Review: Skinner

Posted on 2013-10-18 at 12:45 by Dave

Skinner By Charlie Huston, Narrated by Jay Snyder Length: 13 hours, 18 minutes

There are certain writers that have an incredibly distinct voice - you know immediately when you’re reading them. Cormac McCarthy book. DittoToni Morrison, Charles Frazier, Jonathan Lethem, Michael Chabon, Catherynne M. Valente, and James Ellroy all pop into my mind, as does Charlie Huston. Huston is one of those writers where I’m just really predisposed to dig the stripped down hardboiled style he employs. And, truth be told - I wondered whether Huston’s voice could work in audio.

Skinner marks something of a departure for Huston. It’s his first spy novel, and I appreciate that Huston is pushing himself into different territory and not getting too comfortable writing crime novels. And it’s the kind of contemporary spy/war novel I’d always hoped Ellroy would attempt to write. It’s a fine experiment, grounded with tough guys who could’ve been crooks, mobsters, and PIs, but essentially became C.I.A. operatives instead. Perhaps Sleepless was more of an experiment?

Skinner protects assets, or people. He was the best he was at what he did because he came off as the most brutal. If someone took out Skinner’s asset, Skinner would make sure that person would pay a higher cost – destroying everything his antagonist considered valuable. We aren’t given too many specific details about what this means, but you can fill in the blanks. His antagonists knew people or had families. Skinner made them pay – so much so that the cost he exacted far outweighed whatever they gained from taking out his asset. Probably, Skinner only had to do this a few times to secure his reputation, but it’s a nasty enough backstory. It gets more messed up when you discover that Skinner himself was something of a human guinea pig as a child - his parents kept him in a box (or basement). Finally, an attempt on Skinner’s life by Kestrel - the agency that employs Skinner. It didn’t work, but instead of retaliating, Skinner merely disappeared, and miraculously nobody connected to the attempt was punished.

Years later, after a cyber attack on the U.S. power grid, Skinner is located and brought back by Kestrel. His asset is Jae, a robotocist who can see patterns. She’s trying to save hundreds of thousands of lives in true globe-hopping fashion, they travel to Stockhom and Mumbai, searching for clues, trying to piece the puzzle together before it all blows up. Through it all, we’re wondering who they can trust - and whether or not they can trust each other? Jae in particular worries that Skinner, now brought in from the cold, has already started exacting his bloody revenge.

There’s a lot that I liked about Skinner. It’s very much a novel of our times and has a lot on its mind: WTO protests, corporations given human rights, the plight of the third world, the privilege of the first world, and responsibility. And for a spy novel, I appreciate that it’s maybe more optimistic about humanity (note: not government agencies). I admit I had a hard time keeping up with the book’s breakneck pace at times. It’s easy to get dizzy, but Huston’s prose is strong and easy enough to keep me lifting my hands high in the air as he operates the rollercoaster.

That said, it’s a book that I don’t think will stick with me. I wasn’t sorry to have listened to it, and I thought Jae was well drawn character, but in general – Skinner, like it’s protagonist, seemed happy to keep me at arm’s length, and for a book with such high stakes, I didn’t feel as invested in them as much as I have Huston’s other novels. Maybe that’s part of the point - Skinner is supposed to feel like a not completely functioning member of society.

Up until Skinner, I’d only experienced Huston’s prose on the page, and I was worried how it would translate to audio. Jay Snyder does an admirable job finding the rhythm and beats of Huston’s prose. I enjoyed listening to him, and I won’t hesitate to pick up another of Huston’s books in audio.

Special Thanks to Hatchette Audio for providing me with a review copy of this book.

Posted in Uncategorized

Release Week: METAtropolis: Green Space, Tina Connolly's Copperhead, K.W. Jeter's Fiendish Schemes, and Lemony Snicket's "When Did You See Her Last?"

