The Guilded Earlobe reviews Bitterwood by James Maxey, read by Dave Thompson

Posted on 2013-04-23 at 13:19 by Sam

Go check it out! “Quick Thoughts: Maxey’s tale of revenge and Dragons set in a unique Post Apocalyptic world is finally now available in Audio. Fans of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, and David Gemmell’s Jerusalem man series should cheer this offering by James Maxey. It blends multiple genres creating a fascinating tableau that vaults this classic story from the mundane into something special.”

Posted in Uncategorized

Release Week: Austin Grossman's YOU; Promise of Blood; Stormdancer; Jeff Noon's Vurt; and Robert Asprin's M.Y.T.H.

Posted on 2013-04-17 at 16:19 by Sam

APRIL 10-16, 2013: What, no new episode of The Human Division?! OK, seriously, this release week belongs to Hachette Audio, with both of my top picks this week. But! Audible Frontiers has its own pair of offerings which make up my second two picks, the Patrick Rothfuss-recommended Stormdancer (2012) and Jeff Noon's Vurt (1993), along with having done something wonderful in bringing the dozen+ books of Robert Asprin's M.Y.T.H. Inc. series to audio as well. (I have some fondness for M.Y.T.H., though not quite as much as I do for his P.H.U.L.E.'s Company books. Hint, hint.) Not to be outdone in terms of quantity, Brilliance Audio continues its exhaustive publication of Philip K. Dick with a long list of his lesser-known novels. On to... But wait. Before I get to my "picks of the week" there's a "Seen But Not Heard" entry this week that demands attention. Sofia Samatar's A Stranger in Olondria is finally out this week, and while it maybe makes some kind of poetic sense that it is not available in audio (the book has as one of its concerns literacy, after all) it's one that I had really, really hoped to see and hear this week.

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

My first pick this week is one of my most-anticipated titles of the year, YOU by Austin Grossman, read by Will Collyer for Hachette Audio, concurrent with the print/ebook release from Mulholland Books. "A novel of mystery, videogames, and the people who create them, by the best-selling author of Soon I Will Be Invincible." I enjoyed Soon I Will Be Invincible, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the past several years has done to develop Grossman's authorial talents. As a software engineer myself, the idea of large software projects taking on lives of their own, mysterious glitches, the intrigue of lost, forgotten code emerging from the dark, is right up my alley.

Next up, the latest in a long line of strong fantasy debuts this year is Promise of Blood By Brian McClellan, Narrated By Christian Rostker for Hachette Audio, concurrent with the print/ebook release from Orbit. The book starts The Powder Mage Trilogy, a fantasy set in a time of gunpowder. "The Age of Kings is dead...and I have killed it. It's a bloody business overthrowing a king.... It's up to a few.... Stretched to his limit, Tamas is relying heavily on his few remaining powder mages, including the embittered Taniel, a brilliant marksman who also happens to be his estranged son, and Adamat, a retired police inspector whose loyalty is being tested by blackmail. But when gods are involved.... Now, as attacks batter them from within and without, the credulous are whispering about omens of death and destruction. Just old peasant legends about the gods waking to walk the earth. No modern educated man believes that sort of thing. But they should...."

Brought to my attention by Patrick Rothfuss' review on Goodreads, my interest in Stormdancer: The Lotus War, Book One By Jay Kristoff was tempered quite a bit by other less kind reviews concerned with a lack of earnest research, and ensuing cultural appropriation issues. Here, it is narrated By Jennifer Ikeda for Audible Frontiers: "The first in an epic new fantasy series, introducing an unforgettable new heroine and a stunningly original dystopian steampunk world with a flavor of feudal Japan."

Posted in Release Week | Tagged austin grossman, jeff noon, robert asprin

The Human Division Listen-A-Long, Episode 13: Earth Above, Sky Below

Posted on 2013-04-17 at 05:22 by Dave

The Human Division, Episode 13: Earth Above, Sky Below by John Scalzi, read by William Dufris Length: 2 hours, 2 minutes

Welcome back to the final listen-a-long of John Scalzi's The Human Division. The finale episode of Season 1 was: Earth Above, Sky Below. As it's our last episode of the season, I hope you don't mind if I break from form and do away with the recap and thoughts. Let's just dive into that deep sucking vacuum of space together, old friends, and free-fall.

Posted in The Human Division Listen-a-Long

The Human Division Listen-A-Long! Episode 12: The Gentle Art of Cracking Heads

Posted on 2013-04-11 at 05:44 by Dave

The Human Division, Episode 12: The Gentle Art of Cracking Heads by John Scalzi, read by William Dufris Length: 38 minutes

Hello, and welcome back to another listen-a-long of John Scalzi's The Human Division! This post is positively exploding with spoilers, so after you've listened, grab a margarita the size of cowboy hat and let's drink!

