Recorded Books – Page 8

Review of Now and Forever by Ray Bradbury

SFFaudio Review

Now and Forever
By Ray Bradbury; Read by Paul Hecht
4 CDs – 4.75 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Recorded Books
Published: 2008
ISBN: 9781428198258
Themes: / Fantasy / Collection / Novella / Small town / Nostalgia / Starship / Aliens / Telepathy /

In some ways the most interesting part of the two novellas that make up this book are Ray Bradbury’s introductions. He explains that both “Somewhere the Band is Playing” and “Leviathan ‘99” have their origins in his long ago days as a Hollywood screenwriter. These explanations hang on in the listener’s mind and provide insights and color for the stories that follow.

“Somewhere the Band is Playing” evokes the memories of the idyllic towns that Bradbury loves to write about, a la “Mars is Heaven” in The Martian Chronicles. One wonders if this bucolic turn-of-the-20th-century setting has its roots in his own youth in Waukegan, Illinois. The story is told by James Cardiff, a reporter who awakens one morning mysteriously drawn to Summerton, Arizona, which does not appear on the map although the train stops there. As he explores the town he finds it is full of mysteries that seemingly defy explanation such as adult inhabitants, but no children; a graveyard, but no dates of death on the tombstones. This story gently invites the listener to consider questions of immortality, paradise, and the consequences of our choices.

Moby Dick was the inspiration for “Leviathan ‘99”. In Bradbury’s tale, the white whale has become a huge comet, Ishmael is a young astronaut, Queequeg is a mind-reading alien, and Captain Ahab a nameless starship captain who is madly pursuing his nemesis after their original encounter left him blind. Ray Bradbury is known for his love of words which comes through strongly in in the Shakespearean-like soliloquies through which The Captain shows his descent into madness. I especially liked the use of Quell the mind-reader to show us The Captain’s true frame of mind when he was elsewhere. Even the reader who has barely a speaking acquaintance with Moby Dick will appreciate the parallels that Bradbury employs and thrill to the question of how he will choose to end the story.

Neither of these stories has the depth of Ray Bradbury’s great works such as Something Evil This Way Comes or Fahrenheit 451. However, they are novellas and perhaps it may be better to compare them to his short stories. On a first listening, they left me rather flat, wondering, “Is that all there is?” However, further contemplation made it obvious that there is a common theme of man’s blindness, the wonders that are just within reach, and the consequences of our choices. I would not recommend these as a first outing for someone who hasn’t read Bradbury before but to the reader who already appreciates this author, they have much to recommend them.

Paul Hecht’s narration is perfect and his ability to voice characters is exceptional. It is a mystery to me how such a deep voice can portray a woman so well without using falsetto or sounding ridiculous but Hecht does it with little effort. His characters spring to life within the listener’s mind and add depth to the story.

Highly recommended for those who enjoy Ray Bradbury’s writing.

Posted by Julie D.

ed. – This is our first review of an audiobook from the new Sci-Fi imprint from Recorded Books. Click here for a look of what’s coming up from this imprint, which is shaping up to be a fine selection from the literary end of science fiction and fantasy.

Recent Arrivals – Recorded Books New Science Fiction Audio Imprint

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Introducing a New Science Fiction Imprint from Recorded Books!

These are the first titles we’ve received from this new imprint, and, like the previous science fiction published by Recorded Books, these are high-quality works!

Blindsight
By Peter Watts; Read by T. Ryder Smith
10 CDs – 11.75 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Recorded Books
Published: 2008
ISBN: 9781436119474

From the Blindsight pages on Peter Watts’ website:

Who you do send to meet the alien when the alien doesn’t want to meet?

You send a linguist with multiple personalities carved surgically into her brain. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees x-rays and tastes ultra-sound, so compromised by grafts and splices he no longer feels his own flesh. You send a pacifist warrior whose career-defining moment was an act of treason. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called vampire, recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist — an informational topologist with half his mind gone — as an interface between here and there, a conduit through which the Dead Center might hope to understand the Bleeding Edge.

You send them all to the edge of interstellar space, praying you can trust such freaks and retrofits with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they’ve been sent to find.

But you’d give anything for that to be true, if you only knew what was waiting for them…

The Accidental Time Machine
By Joe Haldeman; Read by Kevin R. Free
7 CDs – 8 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Recorded Books
Published: 2008
ISBN: 9781436120418

Joe Haldeman is the esteemed Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of The Forever War. Things are going nowhere for lowly MIT research assistant Matt Fuller—especially not after his girlfriend drops him for another man. But then while working late one night, he inadvertently stumbles upon what may be the greatest scientific breakthrough ever. His luck, however, runs out when he finds himself wanted for murder—in the future.

