Casting News: Monica Byrne's The Girl in the Road to be narrated by Dioni Collins and Nazneen Contractor

Posted on 2014-04-03 at 15:02 by Sam

Since it's no longer April 1, some serious news to pass along: Monica Byrne's debut The Girl in the Road (May 20, Crown and Random House Audio) has been cast, with actresses Dioni Collins (BioShock Infinite) and Nazneen Contractor (Star Trek Into Darkness, 24) providing the voices of Mariama and Meena, respectively. I've been waiting and waiting on official news that there would be an audiobook, so this is doubly exciting:

A debut that Neil Gaiman calls “Glorious,” The Girl in the Road describes a future that is culturally lush, technologically slick, and emotionally wrenching.

Posted in news | Tagged dioni collins, monica byrne, nazneen contractor, the girl in the road

Breaking news: Wil Wheaton to narrate Robin Sloan's The Dragon-Song Chronicles

Posted on 2014-04-01 at 18:12 by Sam

April 1, 2014, Durham, North Carolina: 

In Robin Sloan's wonderful 2012 novel Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, Clark Moffat's fantasy series The Dragon-Song Chronicles seemed so very much like real books that I looked them up in a few places -- and I was certainly not the only one -- before realizing that, duh, they're fictional artifacts of the novel. Well played, Mr. Sloan. Still, the novels seemed so thoroughly developed, with plot summaries and complete excerpts -- narrated by author Sloan to great effect in the Ari Fliakos-narrated audiobook of the full novel -- that I've been holding out hope that Sloan might actually write them eventually.

Sloan instead followed up the novel by revisiting it with a short story to pair with the novel's paperback release last fall, Ajax Penumbra 1969. But he wasn't done revisiting the world of his novel -- just his fictional San Francisco. In a 3-book deal, FSG Originals editor Sean McDonald has bought Robin Sloan's The Dragon-Song Chronicles, for publication late this fall!

FSG Originals senior editor Sean McDonald explains why he picked up the series: "Robin's doing some things here with fantasy which have never been done, yet staying true to the 80s/90s fantasy formulae alluded to in Penumbra. He's playing with the trope of playing with tropes -- it's genius. I can't wait for people to read them."

Posted in April 1 | Tagged fsg originals, robin sloan, skyboat media, the dragon-song chronicles, wil wheaton

BREAKING NEWS: Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint to Become a Major Motion Picture!

Posted on 2014-04-01 at 14:47 by Dave

Well, this is unexpected. I've just exchanged emails with a delighted Ellen Kushner and confirmed it: Swordspoint will become a major motion picture, to be directed by Brett Ratner.

Kushner did caution that the film wouldn't be a direct adaptation of her novel. Instead, the synopsis goes like this:

Posted in April 1 | Tagged ellen kushner, swordspoint

Release Week: Accelerando by Charles Stross, Lockstep by Karl Schroeder, Sleep Donation by Karen Russell, The Boy with the Porcelain Blade by Den Patrick, and Kristen Bell as Veronica Mars

Posted on 2014-03-31 at 13:13 by Sam

MARCH 19-25, 2014: Well, I had no idea it was coming, but when Charles Stross' mindfuck-a-minute 2005 novel Accelerando shows up, read by George Guidall no less, it's your lead pick of the week. And a packed week it is, with, Karl Schroeder's new space opera Lockstep, Karen Russell's new novella Sleep Donation, and Den Patrick's "ornate yet dark" fantasy debut The Boy with the Porcelain Blade. Also out this week: Frank M. Robinson's 1956 sf novel The Power read by Bronson Pinchot, Jonathan Maberry's Code Zero, Terry Pratchett's The Folklore of Discworld, Peter Higgins' Truth and Fear: The Wolfhound Century, Lavie Tidhar's Jesus and the Eightfold Path, Jonathan Lethem's collection The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye, and Tim Waggoner's "Matt Richter" trilogy, along with new audiobooks from James Daniel Ross (The Last Dragoon, with a richly textured narration from Daniel Dorse for new indie publisher Dark Quest), David Gerrold, and Freda Warrington. There's also plenty of intriguing "seen but not heard" titles this week, lead for me by Margaret Killjoy's A Country of Ghosts, Adam Christopher's The Burning Dark, and Jen McConnel's Daughter of Chaos. It's also an insanely packed week ahead, including the already-published Desert of All Souls and Tales of the Radiation Age, with today (Monday March 31) having a week's worth all to itself (Ian McDonald, James P. Blaylock) let alone the avalanche of audio that publishers have packed into April 1. (And we just might have some fun of our own in store on that particular date.) Enjoy!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

