science fiction – Page 221

Review of The Voice from the Edge Vol. 1: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison

SFFaudio Author of the Month Review

The Voice from the Edge Vol. 1: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
By Harlan Ellison, read by Harlan Ellison
5 CD’s – 6 hours [UNABRIDGED stories]
Publisher: Fantastic Audio
Published: 2002
ISBN: 1574535374
Themes: / Science fiction / Collection / Series / Post-Apocalypse / Artificial intelligence / Utopia / Dystopia / Magic Realism / Love / Hell /

ed. – This is one of two Harlan Ellison collections that were released by Fantastic Audio. The second is called The Voice from the Edge: Midnight at the Sunken Cathedral.

There are two basic reasons to invest in a short story collection by a single author. The first is to experience first hand the stylistic, thematic, and technical contributions the author has made to his genre and to literature in general; the second is to sample the dynamic range the author covers, to gauge the extent of his palette.

This audio book delivers the first in spades. With Harlan Ellison’s friendly, yet curmudgeonly introduction, we are thrust immediately into the gritty rawness he helped bring to science fiction. Such stories as the harrowing, lurid, complex title story, the gleefully offensive misogyny and sociopathy of “A Boy and His Dog”, the pop-cultural, pejorative ranting of “Laugh Track”, and the sophomoric sexual preoccupation of “The Very Last Day of a Good Woman” clearly delineate the dark, adult-oriented themes he introduced, as well as his predilection for unlikable anti-heroes who often leave us feeling a bit less comfortable about ourselves. And on such material, his distinctive narrative style shines. He curses with conviction, and his voice handles guilt, revenge, and damnation with seeming familiarity.

In the overall story choice, we also have a remarkable demonstration of the range of Ellison’s writing. Compare the patient, redemptive power of “Paladin of the Lost Hour” to any of the stories mentioned above, and you’ll see what I mean. Throw in the sly, haunted twist of “The Time of the Eye”, the overwrought post-modernism and tedious beatnik vamping in “’Repent Harlequin!’ said the Tick-Tock Man”, the sublime, hellish search for love in “Grail”, and the puzzling juxtaposition of the truly horrific and the trivial in “The Lingering Scent of Woodsmoke”, and you cover quite a swath of not only the science-fiction spectrum, but the fiction spectrum in general.

Unfortunately, the use of a single narrator for all these stories blurs their uniqueness, especially since that narrator is Harlan Ellison. His delivery style can be enjoyable, but it is so raw, so exaggerated, and so pervasive that it tends to flatten the relief of the work itself. I can’t say that I question the wisdom of having Ellison narrate, for on any single story his voice adds the confident insight that only an author can bring to his own work. But this is a collection, and the diverse stories deserve a wider range of vocal performance to truly showcase their differences. My advice is to make the best of this paradox by taking the collection slowly. The quality of the material, the exceptionally crisp sound and the fine, user-friendly packaging make this an audio book you should not miss. Just make sure to pace yourself.

posted by Kurt

Review of Eye For Eye by Orson Scott Card

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

Eye For Eye
By Orson Scott Card; Read by Stefan Rudnicki with Margy Stein
3 CDs – 147 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: ReQuest Audiobooks
Published: 2005
ISBN: 1933299517
Themes: / Science Fiction / Society / Morality / Youth / Power /

“If you’re a half way decent person you don’t go looking to kill people. Even if you can do it without touching them. Even if you can do it as nobody even guesses they were murdered you still got to try not to do it.”

Mick Winger is only seventeen – and already he’s killed over a dozen people. Not on purpose of course; he never meant to hurt anyone. But when Mick gets angry, people die, even the people he loves the most. Set in the contemporary world, Mick is a godfearing young man with a mysterious power – the ability to kill people just by getting mad at them. He doesn’t want to kill people, but sometimes he gets mad and then they die of hideous cancerous tumors – sometimes fast, sometimes slow – depending on how mad he gets. The phenomena is explained by some “bio electrical field” handwaving on Card’s part but that isn’t the heart of the story. Mick’s been an orphan since the day he was born – even as a baby his uncontrollable power killed his caregivers. When he grew old enough to realize the danger he posed to others, he left the orphanage to get a job doing manual labour for a decent father figure. One day Mick finds himself unconciously withdrawing his meager savings and travelling to his birthplace – like a salmon going to spawn – but on the way he meets an older woman who knows his terrible secret. She tells him he doesn’t have to go and tries to persuade him to come with her instead. But Mick has other plans. He’ll go work for the CIA, make some good of his ability to kill. Of course Mick has forgotten even he has to sleep sometime…

