Canadia: 2056 unofficial podcast is caught up

SFFaudio Online Audio

Canadia: 2056 Unofficial PodcastThe Canadia: 2056 unofficial podcast feed has caught up to the regular broadcast! From here on out it will shadow the weekly broadcasts on CBC Radio One. In a curious foreshadowing, THIS NEW STORY illustrates just how important building the HMCSS Canadia actually would be. Episode 21 of Canadia: 2056 airs on all CBC Radio One stations this week.

Subscribe to the unofficial podcast via this feed:

http://thezombieastronaut.com/podcasts-only/rss2.aspx

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of The Hemingway Hoax by Joe Haldeman

SFFaudio Review

The Hemingway Hoax by Joe HaldemanThe Hemingway Hoax
By Joe Haldeman; Read by Eric Michael Summerer
Audible Download – 4 Hours 31 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: April 2008
Themes: / Science Fiction / Earnest Hemingway / Time Travel / Alternate Universe / Parallel Worlds /
The hoax proposed to John Baird by a two-bit con man in a seedy Key West bar was shady but potentially profitable. With little left to lose, the struggling, middle-aged Hemingway scholar agreed to forge a manuscript and pass it off as Papa’s lost masterpiece. But Baird never realized his actions would shatter the history of his own Earth – and others. And now the unsuspecting academic is trapped out of time – propelled through a series of grim parallel worlds and pursued by an interdimensional hitman with a literary license to kill.

This here is our first review of an Audible Frontiers title, Audible Frontiers is a new imprint of Audible.com, bringing hard to find and never before recorded SF audiobooks to their website and iTunes exclusively. The Hemingway Hoax is a strong beginning too, this is a Hugo and Nebula Award winning novella/short novel that interweaves historical fact and SF elements into an exotic elixir not unlike absinthe. In very real literary history, 1921 Paris to be precise, Earnest Hemingway’s wife lost a bag containing all the manuscripts and carbon copies for Hemingway’s first novel and several short stories. Seventy-five years later, in a 1996 Key West storyland, a Hemingway scholar named John Baird meets a conman named Castle who wants Baird to forge copies of Hemingway’s “lost” manuscripts. With his younger wife all for it, and with some major interest in the logistics of the project himself, Baird sets out to commit the fraud only to find himself face to face with an ethereal version of Hemingway himself! This being, who turns out to be from outside of time – or wherever, tells Baird that he ‘must not perpetrate the hoax, upon pain of death.’ But even the threat of death, and death itself won’t stop Baird, as the Hemingway Hoax is on!

I can see why this tale won a Hugo, this has all the Haldeman touches, intelligent and literate fiction, easy humor and good storytelling. Time travel and parallel worlds are about the oldest tropes of SF, but Haldeman staked out some ground in both domains, and they pay-off. I’ve read a few Hemingway stories, and the pastiche that appears here and there in the novella sound just like Hemingway to me. This, coupled with the candid BONUS AUDIO of Joe Haldeman talking about the inspiration for the novel that precedes the audiobook proper makes The Hemingway Hoax definitely worth checking out. Baird is a stand-in for Haldeman, both are professors of literature at New England universities, both served in Vietnam, both are intrigued by Hemingway and his lost papers. This makes for the most Philip K. Dickian Haldeman tale I’ve ever read. In terms of the production itself, this is a straight reading, with some light music added over the opening sentences and the final paragraphs. Other than a couple of very minor pronunciation errors Eric Michael Summerer (a new voice in audiobooks) narrated beautifully. He voiced five major characters, three male and two female, and they all sounded naturalistic and different. Audible Frontiers should use Eric Michael Summerer again.

Update (here are the illustrations from the publication is Asimov’s):
Asimov's 1990-04 - Cover illustration by Wayne Barlowe
Asimov's 1990-04 - interior illustration by Terry Lee
Asimov's 1990-04 - interior illustration by Terry Lee
Asimov's 1990-04 - interior illustration by Terry Lee

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Greener Than You Think by Ward Moore

SFFaudio Online Audio

Springtime - May 24th 2008 (Port Moody, BC)Springtime! And thus the bi-weekly ritual (or so) of trimming the grass. Personally, I think it an old-fashioned, uninteresting, and ultimately pointless ritual. But, if you’ve a lawn, or in my case, if your mother does, you’ve got a job to do. It’s a noisy job too, but, with a pair of hard-shelled earmuffs, some earbuds, and an audiobook it needn’t be an altogether unpleasant task. Thankfully, LibriVox narrator Lee Elliot has something very appropriate to pipe through those earbuds. A novel about unstoppable grass (like I said, very appropriate):

“A triple-genre combo of science fiction, horror, and satire, Greener Than You Think is a forgotten classic that resonates beautifully with modern times. This is a faithful reading of a 1947 first edition text.”