Recap!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged john scalzi, the human division, william dufris

Release Week: The Human Division and Robin Hobb's Rain Wilds Chronciles conclude; two outstanding 2013 anthologies come to audio; and The Far Time Incident

Posted on 2013-04-10 at 20:29 by Sam

APRIL 3-9, 2013: While overall the release week lacks splashy concurrent new standalone releases, it's still quite a week with the conclusions both of John Scalzi's serial novel The Human Division, with a 2-hour Episode 13, Earth Below, Sky Above (cover, left), and of Robin Hobb's Rain Wilds Chronicles, as well as two outstanding anthologies (ok, one is a collection) from a bit earlier in 2013 (ok, the collection is from the summer of 2012), and! a Mary Robinette Kowal-voiced novel of time travel and intrugue, Neve Maslakovic's The Far Time Incident. I bemoan most the "missing audiobook" for League of Somebodies by Samuel Sattin, but in a fairly quiet week overall for publishing, the "missing" list isn't terribly long, either. On to...

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Blood of Dragons: Volume Four of the Rain Wilds Chronicles by Robin Hobb, narrated by Anne Flosnik for Harper Audio, the concluding book in Hobb's series of dragon queens and derring-do. "Years ago, the magnificent dragon queen Tintaglia forged a bargain with the inhabitants of the treacherous Rain Wilds. In exchange for her protection against enemy invaders, the humans promised to protect an unhatched brood of dragons. But when the dragons emerged as weak and misshapen hatchlings unable to fend for themselves, dragonkind seemed doomed to extinction. When even Tintaglia deserted the crippled young dragons, the Rain Wilders abandoned the burden of caring for the destructive and ravenous creatures. They were banished to a dangerous and grueling journey in search of their ancient dragon homeland, the lost city of Kelsingra, accompanied by a band of young and inexperienced human keepers, also deemed damaged and disposable."

Posted in Release Week

Sam's Listening Report: January 2013

Posted on 2013-04-06 at 12:48 by Sam

So, we're into April and I'm only scratching the surface on reviewing my January listening, and a long list of full reviews to write, but I want to get these brief thoughts out at least, so, in the interest of time: I started the year by finishing up some long-overdue Tim Powers "research" in advance of meeting (and interviewing!) him at illogiCon, interrupted only a bit by the launch of John Scalzi's episodic The Human Division (which I won't review myself here, since Dave is covering these magnificently through his Listen-a-Long). After a diversion into a Steampunk/occult world of trans-Atlantic airships (Melissa Scott and Jo Graham's Lost Things) I finally, finally got to The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams. Still, a leisurely pace indeed of just 4 novels against the more packed-in holidays listening of December, though the two Powers books combine for nearly 40 hours of wonderful listening between them, and The Dirty Streets of Heaven runs nearly to 16 hours, so it wasn't exactly a month of silence by any means.

MINI-REVIEWS:

Posted in Sam's Monthly Listening Report | Tagged monthly listening report, tad williams, tim powers

The Human Division Listen-A-Long, Episode 11: A Problem of Proportion

Posted on 2013-04-04 at 05:15 by Dave

The Human Division, Episode 11: A Problem of Proportion by John Scalzi, Read by William Dufris Length: 1 hour, 2 minutes

Hello, and welcome back to our weekly sorta-weekly listen-a-long of the Human Division, where we get together with all our friends and discuss the latest episode in John Scalzi's serial novel while alien ships are trying to blow us up. This week's episode: A Problem of Proportion. If you have a problem with spoilers, you might want to listen first. Otherwise, let's dive in.

Posted in The Human Division Listen-a-Long, Uncategorized

Received: March 2013

Posted on 2013-04-03 at 20:00 by Sam

March was a bit quiet in terms of review copies, as I felt too embarrassed by my months-long backlog of reviews to ask for too many more to add to the pile. Still, a few I couldn’t resist:

1. Harper Audio, Dreams and Shadows by C. Robert Cargill, read by Vikas Adam. I’d just listened to Vikas Adam as one of two narrators for Manil Suri’s The City of Devi and he was again quite, quite good in this slow-building but high-payoff urban fantasy, which sets the world of the Fae, with glamour, changelings, the Seelie and Unseelie, against modern day Austin, Texas.

