science fiction – Page 211

FREE MP3 NOVELETTE: The Sagan Diairy by John Scalzi

Online Audio - Free Science Fiction Audiobook

John W. Campbell Award winning author John Scalzi writes:

“I have something special for you today, and something I am extraordinarily proud of. To celebrate the release of [The Sagan Diary] I and Subterranean Press have arranged for a reading of the book — the entire novelette — here on the Whatever. But it’s not me who will be reading the book. The Sagan Diary is meant to be the thoughts of Jane Sagan, as she looks over her life after the events of The Ghost Brigades and prepares for the life which will be detailed in The Last Colony. I wanted voices closer to hers than my own. So I asked some friends if they would speak for Jane Sagan: I asked Elizabeth Bear, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ellen Kushner, Karen Meisner, Cherie Priest and Helen Smith. Happily for me (and for you) they said yes. Each of them recorded a chapter (or more, in the case of Mary Robinette Kowal), and took the words I wrote for Jane and gave them extra dimensions — made more of them than I would be able to make of them myself. If you’ve wondered what Jane Sagan sounds like, she sounds like this. I was delighted to hear her voice coming through these readings, and deeply humbled by the efforts these women provided in letting Jane speak with them and through them. Without prejudicing your own hearing, let me say that I found myself getting emotional listening to these words given voice.”

The novelette in question is set in the same universe as Scalzi’s novels Old Man’s War and The Ghost Brigades…

The Sagan Diary
By John Scalzi; Read by various readers
9 MP3 Files – Approx. 81 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Subterranean Press / Scalzi.com/whatever
Published: February 2007

Download the entire audiobook:
Preface |MP3| Chapter 1 |MP3| Chapter 2 |MP3| Chapter 3 |MP3| Chapter 4 |MP3| Chapter 5 |MP3| Chapter 6 |MP3| Chapter 7 |MP3| Chapter 8 |MP3|

And as a point of interest you can click on over to SFFaudio’s own Mary Robinette Kowal’s blog to read and hear about her reading of The Sagan Diary – in that post Mary shows how just a few stumbling words can make a relatively short audiobook much longer.

posted by Jesse Willis

Review of The Stonehenge Gate by Jack Williamson

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

The Stonehenge Gate
By Jack Williamson; Read by Harlan Ellison
7 CDs – 8.5 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2006
ISBN: 9780786146550 (Cassette), 9780786174119 (MP3-CD), 9780786167784 (CD)
Themes: / Science Fiction / Stargate / Journey / Slavery / Evolution / Aliens /

Click here for audio sample.

This is Jack Williamson’s last book, at least it’s the last book published in his lifetime. The man has had a long career, a very long career. Jack’s first story was published in the fairly new Amazing Stories in 1928. Jack has been able to adapt his fiction to the changing and maturing literature that we call Science Fiction, again and again.

One admirable quality of Jack’s work that remained consistent over the nine decades in which he wrote, was his ability to tell a good yarn. His stories can always hold your attention, and he never forgot to have a beginning, middle and an end. This may sound like a trait that all writers should have, but it is really not the case. This always kept Jack’s works above the average SF writer.

In The Stonehenge Gate, we have four poker buddies that find a gateway into other worlds. The four characters are academics who are excavating a site under the sands of the Sahara. Will is an English Professor who narrates the story. Ram is an African professor who has a strange birthmark that mimics the shape of the Stonehenge Gate that they find. Stranger still is that the birthmark seems to be hereditary.

They soon pass into many new worlds throughout this novel. The majority of the novel takes place in a world inhabited by a preindustrial society with institutionalized black slavery. The characters have to grapple with functioning in this world while supporting abolishinest causes. There’s a dark quality to this part of the journey that has more than a passing nod to Joseph Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness.

Harlan Ellison’s narration is spectacular. This is likely the only audiobook that is written by one SF Grand Master and read by another. Of course, there aren’t any SF Grandmaster’s that have also won an Audie award like Harlan has. Harlan throws himself into his acting. He’s energized and seems to be convincingly living the parts he’s portraying to a greater degree than can be said of most voice actors.

How does this book stack up against the rest of the Williamson cannon? I don’t believe this is one of Jack’s best books nor one of his lesser efforts. Placing it somewhere in the middle. But in the case of Jack, that’s a pretty damn good book.

posted by The Time Traveler of the Time Traveler Show

More Public Domain SF: The Lani People by J. F. Bone

SFFaudio Online Audio

Maureen O’Brien, of the Maria Lectrix podcast is working on yet another public domain Science Fiction novel. Maria writes:

“Yes, I’m starting another short SF novel. I can’t help myself! It’s the perfect SF form! And hey, it’s a 1962 novel that’s in the public domain!

The Lani People by J. F. Bone has an unusual protagonist — a veterinarian fresh out of school in the far future. It’s another example of a theme that seems to have been in the air in the early sixties and seventies — who counts as human? And how can we live with ourselves, if we define someone human as less?”

Science Fiction Audiobook - The Lani People by J. F. Bone

It sounds cool huh? After all the chapters are finished we’ll post a link to where you can find the complete novel. If you’d like to follow along while these readings progress subscribe by plugging this feed into your podcatcher:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/MariaLectrixAudiobookClub/

posted by Jesse Willis

Review of The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

The Forever War
By Joe Haldeman; Read by George Wilson
8 CDs – 9.5 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Recorded Books
Published: 1999
ISBN: 0788739832
Themes: / Science Fiction / Hard SF / Military SF / War / Time Travel / Aliens / Love /

“Tonight we are going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man.”

