Audible.com classics sale -- ends September 13

Posted on 2011-09-06 at 18:00 by Sam

Link: Audible.com classics sale — ends September 13

There’s a 50% off sale covering 100 “classics” ending September 13 at 11 AM EST. It’s partitioned by author last name rather than curated into any kind of categories, so… good luck finding things!

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Audible.com release day: Two Marla Mason Novels by T.A. Pratt (and more)

Posted on 2011-09-06 at 17:23 by Sam

Link: Audible.com release day: Two Marla Mason Novels by T.A. Pratt (and more)

While The Tears of the Sun: A Novel of the Change (Emberverse Series, Book 8) by S. M. Stirling narrated by Todd McLaren is the big new release today, along with Star Wars: Heir to the Empire (20th Anniversary Edition): The Thrawn Trilogy, Book 1 by Timothy Zahn narrated by Marc Thompson, I’d like to highlight two Marla Mason novels by T. A. Pratt, otherwise known as Tim Pratt, a brilliant American short story writer.

The first four novels of his urban fantasy series are already in audio, having been released in February 2009, all narrated by Jessica Almasy: Blood Engines: A Marla Mason Novel, Poison Sleep: A Marla Mason Novel, Dead Reign: A Marla Mason Novel, and Spell Games: A Marla Mason Novel. Today sees the Audible.com release of the online serialized novel set in the same world Broken Mirrors: A Marla Mason Novel and the prequel novel Bone Shop: A Marla Mason Novel:

Also today are:

• Exiled: Clan of the Claw, Book One by Harry Turtledove, S. M. Stirling, Michael Z. Williamson, John Ringo, and Jody Lynn Nye narrated by Brian Sutherland
• Star Wars: Heir to the Empire: Behind the Scenes: An Expanded Universe Is Born by Timothy Zahn and Betsy Mitchell (editor) narrated by Timothy Zahn, and Betsy Mitchell which is a very detailed look at Zahn’s series to accompany the re-release of the 20th anniversary edition (above) and for which there is a free excerpt: Free Excerpt: Star Wars: Heir to the Empire - Behind the Scenes
• Short: The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man by Michael Chabon and Jake Parker narrated by Marc Thompson
• YA: Ashes: Ashes Trilogy, Book 1 by Ilsa J. Bick narrated by Katherine Kellgren

And three more novels, brought to my attention for different reasons:

• Sanctus: A Novel by Simon Toyne narrated by Simon Vance — Simon Vance as narrator can get me to give a second look at pretty much any book, even one from a genre (thriller) that I don’t generally go for
• Those Across the River by Christopher Buehlman narrated by Mark Bramhall — ditto the above, replacing for narrator and genre (horror) and adding an interesting review at Tor.com
• The Taker by Alma Katsu narrated by Laurel Lefkow — it shares a publishing imprint (Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books) with Firefly Rain by Richard Dansky and the superhero fiction anthology Masked edited by Lou Anders and looks to be an interesting take on a few mythological oddities:

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Time: Welcome to TIME on Tumblr

Posted on 2011-09-06 at 14:04 by Sam

Link: Time: Welcome to TIME on Tumblr

timemagazine:

There’s something to be said for an 88-year-old with a Tumblr account.

Since 1923, TIME has reported the world’s history and somewhere along the way, we became a part of it. TIME co-founder Henry Luce once said, “I became a journalist to come as close as possible to the heart of the world.”…

Hey hey! TIME has a Tumblr page now.

Posted in link | Tagged history, notes to our readers

Currently listening to: The Passage by Justin Cronin

Posted on 2011-09-04 at 14:23 by Sam

Link: Currently listening to: The Passage by Justin Cronin

Having just finished listening to Sean Barrett’s excellent narration of Patrick Suskind’s disturbing and strange Perfume (not available at Audible.com US), I’m starting into The Passage by Justin Cronin narrated by Scott Brick, Adenrele Ojo, and Abby Craden:

This is one of course I saw at Audible.com last June (2010) when it was released, with some rotating banner ads, etc. You can’t get to everything, and this is one I skipped — just not that interested in vampires or zombies, really, and I was additionally still in a reactionary “I’m not going to read these forays into genre fiction from literary novelists” nonsense mood.

