Release Week: Chimera, vN, and Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber from Juliani and Wheaton

Posted on 2012-08-01 at 14:02 by Sam

July goes out with quite a bang this release week, with two of my long-anticipated sf titles and an unexpectedly fantastic surprise with the Audible Frontiers release of Roger Zelazny’s The Chronicles of Amber series under two all-star narrators.

Being quite a fan of the first and second books in the series, I’m already digging into Chimera: The Subterrene War, Book 3 By T. C. McCarthy, Narrated by John Pruden for Blackstone Audio: “Escaped Germline soldiers need to be cleaned up, and Stan Resnick is the best man for the job - a job that takes him to every dark spot and every rat hole he can find. Operatives from China and Unified Korea are gathering escaped or stolen Russian and American genetics, and there are reports of new biological nightmares: half-human things bred to live their entire lives encased in powered armor suits. Stan fights to keep himself alive and out of prison while he attempts to capture a genetic - one who will be able to tell them everything they need to know about this new threat, the one called Project Sunshine. Chimera is the third and final volume of the Subterrene War trilogy, which tells the story of a single war from the perspective of three different combatants.” While I don’t have a release day review of the audiobook for you, Publishers Weekly’s starred review says: “Breathtaking and heartrending, this is the future of military science fiction.” And my own early thoughts are: “McCarthy writing the disaffected Resnick is coming from a darker place than the self destructive fame chasing or nihilism of the journalist in book one; definitely a huge change from the nearly optimistic young voice of Exogene’s protagonist. And seeing the monitored and predicted automated US home here recalls both Big Brother and Minority Report. Here we get to see a much wider view of the world of The Subterrene War; one where Sydney and LA are nuclear wastelands, being half-heartedly resettled as a (and here is a paraphrase from memory, because I don’t have the text) ‘band-aid, to show that as much could be done was being done, and if people could just hold on until space colonization and mining finally take hold…’”

Speaking of the (further) future, my other much-anticipated new release today is vN: The First Machine Dynasty By Madeline Ashby, Narrated by Christina Traister for Angry Robot on Brilliance Audio. The title is listed a bit surprisingly to me under Teens, but coming with praise from Cory Doctorow (“Ashby’s debut is a fantastic adventure story that carries a sly philosophical payload about power and privilege, gender and race. It is often profound, and it is never boring”) and Peter Watts (“vN might just be the most piercing interrogation of humanoid AI since Asimov kicked it all off with the Three Laws.”) — Here’s the pitch: “For the past five years, she has been grown slowly as part of a mixed organic/synthetic family. She knows very little about her android mother’s past, so when her grandmother arrives and attacks them, young Amy wastes no time: she eats her alive. Now she’s on the run, carrying her malfunctioning granny as a partition on her memory drive. She’s growing quickly, and learning too. Like the fact that in her, and her alone, the failsafe that stops all robots from harming humans has stopped working… Which means that everyone wants a piece of her, some to use her as a weapon, others to destroy her.”

The surprise comes in the form of a beloved classic series coming to audio from a pair of all-star narrators, that series being Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber and those narrators being Alessandro Juliani (SyFy’s Battlestar Galactica reboot, and an Audie nomination for his work on Solaris: The Definitive Edition) for the first five of the ten books: Nine Princes in Amber: The Chronicles of Amber, Book 1, The Guns of Avalon: The Chronicles of Amber, Book 2, Sign of the Unicorn: The Chronicles of Amber, Book 3, The Hand of Oberon: The Chronicles of Amber, Book 4, and The Courts of Chaos: The Chronicles of Amber, Book 5:

And Wil Wheaton (who needs no introduction, surely?) on the remaining five: Trumps of Doom: The Chronicles of Amber, Book 6, Blood of Amber: The Chronicles of Amber, Book 7, Sign of Chaos: The Chronicles of Amber, Book 8, Knight of Shadows: The Chronicles of Amber, Book 9, and Prince of Chaos: The Chronicles of Amber, Book 10.