Posted on 2013-10-16 at 17:44 by Sam

OCTOBER 9-15, 2013: Audible's audio-original METAtropolis series returns, along with new sequels from Tina Connolly, K.W. Jeter, and (primarily for younger listeners but hey, it's) Lemony Snicket, along with (in the "also out" this week listings), Anne Rice's The Wolves of Midwinter, the four books of R.A. Salvatore's Legacy of the Drow series, along with the conclusion of Stephen R. Donaldson's Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and Emma Newman's The Split World. And! Some fantastic recently-announced titles added to the "coming soon" listings, including Tim Powers' Hide Me Among the Graves (read by Fiona Hardingham for Blackstone Audio) and the first two books of J.M. McDermott's Dogsland Trilogy (Never Knew Another and When We Were Executioners). I'm over-the-top excited about both of these. And! Confirmation that Blackstone Audio will have a concurrent audio release for Jeff VanderMeer's forthcoming Annihilation (FSG, February 4, 2014) though the narrator is still TBD. All in all, a good week for audiobook news. But a bit of a rough one for the fantastic Escape Artists family of sf/f/h short fiction podcasts, including Escape Pod, PseudoPod, and PodCastle. As Nick Mamatas writes, they're in need of financial support to keep going. If you enjoy these podcasts as much as I do, check them out and consider chipping in. And, as always: enjoy!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

After 2008's METAtropolis (narrated by the cast of Battlestar Galactica along with Stefan Rudnicki and Scott Brick) and 2010's METAtropolis: Cascadia (narrated by the casts of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager) it has been high time for a return to the audio-original, award-winning shared world series. Yesterday, Audible Frontiers did just that by releasing METAtropolis: Green Space. For narrators, this time it's a primarily all-star narrator affair, with Dion Graham (The Circle, Death by Black Holes: And Other Cosmic Quandaries, Miles: The Autobiography, Octavia Butler's Wild Seed), Robin Miles (voice of Nalo Hopkinson and Karen Lord in audio, among others), Mark Boyett (Murakami's 1Q84), Scott Brick (Justin Cronin's The Passage, Hannu Rajaniemi's The Quantum Thief), Allyson Johnson (David Weber's Honor Harrington series), Sanjiv Jhaveri (masterful on G. Willow Wilson's Alif the Unseen), Jennifer Van Dyck (Elizabeth Moon, Jack McDevitt, Kristine Kathryn Rusch), and Jonathan Davis (Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl). Story wise: "As METAtropolis: Green Space moves into the 22nd Century, human social evolution is heading in new directions after the Green Crash and the subsequent Green Renaissance. Nearly everyone who cares to participate in the wired world has become part of the "Internet of things", a virtual environment mapped across all aspects of the natural experience. At the same time, the serious back-to-the-land types have embraced a full-on paleo lifestyle, including genetically engineering themselves and their offspring. At the same time, a back-to-space movement is seeking the moon, a green Mars, and even the stars, with the eventual goal of leaving a pristine and undisturbed Earth behind. METAtropolis: Green Space is the creation of Hugo and World Fantasy Award nominee Jay Lake; Hugo Award winning writers Seanan McGuire, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Elizabeth Bear; New York Times best-selling author Tobias S. Buckell; Aurora Award winner Karl Schroeder; and critically-acclaimed author Ken Scholes."

Tina Connolly's 2012 debut novel Ironskin was nominated for the Nebula Award, and was produced as a fantastic audiobook read by Roslyn Landor for Audible Frontiers. This week, Connolly revisits her "Jane Austen after the Great Fairy War" setting with Copperhead: Ironskin, Book 2, once again narrated by Landor, , concurrent with the Tor Books print/ebook release. "Helen Huntingdon is beautiful - so beautiful she has to wear an iron mask. Six months ago her sister Jane uncovered a fey plot to take over the city. Too late for Helen, who opted for fey beauty in her face - and now has to cover her face with iron so she won’t be taken over, her personality erased by the bodiless fey. Not that Helen would mind that some days. Stuck in a marriage with the wealthy and controlling Alistair, she lives at the edges of her life, secretly helping Jane remove the dangerous fey beauty from the wealthy society women who paid for it. But when the chancy procedure turns deadly, Jane goes missing - and is implicated in a murder."