I plain loved this book. Not only is the story told crisply and cleanly, but it also gets one doing some deep thinking. Mick’s gift/curse is almost the perfect allegory for gun control. Not even the most rabid NRA members would suggest it’s a good idea to give pistols to toddlers, and that’s basically Mick’s situation. He’s been given a weapon that is so a part of him that he can no more stop it than he can stop breathing. His emotions are tied into a hair trigger of killing. Pity even the most loved friend who is standing near when his emotions run hot. Orson Scott Card has tied this all in with what looks like a cross between an Old Testament inbreeding program and a fundamentalist militia.

This whole situation reminded me of a phrase Robert A. Heinlein once coined: “An armed society is a polite society.”* This concept has been much trumpted by the firearms lobby and Eye For Eye shows just what it would mean if it were practiced. If everyone was like Mick Winger, a community of the armed would also be a community of fear, where even constructive criticism is to be avoided at all costs lest someone take offense. Love thy neighbor doesn’t extend very well when thy neighbor demands the freedom to own nuclear weapons.

In this age of seemingly endless series, thousand page fantasy epics, and general fiction sprawl, it is wonderfully refreshing to listen to a short novel or novella. Request Audiobooks, a brand new player in the audiobook market, has dipped into Science Fiction and Fantasy’s glorious past for some wonderous tales that don’t require a forklift to enjoy. Eye For Eye was first published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Mar 1987 issue, and in 1988 it won the Hugo Award for best novella. Then in November 1990 it was paired as half of the Tor Double Novel #27 with another novella by Lloyd Biggle Jr. (The Tor Doubles are for my money the very best modern treeware series published). For more than ten years this terrific tale sat out of print. Then ReQuest Audiobooks stepped up. And boy did they ever! ReQuest presents the novella in all its glory, and then some. They tapped master narrator Stefan Rudnicki to read it. Rudnicki who’s sonorant basso has performed more Orson Scott Card audiobooks than any other voice on Earth is perfect for the job. Then, they went to Orson Scott Card himself and had him write an original afterword just for the audiobook. To finish it all off, they commisioned some truly eye-catching art. This is my very favorite kind of audiobook. A short novel with an intriguing premise, bristling with driven characters, read by a talented narrator, and sporting a bonus feature. With a USA price point of just $14.95 for three CDs this is like a slice of audio heaven.

*-The quotation comes from the novel Beyond This Horizon by Robert A. Heinlein

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

Look to Windward
By Iain M. Banks, read by Robert Lister
10 Cassettes – Approx. 14.25 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Clipper Audio
Published: 1990
ISBN: 1841971839
Themes: / Science fiction / Aliens / Space Travel / War / Afterlife

Civil war has taken its toll on a planet called Chel, whose furry predator-descended people live in a strict caste-based society with an exacting religion. One of them, a famous composer named Ziller, has disowned his home world to live on a Culture orbital called Masaq’. He lives in crusty happiness among the humans and formerly human machines there, composing, exploring, and attending dinner parties. But word has come of a second Chelgrian, a former soldier and monk named Quilan, who appears determined to persuade him to return to Chel. The Culture are partially responsible for instigating the Chelgrian civil war, and it may be that Quilan has a deeper mission that even he knows nothing about.

This is the compelling lead-in to Iain M. Banks’ novel Look to Windward, but it is far from the whole story. The novel takes us far into the future of humanity, across the astoundingly large artificial surface of Masaq’, down deep voids of space on a series of amusingly named spacecraft, through the bitter civil war on Chel, and even into the belly of a large, atmosphere-containing being and the enormous blimp-like life forms inside it. The range of emotion is similarly grand, beginning with a harrowing descent into the war and its aftermath, segueing into an amusing and confusing dinner party, and setting off into stirring adventure and philosophical discussions of risk, war, love, life and death.

