Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas By John Scalzi

Narrated by Wil Wheaton for Audible Frontiers

Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins

Release Date: 06-05-12 

Review by Dave Thompson: “Stay off the Bridge! Avoid the Narrative!”

“Is it just me…or is everyone on this ship monumentally fucked up about away teams?” asks one of the Redshirts early on in John Scalzi’s latest.  Redshirts is funny, exciting, and gets emotional and pretty heartfelt in the most surprising places. But what’s really unique about this one is how Meta it gets.  If you’ve ever been frustrated with some of the bad science in your science fiction, you’re going to get some good laughs out of this one. Scalzi plays with his narrative like a phaser set to disintegrate and aims it at all the tropes, poor logic, and shoddy science that badly made genre TV, film, and fiction have conjured for “dramatic purposes.”

There’s a twist early on in Redshirts that could be pretty divisive among the audience, and will make or break this story from some, but if you can go with it, it’s a very fun ride – even an inspiring one.

There are a lot of characters, and as a result, some of them feel a little more cookie-cutter than I’d prefer. Scalzi’s characters are never terribly complex, but the protagonist doesn’t stand out as much as some of the others he’s written. However, the way this story’s set-up, it can certainly be argued that that is the point. They are generic Redshirts after all, right? Still, I wish they could’ve been a little more distinct. (And the usual Scalzi stuff applies - the constant dialogue tags, the characters voices, etc.)

That said, Scalzi’s characters warn each other about being “Under the Influence of the Narrative” and “Death by Away Team” - and I have little doubt will become shorthand for all sorts of creative types in the future. And through it all, Scalzi throws down a challenge to not only live long and prosper, but to stop wasting time - to take advantage of your life and really live, and to do something worthwhile.

There’s been a decent amount of talk about the three Codas that conclude this book. My own reaction to them is somewhat mixed. They’re well-enough written, and the second and third hit emotional points I wasn’t expecting. The first coda, however, seems to be at direct odds with the end of the novel proper (as well as some of the main ideas) - to say more, I fear would be treading into spoiler territory.  

Wil Wheaton once again does a very strong job with the narration – and really, who else would you pick to narrate this book but the once and future Wesley Crusher? It’s great to hear him reading another Scalzi book, and one can only hope that if this ever gets made into a movie, Wheaton will get to play one of the lead roles (though I’m personally hoping he gets the part of poor Lt. Kerensky).

For Star Trek and SF fans, for creative types, for anyone who has ever watched a SF TV or film and wanted to throw something at the screen because it all suddenly stopped making sense - this is worth checking out. There’s a good chance you’ll be laughing while you do so.

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Dave Thompson is the host and co-editor of PodCastle, the fantasy fiction audio magazine. His own fiction has been published by Bull Spec and Apex Magazine, among others. You can follow him on Twitter @krylyr.

Osama by Lavie Tidhar

Narrated by Jeff Harding for Audible Ltd

Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins

Release Date: 05-14-2012 [PS Publishing | Goodreads | Audible UK]

Review by Dave Thompson: “Life Isn’t a Pulp Novel”

Lavie Tidhar’s Osama is not an easy or light novel. However, it is a very thought provoking one, and I suspect it’s one that’s going to stay with me for a long time.

What if Osama bin Laden never existed? What if his acts of terror were confined solely to pulp novels, the kind that are published alongside pornography? That’s the Philip K. Dickian world the novel takes place in.

Joe is a private detective hired to find the author of the Osama bin Laden: Vigilante books. As he travels across the world attempting to track down the writer, the distance between Joe’s fictional world and the real world begins to dissipate. The normal detective stuff happens - attempts are made on his life, he’s told to drop the case, etc. But it gets really interesting when Joe comes into contact with “refugees” - people who seem fuzzy around the edges and appear to be trapped - and he begins to question the nature of the world he inhabits, and even of himself.

The novel asks a lot of questions about how we cope with horrible acts of violence through escapism fiction, the war on terror, about choices that we make, and classic Dickian themes like what is reality, and who we are.