ALSO OUT TUESDAY:

Posted in regular, Release Week | Tagged alessandro juliani, chimera, madeline ashby, release week, roger zelazny, tc mccarthy, vN, wil wheaton

PW's ListenUp points us to William Dufris's AudioComics Company

Posted on 2012-07-30 at 14:58 by Sam

Link: PW’s ListenUp points us to William Dufris’s AudioComics Company

The samples sound a bit like GraphicAudio in terms of full cast, sound effects, etc. The Batsons title seems oriented for kids, which is a nice change of pace and a more unique direction. I wasn’t overly thrilled with the packed-to-the-earwalls sample for Titanium Rain, but as it was a battle scene, it’s hard to get an overall feel for a more typical section of the narrative. Something to keep an eye on.

Posted in link | Tagged audiocomics, publishing news

It's Iambik Audiobooks day!

Posted on 2012-07-27 at 17:06 by Sam

It’s been a while since I saw any Iambik titles showing up at Audible.com, but today has seen a long list arrive, including the absolutely fantastic, you should not miss, Last Dragon By J. M. McDermott, Narrated by Cori Samuel:

I bought this direct from Iambik earlier this year, and it immediately became one of my all-time favorites. As I said in my May listening report, “The book is a disjointed experience, with several timelines bringing out exquisite foreshadowing and a beautiful sense of melancholy, purpose, and atmosphere. At first, the switches between timelines was a bit jarring, but before long I found the rhythm and began to recognize the cues that setting, characters, and events quickly provided. I do not want to say too much about this book other than: listen to it or read it. Zhan is a girl coming of age, leaning to be a hunter in a secondary world of snow, ash, war, and power. What magic there once might have been is largely gone. What gods there are do not seem to listen. Once, dragons lived. But they have all been hunted and killed. So, into this, in a tribal culture, the girl Zhan. Her family is murdered, apparently by her grandfather, and so off on a quest of vengeance into the wider world goes Zhan with her uncle Seth, a fire-breathing shaman. Who can make golems. They meet and hire a mercenary bodyguard; a paladin; a gypsy. They travel through and ahead of the drums of war. It’s just beautiful. Go read it.”

I’ve only just started on another title, A Book of Tongues: Hexslinger, Book 1 By Gemma Files, Narrated by Gordon Mackenzie, and book two is already here as well: A Rope of Thorns: Hexslinger, Book 2:

And here’s some more just-added (to Audible, they’ve been available direct from Iambik for a bit) titles:

• Trash Sex Magic By Jennifer Stevenson, Narrated by Arielle Lipshaw — Length:10 hrs and 33 mins
• Road to Hell By Krista D. Ball, Narrated by Priscilla Holbrook — Length:4 hrs and 47 mins
• In the Mean Time By Paul Tremblay, Narrated by John Greenman — Length:7 hrs and 2 mins
• Homing By Stephanie Domet, Narrated by Linette Geisel — Length:5 hrs and 51 mins
• Sleight By Kirsten Kaschock, Narrated by Adam Verner — Length:9 hrs and 13 mins
• Playing Solitaire and Other Stories By Mark Shainblum, Narrated by Elizabeth Klett and John Greenman — Length:2 hrs and 13 mins

And, speaking of Iambik, as I mentioned in this week’s release week post, they have recently published another pair of sf/f titles, so far only available directly from Iambik: The Land at the End of the Working Day by Peter Crowther, Narrated by Robert Keiper (Published in print by PS Publishing) and Outer Diverse by Nina Munteanu, Narrated by Dawn Harvey (Published in print by Starfire World Syndicate) — for Outer Diverse use code diverse-launch for 10% off.

Posted in regular | Tagged audible, iambik

Audiobook Review: The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker | The Guilded Earlobe

Posted on 2012-07-27 at 12:19 by Sam

Link: Audiobook Review: The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker | The Guilded Earlobe

Absolutely fascinating review of one of this year’s most anticipated “genre in the mainstream” titles.

