science fiction – Page 212

SFFaudio’s Challenge: The Cosmic Computer by H. Beam Piper

SFFaudio Online Audio

I am extremely pleased to announce that…

Mark Nelson, the narrator of our 1st place entry in our “Make An Audiobook, Win An Audiobook Challenge” has also scored 3rd place!

Late Monday evening I received an email from Mark with a link to his reading of The Cosmic Computer by H. Beam Piper. This exahusts the three original awards I allotted for the the challenge. I didn’t expect to have this happen – heck, I wasn’t even sure that I’d even get a single taker for the challenge, let alone have three finished novels within the space of 2 months. Boy, was I ever wrong! And I couldn’t be more pleased about it.

This challenge has yielded 3 complete and unabridged Science Fiction audiobooks from the public domain. Because of this I am determined to cook up another challenge list.

In the meantime, be sure to check out this brand new audiobook that will be a boon to audiobook readers of the Science Fiction persuasion…

The Cosmic Computer
By H. Beam Piper; Read by Mark Nelson
11 MP3s or 11 OGG Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: COMPLETED January 15th 2006
Conn Maxwell returns from Terra to his poverty-stricken home planet of Poictesme, “The Junkyard Planet”, with news of the possible location of Merlin, a military super-computer rumored to have been abandoned there after the last war. The inhabitants hope to find Merlin, which they think will be their ticket to wealth and prosperity. But is Merlin real, or just an old rumor? And if they find it will it save them, or tear them apart?

Congratulations again Mark and thanks!

posted by Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Challenge MET with an unabridged reading of Badge Of Infamy by Lester Del Rey!

SFFaudio Online Audio

Podiobooks.com has just posted the now completed audiobook of Badge Of Infamy by Lester Del Rey. This means that this reading by Steven H. Wilson of Prometheus Radio Theatre is our 2nd place winner in our FIRST “Make and Audiobook, Win An Audiobook Challenge.” Steven will be contacted by email and asked which of the remaining two incentive prizes he’d liked delivered to him by mail.

In a related matter, looking over at the forums on LibriVox I note that The Cosmic Computer by H. Beam Piper also appears to be aiming at a release in the very near future!

Steven has also informed me that Badge Of Infamy will also be uploaded to LibriVox sometime in the near future. And perhaps most exciting of all Steven writes:

“I also have some more good news on the public domain SF front: Four of my cast — Marty Gear, Cindy Woods, June Swords and Paul Balze — have all stated their intent to record an audio book for Prometheus to release in the coming year. You and I know that this is easier said than done, but I’m thrilled that there’s so much interest in my group alone, and we do have a record for finishing projects, albeit slowly sometimes. So I’m hoping to have a modest increase in freely available SF audio on the horizon.”

WOW! Let me be the first to say it then – Marty, Cindy, June, Paul, you folks ROCK!

Steven, congratulations and let me offer you a big thanks from everyone who will be enjoying Badge Of Infamy now and in perpetuity.

Badge Of Infamy
By Lester del Rey; Read by Steven H. Wilson
15 MP3s – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Podiobooks.com
Status: RELEASED (January 14th 2006)

Daniel Feldman was a doctor once. He made the mistake of saving a friend’s life in violation of Medical Lobby rules. Now, he’s a pariah, shunned by all, forbidden to touch another patient. But things are more loose on Mars. There, Doc Feldman is welcomed by the colonists, even as he’s hunted by the authorities. But, when he discovers a Martian plague may soon wipe out humanity on two planets, the authorities begin hunting him for a different reason altogether.

posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Lobsters by Charles Stross

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

Lobsters
By Charles Stross; Read by Shodra Marie and Jared Doreck
1 CD – Approx. 70 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Infinivox
Published: 2005
ISBN: 1884612466
Themes: / Science Fiction / Technology / Love / Politics /

Manfred’s on the road again, making strangers rich. It’s a hot summer Tuesday and he’s standing in the plaza in front of the Centraal Station with his eyeballs powered up and the sunlight jangling off the canal, motor scooters and kamikaze cyclists whizzing past and tourists chattering on every side. The square smells of water and dirt and hot metal and the fart-laden exhaust fumes of cold catalytic converters; the bells of trams ding in the background and birds flock overhead.

Let’s just say it’s a crying shame and leave it until later to explain why.

Manfred Macx is a patent junkie, spending his days dreaming up ideas that will make him rich, very rich indeed; patents them and offers them up to whomever for free. In doing so has shunned the want for cash, preferring to live off the generosity from his benefactors. Enter into this story, uploaded lobsters wanting to defect, investigations from the IRS and a dominatrix ex- girlfriend who works for said IRS and you’ve got yourself a hip post-cyberpunk tale.

