2009
Generally, human beings don’t do totally useless things consistently and widely. So—maybe there is something to it—
From Analog Science Fact and Science Fiction February 1962.

The Perfectionists
By Arnold Castle; Read by Betsie Bush
1 |MP3| – Approx. 32 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 24, 2009
Is there something wrong with you? Do you fail to fit in with your group? Nervous, anxious, ill-at-ease? Happy about it? Lucky you! From Amazing Science Fiction Stories January 1960.

Reluctant Genius
By Henry Slesar; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 6 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 24, 2009
It is said that Life crawled up from the slime of the sea-bottoms and became Man because of inherent greatness bred into him before the dawn of time. But perhaps this urge was not as formless as we think. From Amazing Stories January 1957.

Tight Squeeze
By Dean Ing; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 35 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 24, 2009
He knew the theory of repairing the gizmo all right. He had that nicely taped. But there was the little matter of threading a wire through a too-small hole while under zero-g, and working in a spacesuit! From Astounding Science Fiction February 1955.

We Didn’t Do Anything Wrong, Hardly
By Roger Kuykendall; Read by Betsie Bush
1 |MP3| – Approx. 11 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 24, 2009
After all—they only borrowed it a little while, just to fix it— From Astounding Science Fiction May 1959.

Posted by Jesse Willis