This is an introspective novel, and its most involving aspects unfold almost entirely in dialog. Such dependence on conversation demands an author who can produce interesting, distinct, and consistent voices for the various characters. Iain Banks delivers in spades, and Robert Lister interprets his dialog with near-perfection (the notable exception is Kabe, who sounds like a B-grade Igor). Hearing Ziller’s profane peevishness, Quillan’s calm hopelessness, and even Colonel Hyler’s avuncular old war-horse is like perceiving the characters in extra dimensions. In particular, there is a discussion late in the book between Quillan and Hyler that, while horrifying in topic, is presented with such remarkable tenderness that I found it one of the most outstanding scenes of fiction I’ve ever heard.

Look to Windward is part of a larger series of Culture novels, but don’t let that scare you off. I haven’t read any of the others, and you won’t be required to, either. If you like a thoughtfully-paced interplay of characters and ideas in a futuristic but oddly British setting, then you will love this book. And, like me, you’ll soon be trying to get your hands on more.

Posted by Kurt Dietz

Review of Caedmon’s Science Fiction Soundbook

SFFaudio Review

Science Fiction Soundbook
By Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and Robert A. Heinlein
Read By Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner
4 hours – 4 Cassettes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Caedmon
Published: 1977
Themes: / Science Fiction / Mars / Edgar Allan Poe / Computers / Mathematics / Sociology / Space Travel /

This out-of-print Caedmon set was a wonderful find (thanks, Esther!) because it contains two cassettes (four stories) that are amongst the earliest science fiction audio I ever heard. The stories are “The Green Hills of Earth” and “Gentlemen, Be Seated” by Robert A. Heinlein, and “There Come Soft Rains” and “Usher II” by Ray Bradbury, all read by Leonard Nimoy. Also included here is “The Psychohistorians” by Isaac Asimov and “Mimsy Are the Borogroves” by Henry Kuttner, both read by William Shatner. The audio was originally published in 1977.

I found Leonard Nimoy’s readings to be excellent. In Bradbury’s “Usher II”, he delivers a passionate speech about the evils of book burning with perfection. In “Gentlemen, Be Seated” and “The Green Hills of Earth” he portrays working class spacemen with complete success.

William Shatner, though, was disappointing. I’ve heard him read some Star Trek titles, and felt his delivery was pretty good, but here, on both cassettes, he reads as if he needs to be across town in fifteen minutes. He zips through the text, sometimes fast enough to affect my comprehension.

The stories are all bona-fide 5-star classics:

“There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury, read by Leonard Nimoy
This famous story is about a house. That’s it, just a house. An automatic, programmed house that keeps running and running… but where are its inhabitants? Bradbury manages to tell a very human tale without any actual people.

“Usher II” by Ray Bradbury, read by Leonard Nimoy
A fantastic story, passionately read, about a man who builds Poe’s House of Usher on Mars. Because of the social climate on Earth, it would be illegal to build such a fantastic structure, because stories of fantasy are simply no longer allowed. If you agree with that policy, this fellow would be happy to show you around, and he does get that opportunity. As I mentioned earlier, a highlight is a speech on censorship that was an obvious precursor to Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

“The Psychohistorians” by Isaac Asimov, read by William Shatner
This is the first novelette in the first book of Asimov’s Foundation trilogy. In it, you meet Hari Seldon and Gaal Dornick in an introduction to some of the key elements of the Foundation story, including the Empire in decline and the mathematics of psychohistory. However, I did have difficulty get into Shatner’s narration.

“The Green Hills of Earth” by Robert A. Heinlein, read by Leonard Nimoy
Rhysling is a Spacer who lost his eyesight in a reactor pile accident. Now, he’s a famous bard, and this is his story. The story is an excellent portrayal of what spaceflight might be like from the working stiff’s point of view, once flight becomes common. At least from the perspective of a science fiction writer in 1948. No NASA engineers here.

“Gentlemen, Be Seated” by Robert A. Heinlein, read by Leonard Nimoy
This story is similar to “Green Hills” in that the characters are working class spacemen. One agrees to take a reporter through some new buildings on the moon (yes, he does get overtime pay for it), but an accident occurs during the tour. Another story from the late 1940’s, which is the part of Heinlein’s long career that I enjoy most.

