Infinivox, the publisher of the GREAT SCIENCE FICTION STORIES audiobooks, has a new blog! They’re also talking about doing a podcast. This is a new RSS feed that I’ll definitely be refreshing daily. Check it out HERE.
[vai SFSignal.com]
Posted by Jesse Willis
“Anda’s Game”
By Cory Doctorow
Source: Craphound.com
Length: Approx. 1 hr
Reader: Alice Taylor
The story: “Anda’s Game” uses the setting of an online fantasy game to explore how world-spanning issues of responsibility are present even in the games people play. Like much of Doctorow’s science fiction that I’ve read, this story takes place in a near-future or slightly alternate present. Anda, a high school girl, spends most of her time playing a World of Warcraft-like game. She and Lucy, a friend Anda meets through an online gaming group called the Fahrenheits, begin taking on in-game quests of a very unusual nature. As Anda begins to realize these quests are morally questionable, she is caught up in a situation she knows is wrong, but feels powerless to alter.
Doctorow fits a number of societal issues into his fiction and this story is no exception. His knowledge and care for his characters allow his handling of childhood obesity and game addiction to avoid the crassness of TV news shock stories. The story touches on rarely-discussed questions about sweatshop labor, world economy, and virtual economies. The story does not try to provide the answer to all these thorny issues, but instead suggests that relying on others through honest communication is the starting point for solving difficult problems, be they personal or international.
Rating: 7/10
The reader: Alice Taylor has a mumbly British accent, which makes it sometimes difficult to understand, but fits the main character perfectly. While individual words are sometimes unintelligible, whether through pronunciation or slang usage, the meaning is always clear. When a character in the story types, Taylor types along on her keyboard, making an aural equivalent to what authors sometimes do by changing typeface or indentation to indicate a written conversation over computer. Each of the three episodes is introduced and ended by Doctorow’s own comments on the story and his personal life.
Posted by Seth
If you don’t already have an Audible.com account, here’s a great reason to sign up! Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s The Disappeared, the first novel in her “Retrieval Artist” series, will be temporarily 100% FREE starting Thursday July 10th 2008. All you need to get it is an active Audible account! Sez Audible:
SPECIAL OFFER: We think you’ll love Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Retrieval Artist series. And to prove it, we’re giving away The Disappeared free! Please hurry. This book will return to full price on July 24, 2008.
The Disappeared – (Retrieval Artist – book 1)
By Kristine Kathryn Rusch; Read by Jay Snyder
Audible Download – 9 hours 50 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: June 13th 2008 [FREE July 10th to July 24, 2008]
Retrieval artists help the lost find their way back home, whether they like it or not. Specialized private detectives, they investigate the most unusual crimes in the galaxy. But Miles Flint isn’t a Retrieval artist. He’s just a cop, trying to do his job. In a stolen space yacht, three people have been found eviscerated – the grisly signature of an alien vengeance killing. Moments later, the border patrol halts another ship launched out of the Moon’s orbit. Its passengers are two human children, kidnapped by the most ruthless aliens in the universe. Both ships are linked to a woman on the run: a Disappeared relocated to the inhospitable landscape of Mars. A reluctant outlaw with a bounty on her head and a detective on her case, she’s about to teach all of them a lesson: it’s dangerous to gamble with your life in a universe that rigs the game.
While you’re in the Audible catalogue you should also consider getting the Hugo Award nominated novella that gave this series its name…
The Retrieval Artist, was put out by Deuce Audio (owned by my buddy Scott) and is narrated by the incomparable Stefan Rudnicki. This tale is the true origin of the Retrieval Artist brand. It’s a two hour treat for only $3.49! GET THAT HERE
The Retrieval Artist
By Kristine Kathryn Rusch; Read by Stefan Rudnicki
Audible Download – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Deuce Audio / Audible.com
Published: 2007
Retrieval Artists find people who have disappeared. But people disappear for a reason: they don’t want to be found. When Anetka Sobol shows up at Miles Flint’s office on the Moon, he immediately knows that this case is going to be complicated.
And, last but not least, I’ve begun a KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH author page, which attempts to round up all the KKR audio that’s out there.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Dr. James J. Campanella, he of Uvula Audio and the recently completed The Man Of Bronze audiobook fame, will be beginning a new novel of interest to fans of pulp space opera and E.E. “Doc” Smith. Spacehounds of IPC – A Tale Of The Inter-Planetary Corporation begins podcast on Friday, July 11th 2008. Jim sez of it:
“I’ve started this new story with a short introduction and the first chapter. Since this is the ‘adult’ podcast, there will be no cutesy sound-effects– although lord knows it is hard to read, or listen, straight to something like that from 1931 without a bit of an eye roll.”
Personally I’m always happy when the SFX are left out of an unabridged reading – and though Smith’s style hasn’t really held up what he lacks in modernity he makes up for in rarin’ enthusiasm and accelerating ideas. I’ll be listening!