Fiendish Schemes by K. W. Jeter (Tor / Brilliance Audio) is “The long-awaited stand-alone sequel to the seminal novel Infernal Devices by one of the founding fathers of steampunk." Two years ago, Angry Robot re-released Infernal Devices along with an Angry Robot on Brilliance Audio edition performed by Michael Page, and here the decades-later sequel is read by Justine Eyre. "In 1986 K. W. Jeter coined the term "steampunk," applying it to his first Victorian-era science fiction alternate-history adventure. At last he has returned with Fiendish Schemes, a tale of George Dower, son of the inventor of Infernal Devices, who has been in new self-imposed exile…accumulating debts. The world Dower left when he went into hiding was significantly simpler than the new, steam-powered Victorian London, a mad whirl of civilization filled with gadgets and gears in the least expected places. After accepting congratulations for his late father's grandest invention—a walking, steam-powered lighthouse—Dower is enticed by the prospect of financial gain into a web of intrigue with ominously mysterious players who have nefarious plans of which he can only guess."

“When Did You See Her Last?” by Lemony Snicket, read by Liam Aiken for Hachette Audio, continues the A Sequence of Unfortunate Events author Snicket's ongoing All the Wrong Questions series for young readers which began with last year's 'Who Could That Be at This Hour?'. Here: "I should have asked the question "How could someone who was missing be in two places at once?" Instead, I asked the wrong question - four wrong questions, more or less. This is the account of the second. In the fading town of Stain’d-by-the-Sea, young apprentice Lemony Snicket has a new case to solve when he and his chaperone are hired to find a missing girl. Is the girl a runaway? Or was she kidnapped? Was she seen last at the grocery store? Or could she have stopped at the diner? Is it really any of your business? These are all the wrong questions."

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged jay lake, justine eyre, kw jeter, lemony snicket, metatropolis, rosalyn landor, tina connolly

The AudioBookaneers turns one!

Posted on 2013-10-14 at 12:01 by Sam

When I started basically keeping track of what I was already obsessing over — the weekly piles of choices of new audiobooks — as “The Audible SF/F Blog” back in the summer of 2011, I wondered if anyone else would come along for the ride. Well, hundreds of posts and a rename later, with my co-blogger Dave Thompson and a huge thank you to our readers, I’m happily celebrating a year of The AudioBookaneers, as of yeseterday, October 13, 2013. Hooray! Huzzah! Long live The AudioBookaneers! Arr!

Posted in Uncategorized

Release Week: James Gunn's Transcendental, Dave Eggers' The Circle, Gordon Van Gelder's Welcome to the Greenhouse, and Brenda Cooper's The Diamond Deep

Posted on 2013-10-09 at 20:26 by Sam

OCTOBER 2-8, 2013: A very welcome Recorded Books release of a sf legend's new novel, a new Dave Eggers "very near future" dystopian satire of a culture devoted to selling their privacy for convenience, an anthology of climate change stories, and book two in Brenda Cooper's Ruby's Song all make for a delightful set of release week picks. Meanwhile in the "also out" listings you can find collections from Connie Willis and Nancy Kilpatrick, a Shakespearean Star Wars riff, Chuck Palahniuk's Doomed, the first of David Dalglish's Shadowdance books, and all-star narrators Stefan Rudnicki, Oliver Wyman, Nick Podehl, and Justine Eyre, among many others. In the "missing" you'll find authors Scott Lynch (though thankfully not for long), Nick Mamatas, Christopher Buehlman (also not for long), Nathan Kotecki, and Nnedi Okorafor. And! Some fun news this week, as the next round of METAtropolis narrators have been listed. Enjoy!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Out in late August from Tor Books and now in audio from Recorded Books, Transcendental by James Gunn is the sf legend's first new novel in several years. Narrated By T. Ryder Smith, the book tells the story of "Riley, a veteran of interstellar war, is one of many beings from many different worlds aboard a ship on a pilgrimage that spans the galaxy. However, he is not journeying to achieve transcendence, a vague mystical concept that has drawn everyone else on the ship to this journey into the unknown at the far edge of the galaxy. His mission is to find and kill the prophet who is reputed to help others transcend. While their ship speeds through space, the voyage is marred by violence and betrayal, making it clear that some of the ship’s passengers are not the spiritual seekers they claim to be. Like the pilgrims in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, a number of those on the starship share their unique stories. But as tensions rise, Riley realizes that the ship is less like the Canterbury Tales and more like a harrowing, deadly ship of fools."