When I read Charles Stross' Accelerando in mass market paperback back in 2006 or so I was reading a book that had already been published in hardcover the year before, yet still the ideas were so fresh I might as well be cracking it open for the first time next year. OK, admittedly a few neologisms are a bit past their sell date ("slashdotting" for overloading a web server was already a bit passe upon publication, says this crotchety Slashdot 5-digit uid) but so much of the rest is still just mindblowing, idea after idea, presaging (like great sf does) a lot of what is finally starting to come into focus when looking ahead at the next decade. VR/AR goggles? Cue the Oculus Rift (and a new round of competitors) poised to finally break through. Augmenting our brains with technology? Per Michio Kaku's The Future of the Mind we are closer than ever to this long-sfnal concept becoming reality. Post-humans slowly taking control of the planet and solar system? OK, that's maybe not on tomorrow's doorstep just yet. But! We do get one fantastic rogue AI cat. And that's before... well, I'll not spoil too many more of the surprises. Suffice it to say that Stross posits a post-Singularity future that is sufficiently weird for it to possibly have some overlap with such a future. Here, narrated by George Guidall (The Golem and the Jinni, The Gunslinger, American Gods, Galileo's Dream, along with Stross' Iron Sunrise and Singularity Sky) for Recorded Books.

Lockstep by Karl Schroeder (Tor, Mar 25) takes a fresh look at the deep future, a highly imaginative galactic-scale space opera, and the excerpt delivers on that. "When 17-year-old Toby McGonigal finds himself lost in space, separated from his family, he expects his next drift into cold sleep to be his last. After all, the planet he' s orbiting is frozen and sunless, and the cities are dead. But when Toby wakes again, he' s surprised to discover a thriving planet, a strange and prosperous galaxy, and something stranger still - that he' s been asleep for 14,000 years. Welcome to the Lockstep Empire, where civilization is kept alive by careful hibernation. Here cold sleeps can last decades and waking moments mere weeks. Its citizens survive for milennia, traveling asleep on long voyages between worlds. Not only is Lockstep the new center of the galaxy, but Toby is shocked to learn that the Empire is still ruled by its founding family: his own." Narrated by Jonathan Todd Ross for Recorded Books.

Sleep Donation: A Novella by Karen Russell, narrated by Greta Gerwig for newly launched Atavist Books is a major new novella from the author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove: Stories. "A crisis has swept America. Hundreds of thousands have lost the ability to sleep. Enter the Slumber Corps, an organization that urges healthy dreamers to donate sleep to an insomniac. Under the wealthy and enigmatic Storch brothers the Corps' reach has grown, with outposts in every major US city. Trish Edgewater, whose sister Dori was one of the first victims of the lethal insomnia, has spent the past seven years recruiting for the Corps. But Trish's faith in the organization and in her own motives begins to falter."

Lastly, a pick on behalf of my estimable co-blogger, Dave Thompson, who already posted his review of Veronica Mars: The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham. Narrated by Kristen Bell -- the actress who plays the titular Veronica Mars, of course -- for Random House Audio. "The first book in an original mystery series featuring 28-year-old Veronica Mars, back in action after the events of Veronica Mars: The Movie. With the help of old friends - Logan Echolls, Mac Mackenzie, Wallace Fennel, and even Dick Casablancas - Veronica is ready to take on Neptune's darkest cases with her trademark sass and smarts."

There are a few other early thoughts on the audiobook over on reddit's /r/VeronicaMars, and here's a quote from Dave's review: "This is something I was still anxious about – whether Thomas and Graham and even Bell would be able to capture the spirit of a visual medium, and translate it to prose. To be fair, I don’t know how it works in text, but it pays off in Marshmallows in audio."

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged accelerando, charles stross, den patrick, george guidall, karen russell, karl schroeder, kristen bell, lockstep, sleep donation, the boy with the porcelain blade, veronica mars

Review: Joyland

Posted on 2014-03-31 at 06:17 by Dave

Joyland By Stephen King, read by Michael Kelly Length: 7 hours, 33 minutes

Sometimes, I feel like fun is a dirty word. Especially when it comes to entertainment, we'll put words like "cheap" or "Junk" or "Trash" in front of it. We might dismissively call the art - be it books, movie, tv, music, whatever - low brow, or shrug it off as a summer/beach read. I think we do ourselves a disservice by dismissing fun. I think fun serves an important function - one that makes us human. And so I really dig that with Joyland, Stephen King invites us to not only celebrate having fun, but urges us to share fun with people we love, as well as complete strangers, for whatever time we have left.

