Terry Brooks – Page 2

Barnes & Noble Media Direct MP3 Links of Speculative Fiction Authors

OnlineAudio

We had a post a few days ago about the Barnes & Noble Media original interviews. Here are the direct links to a couple of the speculative fiction authors featured:

Holly Black |MP3|
Terry Brooks |MP3|
Michael Chabon |MP3|
Susanna Clarke |MP3|
Neil Gaiman |MP3|
Philippa Gregory |MP3|
Laurell K. Hamilton |MP3|
Charlaine Harris |MP3|
Kim Harrison |MP3|
Brian Jacques |MP3|
Jonathan Lethem |MP3|
Lois Lowry |MP3|
Gregory Maguire |MP3|
Garth Nix |MP3|
Chuck Palahniuk |MP3|
Christopher Paolini |MP3|
Terry Pratchett |MP3|
Anne Rice |MP3|
R.A. Salvatore |MP3|

Subscribe to the podcast via this feed:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/rss/mtw.xml

Posted by Charles Tan

New Arrivals – Christmas “Card” and more

Science Fiction Audiobook Recent Arrivals

The holiday season is upon us. Don’t forget that favorite stocking stuffer―audiobooks. The gift of the word that can be heard!

A War of Gifts
By Orson Scott Card; Read by Scott Brick and Stefan Rudnicki
2 CDs, 2.5 hrs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9781593976316
LISTEN TO A CLIP!

The children come from many nations and many religions; and while they are being trained for war, religious conflict between them is not on the curriculum. But Dink Meeker, one of the older students, doesn’t see it that way. He thinks that giving gifts isn’t exactly a religious observation, and on Sinterklaaus Day he tucks a present into another student’s shoe.

This small act of rebellion sets off a battle royal between the students and the staff, but some surprising alliances form when Ender comes up against a new student, Zeck Morgan. The War over Santa Claus will force everyone to make a choice. This audiobook is a must-give stocking stuffer for every Ender fan on your Christmas list.

Magic Kingdom for Sale – Sold
By Terry Brooks; Read by Dick Hill
12 CDs -14 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audiobooks
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9781423350125

Landover was a genuine magic kingdom, with fairy folk and wizardry, just as the advertisement promised. But after he purchased it, Ben Holiday learned that there were a few details the ad had failed to mention.

The kingdom was in ruin. The Barons refused to recognize the king, and the peasants were without hope. A dragon was laying waste the countryside, while an evil witch plotted to destroy everything.

Ben’s only followers were the incompetent Court Magician; Abernathy, the talking dog who served as Court Scribe; and the lovely Willow – but she had a habit of putting down roots in the moonlight and turning into a tree. The Paladin, legendary champion of the Kings of Landover, seemed to be only a myth and an empty suit of armor.

Metal Swarm; Book Six in the Saga fo Seven Suns
By Kevin J. Anderson; Read by David Colacci
16 CDs -19 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audiobooks
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9781597372275

For years, the alien Klikiss robots have pretended to be humanity’s friends, but their seeming “help” allowed them to plant an insidious Trojan Horse throughout the Earth Defense Forces. Now, in the aftermath of a devastating war, swarms of ancient black robots built by the lost insectoid Klikiss race continue their depredations on helpless worlds with stolen and heavily armed Earth battleships.

Among the humans, the Hansas’ brutal Chairman struggles to crush any resistance even as King Peter breaks away to form his own new Confederation among the colonies who have declared their independence.

And meanwhile, the original, voracious Klikiss race, long thought to be extinct, has returned, intent on conquering their former worlds and willing to annihilate anyone in the way.

Stoneheart; Book One in the Stoneheart Trilogy
By Charlie Fletcher; Read by Jim Dale
Playaway Digital-10 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Scholastic
Published: 2007.

Here’s an audiobook we received from Playaway. We reviewed the Playaway earlier this month. Read the review.

We also have a special discount code for first time purchasers.

To receive 20% off, just go to www.playawaydigital.com and during checkout enter this code:

SFFaudio20

This title is also available as a 6 CD set from the publisher, Scholastic. And yes, Jim Dale is the ever-popular narrator of the Harry Potter series.