The Circle by Dave Eggers (Knopf / Random House Audio) is, in a fairly orthogonal change of pace for the McSweeney's publisher and author of frequently-acclaimed literary novels, a technothriller set in a "very near future" dystopia of (voluntarily! gladly!) disappeared privacy; read by Dion Graham. “What begins as the captivating story of one woman’s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.”

I can't quite remember for sure how I became aware of the early 2011, OR Books published anthology Welcome to the Greenhouse: New Science Fiction on Climate Change, but it's likely due to its being edited by long-time Fantasy & Science Fiction editor Gordon Van Gelder. With stories from (among others) Bruce Sterling, Gregory Benford, Paul Di Filippo, and Alan Dean Foster, the anthology brings together a varied approach to speculations on climate change in fiction. Here, it's narrated By Bob Dunsworth for Audible Inc.

Brenda Cooper's 2012 Pyr novel The Creative Fire introduced kick-ass protagonist Ruby Martin, robot repair technician on the rigidly socially stratified generation ship the Creative Fire. Yetta Gottesman voiced book one in the series for Audible Frontiers, and for The Diamond Deep: Ruby's Song, Book 2 Kate Reinders takes over as the voice of Ruby in this "character-driven, social science fiction inspired by the life of Evita Peron". Here: "The discovery ship, Creative Fire, is on its way home from a multi-generational journey. But home is nothing like the crew expected. They have been gone for generations, and the system they return to is now home to technologies and riches beyond their wildest dreams. But, they are immediately oppressed and relegated to the lowest status imaginable, barely able to interact with the technologies and people of the star station where they dock, the Diamond Deep. Ruby Martin and her partner, Joel North, must find a way to learn what they need to know and become more than they have ever been - if they are to find a way to save their people."

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged brenda cooper, dave eggers, gordon van gelder, james gunn, the circle, welcome to the greenhouse

Release Week: David Niall Wilson's Killer Green, Martha Wells' Razor's Edge, Hugh Howey's Dust, and Tim Lebbon's London Eye

Posted on 2013-10-02 at 14:25 by Sam

SEPTEMBER 25-OCTOBER 1, 2013: After two weeks of huge releases to end September, October tiptoes in with a quieter slate, though with a quite loud (to me) "missing in audio" title, Ann Leckie's space opera Ancillary Justice. Still, some intriguing releases this week to check out, whether it's unique noir/sf mashup, a new Star Wars tie-in, the conclusion of Hugh Howey's Wool series, or Tim Lebbon's take on a toxic, blasted London. Enjoy!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Killer Green by David Niall Wilson, narrated by Tom Pile for Crossroad Press, which has for years been doing its independent thing, publishing top-notch productions. Here:  "Quentin Tarantino meets Smokey & The Bandit in this noir, science-fiction thriller. Sometimes, people just need killing. When Sam West wanders into the Sunny-Side-Up Diner for the last time, hoping for a last slice of Mort's world-class pie, and one last look at a waitress named Delilah, he has no idea he's about to become the instrument of a great, kharmic cleansing. ... Killer Green began life as a joking conversation on Twitter. It became a phenomenon - was written into a screenpaly - shared on the Internet, optioned by a production company, and continues it's social media-born roll toward the Mexican border. It's ecologically relevant. It's good for the environment. It's a novel you will not forget, that will leave you laughing and hold your attention to the last word."

