Release Week: Miles Cameron's The Red Knight, two from Iambik, and Scalzi's The Human Division continues with "Walk the Plank"

Posted on 2013-01-23 at 17:31 by Sam

Another fairly quiet week in terms of highly-anticipated concurrent releases, though a new 30-hour epic fantasy audiobook from Hachette Audio certainly raises some interest, and two Iambik Audio productions of recent small press releases are certainly quite intriguing. And, of course, Scalzi's The Human Division continues. (And! At the bottom, again some "Whispersync for Voice" price quirks I stumbled across this week.)

The Red Knight By Miles Cameron, Narrated By Matthew Wolf for Hachette Audio — Length: 30 hrs and 31 mins —out concurrent with the print/ebook from Orbit, this is the first book of the Traitor Sun Cycle -- "Twenty-eight florins a month is a huge price to pay for a man to stand between you and the Wild. Twenty-eight florins a month is nowhere near enough when a wyvern's jaws snap shut on your helmet in the hot stink of battle, and the beast starts to rip the head from your shoulders. But if standing and fighting is hard, leading a company of men - or worse, a company of mercenaries - against the smart, deadly creatures of the Wild is even harder. It takes all the advantages of birth, training, and the luck of the devil to do it. The Red Knight has all three, he has youth on his side, and he's determined to turn a profit. So when he hires his company out to protect an Abbess and her nunnery, it's just another job. The abbey is rich, the nuns are pretty, and the monster preying on them is nothing he can't deal with."

Machine (2012) By Jennifer Pelland, Narrated By Bev J. Stevens for Iambik Audio -- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins. Out last January in print/ebook from Apex, Machine is a story of bioandroid self-awareness and self-image: "Celia's body is not her own, but even her conscious mind can barely tell the difference. Living on the cutting edge of biomechanical science was supposed to allow her to lead a normal life in a near-perfect copy of her physical self while awaiting a cure for a rare and deadly genetic disorder. But a bioiandroid isn't a real person. Not according to the protesters outside Celia's house, her coworkers, or even her wife. Not according to her own evolving view of herself. As she begins to strip away the human affectations and inhibitions programmed into her new body, the chasm between the warm pains of flesh-and-blood life and the chilly comfort of the machine begins to deepen. Love, passion, reality, and memory war within Celia's body until she must decide whether to betray old friends or new ones in the choice between human and machine."

Monstrous Affections (2009) By David Nickle, Narrated By Robert Keiper for Iambik Audio -- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins -- Published in print/ebook by ChiZine in 2009: "Bleak, stark and creepy, Stoker-winner Nickle's first collection will delight the literary horror reader . . . 13 terrifying tales of rural settings, complex and reticent characters and unexpected twists that question the fundamentals of reality. All are delivered with a certain grace, creating a sparse yet poetic tour of the horrors that exist just out of sight . . . This ambitious collection firmly establishes Nickle as a writer to watch." (Publishers Weekly).

John Scalzi's The Human Division continues with Walk the Plank: The Human Division, Episode 2. Narrated of course by William Dufris, the episode comes in at a trim 39 mins this week, taking the format of a transcript of an interview with a seriously injured merchant marine deckhand who turns up in a remote and biologically hostile colony: "Wildcat colonies are illegal, unauthorized, and secret - so when an injured stranger shows up at the wildcat colony New Seattle, the colony leaders are understandably suspicious of who he is and what he represents. His story of how he’s come to their colony is shocking, surprising, and might have bigger consequences than anyone could have expected." Don't forget! Dave will be hosting part two of our Listen-a-Long of The Human Division on Friday! (Part one is here if you're looking to catch up.)

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Posted in Release Week, Uncategorized | Tagged david nickle, iambik audio, jennifer pelland

The Human Division Listen-A-Long: Episode 1, The B-Team

Posted on 2013-01-18 at 17:45 by Dave

The B-Team, by John Scalzi, Read by William Dufris (Episode 1 of The Human Division) Length: 2 hours, 20 minutes

Welcome to our premiere Listen-A-Long for the Human Division, a serial novel by John Scalzi, read by William Dufris, and set in Scalzi's Old Man's War Universe.

This is gonna be spoilerific, folks, and it's not a review, either. I imagine some of you drinking your coffee, eating your second breakfasts, or having a beer, and it's going to be a pretty casual environment. If you want a spoiler-free review of the B-Team, I recommend checking out The Guilded Earlobe's review. This listen-a-long will consist of a recap, followed by a few more of my own thoughts.

As this is also the longest episode (I think), this will also be the longest listen-a-long post (or at least, recap) so, let's get started!

Recap!