A city has many lives and layers. London has more than most. Not all the layers are underground, and not all the lives belong to the living. Twelve-year-old George Chapman is about to find this out the hard way. When George breaks the head from a stone dragon he awakes an ancient power that has been dormant for centuries. Now that George has disturbed the fragile truce between the warring statues of London, he is forced into a race for survival where nothing is what it seems and and it´s never clear who to trust. And this is just the beginning as the statues of London awake…

posted by The Time Traveler of the Time Traveler Show

Review of Armageddon’s Children by Terry Brooks

SFFaudio Review

Armageddon’s Children
By Terry Brooks; Read by Dick Hill
12 CDs – Approx. 14 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2006
ISBN: 1423322568
Themes: / Fantasy/ Post-Apocalyptic / Demons / Elves / Quest /

The first entry in Terry Brooks’ new Genesis of Shannara trilogy, Armageddon’s Children starts things off brilliantly. It is immediately engrossing, capturing the listener’s attention from the first minute clear through its cliffhanger ending. Set on an Earth where civilization has been mostly destroyed by war, diseases, and by demonic entities it is a world inhabited by mutants, demons, elves and humans, all hiding from an inevitable end. Post-apocalyptic fantasy is an odd sub-genre but Brooks pulls it off well, mostly combining the feel of post-apocalyptic science fiction with the trappings of fantasy.

Like many stories of this size, there is more than one main character. Armageddon’s Children has four: Logan Tom, a Knight of the Word is the foremost protagonist. Here has been given a mission to find a mysterious “gypsy morph” and lead it and a few human survivors to salvation. Logan, like most of the characters, must overcome self-doubt and accomplish his mission if humanity is to be saved. Another character, Angel Perez, another knight is sent with a tatterdemalion to find, and help save the elves. Hawk, a street urchin leads a small group of children. Kirisin, an Elf, is chosen to tend the Ellcrys, a sentient tree from the original Shannara series. The fates of all these characters are all intertwined and each must succeed in their respective quest if humanity and elfkind are to survive the looming destruction of the Earth.

Dick Hill, the narrator, is one of the better readers I’ve heard. Though the novel builds upon characters and ideas from earlier books in Brooks’ series, it stands on its own quite well. I haven’t heard or read many of them, yet I never felt as I were missing anything while I was listening to Armageddon’s Children. Indeed, the only complaint I have about the audiobook is a very minor one. This is a marketing problem. It is annoying that “Shannara” is not mentioned anywhere on the cover of the audiobook, despite the fact that it is the third largest word on the paperback version’s cover. Simply put I loved the audiobook of Armageddon’s Children and I can’t wait for the next in the series to be released.

Posted by David Tackett

New Arrivals- Richard Matheson, Card & Brooks

Science Fiction Audiobook Recent Arrivals

This first one has me chompin’ on the bit!

I Am Legend
By Richard Matheson; Read by Robertson Dean and Yuri Rasovsky
10 CD, 11 hrs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9781433203299

In Matheson’s vampire classic I Am Legend, a plague has decimated the world, and transformed the unfortunate survivors into blood-thirsty creatures of the night. Robert Neville is the last living man on earth. Every other man, woman, and child has become a vampire, hungry for Neville’s blood. By day, he is the hunter, stalking the sleeping undead through the abandoned ruins of civilization. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for the dawn. How long can one man survive in a world of vampires?
This recording also includes a sampling of other horror stories by Richard Matheson, some comic, all scary: “Buried Talents,” “The Near Departed,” “Prey,” “Witch War,” “Dance of the Dead,” “Dress of White Silk,” “Mad House,” “The Funeral,” “From Shadowed Places,” and “Person to Person.”

Heartfire; Tales of Alvin Maker, Book 5
By Orson Scott Card; Read by Full Cast
10 CD, 12 hrs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9781433207730

Peggy is a Torch, able to see the fire burning in each person’s heart. She can follow the paths of each person’s future, and know each person’s most intimate secrets. From the moment of Alvin Maker’s birth, when the Unmaker first strove to kill him, she has protected him. Now they are married, and Peggy is a part of Alvin’s heart as well as his life. But Alvin’s destiny has taken them on separate journeys. Alvin has gone north into New England, where knacks are considered witchcraft and their use is punished with death. Peggy has been drawn south, to the British Crown Colonies and the court of King Arthur Stuart in exile. For she has seen a terrible future bloom in the heartfires of every person in America, a future of war and destruction. One slender path exists that leads through the bloodshed, and it is Peggy’s quest to set the world on the path to peace.

Genesis of Shannara; Elves of Cintra, Book 2
By Terry Brooks; Read by Phil Gigante
12 CD, Approx. 14 hrs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brillance Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9781423322658

Across the ruined landscape that is America – hopelessly poisoned, plague-ridden, burned, and besieged by demon armies bent on exterminating all mortal life – two pilgrims have been summoned to serve the embattled cause of good. Logan Tom has journeyed to desolate Seattle to protect a ragged band of street urchins and the being known as the gypsy morph, who is both mortal and magical, and destined to save mankind unless he is destroyed. Likewise, Angel Perez has her own quest, one that will take her from the wreckage of Los Angeles to a distant, secret place untouched by the horrors of the nationwide blight – a place where the race of Elves has dwelled since before man existed. But close behind these lone Knights of the Word swarm the ravening forces of the Void.

