The Guilded Earlobe reviews Jo Walton's Among Others, read by Katherine Kellgren

Posted on 2012-01-16 at 12:48 by Sam

Link: The Guilded Earlobe reviews Jo Walton’s Among Others, read by Katherine Kellgren

“Quick Thoughts: Among Others is a novel full of that magical brilliance that I just cannot properly explain with words. It is the ultimate genre blending novel. It is a fantasy novel for science fiction fans, a character study for those who love well plotted tales. It is an adult novel that embraces the tropes of children and young adult literature, adding texture and created something totally unique.”

Wow. Now I regret even more having skipped this last year. I’m hearing awards buzz for it as well, and this joins a long list of critics I respect hailing it. I’m so glad that in particular the review mention the Welsh sing song going from too much to lovely - I was really turned off by the audio sample, wondering if I could take the accent for a whole book. Sounds like the answer is an overwhelming yes.

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Feature Friday: Ridiculously Huge Preview of 2012

Posted on 2012-01-13 at 18:03 by Sam

This one comes more than a week later than planned as we’re not just one but two release weeks into the year, but, hey, it’s really, really big. As always a big, big hat tip to Cybermage’s sf book calendar, along with Locus Magazine’s forthcoming books listing, a long list of ARCs offered for the Magick 4 Terri LiveJournal, io9, and a particularly fruitful thread on the ASOIAF forum. This is probably too big to be useful? Maybe. Probably. I got carried away. So much for my goal of keeping track of fewer books!

So up front I’ll limit myself to just a baker’s dozen before the “read more” break, which has, well, more like a couple dozen dozen:

• The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus read by TBA for Recorded Books (Knopf, Jan 17, 2012) — a story of a world where the voices of children become lethal to their parents, and a boy who sets out in search of a cure
• Greatshadow: The Dragon Apocalypse by James Maxey (Solaris, Jan 31, 2012) — no audio news
• Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders by Samuel R. Delany (Magnus Books, Feb 7, 2012) — no audio news — have had this one on pre-order since last October, hoping it makes this new release date
• Throne of the Crescent Moon (The Crescent Moon Kingdoms, #1) by Saladin Ahmed (Brilliance Audio, 7 Feb 2012) — concurrent with the DAW hardcover, Phil Gigante narrating
• Exogene by T. C. McCarthy, read by Donald Corren for Blackstone Audio (Orbit, 28 Feb 12) — sequel to 2011’s Germline
• Arctic Rising by Tobias S. Buckell (Tor, Feb 28, 2012) — no audio news
• Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway (Knopf, Mar 20, 2012) — no audio news for this new novel from the author of The Gone-Away World
• YA/YR? Railsea by China Mieville (Del Rey, May 15, 2012) — moletrains and moldywarpe hunts — “a novel for readers of all ages, a gripping and brilliantly imagined take on Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick” — no audio news, but my guess is it will be coming
• 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit, May 22, 2012) — “The year is 2312. Scientific and technological advances have opened gateways to an extraordinary future. Earth is no longer humanity’s only home; new habitats have been created throughout the solar system on moons, planets, and in between. But in this year, 2312, a sequence of events will force humanity to confront its past, its present, and its future.” — no audio news
• Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi (Tor, Jun 5, 2012) — no audio news, but if it isn’t read by Wil Wheaton I will be surprised and disappointed
• The Twelve: A Novel by Justin Cronin (Random House Audio, Aug 28, 2012) — sequel to 2010’s The Passage
• Anthology: After: Dystopian and Post-apocalyptic Tales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (Nov 6, 2012) — no audio news — table of contents
• Ironskin (Ironskin, #1) by Tina Connolly (Tor Books, Fall 2012) — confirmed coming to audio from Audible — “Jane Eyre with fairies” — “ Jane Eliot wears an iron mask. It’s the only way to contain the fey curse that scars her cheek. The Great War is five years gone, but its scattered victims remain — the ironskin.”