With Lobsters, Charles “Charlie” Stross has set his stopwatch to just 70 minutes. In that time he’s allowed to blast your senses with an array of images and visualizations and does so with perfect storytelling, skill and timing. Image after image explode onto your brain with the speed of a flashing strobe light. He throws away metaphors and similes as if he’d robbed the World Vocabulary bank. One after the other they hit you with delight and clarity until the end, and like all addictive tales, Lobsters leaves you a word junkie, aching for more.

There are two themes filtering through Stross’ Lobsters. On one hand you have Manfred, a high octane, finger on the pulse, grab it before its gone guy, focused on the moment, on the idea and on the deal. Live for the moment. Then you have Stross’ craftily ability to weave Manfred’s ex-girlfriend into the story, bringing her subtle but very practical approach to the future. Is Manfred up for this latest and most challenging proposal of his life? It’s a question we might all ask ourselves at one point through our lives.

The audio zips into your ears with ease. Both Jared Doreck and Shondra Marie deliver a fine production and tackle Stross’ rapid image bursts with gusto. The folks at Infinivox can hold their heads high with this production and at $7.99 it’s a pop!

Charlie Stross dips his toes in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Lovecraftian Horror and is part of the new generation of British Science Fictions writers that are taking the genre by the throat until it squeals. Living in Edinburgh his first short story The Boys appeared in the Science Fiction magazine, Interzone in 1987. Since then he has gone on to be nominated for a Hugo three times for recent novels.

So, is it a crying shame that he has still has not won a Hugo for one of his novels? No, it won’t be long, I promise you that. He has already won one for his novella, The Concrete Jungle.

No… it’s a crying shame that I have not yet heard more of his work.

posted by Tony Smith from StarshipSofa

Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Door Through Space heading for LibriVox

SFFaudio News

Another entry in our challenge! Christie Nowak has written in to claim Marion Zimmer Bradley’s 1961 novel The Door Through Space. Christie sez she doesn’t expect to finish before August 2007, nevertheless we look forward to hearing it!

And to inspire her we’ve got art prepped and ready:

Here’s MZB’s introduction to The Door Through Space…

I’ve always wanted to write. But not until I discovered the old pulp science-fantasy magazines, at the age of sixteen, did this general desire become a specific urge to write science-fantasy adventures.

I took a lot of detours on the way. I discovered s-f in its golden age: the age of Kuttner, C. L. Moore, Leigh Brackett, Ed Hamilton and Jack Vance. But while I was still collecting rejection slips for my early efforts, the fashion changed. Adventures on faraway worlds and strange dimensions went out of fashion, and the new look in science-fiction—emphasis on the science—came in.

So my first stories were straight science-fiction, and I’m not trying to put down that kind of story. It has its place. By and large, the kind of science-fiction which makes tomorrow’s headlines as near as this morning’s coffee, has enlarged popular awareness of the modern, miraculous world of science we live in. It has helped generations of young people feel at ease with a rapidly changing world.

But fashions change, old loves return, and now that Sputniks clutter up the sky with new and unfamiliar moons, the readers of science-fiction are willing to wait for tomorrow to read tomorrow’s headlines. Once again, I think, there is a place, a wish, a need and hunger for the wonder and color of the world way out. The world beyond the stars. The world we won’t live to see. That is why I wrote THE DOOR THROUGH SPACE.

—Marion Zimmer Bradley

posted by Jesse Willis

NPR covers the emerging subgenre Economic Science Fiction

Online Audio

Rick Kleffell, NPR correspondent and podcaster had a fascinating 7 minute piece on the NPR’s Weekend Edition. The topic? The theme is Economics in Science Fiction:

During the Cold War, science-fiction tales of alien invasion mirrored society’s fear of Communism, and monsters from Frankenstein to Godzilla have tapped into our unease about the boundaries of science. But a new type of genre fiction has plots centering around business and economics. A book by T. C. Boyle takes the subject of identity theft and treats it like a horror story. Several other writers are also turning their attention to our preoccupation with finances and business, and finding fertile ground.

Listen via RealAudio or WindowsMedia HERE.

posted by Jesse Willis

Podcast Drama: Silent Universe Episode 5 Released

SFFaudio Online Audio

J. Marcus Xavier’s Silent Universe, is a hot audio drama podcast. The latest show, Episode 5, has been released! In it “Kostya Abramov’s plans unfold, sweeping the unwitting members of Serendipity into a conspiracy larger than any of them can yet imagine.”

As is now standard with the Silent Universe you can get the episode via direct download |MP3|, via the free standard podcast or you can get a CD-quality sound stereo edition for just $2.49 USD. A season discount package is available too.

Here’s the free podcast feed:

http://www.silentuniverse.com/silentuniverse.xml

posted by Jesse Willis