Devon Jones is a kid looking for a job in the summer that will help get him through college. He’s an aspiring writer (it is a Stephen King book), and he can’t help but be intrigued when he hears of Joyland – a small time amusement park, looking for summer hires. Joyland is a place that literally sells fun, or amusement. That's part of employee training. When Devon starts working there, he becomes intrigued with the unsolved mystery of a young woman who was murdered on a ride years ago. It starts to become more of an obsession when one of his friends and co-workers sees the dead girl’s ghost haunting the ride. At the same time, it’s also the story of Devon friendship with Mike Ross, a terminally ill boy, and his more complicated relationship Annie Ross – Mike’s mother, and how Devon manages to heal his broken heart.

Posted in reviews | Tagged coming of age, michael kelly, review, stephen king

Review: Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line

Posted on 2014-03-28 at 04:27 by Dave

Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line By Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham, Read by Kristen Bell Length: 8 hours, 42 minutes

If you’re like me, you’ve already been to the movie theater, or hit up your VOD (or both!) and spent nearly a couple of hours of bliss. And if you’re like me, you finished watching the movie with a big smile on your face, but were left craving a little bit more

Enter the first Veronica Mars novel. When I first heard about this book, I was – to put it mildly - a little anxious. I’ve been burned by extended universes of other franchises before that seem to be spinning their wheels. Could the authors actually capture the spirit of the show, or would it feel more like a cookie cutter mystery? And as to the audiobook, I was worried about who they’d hire to capture a character as iconic as Veronica.

But then I  saw the movie, and had to look up the book immediately after. That's when I discovered it was narrated by none other than Veronica Mars herself: the one and only Kristin Bell. Hook, line, sinker. And so I’m gonna do something I normally save for the end of the review, and talk about the narration first.

Kristin Bell is a very good actor, and it turns out she’s also an excellent audiobook narrator. It helps, of course, that Veronica Mars is the perfect role for her – and she performs it with all the charm, confidence, vulnerability, and snark that Thomas and Graham could type. And The Thousand Dollar Tan Line feels like Veronica Mars. This is something I was still anxious about – whether Thomas and Graham and even Bell would be able to capture the spirit of a visual medium, and translate it to prose. To be fair, I don’t know how it works in text, but it pays off in Marshmallows in audio. In addition to Bell reprising Veronica, it's tons of fun to hear her reading her co-stars parts – doing her best impressions. I think her Mac is the best, but I also enjoyed her Keith Mars. It's a very comfortable, natural reading.

Posted in reviews, Uncategorized | Tagged kristen bell, veronica mars

Whispersync Deal Roundup: Patrick Rothfuss, Jonathan Maberry, Ben H. Winters, Gail Z. Martin, and more

Posted on 2014-03-21 at 20:30 by Sam

Friday, March 21, 2014: Well, since my last big roundup (based on SFSignal’s excellent monthly peek into discount Kindle listings) a new crop of titles to check out has gone on sale in a slightly roundabout way. Let’s follow the chain:

• Barnes & Noble launched a Nook First in Series promotion, placing a whole bunch of "first in a series" ebooks on sale
• Amazon.com's price matching brings the Kindle price down to match
• Some of those titles have pretty nice Whispersync upgrade prices to the Audible edition

The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One Patrick Rothfuss introduces Kvothe, teller of his own tale. At $5.18 Kindle plus $3.99 Audible, narrated by Nick Podehl for Brilliance Audio: “My name is Kvothe. I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I have burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during the day. I have talked to God’s, loved women and written songs that make the minstrels weep. You may have heard of me.”

Jonathan Maberry’s Patient Zero: A Joe Ledger Novel begins his “Joe Ledger” series. At $1.99 Kindle plus $3.99 Audible, narrated by Ray Porter for Blackstone Audio: “When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week there’s either something wrong with your world or something wrong with your skills - and there’s nothing wrong with Joe Ledger’s skills. And that’s both a good and a bad thing. It’s good because he’s a Baltimore detective who has just been secretly recruited by the government to lead a new task force created to deal with the problems that Homeland Security can’t handle…”

The Last Policeman: A Novel by Ben H. Winters begins a fantastic pre-apocalypse novel of impending asteroid impact and societal degradation. At $2.99 Kindle plus $3.99 Audible, narrated by Peter Berkrot for Brilliance Audio: “What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die soon, anyway? Detective Hank Palace has faced this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. There’s no chance left. No hope. Just six precious months until impact. The Last Policeman presents a fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job - but not Hank Palace. He’s investigating a death by hanging.”

