space travel – Page 13

Review of The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy By Douglas Adams

The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
By Douglas Adams, performed by a Full Cast
6 Cassettes, 6 hours [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: The Mind’s Eye
Published: 1988
ISBN: 0881425671
Themes: / Science Fiction / Audio Drama / Humor / Aliens / Space travel / Time travel /

I have to cringe whenever an important milestone in Dr. Seuss’s surprisingly robust afterlife comes around, because it is inevitably greeted with a hundred grating “Seuss-like” paeans from every journalist, columnist and otherwise admittedly illiterate citizen who makes the amazing discovery that the English language is crammed to bursting with words that rhyme. More, even, if you make up a few of the words yourself. Douglas Adams can be similarly “inspirational”. Much of what is written about him is filled with disorientingly obscure citations and facile imitations. I appreciate why: He and Seuss made it look so easy, we can scarcely resist attempting to recreate their magic ourselves. But I will admit right now that if I could write like Adams, I wouldn’t be sitting here bashing out brief audio book reviews for an utter lack of pay. I will also admit that I have incorporated much of Adams’ prose into my own genome, and hope to transfer it genetically to my offspring (an aspiration my wife does not seem to regard with the same urgency). I will not, however, take a crack at trying to impress you with my abilities to mimic and quote. I don’t want to embarrass myself.

These tapes are of the very first incarnation of The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Ur-myth that inspired a trilogy of four novels, a diabolical computer game, a television show, and an upcoming movie. More than just a recording of a funny radio play, these tapes represent the annunciation of Douglas Adams as the major talent in science fiction humor: a veritable shot heard round the world. The story itself is an ambling monstrosity of interplanetary adventure, time travel, and hidden questions about the meaning of the universe and the origin and fate of the planet earth. Of course, with all successful humor, what it is really about are the characters (in this case, chiefly Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian, and Marvin the android) and the way they interact and bicker as wave after wave of crazy crap happens to them. The prose is exquisite (“They hung in the air exactly the way bricks don’t.” Oop! That was a quote, wasn’t it?), the settings range from imaginative (Magrathea) to bizarre (Milliways), and the information provided by the Guide itself is always tangential and hilarious.

But for fans of the books or the television show, what is truly remarkable about the first and second half of the tapes (the primary and secondary phases of the radio play) is not their utter perfection, but Adams’s uncanny ability to tweak them to even greater heights. The escape from Milliways is an excellent example. In these tapes, the use of an alien navy commander’s space ship is a little weak, but in the latter versions, the material Adams adds about the band “Disaster Area” and their cataclysmic concerts not only makes a better doomed escape, but contains some of the most memorable lines and images in the whole series. And the way he combines the primary and secondary phases of the radio show to produce an interweaving of the Dent/Prefect and Beeblebrox/Zarniwoop story lines in the novels not only increases the dramatic tension more organically, but also fills many of the logic holes that perforate the second half of these tapes. It’s like a graduate-level class in editing, only funny.

Of course, this radio play is not simply a virtuoso performance by the author, but a monumental ensemble production, as well. Mark Wing-Davey’s spacey portrayal of Zaphod Beeblebrox makes even Bill Murray’s Peter Venkman look pretty well plugged in, and Stephen Moore’s Marvin the android is a walking mechanical disaster of painfully amusing dimensions. Those are my two favorite performances, but the others are similarly tight: Simon Jones captures the bewilderment and hysteria of Arthur Dent perfectly; Geoffrey McGivern delivers a Ford Prefect who is helpful, roguish, and enigmatic; Peter Jones gives the voice of the book a zany, reassuring sound like a kindly but mad uncle; and Susan Sheridan provides a smart yet seductive Trillian Add in the myriad voices of mice, computers, doors, and smug waiters; the wonderful special effects of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop; and the loopy grandeur of the Eagles’ “Journey of the Sorcerer” as the main theme and you have a work of audio magic that will tickle your brain and delight your ears.

