What the second release week in October lacks in the staggering numbers department, it makes up for with three absolutely stellar titles: urban fantasy from Tad Williams, the latest Iain M. Banks “Culture” novel, and the long-awaited first audio installment of Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen epic fantasy series. And! The long-awaited digital audio release of the Rob Inglis narrations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

I’ve bemoaned the US audiobook absence of The Dirty Streets of Heaven: Bobby Dollar, Book 1 By Tad Williams for quite a few release weeks now, but this week brings a Penguin Audio production of George Newbern’s narration: “You’ve never met an angel like Bobby Dollar. … Brace yourself - the afterlife is weirder than you ever believed.”

Last Wednesday saw the the long-awaited first audiobook in The Malazan Book of the Fallen epic fantasy series: Gardens of the Moon: The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Book 1 By Steven Erikson, Narrated by Ralph Lister for Brilliance Audio. Is it post-modern epic fantasy? Post-structural epic fantasy? That’s a debate for brighter minds than mine, but this 1999 novel heralded a many-layered tapestry of characters and storylines: “The Malazan Empire simmers with discontent, bled dry by interminable warfare, bitter infighting, and bloody confrontations with ancient and implacable sorcerers. Even the imperial legions, long inured to the bloodshed, yearn for some respite. Yet Empress Laseen’s rule remains absolute, enforced by her dreaded Claw assassins. For Sergeant Whiskeyjack and his squad of Bridgeburners, and for Tattersail, their lone surviving mage, the aftermath of the siege of Pale should have been a time to mourn the many dead. But Darujhistan, last of the Free Cities, yet holds out. It is to this ancient citadel that Laseen turns her predatory gaze.”

The Hydrogen Sonata By Iain M. Banks, Narrated by Peter Kenny for Hachette Audio, continues the “Culture” series: “The Scavenger species are circling. It is, truly, provably, the End Days for the Gzilt civilization. An ancient people, organized on military principles and yet almost perversely peaceful, the Gzilt helped set up the Culture 10,000 years earlier and were very nearly one of its founding societies, deciding not to join only at the last moment. Now they’ve made the collective decision to follow the well-trodden path of millions of other civilizations; they are going to Sublime, elevating themselves to a new and almost infinitely more rich and complex existence.”

Lastly, the 1999-91 Rob Inglis narrations for Recorded Books of J. R. R. Tolkien’s beloved The Lord of the Rings series are finally in digital audio download. I still have — and enjoy re-listening to — Martin Shaw’s narration of The Hobbit, but have heard quite a few compliments on the Inglis recordings which are all — all of them — quickly establishing themselves at the top of the Audible bestseller charts.

ALSO OUT TUESDAY:

Read More

Well, I tried. I put together an interstitial release week post on Friday. Then again Monday morning. And still what’s left in this week’s haul is more than enough to keep all the listening hours in a year occupied. So, since we can’t listen to everything, here are my picks for the week. Since Monday. Luckily, several of them are short. And one of them is even free. However… there are a lot of picks. And this is mostly just from Tuesday.

I’ve been looking forward to Ironskin By Tina Connolly since late last year; it was one of my most-anticipated titles of 2012 in my “too big to be useful” preview of the year. Then I learned it was to be narrated by Roslyn Landor, whose narration of Joan Slonczewski’s A Door into Ocean is up there with my all-time favorites, and my anticipation level, if possible, went even higher. Well, now it’s here, in print and ebook from Tor and in a 9 hrs and 33 mins audiobook from Audible Frontiers: “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. When a carefully worded listing appears for a governess to assist with a “delicate situation”—a child born during the Great War—Jane is certain the child is fey-cursed, and that she can help. Teaching the unruly Dorie to suppress her curse is hard enough; she certainly didn’t expect to fall for the girl’s father, the enigmatic artist Edward Rochart. But her blossoming crush is stifled by her scars and by his parade of women. Ugly women, who enter his closed studio…and come out as beautiful as the fey. Jane knows Rochart cannot love her, just as she knows that she must wear iron for the rest of her life. But what if neither of these things are true? Step by step Jane unlocks the secrets of a new life—and discovers just how far she will go to become whole again.”

