war – Page 20 – SFFaudio

Review of The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

The Forever War
By Joe Haldeman; Read by George Wilson
8 CDs – 9.5 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Recorded Books
Published: 1999
ISBN: 0788739832
Themes: / Science Fiction / Hard SF / Military SF / War / Time Travel / Aliens / Love /

“Tonight we are going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man.”

The guy who said this was a sergeant who didn’t look five years older than me. So if he’d ever killed a man in combat, silently or otherwise, he’d done it as an infant.

This is Vietnam all over again but now it’s in space. In a world where dreams come true and Science Fiction has become part of the School’s National Curriculum, then Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War becomes compulsory reading material. It’s little wonder it sits at No.1 on Gollancz list of “Science Fiction Masterworks.” And rightly so. Here is a story still fit and ready for duty thirty-three years after winning the Hugo award for “Best Science Fiction Novel.”

William Mandela is a gifted and brilliant college student and so is ideal fodder for the army’s war against an unknown alien race called the Taurans. Mandela is drafted into a harsh training program that kills more recruits than it can mould into soldiers. He is educated and trained to the highest of army standards, becoming one of Earth’s elite foot soldiers in a war against the alien Taurans. He is also a reluctant soldier caught up in this futile war, a war Earth’s economy can not do without. Add to this collapsars, light speed travel, time dilation, ever changing societies and you have Science Fiction at it’s flawless.

Read by George Wilson with the skill of a seasoned veteran. His voice never invades your senses or pulls you away from the gripping tale Haldeman has delivered, and that’s crucial for an audiobook. Wilson got his start in broadcasting as a news director with American Forces Radio and Television in Thailand. He was also instrumental in forming an improvisational comedy group that performed in New York theaters and nightclubs.

The Forever War was first serialized by the science fiction magazine, Analog. Its then editor, Ben Bova, thought the middle section was just too harsh in its descriptions of war and war life, so Haldeman drafted a more mellow alternative and it’s this edition that was used in the book’s first full publication.

There are any number of occurences Haldeman has used in The Forever War from first hand knowledge. He severed in Vietnam as a combat engineer and both Haldeman and his protagonist, Mandela returned fron war to very different attitudes than the ones they left behind. Haldeman knows war, knows it up close and bloody (3 men in his 4 man unit were blown to bits in an ordinance explosion). Haldeman can also identify the boredom that inevitably comes between the battles. In combat situations his descriptions are raw. And like Mandela, every word of The Forever War had to fight to survive under Haldeman’s brutal editorship.

Everyone… here are your instructions. You are to listen to The Forever War ASAP – and that’s an ORDER!

posted by Tony Smith from StarShipSofa

Review of Maps In A Mirror: The Short Fiction Of Orson Scott Card

SFFaudio Review

Maps In A Mirror: The Short Fiction Of Orson Scott Card
By Orson Scott Card; Read by Various
4 Cassettes – Approx. 6 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Dove Audio
Published: 1999
ISBN: 0787121770
Themes: / Science Fiction / Fantasy / Crime / Elephants / Music / Art Theory / Utopia / Dystopia / War / Death /

Four cassettes, six hours, eight stories of Orson Scott Card’s polished prose. Included in this collection are some truly crackerjack stories and a couple that aren’t so hot:

The Elephants Of Posnan appeared in English for the first time in this collection. Originally published in Poland for a Polish Science Fiction magazine it is the tale of a human global die-off caused by an infertility crisis. This is something we’ve seen before in Science Fiction to be sure, but the addition of an elephantine theme and a Polish setting makes this one totally unpredictable. Card reads this himself and gives it an interesting introduction too.

Unaccompanied Sonata is perhaps the most fantastic story here. Set in a bizzare dystopia in which the purity of music can only be assured by the ignorance of its makers. This is a world that could have been inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s theory of art – a world in which imitation ensures art to be a failure. I have no idea if OSC had that in mind when he wrote it but it certainly fits. Read with passion by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

Freeway Games is the least SFFaudio related story in this set. It was first published in Novemeber 1979 in the Gallery magazine which at the time was competing with Playboy for quality short fiction. The original published title was “Hard Driver.” This is basically the story of perverted serial killer who while keeping his hands clean is actually as guilty as sin. It ranks in well alongside Lawrence Block’s late 1970s early 1980s slick magazine tales of demented psychos. Read to perfection by the incomparable Robert Forster.

Lost Boys is interesting in that the main character is someone named Orson Scott Card. My research indicates it is “semi-autobiographical” story, hopefully the fantastic elements are the “semi” part! Stefan Rudnicki, the producer of this audiobook read this tale with a heartfelt flush of sadness. This short story was later expanded into a full length novel which went on to great acclaim.

