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Best of February 2011 in Audible.com SFF: David Halperin's Journal of a UFO Investigator narrated by Sean Runnette

Posted on 2011-02-28 at 10:00 by Sam

Link: Best of February 2011 in Audible.com SFF: David Halperin’s Journal of a UFO Investigator narrated by Sean Runnette

Let me get this out of the way first: Prolific non-fiction author and eminent Judaic scholar David Halperin’s debut novel Journal of a UFO Investigator (Viking, Blackstone Audio) is not properly science fiction. It is, however, a wonderful book, and Sean Runnette’s narration brings it wonderfully to life, and it is, to quote Bull Spec reviewer Richard Dansky, “a novel about what science fiction is for and about—not aliens or rocketships, but rather the ability to cast real problems in an unreal context, and by doing so, get a handle on them”.

OK, on to the publisher summary:

This sparkling debut novel, set against the backdrop of the troubled 1960s, is a coming-of-age story that weaves together a compelling psychological drama and vivid outer-space fantasy.

Danny Shapiro is an isolated teenager living with a dying mother, a hostile father, and no friends. To cope with these circumstances, Danny forges a reality of his own, which includes the sinister “Three Men in Black,” mysterious lake creatures with insect-like carapaces, a beautiful young seductress and thief, with whom Danny falls in love, and an alien-human love child who—if only Danny can keep her alive—will redeem the planet. Danny’s fictional world blends so seamlessly with his day-to-day life that profound questions about what is real and what is not, what is possible and what is imagined, begin to arise. As the hero in his alien landscape, he finds the strength to deal with his own life and to stand up to demons both real and imagined. Told with heart and intellect, Journal of a UFO Investigator calls to mind the works of Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem.

“What’s in this book? What isn’t? History, mystery—even aliens, for God’s sake. The most compelling and original coming-of-age story I’ve read in a long time.” (Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish)

I can’t really add much more than again quoting Dansky: “Journal of a UFO Investigator is one of those rare reads that takes advantage of the wildest things science fiction can do in order to tell a human, mundane—and wonderful—story.” Well, OK, I will try. Runnette’s narration does not have the benefit of the book’s layout and typesetting. We don’t have clues like indentation, italics, and so on to help denote “this is a dream sequence” or “this is a journal entry” and so in audio the lines between reality and fantasy blur even further. For me this was a wonderful effect, and I, again, can’t recommend this one enough.

ALSO IN FEBRUARY:

SEEN BUT NOT HEARD:

Note: this post is back-dated from June 22, 2011, for sort order purposes.

Posted in link | Tagged audible.com, best-of-audible.com

Best of January 2011 in Audible.com SFF: Orson Scott Card's The Lost Gate, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki

Posted on 2011-01-31 at 10:00 by Sam

Link: Best of January 2011 in Audible.com SFF: Orson Scott Card’s The Lost Gate, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki

The Lost Gate: Mithermages, Book 1 by Orson Scott Card, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki, starts a new modern fantasy for bestselling author Card. Rudnicki as always delivers, and Card’s setting, on which he’s worked quite a while (as he detailed in an interview with The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy), is reminiscent of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods in that it incorporates most every known pantheon into a modern narrative, whereas Danny is a very, very Ender-esque character. The audiobook is my pick for the best new science fiction and fantasy release of January 2011 at Audible.com.

Publisher’s summary:

Danny North knew from early childhood that his family was different - and that he was different from them. While his cousins were learning how to create the things that commoners called fairies, ghosts, golems, trolls, werewolves, and other such miracles that were the heritage of the North family, Danny worried that he would never show a talent, never form an “outself”.

He grew up in the rambling old house, filled with dozens of cousins and aunts and uncles, all ruled by his father. Their home was isolated in the mountains of western Virginia, far from town, far from schools, far from other people.

There are many secrets in the House, and many rules that Danny must follow. There is a secret library with only a few dozen books, and none of them in English - but Danny and his cousins are expected to become fluent in the language of the books. While Danny’s cousins are free to create magic whenever they like, they must never do it where outsiders might see.

Unfortunately, there are some secrets kept from Danny as well. And that will lead to disaster for the North family.