Out last Wednesday in audio was Razor's Edge: Star Wars: Empire and Rebellion, Book 1 by Martha Wells, Narrated By January LaVoy for Random House Audio. Wells, who followed her Ile-Rien series with the fantastic Books of the Raksura, and has already this year had another novel published, Emilie and the Hollow World, by Strange Chemistry, pens a story of Leia and a fragile Rebel Alliance taking place in between Episode IV (A New Hope) and Episode V (The Empire Strikes Back). "Trapped between lethal cutthroats and brutal oppressors, Leia and Han, along with Luke, Chewbacca, and a battle-ready crew, must defy death - or embrace it - to keep the rebellion alive."

Dust: Silo Saga, Book 3 By Hugh Howey, Narrated By Tim Gerard Reynolds for Howey's Broad Reach Publishing. Howey blew into the publishing world by self-publishing Wool to stratospheric success, and now concludes his series by, of course, self-publishing a well-produced audiobook from a top flight narrator in Reynolds (Michael J. Sullivan's Riyria Revelations). "Wool introduced the silo and its inhabitants. Shift told the story of their making. Dust will chronicle their undoing. Welcome to the underground."

Lastly, one of 2012's Pyr Teen releases comes to audio: London Eye: Toxic City, Book One By Tim Lebbon, Narrated By Steven Kynman for Audible Inc. "Two years after London is struck by a devastating terrorist attack, it is cut off from the world, protected by a military force known as Choppers. The rest of Britain believes that the city is now a toxic, uninhabited wasteland. But Jack and his friends - some of whom lost family on what has become known as Doomsday - know that the reality is very different. At great risk, they have been gathering evidence about what is really happening in London - and it is incredible. Because the handful of London's survivors are changing. Developing strange, fantastic powers. Evolving."

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged crossroad press, david niall wilson, hugh howey, january lavoy, martha wells, star wars, tim gerard reynolds, tim lebbon

Review: The Fall of the Kings

Posted on 2013-09-27 at 19:58 by Dave

The Fall of the Kings (Riverside, Book 3) By Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman Narrated by Ellen Kushner, Nick Sullivan, Simon Jones, Katherine Kellgren, Robert Fass, Richard Ferrone, Tim Jerome, and Neil Gaiman Length: 18 hours, 40 minutes

Often fantasy fiction relies on escapism through the fantastic, so it’s refreshing when you come across a book like The Fall of the Kings that kind of skewers that the fantastic necessarily equates escape. The Fall of the Kings is very much a left turn from Swordspoint. Instead of centering around the violent, sexy swordsmen nobles contract to fight duels on their behalf, this book focuses on the politics of university and scholarship, trading swordplay for academic debates, with charismatic professors. Really, it’s the Dead Poet’s Society of Wizarding History, and it’s a fascinating study for fantasy fans.

The story is primarily about two men: Basil St. Cloud, a renegade scholar determined on discovering the hidden, taboo truths of the ancient kings (who were overthrown and executed by the nobles hundreds of years earlier) and their wizards. That’s right, wizards. It appears there just might be magic in Riverside, or there once was. And ever since the Fall of the Kings, even the discussion of magic has been outlawed (a detail that neatly explains why magic was so completely absent from Swordspoint). St. Cloud soon enters into a romantic relationship with aristocratic student Theron Campion – the son of the Mad Duke of Tremontaine – who bears resemblance to some of the ancient kings Basel has studied. Together their discoveries and passions concerning the secret truths of magic, the kings, and their wizards threaten to have consequences. To some degree, it puts me in mind of China Miéville’s The City & The City, and M. John Harrison’s In Viriconium (the last novel of the Viriconium cycle). It’s a novel that is very much playing against type, and questioning our typical expectations and desires of the fantastic. Will magic come back to the land? Is that really a good thing?

I’ve talked a lot about this being a sequel to Swordspoint, but I hadn’t realized until about halfway through the book that while this novel takes place some 60 years after The Privilege of the Sword, it was published four years before that novel was. I didn’t find it anywhere near as accessible and delightful as The Privilege of the Sword, or as thrilling as Swordspoint, but I don’t think that’s really the point. It’s a love letter to academia, and I think it’s more challenging than the other two books (and I mean that as a compliment). I’m also somewhat astonished by how little violence there is for the majority of this novel - something that pleases me in a genre that seems to depend on violence in order to be entertaining (and I say that as someone who is usually entertained by good fantasy novels, but also as someone who has noticed a disturbing trend).