Myke Cole’s Shadow Ops: Control Point has been described to me as “military urban fantasy” and is $1.99 Kindle plus $3.99 Audible, read by Corey Jackson for Recorded Books: “Myke Cole is an expert at ratcheting up suspense and delivering pulse-pounding adventure that leaves audiences breathless. In Shadow Ops: Control Point, the world has seemingly gone mad. People are waking up with magical powers, such as the ability to raise the dead or call forth storms. The only thing staving off a plunge into chaos is the Supernatural Operations Corps, headed by Oscar Britton. But when Oscar exhibits a power of his own, the hunter becomes the hunted.”

Cold Magic (The Spiritwalker Trilogy) by Kate Elliott is a novel of magic at the edge of industrialization, beginning a well-regarded trilogy. $6.99 Kindle plus $3.49 Audible, read by Charlotte Parry for Recorded Books: “The Industrial Revolution has begun, factories are springing up across the country, and new technologies are transforming the cities. But the old ways do not die easy. Cat and Bee are part of this revolution. Young women at college, learning of the science that will shape their future and ignorant of the magics that rule their families. But all of that will change when the Cold Mages come for Cat. New dangers lurk around every corner and hidden threats menace her every move. If blood can’t be trusted, who can you trust?”

Gail Z. Martin’s Ice Forged (The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga) begins a new series from the author of six novels in her Chronicles of the Necromancer world, this one with a decidedly more gritty turn. $1.99 Kindle plus $3.99 Audible, read by Tim Gerard Reynolds for Recorded Books: “Condemned as a murderer for killing the man who dishonored his sister, Blaine “Mick” McFadden has spent the last six years in Velant, a penal colony in the frigid northern wastelands. Harsh military discipline and the oppressive magic keep a fragile peace as colonists struggle against a hostile environment. But the supply ships from Dondareth have stopped coming, boding ill for the kingdom that banished the colonists. Now, as the world’s magic runs wild, McFadden and the people of Velant must fight to survive and decide their fate…”

Posted in Whispersync Deals | Tagged ben h. winters, corey jackson, gail z martin, jonathan maberry, kate elliott, myke cole, nick podehl, patrick rothfuss, peter berkrot, tim gerard reynolds

News: Richard Armitage to narrate "Hamlet: a novel" by A.J. Hartley and David Hewson

Posted on 2014-03-21 at 16:47 by Sam

Via AJHartley.net, some casting news from late February that I missed: “We are thrilled to announce that the Hamlet, a Novel, the follow-up to the critically acclaimed international bestseller Macbeth: A Novel, co-written by A.J. and David Hewson will be out on audio on May 20th, performed by the incomparable Richard Armitage. Armitage has a history of playing Shakespeare but is probably best known internationally for his portrayal of Thorin Oakenshield in the recent Hobbit movies, as well as Guy of Gisborne in the BBC’s Robin Hood, Lucas North in Spooks and John Thornton in North and South.”

The title is available for pre-order: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: A Novel By A. J. Hartley and David Hewson, Narrated By Richard Armitage for Audible Inc. — Scheduled Release Date: 05-20-14. “It is a tale of ghosts, of madness, of revenge - of old alliances giving way to new intrigues. Denmark is changing, shaking off its medieval past. War with Norway is on the horizon. And Hamlet - son of the old king, nephew of the new - becomes increasingly entangled in a web of deception - and murder. Beautifully performed by actor Richard Armitage (“Thorin Oakenshield” in the Hobbit films), Hamlet, Prince of Denmark takes Shakespeare’s original into unexpected realms, reinventing a story we thought we knew.”