Spacehounds of IPC – A Tale Of The Inter-Planetary Corporation
By E.E. “Doc” Smith; Read by James J. Campanella
Podcast – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Uvula Audio
Podcast: July 2008 – ????
The novel concerns a spaceliner that is wrecked on a satellite of Jupiter where alien races are encountered.
Subscribe to the podcast via this feed:
http://www.uvulaaudio.com/Books/Books.xml
Posted by Jesse Willis
Back in February 2007 Robert A. Graff, of Rochester, NY, took up the first SFFaudio Challenge. He read 5 chapters of a novel and then — nothing — but, that isn’t quite the end of this story. Some half-dozen or so LibriVoxiteers have lent their voices, and they’ve now finished off A Strange Manuscript Found In A Copper Cylinder by James De Mille!
The novel was just catalogued yesterday – that makes it a mere 120 years since it was originally serialized in Harper’s Weekly in 1888. De Mille, the son of a United Empire Loyalist (for you American’s that’s what Benjamin Franklin called “Royalists”), was variously a professor of classics, rhetoric and history. He also holds the distinction of being Canada’s first Science Fiction author.
Strange Manuscript is considered a Swiftian satire, the setting is that of an Antarctic “lost world” inhabited by pre-historic creatures and an insidious death cult. It has been compared variously to Edgar Allan Poe’s Narrative of Gordon Pym, H. Rider Haggard’s She, King Solomon’s Mines or even to Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World. The title and locale were likely inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s Ms. Found in a Bottle.
The main narrative follows the adventures of Adam More (keep that last name in mind), a British sailor shipwrecked on the homeward voyage from Tasmania. After More passes through a subterranean tunnel of volcanic origin, he finds himself in a lost world of prehistoric animals, plants and people, all sustained by a natural volcanic heat despite the long Antarctic night (which may remind you of Marvel comic’s Ka-Zar and his “Savage Land”). The secondary plot about the persons who found the manuscript written by More, forms a frame for the main narrative. In his strange volcanic world, More finds a highly developed human society comparable to Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, Erewhon by Samuel Butler and Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The copper cylinder’s manuscript describes a society that has reversed the values of Victorian life: wealth is scorned and poverty is revered, death and darkness are preferred to life and light. Rather than accumulating wealth, the natives seek to divest themselves of it as quickly as possible.
A Strange Manuscript Found In A Copper Cylinder
By James De Mille; Read by various
31 zipped MP3s or Podcast – 9 Hours 16 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 2008
Adam More, a British sailor is shipwrecked in Antarctica. There he stumbles upon a tropical lost world of prehistoric animals, plants, and a cult of death-worshipping primitives. He also finds a highly developed human society which has inverted the values of Victorian society. Wealth is scorned and poverty revered; death and darkness are preferable to life and light. Rather than accumulating wealth, the natives seek to divest themselves of it as quickly as possible. At the beginning of each year, the government imposes wealth (the burden of “reverse taxation”) upon its unfortunate subjects as a form of punishment. A secondary plot about the four yachtsmen who find the manuscript forms a frame for the central narrative.
Get this audiobook via the podcast feed:
Posted by Jesse Willis
One of the most compelling reasons to listen to podcasts is the ability to enjoy programs where and when you want them. I’ve been listening to The Zombie Astronaut‘s unofficial podcast feed for Canadia: 2056. This is a radio drama written by comedy genius Matt Watts. The show just wrapped up its second season on CBC Radio One. The podcast feed for the show has made Canadia 2056 completely accessible on my schedule. And like any podcast the show is now completely pause-able, rewindable, and re-listenable. I had to do all three this morning!
I was listening to episode 19 of the show and I was laughing so hard I had to pause it. About three minutes later, after the convulsions had stopped, I rewound and listened to what I’d missed. Here’s the scene that got me…
But first some background… the ships’ surgeon, Doc Gaffney, attends to a suicidal crew member named Skip Connors (she’s suicidal because she’s become a mere brain in a jar), just prior to the scene’s opening she’d been left alone in the Captain’s quarters with a obedient robot and a jealous computer |MP3|.
Like I said, I had to pause it, rewind, and listen again. Because it was a podcast, I could.
My enjoyment of all 24 episodes of Canadia: 2056 would be almost impossible without the podcast feed. And I’m not alone in this. I’ve read threads all over the net about the show, and the people who’ve heard the show. The people who heard it on the radio keep saying how much they like Canadia: 2056. But, I’ve also read about how these same folks ‘missed an episode’ here or there. People wanted to catch it when it was on, but just couldn’t. They can’t re-arrange their lives to listen to the radio, that’s really not how radio works. Even if radio is not appointment listening, Canadia 2056‘s podcast is well worth listening to. Give yourself a treat, go subscribe to the unofficial podcast of Canadia 2056. It’s so kruckin’ awesome!
Subscribe via this feed:
http://thezombieastronaut.com/podcasts-only/rss2.aspx
Posted by Jesse Willis