Kushner’s narration is excellent (of course!) and the illuminated cast general does very solid work, as does the illuminated cast (I particularly liked the actor who played Justice Blake). I’m pretty bummed this is the final book in the series, partially due to how unique Kushner and Sue Zizza make this listening experience). My only complaint about the narration is a very odd one – it takes a little bit of work to hear Nick Sullivan, who played the deliciously wicked Lord Ferris in the other two Riverside novels, as the romantic historian hero St. Cloud. That’s not to take anything away from how strong his performance is here – it’s nice to hear Sullivan not be such a monster for a change. But Lord Ferris’ shadow always seems to be lingering whenever Sullivan began talking. (Though this was probably emphasized by me listening to this novel right after The Privilege of the Sword.)

In the final analysis, The Fall of the Kings is a unique kind of fantasy novel – one that challenges our expectations concerning magic and escapism in fantasy fiction. While I don’t think I enjoyed it quite as much as I did the other books in this series, I do appreciate that it did something very different from what we’re used to in fantasy fiction, and I found that refreshing.

Special thanks to Ellen Kushner for providing me with a copy of this audiobook to review.

Posted in reviews | Tagged deliah sherman, ellen kushner, neil gaiman presents, reviews, riverside

Release Week: Doctor Sleep, The Incrementalists, Every Boy Should Have a Man, and North American Lake Monsters

Posted on 2013-09-26 at 02:28 by Sam

SEPTEMBER 18-24, 2013: Well, I warned you last week that this week would be big. Huge. The list of excellent audiobooks that fall into the "also out this week" would make for a stellar set of release week picks: V.E. Schwab's Vicious (Tor and Brilliance Audio), James A. Moore's Seven Forges, Jhumpa Lahiri's recently-ABA-longlisted The Lowland, War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches, Laura Anne Gilman's Paranomal Scene Investigations, David Tallerman's Prince Thief, Anton Strout's Stonecast, Jason M. Hough's The Dire Earth Cycle concludes with The Plague Forge and Emma Newman's The Split Worlds concludes with All Is Fair, Allan Gurganus returns to the setting of his Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All with Local Souls, John Brandon's surrealistic A Million Heavens, a new Penumbra short from Robin Sloan, not to mention Brandon Sanderson's "first novel for teens", the YA superhero novel Steelheart. I mean, that's pretty much two weeks worth right there. But I'm sticking to these four picks as the must-listens in a crowded week, a varied list of themes and styles that I found the most intriguing. Two concurrent hardcover releases whose experienced and bestselling authors are both having "first novel" esque jitters, and two small press titles from earlier this year now in audio, the first a short novel from Akashic Press, and the second a Small Beer Press-published collection of powerful short fiction. Enjoy!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

There's little doubt that the blockbuster of the week is Doctor Sleep, a decades-later sequel to Stephen King's The Shining, read by Will Patton for Simon & Schuster Audio concurrent with the hardcover release from Scribner. It's also got a wicked cover, so there's that. "Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant 'shining' power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes 'Doctor Sleep.' Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of devoted readers of The Shining and satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon."

The Incrementalists by Steven Brust and Skyler White is out from Tor and Audible Frontiers, and the co-authors requested and got their audiobook dream team of Ray Porter and Mary Robinette Kowal. Brust is the bestselling author of the Vlad Taltos series, and while I have much more familiarity with Kowal as a narrator than Porter, my experience with both narrators is very good. Put it all together in a book that John Scalzi blurbs as “Secret societies, immortality, murder mysteries and Las Vegas all in one book? Shut up and take my money.” and you'll have my attention. "The Incrementalists—a secret society of two hundred people with an unbroken lineage reaching back forty thousand years. They cheat death, share lives and memories, and communicate with one another across nations, races, and time. They have an epic history, an almost magical memory, and a very modest mission: to make the world better, just a little bit at a time. Their ongoing argument about how to do this is older than most of their individual memories. Phil, whose personality has stayed stable through more incarnations than anyone else’s, has loved Celeste—and argued with her—for most of the last four hundred years. But now Celeste, recently dead, embittered, and very unstable, has changed the rules—not incrementally, and not for the better. Now the heart of the group must gather in Las Vegas to save the Incrementalists, and maybe the world."