Posted in The Human Division Listen-a-Long

Another battle of audiobook sales

Posted on 2013-01-17 at 18:10 by Sam

Downpour.com is having a 30% off every title sale, through January 21:

Meanwhile, Audible.com's latest sale is a 48-Hour "Wishes Granted" sale which lists 100+ books at $6.95. It's not sorted by any category, so here's my scan-through, which includes several excellent choices labeled PICK, including 1Q84, The Name of the Wind, Redshirts, Snow Crash, Theft of Swords, Nine Princes in Amber, and Among Others, er, among others:

Posted in Uncategorized

Release Week: The Human Division, Glamour in Glass, Shades of Earth, Rage is Back, and Impulse

Posted on 2013-01-16 at 20:41 by Sam

Well, it's the middle of January and 2013 is getting into full swing, and though there's not a big crop of highlight-reel concurrent releases this week, one of my most-missing titles of 2012 is here, along with the first installment of John Scalzi's serial novel The Human Division. Also: at the bottom, three five more "Whispersync for Voice" deals I stumbled across this week.

The Human Division gets underway with a double-length (bit under 2.5 hours) first episode, The B-Team: The Human Division, Episode 1 By John Scalzi, Narrated By William Dufris for Audible Frontiers. Dufris was the narrator on Old Man's War, the sf universe in which The Human Division is set. Don't forget to come back on Friday for part one of Dave's Listen-a-Long!

That "missing" novel from 2012 is Glamour in Glass By Mary Robinette Kowal. As was her debut novel, 2010's Shades of Milk and Honey, for which Glamour in Glass is a sequel, it is narrated by the author, who is an experienced narrator with a very recent narration credit on a The Mongoliad SideQuest novella, and just in 2012 narrated Tears in Rain By Rosa Montero, Ashes of Honor: An October Daye Novel, Book 6 By Seanan McGuire, and The Museum of Abandoned Secrets By Oksana Zabuzhko. Here: "Mary Robinette Kowal stunned readers with her charming first novel, Shades of Milk and Honey, a loving tribute to the works of Jane Austen in a world where magic is an everyday occurrence. This magic comes in the form of glamour, which allows talented users to form practically any illusion they can imagine. Shades debuted to great acclaim and left readers eagerly awaiting its sequel. Glamour in Glass continues following the lives of beloved main characters Jane and Vincent, with a much deeper vein of drama and intrigue. In the tumultuous months after Napoleon abdicates his throne, Jane and Vincent go to Belgium for their honeymoon. While there, the deposed emperor escapes his exile in Elba, throwing the continent into turmoil. With no easy way back to England, Jane and Vincent's concerns turn from enjoying their honeymoon…to escaping it. Left with no outward salvation, Jane must persevere over her trying personal circumstances and use her glamour to rescue her husband from prison...and hopefully prevent her newly built marriage from getting stranded on the shoals of another country's war."

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged john scalzi, mary robinette kowal, release week

Dave reviews: The Rook, by Daniel O'Malley, read by Susan Duerden

Posted on 2013-01-16 at 01:44 by Sam

The Rook, by Daniel O’Malley, read by Susan Duerden for Dreamscape

 Review by Dave Thompson:

Imagine if J.K. Rowling had decided to do a Ministry of Magic novel and you’ve basically got the set-up for The Rook.

The Rook has a little bit of everything in it: It’s as if O’Malley took some of the best (and worst) tropes from the last 20 years of genre fiction, tossed them into a blender with his own special ingredients, and served up a tasty little cocktail with fruit and an umbrella. It starts off a bit like the Bourne Identity, with Myfanwy - an amnesiac protagonist - who can do brutal, dangerous, and mysterious things. But instead of going on the run, she goes into the office to figure out who set her up. I don’t know if I completely buy that either, but it leads to dangers like possessed houses, sexy vampires, monsters, dragons, and office Christmas parties that O’Malley would’ve been hard-pressed to write about any other way. In general, the results are a lot of fun, and best of all, it’s actually funny.

I didn’t completely love it – the sudden additions of New Cool Magical Thing from chapter to chapter made it feel as if O’Malley was making it up as he was going along – not that there’s anything wrong with that; it just didn’t feel completely united or streamlined in the final analysis. The reveal of who wiped out Myfanwy’s memories, for example, doesn’t feel as planned out as it could as it could’ve been. Additionally, the Checquy, the secret covert organization Myfanwy works for, felt far more morally questionable than either Myfanwy or O’Malley acknowledge.

These are minor quibbles in what was a generally pleasant listen, though. And something O’Malley does really well is use the dual narratives to worldbuild and infodump in a glorious way - the Rook formerly known as Myfanwy has written a notebook to her future amnesiac self about the world she’ll soon be immersed in. It’s a neat trick, and the way the story alternates between the two narratives is a lot of fun.

