Page 27 of posts by: Sam

Release Week: The Human Division and Robin Hobb's Rain Wilds Chronciles conclude; two outstanding 2013 anthologies come to audio; and The Far Time Incident

Posted on 2013-04-10 at 20:29 by Sam

APRIL 3-9, 2013: While overall the release week lacks splashy concurrent new standalone releases, it's still quite a week with the conclusions both of John Scalzi's serial novel The Human Division, with a 2-hour Episode 13, Earth Below, Sky Above (cover, left), and of Robin Hobb's Rain Wilds Chronicles, as well as two outstanding anthologies (ok, one is a collection) from a bit earlier in 2013 (ok, the collection is from the summer of 2012), and! a Mary Robinette Kowal-voiced novel of time travel and

Posted in Release Week

Sam's Listening Report: January 2013

Posted on 2013-04-06 at 12:48 by Sam

So, we're into April and I'm only scratching the surface on reviewing my January listening, and a long list of full reviews to write, but I want to get these brief thoughts out at least, so, in the interest of time: I started the year by finishing up some long-overdue Tim Powers "research" in advance of meeting (and interviewing!) him at illogiCon, interrupted only a bit by the launch of John Scalzi's episodic The Human Division (which I won't review myself here, since Dave is covering these magnificently

Posted in Sam's Monthly Listening Report | Tagged monthly listening report, tad williams, tim powers

Received: March 2013

Posted on 2013-04-03 at 20:00 by Sam

March was a bit quiet in terms of review copies, as I felt too embarrassed by my months-long backlog of reviews to ask for too many more to add to the pile. Still, a few I couldn't resist:

1. Harper Audio, Dreams and Shadows by C. Robert Cargill, read by Vikas Adam. I'd just listened to Vikas Adam as one of two narrators for Manil Suri's The City of Devi and he was again quite, quite good in this slow-building but high-payoff urban fantasy, which sets the world of the Fae, with glamour, changelings, the

Posted in received

Release Week: Life after Life, River of Stars, Prophet of Bones, The Kundalini Equation, and Use of Weapons

Posted on 2013-04-03 at 14:22 by Sam

MARCH 27-APRIL 2, 2013: While there are other quite worthy audiobooks in the "Also Out This Week" listings (Book 3 in Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen, Memories of Ice, Ilie Ruby's The Salt God's Daughter, Alex Hughes' Clean and Sharp, Rachel Pollack's World Fantasy Award winner Godmother Night, and Mary Robinette Kowal's latest Glamourist Histories novel Without a Summer) I managed to hold the line at just five picks this week. Good luck making your own selections! And, of course, there is a new

Posted in Release Week | Tagged guy gavriel kay, life after life, prophet of bones, river of stars

Author James Maxey interviews narrator Dave Thompson about Bitterwood

Posted on 2013-04-02 at 17:13 by Sam

In an Interview with Dave Thompson, narrator of Bitterwood, the book's author, James Maxey, asks about the process of turning his work into audio. Check it out:

"Bitterwood has recently been released in audio format through Audible, Amazon, and ITunes. The narrator and producer was Dave Thompson, an editor at PodCastle and narrator of the audio books Norse Code by Greg van Eekhout and Briarpatch by Tim Pratt. Bitterwood is my first audio book, so I was glad to be partnered with someone who knew what he

Posted in Uncategorized

Breaking news: Neil Gaiman Presents to bring the work of Cory Doctorow to Audible, through new "Double DRM" format

Posted on 2013-04-01 at 19:50 by Sam

April 1, 2013, Durham, North Carolina:

Cory Doctorow's work in audio, including Little Brother, Makers, and Pirate Cinema, has previously been available in both CD audio and through several other digital audiobook vendors, but has not been available on Audible.com. Now, due to a groundbreaking new "Double DRM (TM)" technology, the titles will finally be available, starting today, on Audible.com as well, published through Audible's Neil Gaiman Presents imprint.

"I've always loved DRM," said Doctorow in

Posted in April 1 | Tagged cory doctorow, drm, neil gaiman

Release Week: Neil Gaiman Presents returns, Ariel Djanikian, Red Planet Blues, Wolfhound Century, David Drake, and more

Posted on 2013-03-27 at 15:46 by Sam

It's another big release week with multiple must-listen titles. I've already gotten started on the return of Neil Gaiman Presents, the John Hodgman-narrated Dimension of Miracles by Robert Sheckley, and I expect to get to a few more from this week -- including a literary dystopia, a sf noir set on Mars, and an espionage novel of alternate Russia -- before summer comes around. And, of course, John Scalzi's The Human Division marches on with Episode 11, A Problem of Proportion.

Posted in Release Week

Sam's Listening Report: December 2012

Posted on 2013-03-21 at 17:36 by Sam

After two months in a row with seven audiobooks, I closed out 2012 with a quite a run, with several titles making it into my best-of-the-year choices, including several unique and thoroughly enjoyable books -- such a good month that I hardly know where to begin, so I'll just run 'em down in chronological order, like I always do:

REVIEWS:

Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone, read by Claudia Alick for Blackstone Audio (review copy) -- A fantastic debut fantasy novel, one part secondary world urban

Posted in Sam's Monthly Listening Report | Tagged a sudden outbreak of magic, legion, monthly listening report, the last policeman, the testament of jessie lamb, the white forest, three parts dead

Release Week: The Rift Walker, The Leviathan Effect, The Clockwork Princess, and more

Posted on 2013-03-20 at 19:37 by Sam

While it's a busier week for young adult titles, not too much really strikes my ears in terms of concurrent new adult releases this week. Meanwhile, John Scalzi's The Human Division chugs along with This Must Be the Place: The Human Division, Episode 10. The big eye-opening audiobook news for me this week was the announcement that Neil Gaiman Presents is set to release another title next week, Robert Sheckley's Dimension of Miracles, read by John Hodgman. To celebrate, Audible is holding a NYC Comicon trip

Posted in Release Week, Uncategorized

Release Day: The Rift Walker: Vampire Empire, Book 2, by Clay and Susan Griffith

Posted on 2013-03-17 at 13:18 by Sam

The Rift Walker: Vampire Empire, Book 2 By Clay and Susan Griffith Narrated By James Marsters for Buzzy Multimedia Publishing

Also available in MP3-CD, The Rift Walker, book two after The Greyfriar in Clay and Susan Griffith's Vampire Empire trilogy, is a worthy successor in story, narration and production for the Audie-nominated The Greyfriar. As in the first book, James Marsters as a cast of vampires could not be more perfect, and here the production is if anything even cleaner and more crisp. (The

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged james marsters