Release Week: Chuck Wendig's Under the Empyrean Sky, Michael J. Martinez's The Daedalus Incident, Aimee Bender's The Color Master, and Kate Elliot's Cold Magic

Posted on 2013-08-19 at 14:23 by Sam

AUGUST 7-13, 2013: Some concurrent new releases, another just-barely-delayed, and one of 2010's most missing in audio make for a varied list of picks this week, from teen dystopian CornPunk to space sf, to a story collection, and a couple of intriguing "genre in the mainstream" books as well. In particular, in the "also out this week", Victoria Lustbader's powerful novel Approaching the Speed of Light was a hard cut this week. Enjoy!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Under the Empyrean Sky: The Heartland Trilogy, Book 1 By Chuck Wendig, Narrated By Nick Podehl for Brilliance Audio, about a week and a half after the book's print/ebook release from Skyscape, but hey, who can't wait a few extra days for "CornPunk" from the terrible mind of Chuck Wendig, narrated by the voice of Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind, I ask you? Additionally, it's a very good "Whispersync for Voice" price deal, and to me strikes into a similar vein as China Mieville's Railsea. "Corn is king in the Heartland, and Cael McAvoy has had enough of it. It's the only crop the Empyrean government allows the people of the Heartland to grow—and the genetically modified strain is so aggressive that it takes everything the Heartlanders have just to control it. As captain of the Big Sky Scavengers, Cael and his crew sail their rickety ship over the corn day after day, scavenging for valuables. But Cael's tired of surviving life on the ground while the Empyrean elite drift by above in their extravagant sky flotillas. He's sick of the mayor's son besting Cael's crew in the scavenging game. And he's worried about losing Gwennie—his first mate and the love of his life—forever when their government-chosen spouses are revealed. But most of all, Cael is angry—angry that their lot in life will never get better and that his father doesn't seem upset about any of it. When Cael and his crew discover a secret, illegal garden, he knows it’s time to make his own luck...even if it means bringing down the wrath of the Empyrean elite and changing life in the Heartland forever."

The Daedalus Incident By Michael J. Martinez, Narrated By Kristin Kalbli and Bernard Clark for Audible Frontiers concurrent with the print/ebook release from Night Shade Books. The book is a recent Big Idea subject on Scalzi's Whatever blog: "So…I’m crashing an 18^th century frigate into 22^nd century Mars. While that is certainly a rather large and important-ish idea in my debut novel, The Daedalus Incident, it’s actually not the Big Idea." And while Kalbli is (I think) a new narrator to me, Bernard Clark was masterful on Hal Duncan's Vellum.

The Color Master: Stories is a collection of stories by the genre-bending Aimee Bender, narrated by a full cast for Random House Audio out concurrent with the print release. Bender's stories have appeared all over the place, from Tin House to Lightspeed to being reprinted in anthologies such as James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel's Feeling Very Strange, and they are wriggly, hard-to-categorize things that make Bender (like fellow Tin House publishee Kelly Link) kind of her own category. Weird, strange, and yet relevant stories to chew on and enjoy.

Lastly, Cold Magic By Kate Elliott is out narrated by Charlotte Parry for Recorded Books. The book was published by Orbit in 2010, beginning Elliott's Spiritwalker trilogy which concluded with this year's Cold Steel. Here: "A bold new epic fantasy in which science and magic are locked in a deadly struggle. It is the dawn of a new age.... 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?"

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Posted in Release Week, Uncategorized

Review: Marla Mason Double Feature

Posted on 2013-08-15 at 17:39 by Dave

Broken Mirrors (Marla Mason, Book 5) by T.A. Pratt, read by Jessica Almasy Length: 9 hours, 55 minutes

Grim Tides

A good series is like the perfect comfort food. You know more or less what you’re going to get if you’ve been here before, and you take pleasure in that familiarity. The Marla Mason books are my comfort food. I love the wicked sense of humor and no-nonsense Marla provides, and I love the way Jessica Almasy reads her. I could be up for a dozen more adventures of this character.