2. Hachette Audio, Fade to Black by Francis Knight, read by Paul Thornley. I really, really enjoyed this debut fantasy, a gritty world of magical pollution, read superbly by Thornley. “From the depths of a valley rises the city of Mahala. It’s a city built upwards, not across - where streets are built upon streets, buildings upon buildings. A city that the Ministry rules from the sunlit summit, and where the forsaken lurk in the darkness of Under. Rojan Dizon doesn’t mind staying in the shadows, because he’s got things to hide. Things like being a pain-mage, with the forbidden power to draw magic from pain. But he can’t hide forever. Because when Rojan stumbles upon the secrets lurking in the depths of the Pit, the fate of Mahala will depend on him using his magic. And unlucky for Rojan - this is going to hurt.”

3. Blackstone Audio, The Veiled Web by Catherine Asaro, read by Caroline Shaffer. It’s the one on this list I haven’t gotten to yet, but that will be remedied soon. “Ballerina Lucia del Mar has two great passions: dance, which consumes most of her waking hours, and the Internet, which brings the outside world into her tightly regimented life. These two passions collide when a White House performance and reception leads to an encounter with handsome Moroccan businessman Rashid al-Jazari, creator of a brilliant technology that has set the Internet rumor mill ablaze.”

4. Harper Audio, The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates, read by Grover Gardner. A leisurely, indulgent enigma of an historical/supernatural literary novel from Oates, set in early 20th century Princeton, New Jersey, under (Princeton University, not yet United States) President Woodrow Wilson, with characters such as Grover Cleveland, Upton Sinclair, Samuel Clemens, and more arcing into the unusual narrative structure, that of the book being the historical account of a “curse” as compiled in the mid-20th century from a Princeton historian. Everything is couched, to me, in a kind of veil of deniability: is Oates publishing an overtly supernatural novel? Is in fact even this fictitious historian doing so, or is he merely reporting, via “deciphered” journals and other (perhaps suspect?) eyewitness accounts the (purporedly) biographical and historical details? This book has me very, very often at Wikipedia, cross-referencing the real history with that of The Accursed and, thus far (I’m in the last stages of Part 3), still being drawn along slowly by the dry current of a strange, but thoroughly enjoyable, novel.

Posted in received

Release Week: Life after Life, River of Stars, Prophet of Bones, The Kundalini Equation, and Use of Weapons

Posted on 2013-04-03 at 14:22 by Sam

MARCH 27-APRIL 2, 2013: While there are other quite worthy audiobooks in the "Also Out This Week" listings (Book 3 in Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen, Memories of Ice, Ilie Ruby's The Salt God's Daughter, Alex Hughes' Clean and Sharp, Rachel Pollack's World Fantasy Award winner Godmother Night, and Mary Robinette Kowal's latest Glamourist Histories novel Without a Summer) I managed to hold the line at just five picks this week. Good luck making your own selections! And, of course, there is a new episode of John Scalzi's The Human Division, that being the penultimate Episode 12, The Gentle Art of Cracking Heads.

Lastly, a US release from Hachette Audio for Iain M. Banks' Use of Weapons, read by Peter Kenny. This 1990 novel, set in the world of Banks' 'Culture', has been available in audio in the UK for about a year, and comes at an unfortunately coincidental time, as it has just been announced that Banks has been diagnosed with late-stage cancer.

Use of Weapons is the third Culture novel, after Consider Phlebas and The Player of Games, both in audio: "The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks and military action. The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him towards his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought. The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a lost cause. But not even its machine could see the horrors in his past." While later books Matter, Surface Detail, and The Hydrogen Sonata are available in audio in the US, Excession is only recently available in the UK (perhaps next year in the US?) and Inversions and Look to Windward await production and publication.

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged guy gavriel kay, life after life, prophet of bones, river of stars

Author James Maxey interviews narrator Dave Thompson about Bitterwood

Posted on 2013-04-02 at 17:13 by Sam

In an Interview with Dave Thompson, narrator of Bitterwood, the book’s author, James Maxey, asks about the process of turning his work into audio. Check it out:

“Bitterwood has recently been released in audio format through Audible, Amazon, and ITunes. The narrator and producer was Dave Thompson, an editor at PodCastle and narrator of the audio books Norse Code by Greg van Eekhout and Briarpatch by Tim Pratt. Bitterwood is my first audio book, so I was glad to be partnered with someone who knew what he was doing. Translating a book into an audio performance is definitely an art form of its own, leaving me with several questions as to how Dave had pulled it off so masterfully. Fortunately, Dave was generous enough with his time to answer some of my questions.”

Posted in Uncategorized