slavery – Page 8

Review of A New Beginning by Craig Brummer

SFFaudio Review

A New Beginning
By Craig Brummer; Narrated by Jack Nolan
Publisher: C&S Press
Publication Date: August 2013
[UNABRIDGED] – 7 hours, 32 minutes

Themes: / slavery / space / bureaucracy / mega-corporations / politics /

Publisher summary:

A New Beginning is the story of a young woman who is ordered by the courts of Earth to serve as an indentured slave to the corporation that held her college debt. Life as a slave brings her to the brink of suicide and an attempt to kill her tormentor. She is sold to Spacers, who are themselves rebelling against the corrupt control of Earth’s mega-corporations. In space she finds a chance at a new life, a chance to maybe help her sister avoid the same fate, but only if Spacers succeed in gaining their freedom. The course of her life will be determined by the outcome of politics far outside of her control… but she has a chance, however slim, to save her sister and start a new life herself.

In some way, this was a really odd book for me to read. The main character is named Kristin. She works on a space ship as a systems engineer. I work on satellites as a systems engineer. And, honestly, her description is really similar to mine when I was in my early 20’s. So it was seriously trippy to read this at times.

A New Beginning is set in the near future, a future where space travel is common place, as is living in space aboard ships or other space stations. On Earth, it’s a rather bleaker picture of the world today. Corporations have taken over the world, bought out most of the politicians. It’s a society, world-wide, where the class gap is as wide is it can be and only those born into or who marry into privilege have assurance of a “normal” life. The rest are sold into indentured service to pay of their debts, whatever they are; for main character Kristin, this is the price of her college education. It’s also a future where faster-than-light travel has been made possible, but communication–visual and audio (in the form of communiques between spacecraft)–is limited to light speed. I’m not quite sure how that is possible, to be honest, but it sets up some interesting potential so I decided not to worry about it.

As the story starts, a newly formed “Federation,” comprised of those living and working on the ships and stations, those without ties to Earth, decide to break ties with Earth and form their own…well, federation. Think of it like Star Trek. Where once they were tied to Earth, they now consider themselves independent entities, willing and happy to trade with Earth, but not bound by any of their laws–or taxes. This has important ramifications for Kristin Hayes, whose indentured service was just sold from an Earth corporation to a ship in the Federation. She left behind a life of debt and slavery (including sexual slavery) on Earth and, upon joining the ship, was freed. The Federation, her ship The Valiant Lad, bought her indenture contract (along with that of others) and gave her the option to return to Earth as a free woman or to join the Federation, join the ship’s crew. Kristin decided to join the ship’s crew and for the first time in her life, have a real job, earn real wages, and be allowed to be a “normal” person.

Kristin’s story comprises most of the book. There are two story lines (that are sort of broken into 3 in places), one of the Federation officers who are actually coordinating the secession from Earth, and Kristin’s story line, telling of her life, both on and off the ship. Kristin’s story is about 2/3 of this book, though I suspect that this is the first in a series and provides decent setup for the rest of the series. Kristin acclimates to life on the ship slowly, but without much adversity. If anything, it seems that everything is just too easy. She finds friends, support, a job she can do…which is interesting, given the description of how the space-ers grow up and are educated compared with how Earth-ers are raised. Growing up in space seems a lot more intense, it seems that anybody from Earth would be at a significant disadvantage. When the Federation makes new laws, allowing families to be on ships and for crew to “fraternize,” she enters into a relationship with a crew mate fairly easily, despite her emotional scars. Kristin decides that she should use this opportunity to earn money (and save it) so that she can get her sister and her father off Earth, to help them avoid the troubles she had. One way she earns money is by selling her journal as a book; the journal she wrote of what her life was like on Earth as a child and then as an indentured servant for one of the corporations. It became an overnight success (almost literally) and made her into a celebrity. As I said, the only “trouble” I really had with this part of the book is how easy everything was. Kristin had a few small stumbling blocks to overcome, but the narrative made it sound like they were easily triumphed over, so overall she didn’t face much adversity.