Broken Mirrors finds Marla Mason at odds with her few friends and confidants as she attempts to do the impossible - resurrect her slain apprentice, Bradley Bowman. Resurrection turns out to be impossible, so Marla opts for the next best thing: removing a different Bradley Bowman from an alternate universe. Unfortunately for her, this has a couple of unexpected consequences: 1) The B-Bowman isn’t so keen on being taken from the universe he was in, and 2) Marla’s own alternate - the Mason, and her murderous associate Crapsy (alt. Rondeau) are also pulled into Marla’s universe.

While our Marla and Rondeau take the B-Bowman back to his own universe, and agree to aide him in fighting a revolution, the Mason and Crapsy go on a killing spree that leads them all the way to an unprotected Fellport. In the Mason, Marla finds her most dangerous foe - a darker, more vicious version of herself. And I think it’s probably the best villain of the series.

It really feels like Pratt was pulling out all the stops with this one. This was the first of the Marla books that he self-published, and I suspect he realized that it might very well have been the last (thankfully, it isn’t). We see characters that we’ve gotten to know over the past four novels (and short stories) fall, which was more of a punch to the gut than I expected. On the other hand, traveling to the alternate universe and seeing a lot of characters that have appeared in and/or died in the previous books was a sheer joy. It’s the Marla Mason equivalent of Days of Future Past or Age of Apocalypse (which Pratt said he read for “research.” Yes, we all feel so much woe for how hard it must be on him to write these books.)

Grim Tides finds Marla exiled from Fellport due to the events in Broken Mirrors, and could easily be seen as a new opening chapter of the series. She’s working as a private investigator in Maui with Rondeau, but the game and stakes have changed. Essentially, a bunch of Marla’s former enemies (and friends) have gathered together to take revenge on Marla. If the last book was Age of Apocalypse, this is the Return of the Sinister Six.

Broken Mirrors is probably my favorite of the Marla Mason books. That said, I enjoyed this book about as much as possible. Marla navigating the Ka’anapali shores, tromping through the seven sacred pools, and holing up in an office in Lahaina was a breath of fresh air. I loved seeing characters familiar, even from the oddest places (a favorite character of mine from one of  Pratt short stories non-Marla Mason short stories showed up unexpectedly, which left me grinning like a daiquiri drinking fool.) While I’m excited to see what happens in Bride of Death (the next installment) I’m a little bit sad that Marla won’t get more time on Maui.

This could have been the closing of the series - there’s a lot of closure to events in this story as well as the previous stories, but I’m happy Pratt’s decided to continue. His writing is breezy, and the relationships his characters have with each other is why I keep coming back - I love hearing them talk and banter and rib each other. And I love hearing it all channeled by Jessica Almasy. The combination of Pratt’s Marla Mason and Almasy’s reading of her is a perfect marriage of material and narration, and I’m so excited for them to continue to do more stories in the Marla Mason series.

Disclosure: T.A. Pratt is the thinly veiled pseudonym of Tim Pratt, who’s novel Briarpatch I narrated for ACX.

Posted in reviews, Uncategorized

Release Week: Three, The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic, The Crown Tower, The Companions, Dragonwriter, and the New Space Opera

Posted on 2013-08-14 at 02:48 by Sam

JULY 31-AUGUST 6, 2013: Debuts, prequels, sequels, and anthologies, oh my! You can't throw a dart without hitting something worth listening to in the first release week of August. Post-apocalyptic debut sf? Check. A prequel to a bestselling adventure fantasy series? Check. The latest in R.A. Salvatore's beloved, long-running series of Drizzt books? How about an all-star-studded anthology reflecting on the influence of Anne McCaffery? Check, and check. Enjoy:

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Three: Legends of the Duskwalker, Book 1 By Jay Posey, Narrated By Luke Daniels for Angry Robot on Brilliance Audio, just a couple of days after the print/ebook release. I've been imagining "The Book of Eli meets Cowboys vs. Aliens" but this is being received as more "The Book of Eli meets (non-zombie) The Walking Dead" or a "High Tech Dark Tower". Posey is a long-time video game writer and this is his first novel, with the experienced and talented Daniels (Wild Cards, The Iron Druid Chronicles) narrating: "The world has collapsed, and there are no heroes any more. His name is Three, a travelling gun for hire in a dying world. He has no allegiances, no family, no ties. Against his better judgment, he accepts the mantle of protector to a sick woman on the run, and her young son. Together they set out across the plains in search of a mythic oasis, attempting to survive the forces that pursue them, and the creatures of the dark. In these dark times, a hero may yet arise."