Quietus, was virtually opaque to me. The plot was something to do with our need to reconcile with death. I am given to understand it incorporates several Mormon themes. The style is surrealistic but even knowing this I couldn’t easily follow it let alone understand its thesis. First published in Omni’s August 1979 issue.

The Best Day was written under the pseudonym Dinah Kirkham. Card’s rumination of the elusive search for happiness. This story fled my brain as soon as it was finished. Read by William Windom.

Fat Farm is perhaps my favorite OSC short story. It isn’t the characters, I hate them. Instead it is the riveting plot that is the star here – this story deals with the philosophy of personal identity in the context of two science fictional technologies: 1. Cloning. 2. Memory uploading. If you can replace your imperfect body with a perfect one and keep on living what would give you pause? OSC’s Fat Farm will do the job. It also compares nicely to Robert J. Sawyer’s Shed Skin. Roddy McDowell’s reading is grumbly, growling and totalitarian. You’ll beleive he is all the characters in this one.

Ender’s Game. The original short story from 1977 shows the sparkling promise that would lead to the unquestionably great novel of the same name. This tale isn’t just an shorter version of the novel, there are a number of differences between the two texts. Reader Michael Gross does a fine job with it.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Of Fire and Night by Kevin J. Anderson

Science Fiction Audiobook Review

Of Fire and Night: The Saga of Seven Suns Book 5
By Kevin J. Anderson; Read by David Colacci
16 CD’s or 2 MP3-CDs – 19 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2006
ISBN: 9781597372176 (CD), 9781597372213 (MP3-CD)
Themes: / Science Fiction / Space Opera / Military / Colonization / Alien Races / Political Intrigue / War /

In the science fiction/fantasy world, it’s not uncommon to be presented with the distinct challenge of writing a review of a middle volume of an ongoing saga without revealing anything that might spoil the previous volumes for potential readers. I’m very enthusiastic about this worthwhile series, though, so the job is made easier. In short, I’ve enjoyed all five books in the Saga of Seven Suns to date, and this volume in particular.

The Saga of Seven Suns is an epic space opera by the prolific Kevin J. Anderson. As the fifth volume in the epic, Of Fire and Night has much backstory and a couple of volumes to go before the story ends. In this book, humankind faces serious odds in a war against the Hydrogues, an alien race that lives inside gas giant planets. As faction after faction turns against the humans, things are dire indeed. Political and military maneuverings amongst humans and aliens are the order of the day here as humanity fights for their very survival.

Other players include the faeros, who are beings that live in suns. The Green Priests who are changed humans that are able to communicate with each other through the living World Tree, no matter where they are. The Roamers, a human faction of space dwellers that are determined to be separate from the Earth-based Hansa, but are called back into the fold by the threat to all humanity. And the enigmatic Ildyrians, whose entire history is collected in a book called “The Saga of Seven Suns”. In this universe, Anderson has created a long list of compelling characters and a darned good story.

Following this now for five volumes (all available on audio – the first two from Recorded Books and the rest from Brilliance Audio), this series has lived up to the hopes I had for it. It is thoroughly entertaining, and I find myself eager for the next volume, which is due next year. Anderson turns up the heat with each book, and juggles the many ingredients of the saga like a masterful chef. I highly recommend the entire series. It’s science fiction that has the “kick your shoes off and settle in” quality of an epic fantasy.

David Colacci is also masterful in his narration, and I’m not using that word lightly. I find him on par with some of the best narrators out there. He was as engaging and entertaining as any narrator I’ve heard throughout this long audiobook. There are some readers that I very much look forward to hearing, and Colacci is now on that list.

And a tip of the hat to the sound engineers. At times, Colacci’s voice is enhanced, like when a hydrogue is speaking, for example. I’ve said over and over again on this site how terrible a mistake it is to do that in an unabridged novel, and yet here it is, perfectly done. The vocal enhancements were sparse and completely effective.

In addition, each audiobook after the first in the series has a “the story so far” segment of significant length (20+ minutes of detail). I appreciate that very much as I’ve listened to the audiobooks as they’ve been released, around a year apart. I checked, and the segment is indeed part of the print version of the books. I found it a particularly helpful part of each audiobook, and am glad it was included.

LINKS

Saga of Seven Suns section of Kevin J. Anderson’s website

Audio Sample of this book from Brilliance Audio

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card

Science Fiction Audiobook Review

Shadow of the Hegemon
By Orson Scott Card; Read by David Birney, Scott Brick, Gabrielle de Cuir, and Stefan Rudnicki
11 CDs – 13 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Renaissance
Published: September 2006
ISBN: 1593974809
Themes: / Science Fiction / War / Politics / Youth / Strategy /

In Ender’s Game, Ender Wiggin and his jeesh won the war against the buggers. From there, the story of Ender and his sister Valentine continues in Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind. But what of the people Ender left behind? What of Ender’s power hungry older brother Peter? What of Bean and the other Battle School kids? Orson Scott Card gives us that story beginning with Ender’s Shadow, then continuing with this novel, Shadow of the Hegemon, and on to Shadow Puppets and Shadow of the Giant. (NOTE: Shadow Puppets is the only novel mentioned here that has not yet been released in unabridged format on CD by Audio Renaissance, but it is in their schedule for January 2007.)

One of the things I admire about the Ender novels as a whole is that Orson Scott Card has not written the same novel twice. Speaker for the Dead is a different kind of novel than Ender’s Game, and Xenocide different again. Ender’s Shadow marked a return in tone to Ender’s Game, but this book was different again. Shadow of the Hegemon is boardgame of a novel, a sort of international chess match between nations battling for dominance after the outside threat of the Buggers has been eliminated.

The Battle School kids are 14 or so now, and have all returned to Earth. Achilles (a failed Battle School student from the previous novel) works for Russia and is given a LOT of power. He orchestrates an operation to kidnap all of Ender’s jeesh from wherever they are in the world, then proceeds to convince these kids that they need to help Russia or rot in a cell where no one else can use them. I had tough time believing that this young man would be given authority to do what he does – what kind of government would give such power to a young teen? Even though history is full of young men in positions of great power, it didn’t ring true for me. The actions of all the other characters in the book were not problematic for me, but I couldn’t help but feel that Achilles just had too much authority, and I just couldn’t see adults readily giving that authority to someone that young.

The main character in the book, and in all the Shadowbooks, is Bean, who is a fascinating and engaging character throughout the series. He manages to figure out what’s going on before getting kidnapped himself, and thus starts the story.

The book switches point of view frequently, moving from Bean to Petra to Peter Wiggin. Scott Brick read the Bean chapters, Gabrielle de Cuir read the Petra chapters, and David Birney the Peter Wiggin chapters. Card provided plenty of dramatic moments in the novel for these performers, most notably the first meeting between Bean and Ender Wiggin’s mother, powerfully read by Scott Brick.

Card kept the scale of the novel both personal and global, and mentions Tom Clancy in his afterword as an influence. The book is an enjoyable addition to the Ender universe, and I’m eager to hear the next book, Shadow Puppets, when it is released. In fact, when it is, I may treat myself to the entire Shadow series again. They are superb productions, every one.

Audio Renaissance’s website has a page dedicated to the entire audio Ender series – find it here.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

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 Battlestar Galactica by Jeffrey A. Carver

SFFaudio Review

Battlestar Galactica
By Jeffrey A. Carver, based on the teleplay written by Ronald D. Moore and Christopher Eric James, based on a teleplay by Glen A. Larson
Read by Jonathan Davis
4 CD’s – 4 hours [ABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Renaissance
Published: 2005
Themes: / Science Fiction / War / Robots / Military / Government / Space Travel / Mythology / Religion /

Has anyone else noticed how good television has become during the past ten years? Well, 13 years. In 1993 Babylon 5 first aired, ushering in a new wave of science fiction and fantasy television that is both smart and damned entertaining. Following B5 was Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly. Many would put Farscape and Stargate in the same category. I haven’t seen enough of either to make that judgment. We could quibble about the list of this new wave all we want, but currently at the crest of that wave is the Sci-Fi Channel’s Battlestar Galactica, which is, without doubt, the best science fiction show currently in production.

This audiobook is an abridgement of the novelization of the first Battlestar Galactica show, which was a 4-hour mini-series that originally ran in 2002. I admit that even typing that makes me wince. An abridgement of the novelization of a television show. How much farther from Shakespeare can a person get? Not exactly high falutin culture here.

But this story is edgy, tense, and complex. It opens with a complacent human race that has gotten used to life without their enemy, the Cylons. The Cylons were human-built machines that rebelled, then accepted an armistice agreement around 40 years before the beginning of this audiobook, which is primarily about the sudden unexpected attack on humanity by the Cylons. The attack leaves the Battlestar Galactica as one of the very few ships that survives, and the immediate aftermath sets up several storylines that are followed in the television series.

Jonathan Davis, who keeps pretty busy with the many Star Wars audio titles, narrates, and does his typical and excellent job with it.

I’m a fan of this series, and was happy to receive this audiobook. Though the audio offers nothing new over the miniseries itself, it was an enjoyable way to experience the story while driving. I’m not sure if Audio Renaissance plans to continue releasing Battlestar Galactica titles, but because of the nature of the series, they would have to release every episode since each one is dependant on what takes place before.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson