Another NEW RELEASE

SFFaudio New Releases

Here’s one new Audible exclusive that’s really worth signing up for – we’ve been looking forward to hearing it since it was first announced back in August…

Old Man's War by John ScalziOld Man’s War
By John Scalzi; Read by William Dufris
Audible Download – Approx 10 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Rennaissance / Audible.com
Published: October 2007

John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First, he visited his wife’s grave. Then he joined the army. The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce – and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So, we fight, to defend Earth and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding. Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity’s resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don’t want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You’ll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You’ll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you’ll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets. John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea of what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine. And what he will become is far stranger.

BBC World Service RADIO DRAMA: Aliens From Cyberspace

SFFaudio OnlineAudio

BBC WorldserviceBBC World Service’s “World Drama” slot currently has an online listenable radio drama specially commissioned for BBC World Service. Here is the description:

“A comedy inspired by incredible – and totally untrue – events. Set in the glamorous world of Hollywood, it deals with the possibilities that the internet now offers in helping people find true love. But have you ever wondered who you were chatting to? Or which planet they might be from.”

Aliens From Cyberspace
By Gary Ogin; Performed by a FULL CAST
1 REALAUDIO File – Approx. 60 minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
BROADCASTER: BBC World Service
BROADCAST: October 2007

Cast: Alun Armstrong, Lorelei King and Joanna Riding

Director: Marion Nancarrow

Click HERE to access the RealAudio or WindowsMedia file.

Meta SFFaudioAlso, on Sunday October 14th SFFaudio.com will be switching over to WordPress. A technical change that should go off without a hitch and provide more functionality for readers. But, our RSS only subscribers should take note, our new RSS feed will be:

http://www.sffaudio.com/?feed=rss2

ARTC Podcast performs Heinlein’s Solution Unsatisfactory

SFFaudio Online Audio

ARTC PodcastThe Atlanta Radio Theater Company has just completed podcasting all three parts of their production of Robert A. Heinlein’s Solution Unsatisfactory. Heinlein’s original short story was adapted by Daniel Taylor and the Atlanta Radio Theater Company. This is an archive recording of their 2001 DragonCon performance (we reviewed the studio recorded CD version back in 2004, click HERE to read it).

Solution Unsatisfactory by Robert A. Heinlein“Solution Unsatisfactory”
Adapted by Daniel Taylor from the short story by Robert A. Heinlein; Full Cast Production
3 MP3 Files – Approx 70 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: Atlanta Radio Theater Company
Podcast: October 2007
“Solution Unsatisfactory describes an American supersecret project to develop an atomic superweapon that proves vital to the Allied triumph of World War II. ‘So what,’ you say. ‘That’s old news.’ And you’d be right, the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 were the final nails in the coffin of WWII. But what’s weird is, Solution Unsatisfactory was published in 1940, a full half decade before the atom bomb was even known to exists by the general public. What’s more, Heinlein’s story goes on to foresee the coming cold war with the Soviet Union and the concomitant race to arm with atomic weapons. Heinlein’s story doesn’t actually foretell the same events that happened, but the similarities are pretty eerie.”

Download the three parts |Part 1 MP3|Part 2 MP3|Part 3 MP3| or subscribe to the feed:

http://artc.libsyn.com/rss

Meta SFFaudioAlso, on Sunday October 14th SFFaudio.com will be switching over to WordPress. A technical change that should go off without a hitch and provide more functionality for readers. But, our RSS only subscribers should take note, our new RSS feed will be:

http://www.sffaudio.com/?feed=rss2

Review of Quantico by Greg Bear

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

SF Audiobook - Quantico by Greg BearQuantico
By Greg Bear; Read by Jeff Woodman
11 CDs – 13 Hours 25 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9780792748441
Themes: / Science Fiction / Terrorism / Saudi Arabia / Iraq/
“Well, its kinda the sum of your worst possible fears that you don’t know.”

-Greg Bear: June 21st 2007 on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show
responding to a request for a brief synopsis of Quantico.

The United States is under attack from all quarters, including from within. In the near future where America is in an arms race with high tech terrorists, sanity vies with ancient religious hatreds. Only three new FBI agents will be able to battle a plague as “10/4” becomes the next “9/11.” From Washington to Iraq confusion is afoot and only a covert mission to a forbidden city can preserve an already grim future.

This is Greg Bear doing Tom Clancy. The question is why? Is Bear pulling a Dean Koontz, (Koontz dropped SF for suspense in 1972)? Is he trying to shift his career out of a poorly paying Science Fiction genre into a more mainstream, higher paying, airport terminal fiction? If Quantico is anything to go by, one of my favorite authors has indeed thrown in the towel on idea SF. What he’s written here is a technothriller, set in a near future. Is this Hugo and Nebula award winning author, known for his Byzantine plotting and earth shattering ideas, still writing interesting fiction? Yes, but the SF elements are so minimized, playing such a marginal role in the story that I was ready to give up on it. I wanted Bear’s original Science Fiction ideas coming from his oddly motivated characters. What I got was better than Tom Clancy, but I don’t like Clancy. It was refreshing to see some post-9/11 terrorism fiction that includes domestic born terrorists, but I am not able to recommend it to SF fans.

Narrator Jeff Woodman was a capable reader, he disappeared into the text, voicing a clear delineation between characters from similar backgrounds while giving a individual and believable American and Arabic accents. Production values were, as expected, BBC quality.

