science fiction – Page 168

Cory Doctorow loves the Little Fuzzy audiobook

SFFaudio News

Cory Doctorow posted this to BoingBoing.net today:

I just finished listening to the Audio Realms audio edition of H Beam Piper’s classic science fiction novel Little Fuzzy and fell in love with the book all over again. Little Fuzzy was the first book I ever bought for myself: it was on my first trip to Bakka, the world’s oldest surviving science fiction bookstore, at the age of nine or ten. Tanya Huff — now a bestselling writer in her own right — was working that day and I asked her for some recommendations. She marched me back to the used section of the store and took down a copy of Little Fuzzy, promising that I’d love it.

I did.

Little Fuzzy is Piper’s masterpiece, a tight, neat science fiction story that epitomizes the golden age of sf. It concerns a prospector on a distant world who discovers a potentially sentient aboriginal race (the “Fuzzies), and his ensuing fight — fists, lawyers and even guns — to get them recognized as sentient beings. Along the way, Piper explores the nature of colonial economies, the deepest questions of consciousness and intelligence, paternalism and self-determination, and the nature of the rule of law. All in a package that a nine-year-old will find riveting and delightful.

The Audio Realms 5-CD unabridged recording just won Publishers Weekly’s annual Fantasy Audiobook of the Year award (why “fantasy” I’m not sure), and it’s easy to see why. Brian Holsopple’s reading brings the characters — warm, human, flawed and passionate — to life. The editing is not exactly perfect (there’s a couple of pickup lines that Holsopple recorded that are left in, which is a little distracting), but the story is every bit as wonderful as I remember it, and the reading is a great match.

Little Fuzzy is in the public domain, so there’s both a free ebook and a free recording available of the text. And for the record, I got Tanya Huff’s job at Bakka when she retired to write full time.

[via BoingBoing.net]

Posted by Jesse Willis

CBC Radio will broadcast and podcast Robert J. Sawyer’s Rollback

SFFaudio News

Robert J. Sawyer has a contract in hand from CBC Radio One’s Between The Covers program. BTC will broadcasting Robert J. Sawyer’s novel ROLLBACK! I asked Heather Brown, a producer at Between The Covers for more details on the distribution method and she had this to say:

“Yes, we will be podcasting as well as broadcasting Robert J. Sawyer’s novel ROLLBACK. At the moment there is no firm date for the broadcast/podcast although it won’t be presented until much later this year and perhaps not til early next year. The book will be abridged somewhat but Mr. Sawyer will be a full participant in those choices.”

That’s very cool! I’ve long enjoyed Between The Covers, but it was their broadcast of Connie Willis’ Bellwether that cemented my love of this long running CBC Radio show. We’ll keep you updated on the broadcast and podcasting dates for this.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Stalker: a new sci-fi audio drama

SFFaudio Online Audio

While enjoying the latest episode of New World Army, I was excited to hear an announcement for a new audio drama that the same team is producing. The Stalker is “is the strange and alarming story of two special agents that apprehend a stalker of an important political official, and how the interrogation uncovers his true identity, but cannot stop the violence that surrounds him.”

It is only 15 minutes long and I listened to it last night. Intriguing. Apocalyptic. X-Files-ish. A solid beginning for a series.

You can go to the site and listen.

Or download the |MP3|.

Posted by Julie D.

Review of Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer

SFFaudio Review

Calculating God
By Robert J. Sawyer; Read by Jonathan Davis
Audible Download – 12 hours – [Unabridged]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: 2008
ISBN: None
Themes: / Science Fiction / Aliens / Paleontology / Religion / Philosophy / Space Travel /

One of the things I enjoy most about reviewing audiobooks is that I get to revisit novels that I’ve read and loved in the past. When these beloved novels are given great readers (not always the case), I can’t wait to get at them. Calculating God is one of those novels, and Jonathan Davis is an excellent narrator, so this audiobook leapt to the top of my TBR list the moment I realized it existed.

Jonathan Davis burst onto the science fiction scene with his stellar narration of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash (SFFaudio review here). Since then, in the science fiction genre, he’s been almost exclusively reading Random House’s Star Wars abridgments. He reads them well, but I was thrilled to see him step away from that and narrate another of science fiction’s great novels. He is one of our very best narrators and this is a fine performance. I was rapt the entire time, and even near tears at one moment in the book.