Now and Forever
By Ray Bradbury; Read by Paul Hecht
4 CDs – 4.75 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Recorded Books
Published: 2008
ISBN: 9781428198258

A legend in American science fiction, Ray Bradbury has penned such landmark works as Fahrenheit 451 and The Illustrated Man. In 2007 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation. The evocative collection Now and Forever features two previously unreleased novellas, “Somewhere a Band Is Playing” and “Leviathan ’99.”

These books and three more, Carnival by Elizabeth Bear, Spaceman Blues by Brian Francis Slattery, and Plague Year by Jeff Carlson, mark the beginning of this new imprint. Long may it live!

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Star Trek: Vulcan’s Soul Book 3: Epiphany by Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz

SFFaudio Review

Star Trek: Vulcan’s Soul Book 3: Epiphany
By Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz; Read by Richard Poe
10 CDs – 12 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Recorded Books
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9731419315176
Themes: / Science Fiction / Star Trek / Vulcans / Romulans /

For a long time, Star Trek on audio was limited to the excellent yet abridged productions published by Simon and Schuster Audio. The Simon and Schuster recordings are packed with music and sound effects, but Recorded Books has published this trilogy of unabridged Trek novels (this is the third) in their single narrator style.

Die-hard Trekkers will find the whole trilogy interesting, as it explains in detail the origins of the Remans, which were introduced in the film Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). It also tells the story of Spock and Saavik, a romance that has been explored in Star Trek novels, but not on the screen, though Captain Jean-Luc Picard mentions attending Spock’s marriage ceremony in the Next Generation episode, “Unification”. He doesn’t mention who Spock married in that episode, but Sherman and Shwartz included the ceremony in their previous novel (which is not part of this trilogy) entitled Vulcan’s Heart.

The trilogy as a whole follows two connected storylines; one from the distant past, and one in the “present”. In the past, the story follows the family of the Vulcan Karatek as they leave Vulcan and travel across the stars to find a new world to colonize. In the “present”, which is set after the Dominion War but before Star Trek: Nemesis, Spock diplomatically deals with the Watraii, a race with grievances against the Romulan Star Empire.

In this book, Karatek’s family and other Vulcan exiles are imprisoned on Remus, indentured to hard labor mining the various ores the inhabitants of Romulus need. The present thread finds the crew of the Enterprise-E fighting Commander Tomalak and the Romulans as they try to find the origins of the invading Watraii and their claims on an artifact that predates the Romulan sundering from Vulcan at the time of Surak.

Richard Poe once again does an excellent job, voicing the various characters of the story; not imitating the actors, but mimicking their speech patterns. He even voices the women well. This is an excellent series of books for those Trekkers who like reading about Star Trek history.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson and Scott A.

Review of Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

SFFaudio Science Fiction Audiobook Review

Parable Of The Talents
By Octavia E. Butler; Read by Patricia Floyd, Sisi Johnson, and Peter Jay Fernandez
11 Cassettes – 16 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Recorded Books LLC
Published: 2001
ISBN: 0788749900
Themes: / Science fiction / Dystopia / Post-apocalyptic / Religion /

A good novel is not about one thing, but many. Octavia Butler’s jarring and beautiful Parable Of The Talents affirms this assertion. In terms of plot, it is the story of a religious sect preaching change and space travel; of how that sect develops an idyllic rural settlement in an economically gutted Northern California; of how a powerful group of Christian fanatics crush that settlement; and of how the leader of that sect survives to search for the children stolen in that attack and sew the seeds of her own growing religion. But it is also the story of a mother’s search for her daughter, of a man’s betrayal of his own flesh, and of a woman broken by furtive hostility and shattered trust. It is a story of hope in the face of implacable evil, of freedom amid slavery, perseverance through poverty, and love grappling with hate. It is a story of authentic people–husbands, wives, daughters, and friends–shredded by the power that be in an America gone mad.

What makes this book so terrifying is the plausibility of that madness. America implodes not from external forces such as war and disease, but from her own economic polarization and religious zealotry. Butler’s extrapolations are not wild hyperbole, but a subtle tweak on the headlines you will read in tomorrow’s paper. The effect will leave you awake at night when the rest of your family is blissfully asleep.

