politics – Page 18

Review of The Fluted Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

The Fluted Girl
By Paolo Bacigalupi ; Read by Shodra Marie
1 CD – 62 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Infinivox
Published: 2006
ISBN: 1884612369
Themes: / Science Fiction / Technology / Society / Politics /

The Fluted Girl huddled in the darkness clutching Steven’s final gift in her small pale hands. Madam Balarie would be looking for her. The servants would be sniffing through the castle like feral dogs.

Everything is possible in Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Fluted Girl. All you ever wanted is here but it all has a price, and often the physical cost is just way to steep. Cell knitters, Revitia treatments and stolen body parts, halt, stop, and improve all manner of the human body. And the goal here… simply to improve one’s social standing in Bacigalupi’s decadent future world. Enter into this world of capitalistic dreams, twin girls. With a lifetime of treatments behind them they are now ready to take to the stage as human flutes in a performance that should delight everyone. That is, everyone except the twins.

From the moment Shondra Marie’s voice submerses you into this world you are dreading the final outcome. With Marie’s voice and Bacigalupi’s guidance you are unable to leave this story until the final outcome has been spoken. This is a tale that lingers…well after the hour is up and it is well advised to re-play this one, just to catch all the hints and tricks Bacigalupi uses to make this such a moving tale. Infinivox has unearthed an exceptional gem of a story here in The Fluted Girl and with their production they’ve polished it to a fine diamond. Well done. Listen to this story if only to see the opulent world that Paolo Bacigalupi’s has created but once you’re there… you’re in until the end… that I promise.

[Editor’s note: Infinivox is now offering an MP3 download for The Fluted Girl and 6 other recently released audiobooks – and they’re even DISCOUNTED!]

posted by Tony Smith from StarshipSofa

Review of Lobsters by Charles Stross

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

Lobsters
By Charles Stross; Read by Shodra Marie and Jared Doreck
1 CD – Approx. 70 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Infinivox
Published: 2005
ISBN: 1884612466
Themes: / Science Fiction / Technology / Love / Politics /

Manfred’s on the road again, making strangers rich. It’s a hot summer Tuesday and he’s standing in the plaza in front of the Centraal Station with his eyeballs powered up and the sunlight jangling off the canal, motor scooters and kamikaze cyclists whizzing past and tourists chattering on every side. The square smells of water and dirt and hot metal and the fart-laden exhaust fumes of cold catalytic converters; the bells of trams ding in the background and birds flock overhead.

Let’s just say it’s a crying shame and leave it until later to explain why.

Manfred Macx is a patent junkie, spending his days dreaming up ideas that will make him rich, very rich indeed; patents them and offers them up to whomever for free. In doing so has shunned the want for cash, preferring to live off the generosity from his benefactors. Enter into this story, uploaded lobsters wanting to defect, investigations from the IRS and a dominatrix ex- girlfriend who works for said IRS and you’ve got yourself a hip post-cyberpunk tale.

With Lobsters, Charles “Charlie” Stross has set his stopwatch to just 70 minutes. In that time he’s allowed to blast your senses with an array of images and visualizations and does so with perfect storytelling, skill and timing. Image after image explode onto your brain with the speed of a flashing strobe light. He throws away metaphors and similes as if he’d robbed the World Vocabulary bank. One after the other they hit you with delight and clarity until the end, and like all addictive tales, Lobsters leaves you a word junkie, aching for more.

There are two themes filtering through Stross’ Lobsters. On one hand you have Manfred, a high octane, finger on the pulse, grab it before its gone guy, focused on the moment, on the idea and on the deal. Live for the moment. Then you have Stross’ craftily ability to weave Manfred’s ex-girlfriend into the story, bringing her subtle but very practical approach to the future. Is Manfred up for this latest and most challenging proposal of his life? It’s a question we might all ask ourselves at one point through our lives.

The audio zips into your ears with ease. Both Jared Doreck and Shondra Marie deliver a fine production and tackle Stross’ rapid image bursts with gusto. The folks at Infinivox can hold their heads high with this production and at $7.99 it’s a pop!

Charlie Stross dips his toes in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Lovecraftian Horror and is part of the new generation of British Science Fictions writers that are taking the genre by the throat until it squeals. Living in Edinburgh his first short story The Boys appeared in the Science Fiction magazine, Interzone in 1987. Since then he has gone on to be nominated for a Hugo three times for recent novels.

So, is it a crying shame that he has still has not won a Hugo for one of his novels? No, it won’t be long, I promise you that. He has already won one for his novella, The Concrete Jungle.

