Saturday's huge Whispersync Deal roundup

Posted on 2014-11-29 at 16:27 by Sam

Saturday’s Whispersync Deal roundup includes Brandon Sanderson, Kevin J. Anderson, Brian Herbert, Ben Bova, Steven Brust, Mercedes Lackey, David Drake, Glen Cook, Larry Niven, L. E. Modesitt, Jr., and more, with narrators Michael Kramer, Stefan Rudnicki, William Dufris, Scott Brick, and more. I don’t have too much time for more than a drive-by image gallery, so here they are, mostly $2.99+$2.99:

Posted in Whispersync Deals

Black Friday Whispersync Deal Roundup

Posted on 2014-11-28 at 13:53 by Sam

There's a fairly good-sized list of Black Friday Kindle Deals, with quite a few offering Whispersync for Voice deals, with all the ones I list here being on sale for $1.99+$1.99. Meanwhile, the November monthly deal roundup still has a few days left of usefulness, so don't forget to check through that list once before the month is over. And! Audible is having a Treat Yourself Sale through Dec 2 with over 300 titles at $4.95. Enjoy!

Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle read by Tom Weiner: "It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. It's all because, some 20 years earlier, the United States lost a war - and is now occupied jointly by Nazi Germany and Japan."

PKD's Ubik read by Anthony Heald: "Chip works for Glen Runciter's anti-psi security agency, which hires out its talents to block telepathic and paranormal crimes. But when its special team tackles a big job on the moon, something goes terribly wrong, and Runciter is seemingly killed. Now, his mourning employees are receiving bewildering messages from their boss - on toilet walls, traffic tickets, product labels, and even U.S. coins. And the world around them is warping in ways that suggest that their own time is running out - or already has."

Umberto Eco's The Prague Cemetery read by George Guidall: "Nineteenth-century Europe—from Turin to Prague to Paris—abounds with the ghastly and the mysterious. Jesuits plot against Freemasons. Italian republicans strangle priests with their own intestines. French criminals plan bombings by day and celebrate Black Masses at night. Every nation has its own secret service, perpetrating forgeries, plots, and massacres. Conspiracies rule history. From the unification of Italy to the Paris Commune to the Dreyfus Affair to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Europe is in tumult and everyone needs a scapegoat. But what if, behind all of these conspiracies, both real and imagined, lay one lone man?"

Posted in Whispersync Deals

Release Week(s): Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem, Tobias Buckell's The Apocalypse Ocean, Stephen King's Revival, V Wars: Blood and Fire, Bitter Waters, Amanda Palmer's The Art of Asking, and Jeff VanderMeer's "Area X"

Posted on 2014-11-25 at 05:00 by Sam

NOVEMBER 5-18, 2014: A Chinese science fiction blockbuster translated into English by one of the world's best new writers, a new novel from Stephen King read by actor David Morse, Amanda Palmer's self-help advice/memoir book, an anthology series sequel to V Wars, Chaz Brentley's collection Bitter Waters, the entire 4-book set of Tobias Buckell's Xenowealth series, and a gorgeously packaged "Area X" omnibus of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy headline a fantastic fortnight of new audiobooks. There's so much "also out" that trying to list everything up here would be a nightmare, but David Drake and John Lambshead's Into the Hinterlands and Bernard Cromwell's Excalibur finally unabridged are certainly worth highlighting, as is Anna Katharine Green's 1890 novel The Forsaken Inn, narrated By Gabrielle de Cuir for Skyboat. In "seen but not heard" this week: The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck,  The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing by Nicholas Rombes, and The Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher, as well as The Nickronomicon, a collection by Nick Mamatas, and the Sean Wallace-edited anthology The Mammoth Book of Warriors and Wizardry. In other news, the Scholastic Audio Humble Bundle has added another handful of books to its haul with two days left to go, and I've added a long, long list of titles to the "coming soon" listings below, mostly in 2015. More? Sure! There's a free Go the F* to Sleep sequel out, read by Bryan Cranston, and! Brandon Sanderson's long-awaited follow-up to Legion is also free, read by Oliver Wyman. And if you're looking for deals just a bit more expensive than "free" look no further than the November Whispersync Deal Roundup which still has a few more days left of usefulness. Enjoy! [And if you’re new to audiobooks, among the many ways to get started are: you can try Audible with a free audiobook or get your first 3 months at Audible for $7.49/month; try a free 30-day trial at audiobook streaming service Audiobooks.com; or sign up for a $12.99 monthly membership at DRM-free Downpour.com.]