Similarly, the second story line–comprising a third or less of the book–seemed….easy. The main thrust is told from two viewpoints, one of the ship captain (Marshall?) who announced the secession, and one of another ship captain (Matthews? A woman, in either event, which was nice) who oversaw some of the battles between the Earth ships and the Federation ships. This is where I think the book truly had a miss. It was odd enough that it was all too easy–the battles were short, sweet, and rarely with any Federation losses–but there was an opportunity for Brummer to capitalize on some interesting tactics, an opportunity lost in this book. As I mentioned earlier in the review, technology has evolved to a point where faster-than-light travel is possible (and used) but faster-than-light communication is not. This means that when battling on a large scale, your information is only as good as your distance (in light years/hours) from the source. This was touched on briefly in Kristin’s narrative. One of her co-workers mentioned that for spare money, he makes games to teach kids about battle tactics and the math used in FTL travel and war. He mentioned that all kids who grow up in space have to learn this, and have to use it…but then, nobody did. In all of the battles, it seemed like the information at hand was “good enough” and that the Federation mostly won without issue. While the battle scenes were mercifully short (nothing drives me up a wall than too much detail on weaponry or super-detailed tactics), they were almost too dry. It seemed, once again, too easy.

Some of the issues with the battle scenes might have been owed to the narration. The narration, while mostly fine, was just that, fine. Nolan didn’t add much excitement or change in tone for any of the scenes. He didn’t use different voices for the characters (except maybe some of the characters on the primary Federation ship–the Freedom?–they sounded like they were lifted from the scenes in Star Trek). The recording itself occasionally echoed or sounded like it was recorded with an unfiltered microphone. It often sounded like there was a low-level hiss in the background, or air flowing. This was noticeable when I used earphones and in my car audio and was occasionally distracting.

All in all, the book wasn’t a bad entry novel for a first-time author, though the science fiction elements were more window dressing than actual story components. I suspect some of the audio issues were due to it not being one of the larger publication houses, and that’s okay. I would recommend this book to someone looking for some light science fiction that frankly isn’t much of a downer (because let’s be honest, a lot of it can be extremely depressing). It will be interesting to see where Brummer goes with this universe. If all the novels end up having this same tone/lack of adversity, it could get boring, but for a first-in-a-series by a new author, it was pretty alright.

Posted by terpkristin.

Review of Crown of Slaves by David Weber & Eric Flint

SFFaudio Review

Crown of Slaves (Honorverse: Wages of Sin #1)
By David Weber & Eric Flint; Narrated by Peter Larkin
Publisher: Brilliance Audio (Audible 2009)
[UNABRIDGED] – 20 hours

Themes: / military sci-fi / slavery /

Publisher summary:

The Star Kingdom’s ally, Erewhon, is growing increasingly restive in the alliance because the new High Ridge regime ignores its needs. Add to that the longstanding problem of a slave labor planet controlled by hostile Mesans in Erewhon’s stellar back yard, a problem which High Ridge also ignores. Finally, the recent assassination of the Solarian League’s most prominent voice of public conscience indicates the growing danger of political instability in the League – which is also close to Erewhon. In desperation, Queen Elizabeth tries to defuse the situation by sending a private mission to Erewhon led by Captain Zilwicki, accompanied by one of her nieces. When they arrive on Erewhon, however, Manticore’s most capable agent and one of its princesses find themselves in a mess. Not only do they encounter one of the Republic of Haven’s most capable agents – Victor Cachat – but they also discover that the Solarian League’s military delegation seems up to its neck in skullduggery. And, just to put the icing on the cake, the radical freed slave organization, the Audubon Ballroom, is also on the scene – led by its most notorious killer, Jeremy X.

Multiple articulated segments valiantly strive to give shape to this story. At times they move in joint cooperation and at others, they do not. This coauthored book is the first in what is being labeled the “Honorverse” series. It is said that it will launch an exciting new telling that… I’m sure you get the idea, or at least the idea that the publishers and Weber might wish you to have. The story appears simple at the surface. We encounter issues of slavery, the incessant pursuit of power, ill-conceived notions of political philosophy, religious ranting, and a whole lot of exposition. Yes, this seems simple, right? And to some degree it is. But a recipe merely listing the ingredients does not guarantee a tasty delight on the tongue. Or in this case, the literary palate. David Weber is a talented writer. Unfortunately Weber’s skill is not on display in this book.