When I read this novel for the first time, I was a bit taken aback. I am a Catholic and I’ve been reading science fiction all of my life. I have never had a problem reconciling science and religion and have been both perplexed and dismayed that Christianity is portrayed so often as being incompatible with science. It’s certainly true that for many Christian churches this conflict is real, but those churches are not Catholic churches, despite the most famous illustration of the conflict being the Catholic treatment of Galileo. I tell everyone who cares that Galileo was an aberration in the history of the Church (not the norm), but still, it was a colossal (though admitted) mistake. But for myself, science and religion are NOT in conflict. I’ve included a link at the bottom of this review to an interview of Brother Guy Consolmagno, a Vatican astronomer that aired on CBC Radio as an illustration of a Catholic’s relationship with science. Robert J. Sawyer is mentioned in the interview as well.

Back to the novel at hand: The reason I was taken aback when I first read this book was that it’s the first novel I’ve ever read in which the aliens believe in God. That in itself makes this book interesting enough to pick up. Imagine – an alien lands on your front doorstep and starts to question your doubts about the existence of God. Most science fiction portrays religion as something that is grown through or evolved past. By the time an alien species is mature enough for stellar travel, surely they have jettisoned religion? There’s no place for such a thing in a rational, scientific universe. Right?

Well, not according to this novel. Sawyer presents, in a very entertaining and interesting way, arguments for and against God’s existence. The main character (Tom Jericho) is a paleontologist who is dying of cancer. An alien (named Hollus) lands near the Royal Ontario Museum and strolls right in, asking to see the fossils. And off the novel goes. Jericho and Hollus spend much of the novel together looking at fossils and discussing various topics that range from the wide, including mass extinctions and evolution, to the intimately personal, like the approaching death of Jericho. I can think of no better way to present these topics than this lively novel, and I’ll recommend it to anyone interested in thinking about these things, no matter which side of the fence they are on.

Sawyer uses science fiction to create circumstances that make us readers think about important ideas in different ways and from different perspectives. That’s exactly the kind of science fiction I love to read, and why I’ll keep coming back to Robert J. Sawyer for more. I’m very happy to have had a chance to revisit this novel, and even happier to be able to award it our SFFaudio Essential designation.

Audible.com has published a few more of Robert J. Sawyer’s novels: The Neanderthal Trilogy is there (Hominids, Humans, and Hybrids). They also have his Nebula winning novel The Terminal Experiment, published by Recorded Books. We reviewed it back in 2003.

Robert J. Sawyer’s Calculating God page: LINK

A link to a CBC interview of Brother Guy Consolmagno, Vatican Astronomer: LINK

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Orson Scott Card Selects #2 – The Big Time by Fritz Leiber

SFFaudio Online Audio

The second Orson Scott Card Selects, for June 2008, is up and read for listening. This is that new feature audio column on Audible.com in which Orson Scott Card selects a “classic sci-fi and fantasy” audibook that he thinks you’ll really dig. His second selection is the Audible Frontiers title The Big Time by Fritz Leiber!

Check the site out HERE. Or have a listen |MP3| to Card talk about why he thinks The Big Time is a great listen!

Posted by Jesse Willis

Decoder Ring Theatre – SUMMER SHOWCASE Begins!

SFFaudio Online Audio

Here it is! And don’t forget… episodes 1 |MP3| and 2 |MP3|are still available!

Decoder Ring Theatre SUMMER SHOWCASE

Deck Gibson: Far Reach Commander – Episode 3 “Deck Gibson and the Room With No View”
By Matt Wallace; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – 26 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: Decoder Ring Theatre
Podcast: May 2008
Torn from the pages of last summer’s Showcase, Decoder Ring Theatre is proud to present the return of Matt Wallace’s Deck Gibson: Far Reach Commander in a new series of fantastic intergalactic adventures! This week: Deck is held prisoner after a Quasar Corps ambush and arrested as a traitor against Earth! Will his training as a Far Reach Commander save him, or will the last sight our hero ever sees be… The Room With No View!

Subscribe to the show via the podcast feed:

http://decoderring.libsyn.com/rss

Posted by Jesse Willis