Posted in link

Release Week: Vlad; Neil Gaiman Presents Ellen Kushner's The Privilege of the Sword; Charles Yu; and Charles Stross's The Apocalypse Codex

Posted on 2012-07-25 at 16:27 by Sam

The release week for Tuesday, July 24 brings quite a few titles I’m very interested in. Luckily, two of the audiobooks I’ve most got my eyes on are on the shorter side.

Vlad By Carlos Fuentes, translated by Alejandro Branger and Ethan Shaskan Bumas, narrated by Robert Fass for Dreamscape Media (Dalkey Archive Press, 112 pages) — Length: 2 hrs and 41 mins — “Where, Carlos Fuentes asks, is a modern-day vampire to roost? Why not Mexico City, populated by ten million blood sausages (that is, people), and a police force who won’t mind a few disappearances? ‘Vlad’ is Vlad the Impaler, of course, whose mythic cruelty was an inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. In this sly sequel, Vlad really is undead. More than a postmodern riff on “the vampire craze”, Vlad is also an anatomy of the Mexican bourgeoisie, as well as our culture’s ways of dealing with death. For - as in Dracula - Vlad has need of both a lawyer and a real-estate agent in order to establish his new kingdom, and Yves Navarro and his wife Asuncion fit the bill nicely. Having recently lost a son, might they not welcome the chance to see their remaining child live forever? More importantly, are the pleasures of middle-class life enough to keep one from joining the legions of the damned?”

The Privilege of the Sword By Ellen Kushner, Narrated by Ellen Kushner, Barbara Rosenblat, Felicia Day, Joe Hurley, Katherine Kellgren, Nick Sullivan, and Neil Gaiman for Neil Gaiman Presents — Length:15 hrs and 40 mins — won the 2007 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel — “A few words from Neil on Privilege of the Sword: Life hands us so many moments when we hover between who we were raised to be, who the people around us are trying to make us, and who we are trying to become. In Katherine’s case, that means encountering a range of people and behaviors her mother never prepared her for - including some shocking acts of violence, both physical and emotional. As one of Kushner’s most charming characters, an actress known as “The Black Rose”, sighs, “It’s all so very difficult, until you get the hang of it.”” Here The Privilege of the Sword is another “illuminated” production, with Kushner’s narration accompanied by a full cast, as was the case for fellow World of Riverside novel Swordspoint: A Melodrama of Manners.

Sorry Please Thank You: Stories By Charles Yu, Narrated by James Yaegashi, Johnathon Ross, Mark Nelson, Ramon De Ocampo, Richard Poe, and Johnny Heller for Recorded Books — Length:4 hrs and 50 mins — “New York Times Notable Book author Charles Yu wrote the best-selling novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. In his stunning, often humorous, collection Sorry Please Thank You, Yu draws on pop culture and science to make incisive observations about society - and to offer touching insight into the human condition. In two of Yu’s remarkable stories, he focuses on a big-box-store night-shift employee with girl trouble and a company that outsources grief for profit.”

And just out today (Wednesday July 25) is The Apocalypse Codex By Charles Stross, Narrated by Gideon Emery for Recorded Books — Length:11 hrs and 55 mins — “The winner of multiple Hugo Awards, Charles Stross is one of the most highly regarded science fiction writers of his time. In The Apocalypse Codex, occasionally hapless British agent Bob Howard tackles a case involving an American televangelist and a supernatural threat of global proportions.”

ALSO OUT TUESDAY:

Posted in regular, Release Week | Tagged ari marmell, bv larson, Carlos Fuentes, charles stross, charles yu, darksiders, ellen kushner, felicia day, katherine kellgren, neil gaiman, neil gaiman presents, release week, sorry please thank you, technomancer, the apocalypse codex, vlad

Another Audible sale: 3 for 2

Posted on 2012-07-22 at 02:19 by Sam

Audible is already in the midst of its Paperback Sale and has announced as well a new 3 for 2 sale, ending August 1, with “each book a part of a popular series”.