No… it’s a crying shame that I have not yet heard more of his work.

posted by Tony Smith from StarshipSofa

Review of Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card

Science Fiction Audiobook Review

Shadow of the Hegemon
By Orson Scott Card; Read by David Birney, Scott Brick, Gabrielle de Cuir, and Stefan Rudnicki
11 CDs – 13 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Renaissance
Published: September 2006
ISBN: 1593974809
Themes: / Science Fiction / War / Politics / Youth / Strategy /

In Ender’s Game, Ender Wiggin and his jeesh won the war against the buggers. From there, the story of Ender and his sister Valentine continues in Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind. But what of the people Ender left behind? What of Ender’s power hungry older brother Peter? What of Bean and the other Battle School kids? Orson Scott Card gives us that story beginning with Ender’s Shadow, then continuing with this novel, Shadow of the Hegemon, and on to Shadow Puppets and Shadow of the Giant. (NOTE: Shadow Puppets is the only novel mentioned here that has not yet been released in unabridged format on CD by Audio Renaissance, but it is in their schedule for January 2007.)

One of the things I admire about the Ender novels as a whole is that Orson Scott Card has not written the same novel twice. Speaker for the Dead is a different kind of novel than Ender’s Game, and Xenocide different again. Ender’s Shadow marked a return in tone to Ender’s Game, but this book was different again. Shadow of the Hegemon is boardgame of a novel, a sort of international chess match between nations battling for dominance after the outside threat of the Buggers has been eliminated.

The Battle School kids are 14 or so now, and have all returned to Earth. Achilles (a failed Battle School student from the previous novel) works for Russia and is given a LOT of power. He orchestrates an operation to kidnap all of Ender’s jeesh from wherever they are in the world, then proceeds to convince these kids that they need to help Russia or rot in a cell where no one else can use them. I had tough time believing that this young man would be given authority to do what he does – what kind of government would give such power to a young teen? Even though history is full of young men in positions of great power, it didn’t ring true for me. The actions of all the other characters in the book were not problematic for me, but I couldn’t help but feel that Achilles just had too much authority, and I just couldn’t see adults readily giving that authority to someone that young.

The main character in the book, and in all the Shadowbooks, is Bean, who is a fascinating and engaging character throughout the series. He manages to figure out what’s going on before getting kidnapped himself, and thus starts the story.

The book switches point of view frequently, moving from Bean to Petra to Peter Wiggin. Scott Brick read the Bean chapters, Gabrielle de Cuir read the Petra chapters, and David Birney the Peter Wiggin chapters. Card provided plenty of dramatic moments in the novel for these performers, most notably the first meeting between Bean and Ender Wiggin’s mother, powerfully read by Scott Brick.

Card kept the scale of the novel both personal and global, and mentions Tom Clancy in his afterword as an influence. The book is an enjoyable addition to the Ender universe, and I’m eager to hear the next book, Shadow Puppets, when it is released. In fact, when it is, I may treat myself to the entire Shadow series again. They are superb productions, every one.

Audio Renaissance’s website has a page dedicated to the entire audio Ender series – find it here.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of On the Road with Ellison: Volume One

SFFaudio Author of the Month

On The Road With Ellison, Volume 1
Live performance by Harlan Ellison
1 CD – 60 minutes
Publisher: Deep Shag Records
Published: 2001 (reissue from 1983)
UPC: 809879000322
Themes : / Non-fiction / Writing / Politics / Publishing /

On the Road with Ellison, Volume 1 is a collection of live lecture/performances by Harlan Ellison in 1981, 1982, and 1983 in front of three different university corwds. When he talks of mailing a dead gopher to an editor (er… comptroller) he’s hilarious, and when he reads an essay he wrote (“An Edge in My Voice: Installment #54”) he rattles our collective cage, making us look at a man who threatened to blow up the Washington Monument in a whole new way.

From the very first track, where he warns audience members to leave if words offend them, Ellison is abrasive yet totally engaging. Or perhaps he’s totally engaging because he’s so abrasive. Either way, the tracks are thoroughly enjoyable, and the album is worth grabbing.

And yes, there’s a Volume 2, also available from Deep Shag.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of The Answer by Philip Wylie

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

The Answer
By Philip Wylie; Read by Joel Grey
1 Cassette – Approx. 90 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Dove Audio
Published: 1996
ISBN: 0787105139
Themes: / Science Fiction / Fantasy / Angels / Science / Politics / Nuclear Weapons /

“What egotism, what stupid vanity, to suppose that a thing could not happen because you could not conceive it!”
– Philip Wylie & Edwin Balmer from When Worlds Collide

This audiobook of The Answer (subtitled A Parable For Our Times), was produced by Stefan Rudnicki. You should care because whenever Rudnicki gets involved with a project you’re pretty much guaranteed of two things: 1. A quality story. 2. A quality production. Rudnicki is himself a talented narrator, he’s been involved with some of the best short story collections on audio, won two big fistfuls of Audie awards and even a Grammy. Most impresive of all he was the mastermind behind the SFFaudio essential audiobook edition of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card! I was only vaguely familiar with Philip Wylie’s work prior to this novellette, I’d heard his dystopian novel The End Of The Dream and known that he had co-written the novel that became the feature film When Worlds Collide. So I did some research, The Answer was originally published in “The Saturday Evening Post” in 1955, adapted to television the same year and then republished several times in paper-book form since. The story was written in the shadow of the cold war the context for which the unstated question is asked – with that shadow faded the story still has power, but I suspect that it has been somewhat diminished.

