Page 4 of posts by: Sam

Oscar tie-in #WhispersyncDeal roundup for February 27: Life of Pi, Mary Poppins, 12 Years a Slave, and more

Posted on 2016-02-27 at 15:26 by Sam

Amazon's Gold Box Deal today is a "Read it before you see it" set of discounted books that were made into Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated films, 9 of which are Whispersync for Voice enabled. Some of these (Room, The Silence of the Lambs) still add up to over $10, but! there's plenty of deals to be had here as well:

Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Author), Jeff Woodman (Narrator) for $2.99+$3.95 -- Winner of the Man Booker Prize, Fiction, 2002: "Pi Patel has been raised in a zoo in India. When his father

Posted in Whispersync Deals | Tagged bronson pinchot, grover gardner, mary poppins, matthew quick, ray porter, rs belcher, scott brick, solomon northup, upton sinclair, yann martel

Casting Call: Skyboat Media's Stefan Rudnicki and Gabrielle de Cuir on Harlan Ellison's The City on the Edge of Forever

Posted on 2016-02-26 at 17:59 by Sam

I've been a huge fan of Skyboat Media for a long time -- anybody who brings more Lewis Shiner and Manly Wade Wellman audiobooks into the world gets my support, and that's the tip of the iceberg -- and when I saw that Stefan Rudnicki and Gabrielle de Cuir were planning to produce a full cast version of Harlan Ellison's classic Star Trek teleplay "The City on the Edge of Forever" I was definitely intrigued. When I saw the behind-the-scenes sound check with Scott Brick as Spock, and Brick's studio selfie with

Posted in Casting Call, Interviews | Tagged gabrielle de cuir, harlan ellison, kickstarter, scott brick, skyboat media, stefan rudnicki

2016 Arrrdies, Part 1: The digital regional divide of 2015: Tad Williams, Daniel Polansky, Becky Chambers, Robert Holdstock, Sarah Pinborough, and more

Posted on 2016-02-22 at 17:08 by Sam

I had a blast putting together the most missing audiobooks of 2014, and I'm back for more. This year saw (in the US Audible science fiction and fantasy section alone) 3,606 new audiobooks, up a few hundred from last year's 3,267. And, of course, that number doesn't include GraphicAudio, independent and podiobook releases, and (most notably for my interests) the six new Cory Doctorow audiobooks at DRM-free Downpour.com.

I suppose that in fairness I should go back through the 2014 list and highlight some of

Posted in The Arrrdies | Tagged Andrew Wincott, Becky Chambers, Daniel Polansky, digital regional divide, robert holdstock, sarah pinborough, tad williams

February #WhispersyncDeal roundup: Octavia E. Butler, Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, Chuck Wendig, Rysa Walker, and more

Posted on 2016-02-15 at 15:55 by Sam

Another month, another #WhispersyncDeal roundup. First up, from the Monthly Deals listings, there are 161 that are Whispersync for Voice enabled. Here's what most caught my eye, a couple handfuls of science fiction and fantasy titles, one Finnish thriller, and a few YA novels:

Dawn (The Xenogenesis Trilogy Book 1) and Adulthood Rites (The Xenogenesis Trilogy Book 2) by Octavia E. Butler, read by Aldrich Barrett for $1.99+$3.49 each -- "In a world devastated by nuclear war with humanity on the edge of

Posted in Whispersync Deals | Tagged chuck wendig, kate rudd, octavia e butler, rysa walker, steve mchugh, terry pratchett

Audible's First-in-a-Series Sale, $4.95 through Monday, February 8: Ancillary Justice, Leviathan Wakes, The Lies of Locke Lamora, The Three-Body Problem, and more

Posted on 2016-02-08 at 20:57 by Sam

So, Audible's having another big sale, with $4.95 pricing for "first books in a series" through tonight, Monday, February 8. And there's a bunch of titles. Here's my top picks, followed by a selection of further titles that most caught my eye:

Posted in Uncategorized

January #WhispersyncDeal roundup: Kameron Hurley's Worldbreaker Saga, Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone, Catherynne M. Valente's The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland, and more

Posted on 2016-01-24 at 00:06 by Sam

There are 471 Whispersync-enabled titles in this month's Kindle Monthly Deal listings, 75 of them in the Science Fiction & Fantasy section. While quite a few of these we've seen before (Amazon's 47North and Brilliance Audio pipeline) there's one right at the top that's far and away my first pick this month: Kameron Hurley's Worldbreaker Saga, read by Liza Ross:

The Mirror Empire: Worldbreaker Saga 1 for $1.99+$3.49 and Empire Ascendant: Worldbreaker Saga #2 for $1.99+$2.99 are just ridiculous prices

Posted in Whispersync Deals | Tagged alan cumming, catherynne m valente, kameron hurley, kareem abdul-jabbar, leigh bardugo, liza ross, luke daniels, matt forbeck, scott brick

Dark Terrain, Dying for More -- James reviews Career of Evil

Posted on 2016-01-21 at 19:28 by Sam

Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike, Book 3) [Downpour | Audible] by J. K. Rowling, writing as Robert Galbraith, read by Robert Glenister

Review by James Alexander:

Freed by her pseudonym, J. K. Rowling immediately plunges Career of Evil into some awfully dark terrain. “Robert Galbraith’s” Cormoran Strike detective series has never shied away from grim material before. Even as the reader is shown a supermodel's defenestration and an erotic fiction writer gruesomely murdered in the fashion of one of his

Posted in reviews | Tagged cormoran strike, j.k. rowling, james alexander, robert galbraith, robert glenister

December #WhispersyncDeal roundup: Neil Gaiman, Nancy Farmer, Cherie Priest, Linda Nagata, Christopher Priest, Kurt Vonnegut, Carrie Fisher, and more

Posted on 2015-12-26 at 16:43 by Sam

If you've recovered from last month's #WhispersyncDeal haul (including Audible's and Downpour's week-long sales around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and Tantor's annual Cyber Monday sale) and Audible's "Big Thanks" sale earlier this month, then let me tell you, the year's going out with a huge bang. Of the more than 1000 titles in this month's Kindle deals listings, a whopping 390 are enabled with Whispersync for Voice.

That's a lot of titles to comb through, so let me do some of the legwork for you, this

Posted in Whispersync Deals | Tagged cherie priest, colin meloy, dan wells, gordon korman, jo walton, julia whelan, kate milford, neil gaiman, wil wheaton

Audible's "Big Thanks" Sale through December 16: from under $5 to just under a credit, here's some fantastic picks from the members-only 50% off sale

Posted on 2015-12-14 at 02:57 by Sam

UPDATE 2017-12-07: Yup, I’m “re-using” this post yet again for Audible’s latest members-only 50% off sale, which ends in one week, on December 14, 2017 at 11:59 PM PT (US). Don't be confused by either last year's sale end date (December 14, 2016) or the year before that's sale end date (December 16, 2015) and miss out. As you can see, there’s quite a bit on sale, and each year, the list keeps growing!

UPDATE 2016-12-13: I'm "re-using" this post again for Audible's latest members-only 50% off sale, which

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged audible

Downpour's "Black Friday" sale ends tonight: Samuel R, Delany, Women Destroy Science Fiction, Kim Stanley Robinson, Jeff VanderMeer, new releases, pre-orders, rentals, and more

Posted on 2015-12-03 at 20:23 by Sam

I mentioned this already near the end of last month's #WhispersyncDeal roundup, but I figured I would expand things a bit and offer up one last reminder that Downpour.com's "Black Friday" sale extended well beyond the one day, and finally does end tonight (Thursday, December 3). There's plenty of titles well below credit cost, and pre-orders (!!) and rentals are also included. One I’d recommend, right off the bat?

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany, read by Stefan Rudnicki for Skyboat Media — For $7.63 this

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged downpour