First off, I don’t like writing reviews wherein I simply dump on an author’s book. It is easy to criticize something and all too often we tend to focus on the negative more than the positive. As I indicated, David Weber is a gifted writer in the military science fiction genre. His first volume of the Honor Harrington series On Basilisk Station is a fine read. But this book lacks Weber’s eye for craft. The sheer tonnage of exposition in this book is staggering. I’m not a fan of the information-dump, and I am especially not a fan when you are strapped down and force-fed it until your eyes glaze over. Flint and Weber’s ability to provide the reader with a strong foundational understanding of the rationale behind all character and political motivation is stunning. In many ways this book has the feel and tonality of a history book. You learn who did what and then why. This knowledge then is the underlying cause for the action of a character that you will now be told about. And perhaps this is my core issue. I felt as if this story was told to me and not shown. If this had been a lecture about lectures, it would have been more interesting than this book. Aside from massive droughts of exposition, flat characters, and shoddy dialogue, come the issue of adverbs. If you are reduced to using adverbs in dialogue attribution in order to tell the reader how someone says their lines, it is up to the editor to politely ask (demand) the author to rewrite. This book is full of adverbs and awkward transitions between metaphors and similes that are rarely rendered well.

Peter Larkin serves as narrator. And while his performance is better than I’ve heard in the past, he still injects far too much drama into his reading. His interpretation of youthful characters is distracting at best and downright irritating for the most part. Larkin doesn’t fall into the pitched cadence reserved only for air traffic controllers but comes dangerously close on several occasions. If Larkin can set aside the idea of performing and just read, he’ll do well in the business.

The musical score at the beginning and end of each CD is too long, too dramatic, and distracting to the extent of making it difficult to hear the narration under the music. In this case, a little goes a long ways.

Posted by Casey Hampton.

Review of Deathworld 2 by Harry Harrison

SFFaudio Review

Deathworld 2: The Ethical Engineer
By Harry Harrison; Performed by Jim Roberts
Publisher: Brilliance Audio4 hours [UNABRIDGED]

Themes: / gambler / psionic abilities / planetary worlds / planetary colonists / slavery /

Publisher summary:

In the first Deathworld, wily interstellar gambler Jason dinAlt managed to survive on Pyrrus, a planet that seemed to be at war with its own people. He also stopped a deadly feud between two groups of those people. In the second volume of this trilogy, Jason finds that keeping the peace is even more difficult than ending the war. He is also becoming increasingly annoyed with the superior attitude of the natives, including his girlfriend, and this leads to his taking a very big chance. He allows himself to be arrested and taken away from the planet to show that he can take care of himself. He soon regrets that decision after crashing on a planet where the people are quite primitive and he is made a slave. Now he just wants to escape and get back to Pyrrus, but finds that it takes all his cunning and physical prowess just to stay alive. Harry Harrison gives us another fast-paced yet surprisingly thought-provoking story in Deathword 2: The Ethical Engineer.

Deathworld 2: The Ethical Engineer is the second in Harry Harrison’s Deathworld trilogy, which follows the interplanetary adventures of professional gambler Jason din’Alt. Although the plot picks up pretty soon after the first book left off, it doesn’t feel like a sequel as much as an interlude from the Pyrran saga. There is very little to link the two books other than the presence of the protagonist who is immediately taken off world away from the characters of the first book. However, the story itself is full of pulp fiction-y goodness and centers on a brand new, slightly less deadly world. A primitive world that seems to have regressed since it’s initial colonization, a majority of the people are slaves to brutal tribal chiefs who lead a never ending search for food in a barren wasteland. The more powerful chiefs, as uneducated and greedy as their people, each own one aspect of the technology that remains from more advanced times. But their refusal to work together has left the world with limited resources and a stagnated intelligence. A possible commentary on the dangers of rigid corporatism, the world structure explores a backward approach to invention that deconstructs advanced ideas into their most rudimentary parts, much to their detriment.