The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker, read by Alyssa Bresnahan for Recorded Books, out concurrent with the print/ebook release from Pamela Dorman Books/Viking. Another debut, this one billed as "fantasy for grownups" in the vein of Lev Grossman and Susanna Clarke. “Nora Fischer’s dissertation is stalled and her boyfriend is about to marry another woman.  During a miserable weekend at a friend’s wedding, Nora wanders off and walks through a portal into a different world where she’s transformed from a drab grad student into a stunning beauty.  Before long, she has a set of glamorous new friends and her romance with gorgeous, masterful Raclin is heating up. It’s almost too good to be true. Then the elegant veneer shatters. Nora’s new fantasy world turns darker, a fairy tale gone incredibly wrong.”

The Crown Tower: The Riyria Chronicles, Book 1 By Michael J. Sullivan, Narrated By Tim Reynolds for Recorded Books, out concurrent with the print/ebook release from Orbit. Reynolds returns as narrator in this first in a new prequel series: "Michael J. Sullivan garnered critical raves and a massive readership for his Riyria Revelations series. The first book in his highly anticipated Riyria Chronicles series of prequels, The Crown Tower brings together warrior Hadrian Blackwater with thieving assassin Royce Melborn. The two form a less-than-friendly pairing, but the quest before them has a rare prize indeed, and if they can breach the supposedly impregnable walls of the Crown Tower, their names will be legend."

Posted in Release Week | Tagged jay posey, michael j sullivan, RA Salvatore, three

Release Week: The Darwin Elevator, Kill City Blues, Nexus, Frostarc, Antidote Man, and Jay Lake's City Imperishable

Posted on 2013-08-05 at 18:01 by Sam

I first learned about Arthur A. McMahon's Frostarc via a reddit SpecArt thread where I first saw Eran Fowler's cover art late last year. McMahon's self-published Frostarc stories expand and continue in this novel, and here the (again self-published) audiobook shares the high production values of the January 2013 ebook. Narrated by newcomer Lucas Kitchen, the book begins a series entitled "Seclusion" about the early stages of space colonization, on frozen, remote worlds: "Frostarc is a journey through one man's struggle to forgive himself. The people of his frozen planet have gone insane, and many have disappeared. Kozz needs to find a way off his ice-block prison in order to track down his wife and must make sure she is shielded from the madness that has befallen humanity. Hiding from his past is no longer an option. A decade of isolation and self-loathing has destroyed his spirit, but a young boy and mother who Kozz finds on his travels serve as a surrogate family, one he feels compelled to protect."

That audio original I mentioned is Antidote Man By Jamie Sutliff, read by Sutliff for Blackstone Audio. "An old man dying of cancer has just become the perfect test subject for an alien race seeking to exterminate mankind. Their goal: create a mutant viral strain impervious to cures. As part of their experiments, the aliens have perfected brain transplants, allowing them to place the old man’s brain in a new body, infect it with every possible virus, and test various antidotes. By the end, the man’s blood carries the antidote to every virus and cancer known to humans. Sent back to Earth in a shuttle, the old man sets about collecting virus samples from Africa. Meanwhile, another human scientist on board the alien ship releases an airborne virus that kills everyone - alien and human - on the ship. Left on Earth, the old man faces a world of corrupt politicians, drug companies, and rogue federal agents - and they all want samples of his blood."