But I got over it, as more people to whom I turn for recommendations kept praising the novel. In his article “Altered Beast” (TIME magazine) Lev Grossman really pitches it well. The novel made TIME’s top 10 post-apocalyptic novel list and eventually made it onto TIME’s Top 10 fiction books of 2010 list. Though ignored by the Nebula and Hugo voters (herein I point toward my own “I will ignore forays into genre fiction from literary novelists” nonsense), it was nominated for a Black Quill Award. Just last week, Scott Brick recorded some thoughts about why The Passage was one of the best books he’d ever narrated. Anyway, the final straw was running into it on the audiobooks shelf of my local library. So: onward into vampiredom!

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Audible.com "First Friday" for September 2011 (and other recent bits and pieces)

Posted on 2011-09-02 at 15:36 by Sam

Link: Audible.com “First Friday” for September 2011 (and other recent bits and pieces)

Today’s “First Friday” releases include Up Against It by M. J. Locke narrated by Cassandra Campbell:

As well as several other sf/f titles coming to Audible.com for the first time. Meanwhile, yesterday saw a new edition of The Kingless Land: The Band of Four Series, Book 1 by Ed Greenwood. Previously (2002) available as narrated by Nadia May, the new (well, to Audible, it is the 2001 Blackstone Audio production) edition is narrated by Wanda McCaddon:

As for me, I’ve recently finished listening to Gun, with Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem narrated by Nick Sullivan:

Which I don’t intend to review at too much length, other than that while the story was interesting, it had been built up a bit too much perhaps for me as compared to the actuality of the book. And it seemed (again for me) that the narrator here was either a bit miscast or a bit misdirected. There are several tracks along which a noir can proceed, and the narration can emphasize these: campy, dark, classic, gritty, etc. Here the narrator was clear, and some of the characterizations were solid, but the mainline narration was in a voice which just did not suit the opportunity for a more darkly read near future dystopian read such as Lethem’s imagined world of evolved animals, make, inquisitors, etc.

And I am about half-way through Perfume by Patrick Suskind, narrated by Sean Barrett. It’s not available on Audible.com for US customers, and so it came to me via a friend who’d bought the Penguin Audio UK MP3-CD version with the promise that it was an amazing listen:

So far, that’s been very true indeed, giving me a great deal of confidence in checking out Barrett’s other narrations which are available (Kafka on the Shore in particular).

ALSO! I saw the audiobook on the shelves of a local bookstore earlier this week, and today HarperMedia’s tumblr blog gives us First Listen: Wildwood by Colin Meloy. I’ve heard (and keep hearing) very good things about this upper-middle grade book, and hope to find time to sneak it into my more adult reading before too much longer.

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Audiobook release day: Hellbent by Cherie Priest and The Measure of the Magic by Terry Brooks

Posted on 2011-08-30 at 13:57 by Sam

Link: Audiobook release day: Hellbent by Cherie Priest and The Measure of the Magic by Terry Brooks

Hellbent by Cherie Priest narrated by Natalie Ross sees the author of the brilliant Steampunk-zombie-horror-alternate history novel Boneshaker (narrated wonderfully by Wil Wheaton and Kate Reading by the way) return to the world of Bloodshot and her vampire-thief Raylene Pendle (AKA Cheshire Red):

With The Measure of the Magic: Legends of Shannara, Terry Brooks returns (one again narrated by Phil Gigante whom The Guilded Earlobe interviewed in June) to the world of Shannara with a follow on to last year’s Bearers of the Black Staff.

Also out today is The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris and the very buzzed-about Wildwood by Colin Meloy (illustrations by Ellis Carson) narrated by Amanda Plummer:

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The Guilded Earlobe reviews Lewis Shiner's Glimpses

Posted on 2011-08-30 at 13:46 by Sam

Link: The Guilded Earlobe reviews Lewis Shiner’s Glimpses

From the review: “Lewis’s tales of a time bending rock fan gives us an intimate look at rock legends as well as a realistic portrayal of a middle aged man whose faith in rock and roll to change the world is put to the ultimate challenge. … I was amazed by the amount of love and detail Shiner presented his rock and roll idols with. He humanizes rock legends like  Brian Wilson and Jimi Hendricks in a way I have never seen before, giving them such depth of character that even someone like me, who admires their work but was never truly a fan, is easily pulled into the tale. … You can truly feel the passion for the material in narrator Stefan Rudnicki’s performance of Glimpses. Rudnicki’s iconic deep bass voice perfectly fits main character Ray Shackleford, yet where he truly excels is in his ability to give a full range of performances, including iconic rock stars, and complicated women.”

Back to me: Glimpsesby Lewis Shiner narrated by Stefan Rudnicki is available for an Audible.com member price of just $6.95 and is well, well worth it.