And… I’ll pick an additional baker’s dozen of audiobooks of books released in print in previous years that I’m waiting for in 2012 with utmost anticipation:

• Children No More by Mark L. Van Name, coming somewhere in the March-April time frame from Audible (Baen, August 2010)
• The Greyfriar: Vampire Empire, Book 1 and The Rift Walker: Vampire Empire, Book 2 by Clay and Susan Griffith, read by James Marsters for Buzzy Multimedia (Pyr, September 2010 and September 2011) — the first of these is coming soon, “mid-spring 2012” and the second hopefully later in 2012
• Pilgrim of the Sky by Natania Barron, read by the author, coming from Candlemark & Gleam (Candlemark & Gleam, December 2011) — coming imminently
• A Book of Tongues and A Rope of Thorns by Gemma Files, the first two volumes of her “boundary-busting horror-fantasy” Hexslinger Series, originally published in print by Chizine, coming to audiobook from Iambik
• Collection: After the Apocalypse by Mauren McHugh was published in 2011 by Small Beer Press, and picked as one of the year’s best books (in any genre) by Publishers Weekly. Coming to audio in 2012 from Recorded Books.
• Was by Geoff Ryman is a compelling, beautiful retelling of The Wizard of Oz and per Small Beer Press’s Gavin Grant (who is re-issuing the book in print this year) it should be part of Neil Gaiman Presents in audio this year
• Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge, narrated by Miette Elm for Iambik Audio — published in early 2011 by Small Beer Press, the audiobook is due in February
• The Freedom Mazeby Delia Sherman — out in late 2011 from Small Beer Press, coming in 2012 from Listening Library
• 2010’s The Horns of Ruin (Pyr) by Tim Akers is coming from Audible in 2012 — along with 2009’s Heart of Veridon and 2011’s Dead of Veridon (Solaris Books) (but I’m cheating and not counting those two in my baker’s dozen, well, because my blog)
• Alan Baxter’s RealmShift and MageSign are coming to audio via a successful ACX.com engagement, read by Matt “Bentley” Allegre
• Matthew Hughes’s The Other (Underland Press, November 1, 2011) is coming to audio, read by Edward Willett for Iambik Audiobooks
• J.M. McDermott’s debut Last Dragon (Wizards of the Coast, 2009) is coming to audio from Iambik Audiobooks
• Kij Johnson’s novella “The Man Who Bridged the Mist” will be in Infinivox’s audio anthology of the best short novels of 2011
• Robert Heinlein’s Glory Road — coming from Blackstone audio “sometime” in 2012
• The Omega Point Trilogy by George Zebrowski (1983) read by Oliver Wyman

What are your most-anticipated titles of 2012? Looking for some (too many!) ideas? This post is for you. Enter if you dare.

JANUARY:

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The Guilded Earlobe continues its "Welcome to the Apocalypse" series with "My Favorite Post Apocalyptic Audiobooks of 2011: Zombies"

Posted on 2012-01-13 at 15:40 by Sam

Link: The Guilded Earlobe continues its “Welcome to the Apocalypse” series with “My Favorite Post Apocalyptic Audiobooks of 2011: Zombies”

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Audiobook release day: Velvet Dogma by Weston Ochse

Posted on 2012-01-12 at 17:59 by Sam

Velvet Dogma By Weston Ochse is a 2011 novel billed as “Philip K. Dick meets William Gibson.” Narrated by Arika Escalona for Crossroad Press, it is set in the year 2040 in a world of human-machine ocular nerve interaction and sanctioned organ theft, with paroled cyberterrorist Rebecca Mines on the run:

OUT YESTERDAY:

• Sixth Column By Robert A. Heinlein Narrated by Tom Weiner for Blackstone Audio — Heinlein’s 1949 novel of “six against six million in a brilliantly waged near-future war for nothing less than liberty and justice for all”
• Anthology: The Year’s Top Short SF Novels edited by Allan Kaster, with stories by Stephen Baxter (“Return to Titan”), Geoffrey A. Landis (“Sultan of the Clouds”), David Moles (“Seven Cities of Gold”), Steven Popkes (“Jackie’s Boy”), Robert Reed (“A History of Terraforming”), Alastair Reynolds (“Troika”), and Rick Wilber (“Several Items of Interest”), narrated by Tom Dheere, Adam Epstein, and Nicola Barber for  Infinivox — many of the best short novels / novellas of 2010 in one audiobook

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Release Week Wednesday: Distrust That Particular Flavor by William Gibson

Posted on 2012-01-11 at 13:03 by Sam

My pick of the audiobooks out this release week is Distrust That Particular Flavor [Goodreads | not yet available at Audible.com] By William Gibson, Read By Robertson Dean for Tantor Audio:

Published last week in print, this collection of essays comes to us from, essentially, the voice of Gibson in audio, as Dean has narrated recent Gibson novels Spook Country and Zero History with more than aplomb, perfectly capturing the voices of Hollis Henry and (in particular) Milgrim, as well as last year’s new Penguin Audio production of Gibson’s 1984 classic Neuromancer. Unless something surprises me (where is my Pilgrim of the Sky audiobook!) it’s what I’ll be listening to next.