The voices that narrate this minor masterpiece are mostly amazing. Patricia Floyd’s portrayal of Lauren Olamina is warm and powerful. Her husband, as read by Peter Jay Fenandez sounds wise and loving, and his interpretation of her brother reveals both his humanity and the frozen center of his heart. The weakest voice is that of Olamina’s daughter, Larkin, whose childish breathiness doesn’t span the full emotional range of her character.

The text has its imperfections, as well. There is a point at which a freakish intervention of nature provides such a perfect solution to such an impossible predicament that my belief crumbled. And after spending so much effort explaining how the America of our experience is dead forever, it seems to revive just fine at the end, without a compellingly plausible cause. As serious as these issues sound, they leave intact a story that will still be shaping your thoughts months after you finish it.

I discovered after listening that this novel is the second in a series, but it stands so well on its own, you won’t have to hear Parable Of The Sower to appreciate it. However, if that book is as sensitive and unsettling as this one, it should be well worth your time.

posted by Kurt Dietz

Review of The Children of Men by P.D. James

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

The Children Of Men
By P.D. James; Performed by John Franklyn-Robbins
9 CDs – 10.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Recorded Books
Published: 1993
ISBN: 1419323431
Themes: / Science Fiction / Infertility / Dystopia / Sociology / Politics / Terrorism / England /

“O’ merciful God and heavenly Father, who hast taught us in thy holy Word that thou dost not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men, look with pity, we beseech thee, upon the sorrows of thy servant for whom our prayers are desired. In thy wisdom thou hast seen fit to visit him with trouble, and to bring distress upon him. Remember him O Lord in mercy; sanctify thy fatherly correction to him; endue his soul with patience under his affliction, and with resignation to thy blessed will; comfort him with a sense of thy goodness; lift up thy countenance upon him, and give him peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

-English Book of Common Prayer

Set in 2021, The Children Of Men posits a future in which not a single human child has been born for more than two decades. In the year Omega, the last year for babies, there began a frantic search for the inexplicable cause of human infertility. Twenty years later they’ve all but given up. The “Omegas,” as the youngest generation are being called, are spoiled, egotistical and violent. The middle-aged who’ve appear to have lost their purpose are all either visiting the state sponsored sex-shops or raising animal proxies as their children (kitten baptisms is all the rage in London these days). The elderly teetering on the edge of a social system increasingly disinterested in them are encouraged to suicide at the slightest hint of infirmity. Leading Britain through this crisis is the long time “Warden” of England, a man named Xan Lyppiatt. Xan is an all-but-dictator who has the confidence of the people. Xan’s cousin is Theo Faron, an Oxford history professor who lives under a cloud of self-recrimination for the death of his son. Into Theo’s life comes a woman named Julian, who on behalf of herself and her underground movement wants Theo to take a message to the Warden. Sadly, the message falls upon deaf ears and Theo expects never to see Julian again. But he does when in an unprecedented revelation Theo is given conclusive proof that the impossible has happened, Julian is pregnant.

The Children Of Men is a ponderous and elegant rumination on topics rarely tackled in Science Fiction. Though P.D. James does nothing to conclusively indicate an overt idea behind the novel’s premise, we can’t help but wonder. Is this fact of the infertility and the fact of a pregnant woman not a contradiction? Are we to conclude this was a freak mammalian parthenogenesis? What else could cause such a pregnancy? James undercuts this line of argument with one plot point and with another she reinforces it. But it wasn’t just the living men who are infertile. Oh no, for what are we to make of the fact that in James’ future even the healthy sperm, frozen well before the “Omega Year,” has been rendered impotent? Clearly the lone pregnancy, as it is laid out, bears some resemblances to the biblical story of the Virgin Mary. But James downplays it. Perhaps we are to conclude both from the books title that the infertility crisis is something akin to a modern day world-wide-flood event. Should we be wondering if the society in The Children Of Men is being punished for something? If we are to take this what-if and run with it, we must then ask what the famous Scottish skeptic-philosopher David Hume demanded, and wonder if uniformity has been violated? Irregardless, the questions themselves are valuable, and the environment in which the are asked is possibly unique and certainly interesting. For some, The Children Of Men‘s ending may make them see it as a hopeful novel, but I believe the ending is more in the tradition of what you see is in it is what you bring to it. For the deliberately childless, what changes? Perhaps nothing, perhaps something.