Preston L. Allen's Every Boy Should Have a Man was published earlier this year by small independent Akashic Press. Now it's in audio, read by Michael McConnahie for Audible, and while I'm not completely sold on McConnahie's overly-radio-announcer mainline narration, his voices in dialogue here are delightful and the story is just... bizarre and strange and fantastic. "A riveting, poignant satire of societal ills, with an added dose of fantasy, Every Boy Should Have a Man takes place in a post-human world, where creatures called oafs keep humanlike "mans" as beloved pets. One day, a poor boy oaf brings home a man, whom he hides under his bed, in the hopes his parents won't find out. When the man is discovered, the boy admits it is not his - but the boy is no delinquent. Despite the accusations being hurled at him, he's telling the truth when he says he found the man wandering aimlessly in the bramble. Nevertheless, he must return the man to his rightful owner. But when the heartbroken boy comes home from school one afternoon, he finds wrapped up in red ribbon a female man with a note around her neck: 'Every boy should have a man. You're a fine son. Love, Dad.'"

Finally, a collection,  North American Lake Monsters: Stories By Nathan Ballingrud, narrated By Travis Young for Audible Inc. after being published in print/ebook earlier this year by Small Beer Press. I've heard Ballingrud read from his collection and am delighted to say that narrator Young captures the author's voice and taps into the working class essence of these monstrous, lovely stories. Fair warning: "The Good Husband" may haunt you for some time after your encounter with it. "In this striking and bleak, yet luminous debut collection, Nathan Ballingrud, winner of the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award, uses the trappings of the Gothic and the uncanny to investigate a distinctly American landscape: The loneliest and darkest corners of contemporary life."

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged brandon sanderson, doctor sleep, nathan ballingrud, stephen king, steven brust, the incrementalists

Review: The Privilege of the Sword

Posted on 2013-09-24 at 06:19 by Dave

The Privilege of the Sword (Riverside, Book 2) By Ellen Kushner, Narrated by Ellen Kushner, Barbara Rosenblat, Felicia Day, Nick Sullivan, Katherine Kellgren, Joe Hurley and Neil Gaiman Length: 15 hours, 40 minutes

I have a serious complaint about Ellen Kushner's The Privilege of the Sword: it ended. I could’ve happily listened to 100 more hours of Katherine’s Tom Joad-esque mythology as a swordswoman for the disenfranchised and disempowered. But look, I'm getting ahead of myself. But look again, this book is such a delight!

Kushner creates an incredible supporting cast – including the standout Artemisia, another young woman Katherine’s age – who initially seems like she might become Katherine’s bosom friend, but instead becomes her foil. Artemisia gets the life Katherine thought she wanted – the dresses, the balls, and the suitors, but as she plays out her role in society, she soon finds herself trapped by everyone she thought she loved. Meanwhile, Katherine is trapped training as swordsman and bodyguard, a job only men are generally allowed to perform. But with this more masculine job, she’s given more opportunity to make her own choices. Chief among these is saving Artemisia’s honor, and then defending it. The rest of the supporting characters are great too – from Lucius Perry’s relationship with his mysterious mistress to Marcus – Alec’s servant. They all feel like real characters, with real depths and desires, and I didn’t want to stop spending time with them.

Kushner also weaves in “The Swordsman Whose Name Was Not Death,” a story within the story (as well as a play). Katherine and Artemisia write letters to each other, signing their names as characters to the play – Katherine as the swordsman, Artemisia as the damsel, adding a delicious extra layer of  subtext. This story is as much Katherine’s coming of age and beginning to understand her desires, as it is a swashbuckling romance.