This sort of simplistic, one-dimensional thinking also plays into Jason’s new antagonist Mikah who is a member of some sort of universal police force that imposes a very strict moral code on everyone around them. He sees life in perfectly defined right and wrongs with no room for the moral relativism Jason is so fond of indulging in. Initially arresting Jason because of his gambling, he spends most of the book in mortal danger due to his refusal to bend his moral code and frequently hampers Jason’s attempts to rescue him for the same reason. His frustrating behavior quickly makes Mikah into one of the most annoying characters ever conceived and I spent most of the book wishing Jason would just leave him behind. In most respects, Mikah acts like a robot with no capacity to learn, change, develop, or understand anything not in his original programming, so that even though he is ideologically opposed to Jason, he’s not a very interesting adversary.

Jason, on the other hand, actually manages to both develop and regress in this book. In addition to a knowledge of gambling and weapons and his psionic powers (none of which he uses in this story), we find out he is rather conveniently a skilled mechanic and electrician. Unlike this last book, he actually has a good reason to be entangled in this plot since it was a consequence of his lifestyle choices but by ignoring his psionic powers which were so vastly important before, he was become a more generic character. This isn’t helped by the fact that exposure to the morally upright Mikah has no more effect of him than he does on Mikah. In the end, nothing has really changed except for the bloody wars he probably will have left behind him.

As far as the audio goes, it is the same wooden narrator as the first book and so not one I would recommend. But overall, it’s the kind of enjoyable light reading meant for a rainy afternoon and is short enough that it won’t take you much longer.

Posted by Rose D.

Review of The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates by Peter T. Leeson

SFFaudio Review

The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates
By Peter T. Leeson; Read by Jeremy Gage
Audible Download – Approx. 7 Hours 41 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible, Inc.
Published: September 4, 2009
Themes: / Economics / Piracy / History / Slavery / Democracy / Anarchy /

Pack your cutlass and blunderbuss–it’s time to go a-pirating! The Invisible Hook takes readers inside the wily world of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century pirates. With swashbuckling irreverence and devilish wit, Peter Leeson uncovers the hidden economics behind pirates’ notorious, entertaining, and sometimes downright shocking behavior. Why did pirates fly flags of Skull & Bones? Why did they create a “pirate code”? Were pirates really ferocious madmen? And what made them so successful? The Invisible Hook uses economics to examine these and other infamous aspects of piracy. Leeson argues that the pirate customs we know and love resulted from pirates responding rationally to prevailing economic conditions in the pursuit of profits.

I love non-fiction, and I love books that look at history, books that look at history through one lens or another are even better! And so there is much to love in The Invisible Hook. The title is a play on Adam Smith’s elegant metaphor for how markets work, the invisible hand. Most of the examples cited deal with the Atlantic and Caribbean pirates, rather than earlier Roman era or modern day pirates. But we get a sense of how it likely worked in other regions and times. Chapters on the paradoxical attitudes towards pirate slavery, the wildly contradictory stories about piratical impressment, and the chapter on the Jolly Roger, the pirate flag, are absolutely fascinating. And, as something of a piratical hobbyist myself, I’m pleased to report they deliver clear insights only hinted at in other non-fiction books about piracy. You know you’ve got a good book in hand when you find yourself relating the premises, arguments, and conclusions of whole chapters to friends.

How good is the analysis really? That’s kind of hard to tell. Democracy and equality as a function of economics? Wonderful! Seems logical, seems plausible. And that’s the sort of thing you don’t hear often enough. Indeed, economist Steven Levitt, of Freakonomics fame, gets a shout out early on in The Invisible Hook. This is a book in that vein, a kind of entertaining pop-economics, well written, and very thoughtful. But it also boasts the same kind of inarguable psychohistory-style post-analysis of such books. It reminds me of books like William Rosen’s The Most Powerful Idea in the World, and Jared Diamond’s Collapse. Well written history looked at through the lens of a soft science makes the seemingly inexplicable events of history seem almost inevitable. That is to say, this book should be just one of many such on such topics. In the end though how can you not wanto to read a book that makes piracy, as depicted in The Princess Bride, actually very plausible?