Narrator John Franklyn-Robbins is asked to shift between first and third-person narration. He does so, with characterization all but non-existent. This is what old-school audiobook aficionados like to call a “straight” reading. His accent is the prime attraction, and casts the entire novel is a completely different direction than the 2006 film version. Listeners should persevere through the slow start as they will be well rewarded later on. Recorded Books does not showcase it’s original art on its website so the arrival of the actual audiobook is always a surprise. This one’s got their older style line art which I’ve always appreciated.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Rings, Swords, And Monsters: Exploring Fantasy Literature by Michael D.C. Drout

SFFaudio Review

Rings, Swords, And Monsters: Exploring Fantasy Literature
Lectures by Professor Michael D.C. Drout
7 CDs & Book – 7 Hours 51 Minutes [LECTURES]
Publisher: Recorded Books LLC / The Modern Scholar
Published: 2006
ISBN: 1419386956
Themes: / Non-Fiction / Lectures / Fantasy / J.R.R. Tolkien / Middle Earth / Beowulf / Children’s Fantasy / Arthurian Legend / Magic Realism / World Building /

“It used to be that fantasy was a boy’s genre and that was clear even back through the 80s and 90s, that 90% of your audience for fantasy literature, 90% of your audience for Tolkien was male. That is no longer the case. When I give lecturings [sic] at gatherings of Tolkien enthusiasts the crowd is easily 50-50 male female and often times more female than male – though I will have to say that many of the women in the crowd are wearing elf-princess costumes – I’m not really sure what that means.”
-Lecture 13: Arthurian Fantasy (on the ‘Marion Zimmer Bradley effect’)

Most of this lecture series is concerned with Tolkien. Drout explains what influenced Tolkien’s fiction, how his work impacted Fantasy and how later writers reacted to and imitated him. A full five of the 14 lectures are on Tolkien’s books proper, with another four on what influenced him, and who he influenced. The scholarship here is absolutely engrossing, hearing Drout tease out details from names, the structure and the philosophy of Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion will delight any Tolkien fan. At one point in Lecture 4 Drout explains the sources for the names of both the 13 dwarves of The Hobbit and Gandalf too. According to Drout, Gandalf was originally named “Bladderthin.” But this isn’t just scholarship here, Drout is very much a critic, a fan of the works he studies. He gives a critical examination of plots, themes and the worlds of each of the Fantasy novels he talks about. Drout dissects Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea books, calling them possibly the best Fantasy since Tolkien, on the one hand and also shows what doesn’t quite work in them. Drout, like Tolkien is an scholar of Anglo-Saxon so there is also plenty of talk about Beowulf and the impact it had on Tolkien. In fact, central to many of his arguments is the linguistic background each work of Fantasy makes use of. Tolkien works so well, argues Drout, in part, because it all hangs linguistically together. Stephen R. Donaldson’s The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, which Drout thinks immensely prominent in post-Tolkien Fantasy, doesn’t have a cohesive linguistic bedrock, and that hurts the series – which he thinks is otherwise one of the best realized “secondary worlds” created. Whatever it is Drout talks about, he backs up his critical opinion. Terry Brooks’ Shannara series, he’s read them, and has dissected the plots to show how as time has gone by and Brooks has written more, he’s come to have something of his own voice, and not just stayed the pale Tolkien imitator he started as.

The lectures on Tolkien inevitably lead to the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis. Drout gives them their due, and shows why some of it works and some of it doesn’t. Arthurian Fantasy, which predates Tolkien, seems to have run a parallel course to “secondary world” fantasy literature. After hearing Lecture 13 you’ll come away with a desire to find a copy of T.H. White’s The Once and Future King and Mary Stewart’s Merlin series. My own opinion is that Drout gives too much credit to J.K. Rowling and her Harry Potter novels, he talks about her writing for about 8 minutes. In fairness it would probably not be possible to talk about Children’s Fantasy literature without mentioning her popular series. But on the other hand there are many different kinds of Fantasy that Drout doesn’t talk about at all. I wonder why Neil Gaiman isn’t mentioned. What of Robert E. Howard? And why almost no talk about short stories? James Powell’s A Dirge For Clowntown needs some attention! The only solution is for Recorded Books to go back and ask for more from this professor. Call it Gods, Barbarians, and Clowns: Further Explorations Of Fantasy Literature or something. Until then I’ll be working on my Cimmerian-clown costume.

Posted by Jesse Willis