Aboard a United States aircraft carrier in the South Pacific a distinguished team of nuclear scientists, politicians, naval and air-force officers await the impending test of an atomic bomb. The test, code named Operation Bugaboo, makes one officer question the very fabric of his belief, or rather his lack thereof. Major General Marcus Scott is an agnostic and skeptic, a veteran of WWII with a long and distinguished career behind him. But after the test is conducted and a single unforseen casualty is reported Scott’s entire worldview is shaken to its foundations. Discovered, as an apparent casualty of the tremendous hydrogen bomb blast is a winged figure, one even his ubelieving eyes can only describe as an angel.

While at first very satisfing on a level of sheer storytelling I noticed upon repeated listening Wylie’s writing scaffolding, the somehat forced structure upon which the story relies for power. For believability’s sake there are really too many coincidences. The scientifically testable circumstances, which are what you are buying when you listening to science fiction – are flushed away into circumstances no easier to swallow than ‘historical’ reports of angels, as the subtitle suggests “a parable for our times?”. Is it really meant to be a parrallel with historical reports of angels? Or is the structure simply in place to give narrative meaning to the story? I don’t know. But no matter how it was made, the story is only going to be offering comforting evidence to a believer, and however well meaning the point of the story, “the answer” of the title is at very best, in my opinion, only a wishful maxim. Flavour me unconvinced while still having been emotionaly involved by the tale.

An added music consists of a pipe organ, woodwind and stringed instruments. These are used to subtly underscore the emotions of the two viewpoints shown. Varied music gives ethereal holiness, timelessness or thoughtful reflection to specific scenes and to underscore others with their absence. Though generally I prefer unaccompanied readings it isn’t overwhelming here. Reader Joel Grey shines, by packing an emotional wallop witout doing much in the way of characterization. He’s able to confer the general mood of frustrated sadness that the story requires given the limited role the characters have. This audiobook is now out of print but you can still get it through Audible.com.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Saturn’s Race by Larry Niven and Steve Barnes

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

Saturn’s Race
By Larry Niven and Steve Barnes; Read by Scott Brick
10 Cassettes or 12 CDs – 13 Hours 54 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Books On Tape, Inc.
Published: 2000
ISBN: 0736659374 (cassette), 0736671366 (cd)
Themes: / Science Fiction / Artifical Intelligence / Consciousness Uploading / Cyborgs / Politics / Population Control / Life Extension /

Chaz Koto is a citizen of Xanadu, a near future perfect society hosting the wealthiest men and women on Earth. Along with his fellow citizens, he bears the burden of a dark secret that the outside world would be shocked to hear. Lenore Myles is a student who travels to Xanadu and becomes involved with Koto. When Koto unwittingly lends her his access codes, Lenore stumbles upon the grisly truth behind Xanadu’s glittering facade.

The title is deceptive. The planet Saturn plays no role in the plot and nobody in the book is racing anywhere. This is an earth-bound adventure set in the near future. I figured out what the title meant near the end of the book, but the rest of the novel was relatively predictable. For instance, there is a revelation that happens within the first couple of chapters but it was so broadly telegraphed in the first scene the involved character shows up in that I was bored by the revelation rather than surprised by it. Ultimately Saturn’s Race is one of those novels that just fails to gel. There’s a plot, plenty of interesting ideas and a resolution, but frankly the plot is mediocre, the ideas relatively minor, and the resolution comes through only on the most basic level.

For me, the most memorable concept used in Saturn’s Race is that of “metaphors.” Basically Niven and Barnes illustrate that metaphors, like computer languages or a computer graphic interface, are used as handy tools to leverage work. It’s why poetry can say so much with so few words – the words are densely packed, brimming with meaning. It is also why a little pointer dragging a few color pixels across a screen can unmake or move a file in ways far quciker and easier than by command line interface. In other words computer programs are really elaborate metaphors for the manipulation of data. This is brought to life in the novel when a character runs an artifical intelligence program that simulates Rex Stout’s corpulent detective Nero Wolfe. It’s a neat idea. But ultimately the novel didn’t move me as I had hoped it might. Overall, this is passable faire, but I doubt I’d need to listen to it again anytime soon.

The cover art for Saturn’s Race is almost incomprehensible. Is that a seahorse on there? I can’t tell. The paperback version has a painting of two genetically-modified sharks on the cover. That would have been more apropos. Reading the book is the ubiquitous Scott Brick. Scott does his very best to bring energy to the lackadaisical pace. For the most part it works, since the novel doesn’t bore in the listening, though I’m sure I’d have stopped reading were I experiencing the paper edition. Saturn’s Race is still available to be purchased from the Books On Tape website. But who knows how long that will be for? BOT was forced to dump a good chunk of its older science fiction titles when it got purchased by the aptly titled Random House a couple years ago and this fact has made many of its excellent unabridged titles quite valuable on the secondary market. The same loss may happen again soon to the remaining BOT library. I don’t think out of print copies of Saturn’s Race will be selling for thousands any time soon, but if you think you ever might want a copy acting sooner rather than later may save you some money.

Posted by Jesse Willis