The guy who said this was a sergeant who didn’t look five years older than me. So if he’d ever killed a man in combat, silently or otherwise, he’d done it as an infant.

This is Vietnam all over again but now it’s in space. In a world where dreams come true and Science Fiction has become part of the School’s National Curriculum, then Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War becomes compulsory reading material. It’s little wonder it sits at No.1 on Gollancz list of “Science Fiction Masterworks.” And rightly so. Here is a story still fit and ready for duty thirty-three years after winning the Hugo award for “Best Science Fiction Novel.”

William Mandela is a gifted and brilliant college student and so is ideal fodder for the army’s war against an unknown alien race called the Taurans. Mandela is drafted into a harsh training program that kills more recruits than it can mould into soldiers. He is educated and trained to the highest of army standards, becoming one of Earth’s elite foot soldiers in a war against the alien Taurans. He is also a reluctant soldier caught up in this futile war, a war Earth’s economy can not do without. Add to this collapsars, light speed travel, time dilation, ever changing societies and you have Science Fiction at it’s flawless.

Read by George Wilson with the skill of a seasoned veteran. His voice never invades your senses or pulls you away from the gripping tale Haldeman has delivered, and that’s crucial for an audiobook. Wilson got his start in broadcasting as a news director with American Forces Radio and Television in Thailand. He was also instrumental in forming an improvisational comedy group that performed in New York theaters and nightclubs.

The Forever War was first serialized by the science fiction magazine, Analog. Its then editor, Ben Bova, thought the middle section was just too harsh in its descriptions of war and war life, so Haldeman drafted a more mellow alternative and it’s this edition that was used in the book’s first full publication.

There are any number of occurences Haldeman has used in The Forever War from first hand knowledge. He severed in Vietnam as a combat engineer and both Haldeman and his protagonist, Mandela returned fron war to very different attitudes than the ones they left behind. Haldeman knows war, knows it up close and bloody (3 men in his 4 man unit were blown to bits in an ordinance explosion). Haldeman can also identify the boredom that inevitably comes between the battles. In combat situations his descriptions are raw. And like Mandela, every word of The Forever War had to fight to survive under Haldeman’s brutal editorship.

Everyone… here are your instructions. You are to listen to The Forever War ASAP – and that’s an ORDER!

posted by Tony Smith from StarShipSofa

LibriVox: Warlord Of Kor by Terry Carr

SFFaudio Online Audio

Over 6 months in the making…

Science Fiction Audio Book - Warlord of Kor by Terry Carr

Thistlechick, a LibriVox Admin, spearheaded the campaign for this multi-reader audiobook. She reads the first 4 chapters herself and other LibriVox participants pick up the baton from there. Warlord Of Kor was originally published in 1963 as half of an Ace Double (# F177). It’s an interplanetary adventure in which humans probe the mysteries of the planet Hirlaj and the few remaining aliens who live there.

Warlord Of Kor
By Terry Carr; Read by various readers
10 Zipped MP3 Files – 3 Hours 26 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Completed: January 19th 2007
Backward world — or secret outpost of another galaxy? …Now they would attempt further to discover the forbidden directives of Kor. Horng remembered, somewhere far back in the fossil layers of his thoughts, a warning. They must be stopped! If he had to, he would stamp out these creatures who were called ‘humans.’

I had listed this novel on our first SFFaudio Challenge, but it doesn’t qualify because of the multiple narrators. Warlord Of Kor by Terry Carr, is still, therefore, listed on the challenge list. Thistlechick sez: “I completely mispronounced the main character’s name throughout my readings… and I suspect that some of the alien names will be pronouced differently by everyone… you are welcome to pronounce the names however you like, or you may download and listen to one of my recordings to hear how I have pronounced them… but I’m not splitting hairs on this one” If someone wants to take up a single voiced reading for our challenge, we should probably first get a good answer on how to pronounce the names: “Hirlaj, Rynason, Malhomme and Horng.” Anyone have any opinions?

posted by Jesse Willis

Review of The Fluted Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

The Fluted Girl
By Paolo Bacigalupi ; Read by Shodra Marie
1 CD – 62 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Infinivox
Published: 2006
ISBN: 1884612369
Themes: / Science Fiction / Technology / Society / Politics /

The Fluted Girl huddled in the darkness clutching Steven’s final gift in her small pale hands. Madam Balarie would be looking for her. The servants would be sniffing through the castle like feral dogs.

Everything is possible in Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Fluted Girl. All you ever wanted is here but it all has a price, and often the physical cost is just way to steep. Cell knitters, Revitia treatments and stolen body parts, halt, stop, and improve all manner of the human body. And the goal here… simply to improve one’s social standing in Bacigalupi’s decadent future world. Enter into this world of capitalistic dreams, twin girls. With a lifetime of treatments behind them they are now ready to take to the stage as human flutes in a performance that should delight everyone. That is, everyone except the twins.

From the moment Shondra Marie’s voice submerses you into this world you are dreading the final outcome. With Marie’s voice and Bacigalupi’s guidance you are unable to leave this story until the final outcome has been spoken. This is a tale that lingers…well after the hour is up and it is well advised to re-play this one, just to catch all the hints and tricks Bacigalupi uses to make this such a moving tale. Infinivox has unearthed an exceptional gem of a story here in The Fluted Girl and with their production they’ve polished it to a fine diamond. Well done. Listen to this story if only to see the opulent world that Paolo Bacigalupi’s has created but once you’re there… you’re in until the end… that I promise.

[Editor’s note: Infinivox is now offering an MP3 download for The Fluted Girl and 6 other recently released audiobooks – and they’re even DISCOUNTED!]

posted by Tony Smith from StarshipSofa