Posted in news | Tagged aj hartley, hamlet, richard armitage

Whispersync Daily Deal: Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities and Kate Danley's The Woodcutter

Posted on 2014-03-20 at 13:26 by Sam

Thursday, March 20, 2014: Today’s Kindle Daily Deal listings bring a pair of fantastic Whispersync deals, led by Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, the Cuban-born Italian author’s Nebula Award-nominated 1972 novel of Marco Polo’s describing to Kublai Khan of the cities he has visited on his travels. “Imaginary conversations between Marco Polo and his host, the Chinese ruler Kublai Khan, conjure up cities of magical times. ‘Of all tasks, describing the contents of a book is the most difficult and in the case of a marvelous invention like Invisible Cities, perfectly irrelevant’ (Gore Vidal). Translated by William Weaver.” At $1.99 Kindle plus $1.99 Whispersync upgrade to the Audible edition, read by John Lee for Tantor Audio, it’s a fantastic deal. Lee is one of the best, and I can’t wait to settle in for this short audiobook quite soon:

Second, though always available at a quite low price (as are most of Amazon.com’s 47North titles), Kate Danley’s 2012 novel The Woodcutter is on sale for $1.99 Kindle, with a $0.99 Whispersync upgrade to the Audible edition, read by Sarah Coomes for Brilliance Audio: “Deep within the Wood, a young woman lies dead. Not a mark on her body. No trace of her murderer. Only her chipped glass slippers hint at her identity. The Woodcutter, keeper of the peace between the Twelve Kingdoms of Man and the Realm of the Faerie, must find the maiden’s killer before others share her fate. Guided by the wind and aided by three charmed axes won from the River God, the Woodcutter begins his hunt, searching for clues in the whispering dominions of the enchanted unknown. But quickly he finds that one murdered maiden is not the only nefarious mystery afoot…”

Posted in Whispersync Deals | Tagged invisible cities, italo calvino, john lee, kate danley, sarah coomes, the woodcutter

Release Week: Lavie Tidhar, Terry Pratchett's Raising Steam, Scott Meyer's Off to Be the Wizard, and Cory Doctorow's Homeland read by Wil Wheaton