“Mimsy Were the Borogroves” by Henry Kuttner, read by William Shatner
This story fared better under Shatner’s cadence than did “The Psychohistorians”. I was captured by it within 5 minutes or so of concentrated listening, and Kuttner’s story held my attention even when Shatner didn’t. The story involves some toys that were sent back in time by a far-future scientist with too much time on his hands. The toys are found by some kids, who play with them, and are changed by them. The story plays with the ideas of how people think – how kids think, how adults think, and how it could possibly be different. I found it a well-written and entertaining exploration of these ideas. Great science fiction.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan

SFFaudio Review

Market Forces
By Richard K. Morgan; Read by Simon Vance
13 CDs – 16 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: 2005
ISBN: 1400101395 (Retail CD), 1400131395 (Library CD), 1400151392 (MP3-CD)
Themes: / Science Fiction / Dystopia / Economics / Satire /

“Human beings have been fighting wars as long as history recalls. It is in our nature, … last century the peacemakers, the governments of this world, did not end war. They simply managed it, and they managed it badly. They poured money without thought of return into conflicts and guerrilla armies abroad, and then into tortuous peace processes that more often than not left the situation no better. They were partisan, dogmatic, and inefficient. Billions wasted in poorly assessed wars that no sane investor would have looked at twice. Huge, unwieldy national armies and clumsy international alliances in short a huge public sector drain on our economic systems. Hundreds of thousands of young people killed in parts of the world they could not even pronounce properly. Decisions based on political dogma and doctrine alone. Well, this model is no more.”

In an interview with Rick Kleffel of The Agony Column Richard K. Morgan describes the motivaton behind Market Forces – ‘there’s a scene’ he said, ‘in the movie Lethal Weapon‘ a scene in which the suicidal cop Martin Riggs (played by Mel Gibson) is atop a roof, ironically, trying to talk down an suicidal citizen who claims he’s going to jump. Frustrated at the indecision that grips them both Riggs snaps – he handcuffs the citizen to his own wrist and then asks him “Do you really wan’t to jump? Do you wanna?” – then dragging the citizen with him Riggs jumps off the roof. It’s a scene designed to show the inner demons that haunt Riggs, who is, after all, the “Lethal Weapon” of the film’s title. So what does that have to do with Market Forces? This novel is Richard Morgan’s response to the right-wing think tanks which have for years been constantly murmuring in the media soundbites of “let the market decide,” “government is in the way of business,” “the invisible hand can regulate better.” Morgan’s frustration with these ideologues is answered by dystopian satire, a kind of Wall Street meets Mad Max. This is an England in which the gap between the rich and poor has widened. At the top are an elite, an upper-class of executives, driving armoured cars and carrying firearms in their briefcases. At the bottom are the unemployed, disenfranchized and living in deserted slums without access to public transportation, their only escape is to join the police or Special Air Service, both privatized and in mercenary service of the executive class. The commodited investment houses have morphed into “Conflict Investment” houses. It’s a powerful setting, a critical look at where we are now, as 1984 and Farenheit 451 were critical looks at where we used to be – a place we must still fight from going. In essence Morgan says ‘This is what happens when you look at what we’re doing now and then project ahead. This is what happens if you listen to the right-wing think tanks. This is what happens when you jump.’

As a primer let me explain how “conflict investment” works. You find a country, one torn by civil war or revolution. You decide who, amongst the many factions within that country could win, given the right resources and then you back them. In return for providing the arms, equipment and intelligence to win a “small war” the faction must commit to give you a cut of their country’s gross domesitc product for a quarter century or so. Our viewpoint character, Chris Faulkner, has recently been hired on as a junior associate by one of the top conflict investment firms, Shorn Associates – this happened in large part because of Chris’ reputation for savage road duelling. Meanwhile, Chris’ wife, a mechanic from Sweden, (a country with one of the last socialist governments around) is encouraging him to seek more peaceful pastures by defecting to a struggling international peace movement. With rebels in Guatemala to support and a growing record of auto-duel kills Chris is a hot number, but it increasingly seems like someone is setting him up for a fall. It’s up to Chris to decide whether he’s going to be the person his wife wants him to be or if he’s going to continue on his road to corporate partnership.