Speaking of anticipated audiobooks, and my favorite narrators, Oliver Wyman (Finch, Gateway, Logan’s Run, on and on and on) narrates Brandon Sanderson’s novella Legion, which was published about two months ago in print from Subterranean Press and ebook by Sanderson’s own Dragonsteel Entertainment. And now here is the 2 hour Audible Frontiers audiobook which iseven  (for a limited time) free: “Brandon Sanderson is one of the most significant fantasists to enter the field in a good many years. His ambitious, multi-volume epics (Mistborn, The Stormlight Archive) and his stellar continuation of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series have earned both critical acclaim and a substantial popular following. In Legion, a distinctly contemporary novella filled with suspense, humor, and an endless flow of invention, Sanderson reveals a startling new facet of his singular narrative talent. Stephen Leeds, AKA ‘Legion,’ is a man whose unique mental condition allows him to generate a multitude of personae: hallucinatory entities with a wide variety of personal characteristics and a vast array of highly specialized skills. As the story begins, Leeds and his ‘aspects’ are drawn into the search for the missing Balubal Razon, inventor of a camera whose astonishing properties could alter our understanding of human history and change the very structure of society. The action ranges from the familiar environs of America to the ancient, divided city of Jerusalem. Along the way, Sanderson touches on a formidable assortment of complex questions: the nature of time, the mysteries of the human mind, the potential uses of technology, and the volatile connection between politics and faith. Resonant, intelligent, and thoroughly absorbing, Legion is a provocative entertainment from a writer of great originality and seemingly limitless gifts.” Any audiobook which begins with Wyman saying “My name is …” is a keeper — that’s how Pohl’s Gateway begins, as does Sanderson’sLegion.

Under Mysteries/Thrillers and Fiction, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel By Robin Sloan, Narrated by Ari Fliakos for Macmillan Audio. At a bit under 8 hours: “A gleeful and exhilarating tale of global conspiracy, complex code-breaking, high-tech data visualization, young love, rollicking adventure, and the secret to eternal life - mostly set in a hole-in-the-wall San Francisco bookstore.”

Under Fiction, This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don’t Touch It By David Wong returns us to the twisted — some say cracked — mind behind John Dies in the End. Narrated by Nick Podehl for Brilliance Audio at 14 hrs and 54 mins: “Warning: You may have a huge, invisible spider living in your skull. This is not a metaphor.”

A long-awaited audiobook indeed is Building Harlequin’s Moon (2005) By Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper, one of my favorite science fiction novels of the 2000s combining Niven’s hard sf edge on terraforming and solar kites with Cooper’s human characters. Now in audio, narrated by Tom Weiner for Blackstone Audio at 15 hrs and 27 mins: “The first interstellar ship, John Glenn, fled a solar system populated by rogue AIs and machine/human hybrids, threatened by too much nanotechnology, and rife with political dangers. The John Glenn’s crew intended to terraform the nearly pristine planet Ymir in hopes of creating a utopian society that will limit intelligent technology, but by some miscalculation they have landed in the wrong system. Short on the antimatter needed to continue to Ymir, they must shape nearby planet Harlequin’s moon, Selene, into a new, temporary home and rebuild their store of antimatter through decades of terraforming.”

Lastly, young readers (and older ones) can rejoice as we get to return to the world of Catherynne M. Valente’s The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making as book two, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There is out today as well. Book one was voiced by the author, here book two is read by S. J. Tucker for Brilliance Audio at 8 hrs and 18 mins: “September has longed to return to Fairyland after her first adventure there. And when she finally does, she learns that its inhabitants have been losing their shadows - and their magic - to the world of Fairyland-Below. This world has a new ruler: Halloween, the Hollow Queen, who is September’s shadow. And Halloween has no intentions of giving Fairyland’s shadows back.”