Lastly this week I'd like to highlight Jay Lake's City Imperishable books, Trial of Flowers and Madness of Flowers, both narrated by Christian Rummel for Audible Inc. In Trial: "The City Imperishable's secret master and heir to the long-vacant throne has vanished from a locked room, as politics have turned deadly in a bid to revive the city's long-vanished empire. The city's dwarfs, stunted from spending their childhoods in confining boxes, are restive." And in Madness: "The battle has been fought and won, and all have been transformed by the struggle. ... Political intrigue, adventure, and all-out war await the principles and inhabitants of the City Imperishable. Through it all, the City may endure, but none will remain untouched by the Madness of Flowers...."

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged antidote man, jamie sutliff, jason m hough, jay lake, luke daniels, nexus, ramez naam, richard kadrey, sandman slim, simon vance

Review: The Log from the Sea of Cortez

Posted on 2013-07-26 at 04:31 by Dave

The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck, Read by Joe Barrett 11 hours, 54 minutes

I’d been wanting to do some non-genre reading for a while. My family was in Monterey a few weeks back to check out the aquarium, and I got to wondering where those humpback whales had disappeared to, and what would Ed Ricketts  and John Steinbeck have made of a spaceship facing off against whalers? I enjoy Steinbeck quite a bit, and had never read this non-fiction book, so the idea of him and his best friend taking an expedition down to the Sea of Cortez/Gulf of California was about as appealing as drinking a cold beer in the sunshine.

Just before America’s involvement in World War II, John Steinbeck and his friend Ed Ricketts (a marine biologist), charter a ship and travel down the coast with a crew to collect samples of tidal life, which is what Ricketts specialized in. (Ricketts’ old lab on Cannery Row in Monterey is one of the very few things from that day and age still standing there - the rest has been completely revamped.) Like most things Steinbeck, it’s more than just some guys drinking beer and collecting specimens - although there’s plenty of that. There’s a lot of ruminations on humanity, especially mankind’s connection to the rest of the world. This is particularly fascinating as it’s set to the backdrop of a group of men disappearing down to Mexico while a war brews in the rest of the world. Steinbeck sums up at the end of the book, “It is advisable to look from the tide pool to the stars, and then back to the tide pool again.”

What I didn’t expect was all the references to monsters, mythologies, and superstitions which pretty much made this book for me (and here I said I wanted to step back from genre reading for a moment? Hmmmmm). But the chapters where Steinbeck and his buddies were talking about werewolves (only to have the scruffiest of the crew appear in the galley after they’d jokingly decided he must be a werewolf) and philosophized about the importance of sea monsters just completely hooked me. “Men really do need sea monsters in their personal oceans,” he wrote. Naturally!

Perhaps the one issue I had with the book is more of a fault of my own than the writing - as it’s written to be a log of an expedition, and somewhat academical, the story is told primarily from the “we” perspective, and I wish there had been more time getting to know the crew. But that’s a fairly mild complaint.

Maybe the standout of the book is the Appendix: About Ed Ricketts, which is essentially Steinbeck eulogizing his friend. It’s sad, and poignant, and it’s easy to see why Ricketts was so beloved by Steinbeck, and such a huge inspiration to him.

This is the first time I’ve heard Joe Barrett read a book, and he did an outstanding job, capturing the everyman attitude and philosophies of Steinbeck. His voice made me feel like I was sitting down next to him, having a conversation about humanity and nature over beer, with the sounds of the waves lapping at the beach and the gulls crying out in the background. He was a big spot of sunshine for what I found to be a thoroughly interesting book, and I hope to hear more from him.

Posted in reviews

Kickstarter for Catherine M. Wilson's When Women Were Warriors, read by Janis Ian for Dog Ear Audio

Posted on 2013-07-25 at 03:02 by Sam

I’ve recently found out about a Kickstarter campaign for an audiobook edition of When Women Were Warriors and I am very excited to both be a backer and to share the project with my fellow audiobibliophiles:

Catherine M. Wilson’s When Women Were Warriors is a trilogy, and book one, The Warrior’s Path, won the 2010 EPIC Ebook Award for Fiction. (And happens to be free as of this writing, on Kobo, Nook, Kindle, and likely other places.)