As the menacing thunder of war drums heralds the arrival of the demons and their brutal minions in Seattle, the young survivors who call themselves the Ghosts are forced to brave the dangerous world of gangs, mutants, and worse to escape the invasion. And Logan Tom must infiltrate a refugee compound to rescue Hawk, the leader of the street urchins, who has yet to learn the truth about who and what he is. Meanwhile, Angel Perez has joined an equally urgent mission: to find the Ellcrys, a fabled talisman crucial to protecting the Elven realm against an influx of unspeakable evil from the dread dimension known as the Forbidding. But Angel and her Elven allies must beware – for a demon spy, with a monstrous creature at its command, walks among them.

posted by The Time Traveler of the Time Traveler Show

Recent Arrivals

Science Fiction Audiobook Recent Arrivals

Inhumanity Quest
By T. Ray Gordon; Read by Richard Sellers
1 CD – 72 Minutes [ABRIDGED]
Publisher: Apex Audio Theatre
Published: 2005
UPC: 701376151425
Described as: “[An] audio book audio drama/science fiction/adventure. In the distant future a war for the survival of humanity rages. The enemy is powerful and ruthless and will stop at nothing to ensure mankinds extermination.”

Jeffrey Combs Read H.P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West Re-Animator
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by Jeffrey Combs
1 CD – 72 Minutes [ABRIDGED]
Publisher: Beyond-Books.com
Published: 1999
UPC: 619981033428
Described as: “‘The Herbert West-Reanimator’ serial was six gruesome tales inspired by Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, and was a group of stories Lovecraft considered to be his ‘poorest work – stuff done to order for a vulgar magazine, and written down to the herd’s level.’ Contrary to Lovecraft’s opinion of his own work, Re-animator is a very enjoyable macabre tale filled with suspense and dread.”

Infidel
By Roger Gregg; Performed by a Full Cast
2 CDs – 72 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Crazy Dog Audio Theatre
Published: 2006
UPC: 69232098568
Described as: “Infidel takes place in the early 13th century during the Fifth Crusade. In the context of the factual history of the Crusade, Infidel tells the fictional story of brothers Hugh and Philip of Beauvais, and Omar, the youngest son of the sultan and to whom Hugh becomes a tutor and unlikely friend.” *Given the historical setting this may not strictly fit into the fantasy category but Crazy Dog does audio drama right. It should be fun.

Danse Macabre – An Anita Lake, Vampire Hunter Novel
By Laurell K. Hamilton; Read by Cynthia Holloway
18 CDs – Approx. 21 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2006
ISBN: 1596008687
Described as: “These days, Anita Blake is less interested in vampire politics than in an ancient, ordinary dread she shares with women down the ages: she may be pregnant. And, if she is, whether the father is a vampire, a werewolf, or someone else entirely, he knows perfectly well that being a Federal Marshal known for raising the dead and being a vampire executioner, is no way to bring up a baby. “

Armageddon’s Children
By Terry Brooks; Read by Dick Hill
12 CDs – Approx. 14 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2006
ISBN: 1423322568
Described as: “[A] gripping chronicle of a once-familiar world now spun shockingly out of control, in which an extraordinary few struggle to salvage hope in the face of terrifying chaos. Logan Tom is doomed to remember the past and determined to rescue the future. Far behind him lies a boyhood cut violently short by his family’s slaughter, when the forces of madness and hate swept our world after decadent excesses led to civilization’s downfall. Somewhere ahead of him rests the only chance to beat back the minions of evil that are systematically killing and enslaving the last remnants of humanity. Navigating the scarred and poisoned landscape that once was America and guided by a powerful talisman, Logan has sworn an oath to seek out a remarkable being born of magic, possessed of untold abilities, and destined to lead the final fight against darkness.”

posted by Jesse Willis

Here are this month’s new releases: AUDIO RENAI…

New Releases

Here are this month’s new releases:

AUDIO RENAISSANCE

There and Back Again: An Actor’s Tale by Sean Astin with Joe Layden, read by Sean Astin

I’m looking forward to this memoir of Astin’s experience working on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I’m one of the folks who watched every extra goodie on the massive Extended LOTR DVD’s.