Posted on 2014-03-19 at 15:39 by Sam

MARCH 12-18, 2014: A jam-packed week straddes the Ides of March, bringing a fantastic haul of audiobooks led by two short novels from Lavie Tidhar, the latest steam-powered Discworld novel from Terry Pratchett, and Scott Meyer's Off to Be the Wizard read by Luke Daniels. Update: Also out now and available exclusively as part of the current Humble eBook Bundle, Cory Doctorow's Homeland, bestselling sequel to Little Brother, is read by Wil Wheaton -- at Skyboat Media no less, directed by Gabrielle de Cuir who captured Wheaton's reaction to name-dropping himself early on in the book. Also out this week: Daniel Levine's Hyde, Adrianne Harun's mythoipoetic debut A Man Came Out of a Door in the Mountain, Ismael Kadare's Albanian magical realism Spring Flowers, Spring Frost, Chris Terrill's All Our Yesterdays, more Ian McDonald including his Philip K. Dick Award winning King of the Morning, Queen of the Day, Matt Forbeck's Vegas Knights,  Ian Doescher's William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back, a new unabridged narration (by Simon Vance as "Lestat") of Anne Rice's Memnoch the Devil, a collection of C.M. Kornbluth's short science fiction, Piers Torday's middle grade novel The Last Wild, as well as A.G. Riddle's The Atlantis Gene, the latest self-published Kindle best-seller to get a pro audiobook treatment, this time from Audible Frontiers. And! I was very happy to see that an audiobook edition Nnedi Okorafor's Lagoon is both going to happen and is now available for pre-order, which I'm in for despite the narrator being the ever-chimeric "to be announced". Plenty to see in the "seen but not heard" listings, including (finally back from the printers) The Last Weekend by Nick Mamatas, out in a limited hardcover release from PS Publishing. There's plenty more coming next week, so get listening! [Note: in solidarity with Doctorow's foreword against Audible's use of DRM, there are no Audible links in this week's release roundup.] PICKS OF THE WEEK: Two short novels by Lavie Tidhar provide glimpses into two sides the many-faceted coin of his imagination: Cloud Permutations (narrated by David Thorpe) and Gorel and the Pot-Bellied God (narrated by Jeff Harding). While he's turned his novel-length attention lately to the more noir-ish and alternate history side of things (Osama and The Violent Century) these two earlier works showcase his science fiction (Cloud Permutations) and uniquely imaginative fantasy (Gorel and the Pot-Bellied God) storytelling modes. First up, the sf: "The world of Heven was populated, centuries ago, by Melanesian settlers from distant Earth. It is a peaceful, quiet world – yet it harbours ancient secrets. Kai just wants to fly. But flying is the one thing forbidden on Heven – a world dominated by the mysterious, ever present clouds in the skies. What do they hide? For Kai, finding the answer might mean his death – but how far will you go to realise your dreams? Set against the breathtaking vista of a world filled with mystery and magic, Cloud Permutations is a planetary romance with a unique South Pacific flavour, filled with mythic monsters, ancient alien artefacts, floating islands and a quest to find a legendary tower…whatever the cost."   And the crazily lush fantasy: "There is only one truth Gorel of Goliris - gunslinger, addict, touched by the Black Kiss - is interested in: Finding a way back home, to the great empire from which he had been stolen as a child and from which he had been flung, by sorcery, far across the World. It started out simple: Get to Falang-Et, find the mirror, find what truth it may hold. But nothing is simple for Gorel of Goliris... When Gorel forms an uneasy alliance - and ménage à trois- with an Avian spy and a half-Merlangai thief, things only start to get complicated. Add a murdered merchant, the deadly Mothers of the House of Jade, the rivalry of gods and the machinations of a rising Dark Lord bent on conquest, and things start to get out of hand. Only one thing’s for sure: By the time this is over, there will be blood. Not to mention sex and drugs...or guns and sorcery." Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett, read by Stephen Briggs for Random House Audio is the US release for the latest and 40th Discworld novel, in which “the Disc’s first train come steaming into town.” Out last year in the UK, but any time is a good time to return to Ankh-Morpork: "Steam is rising over Discworld, driven by Mister Simnel, the man with a flat cap and a sliding rule. He has produced a great clanging monster of a machine that harnesses the power of all of the elements—earth, air, fire, and water—and it’s soon drawing astonished crowds. To the consternation of Ankh-Morpork’s formidable Patrician, Lord Vetinari, no one is in charge of this new invention. This needs to be rectified, and who better than the man he has already appointed master of the Post Office, the Mint, and the Royal Bank: Moist von Lipwig. Moist is not a man who enjoys hard work—unless it is dependent on words, which are not very heavy and don’t always need greasing. He does enjoy being alive, however, which makes a new job offer from Vetinari hard to refuse. Moist will have to grapple with gallons of grease, goblins, a fat controller with a history of throwing employees down the stairs, and some very angry dwarfs if he’s going to stop it all from going off the rails."   Off to Be the Wizard by Scott Meyer, narrated by Luke Daniels for Brilliance Audio keeps the humor coming: "It's a simple story. Boy finds proof that reality is a computer program. Boy uses program to manipulate time and space. Boy gets in trouble. Boy flees back in time to Medieval England to live as a wizard while he tries to think of a way to fix things. Boy gets in more trouble. Oh, and boy meets girl at some point. Off to Be the Wizard is a light, comedic novel about computers, time travel, and human stupidity, written by Scott Meyer, the creator of the internationally known comic strip Basic Instructions. Magic will be made! Legends will be created! Stew will be eaten!" Originally self-published last year, it's been re-published by Amazon's 47North imprint, and is an instant "Whispersync Deal" as it's $3.99 in Kindle with a $1.99 upgrade to the Audible edition. Update: Homeland by Cory Doctorow, narrated by Wil Wheaton is also out now and available exclusively as part of the current Humble eBook Bundle. Homeland is Doctorow's bestselling 2013 sequel to Little Brother, and was recorded at Skyboat Media, directed by Gabrielle de Cuir. I've had a chance to tiptoe into the audiobook a bit, and it's top notch, with bump music, impeccable audio, and an "everything on the table" foreword from Doctorow about DRM. "In Cory Doctorow’s wildly successful Little Brother, young Marcus Yallow was arbitrarily detained and brutalized by the government in the wake of a terrorist attack on San Francisco—an experience that led him to become a leader of the whole movement of technologically clued-in teenagers, fighting back against the tyrannical security state. A few years later, California's economy collapses, but Marcus’s hacktivist past lands him a job as webmaster for a crusading politician who promises reform. Soon his former nemesis Masha emerges from the political underground to gift him with a thumbdrive containing a Wikileaks-style cable-dump of hard evidence of corporate and governmental perfidy. It’s incendiary stuff—and if Masha goes missing, Marcus is supposed to release it to the world. Then Marcus sees Masha being kidnapped by the same government agents who detained and tortured Marcus years earlier." ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged cory doctorow, lavie tidhar, luke daniels, scott meyer, terry pratchett, wil wheaton