The sale includes among others:

• Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars)
• Dan Simmons’s Hyperion Cantos (Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, The Rise of Endymion)
• Charles Stross’s Laundry Files (The Atrocity Archives, The Jennifer Morgue, The Fuller Memorandum)
• William Gibson’s Sprawl (Neuromancer, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Count Zero)
• Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files (books 2-7, 9-13)
• Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan Saga (many books) Stephen King’s The Dark Tower (1-4)
• Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth
• Cherie Priest’s Clockwork Century (Dreadnought and Ganymede)

Posted in regular | Tagged audible, sales

Release week: Earth Unaware, Energized, Shine Shine Shine, and 21st Century Dead

Posted on 2012-07-18 at 15:41 by Sam

The release week for Tuesday July 17 sports a pair of anticipated sf audiobooks, along with a “genre in the mainstream” title and all-star cast zombie anthology.

The first of the sf titles is a the first in a planned prequel series to Ender’s Game, telling the story of first contact and the First Formic War, introducing (but only just) a young Mazer Rackham, and exploring both the powerful reach of interstellar corporations and the tightly-knit lives of independent mining families. The book is Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston, and is narrated for Macmillan Audio by a full cast including Stefan Rudnicki, Stephen Hoye, Arthur Morey, Vikas Adam, Emily Janice Card, Gabrielle de Cuir, and Roxanne Hernandez. “The mining ship El Cavador is far out from Earth, in the deeps of the Kuiper Belt, beyond Pluto. Other mining ships, and the families that live on them, are few and far between this far out. So when El Cavador’s telescopes pick up a fast-moving object coming in-system, it’s hard to know what to make of it. It’s massive and moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light. El Cavador has other problems. Their systems are old and failing. The family is getting too big for the ship. There are claim-jumping corporate ships bringing Asteroid Belt tactics to the Kuiper Belt. Worrying about a distant object that might or might not be an alien ship seems…not important. They’re wrong. It’s the most important thing that has happened to the human race in a million years. The first Formic War is about to begin.”

The second sf title is Energized by Edward M. Lerner, narrated by Grover Gardner for Blackstone Audio. “No one expected the oil to last forever. How right they were…. A geopolitical miscalculation tainted the world’s major oil fields with radioactivity and plunged the Middle East into chaos. Any oil that remains usable is more prized than ever. No one can build solar farms, wind farms, and electric cars quickly enough to cope. The few countries still able to export petroleum and natural gas - Russia chief among them - have a stranglehold on the world economy. Then, from the darkness of space, came Phoebe. Rather than deflect the onrushing asteroid, America coaxed it into Earth’s orbit. Solar power satellites - cheaply mass-produced in orbit with resources mined from the new moon to beam vast amounts of power to the ground - offer America its last, best hope of avoiding servitude and economic ruin.”

The “genre in the mainstream” title is Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer, narrated by Joshilyn Jackson for Macmillan Audio concurrent with the print and e-book release from St. Martin’s Press. “When Maxon met Sunny, he was seven years, four months, and 18 days old. Or, he was 2693 rotations of the Earth old. Maxon was different. Sunny was different. They were different together. Now, 20 years later, they are married, and Sunny wants, more than anything, to be “normal”. She’s got the housewife thing down perfectly, but Maxon, a genius engineer, is on a NASA mission to the moon, programming robots for a new colony. Once they were two outcasts who found unlikely love in each other: a wondrous, strange relationship formed from urgent desire for connection. But now they’re parents to an autistic son. And Sunny is pregnant again. And her mother is dying in the hospital. Their marriage is on the brink of imploding, and they’re at each other’s throats with blame and fear. What exactly has gone wrong?”

And the zombie anthology is 21st Century Dead: A Zombie Anthology by Christopher Golden (editor), Amber Benson, S. G. Browne, Chelsea Cain, Orson Scott Card, Dan Chaon, Simon R. Greene, Brian Keene, Caitlin Kittredge, and Jonathan Maberry, narrated by Scott Brick, Cassandra Campbell, Bernadette Dunne, Paul Michael Garcia, Kirby Heyborne, Malcolm Hillgartner, Chris Patton, John Pruden, Renée Raudman, and Stefan Rudnicki. “The Stoker Award-winning editor of the acclaimed, eclectic anthology The New Dead returns with 21st Century Dead and an all-new lineup of authors from every corner of the fiction world, shining a dark light on our fascination with tales of death and resurrection—and with zombies!”

