Page 34 of posts by: Sam

Audiobook review: Welcome to Bordertown

Posted on 2012-09-21 at 18:14 by Sam

Welcome to Bordertown: New Stories and Poems of the Borderlands
Edited by: Holly Black and Ellen Kushner
Performances by: MacLeod Andrews, Cassandra Campbell, Ellen Kushner, and Holly Black
Length: 18 hours and 8 minutes
Release date: 10 April 2012

Review by Dave Thompson: Bordertown Lives!

I feel in love with Welcome to Bordertown well before I actually read any of the stories. In her introduction, Terri Windling explains how Bordertown came to be: In the 80s, fantasy meant epic – primarily riffs on

Posted in regular | Tagged cassandra clare, cory doctorow, dave thompson, ellen kushner, holly black, neil gaiman, reviews, welcome to bordertown

Release Week: Nalo Hopkinson's Midnight Robber, and Libba Bray's The Diviners

Posted on 2012-09-19 at 13:58 by Sam

The middle of September brings a few audiobooks of interest, but my first thoughts on the week are 1. that I was at first incredibly excited when I saw the new Tad Williams urban fantasy novel The Dirty Streets of Heaven: A Bobby Dollar Novel, Book 1 listed — but then it turned out I wasn’t logged in, so Audible was showing me titles not available in my country, and now I have only the horrible, awful knowledge that the audiobook I want to listen to exists, and yet cannot be sold to me. And 2. That my “seen

Posted in regular, Release Week | Tagged libba bray, midnight robber, nalo hopkinson, release week, the diviners

Interview: Tim Pratt, interviewed by Dave Thompson

Posted on 2012-09-19 at 02:35 by Sam

For the general public, Tim Pratt is one of the best kept secrets in fantasy fiction. I say this not just as someone who loves to read (and listen!) to Tim’s work, but as someone who who has bought his stories to be featured at PodCastle, a podcast run by Anna Scwhind and myself. Tim creates interesting characters who

Posted in regular | Tagged dave thompson, interviews, tim pratt

Dozens of free Audible titles through Amazon's Whispersync for Voice push

Posted on 2012-09-12 at 18:12 by Sam

It seems pretty far fetched, but Audiobooker reports that as part of Amazon’s push of their new “Whispersync for Voice” feature for Kindle and Audible that it has made $500 of audiobooks free. I’ve tried it, it does work, though I had to finally connect my Audible account with my Amazon account. The 26 titles are classics, including Frankenstein, The Wizard of Oz, Gulliver’s Travels, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, etc. read by professional narrators like Simon Vance, Alan Cumming, Jim Dale, and more.

Update: There

Posted in regular | Tagged audible, deals

Afternoon Reading: Neil Gaiman and Felicia Day help narrate an awesome new fantasy audiobook by Ellen Kushner(via @io9)

Posted on 2012-09-12 at 18:08 by Sam

Link: Afternoon Reading: Neil Gaiman and Felicia Day help narrate an awesome new fantasy audiobook by Ellen Kushner(via @io9)

ellenkushner:

victusinveritas:

“If you love clever, whimsical fantasy, you won’t want to miss the new audiobook version of Ellen Kushner’s novel The Privilege of the Sword. There’s nothing better than a Kushner novel on a long afternoon .”

Thank you!  I loved getting to read my own work for posterity - and having Neil & Felicia in it was a real thrill … along with exalted

Posted in link | Tagged audiobooks, ellen kushner, felicia day, neil gaiman

Release Week: Brent Weeks, Kameron Hurley, Adam McOmber, Olaf Stapledon, CJ Cherryh, and more

Posted on 2012-09-12 at 14:07 by Sam

The second release week of September still shows no sign of Brandon Sanderson’s Legion, read by Oliver Wyman; but I’m sure it’s coming soon. Not that I’m hitting reload that often…

The Blinding Knife: Black Prism, Book 2 By Brent Weeks, Narrated by Simon Vance for Hachette Audio — Series: Lightbringer, Book 2 — Length: 23 hrs and 48 mins — I haven’t gotten to book one of this series yet, The Black Prism (narrated by Cristofer Jean) but have heard quite a lot of good things about both Lightbringer and Weeks

Posted in regular, Release Week | Tagged adam mcomber, brent weeks, CJ Cherryh, junot diaz, kameron hurley, kristine kathryn rusch, michael chabon, olaf stapledon, release week

Listening report: June 2012

Posted on 2012-09-12 at 03:21 by Sam

After six audiobooks in May (though KSR’s 2312 went on well into the first week of June) I listened to eight in June, with Tim Powers’s On Stranger Tides and Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay being the outstanding audiobooks, with plenty to recommend Mark L. Van Name’s No Going Back, John Scalzi’s Redshirts, and Jon Sprunk’s Shadow’s Son.

REVIEWS: (Note: as I’m terribly terribly behind in these reviews, these are short (or long in the cases where I did not have time to

Posted in Sam's Monthly Listening Report | Tagged cherie priest, clementine, graphicaudio, john scalzi, jon sprunk, kavalier and clay, kim stanley robinson, mark van name, michael chabon, monthly listening report, no going back, on stranger tides, orson scott card, redshirts, shadow's son, stefan rudnicki, tim powers, wil wheaton

Audible "Win-Win" $4.95 sale, through Sep 18

Posted on 2012-09-07 at 00:24 by Sam

A members-only sale at Audible, this one dubbed Win-Win, with $4.95 titles running through September 18. The sale page sorts out titles by author last name groupings, so here is my scan-through for interesting titles:

LONGER LIST and LINKS:

• TEMPTING: The Heroes By Joe Abercrombie, Narrated by Michael Page — Length:22 hrs and 44 mins
• The End of Eternity By Isaac Asimov, Narrated by Paul Boehmer — Length:8 hrs and 11 mins
• The Windup Girl By Paolo Bacigalupi, Narrated by Jonathan Davis — Length:19

Posted in regular | Tagged audible, george rr martin, john scalzi, neal stephenson, neil gaiman, sales, terry pratchett, wil wheaton

Release week: Clockwork Angels, Ashes of Honor, Infidel, Battle Royale, and Felix J. Palma

Posted on 2012-09-05 at 13:39 by Sam

September kicks off with quite a vengeance with new audio of both new, newly translated, and long-running series. As usual I have my “seen but not heard” complaints, led in a big way by the new widely-praised Tad Williams urban fantasy novel The Dirty Streets of Heaven and the Cory Doctorow/Charles Stross joint The Rapture of the Nerds but, I guess, you can’t have everything.

Out on September 1 was Clockwork Angels: The Novel By Kevin J. Anderson, Narrated by Neil Peart for Brilliance Audio. “International

Posted in regular, Release Week | Tagged ashes of honor, battle royale, clockwork angels, felix j palma, infidel, kameron hurley, kevin j anderson, mary robinette kowal, neil peart, release week, seanan mcguire

Audible sale: $5.95 / $4.16 -- ends today (9/2)

Posted on 2012-09-03 at 01:05 by Sam

It’s only today that I finally found the sale page, but I’d mentioned this somewhat “quiet” sale over on Facebook and Twitter. The long and short of it is that a whole big list of ACX (Audible’s Audiobook Creation Exchange) titles have been on sale for $5.95, with members still getting their discount which brings them down to $4.16. Among the full list of titles, this includes all the Neil Gaiman Presents titles,among some others below. I still don’t see a full and complete list of the $5.95 titles, but

Posted in regular | Tagged acx, audible, crossroad press, david niall wilson, hal duncan, neil gaiman presents, oliver wyman, sales, the drowning girl, vellum