More from Bull Spec reviewer Patrick Ward: “The Lost Gate is urban fantasy and classical mythology in its best, most grounded form, and Card has once again proven that he is one of the world’s most powerful Storyfathers.”

MORE IN JANUARY:

SEEN BUT NOT HEARD:

Note: this post is back-dated from June 23, 2011, for sort order purposes.

Posted in link | Tagged audible.com, best-of-audible.com

Best of December 2010 in Audible.com SFF: Sergei Lukyanenko's Night Watch

Posted on 2010-12-31 at 10:00 by Sam

Link: Best of December 2010 in Audible.com SFF: Sergei Lukyanenko’s Night Watch

Russian urban fantasist Sergei Lukyanenko’s audiobooks have been a long while coming, but they were worth the wait, and they are my pick(s) for the best new science fiction and fantasy release of December 2010 at Audible.com. Paul Michael narrates Audible Frontiers productions of all four Watch books, all published in the wee hours of 2010:

Publisher’s summary and some blurb-worthy blurbs:

Set in modern day Moscow, Night Watch is a world as elaborate and imaginative as Tolkien or the best Asimov. Living among us are the “Others”, an ancient race of humans with supernatural powers who swear allegiance to either the Dark or the Light. A thousand-year treaty has maintained the balance of power, and the two sides coexist in an uneasy truce. But an ancient prophecy decrees that one supreme “Other” will rise up and tip the balance, plunging the world into a catastrophic war between the Dark and the Light.

When a young boy with extraordinary powers emerges, fulfilling the first half of the prophecy, will the forces of the Light be able to keep the Dark from corrupting the boy and destroying the world?

“Brace yourself for Harry Potter in Gorky Park…. The novel contains some captivating scenes and all kinds of marvelous, inventive detail: The vampires’ seduction of a teenage boy is bone-chilling; every time Lukyanenko described the Other-worldly Twilight, I felt lured into it; and the fantastical powers exercised by Anton and his colleagues range from delightful to awesome.” (The Washington Post Book World)

“[As] potent as a shot of vodka…. [A] compelling urban fantasy.” (Publishers Weekly)

“Night Watch is an epic of extraordinary power.” (Quentin Tarantino)

Yes, that Quentin Tarantino. Lukyanenko sets his characters afoot in Moscow, a city and genre re-visited by Ekaterina Sedia’s more Gaiman-Neverwhere-esque The Secret History of Moscow, and the four books, starting with 2006’s Night Watch, literally define Russian urban fantasy.

ALSO IN DECEMBER:

SEEN BUT NOT HEARD:

Note: this post is back-dated from June 23, 2011, for sort order purposes.

Posted in link | Tagged audible.com, best-of-audible.com

Best of November 2010 in Audible.com SFF: Catherynne M. Valente's The Habitation of the Blessed

Posted on 2010-11-30 at 10:00 by Sam

Link: Best of November 2010 in Audible.com SFF: Catherynne M. Valente’s The Habitation of the Blessed

Narrated by Ralph Lister for Brilliance Audio, Valente begins the series A Dirge for Prester John with The Habitation of the Blessed, my pick for the best of November 2010 in new science fiction and fantasy releases at Audible.com. John is a legendary church figure whose letters to Constantinople told of a rich, magical land of which he had become king. Here, Lister brings the three principle storylines to vibrant life as they weave in and around each other. This is not an easy book or audiobook: new words are thrown at you without much reference or warning; fantastical creatures enough to fill a taxonomy are introduced and paraded around a time and land that just doesn’t make sense. But why should it? After all, it is anti-Aristotelian. If you plant a book, a book tree will grow.

Publisher’s summary:

This is the story of a place that never was: the kingdom of Prester John, the utopia described by an anonymous, 12th-century document that captured the imagination of the medieval world and drove hundreds of lost souls to seek out its secrets, inspiring explorers, missionaries, and kings for centuries. But what if it were all true? What if there was such a place, and a poor, broken priest once stumbled past its borders, discovering, not a Christian paradise, but a country where everything is possible, immortality is easily had, and the Western world is nothing but a dim and distant dream?