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged amanda palmer, area x, bitter waters, chaz brentley, daniel abraham, jeff vandermeer, johannes cabal, ken liu, liu cixin, luke daniels, prentice onayemi, revival, robin miles, sarban, stephen king, the apocalypse ocean, the art of asking, the three-body problem, tobias s buckell, v wars, xenowealth

November 2014 Whispersync Roundup: Octavia Butler's Dawn, Peter David's Artful, Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan, and more

Posted on 2014-11-13 at 06:55 by Sam

Now that we're about halfway through November, it's past time to round up this month's Whispersync (and other) deals. First up, the usual gold source for new Whispersync deals, the Kindle monthly deals. 12 books to send up this time:

Dawn (The Xenogenesis Trilogy Book 1) By Octavia E. Butler, Narrated By Aldrich Barrett for Audible for $1.99+$3.49 -- "In a world devastated by nuclear war with humanity on the edge of extinction, aliens finally make contact. They rescue those humans they can, keeping most survivors in suspended animation while the aliens begin the slow process of rehabilitating the planet. When Lilith Iyapo is "awakened", she finds that she has been chosen to revive her fellow humans in small groups by first preparing them to meet the utterly terrifying aliens, then training them to survive on the wilderness that the planet has become. But the aliens cannot help humanity without altering it forever. Bonded to the aliens in ways no human has ever known, Lilith tries to fight them even as her own species comes to fear and loathe her. A stunning story of invasion and alien contact by one of science fiction's finest writers."

Posted in Whispersync Deals | Tagged alan cumming, discworld, humble bundle, james langton, john scalzi, luke daniels, macus sakey, octavia butler, patrick ness, paul antony jones, peter david, robert krose, robert mccammon, scholastic audio, scott westerfeld, terry pratchett, the hunger games

Release Week: Kameron Hurley's The Mirror Empire, Steven Erikson's Willful Child, Daryl Gregory's Pandemonium, and Tad Williams' Otherland

Posted on 2014-11-12 at 20:11 by Sam

OCTOBER 29-NOVEMBER 4, 2014: Breathtakingly imaginative epic fantasy, sarcastic star-crossing science fiction, a demon possession pandemic, and multiverse-spanning virtual realities make for a fantastic release week of concurrent and backlist new audiobooks this week to start November. It's a packed week as well, with several very good titles also out this week including Stephen Baxter's Proxima, Jack McDevitt's Coming Home, Kim Newman's An English Ghost Story, Lydia Millet's Mermaids in Paradise, Ryan Graudin's The Walled City, Jamie Metzl's Genesis Code, Paul Dale's The Dark Lord's Handbook, Carrie Ryan and John Parke Davis's The Map to Everywhere, and two David Drake "Hammer's Slammers" novels read by Jay Snyder. And, outside of speculative fiction, Richard Ford returns to his Frank Bascombe stories with Let Me Be Frank With You, and a pair of non-fiction titles catch my eye/ear as well: Bill Nye's Undeniable and Martin Short's I Must Say, both read by the author. And! There's a trio of new GraphicAudio titles worth checking out as well, including Cherie Priest's The Inexplicables, Jon Sprunk's Blood and Iron, and Simon R. Green's Ghost of a Chance. It's also a week with some intriguing books in the "seen but not heard" listings, including David James Keaton's The Last Projector, Chaz Brenchley's collection Bitter Waters, Fred Venturini's The Heart Does Not Grow Back, Jennifer Brozek and Bryan Thomas Schmidt's anthology Shattered Shields, and a new Wild Cards mosaic novel, Lowball. Enjoy!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged daryl gregory, george newbern, kameron hurley, liza ross, macleod andrews, otherland, pandemonium, peter berkrot, steven erikson, tad williams, the mirror empire, willful child