Baen Audiobooks FREE

Online Audio

Baen BooksBaen Books has FREE audiobooks! I knew that several of Baen’s hardcover first editions over the last few years had been coming with BONUS CD-ROMS full of eBooks. And I thought that was pretty cool, and clever too, but it was a big surprise to me to learn that they have often also included MP3 audiobook readings (complete novels and short stories). Even cooler, one thoughtful collector has archived the CDs on his/her website! And here are links to each…

Novels:

Hell's Faire by John RingoHell’s Faire
By John Ringo; Read by ????
21 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2003
With the defenses of the Southern Appalachians sundered, the only thing standing between the ravening Posleen hordes and the soft interior of the Cumberland Plateau are the veterans of the 555th Mobile Infantry. Dropped into Rabun Pass, with a couple of million Posleen behind them and fourteen million to the front, the only question is which will run out first: power, bullets or bodies. But they have a hole card: far to the north the shattered SheVa Nine, nicknamed “Bun-Bun,” is undergoing a facelift. Rising from its smoking ashes is a new weapon of war, armed with the most advanced weaponry Terra has ever produced, capable of facing both the Posleen hordes and their redoubtable space-cruisers. Capable of dealing out Hell as only SheVa Nine can. But when push comes to vaporization, if Mike O’Neal and the other members of the 555th are going to survive, it will come down to how much Posleen butt Bun-Bun can kick. Prepare to eat antimatter, Posleen-boy.

The Far Side Of The Stars by David DrakeThe Far Side Of The Stars
By David Drake; Read by ????
35 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2003
While the Republic of Cinnabar is at peace with the Alliance, warriors like Lt. Daniel Leary and Signals Officer Adele Mundy must find other work—like escorting a pair of wealthy nobles on an expedition to the back of beyond! The Princess Cecile, the corvette in which they carved their reputations in letters of fire, has been sold as a private yacht, but she still has her guns, her missiles, and her veteran crew. Daniel and Adele will need all of those things as they face winged dragons, an Alliance auxiliary cruiser, jealous lovers, and a mysterious oracle which really does foresee the future. That won’t be enough, though, when they penetrate a secret Alliance base and find a hostile fleet ready for a war that will sweep Cinnabar out of a strategically crucial arm of the galaxy. Preventing that will involve skill, courage, and more luck than a sane man could even pray for; and it will require a space battle on a scale that a tiny corvette like the Princess Cecile has no business being involved in. But she’ll be in the middle of it anyway, because Daniel, Adele, and their Cinnabar crew would never turn their backs on a fight!

There Will Be Dragons by John RingoThere Will Be Dragons
By John Ringo; Read by ????
45 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2003
n the future there is no want, no war, no disease nor ill-timed death. The world is a paradise-and then, in a moment, it ends. The council that controls the Net falls out and goes to war. Everywhere people who have never known a moment of want or pain are left wondering how to survive. But scattered across the face of the earth are communities which have returned to the natural life of soil and small farm. In the village of Raven’s Mill, Edmund Talbot, master smith and unassuming historian, finds that all the problems of the world are falling in his lap. Refugees are flooding in, bandits are roaming the woods, and his former lover and his only daughter struggle through the Fallen landscape. Enemies, new and old, gather like jackals around a wounded lion. But what the jackals do not know is that while old he may be, this lion is far from death. And hidden in the past is a mystery that has waited until this time to be revealed.

Short Stories:

A Ship Named Francis by John Ringo And Victor MitchellA Ship Named Francis
By John Ringo and Victor Mitchell; Read by ????
1 |MP3| – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2003
Sean Tyler, a corpsman in the Royal Manticoran Navy, thought that a stint as a loaner in the explosively-growing Grayson Navy would boost his career. So, when he heard there was a slot vacant on board the cruiser Francis Mueller, he volunteered. Unfortunately for Corpsman Tyler, no one told him that almost everybody on board the Francis — from the clueless captain to the psychotic XO and the panicky chaplain — had been sent there because no one else in the entire Grayson Navy wants them.

Let’s Go to Prague
By John Ringo; Read by ????
1 |MP3| – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Baen
Published:
A pair of Manticoran Marines discover that a holiday can be even more fun if it involves spoiling StateSec’s day.

Beam Me Up podcasts a Harry Harrison short story The Repairman

Online Audio

Podcast - Beam Me UpBeam Me Up, has an very fun reading of a vintage Harry Harrison story called The Repairman. in the latest show (Episode 69). The short first appeared in Galaxy magazine’s February 1958 issue. The host of the Beam Me Up podcast/radio show, Paul Cole, describes the story as a “If anything a precursor to [Harrison’s] Stainless Steel Rat character.” It also features an early description of the concept of hyperspace and hyperspace beacons. The same idea and term were used on Babylon 5 – the idea being, without beacons, ships would drift endlessly through featureless hyperspace, unable to discern their location relative to real space. I very much enjoyed this tale too, it’s sharp, funny and well read.

The Repairman by Harry HarrisonThe Repairman
By Harry Harrison; Read by Ron Huber
1 |MP3| – Approx. 27 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Beam Me Up
Podcast: September 2007
The Mark III Hyperspace Beacon was the earliest type of beacon ever built–by Earth, no less. It was located on one of the Proxima Centauri planets, and it wasn’t working. This was one of those jobs when being an interstellar trouble-shooter wouldn’t have been so bad–if he could have shot the trouble!

Subscribe to the podcast via this feed:

http://beameup.podomatic.com/rss2.xml