Janis Ian is an acclaimed singer, songwriter, musician, columnist, and science fiction author, who happens to also be the reigning Grammy Award winner for narrating her autobiography, Society’s Child.

FROM THE KICKSTARTER:

"All the women of my family had gone to war... Now my turn had come...So it is the custom that a free woman leave her mother's house to bind herself and those of her blood to a neighboring clan, either by the sword or by the cradle."

Set in the British Isles during the Bronze Age, the first book in this epic trilogy tells the tale of Tamras, a young woman of the warrior class who leaves home to be fostered in Merin’s house, a fortress guarding the northern border of a rich agricultural valley. There she expects to find a mentor who will teach her the skills she will need to take her place in her community.

…

As Janis writes,“On vacation with my trusty Kindle, I read through it in two days and was so taken with the characters that I ordered the second and third in the series.” She gave it five stars, and the author took note. A few years later, the two met after one of Ian’s concert appearances. Says the singer “I was so excited to meet her, I blurted out ‘Hey, I just won a Grammy for “Best Spoken Word – Society’s Child”, and I’m looking for more narration work, if you ever want to make an audiobook…”   That connection resulted in Janis signing on to narrate Book 1 of this Tolkienesque story.

Posted in news | Tagged catherine m. wilson, janis ian, kickstarter, when women were warriors

Release Week: American Elsewhere, The Teleportation Accident, and Carniepunk

Posted on 2013-07-24 at 18:15 by Sam

JULY 17-23, 2013: I was set to write up a fairly quiet -- with the principal exception of the colorful-looking anthology Carniepunk -- release week, when Recorded Books unexpectedly dropped one of my most-anticipated titles of the year, Robert Jackson Bennett's American Elsewhere. It's months later than the print publication but still well ahead of the previously expected audio release. And! When digging through the non-sf/f catalogs, as I tend to do each release week just to make sure I'm not missing out on something, I found that late last week, Audible Inc. quietly published in its Fiction listings The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beuman, read by none less than the masterful John Lee. So! A pair of delightful monkey wrenches into many an audiobibliophile's listening plans, and it makes for quite an easy 1-2-3 choice for my...

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett, narrated by Graham Winton for Recorded Books. Published in print/ebook by Orbit early this year, it piled up both high reviews and a number of personal recommendations. And now, on the heels of a growing, glowing reputation built both on novels such as Mr. Shivers, The Company Man, and The Troupe, as well as short fiction ("To Be Read Upon Your Waking" among others) is his latest novel, in audio a bit later than we'd like but well (and surprisingly) ahead of the expected September release date. Since the Recorded Books temporary audiobook cover leaves a little to be desired, here's also the Orbit book cover:

The book: "Some places are too good to be true. Under a pink moon, there is a perfect little town not found on any map. In that town, there are quiet streets lined with pretty houses, houses that conceal the strangest things. After a couple years of hard traveling, ex-cop Mona Bright inherits her long-dead mother's home in Wink, New Mexico. And the closer Mona gets to her mother's past, the more she understands that the people of Wink are very, very different.... From one of our most talented and original new literary voices comes the next great American supernatural novel: a work that explores the dark dimensions of the hometowns and the neighbors we thought we knew."

As for The Teleportation Accident: A Novel by Ned Beauman, it first arrived on my radar for being Booker-longlisted for its 2012 UK publication, ahead of a late Feburary US print/ebook release from Bloomsbury. And now it's in audio as well, read by one of my favorite narrators, John Lee. "When you haven’t had sex in a long time, it feels like the worst thing that could ever happen. If you’re living in Germany in the 1930s, it probably isn’t. But that’s no consolation to Egon Loeser, whose carnal misfortunes will push him from the experimental theaters of Berlin to the absinthe bars of Paris to the physics laboratories of Los Angeles, trying all the while to solve two mysteries: Was it really a deal with Satan that claimed the life of his hero, Renaissance set designer Adriano Lavicini, creator of the so-called Teleportation Device? And why is it that a handsome, clever, modest guy like him can’t - just once in a while - get himself laid?"