Release Week: Gibson, Faber, Rothfuss, Martin, Rice, Shiner, and! Mieville

Posted on 2014-11-03 at 11:28 by Sam

OCTOBER 22-28, 2014: What was already an absolutely packed release week for concurrent new releases (Gibson, Faber, Rothfuss, Martin, Rice) and already with one back-list gem (Lewis Shiner's Frontera) includes the magnificent surprise of China Mieville's The Scar and Iron Council finally coming to US audio. It's been over a year and a half since I last fully turned my attention to the digital regional divide and these are two right from the top of the overseas wishlist, though in the meantime, several more have gone onto the list, from Lavie Tidhar's just-released (in the UK only) A Man Lies Dreaming to The Islands of Chaldea by the late Diana Wynne Jones. The digital divide giveth, and the digital divide taketh away. It happens. Also out this week: A new Doctor Who short story by Holly Black, W. Bruce Cameron's The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man, Sheckley's The Game of X read by Oliver Wyman, Weis and Krammes' The Seventh Sigil, Jason Stoddard's Winning Mars, and an I'm-not-sure-is-it-imaginative-or-just-weird full cast Cold War-set adaptation of The Island of Doctor Moreau. There's also plenty of fiction (David Nicholls's Us, Nick Hornby's About a Boy, Molly Gloss's Falling from Horses), thrillers (John Connolly's The Wolf in Winter, Clive and Dirk Cussler's Havana Storm), and non-fiction (Peter Ackroyd's Charlie Chaplain, read by Ralph Lister, and Herbie Hancock reading his own Herbie Hancock) to tempt your earbuds. In "seen but not heard" listenings do check out Lavie Tidhar's A Man Lies Dreaming among others, including The City Stained Red by Sam Sykes and We Will All Go Down Together by Gemma Files. Enjoy!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged anne rice, china mieville, frontera, george rr martin, gildart jackson, josh cohen, lewis shiner, lorelei king, michel faber, patrick rothfuss, prince lestat, roy dotrice, simon vance, stefan rudnicki, the book of strange new things, the peripheral, the slow regard of silent things, the world of ice and fire, william-gibson

Audible's "Thrills and Chills" sale through October 31

Posted on 2014-10-29 at 14:04 by Sam

Just in time for Halloween, Audible is having a Thrills and Chills sale, with a goodly pile of audiobooks on sale for $6.95 through October 31. (Meanwhile, today's Daily Deal is The Amityville Horror for $2.95, so there's that, too.)

Here's what most caught my eye in a scan through of the 158 titles:

Posted in Whispersync Deals | Tagged christopher buehlman, glen duncan, guillermo del toro, joe hill, lauren beukes, marisha pessl, robert jackson bennett, stephen king

Release Week: Manly Wade Wellman's The Old Gods Waken, Eric Flint's Islands, Peter F. Hamilton's The Abyss Beyond Dreams, Daniel Abraham's A Shadow in Summer, Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, and Tim Robbins reads Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