What I can’t nitpick is Susan Duerden’s fantastic reading. The banter between the characters is delivered with so much fun, I could listen to a whole book featuring Myfanwy and her American counterpart.

I hope O’Malley writes more books in this series, and that some of them involve the POV of non-magical characters connected to the Checquy.

Posted in reviews | Tagged daniel o'malley, dave thompson, dreamscape, susan duerden, the rook

Untitled

Posted on 2013-01-15 at 16:52 by Sam

The first installment of John Scalzi’s new serialized Old Man’s War-universe novel, The Human Division, is out: “The B-Team”, with the remainder of the episodes up for pre-order for $0.99/$0.69. And Audible is doing a “first one’s free” deal if you Like their Facebook page. A couple “missing” things are (1) for ease of use, just let me spend one credit and pre-order all of them? (2) I can’t (yet at least) “gift” future episodes, and (3) I really wish Audible would NOT default to using a full credit on titles which cost this little. It’s just an accidental click waiting to happen. Anyway, happy listening, and tune back in on Friday for Dave’s Listen-a-Long discussion!

Posted in Uncategorized

The AudioBookaneers 2012 Year in Review, Part 2: Books We Missed

Posted on 2013-01-10 at 21:28 by Dave

We tried. We really did. "ALL THE BOOKS!" But, alas, there was a good number of audiobooks we had our eyes on but for one reason or another -- usually time... -- we didn't get to them. While listing even all of those books would take a while -- Audible Frontiers published 750 audiobooks this year alone, let alone the output from the other publishers and the influx of ACX titles -- we tried to narrow our lists down as much as we could. (We really did.) This is part 2 in a 3-part wrapup of 2012, with part 1 being our favorite audiobooks, and part 3 being Books They Missed -- in which we'll bemoan the good-looking books which did not find a US audio home in 2012. But first, part 2: What We Missed.

Posted in The Arrrdies

Release Week: The Memory of Light, Libriomancer, Lost Things, No Further Messages, and Dungeons and Dragons galore

Posted on 2013-01-09 at 17:43 by Sam

The first full release week of 2013 is a big one. Of course there's the decades-awaited conclusion to The Wheel of Time, which at nearly 42 hours could certainly fully occupy a listening month. There's also an audiobook of an interesting 2012 title that didn't make it into audio last year, but the second biggest audio news this week is undoubtedly that with more than 200 audiobooks added, Dungeons and Dragons has invaded Audible in a big way, big enough to warrant a new mini-site. I won't even try to list all the books, but I'll highlight a few below. There are some big titles -- and some misses, too. Meanwhile, John Scalzi's serialized novel The Human Division launches with episode one next week -- tune in for The AudioBookaneers Listen-A-Long! (Oh yeah, and at the end of the post? Another Whispersync for Voice price quirk.)

The Wheel of Time concludes with A Memory of Light: Wheel of Time, Book 14 By Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, Narrated By Michael Kramer and Kate Reading for Macmillan Audio -- Length: 41 hrs and 55 mins -- "Since 1990, when Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time® burst on the world with its first book, The Eye of the World, listeners have been anticipating the final scenes of this extraordinary saga, which has sold over 40 million copies in over 32 languages. When Robert Jordan died in 2007, all feared that these concluding scenes would never be written. But working from notes and partials left by Jordan, established fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson stepped in to complete the masterwork. With The Gathering Storm (Book 12) and Towers of Midnight (Book 13) behind him, both of which were number-one New York Times hardcover best sellers, Sanderson now re-creates the vision that Robert Jordan left behind. Edited by Jordan’s widow, who edited all of Jordan’s books, A Memory of Light will delight, enthrall, and deeply satisfy all of Jordan’s legions of listeners. The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, May yet fall under the Shadow. Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time."

The 2012 title which comes to audio here in early 2013 I mentioned is Libriomancer: Magic ex Libris, Book 1 By Jim C. Hines, Narrated By Brian Eslick for Audible Frontiers -- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins -- "Isaac Vainio is a Libriomancer, a member of the secret organization founded five centuries ago by Johannes Gutenberg. Libriomancers are gifted with the ability to magically reach into books and draw forth objects. When Isaac is attacked by vampires that leaked from the pages of books into our world, he barely manages to escape. To his horror he discovers that vampires have been attacking other magic-users as well, and Gutenberg has been kidnapped. With the help of a motorcycle-riding dryad who packs a pair of oak cudgels, Isaac finds himself hunting the unknown dark power that has been manipulating humans and vampires alike. And his search will uncover dangerous secrets about Libriomancy, Gutenberg, and the history of magic...."