ALSO NEW ON TUESDAY:

OUT PREVIOUSLY THIS WEEK:

Posted in regular, Release Week | Tagged distrust-that-particular-flavor, release week, robertson-dean, william-gibson

Interview Monday: narrator Gayle Hendrix on Stellarnet Rebel

Posted on 2012-01-09 at 16:44 by Sam

For the second Interview Monday of 2012, I’m very happy to welcome narrator Gayle Hendrix to talk about Stellarnet Rebel, the debut novel by J.L. Hilton released last week in e-book and audiobook by Harlequin e-imprint Carina Press. Stellarnet Rebel sees newsblogger Genny O’Riordan arrive on “Asteria, a corporate-owned deep-space colony populated by refugees, criminals, and obsessed online gamers”.

There she meets Duin, an alien speaking out against the invasion of his homeworld by the insect-like Tikati, and one blog post later they’re in the middle of a “dangerous web of passion and politics”. Throughout, Hendrix ably handles the dual linguistic challenges of alien languages on the one hand and leetspeak and gamer lingo on the other, and I’m very happy to have her here on the blog.

Q: Gayle, thanks so much for joining me to talk about Stellarnet Rebel.

Posted in regular | Tagged carina-press, gayle-hendrix, interviews, jl-hilton, stellarnet-rebel

George Guidall's letter to the NY Times editor, on the "rise" of audiobooks

Posted on 2012-01-06 at 18:50 by Sam

Link: George Guidall’s letter to the NY Times editor, on the “rise” of audiobooks

Referencing James Parker’s article, “The Mind’s Ear”. (Another letter to the editor, not quite as complimentary of audiobooks as “reading”, references John Schwartz’s article “Wired for Sound”.) Hat tip to narrator Simon Vance’s tweet today, to which I join my own: “How did I miss this?” — I did read Schwartz’s article, but missed both Parker’s and the letters to the editor.

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The Guilded Earlobe's favorite (non-zombie) post-apocalyptic audiobooks of 2011

Posted on 2012-01-06 at 18:32 by Sam

Link: The Guilded Earlobe’s favorite (non-zombie) post-apocalyptic audiobooks of 2011

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Release Week Wednesday: Cinder and Sisterhood of Dune

Posted on 2012-01-04 at 21:43 by Sam

My top two picks for the “big Tuesday releases” this week are Cinder: Book One of the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer and Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, both from Macmillan Audio.

Cinder is a futuristic recasting of Cinderella, with the eponymous Cinder a cyborg in the crowded streets of New Beijing. Narrated by Rebecca Soler, there’s an excerpt as well as a new short story at Tor.com:

Sisterhood of Dune continues the long saga which began with Frank Herbert’s Dune, set years after a new Imperium has been established. Narrated byScott Brick, it is a story pitting Reason against Faith with the future of humankind at stake. I received a review copy of this title and will be listening to it later in the month:

Posted in regular, Release Week | Tagged cinder, marissa-meyer, release week, sisterhood-of-dune

Audiobook release day: Stellarnet Rebel by J. L. Hilton and Darkness Falls by Cate Tiernan

Posted on 2012-01-03 at 03:07 by Sam

One of my long-anticipated titles is out today: Stellarnet Rebel By J.L. Hilton Narrated by Gayle Hendrix for Carina Press — “Welcome to Asteria, a corporate-owned, deep-space colony populated with refugees, criminals and obsessive online gamers.”

Stellarnet Rebel is the debut novel for author Hilton, while narrator Gayle Hendrix has narrated books for Nora Roberts, Suzanne Brockmann, and on the St. Martin’s Press/Audible Frontiers anthologies Strange Brew (Jim Butcher, Patricia Briggs, Charlaine Harris, and more) and My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding (Sherrilyn Kenyon,Harris, Butcher, and more). The prologue puts readers on the track of an escaping prisoner, while chapter one puts us in the shoes of a blogger on a 3-year assignment on Asteria. After being assured by physicists that the mode of transportation to the planet wouldn’t hurt, and if it did it would only be in her mind: “Physicists are a bunch of lying bastards.”

In the Young Adult section is Immortal Beloved #2: Darkness Falls By Cate Tiernan Narrated by Kelly Lintz for Hachette Audio:

The second in this fairly new series, after 2010’s Immortal Beloved.

ALSO OUT TODAY: Working for the Devil By Lilith Saintcrow Narrated by Tanya Eby For Brilliance Audio.

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