ALSO OUT TUESDAY:

Read More

Goodness. I put together a Friday “interlude” release week post, and then on Saturday 11 Dave Duncan audiobooks show up, all from Audible Frontiers:

• Donald Corren narrates the Seventh Swordsman series:The Reluctant Swordsman, The Coming of Wisdom, and The Destiny of the Sword
• Peter Ganim narrates Ill Met in the Arena
• Derek Perkins narrates the  Omar series: The Reaver Road, The Hunter’s Haunt,
  
• Mark Ashby narrates the The Great Game series: Past Imperative, Present Tense, and
  Future Indefinite
• Jennifer Van Dyck narrates Hero!
• and Mil Nicholson narrates Magic Casement

Whew. Quite a week, and it’s not yet Monday, let alone Tuesday.

It feels like I just wrapped up a huge release week post two days ago, because I did. But so much has already come out since Wednesday that, well, I’d better post now because next week should have a huge list of new audiobooks as well. So here’s an “interlude” release week post.

Leading the list is the Peter Grant series by Ben Aaronovitch, all narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith for Tantor Audio. The three books, Midnight Riot: Peter Grant, Book 1, Moon Over Soho: Peter Grant, Book 2, and Whispers Under Ground: Peter Grant, Book 3, concern London constable (and eventual sorcerer’s apprentice) Peter Grant whose “ability to speak with the lingering dead” sees him plucked from a paper-pushing assignment and “plunged into a world where gods and goddesses mingle with mortals and a long-dead evil is making a comeback on a rising tide of magic.”

Also out Friday is 6-pack of audiobooks by Greg Bear, all out from Audible Frontiers. They are: Beyond Heaven’s River, Strength of Stones, and Hardfought (Narrated by Ray Chase), Psychlone (Narrated by William Roberts), Dinosaur Summer (Narrated by Dave Courvoisier), and Slant (Narrated by Christine Williams).

Grimm Tales for Young and Old By Philip Pullman, Narrated by Samuel West for AudioGO — Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins — “In this enchanting selection of fairy tales, award-winning author Philip Pullman presents his 50 favourite stories from the Brothers Grimm in a ‘clear as water’ retelling, making them feel fresh and unfamiliar with his dark, distinctive voice.”

Joe Golem and the Drowning City By Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden, Narrated by Robert Fass for Macmillan Audio — Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins — “In 1925, earthquakes and a rising sea level left Lower Manhattan submerged under more than 30 feet of water, so that its residents began to call it the Drowning City. Those unwilling to abandon their homes created a new life on streets turned to canals and in buildings whose first three stories were underwater. Fifty years have passed since then, and the Drowning City is full of scavengers and water rats, poor people trying to eke out an existence, and those too proud or stubborn to be defeated by circumstance. Among them are 14-year-old Molly McHugh and her friend and employer, Felix Orlov. Once upon a time Orlov the Conjuror was a celebrated stage magician, but now he is an old man, a psychic medium, contacting the spirits of the departed for the grieving loved ones left behind. When a séance goes horribly wrong, Felix Orlov is abducted by strange men wearing gas masks and rubber suits, and Molly soon finds herself on the run. Her flight will lead her into the company of a mysterious man, and his stalwart sidekick, Joe Golem, whose own past is a mystery to him, but who walks his own dreams as a man of stone and clay, brought to life for the sole purpose of hunting witches.”

And Thursday saw the years-anticipated release of J. K. Rowling’s first novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy, narrated by Tom Hollander for Hachette Audio at nearly 18 hours. With no magic or boy wizards in sight, it’s still already topping Audible’s weekly best-seller charts. (With just two days of sales so far.) “When Barry Fairbrother dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils…. Pagford is not what it first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the town’s council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen.” There have been some good reviews, and some quite bad ones; one which intrigues me the most is by Lev Grossman for TIME, who (elsewhere) calls it “a triumph”. Hm…

ALSO OUT SINCE WEDNESDAY:

Read More

The last Tuesday of September brings a sizable haul of interesting-looking audiobooks, from new sequels, to some of 2011’s most missing, new Terry Pratchett, and the return of Neil Gaiman Presents.