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BLACKSTONE AUDIO

Callahan’s Con by Spider Robinson, read by Barrett Whitener

Barrett Whitener read Spider Robinson’s The Callahan Chronicals, which we reviewed on SFFAudio a while back. The Callahan stories are among the most empathic high-quality stories you’ll find in the world of science fiction, and this title is likely no different. The description says that Death himself walks into the bar this time…

Jesse:

I just finished listening to Callahan’s Key, also read by Barrett Whitener. Where you’ve described Robinson’s work as “empathic high-quality stories” I would describe it as “high-functioning fan-fiction”. That isn’t a bad thing, I like the stuff myself, but it certainly won’t be to everyone’s taste.

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HARPER AUDIO

A Coyote In The House by Elmore Leonard

This is a kids book in the tradition of “Call of The Wild” – told from the animal’s perspective.

Jesse:

If nothing else, crime and western writer Elmore Leonard has a great ear for dialogue, so this should be a fun tale with respect to that. But he’s never written juvenile fiction before, so its also unknown territory in some respects.

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PAPERBACK DIGITAL

Cally’s War by John Ringo and Julie Cochrane, read by William Dufris and Christine Marshall

A novel by military SF writer and Baen author John Ringo and Julie Cochrane. Cally had been fighting for the future of the human race, but now she is in a war for survival: the survival of her soul…

Paperback Digital has also released several OTR audio dramas on Fictionwise.com: “The Green Hills of Earth” by Robert A. Heinlein, “Drop Dead” by Clifford D. Simak, “Destination: Moon” by Robert A. Heinlein, and “With Folded Hands” by Jack Williamson.

And look for Charlaine Harris’ Vampire Mystery novel Dead Until Dark, which will be released on Halloween. Paperback Digital titles can be purchased on their site (http://www.paperbackdigital.com) or on Fictionwise.

Jesse:

It should also be noted that Paperback Digital has remastered and cleaned up these 1950s era radio dramas. Something which they sorely needed.

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RANDOM HOUSE AUDIO

Legends II: New Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy, Volume III, edited by Robert Silverberg

This volume of the Legends II series contains stories by two of my favorites: “The Monarch of the Glen” by Neil Gaiman and “The Yazoo Queen” by Orson Scott Card. I’m a fan of the short novel length – there is so much treasure out there in the novella and novelette size. While I’m talking about these, Legends II, Vol. 1 contains “The Sworn Sword” by George R.R. Martin and “Beyond Between” by Anne McCaffrey, and Legends II, Vol 2 contains “Lord John and the Succubus” by Diana Gabaldon and “Indomitable” by Terry Brooks.

Jesse:

I look forward to hearing these! The first Legends anthologies were released by HarperAudio last time. Hopefully Random House Audio will do as good a job.

Star Wars: Jedi Trial by David Sherman and Dan Cragg, read by Jonathan Davis

Random House’s Star Wars titles rival Simon and Schuster’s Star Trek titles in production value and style. If you enjoy Star Wars stories, these books are quite good. Also quite good is Jonathan Davis, who I first heard when he read Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash.

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RECORDED BOOKS

Raketty Tam by Brian Jacques, read by Brian Jacques

A title in the Redwall fantasy series!

Another note from Recorded Books – they have a rental program that looks a lot like Netflix. Unlimited audiobook rentals for $29.99/month. Check it out here.

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SIMON AND SCHUSTER AUDIO

Night of the Living Dead by John Russo and George Romero

An audio drama featuring the original cast!

Dark Tower VII by Stephen King, read by George Guidall

The final volume of Stephen King’s epic series. Stephen King read by George Guidall? Yeah, baby. I’m a Stephen King fan, but have not kept up with this series. I’ve heard “The Gunslinger” and “The Drawing of the Three“, and enjoyed them both – time to start on the rest of them.

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COMING SOON!

Wil Wheaton, of wilwheaton.net, has published a book called Just a Geek (which is excellent) and I’m thrilled to report that he’s recording an audio version. Wil says the audiobook has some extra asides, and that it’s more like a performance, or director’s cut, than a straight-forward reading. Look for it on his website in the coming weeks! In the meantime, ITConversations has posted audio of Wil’s recent performance at Gnomedex, where he read excerpts from the book.

Jesse:

This sounds like a terrific idea! Wheaton experimented a little with audio blogging a while back – posting to his website by telephone. He’s also read at least one audiobook short story that I know of. It can be found in Dove Audio’s The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of the 20th Century (which is available on Audible.com). The story is called “Why I left Harry’s All Night Hamburgers” by Lawrence Watt-Evans.

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If you’ve got something you’d like to show up on our monthly New Releases post, write me and let me know. Enjoy, everybody!

Posted by Scott D. Danielson