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Just added at Audible.com: The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich!

Posted on 2011-08-29 at 15:35 by Sam

Link: Just added at Audible.com: The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich!

Wow! I’ve heard a lot of great things about this 2010 avant garde fantasy novel, and now, courtesy a Recorded Books production of an Angela Goethals narration, The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich has come to Audible.com:

Quoth the publisher’s description:

A MacDowell Colony fellow and a finalist for the Starcherone Prize, Grace Krilanovich was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize. During the 1990s in the Pacific Northwest, a hobo vampire gang on drugs causes horrific chaos everywhere they go—from trashing supermarket breakrooms to crashing senior center pancake breakfasts. Amidst the danger one girl, who benefits (and suffers) from drug-induced ESP, searches desperately for her foster sister.

Here’s the book cover, in case that rings any bells:

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Big Scary Blog: Meet Audio Book Narrator of the Pine Deep Trilogy, Tom Weiner

Posted on 2011-08-26 at 17:39 by Sam

Link: Big Scary Blog: Meet Audio Book Narrator of the Pine Deep Trilogy, Tom Weiner

A really nice interview over at Jonathan Maberry’s Big Scary Blog with narrator Tom Weiner. In it, some brief mention of some of Weiner’s favorite projects, including Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Robert Heinlein’s The Cat Who Walks through Walls, Poul Anderson’s Harvest of Stars: The Harvest of Stars Series, Book 1, and Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

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Audible.com asks some of the industry's best narrators: "What's the Best Book You've Ever Narrated?"

Posted on 2011-08-26 at 15:29 by Sam

Link: Audible.com asks some of the industry’s best narrators: “What’s the Best Book You’ve Ever Narrated?”

Wow, there’s a great new (at least to me!) feature page at Audible.com today, “The Best Book I Ever Narrated”. This page lists some of my favorite narrators describing, well, their pick for the best book they ever narrated, and as a narrator junkie this is just a great feature. Some highlights:

Glimpses by Lewis Shiner narrated by Stefan Rudnicki:

This is an audiobook which is very dear to my heart, a transformative experience. I’ve written both Shiner and Rudnicki about this book before, reviewed the audiobook on Audible.com, picked it as the best Audible.com SF/F release in March 2011, and it’s just great to watch and listen to Rudnicki explaining exactly why he loved the book. It’s one I’ve used Audible.com’s “gift” feature to send to people, just to spread the book further and wider in the hopes that more and more people can hear about it and read it or listen to it. Yeah… it’s wonderful. Considering that Rudnicki’s long, stellar career has included Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, Alan Dean Foster’s Pip and Flinx, Ben Bova, David Drake’s Hammer’s Slammers, Nabokov, … it’s high praise indeed.

Gateway by Frederik Pohl narrated by Oliver Wyman with an introduction by Robert J. Sawyer:

No, fair, Mr. Wyman. OK, he’s one of my favorite narrators, and he did do an absolutely amazing job capturing Robinette and the “Dr.” for this great book, but he takes a few liberties here. One, he picks a total of four “best” books, including How Sex Works by Sharon Moalem, Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia, and Atomic Lobster: A Novel by Tim Dorsey. Two, despite this first transgression he doesn’t list Finch by Jeff VanderMeer, which he absolutely nailed and is right up there with Gateway for my favorite of Wyman’s many excellent narrations. For shame! (I kid, you can’t really argue against Gateway or Wyman’s performance on it.) And getting a narrator to express that their “first love” was science fiction… a good thing. He describes begging to narrate Pohl’s Gateway, and I’m glad he got his wish.

The Prestige by Christopher Priest narrated by Simon Vance:

I loved what Vance had to say here, going behind the scenes a bit to talk about re-recording the first half of the novel after a conversation with the author, and how the experience of recording the book turned into a friendship with Priest.

Scott Brick also bends the rules a bit, picking several books, including (among others…):

• Somewhere in Time by Richard Matheson
• The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
• The Passage by Justin Cronin (narrated with Adenrele Ojo and Abby Craden)

The last one I want to single out is The Road From Chapel Hill by Joanna Catherine Scott narrated by Karen White. From one of the smaller independent audiobook publishers I follow, CrossRoad Press, it covers the ground quite near my own stomping grounds:

Whew. Great feature, I enjoyed checking out the video and audio recollections from these great narrators, talking about some great books. I hope you do, too.

Posted in link | Tagged audible.com