The Mongoliad: The Foreworld Saga, Book 2 By Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, Nicole Galland, Erik Bear, Joseph Brassey, and Cooper Moo comes with quite a busy byline from Brilliance Audio, but once again it’s one narrator, Luke Daniels, who handles the dozens of accents and handful of storylines as the story picks up where it ended in Book One, the aftermath of the Mongolian invasion of Europe, 1241. Can’t get enough Foreworld? There’s also a 1.5 hour short, Dreamer: A Prequel to the Mongoliad, By Mark Teppo with, of course, Daniels at the helm.

2011 saw two strong entries in a very specific subgenre. TC McCarthy’s Germline ended up one of my favorites of the year last year, and now Embedded by Dan Abnett, narrated by Eric G. Dove for Angry Robot on Brilliance Audio, gives listeners another look at an embedded journalist in a military sf storyline. Where Germline focused on a near-future resource war in South Asia, Abnett takes a look at both a more distant future and setting, as well as a double meaning for ‘embedded’, as his journalist has himself ‘chipped inside the head of a combat veteran’ in a battlezone on a remote colony planet.

Small Beer Press published Delia Sherman’s The Freedom Maze late in 2011, and this book for young adults went on to win Norton, Prometheus, and Mythopoetic Awards, as well as be named one of Kirkus Review’s best of 2011, and be selected onto the Tiptree Honor Award List. Now it’s in audio, narrated by Robin Miles for Listening Library. “Set against the burgeoning Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and then just before the outbreak of the Civil War, The Freedom Maze explores both political and personal liberation, and how the two intertwine. In 1960, thirteen-year-old Sophie isn’t happy about spending summer at her grandmother’s old house in the Bayou. But the house has a maze Sophie can’t resist exploring once she finds it has a secretive and playful inhabitant. When Sophie, bored and lonely, makes an impulsive wish inspired by her reading, hoping for a fantasy adventure of her own, she slips one hundred years into the past, to the year 1860. On her arrival she makes her way, bedraggled and tanned, to what will one day be her grandmother’s house, where she is at once mistaken for a slave.”

Another teen audiobook release this week is Dodger By Terry Pratchett. Read by frequent Pratchett narrator  Stephen Briggs for Harper Audio, the book sees Pratchett turn his attention and wit to a street urchin in Dickensian London: “A storm. Rain-lashed city streets. A flash of lightning. A scruffy lad sees a girl leap desperately from a horse-drawn carriage in a vain attempt to escape her captors. Can the lad stand by and let her be caught again? Of course not, because he’s…Dodger. Seventeen-year-old Dodger may be a street urchin, but he gleans a living from London’s sewers, and he knows a jewel when he sees one. He’s not about to let anything happen to the unknown girl - not even if her fate impacts some of the most powerful people in England. From Dodger’s encounter with the mad barber Sweeney Todd to his meetings with the great writer Charles Dickens and the calculating politician Benjamin Disraeli, history and fantasy intertwine in a breathtaking account of adventure and mystery. Beloved and best-selling author Sir Terry Pratchett combines high comedy with deep wisdom in this tale of an unexpected coming-of-age and one remarkable boy’s rise in a complex and fascinating world.”

One of my “regrets” in 2011 was not making time for Colin Meloy’s Wildwood, a middle grade novel billed as an “American Narnia”. Now Meloy is back with a sequel, Under Wildwood, under his own narration for Harper Audio. At 13 hrs and 20 mins, it’s the longest audiobook mentioned so far in this post, though it’s aimed at the youngest listeners of the bunch. Who says kids these days don’t have attention spans?

Neil Gaiman Presents returns this week with three novels by 1920s literary satiric fantasist James Branch Cabell, all narrated by Robert Blumenfeld: Jurgen, The High Place, and Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances. “A few words from Neil on Jurgen: Jurgen may be the most famous of James Branch Cabell’s books: It was certainly the one that put him on the map, when, in January 1920, the New York Society for the Prevention of Vice took his publisher to court for violating New York’s anti-obscenity law. Suddenly, Cabell went from an admired but semi-obscure author of literary satiric fantasy, to the guy everyone was reading because he was censored.”

ALSO OUT TUESDAY:

Read More

The middle of September brings a few audiobooks of interest, but my first thoughts on the week are 1. that I was at first incredibly excited when I saw the new Tad Williams urban fantasy novel The Dirty Streets of Heaven: A Bobby Dollar Novel, Book 1 listed — but then it turned out I wasn’t logged in, so Audible was showing me titles not available in my country, and now I have only the horrible, awful knowledge that the audiobook I want to listen to exists, and yet cannot be sold to me. And 2. That my “seen but not heard” list below includes Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff as well as, more mysteriously to me, Steven Erikson’s Gardens of the Moon, which is out in physical media from Brilliance Audio. First world problems, I know. Still, a long-missing audiobook from Nalo Hopkinson and an anticipated new YA audiobook from Libba Bray make for a week worth listening to. Update: Via @MrsTad I have learned that the US audiobook is in production! Hooray!

My pick in adult sf/f releases this week is Midnight Robber By Nalo Hopkinson, Narrated by Robin Miles for Audible Frontiers. Published in 2000 by Aspect / Warner Books, the book was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and PKD Award, as well as a nominee for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award: “It’s Carnival time and the Caribbean-colonized planet of Toussaint is celebrating with music, dance, and pageantry. Masked “Midnight Robbers” waylay revelers with brandished weapons and spellbinding words. To young Tan-Tan, the Robber Queen is simply a favorite costume to wear at the festival - until her power-corrupted father commits an unforgiveable crime. Suddenly, both father and daughter are thrust into the brutal world of New Half-Way Tree. Here monstrous creatures from folklore are real, and the humans are violent outcasts in the wilds. Tan-Tan must reach into the heart of myth and become the Robber Queen herself. For only the Robber Queen’s legendary powers can save her life…and set her free.” Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins.

Meanwhile in the “Teen SF/F” listings is the latest from Libba Bray, with her own audio introduction. The Diviners is narrated by January LaVoy for Listening Library: “Evie O’Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City - and she is pos-i-tute-ly ecstatic. It’s 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult. Evie worries her uncle will discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far. But when the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer.” Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins.

ALSO OUT TUESDAY:

Read More

The second release week of September still shows no sign of Brandon Sanderson’s Legion, read by Oliver Wyman; but I’m sure it’s coming soon. Not that I’m hitting reload that often…

The Blinding Knife: Black Prism, Book 2 By Brent Weeks, Narrated by Simon Vance for Hachette Audio — Series: Lightbringer, Book 2 — Length: 23 hrs and 48 mins — I haven’t gotten to book one of this series yet, The Black Prism (narrated by Cristofer Jean) but have heard quite a lot of good things about both Lightbringer and Weeks’ previous series, the Night Angel Trilogy. Here: “Gavin Guile is dying. He’d thought he had five years left - now he has less than one. With 50,0000 refugees, a bastard son, and an ex-fiancée who may have learned his darkest secret, Gavin has problems on every side. All magic in the world is running wild and threatens to destroy the Seven Satrapies. Worst of all, the old gods are being reborn, and their army of color wights is unstoppable. The only salvation may be the brother whose freedom and life Gavin stole 16 years ago.”

God’s War: Bel Dame Apocrypha, Book 1 By Kameron Hurley, Narrated by Emily Bauer for Audible Frontiers — Series: Bel Dame Apocrypha, Book 1 — Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins — When Book 2 (Infidel) was released last week, I hoped it was a good sign that God’s War would also be coming to audio. On Jeff VanderMeer’s a dozen of the year’s best, nominated for a Nebula Award, a finalist for the Locus Award for Best First Novel, and winner of the Kitchies Golden Tentacle for best debut: “On a ravaged, contaminated world, a centuries-old holy war rages, fought by a bloody mix of mercenaries, magicians, and conscripted soldiers. Though the origins of the war are shady and complex, there’s one thing everybody agrees on - there’s not a chance in hell of ending it. Nyx is a former government assassin who makes a living cutting off heads for cash. But when a dubious deal between her government and an alien gene pirate goes bad, Nyx’s ugly past makes her the top pick for a covert recovery. The head they want her to bring home could end the war—but at what price? The world is about to find out.”

The White Forest By Adam McOmber, Narrated by Susan Duerden — Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins — concurrently in print from Touchstone/Simon & Schuster. “Young Jane Silverlake lives with her father in a crumbling family estate on the edge of Hampstead Heath. Jane has a secret - an unexplainable gift that allows her to see the souls of man-made objects - and this talent isolates her from the outside world. Her greatest joy is wandering the wild heath with her neighbors, Madeline and Nathan. But as the friends come of age, their idyll is shattered by the feelings both girls develop for Nathan, and by Nathan’s interest in a cult led by Ariston Day, a charismatic mystic popular with London’s elite. Day encourages his followers to explore dream manipulation with the goal of discovering a strange hidden world, a place he calls the Empyrean. A year later, Nathan has vanished, and the famed Inspector Vidocq arrives in London to untangle the events that led up to Nathan’s disappearance. As a sinister truth emerges, Jane realizes she must discover the origins of her talent, and use it to find Nathan herself, before it’s too late.” An early review: “A young woman can hear the souls of man-made objects, and they’re not exactly singing happy tunes in McOmber’s Victorian gothic debut.” (Kirkus)

Meanwhile, Audible Ltd has published three audiobooks from one of the early masters of science fiction, Olaf Stapledon. With Odd John (1935, Narrated by Nigel Carrington), Last and First Men (1930, Narrated by Stephen Greif), and Star Maker (1937, Narrated by Andrew Wincott) three books exploring both science fiction and the implications to humanity of those fictions are now in audio.

ALSO OUT TUESDAY:

Read More

September kicks off with quite a vengeance with new audio of both new, newly translated, and long-running series. As usual I have my “seen but not heard” complaints, led in a big way by the new widely-praised Tad Williams urban fantasy novel The Dirty Streets of Heaven and the Cory Doctorow/Charles Stross joint The Rapture of the Nerds but, I guess, you can’t have everything.

Out on September 1 was Clockwork Angels: The Novel By Kevin J. Anderson, Narrated by Neil Peart for Brilliance Audio. “International best-selling author Kevin J. Anderson teams up with Rush lyricist and drummer Neil Peart to expand the story set out in Clockwork Angels, the 20th studio album by the legendary rock band. For more than two centuries, the land of Albion has been ruled by the supposedly benevolent Watchmaker, who imposes precision on every aspect of life. Young Owen Hardy from the village of Barrel Arbor dreams of seeing the big city and the breathtaking Clockwork Angels that dispense wisdom to the people, maybe even catching a glimpse of the Watchmaker himself.”

Ashes of Honor: An October Daye Novel, Book 6 By Seanan McGuire, Narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal for Brilliance Audio — Series: October Daye, Book 6 — Length:12 hrs and 26 mins — “It’s been almost a year since October “Toby” Daye averted a war, gave up a county, and suffered personal losses that have left her wishing for a good day’s sleep. She’s tried to focus on her responsibilities - training Quentin, upholding her position as Sylvester’s knight, and paying the bills - but she can’t help feeling like her world is crumbling around her, and her increasingly reckless behavior is beginning to worry even her staunchest supporters.”

Infidel: Bel Dame Apocrypha, Book 2 By Kameron Hurley, Narrated by Emily Bauer — Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins — While book 1, God’s War, remains very high on my “where’s the audiobook?” list, book 2’s appearance may be a good sign. “Nyx used to be a bel dame, a government-funded assassin with a talent for cutting off heads for cash. Now she’s babysitting diplomats to make ends meet and longing for the days when killing was a lot more honorable. When Nyx’s former bel dame “sisters” lead a coup against the government that threatens to plunge the country into civil war, Nyx is tasked with bringing them in. The hunt takes Nyx and her inglorious team of mercenaries to one of the richest, most peaceful, and most contaminated places on the planet - a country wholly unprepared to host a battle waged by the world’s deadliest assassins.”