ALSO OUT TUESDAY:

Posted in regular, Release Week | Tagged earth unaware, edward m lerner, energized, orson scott card, release week, shine shine shine, stefan rudnicki

Audible.com "Paperback Sale" through July 28

Posted on 2012-07-16 at 14:06 by Sam

Billed as “100 audiobooks for as low as $5.95 each”, Audible.com is having a Paperback Sale through July 28, with a pretty good haul of interesting sf/f titles. Here’s the ones which most caught my eye, $5.95 unless otherwise noted:

• The Rook: A Novel By Daniel O’Malley Narrated by Susan Duerden — Length:17 hrs and 51 mins
• A Discovery of Witches By Deborah Harkness, Narrated by Jennifer Ikeda — Series: All Souls, Book 1 — Length:24 hrs and 2 mins ($8.95)
• Delirium By Lauren Oliver, Narrated by Sarah Drew — Series: Delirium Trilogy, Book 1 — Length:11 hrs and 41 mins
• Macbeth: A Novel By A. J. Hartley and David Hewson, Narrated by Alan Cumming, David Hewson, and A. J. Hartley — Length:9 hrs and 45 mins
• Daughter of Smoke and Bone By Laini Taylor, Narrated by Khristine Hvam — Length:12 hrs and 32 mins
• Monster Hunter Alpha By Larry Correia, Narrated by Oliver Wyman — Series: Monster Hunter, Book 3 — Length:18 hrs and 52 mins
• Pure By Julianna Baggott, Narrated by Khristine Hvam, Joshua Swanson, Kevin T. Collins, and Casey Holloway — Length:14 hrs and 9 mins
• Changeless: An Alexia Tarabotti Novel, Book 2 By Gail Carriger, Narrated by Emily Gray — Series: Parasol Protectorate, Book 2 — Length:10 hrs and 33 mins ($8.95)
• Leviathan Wakes By James S.A. Corey, Narrated by Jefferson Mays — Length:19 hrs and 9 mins ($8.95)
• A Wind from the South: Raetian Tales, Book 1 By Diane Duane, Narrated by Jessica Almasy — Length:13 hrs and 21 mins
• Lost in a Good Book: A Thursday Next Novel By Jasper Fforde, Narrated by Emily Gray — Series: Thursday Next Novels, Book 2 — Length:12 hrs and 59 mins ($8.95)
• Wizard’s First Rule: Sword of Truth, Book 1 By Terry Goodkind, Narrated by Sam Tsoutsouvas — Series: Sword of Truth, Book 1 — Length:34 hrs and 10 mins ($8.95)
• Tiger’s Curse By Colleen Houck, Narrated by Annika Boras and Sanjiv Jahveri — Series: Tiger’s Curse, Book 1 — Length:15 hrs and 45 mins ($8.95)
• Firebird: An Alex Benedict Novel By Jack McDevitt, Narrated by Jennifer Van Dyck — Series: Alex Benedict, Book 6 — Length:11 hrs and 40 mins
• Oath of Swords: War God, Book 1 By David Weber, Narrated by Nick Sullivan — Series: War God, Book 1 — Length:14 hrs and 49 mins
• The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea By Martha Wells, Narrated by Christopher Kipiniak — Series: Books of the Raksura, Books 1 and 2 — (book 1 is $8.95)

Posted in regular | Tagged audible.com, sales

The Guilded Earlobe reviews The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

Posted on 2012-07-12 at 18:33 by Sam

Link: The Guilded Earlobe reviews The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

“The Long Earth is a wonderful tale of exploration and discovery by two authors that blend their styles so seamlessly that it becomes something unexpected.”