But don’t believe for a minute that we all walk around quoting this radio play in our daily speech simply because it provides hours of silly hijinx.. Adams ventures beyond situational and linguistic surprise to grapple with the humiliating vastness of the universe and the mind-boggling possibilities of infinity, and it is this theme that anchors the series so firmly in the subconscious. Philosophy, religion, and calculation are shown to be helpless before the unrelenting immensity of everything, and the only response we are left with is either suicidal hopelessness or laughter. We are forever indebted to Douglas Adams and the BBC cast for saving us with laughter. So I urge you to buy, rent, or steal these tapes as soon as you can and begin stuffing as much of the prose into your memory as it will hold. What else are you saving all that underpowered gray matter for?

Posted by Kurt Dietz

Review of Venus by Ben Bova

Venus
By Ben Bova; Read by Arte Johnson
4 Cassettes – Approx. 6 Hours [ABRIDGED]
Publisher: Fantastic Audio
Published: 2002
ISBN: 1574534750
Themes: / Science Fiction / Space Travel / Venus / Asteroids /

Venus is one of Ben Bova’s Grand Tour novels, written after both Mars and Return to Mars. The story begins on the Moon as a man named Van Humphries hustles to a meeting with his dad. There, he finds out that his rich estranged father has offered $10 billion to the first person who can journey to Venus and retrieve the remains of Van’s older brother, who was lost in a landing attempt on the inhospitable planet. Van himself takes up the challenge, building a ship and collecting a crew. They compete in a Great Race of sorts with another ship.

The book is filled with interesting details of space travel, or what space travel might someday be like if mankind starts devoting it’s energy to greater things. Bova portrays an active solar system with colonies on the Moon and miners swarming throughout the asteroid belt. There is also much of interest when the crews reach Venus and enter the planet’s atmosphere. The ships navigate the thick cloud layers with much difficulty, encountering much that they didn’t expect.

So far, the novel I’ve described sounds like it could have been written by Arthur C. Clarke, but the greatest difference between the two writers is that Bova tells a very personal human story against the backdrop of the hectic trip to Venus. Van Humphries discovers things about his brother, about his father and mother, and ultimately about himself. He confronts the fact that things are not what they seemed to be his whole life, and he finds this out while battling for survival in the planet’s extreme environment. The humanity and the science provide a stark contrast that worked for me, and increased my interest in the next volume of The Grand Tour.

Arte Johnson narrates and does a terrific job. I wouldn’t hesitate to buy another title that he narrates. I enjoyed his pace and tone, and, of course, his timing is out of this world.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Dune By Frank Herbert

Dune
By Frank Herbert; Read by George Guidall
16 Cassettes – 24 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Recorded Books
ISBN: 0788763334
Date Published: 1998
Themes: / Science Fiction / Politics / Space travel / Culture / Ecology /

George Guidall is a tremendous narrator. His nuanced performances continually make his audiobooks easy on the ear yet insistent – his performances demand attention. Matched with the Frank Herbert’s Dune… well, this is as good as it gets, folks. A detailed, meaningful, and entertaining piece of science fiction performed by a narrator with fine voice, excellent timing, and utmost attention to those very details… magnificent.

Dune is a masterpiece of world-building. In the novel, Frank
Herbert creates Arrakis, the desert planet that is also called Dune.
The natives of this planet are people called Fremen, a mysterious desert-dwelling people that the characters in this novel don’t fully understand, at least at the beginning. They are proud people, and though a family from the galactic empire rules them, they project an aura of power and resiliency. Arrakis is important to the galactic empire because it is the world where Spice is mined. Spice is of supreme importance in Herbert’s universe for a host of reasons I won’t list here.

The fully realized culture of Arrakis is merely backdrop at the beginning of the novel, which immediately takes up the story of Paul Atreides, son of Duke Atreides. The Atreides family takes over as the ruling family of Arrakis from a rival family called the Harkonnens. From the moment they arrive on Arrakis, the Fremen treat Paul in a special way, since Paul fits the description of someone for which the Fremen have been waiting a long time. The story follows Paul from his departure from his home planet to his arrival on Arrakis and his eventual survival in the desert, during which much about the fascinating culture of the Fremen is revealed.