I ended up really liking Market Forces. There was a time there when I wasn’t sure, the first third of the novel is quite depressing, Morgan’s world has gone to shit and the people in it smell, and smell bad. Part of my problem was with how the world got to be this way. A corporate world full of scum? I can understand that, but a corprate world full of armed scum? It seemed a bit proposterous. Then it came to me, between discs 4 and 5 I realized, “this is a satire”. Like American Pyshco or that corporate raiders sequence in Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life. Eventually Morgan does give an explanation of how we got from where we are now to the fifty or so years from now setting of Market Forces and that explanation works in a ‘give me an inch and I’ll give you a novel’ sort of way. The real explanation however is that to be the story it needed to be actual market forces really had to play into every human transaction. The brutal reality of competitive of an unregulated capitalism working at full force would likely still be insulated by an old boys network, an oligarchy that said it wanted unrestricted competition, but really just wanted power. In arming and glorifying the auto duels Morgan has made Chris Faulkner confront the reality of the world he is making. Ultimately the decision he faces is as terrible as those made by Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four and Guy Montag in Fahrenheit 451. It remains to be seen whether Market Forces will be as enduring as those dystopian novels, but it stands among them, bare face in the portrayal of a brutal tommorow based on the unchecked trends of today.

This is a gloomy book marked by several scenes of jagged action and carnal sex, it is a good thing Tantor Media chose a versatile reader. Narrator Simon Vance used his precise English accents to portray the undertones of resentment many of the characters didn’t even realize they had – it carried me through the gloomy bits to the dramatic conclusion. Tantor issued us another of the ~~library~~ retail bound CD editions, though it had identical packaging to Altered Carbon (recently reviewed) two of the indivudal pages came loose in this one while I was pawing through. UPDATE: The good folks at Tantor have informed me that they actually sent the retail edition to us. The library edition is higher priced and comes in a white box with a metal ring binder (as well as a free lifetime CD replacement guarantee).

In researching for the review I found out that Market Forces is based on an unpublished seedling of a short story, entitled Some Serious Driving. Apparently it was originally submitted to Interzone magazine, they rejected it as full of ‘unlikable characters’ – something the novel has too. In an ideal world I’d have liked to see Some Serious Driving bundled in as an extra, perhaps Tantor Media can gather together all of the Richard K. Morgan unpublished shorts to tide us over until the 5th RKM novel comes out?

One last thing, given my description of the plot you might think Market Forces a standalone novel and indeed it does stand nicely on its own- the thing is I found strong evidence that Market Forces is set in the same universe as that of the Takeshi Kovach novels, the books Richard Morgan is best known for. There’s a number of references to conflict investment in general and the Shorn corporation in particular in Broken Angels, the second Takeshi Kovach novel. Cool huh?

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Ringworld by Larry Niven

Science Fiction Audiobook - Ringworld by Larry Niven Ringworld
By Larry Niven; Read by Tom Parker
Audible Download – 11 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 1999
ISBN:
Themes: / Science Fiction / Hard science fiction / Physics / Space travel / Aliens /

I’ve started this review several times. I’m honestly not sure what to say about this classic novel. In a word, it’s wonderful. What else can I say? It was originally published in 1970, and won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel. Of course, the awards and all the accolades since were well deserved.

Blackstone Audio published this unabridged version in 1999, and I found it on Audible. Tom Parker does a fine job with this straight narration of the material. Not fantastic, but better than adequate. Once I eased into his flow, I had no problem maintaining attention, but I think a bit more could be asked in the characterization department.

The main character in Ringworld is a 200 year old human named Louis Wu, who is approached by a Puppeteer (one of an alien race) who in turn is building a team to visit a star system that has an fabricated ring around it. The complete team includes Louis Wu, the Puppeteer, a Kzin, and a human female. The reasons for all these choices become clear during the novel.

Niven’s style is such that you can be awed then amused on the same page. His characters are very comfortable with life. They talk physics like we discuss where to have dinner. After more than thirty years, the story remains interesting and the ideas fascinating.

I highly recommend this audiobook, whether you’ve experienced Ringworld already or not.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson