Review: The Land Across

Posted on 2013-12-31 at 07:25 by Dave Thompson

The Land Across By Gene Wolfe, Read by Jeff Woodman Length: 10 hours, 56 minutes

Toward the end of Gene Wolfe’s The Land Across, travel-writer Grafton tells his foreign secret police comrade that he doesn’t have anything to tell her, but thinks: “Really, there was a lot [to tell], but I had decided not to tell all that. I figured it out last night, and this morning…I didn’t know how to say it.” Well, I have to admit, I haven’t figured it all out, and I’d be lying if I thought I did, but I sure enjoyed scratching the surface, even if it did make me feel like the secret police agent being kept in the dark by her partner. This is probably pretty standard for Wolfe books – he’s an author who is notorious for his subtle writing.

The Land Across follows Grafton as he travels to a mysterious land where about which no travel books have been written. It is not a travelogue, though – Grafton is quickly abducted by border guards and put under house arrest once he arrives. Soon, he’s hired to investigate a haunted house, press-ganged into a cult, arrested again, and is press-ganged as agent for the country’s secret police. There are suggestions of vampirism, life size voodoo dolls, magic, and the creepiest, funniest, coolest severed hand I’ve had the pleasure of reading about.

If that sounds weird and complicated, well, it is. This is a Gene Wolfe book, after all. If it sounds like a book spinning out of control…I’m guessing you haven’t read much of Gene Wolfe’s stuff before. He’s a master writer, and no matter how bizarre things get, he uses strong, crisp prose that is easy to listen to, subtly layered, and you just go with it.

I don’t usually consider Wolfe’s writing to be full of humor – maybe that’s because up until now, I’d always read his books first. But the casual way Jeff Woodman narrated this book made the all the ridiculous situations brim over with humor. When he reads a line like “It doesn’t seem like corpse fat would make very good candles,” I couldn’t help but blink, and then cackle. Also, pretty much all of Grafton’s relationships with nearly every female character. And much of that is down to Woodman, who you can’t help but want to love.

There is a decided lack of Gene Wolfe audiobooks, and that’s a real shame. Wolfe is a master of speculative fiction – he’s regarded by Neil Gaiman as “the smartest, subtlest, most dangerous writer alive today.” We only have five of his novels in audio, and hopefully, we’ll see many, many more from Audible/Audible Frontiers soon.

Posted in reviews, Uncategorized | Tagged fantastic travelogues, gene wolfe, jeff woodman, review

Jeff VanderMeer's forthcoming "Annihilation: a novel" to be narrated by Carolyn McCormick

Posted on 2013-12-30 at 22:51 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

I’ve been refreshing Blackstone Audio’s site every week or so for months now, looking for news on the narrator and release date confirmation. And lo and behold on their new Blackstone Library website is an even shinier new listing for Annihilation, the first novel in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy.

And the narrator is listed as Carolyn McCormick, whose work on The Hunger Games audiobooks I absolutely adored. This is a big-time casting for a big-time novel, and I’m very excited to see what McCormick brings to VanderMeer’s lush, mysterious “Area X”.

Also of note is that the release date is set for February 4, concurrent with the hardcover/ebook release from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Which is when it hits me: that’s barely over a month away. I can’t wait! It’s not yet up for pre-order from Downpour.com or Audible.com, but when it is, be assured that I will not be too quiet about it.

Posted in news | Tagged annihilation, carolyn mccormick, jeff vandermeer, southern reach trilogy

Whispersync Daily Deal: Joe Hill, Guillermo del Toro, Joyce Carol Oates, Clive Barker, Neal Stephenson, and more

Posted on 2013-12-29 at 15:23 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

Sunday, December 29 has quite a few Kindle Daily Deals on offer with Whispersync for Voice upgrades to Audible editions, among them books by Joe Hill, Guillermo del Toro, Joyce Carol Oates, Clive Barker, and Neal Stephenson.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Daily Deal is The Mongoliad Series by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, and Joseph Brassey among other co-authors, with each of the 4 books available for $1.99 in Kindle and with $0.99 Whispersync for Voice upgrades to the tour-de-force-of-accents narrations by Luke Daniels. “he story chronicles the journey of a small band of warriors and mystics as they fight to save Europe from the Mongol invasion of the thirteenth century. It also exposes the secret workings of powerful clandestine societies that have been driving world events for millennia. This fascinating and enthralling first novel in The Mongoliad trilogy fuses historical events with a gripping fictional narrative. Co-written by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, E. D. deBirmingham, Mark Teppo, Joseph Brassey, Erik Bear, and Cooper Moo, The Mongoliad: Book One is an unforgettable epic.”

There’s also a “Popular Mysteries and Thrillers” list today, with The Hellbound Heart ($1.99 Kindle and $1.99 Audible) and Mister B. Gone ($1.99 Kindle and $3.99 Audible) by Clive Barker, 20th Century Ghosts ($1.99 Kindle and $5.95 Audible) and NOS4A2 ($1.99 Kindle and $5.99 Audible) by Joe Hill, the latter fresh off being listed in TIME’s 10 best fiction books of 2013. “Victoria McQueen has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety covered bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it’s across Massachusetts or across the country. Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing – and terrifying – playground of amusements he calls “Christmasland.” Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble—and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx’s unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. He’s on the road again and he’s picked up a new passenger: Vic’s own son.”

Also in that section is another highly-rated novel from 2013, The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates, at $1.99 Kindle and $5.99 for the Audible edition which Grover Gardner narrates brilliantly for Harper Audio. “Princeton, New Jersey, at the turn of the 20th century: a tranquil place to raise a family, a genteel town for genteel souls. But something dark and dangerous lurks at the edges of the town, corrupting and infecting its residents. Vampires and ghosts haunt the dreams of the innocent. A powerful curse besets the elite families of Princeton; their daughters begin disappearing. A young bride on the verge of the altar is seduced and abducted by a dangerously compelling man - a shape-shifting, vaguely European prince who might just be the devil.”

Also included in the sale is Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s “high tech vampire epic” series The Strain Trilogy, though the first book is not Whispersync for Voice enabled apparently, books The Fall: Book Two of the Strain Trilogy  and The Night Eternal (The Strain Trilogy) are both included at $1.99 Kindle and $4.99 Audible.

Posted in Whispersync Deals | Tagged guillermo del toro, joe hill, joyce carol oates, neal stephenson, nos4a2, the accursed, the mongoliad, the strain

Whispersync Daily Deal: Brilliance by Marcus Sakey, Into the Black by Evan Currie, and five books by Raymond Feist

Posted on 2013-12-26 at 17:35 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

Wednesday, December 26 brings a few Kindle Daily Deals with inexpensive Whispersync upgrades to consider, starting with Marcus Sakey’s Brilliance, on sale for $1.99 on Kindle and $0.99 more via Whispersync for the Audible edition narrated by Luke Daniels. “In Wyoming, a little girl reads people’s darkest secrets by the way they fold their arms. In New York, a man sensing patterns in the stock market racks up $300 billion. In Chicago, a woman can go invisible by being where no one is looking. They’re called “brilliants,” and since 1980, one percent of people have been born this way. Nick Cooper is among them; a federal agent, Cooper has gifts rendering him exceptional at hunting terrorists. His latest target may be the most dangerous man alive, a brilliant drenched in blood and intent on provoking civil war. But to catch him, Cooper will have to violate everything he believes in - and betray his own kind.” The Guilded Earlobe loved this audiobook, giving it a rare “A+” and calling it “a smart blockbuster movie for your brain, with a complex and engaging main character, a stunningly created world, and so much action you should probably keep your cardiologist on Speed Dial.” And adding: “It’s a a straight thriller with enough science fiction elements that I want to force all my Speculative Fiction friends to read, at gun point if necessary. I absolutely loved this book.”

Evan Currie’s Into the Black is also on sale along with the second book in his “Odyssey One” series, available on Kindle for $1.99 and with a $0.99 Whispersync upgrade to the Audible audiobook, read by Benjamin L. Darcie. I reviewed this one a while back: “Currie’s self-published 2011 space sf novel was picked up by Amazon.com’s 47North, polished up, and given a full 2012 re-release in print, e-book, and audiobook. Here, Into the Black sees a new starship, the series-eponymous Odyssey, with a new, experimental long-distance “jump” style drive, captained by a veteran of a more terrestrial fighter pilot squadron, make its first jump, encounter the wreckage of an alien ship, and adventure onward. … Here Darcie’s narration is instantly recognizable as the “classic space sf” mode of narration: clean, dry, and precise, with minimal vocal gymnastics to distinguish speakers. Die-hard fans of space adventure fiction who burn their way through novels and audiobooks will find enough “there” there.”

Also on sale today are 5 books from Raymond Feist, 3 in his Chaoswar series and the first two books of the Demonwar Saga. All are listed at $1.99 Kindle today, with $4.99 Whispersync upgrades to the audiobook editions on Audible.

Posted in Whispersync Deals | Tagged brilliance, evan currie, marcus sakey, raymond feist

Whispersync Daily Deal: Samantha Shannon's The Bone Season

Posted on 2013-12-25 at 16:02 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

Wednesday, December 25 brings Samantha Shannon’s The Bone Season as a Kindle Daily Deal for $1.99, which along with a $1.99 upgrade via Whispersync for Voice brings you the excellent Audible edition narrated by Alana Kerr.

Kerr perfectly brings a subtle Irish flavor to Shannon’s protagonist, 19-year-old dreamwalker Paige Mahoney in London of 2059. “The year is 2059. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld of Scion London, based at Seven Dials, employed by a man named Jaxon Hall. Her job: to scout for information by breaking into people’s minds. For Paige is a dreamwalker, a clairvoyant, and in the world of Scion, she commits treason simply by breathing… It is raining the day her life changes forever. Attacked, drugged and kidnapped, Paige is transported to Oxford - a city kept secret for 200 years, controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race.”

Other Whispersync deals today include The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared ($1.99 and $1.99) and Vicki Pettersson’s Sign of the Zodiac series ($0.99 Kindle and $0.99 Audible each).

Posted in Whispersync Deals | Tagged samantha shannon, the bone season

Sam's Listening Report: March 2013

Posted on 2013-12-24 at 14:25 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

So. Since I let these "monthly" reports get so completely out of hand -- note that the February report was just posted in mid-November -- I'm changing the format up a lot. I'm going to just run down what I listened to and maybe, maybe one quick comment; that way actual reviews don't have to be held up while I write a month's worth at a time. So, with that in mind, here's what I listened to in March:

NOTES:

Posted in Sam's Monthly Listening Report | Tagged bitterwood, c robert cargill, dave thompson, dimension of miracles, dreams and shadows, fade to black, francis knight, james maxey, john hodgman, manil suri, neil gaiman presents, paul thornley, priya ayyar, robert sheckley, the city of devi, vikas adam

Whispersync Daily Deal: Death with Interruptions by José Saramago

Posted on 2013-12-20 at 15:03 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

Bright and early today so plenty of notice to check out Death with Interruptions by Nobel Prize-winner José Saramago (Blindness), translated by Margaret Jull Costa, available for $1.99 today on Kindle; and through a $1.99 Whispersync for Voice upgrade to the Audible edition narrated by Paul Baymer.

”Nobel Prize-winner José Saramago’s brilliant new novel poses the question — what happens when the grim reaper decides there will be no more death? On the first day of the new year, no one dies. This of course causes consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. Among the general public, on the other hand, there is initially celebration—flags are hung out on balconies, people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity: eternal life. Then reality hits home—families are left to care for the permanently dying, life-insurance policies become meaningless, and funeral parlors are reduced to arranging burials for pet dogs, cats, hamsters, and parrots. Death sits in her chilly apartment, where she lives alone with scythe and filing cabinets, and contemplates her experiment: What if no one ever died again? What if she, death with a small d, became human and were to fall in love?”

Posted in Whispersync Deals | Tagged jose saramago

Whispersync Daily Deal: Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson

Posted on 2013-12-20 at 00:28 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

I knew it, I just knew I should have checked earlier in the day, but, well, I was stinking busy. Still, it’s not too late to snap up one of the best books and audiobooks of the year. Shaman: a novel of the Ice Age by Kim Stanley Robinson is today’s sf/f Kindle Daily Deal at $2.99, and offers a $4.99 Whispersync upgrade to the absolutely masterful Graeme Malcolm narration at Audible.

I bought this DRM-free on its release day from Hachette Audio via Downpour, but for those shopping at Audible this is a no-brainer. I’ve elsewhere written of my appreciation for this book: “I’m very susceptible to the impulse of “hey this latest thing I like is the greatest thing yet” so I’ve been trying to temper that and think about it. Some fantastic books this year (Life After Life, The Shining Girls, American Elsewhere, The Best of All Possible Worlds, The Golem and the Jinni, River of Stars, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, The City of Devi, The Accursed, North American Lake Monsters, being a personal top 10 so far which could have a few more right there, too, Karen Joy Fowler, Gaiman and Mur and Jernigan, Austin Grossman and Will McIntosh and Warren Ellis and Ben Winters, and Max Barry’s Lexicon knocking on the door, with Wilton’s Lookaway, Lookaway, and already liking Lansdale’s The Thicket…) there’s just something about Shaman, by far the most lyrical of Robinson’s books that I’ve read, with the most expertly rendered characters of his that I’ve encountered (and I loved 2312, by the way) that I think it’s really going to be one that sticks around for me. I found myself cheering for Loon’s successes, and aching for his failures. That’s something, right? A note to friends who mostly exclusively like fantasy/sf/etc. — this one’s not really either, it’s set in the Ice Age, with the people who painted bears on caves in France while neanderthals still walked the Earth. There’s a tiny, just a tiny hook in there for you, the narrator, which is (and you can glimpse a bit in this excerpt) “the third wind”. Conversely for my friends who loathe fantasy/sf/etc. — again, this one’s not really either, just grant this unique (and rarely interrupting into the story) narrator its voice.”

Seriously, go get it while the getting is good.

Posted in Whispersync Deals | Tagged kim stanley robinson, shaman

Review: Space Magic

Posted on 2013-12-19 at 07:06 by Dave Thompson

Space Magic Written and Read by David D. Levine Length: 7 hours, 56 minutes

I didn’t always love short fiction. For a long time, short stories seemed like distracting interludes from the main course - novels. But before I fell in love with audiobooks, I discovered Escape Pod – a science fiction podcast, and fell in with short fiction. Escape Pod delivers short science fiction stories on a weekly basis, most of them perfectly suited for a commute to work. Thanks to Escape Pod, I discovered tons of authors I’d never heard of before that wrote incredible short stories Tim Pratt, Greg van Eekhout, Mur Lafferty, Genevieve Valentine, N.K. Jemisin, Samantha Henderson, Eugie Foster, and David D. Levine. These folks are incredible storytellers, but sadly – their short story collections (if they have one) are limited to print or eBooks. Nowadays, I co-edit PodCastle, their sister fantasy podcast where we’ve featured both Levine’s short fiction and used his talents as a narrator. So when Levine told me he had a collection of his short stories coming out in audio and asked if I’d be interested in reviewing, I jumped at the chance.

Space Magic is bookended by far flung, epic futures – which seems to be where Levine is at his most imaginative and comfortable. “Wind from a Dying Star” is a far flung futuristic tale set in the wilderness of space, when earth is a heaping ruins, and our sun is dying. The stars are roamed by humanity, humanity’s heirs, and their enemies. “The Tale of the Golden Eagle” is a futuristic mythology about artificially intelligent space ships, stripped from their vessels, and inserted into humanoid hosts. Both these stories call to mind work by Asimov and Clarke along with a certain sense of optimism and romance, and were very easy to get absorbed in.

“Zauberscrhift” is a technical writer’s look at wizarding and spells, where a former wizard’s apprentice must return to his village in order to right a spell that’s gone awry. “Brotherhood” looks at the horrors and atrocities that early unions in the United States faced, and the hardships of the workers.

The centerpiece of the collection is “Tk’Tk’Tk,” the 2006 Hugo Award-winning story about an aging human businessman trying to navigate an alien culture as he attempts to sell it some software while having something of a midlife crisis. It’s probably my favorite story of the bunch due to the humorous sense of isolation, amusingly poor alien translations, and attempts to make some kind of connection with individuals utterly alien.  It’s a story for anyone who has ever felt lost or unsure about their place in the world.

In the afterward, Levine discusses how much he enjoys reading stories live at convention, and it shows in his delivery here. He knows the tone of the stories and how they should sound, and is able to pull off the different characters and tales. I do wish there had been author notes on each story – I’m a sucker for author notes, even when a story bounces off me. But that’s a very minor complaint.

All in all, Space Magic is an imaginative collection of science fiction and fantasy that’s sure to please genre fans.

Table of Contents: Wind from a Dying Star Nucleon I Hold my Father’s Paws Zauberschrift Rewind Fear of Widths Brotherhood Circle of Compassion Tk’Tk’Tk Charlie the Purple Giraffe Falling off the Unicorn The Ecology of Faerie At the Twenty Fifth Annual Meeting of Uncle Teco’s Homebrew Gravitics Club Love in the Balance The Tale of the Golden Eagle

Posted in reviews | Tagged Collection, David D. Levine, Short Fiction, Space Magic

Release Week: Nicola Griffith's Hild, Lewis Shiner's Collected Stories, and Simon Vance narrates John Harwood's The Ghost Writer and Clive Barker's collection of First Tales

Posted on 2013-12-18 at 20:40 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

DECEMBER 11-17, 2013: Finally! Amidst one of the quietest weeks yet on the year, Nicola Griffith's Hild is in audio at last, along with a multi-voiced production of Lewis Shiner's magnificent Collected Stories and enough chilling tales to send you even closer to the fire this winter, with Simon Vance reading both John Harwood's The Ghost Writer and Clive Barker's First Tales, and (in the also out listings) a pair of Spokenworld/Ladbroke productions have excellent narrators reading classic tales from Ambrose Bierce, Bram Stoker, Charles Dickens, Henry James, H.P. Lovecraft, Daniel Defoe, Mary Shelley, and W W Jacobs, AND! a new unabridged production of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. Meanwhile, if next week's as quiet as it looks to be, I'll have the time to finally start putting out some end-of-the-year articles and get ready to kick off the "Arrrrrrrdies". (Note, again: there may be fewer Rs.) Enjoy!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Hild: A Novel by Nicola Griffith, narrated by Pearl Hewitt for Macmillan Audio is finally here, just over a month after the print/ebook release from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Originally slated to be read by Anne Flosnick, the audiobook had to be recast and it's luckily landed on its feet with Hewitt, an experienced narrator (Jaleigh Johnson's Spider and Stone, Catherine Gayle's Lord Rotheby's Influence, Sally MacKenzie's The Naked King) though one whose narrations have tended -- with the obvious exception of Johnson's Forgotten Realms novel --  towards Regency and romance rather than to the Northumbrian seventh century. Curious, I stayed up past midnight Monday night to jump aboard, and am well, well pleased with Hewitt's narration, though far from finished as the audiobook runs well into a 24th hour. It's a book I've been eagerly waiting all year, and recently the (admittedly brief, in the scheme of things) extra anticipation has been a bit hard to bear as reviews and praise have continued to pour forth. LibraryJournal says: “Since Griffith has won the Tiptree, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards, the Premio Italia, and the Lambda Literary Award six times, you’re well advised to grab this fictionalized portrait of a girl name Hild who grew up in seventh-century Britain and became St. Hilda’s of Whitby. Griffith gives us a determined and uncannily perceptive Hild who seems capable of predicting the future (or at least of human behavior), a trait that puts her in the life-and-death position of being made the king’s seer. The writing itself is uncannily perceptive, with none of the flowery excess of some historical fiction writing, though the detailed narrative runs close to 600 pages. I thought of Hillary Mantel’s Wolf Hall even before I noted the comparison in the promotion.” The author’s blog contains links to download a glossary, maps, and other reference material quite useful to those of us without the print edition on our laps to flip through.

Collected Stories by Lewis Shiner is the “definitive collection” of Shiner’s short fiction in the form of 41 stories, published in an exquisite hardcover edition by Subterranean Press in 2009 and now produced by Skyboat Media for Blackstone Audio, read by Stefan Rudnicki, John Rubinstein, Janis Ian, Scott Brick, Kimberly Farr, Arthur Morey, Roxanne Hernandez Coyne, Rex Linn, David Birney, Kristoffer Tabori, Gabrielle de Cuir, and Karen Joy Fowler reading her own introduction. It's another long audiobook at 20+ hours, but it's one to sample in and out of and return to for your favorites over the coming years. Ah, "The Lizard Men of Los Angeles". Ah, "Perfido". Ah, "White City" and "Till Human Voices Wake Us".

The Ghost Writer by John Harwood, read by Simon Vance for Blackstone Audio (Dec 15) -- Winner of the 2004 International Horror Guild Award for Best First Novel, voiced by the superb Simon Vance. "In this tantalizing tale of Victorian ghost stories and family secrets, timid, solitary librarian Gerard Freeman lives for just two things: his elusive pen pal Alice and a story he found hidden in his mother’s drawer years ago. Written by his great-grandmother Viola, it hints at his mother’s role in a sinister crime. As he discovers more of Viola’s chilling tales, he realizes that they might hold the key to finding Alice and unveiling his family’s mystery—or will they bring about his untimely death, as they seem to foretell? Harwood’s astonishing, assured debut shows us just how dangerous family skeletons—and stories—can be." PW's review: "Sly nods to spooky literary spinsters—Henry James's Miss Jessel and Dickens's Miss Havisham—set the tone for this confident debut, a gothic suspense novel with a metatextual spin. ... the novel links textual investigation and sublimated passion, building to a satisfying, unexpected ending."

And speaking of Vance, and chilling tales to curl up through the winter nights by: Clive Barker's First Tales by Clive Barker, narrated by Vance for Crossroad Press; a 2-story, 3-hour audiobook collection. "The book begins with 'The Wood on the Hill', a short story about a bourgeois woman who is soon to learn a terrifying lesson concerning her complete disregard for anyone other than herself. The second tale, 'The Candle in the Cloud', is a novella of dark fantasy that follows three children who discover a magical candle that transports them to a world where a plague-cloud is destroying everything in its wake. These two tales, the first ever written by Clive, are offered here for the very first time. Their production has been lovingly supervised by Clive himself to ensure that these are not mere books, but works of art to be cherished. First Tales is sure to delight everyone from longtime fans to new listeners. In his own words: 'These two stories represent the two essential structures of fantastique literature. "The Wood on the Hill" is about an incursion of unearthly elements into an approximation of our world. "The Candle in the Cloud" is about a journey taken by people from our world into another reality. Yin and Yang, if you like. Forces pulling in opposing directions but to achieve the same end: Revelation.'"

 ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged clive barker, hild, janis ian, john harwood, lewis shiner, nicola griffith, simon vance, stefan rudnicki, the ghost writer