Frank Herbert wrote a novel here that works on so many levels that it can be read several times. From one angle, you’ve got a novel about the effects of a Messiah on a culture. From another, you’ve got an ecological novel about survival in a desert and the ethical questions about whether to disturb that harsh but natural environment to make it more habitable for humans. Still another gives you a novel of brutal political intrigue as Harkonnen plots against Atreides (and vice versa) in the pursuit of the power that is ownership of the Spice. Each of these subplots is fully developed an intertwined with the others in this novel, which succeeds in every way in print and now succeeds again as an audiobook thanks to the wonderful performance of George Guidall.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of The Reel Stuff edited by Brian Thomsen and Martin H. Greenberg

The Reel Stuff
Edited by Brian Thomsen and Martin H. Greenberg
Read by Various
6 Cassettes – 9 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
ISBN: 0886465745
Publisher: dhAudio
Published: 2000 [OUT OF PRINT]
Themes: / Science Fiction / Horror / Computers / Memory / Aliens / Urban Legend / Space Travel / Time Travel /

The Reel Stuff is a collection of stories that have been adapted into films. They are all great stories, and this collection has the added attraction of comparing these stories to the films. dhAudio really did a fabulous job with this one. The stories:

Johnny Mnemonic by William Gibson, read by Christopher Graybill
FILM: Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
Johnny Mnemonic was published in 1981, a few years before Gibson’s Hugo and Nebula-award winning Neuromancer hit the scene, illuminating the whole Cyberpunk sub-genre. This story is a clear view of that sub-genre as it has all the elements; human/computer interfaces, plenty of violence, and quick-witted characters. In this story, the title character holds a piece of data in his brain that is wanted by some powerful folks who are willing to do plenty to get it. Christopher Graybill does a great job with it.

Amanda and the Alien by Robert Silverberg, read by Colleen Delany
FILM: Amanda and the Alien (1995 – TV)
This tale, by the great Robert Silverberg, is humourous and sexy. The main character is a ditzy teenage girl named Amanda who takes an alien who can morph into anyone it eats under her wing. Definitely a B-movie kind of story, but purposefully so. Colleen Delany performs well, capturing the Amanda character perfectly.

Mimic by Donald A. Wollheim, read by Terence Aselford
FILM: Mimic (1997)
Mimic is a very short tale that reads almost like a documentary about the peculiar ways in which animals hide from other animals. This is then extrapolated in a very spooky way to humans. Terence Aselford didn’t have a heck of a lot to work with here, but he kept it interesting.

The Forbidden by Clive Barker, read by Vanessa Maroney
FILM: Candyman (1992)
Clive Barker drums up some modern mythology here as a female professor explores urban legend among the lower class in London. The story is effective and chilling in the hands of Vanessa Maroney, who navigates Barker’s weirdness as if it were really happening.

We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick, read by Terence Aselford
FILM: Total Recall (1990)
Terence Aselford gets another chance in this collection, reading this reality-bender by Philip K. Dick. The main character wants to go to Mars in the worst way, but can’t afford it. The solution? Take a virtual vacation! Have memories implanted so you can “have gone” to Mars. But here, things get complicated when the implantee’s supressed memories surface during the procedure. Dick again manages to leave me wondering what the heck is really real – where exactly is the immovable bedrock? Nothing is sacred in Philip K. Dick’s hands.

Nightflyers by George R.R. Martin, read by Christopher Graybill
FILM: Nightflyers (1987)
Martin here spins a science fiction horror story. Think Psycho meets Lost in Space and maybe you’ll have a feel… a group of people ride on a ship that is controlled by a mystery man who never leaves the cockpit. Christopher Graybill again is impressive in his reading.

Air Raid John Varley, read by Nannette Savard
FILM: Millenium (1989)
Nannette Savard reads a very strange, very affecting story about Earth’s future. In it, humans have evolved just a bit, but the Earth’s biosphere has been destroyed, its people diseased. Varley’s descriptions are vivid and graphic – these people are in a bad way. To keep the species going, they go back in time to retrieve healthy airline passengers, mid-flight, since history shows they are on the verge of fiery death. These passengers become humanity’s hope. Varley is a very affecting writer, and through the main character we experience much. Savard does a great job conveying this to the listener.

Sandkings by George R.R. Martin, read by Richard Rohan
FILM: The Outer Limits: Sandkings (1995)
Simon Kress wants a pet, but something interesting… something out of the ordinary. He finds what he’s looking for when he purchases a group or creatures called sandkings which live in a large terrarium with plenty of sand lining the bottom. They build castles and fight battles. They even worship. And they are endlessly fascinating. Well, they were. Perhaps a little prodding from Kress will end the monotony… This one is my favorite of this excellent collection. Sandkings is original and fascinating, both as a character study of a man with too much comfort and as an exploration of an alien animal species.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Science Fiction Audiobooks - Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card Ender’s Game
By Orson Scott Card; Read by Stefan Rudnicki, Gabrielle De Cuir, David Birney and others
10 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Fantastic Audio
Published: 2002
ISBN: 1574535145 (Cassette) – 1574535366 (Audio CD)
Themes: Science Fiction / Military / Space / Youth / Politics / Alien races /

In the not too distant past, the Earth survived a war with the Buggers, an insect-like alien race. One military man, Mazer Rackham, was able to make the difference in the war for humanity, but it is widely feared that the Buggers will be back. To prepare, the government has taken to monitoring the Earth for the next military genius. Everyone who is considered a candidate is taken from their families at a young age and placed into an orbital Battle School. Ender Wiggin, at 6 years old, is considered to be the best candidate – Ender’s Game is his story.

Ender’s brother (Peter) and sister (Valentine) also play a large role. They are both older than Ender, and both extremely intelligent. They also were both passed over for Battle School, one for being too dangerous and one for being too compassionate. They have their own way of influencing the events of the world, even though they are no longer considered for the military.

The Battle School is centered on a game in which teams (armies) of kids fight each other in a zero-g environment. They carry guns that shoot low power lasers and wear suits that react to those lasers by freezing wherever they are hit. By playing the game, the students are training in three dimensional combat, and the competition aboard the Battle Station is fierce.

Ender not only deals with the other students in this competition, but also the teachers of the School as they place him in more and more difficult circumstances. The story has much to say about means and ends, both personal and political.

Even though I had read it three times over the past 14 years, I was glued to this audio version as if I didn’t know what was going to happen. The audio is a treat. Stefan Rudnicki performs the main narrator duties, while a number of others perform the conversations amongst the adults, which occur at the beginning of each chapter. Orson Scott Card also recorded a postscript in which he discusses the origins of Ender’s Game as a novel. First-rate.

posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold

Science Fiction Audiobooks - Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold Falling Free
By Lois McMaster Bujold; Read by Michael Hanson and Carol Cowan
7 Cassettes – 9 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: The Reader’s Chair
Published: 1996
ISBN: 0962401099
Themes: Science Fiction / Genetic Engineering / Slavery / Space Travel /

Wikipedia defines Space Opera as “a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes romantic adventure, faster-than-light travel and space battles where the main storyline is interstellar conflict.” A fair definition, I think. I also think that this definition of Space Opera is what most folks outside of science fiction fandom would accept as a definition of the whole genre of science fiction. The perception is both well-earned and difficult to fight since nearly every successful science fiction film and television series fits that definition of Space Opera. I’ve expressed several times how I wish that perception wasn’t true, because I enjoy only so much of this kind of SF. I like my science fiction to have meat on the bones, and there is plenty of that around in written SF. Enough, in fact, that the average Space Opera doesn’t even have to be on the menu.

Of course, there are the exceptions and Lois McMaster Bujold is one of them. She’s the author of the Vorkosigan series of novels – an extremely well-written series which proves that Space Opera can be done well. Falling Free is a Nebula-award winning novel in a series that has also picked three Hugos. The story, which takes place 200 years before the other books, involves a company that genetically engineers a new race of humans (Quaddies) that is uniquely adapted for work in zero-gravity. Enter Leo Graf, an engineer hired to teach zero-g welding techniques to this new race of slave labor. Think you know where this is heading? Bujold pulls it off brilliantly.

The audio version of this book is another exception. It’s performed by two narrators – Michael Hanson and Carol Cowan. They swap narrating duties with changes in the story’s point of view – a technique I first heard in this audiobook and that I find very effective. The two narrators also perform some conversations together during the story, somewhat like an audio drama. This is something I have found to be extremely INeffective in other audiobooks I’ve heard since this one, but here I enjoyed their interplay and didn’t experience the jarring effect that I’ve felt in other books that have attempted the same technique.

posted by Scott D. Danielson