Finally, Carniepunk is an all-original anthology of circus/midway themed urban fantasy, including stories by Rachel Caine, Rob Thurman, Kevin Hearne, Seanan McGuire, Jennifer Estep, Allison Pang, Kelly Gay, Delilah S. Dawson, and Kelly Meding, out in print/ebook from Gallery Books, and here concurrently in audio from Simon & Schuster Audio, narrated by Candace Thaxton and Kirby Heyborne. Certainly eye-catching are the descriptions of McGuire's story, as well as the note that Hearne's story is from his Iron Druid Chronicles oeuvre: "Come one, come all! The Carniepunk Midway promises you every thrill and chill a traveling carnival can provide. But fear not! Urban fantasy's biggest stars are here to guide you through this strange and dangerous world.... Rachel Caine's vampires aren't child's play, as a naive teen discovers when her heart leads her far, far astray in 'The Cold Girl.' With 'Parlor Tricks' Jennifer Estep pits Gin Blanco, the Elemental Assassin, against the Wheel of Death and some dangerously creepy clowns. Seanan McGuire narrates a poignant, ethereal tale of a mysterious carnival that returns to a dangerous town after 20 years in 'Daughter of the Midway, the Mermaid, and the Open, Lonely Sea.' Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid and his wisecracking Irish wolfhound discover in 'The Demon Barker of Wheat Street' that the impossibly wholesome sounding Kansas Wheat Festival is actually not a healthy place to hang out. With an eerie, unpredictable twist, Rob Thurman reveals the fate of a psychopath stalking two young carnies in 'Painted Love.'"

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged american elsewhere, carniepunk, robert jackson bennett, the teleportation accident

Release Week: Countdown City, This is How You Die, The Long War, and Helen & Troy's Epic Road Quest

Posted on 2013-07-23 at 03:43 by Sam

JULY 10-16, 2013: Well... yet another Release Week post coming nearly a week late. I could try to excuse this with time spent on a lot of additions to the "Coming Soon" listings, including Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam (September 3), James Gunn's Transcendental (August 27), Mur Lafferty's Ghost Train to New Orleans (March 4, 2014) and, well, too many to list up here. But! Honestly I've had it mostly ready since mid last week, and just couldn't find the time to finish it up. On the plus side, it allowed time to finish Countdown City so I could give it a bit of a nicer writeup, which it well deserves. Enjoy! I'm catching up on a wonderful title from 2012, Robin Sloan's Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore -- what are you listening to this week?

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Countdown City: The Last Policeman, Book 2 By Ben H. Winters, Narrated By Peter Berkrot for Brilliance Audio, concurrent with the print/ebook release from Quirk Books. This is the one where I was looking at this week's titles and said: yup, this is the book to start with, and so that is exactly what I did. I really liked The Last Policeman and Countdown City turns the ratchet up a notch on the impending global doom of "Maya", a planet-killing asteroid on a collision course for Earth. Less than three months to go, but hey, who's counting? Everyone. Here, Countdown City starts with a missing persons case, but with people going "Bucket List" left and right, and the shutdown of the adult crimes investigative division, it's anything but easy to even begin. On to the University of New Hampshire campus -- now a student-led anarchist squat -- and through a few twists and turns, though not quite as tightly-plotted as the first book it's still a fantastic listen. I could easily stand for this series to give us several more books before the asteroid hits, and then, hey, gives us a series of detective novels set in a post-apocalyptic landscape reminiscent of The Road. Mr. Winters and Quirk Books, along with Brilliance Audio and narrator Berkrot, make like Henry Palace and just keep going.

Next up is the second in an anthology series after 201o's (group) self-published Machine of Death, this time around to wide distribution fanfare and an audio edition: This Is How You Die: Stories of the Inscrutable, Infallible, Inescapable Machine of Death edited by Matthew Bennardo, David Malki, and Ryan North, narrated by Will Collyer, Dan Woren, Erin Bennett, and Tessa Auberjonois for Hachette Audio, concurrent with the print/ebook editions from Grand Central. The editors considered nearly 2000 stories to come up with a final table of contents, all stories following the successful blueprint of the first anthology: you are told how you will die, but not when. And there is no escape...