For example, at “OsamaCon” — a convention dedicated to the books put on by enthusiastic fans, complete with fanzines — Joe meets some fans of the bin Laden books, and asks them what’s the draw. The couple responds by saying, “To read about these horrible things and know they never happened … and when you’re finished, you can put down the book and get on with your life. To know it’s fiction - pulp fiction … And that’s where all these terrible things should stay … in the pages of a book.”

The most difficult passages are those from the pulp novels - which turn out to be acts of terror that have occurred recently in our history. They’re gut-wrenching on so many different levels, and it’s difficult material to discuss and interact with it. Thankfully Tidhar’s writing doesn’t sensationalize it, and he handles it all with a certain amount of grace.

Jeff Harding gives a solid narration, but for some reason, it got off to a slow start and took a while for me to get completely invested in. That said, it’s worth sticking with. This is a book that’s lingered with me since I finished listening, and I’ll almost certainly reread at some point.

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Dave Thompson is the host and co-editor of PodCastle, the fantasy fiction audio magazine. His own fiction has been published by Bull Spec and Apex Magazine, among others. You can follow him on Twitter @krylyr.

Reviewed by Dave Thompson: “The Undead Have Never Been So Fresh (or Funny)”

The living dead seem to be rising just about everywhere you turn, and these days the zombie apocalypse is feeling a bit run of the mill. Do not let this keep you from checking out Raising Stony Mayhall — one of the most delightful zombie books I’ve read.

There’s a trope in zombie fiction of a loved one being infected, and instead of being killed by family in friends, he’s restrained and shackled. Almost always this ends badly, but author Daryl Gregory goes against the grain and starts off his tale in the late sixties, just after a Romero-esque zombie uprising, when a widow and her three daughters find a dead woman and baby in the snow. When the baby starts moving, they decide to take him in, and teach him about life, humanity, family, friendship, and sacrifice. Meet Stony Mayhall, and follow him as he impossibly grows up, and goes out into the world.

You can tell Gregory had a blast writing — all the familiar zombie trappings are here, but turned on their heads. There’s blood and guts and uprisings, sure, but there’s also crazy zombie evangelicals and zombie hitmen, would-be superhero zombies, pulp writers and protesters, Deadtown, and so much more I’d hate to give it away because it wouldn’t be as funny when you hear it (and as well as being charming, this book is always very, very funny). In short, Stony does his best to try and keep things together, even while everything (including himself) is falling apart.

This was David Marantz’s debut as an audiobook reader, but he handles it like a veteran, breathing life (or whatever passes for it with zombie protagonists) into Stony, Delia, Mr. Blunt, Captain Callhoun — and made listening to this book a total delight.

Gregory’s third novel will leave you wondering why his other two aren’t out in audio already, and will leave you eager for whatever he does next.

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Dave Thompson is the host and co-editor of PodCastle, the fantasy fiction audio magazine. His own fiction has been published by Bull Spec and Apex Magazine, among others. You can follow him on Twitter @krylyr.

February goes out with quite a splash, with T. C. McCarthy’s Exogene: The Subterrene Trilogy, Book 2, Michael Swanwick’s Dancing with Bears: A Darger and Surplus Novel, Sergey and Marina Dyachenko’s The Scar, and Elizabeth Hand’s Available Dark.

EXOGENE: Read by Bahni Turpin for Blackstone Audio and released concurrently with the mass market and e-book from Orbit, Exogene sets up as a much more traditional military sf novel than did the author’s debut, 2011’s Germline. Germline was read by Donald Corren, and was a drug-addled war journalism narrative, glossing a bit over technical details whether of weaponry, mech suits (other than detailing a bit of the waste system), or of the eponymous genetic engineering.