The book (much more often experienced in the US as the film) to which The Hunger Games was most often compared is the controversial 1999 Japanese dystopian novel Battle Royale By Koushun Takami, translated in 2009 by Yuji Oniki and now available in English language audio for the first time. Narrated by Mark Dacascos for Simon & Schuster Audio; Length:19 hrs and 34 mins. “Battle Royale, a high-octane thriller about senseless youth violence in a dystopian world, it is one of Japan’s best-selling - and most controversial - novels. As part of a ruthless program by the totalitarian government, ninth-grade students are taken to a small isolated island with a map, food, and various weapons. Forced to wear special collars that explode when they break a rule, they must fight each other for three days until only one “winner” remains. The elimination contest becomes the ultimate in must-see reality television. A Japanese pulp classic available in English-language audio for the first time, Battle Royale is a potent allegory of what it means to be young and survive in today’s dog-eat-dog world. The first novel by small-town journalist Koushun Takami, it went on to become an even more notorious film by 70-year-old director Kinji Fukusaku.”

The Map of the Sky: A Novel By Felix J. Palma, Narrated by James Langton — Length:22 hrs and 38 mins — “The New York Times best-selling author of The Map of Time returns with a mesmerizing novel casting H.G. Wells in a leading role, as the extraterrestrial invasion featured in The War of the Worlds is turned into a bizarre reality. A love story serves as backdrop for The Map of the Sky when New York socialite Emma Harlow agrees to marry millionaire Montgomery Gilmore, but only if he accepts her audacious challenge: to reproduce the extraterrestrial invasion featured in Wells’s War of the Worlds. What follows are three brilliantly interconnected plots to create a breathtaking tale of time travel and mystery, replete with cameos by a young Edgar Allan Poe, and Captain Shackleton and Charles Winslow from The Map of Time.”

Lastly, the big Audible Frontiers haul this week is the Liaden Series by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, narrated variously by Kevin T. Collins (Books of Before — Free Excerpt: Crystal Soldier), Bernadette Dunne (Space Regencies — Free Excerpt: Local Custom), Andy Caploe (Agent of Change — Free Excerpt: Agent of Change), and Eileen Stevens (Theo Waitley — Free Excerpt: Fledgling).

ALSO OUT TUESDAY:

Read More

Monday’s haul easily crossed the threshhold to put together the “earlier this week” releases, including several Stanislaw Lem novels (including Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age), the much-lauded self-published sf series Wool Omnibus Edition (Wool 1 - 5) By Hugh Howey, and Briarpatch By Tim Pratt (narrated by this blog’s own Dave Thompson). Meanwhile it’s a big Tuesday (August 28, 2012) for Angry Robot on Brilliance Audio.

Mockingbird By Chuck Wendig, Narrated by Emily Beresford for Angry Robot on Brilliance Audio — Length:9 hrs and 4 mins —after Blackbirds earlier this year, reviewed very warmly by The Guilded Earlobe. Here: “Miriam is trying. Really, she is. But this whole “settling down thing” that Louis has going for her just isn’t working out. She lives on Long Beach Island all year round. Her home is a run-down double-wide trailer. She works at a grocery store as a check-out girl. And her relationship with Louis - who’s on the road half the time in his truck - is subject to the piss and vinegar Miriam brings to everything she does. Still, she’s keeping her psychic ability - to see when and how someone is going to die just by touching them - in check. But even that feels wrong, somehow. Like she’s keeping a tornado stoppered up in a tiny bottle. Then comes one bad day that turns it all on her ear.”

Seven Wonders By Adam Christopher, Narrated by Nick Podehl for Angry Robot on Brilliance Audio — Length:14 hrs and 37 mins — after his debut novel Empire State: A Novel early this year, Christopher takes another look at superhero fiction with his follow-up: “Tony Prosdocimi lives in the bustling Metropolis of San Ventura – a city gripped in fear, a city under siege by the hooded supervillain, The Cowl. When Tony develops super-powers and acts to take down The Cowl, however, he finds that the local superhero team Seven Wonders aren’t as grateful as he assumed they’d be….”