Out in print/ebook a bit earlier this summer and now in audio this week is the sequel to last year's The Long Earth, The Long War: The Long Earth, Book 2 by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, with narrator Michael Fenton-Stevens returning to bring the story to life for Harper Audio. Book one introduced Joshua, Lobsang, and The Long Earth (uncounted millions of alternate Earths a potato-electronic-device "step" away, one after the other), and here the story picks up: "A generation after the events of The Long Earth, humankind has spread across the new worlds opened up by "stepping". A new "America" - Valhalla - is emerging more than a million steps from Datum - our Earth. Thanks to a bountiful environment, the Valhallan society mirrors the core values and behaviors of colonial America. And Valhalla is growing restless under the controlling long arm of the Datum government. Soon Joshua, now a married man, is summoned by Lobsang to deal with a building crisis that threatens to plunge the Long Earth into a war unlike any humankind has waged before." It's a strange synthesis of Pratchett's humor -- c'mon, a potato device to reach alternate worlds, and everyone vomits after each "step" -- and Baxter's deep/hard sf worldbuilding and strange, step-wise biologies, but it works. It's not often laugh-out-loud Discworld guffaws, nor long exposition on the micro-chemical underpinnings of evolutionary shift, but rather, well, to put it as one character: Lobsang is a distributed strong AI who also claims to be the karmic reincarnation of a Nepalese motorcycle repairman. So there's that.

For those looking for outright guffaws this week, you could certainly do far worse than to take a chance on the latest from A. Lee Martinez, Helen & Troy's Epic Road Quest, narrated By Khristine Hvam for Audible Inc. Orbit Books has also posted a sample of this latest comedic sf/f novel from Martinez, the author of Emperor Mollusk Versus the Sinister Brain. "Witness the epic battle of the cyclops! Visit the endangered dragon preserve! Please, no slaying. Solve the mystery of The Mystery Cottage, if you dare! Buy some knickknacks from The Fates! They might come in handy later. On a road trip across an enchanted America, Helen and Troy will discover all this and more. If the curse placed upon them by an ancient god doesn't kill them or the pack of reluctant orc assassins don't catch up to them, Helen and Troy might reach the end their journey in one piece, where they might just end up destroying the world. Or at least a state or two. A minotaur girl, an all-American boy, a three-legged dog, and a classic car are on the road to adventure, where every exit leads to adventure. Whether they like it or not."

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged a. lee martinez, ben h. winters, machine of death, stephen baxter, terry pratchett, the long earth

News: Blackstone Audio to release two Lewis Shiner audiobooks later this year

Posted on 2013-07-16 at 15:04 by Sam

I’m very pleased to report that later this year, Blackstone Audio will release two audiobooks by Lewis Shiner, the author of the World Fantasy Award-winning (and my favorite new audiobook of 2011) Glimpses.

First up, to be released November 15, is Slam, Shiner's 1990 novel of a paroled tax evader, anarchist skateboarders, and, well, 23 cats. Called "An unqualified delight." by Publishers Weekly and re-released in 2011 by Subterranean Press in the series of "Definitive Editions" of Shiner's works:

Narrator Stefan Rudnicki, who narrated Shiner’s Glimpses, said that he “recorded Slam, and it was a blast!”

Next up, due out December 15, is Shiner’s Collected Stories, the “definitive collection” of Shiner’s short fiction in the form of 41 stories.

Rudnicki produced an earlier 3-story audio collection of Shiner’s works, Missing Persons, in 2006, and returns to helm this collection as well, along with returning narrators Rex Linn (“Prodigal Son”) and David Birney (“Lizard Men of Los Angeles”). According to Rudnicki: “For Collected Stories, Rex Linn read the rest of the appropriate stories, and we still have David Birney. Other narrators include John Rubinstein, Janis Ian, Scott Brick, Kimberly Farr, Arthur Morey, Roxanne Hernandez Coyne, Kristoffer Tabori, Gabrielle de Cuir, and myself. Also, of course, Karen Joy Fowler reads her introduction.”