Posted in link | Tagged guilded earlobe, reviews, stephen baxter, terry pratchett, the long earth

Audiobook review: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

Posted on 2012-07-12 at 15:08 by Sam

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

Narrated by David Colacci for Brilliance Audio

Length: 26 hrs and 20 mins

Release Date: 06-12-12 

Review by Dave Thompson: “Why don’t you figure out where we’re going to put all your goddamn comic books!”

This is going to be something of a departure from the other reviews I’ve done here, and I hope you all will indulge me. 

Memory is a funny thing. I first read Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay when it came out in hardback. I was studying English in college, and for whatever reason, despite my love of comic books and science fiction and fantasy, I had started to feel like escapism was a dirty word. But I was at a local Borders Bookstore, and I saw the cover of a masked hero punching Hitler in the jaw, and I was in love before I even read the description on the dust-jacket: With Hitler in power in Germany, a Jewish immigrant and his American cousin begin creating WWII propaganda in the form of their comic book hero The Escapist.

I knew right then this book was going to be an incredible. And it was. I bought it, read it, loved it. Characters, scenes, and events have stayed with me ever since.

When I saw it was coming out in audio – finally, fully unabridged from Audible, I was filled with a sense of nostalgia. I wanted to revisit Sammy, Joe, Rosa, Kornblum, George Deasey, Tracy Bacon, and Thomas. I expected it to be like revisiting revisiting friends. I expected to appreciate it, and be moved by it. It’d be a good time. 

But listening to this book stunned me. I think it’s maybe one of the best books I’ve ever read. The story and the characters themselves are such a perfect and pure meditation on escapism. Chabon’s prose is delightful – perfectly setting the scenes better than any number of splash pages could. And the story and the characters themselves are a perfect and pure meditation on escapism. I don’t want to take anything away from Chabon, but David Colacci’s narration has to be singled out. It’s nothing short of fantastic. He does accents and dialects from Prague to Brooklyn and so much in between, perfectly voicing each character. From Joe’s self-destructive need for violence and revenge (that section in Antartica is as bleak as anything in Carpenter’s The Thing) to Sammy’s love and desire for someone the world won’t allow him - all of it is expertly captured by Colacci’s reading. I’d also forgotten how funny it was. I was laughing aloud at quips like, “Why don’t you figure out where we’re going to put all your goddamn comic books!” I haven’t listened to anything else Colacci’s read, but I’ll keep an ear out for him from now on. The way he read Tracy Bacon and Rosa, and their relationships with Sammy and Joe was incredibly impacting.

One of the scene’s that’s stayed with me so vividly is relatively early on: Sammy and Joe get their first big break, and shut themselves in with for a week to create comic books. That scene was like crack for creative people. I remember reading it 10+ years ago and falling madly in love with it. Wanting to create things like that – the way they did. And hearing that section again was like getting another fix of the really good stuff.

But the funny thing is the stuff that I didn’t remember: the whole rest of the book? It’s kind of like that too. This book is an ode to art and creativity and escapism unlike anything else. Here, escapism is no less important or necessary than love, and Chabon sketches it out like an artist, showing us all the shades of excitement and sexiness, hurt and heartbreak, and the pure need we, as humans, have for it.

Because if you can’t escape, you’re trapped. Maybe not in chains over a glass aquarium with a shark swimming below with some strangely dressed supervillain cackling, but in our bodies, in our lives, and in our world.

Near the end of the book, Sammy’s examining another character’s art work, and you can feel him just swept up in awe of what he’s looking at. And he says, “It makes me want to make something again. Something I can be just a little bit proud of.”

That about sums it all up for me. Listening to this book made me laugh, got me all choked up, sure. But most of all, it left me wanting to create art for as long as possible.

——

Dave Thompson is the host and co-editor of PodCastle, the fantasy fiction audio magazine. His own fiction has been published by Bull Spec and Apex Magazine, among others. You can follow him on Twitter @krylyr. This fall, look for his narration of Tim Pratt’s Briarpatch.

Posted in regular | Tagged dave thompson, kavalier and clay, michael chabon, reviews