Posted on 2014-10-24 at 17:07 by Sam

OCTOBER 15-21, 2014: Appalachian folk magic from the legendary Manly Wade Wellman, a full cast radioplay adaptation of an Eric Flint novella, new space sf, backlist epic fantasy from Daniel Abraham, Pynchon's postmodern epic Gravity's Rainbow, and Ray Bradbury's classic dystopian tale Fahrenheit 451 under the voice of Tim Robbins headline this week's releases which also include: Ytasha Womack's Rayla 2212, Chuck Palahniuk's Beautiful You, Eliza Granville's debut novel Gretel and the Dark read by Stefan Rudnicki and Cassandra Campbell, Pierre Grimbert's third Secret of Ji novel, David Drake's "Reaches" series, Frank Herbert's Destination: Void, Sean Platt's The Beam, Tonia Brown's Devouring Milo, and! Certainty by Victor Levine, a debut novel from a narrator very near and dear to AudioBookaneers ears. In terms of other audiobook news, I was very happy to see some pre-order listings show up for the end of October: Kameron Hurley's The Mirror Empire and the first two books of Tad Williams' Otherland series. Meanwhile, next week will bring highly-anticipated audiobooks including William Gibon's The Peripheral, Patrick Rothfuss' The Slow Regard of Silent Things, George R.R. Martin's The World of Ice and Fire, Michel Faber's The Book of Strange New Things, and Anne Rice's Prince Lestat. Enjoy!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged daniel abraham, eric-flint, fahrenheit 451, george guidall, gravity's rainbow, islands, john lee, manly wade wellman, peter f hamilton, ray bradbury, rayla 2212, skyboat media, stefan rudnicki, tantor, thomas pynchon, tim robbins, ytasha womack

Release Week: The Doubt Factory, Glory O'Brien's History of the Future, The Lottery and Other Stories, and As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride

Posted on 2014-10-17 at 17:27 by Sam

OCTOBER 8-14, 2014:  October continues to be a month of bountiful harvests in terms of audiobooks, as my first pass for picks came up with 16 titles to strongly consider. So! After the four picks, do check out the "also out this week" (and perhaps even the "also also out this week") listings. The "seen but not heard" titles include Julia Elliott's The Wilds, Blake Butler's 300,000,000, Beth Bernobich's The Time Roads, and Kerry Howley's Thrown, so there's certainly plenty to read if your ears get tired. Enjoy!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged as king, as you rish, ben lerner, billy crystal, brian ruckley, bronson pinchot, cary elwes, cassandra campbell, chimpanzee, christine lakin, darin bradley, emma galvin, forrest aguirre, glory obriens history of the future, greg bear, heraclix and pomp, john shirley, paolo bacigalupi, shirley jackson, skyboat media, stefan rudnicki, the doubt factory, the free, the lottery, the princess bride, war dogs

Release Week: Ancillary Sword, Boy's Life, The Maze of Games, The Chaplain's War, The Lesser Dead, and Gillian Anderson's A Vision of Fire

Posted on 2014-10-10 at 18:04 by Sam

OCTOBER 1-7, 2014: In six picks from an absolutely packed week, we get a sequel to a many-multiple award-winning sf novel, a fantastical puzzle book, author-read audiobooks from World Fantasy Award-nominated author Christopher Buehlman and X-Files star Gillian Anderson, a highly-anticipated military sf debut built from the pages of Analog, and Robert McCammon's classic Boy's Life. We also get: new genre novels from John Twelve Hawks, Tina Connolly, Steven Brust, Richard Morgan, Anton Strout, Gwenda Bond, and David Weber and Timohy Zahn; a just-delayed audiobook for S.E. Grove's The Glass Sentence; the second of the JJA/Howey "Apocalypse Triptych" anthologies; fiction (Marilynne Robinson's Lila and Liz Rosenberg's The Moonlight Palace); and Alan Cumming's memoir Not My Father's Son. (And still more, October really is going to be a huge month.) While the audiobooks we did get make for quite a long list to look through for a next listen, the "seen but not heard" crop is also long and strong, including James Maxey's Bad Wizard, Johanna Sinisalo's The Blood of Angels, Rajan Khanna's Falling Sky, Beth Revis' The Body Electric, Christopher Fowler's Nyctophobia, and a long list of fantastic anthologies including War Stories, Nightmare Carnival, Fearsome Magics, and the first Year's Best Weird Fiction. Not much news to pass along this week, but! there is a free "Reckoners" audio short from author Brandon Sanderson and narrator Macleod Andrews: Mitosis. Enjoy!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged a vision of fire, adjoa andoh, ancillary sword, ann leckie, boy's life, brad torgersen, christopher buehlman, george newbern, gillian anderson, robert mccammon, the chaplain's war, the lesser dead, the maze of games, wil wheaton