But this is not as merry a ship as it might be. As with many book published these days, there’s some bit of puffery. Concepts well illustrated in a paragraph or two are revisited, whole passages nearly reworded, and I’m betting that this for reasons of market driven economics. It might be that each chapter can be looked at on it’s own, textbook style, but listened to as I did, back to back the chapters have a tendency to revisit the same ports too often. This is one of my major complaints about books these days. Too many books are being published with too many words that don’t say different things. At under eight hours even this relatively slim volume, by today’s market standards, but it’s still puffier than any pirate’s shirt really ought be. It is like a pirate cutter on the stalk, slowed down by a sea-anchor of unneeded repetition. Saying the same thing over and over and over. Get my point? Okay, its the market, and to be fair Adam Smith’s own The Wealth Of Nations is a bloody long book, 36 hours! I’d be willing to bet my strong right arm that the original article, as published by Levitt (mentioned in the book), would be an even better audiobook than this very fine one, and no doubt it’d measure at least a peg leg shorter.

Narrator Jeremy Gage is from the old school of audiobook narration, the kind I like. He doesn’t so much as perform a book as read it. His conspiratorial tone typically him a great choice for first-person POV novels, like Lawrence Block’s Burglars Can’t Be Choosers. This is the first non-fiction book I’ve heard him narrate. So now I can say he’s great for non-fiction too.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #211 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Beside Still Waters by Robert Sheckley

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #211 – Beside Still Waters by Robert Sheckley, narrated by Julie Davis. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the short story (9 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Julie Davis, and Rose Davis.

Talked about on today’s show:
Futurama, The Odyssey, Argos (Odysseus’ dog), a cup of sadness, depressing and beautiful, packed in sensitivity, The Status Civilization by Homer, Ray Bradbury, Amazing Stories, cold war worries, racism, Genesis, Psalms, Philip K. Dick, Eric S. Rabkin, there is no truth about what’s really happening in fiction, the final arbiter is the word, Martha, the 23rd psalm, Martha’s story, Julie’s patron saint, an expensive ointment, this slab of rock, “no girl he had ever known”, make a C.L.A.I.M., how many characters are in this story?, three?, Four?, robots, it was always night on Martha, everything is alive, Look! Language!, bedtime forever, Charles is Adam, a man created in the image of man, God isn’t interested in girls, the father he had never known, the “immaculate” shack, God is hard to find, the pallor of space, deprogramming the slave circuit, Willis the robot, the etymology of Charles (coming from Carl), the robot is a “free man”, …, “he restoreth my soul”, “I will fear no evil”, graveside usage, Robert Alter’s translation of Genesis, familiar yous, soul vs. spirit vs. breath vs. ghosts, God breathes, Gospel of John, Pentecost, neither water nor air, Martha’s tapped out, a Wall-E situation, was Charles sent by God?, was he an Angel?, once we start down the name path…, Mother Theresa, the guest/host relationship, God as the shepherd, in the shadow of death, flail and crook, rod and staff, Charles as Mark’s better self, Science Fiction, Martha as bitter, the “black tamed soil”, Martha as one, the Aramaic meaning, baby name websites, prefigurement, Exodus, graveyards, the purpose of slabs in graveyards, R.U.R. by Karel Čapek, Galactic Pot-Healer, Eldorado by Edgar Allan Poe, Don Quixote, “over the mountains of the moon”, it was not good for Man to be alone, bone of his bones, the end miracle, something from outside of the story, rusted servos, “Where’s my hankie?”

Beside Still Waters by Robert Sheckley - Illustration by Virgil Finlay

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: The Devil In Iron by Robert E. Howard

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Devil In Iron by Robert E. Howard

The Devil In Iron - illustration by John Buscema and Alfredo Alcala

Considered by some to be the worst Conan story written by Howard, The Devil In Iron isn’t my favourite either.

In it the “gay clad” barbarian visits an island fortress, wrestles a giant green snake, fights an unstabable demon, and saves a sleepy-headed and scantily dressed beauty.

The plot, which is rather intricate, doesn’t do much for me – but several scenes have that Howard writing magic I love.

The Devil In Iron
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Phil Chevernet
6 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 1 Hour 35 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 16, 2013
Alone on the strange enchanted island of Xapur, Conan must face Khostaral Khel, a fearsome monster made of living metal! First published in Weird Tales, August 1934.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/7606

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|
The Devil In Iron - illustration by John Buscema and Alfredo Alcala

Weird Tales, August 1934

Posted by Jesse Willis