The Corpse-Rat King By Lee Battersby Narrated by Michael Page for Angry Robot on Brilliance Audio — Length:11 hrs and 19 mins — Page is the award-winning narrator of (among many other titles) Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora and here takes on: “Marius dos Hellespont and his apprentice, Gerd, are professional looters of battlefields. When they stumble upon the corpse of the King of Scorby and Gerd is killed, Marius is mistaken for the monarch by one of the dead soldiers and is transported down to the Kingdom of the Dead. Just like the living citizens, the dead need a king - after all, the king is God’s representative, and someone needs to remind God where they are. And so it comes to pass that Marius is banished to the surface with one message: If he wants to recover his life he must find the dead king. Which he fully intends to do. Just as soon as he stops running away.”

Yeah, I mentioned it Monday, but once more with feeling: Briarpatch By Tim Pratt, Narrated by Dave Thompson — Length:10 hrs and 9 mins — “Darrin’s life has been going downhill ever since his girlfriend Bridget walked out on him without a word of explanation six months ago. Soon after losing her, he lost his job, and his car, and eventually his enthusiasm for life. He can’t imagine things getting worse - until he sees Bridget again, for the first time since she walked out, just moments before she leaps to her death from a bridge. In his quest to find out why Bridget took her own life, he encounters a depressive (and possibly immortal) cult leader; a man with a car that can drive out of this world and into others; a beautiful psychotic with a chrome shotgun; and a bridge that, maybe, leads to heaven. Darrin’s journey leads him into a place called the Briarpatch, which is either the crawlspace of the universe, or a series of ambitious building projects abandoned by god, or a tangle of alternative universes, depending on who you ask. Somewhere in that disorderly snarl of worlds, he hopes to find Bridget again.”

Also, there’s a new GraphicAudio title out this month that catches my eye. It’s The Highwayman, the first installment of The Saga of the First King by R.A. Salvatore, with part 2 coming in September and part 3 coming in October:

ALSO OUT TUESDAY:

Read More

The release week of Tuesday August 21 brings another chapter to two classic series, one sf and one fantasy, along with an intriguing horror title.

Fate of Worlds: Return from the Ringworld By Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner, Narrated by Tom Weiner for Blackstone Audio — Series: Ringworld, Book 5 — Length:9 hrs and 54 mins —”The explosive finale to the Ringworld and the Fleet of Worlds series… For decades, the spacefaring species of known space have battled over the largest artifact - and grandest prize - in the galaxy: the all-but-limitless resources and technology of the Ringworld. Now, without warning, the Ringworld has vanished, leaving behind three rival war fleets.”

Wards of Faerie: The Dark Legacy of Shannara By Terry Brooks, Narrated by Rosalyn Landor for Random House Audio (Random House) — Length:14 hrs and 25 mins — “Seven years after the conclusion of the High Druid of Shannara trilogy, New York Times best-selling author Terry Brooks at last revisits one of the most popular eras in the legendary epic fantasy series that has spellbound listeners for more than three decades. When the world was young, and its name was Faerie, the power of magic ruled - and the Elfstones warded the race of Elves and their lands, keeping evil at bay. But when an Elven girl fell hopelessly in love with a Darkling boy of the Void, he carried away more than her heart. Thousands of years later, tumultuous times are upon the world now known as the Four Lands. Users of magic are in conflict with proponents of science. Elves have distanced their society from the other races. The dwindling Druid order and its teachings are threatened with extinction. A sinister politician has used treachery and murder to rise as prime minister of the mighty Federation. Meanwhile, poring through a long-forgotten diary, the young Druid Aphenglow Elessedil has stumbled upon the secret account of an Elven girl’s heartbreak and the shocking truth about the vanished Elfstones. But never has a little knowledge been so very dangerous - as Aphenglow quickly learns when she’s set upon by assassins.”

ALSO OUT TUESDAY:

Read More