I’ll be listening while mowing today.

LibriVox Science Fiction Audiobook - Greener Than You Think by Ward MooreGreener Than You Think
By Ward Moore; Read by Lee Elliot
45 Zipped MP3 Files or podcast – Approx. 14 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 22, 2008
Do remember reading a panic-mongering news story a while back about genetically engineered “Frankengrass” “escaping” from the golf course where it had been planted? That news story was foreshadowed decades previously in the form of prophetic fiction wherein a pushy salesman, a cash-strapped scientist, and a clump of crabgrass accidentally merge forces with apocalyptic consequences.

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/greener-than-you-think-by-ward-moore.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBC7 re-airing: Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov

SFFaudio Online Audio

BBC Radio 7 - BBC7BBC 7 is re-aring their specially commissioned readings of Arthur C. Clarke stories (and one Isaac Asimov one) in their 7th Dimension time-slot next week. Check these out when they air, or tune in via the “listen again” service after they air…

Before Eden
By Arthur C. Clarke; Read by Tim Pigott-Smith
Radio Broadcast – [UNABRIDGED?]
Broadcaster: BBC7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Monday at 6pm and midnight (UK time)
This space adventure set on Venus highlights the weight of responsibility which rests on explorers entering uncharted territories.

BBC 7 Unabridged reading Summertime On Icarus by Arthur C. ClarkeSummertime On Icarus
By Arthur C. Clarke; Read by Tim Pigott-Smith
Radio Broadcast – [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Tuesday at 6pm and midnight (UK time)
When an astronaut wakes up after an accident he finds himself on the asteroid, Icarus, which orbits close to the sun. Dawn is only moments away and it is about to get very hot. There is nowhere to hide and his communication is down – will he escape before the first rays of the sun find him?

BBC Radio 7 - All The Time In The World by Arthur C. ClarkeAll The Time In The World
By Arthur C. Clarke; Read by Nicholas Boulton
Radio Broadcast – [UNABRIDGED?]
Broadcaster: BBC7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Wednesday at 6pm and midnight (UK time)
“A clever tale about some alien art thieves who arrive to plunder Earth.”



BBC Radio 7 - The Parasite by Arthur C. ClarkeThe Parasite
By Arthur C. Clarke; Read by Nicholas Boulton
Radio Broadcast – [UNABRIDGED?]
Broadcaster: BBC7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Thursday at 6pm and midnight (UK time)
“A chilling tale about a man who starts having dreams of a monstrous creature from the future.”

And finally, Friday sees the re-broadcast of Isaac Asimov’s classic short story…

The Last Question by Isaac AsimovThe Last Question
By Isaac Asimov; Read by Henry Goodman
Radio Broadcast – Approx 25 minutes – [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC 7 / 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Friday at 6pm and midnight (UK time)
Asimov’s classic “man versus machine” short story. In the not too distant future, technology has advanced to the point where global affairs are managed by a huge computer called Multivac which supposedly can provide the answers to all questions… such as… “Can entropy be reversed?”

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBC 7: The Day Of The Triffids by John Wyndham

SFFaudio Online Audio

Hey! Just started yesterday (Monday, May 19th 2008), on BBC Radio 7, The 7th Dimension has begun a 17-part UNABRIDGED reading of John Wyndham’s Science Fiction novel, The Day Of The Triffids. This is one of Wyndham’s best “cozy catastrophes” (and probably his most famous one) alongside The Kraken Wakes and The Midwich Cuckoos (aka Village Of The Damned).

BBC Radio 7 - BBC7The Day Of The Triffids
By John Wyndham; Read by Roger May
17 Half-hour RADIO BROADCASTS – Approx. 8 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/drama/7thdimension.shtml
Broadcaster: BBC7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Weekdays from May 19th to June 10th at 6:30pm (18:30) and 12:30am (00:30am) UK TIME
The consequences when the vast majority of humanity is suddenly rendered blind, in a world that is then quickly overrun with poisonous ambulatory plants (the titular Triffids).
Produced in Belfast by Susan Carson

And of course, everyone outside the UK can catch each installment using the BBC7 “Listen Again” service for up to 6 days following the broadcasts.

[Thanks Rich!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Decoder Ring Theatre SUMMER SHOWCASE

SFFaudio News

You’ve been hoping for it, dreaming of it, and now you’re getting it…

Decoder Ring Theatre SUMMER SHOWCASE

Yup it’s a summer of Deck Gibson: Far Reach Commander, episodes 3-8! Brush up on your DG with Episodes 1 |MP3| and 2 |MP3|, prior to the release of episode 3 on May 30th 2008. Subscribe to the show via the podcast feed:

http://decoderring.libsyn.com/rss

Posted by Jesse Willis