Brother Hiob of Luzerne, on missionary work in the Himalayan wilderness on the eve of the 18th century, discovers a village guarding a miraculous tree whose branches sprout books instead of fruit. These strange books chronicle the history of the kingdom of Prester John, and Hiob becomes obsessed with the tales they tell. The Habitation of the Blessed recounts the fragmented narratives found within these living volumes, revealing the life of a priest named John, and his rise to power in this country of impossible richness. John’s tale weaves together with the confessions of his wife Hagia, a blemmye — a headless creature who carried her face on her chest — as well as the tender, jeweled nursery stories of Imtithal, nanny to the royal family.

HONORABLE MENTION:

  • Anthology: METAtropolis: Cascadia continues the shared world anthology series started with 2009’s METAtropolis which, like this volume, is an Audible original novella/novelette anthology set in a future post-peak-oil world of constrained resources and collapsed economies; and much like the first album there’s an all-star cast of narrators, in this case all coming from Star Trek: The Next Generation

ALSO IN NOVEMBER:

SEEN BUT NOT HEARD:

Note: this post is back-dated from June 23, 2011, for sort order purposes.

Posted in link | Tagged audible.com, best-of-audible.com

Best of October 2010 in Audible.com SFF: Iain M. Banks's Surface Detail

Posted on 2010-10-31 at 09:00 by Sam

Link: Best of October 2010 in Audible.com SFF: Iain M. Banks’s Surface Detail

My pick for the best new science fiction and fantasy release at Audible.com in October 2010 is: Surface Detail: A Culture Novel by Iain M. Banks, narrated by Peter Kenny (Hachette Audio).

Publisher summary:

It begins in the realm of the Real, where matter still matters. And it begins with a murder.

Lededje Y’breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit. Prepared to risk everything for her freedom, her release, when it comes, is at a price, and to put things right, she will need the help of the Culture.

Benevolent, enlightened and almost infinitely resourceful though it may be, the Culture can only do so much for any individual. With the assistance of one of its most powerful - and arguably deranged - warships, Lededje finds herself heading into a combat zone not even sure which side the Culture is really on. A war - brutal, far-reaching - is already raging within the digital realms that store the souls of the dead, and it’s about to erupt into reality

More from Bull Spec reviewer Patrick Ward: “Surface Detail is an act of colossal imagination and an artifact of superlative worldbuilding. Banks uses his characteristic staccato writing style to simultaneously disorient and hypnotize, preparing the reader for an eloquent foray through fideistic characters and the sometimes-horrifying actions of their virtual simulacra. Taken as a whole, the Culture novels have done for science fiction what Wolfe’s The Book ofthe Long Sun did for fantasy. Surface Detail continues this tradition with moving, horrific, and ultimately satisfying aplomb.”

HONORABLE MENTION:

ALSO IN OCTOBER:

SEEN BUT NOT HEARD:

Note: this post is back-dated from June 24, 2011, for sort order purposes.

Posted in link | Tagged audible.com, best-of-audible.com

Best of September 2010 in Audible.com SFF: Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed

Posted on 2010-09-30 at 09:00 by Sam

Link: Best of September 2010 in Audible.com SFF: Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed

Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic 1974 novel The Dispossessed is brought wonderfully to audio courtesy a Harper Audio production of an excellent Don Leslie narration. Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, it is also (and much less impressively, I might add!) my pick for the best new science fiction and fantasy audiobook at Audible.com in September 2010.

The publisher’s summary is brief: “Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have isolated his planet of anarchists from the rest of the civilized universe. To do this dangerous task will mean giving up his family and possibly his life. Shevek must make the unprecedented journey to the utopian mother planet, Anarres, to challenge the complex structures of life and living, and ignite the fires of change.”

Here, there is simply too much to say, and so I will play a bit of the coward and not say much at all, other than: Le Guin’s Anarres is the definitive rendering of anarchism in fiction, and this is an unforgettable novel, and a masterful narration.

HONORABLE MENTION:

ALSO IN SEPTEMBER:

SEEN BUT NOT HEARD:

Note: this post is back-dated from June 24, 2011, for sort order purposes.

Posted in link | Tagged audible.com, best-of-audible.com, harper-audio
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