Both Kushner and Barbara Rosenblat narrate the novel to perfection – Kushner reads the passages that are told from Katherine’s perspective, and Rosenblat reads those from the other characters. They are supported by an illuminated cast, and I think this is the best cast of the Riverside stories. Felicia Day (who unfortunately doesn’t get quite as much time as one would hope) voices Katherine, and shines whenever she’s reading. But the absolute stunner is Joe Hurley, who completely captures the Mad Duke of Tremontaine’s drunken, hedonistic, washed-out rock star voice, a wild voice that’s hiding a beautiful soul beneath. Kushner really rounded out Alec’s character in this book, and Hurley is impossible not to love in the role. When he’s verbally sparring with Nick Sullivan’s villainous Lord Ferris, sparks fly. I could listen to them arguing with each other for hours with Kushner’s barbed dialogue. Neil Gaiman’s cameo as a wild artist is an additional delight.

The Privilege of the Sword is just about everything you could ask for in a novel – it’s exciting, funny, sexy, and one of the most fun audiobooks I’ve listened to all year. It’s an empowering story that subverts a lot of society’s gender roles, and it’s also incredibly fun. If this is being preached at, I want to go to church every Sunday, and then every other day of the week too.

Posted in reviews | Tagged ellen kushner, felicia day, joe hurley, neil gaiman, reviews, riverside, the privilege of the sword

Review: Fortunately, The Milk

Posted on 2013-09-20 at 14:28 by Dave

Fortunately, the Milk Written and Read by Neil Gaiman Length: 58 minutes

It should be a walk down the street, but on a father’s trip to buy some milk for his children’s cereal (and probably also his tea), aliens show up (as they do), and kidnap him. Dad escapes by breaking the time space continuum and lands himself on a 17th century pirate ship, and here - things get a little weird.

Throughout the rest of the book there are vampyrs, time traveling dinosaurs, exploding volcanoes, oh-so-self-fulfilling prophecies, and other fun things.

Neil Gaiman’s Fortunately, the Milk is at the exact opposite end of his fiction from The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and I’m all for it. I love that Gaiman can write something as staggeringly powerful and hauntingly personal as The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and then turn around and bring us something as absurd and silly as this. It’s a Dahl-esque tour with Dad as hero, with a stegosaurus inventor riding shotgun in a hot air balloon (sorry! Floaty-Ball-Person-Carrier). It reminded me of James and the Giant Peach and Gaiman’s own The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish as well as his poem “The Day the Saucers Came.” If you enjoyed those books, this one’s right up your alley. It’s a fun book, completely devoid of anything creepy/scary, and I can’t wait to listen to it with my children.

Gaiman himself narrates it, and really, who else could possibly read it as well as him? He’s such a commanding reader, and it’s treat to hear him cut loose and be silly for an hour.

Professor Steg, the stegosaurus inventor says it best: “Where there’s milk, there’s hope.” Well here, there be milk. And lots of it.

Posted in reviews, Uncategorized | Tagged Children's Books, neil gaiman

Received: Summer 2013

Posted on 2013-09-19 at 20:53 by Sam

I haven't done a "received" post in a while, so in the interest of openness and acknowledgement, here's what we've asked for and received this summer.

JUNE 2013

The Planet Thieves by Dan Krokos, read by Kirby Heywood for Blackstone Audio (Sam) -- I wasn't entirely sure of the age range for this one, which ended up being somewhere in between young reader and young adult. We don't have the wide-eyed innocence of childhood or (thankfully) the jaded apathy of too many YA novels. Instead it's an adventure for 13-year-olds. In space! A bit slow moving to start -- lots of internal thinking and second-guessing and self-examination -- before the pew! pew! and explosions commense. Publisher description: "When the crew of the SS Egypt gets massacred by an alien race, Mason Stark, a thirteen-year-old cadet in the Earth Space Command, must lead his fellow cadets in a daring surprise attack to retake the ship—and recover a stolen technology that could spell the end of planet Earth."

JULY 2013

Posted in received, Uncategorized