Lost Things: The Order of the Air By Melissa Scott and Jo Graham, Narrated By John Lee for Crossroad Press -- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins -- David Niall Wilson's Crossroad Press has consistently been in my radar, but somehow I haven't picked up one of their titles for review. This may be the one: "In 1929 archeologists began draining Lake Nemi in search of the mysterious ships that have been glimpsed beneath its waters since the reign of Claudius. What they awakened had been drowned for two thousand years. For a very good reason." And, well, John Lee. There is that.

No Further Messages By Brett Alexander Savory, Narrated By J. Paul Guimont for Audible -- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins -- ChiZine's Savory, blurbed very nicely by Peter Straub: "Savory deserves to make a great impression on both our highly mutable genre and the reading public." A collection of stories I hope to find time to dip into sometime this year.

So. I've been trying to keep tabs on this through watching titles come available in pre-orders, but now we know what's here: more than 200 D&D titles from various properties, including the "big 6" Dragonlance books (Chronicles and Legends trilogies). In terms of Forgotten Realms, while some of R.A. Salvatore's later Drizzt books are either available or, in the case of the 4-book Legend of Drizzt: Neverwinter Saga series, listed for pre-order, there's still no sign yet of the two original trilogies (Dark Elf Trilogy and Icewind Dale Trilogy). Another book I remember reading "back in the day" but not here is Spellfire by Ed Greenwood, neither is Greenwood's Elminster series, or anything yet from, say, the Spelljammer or Planescape universes, but other than that, wow, you might be hard-pressed to find a title not now in audio. UPDATE: Per Audible, the "missing" books I mentioned are indeed scheduled for 2013 release sometime. Here are some of the titles which most caught my eye along the way of glossy-eyed browsing:

• Dragons of Autumn Twilight: Dragonlance: Chronicles, Book 1, Dragons of Winter Night: Dragonlance: Chronicles, Book 2, Dragons of Spring Dawning: Dragonlance: Chronicles, Book 3, Time of the Twins: Dragonlance: Legends, Book 1, War of the Twins: Dragonlance: Legends, Book 2, and Test of the Twins: Dragonlance: Legends, Book 3 By Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Narrated By Ax Norman
• Azure Bonds: Forgotten Realms: Finder's Stone, Book 1 By Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb, Narrated By Kristin Kalbli -- Series: Finder's Stone, Book 1 -- this is one I remember both reading and playing in SSI "Gold Box" PC game format
• Venom in Her Veins: A Forgotten Realms Novel By Tim Pratt, Narrated by T. David Rutherford
• Heaven's Bones: Ravenloft: Dominion, Book 1 and Dawnbringer: A Forgotten Realms Novel by Samantha Henderson
• Pools of Radiance: Forgotten Realms: The Pools, Book 1 By James M. Ward and Jane Cooper Hong-- novelization of another "Gold Box" SSI computer game on which I spent, well, a few hours...

Posted in Release Week

Sam's listening report: October 2012

Posted on 2013-01-05 at 12:00 by Sam

After my slowest listening month in a very long time -- four audiobooks and a novella podcast episode in September -- I was back up to seven audiobooks, buoyed a bit by fall review copies coming in. It was a fantastic month in terms of enjoying what I was listening to as well, from fantasy (Hal Duncan's Vellum, Christopher Buehlman's Between Two Fires) to anthologies (V Wars, Fantastic Imaginings), a non-fiction collection (Neal Stephenson's Some Remarks), and even a rare (for me, apparently) non-genre fiction title (Lydia Netzer's sparkling Shine Shine Shine) making for one of my best months in a long time. Helping buoy that claim of "7! In one month!" was another novella, Nancy Collins' Bram Stoker-nominated "The Thing from Lover's Lane".

REVIEWS:

Posted in reviews, Sam's Monthly Listening Report | Tagged monthly listening report

The AudioBookaneers 2012 Year in Review, Part 1: Our Favorite Listens

Posted on 2013-01-05 at 00:13 by Sam

Well, like everybody else, we're taking a look back at 2012. It was the biggest year ever in terms of audiobook releases: Audible Frontiers published 750 audiobooks this year alone, not to mention the output from the other major and independent publishers and the influx of ACX titles this year. Did we listen to everything? Oh no. (More on that in the second part of this series. Much more.) Did the audiobook publishers get to every deserving book? Not quite. (More on that in the third part of the series.) But first!

PART I: We did listen to a pretty good stack of audiobooks this year, and there was a long list of excellent choices to consider for our best of the year. Last year, I picked an audiobook of a previously published book, Lewis Shiner's Glimpses, as my favorite audiobook published in 2011, and gave 3 runners up in overall, 3 in narration, and 3 in story. This year, having listened to so many more current-year audiobooks, and with Dave aboard, we're trying a slightly different approach to categories and such. Well, you'll see. Without further adieu:

BEST NEW AUDIOBOOK OF THE YEAR:

Posted in The Arrrdies