So! Exciting news for later this year, whether you’re a fan of Shiner, Rudnicki, or just good stories, well told.

Posted in news | Tagged blackstone audio, lewis shiner, stefan rudnicki

Release Week: The Curiosity, Burton and Swinburne, The Flames of Shadam Khoreh, and David Tallerman's Crown Thief

Posted on 2013-07-15 at 18:18 by Sam

JULY 3-9, 2013: Whew. Another nearly week late Release Week roundup. What gives? Have I forsaken all that is audio? No, just busy. My picks this week include two concurrent new releases, one from the "genre in the mainstream" side of the fence and the other the latest in Mark Hodder's series of "Burton and Swinburne" Steampunk adventures, along with two audiobooks which belatedly continue fantasy series. Also see the "also out this week" listings, particularly the return of the Fiction River original anthology series with How to Save the World: Fiction River, #2. Enjoy!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

That "genre in the mainstream" novel is The Curiosity: A Novel By Stephen Kiernan, narrated by Kate Udall, Erik Bergmann, and George Guidall for Harper Audio, out concurrent with the print/ebook release from William Morrow. "A powerful debut novel in which a man, frozen in the Arctic ice for more than a century, awakens in the present day and finds the greatest discovery is love.... Dr. Kate Philo and her scientific exploration team make a breathtaking discovery in the Arctic: the body of a man buried deep in the ice. As a scientist in a groundbreaking project run by the egocentric and paranoid Erastus Carthage, Kate has brought small creatures - plankton, krill, shrimp - back to life for short periods of time. But the team's methods have never been attempted on larger life-forms.Heedless of the potential consequences, Carthage orders that the frozen man be brought back to the lab in Boston and reanimated."

Out concurrent with the print/ebook release from Pyr is The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi: Burton & Swinburne, Book 4 by Mark Hodder, narrated by Gerard Doyle for Audible Frontiers. “Burton & Swinburne return in a new series! The Beast is coming. History will be remade. Since the assassination of Queen Victoria in 1840, a cabal of prominent men-including King George V, HRH Prince Albert, Benjamin Disraeli, and Isambard Kingdom Brunel-has received guidance from the Afterlife. The spirit of a dead mystic, Abdu El Yezdi, has helped them to steer the empire into a period of unprecedented peace and creativity.”

Out earlier this year, self-published by the author via a Kickstarter campaign after the demise of Night Shade Books, is The Flames of Shadam Khoreh: The Lays of Anuskaya, Book 3 by Bradley P. Beaulieu, narrated By Ray Chase for Audible Frontiers. The series is very well-regarded, and this book made Pat's Fantasy Hotlist's top 5 books of 2013 so far. Also: The audiobook has a regular price of $30.57. But! Through the magic of “Whispersync for Voice” if you get the Kindle book, available from Amazon.com for $6.99, you can add the Audible audiobook for $1.99. OK, enough about the about of the book, here's the actual about the book: "Nearly two years after the harrowing events of The Straits of Galahesh, Atiana and Nikandr continue their long search for Nasim. The clues they find lead them to the desert wastes of the Gaji, where the fabled valley of Shadam Khoreh lies. But all is not well. War has moved from the islands to the mainland, and the Grand Duchy knows its time may be limited if Yrstanla rallies its forces."

Crown Thief: Tales of Easie Damasco, Book 2 By David Tallerman, Narrated By James Langton for Brilliance Audio. Published in print/ebook late last year by Angry Robot, we re-visit the sarcastic humor of Easie Damasco from early last year's Giant Thief. "Meet Easie Damasco: thief, liar...and lately, reluctant hero. But whatever good intentions Damasco may have are about to be tested to their limits, as the most valuable - and dangerous - object in the land comes within his light-fingered grasp. Add in some suicidally stubborn giants, an old enemy with dreams of empire, and the deadliest killer in two kingdoms on his heels, and Easie’s chances of staying honest - or even just surviving - are getting slimmer by the hour."

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

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