Here, Exogene shares only the setting — a near future war over mineral resources in Kazakhstan and its surrounds — and a first person perspective. The voice has changed, as has the narrator’s attention to technical detail. Turpin shows us the Subterene War from the point of view of Catherine, one of the genetically-engineered soldiers used by the United States and its allies. We find out some technical details of her flechette rifle such as its capacity, speed, and firepower. We find out more about the science and psychology and training behind the Germline project, and the lives, loves, and losses of women who were more shallowly perceived by the aforementioned drug-addled male journalist in the first book. This is not to say that there aren’t a few missteps: in the first quarter of the audiobook, some post-production artifacts remain from re-recordings for corrected pronunciations, though they aren’t too distracting. And for my money, though this was admittedly a review copy, some of the emotional impact of these losses don’t appear fully realized or felt. (Though, again, there are drugs and psychological conditioning at work.) But overall Turpin does a quite capable job here of bringing the “girls” (16-18 year olds) to a richer life, amidst a wider and richer cast of characters than inhabited the close quarters of Germline. Turpin’s turn at Russian (and other accents) are mostly well done, easily besting recent attempts from other non-native narrators (Malcolm Hillgartner’s forgettable tries at Russian, Hungarian, and Chinese accents in Neal Stephenson’s Reamde for example) though at times the closing words of sentences lose their flavor. It’s a good thing Turpin can handle her Russians, because we see quite a few of them, and hear a fair bit of Russian along the way towards discovering what it is the Russians are up to, exogentically. (If you’re guessing “exoskeleton”, you’re on the right track.)While Germline spent quite a bit of the capital of sf ideas for the world of the Subterrene War and had a more unique voice, Exogene sees McCarthy come a bit more into his powers of plot, and already leaves me wondering on where he’ll go with the trilogy’s conclusion, Chimera, due out in August. More info: 4 short films at The Subterrene War Clips website present fictional interviews.

DANCING WITH BEARS: Read by the always amazing Stefan Rudnicki for Audible Fontiers, this book was first published by Night Shade Books on May 17, 2011. I haven’t read this one yet, so I’ll pass along Jeff VanderMeer’s thoughts in his “dozen of the best from 2011” year-in-review for Locus: ”In this daring post-utopian novel complete with dangerously weird robots, con-men Darger and Surplus are on their way to Russia, having quite “innocently” acquired a caravan delivering a priceless gift from the Caliph of Baghdad to the Duke of Muscovy. Once they reach Moscow, an absurd level of intrigue, revolution, and double-crossing occurs. Fritz Leiber set a high bar indeed for loveable rogues with his Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series. It’s such a high bar that I find most riffs on this kind of thing tiresome and not at all witty. But Michael Swanwick has, in Dancing with Bears, provided readers with two of the narstiest and most entertaining such rogues in recent memory.”

Joined today by another new Swanwick audiobook from Audible Frontiers, Jack Faust (read by Peter Ganim), Dancing with Bears caps off no fewer than five new audiobooks pairing the publisher and author this year: The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, Stations of the Tide, and Bones of the Earth on Feb 7 being the other three.

THE SCAR: I’ve already used up far too much space above the fold, but all-star narrator Jonathan Davis brings this Russian bestseller to audio concurrently with the hardcover and e-book from Tor. (Its release is heralded enough that Audible prepared a new mini-feature on translations in audio for the occasion.) Compared to Robin Hobb, Michael Moorcock, and Patrick Rothfuss, this Sword in the Stone winner comes across the language divide bearing a starred review in Kirkus for its “rich, vivid, tactile prose, with a solid yet unpredictable plot—and an extraordinary depth and intensity of character reminiscent of the finest Russian literature”, and narrated by commensurate pro Davis (Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Alchemist and The Windup Girl being just two of my favorites of his narrations), this one makes for quite the crowded end of February for me.

AVAILABLE DARK: Narrated by Carol Monda for Audible, Inc., Hand returns to the crime novel ouvre she nearly perfected with Generation Loss. Published in print by Minotaur Books on Feb 14, it’s an unexpected surprise on a day which had its share of unexpected absences.

ALSO OUT TUESDAY:

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Last month the blog welcomed contributor Dave Thompson with his review of Tim Powers’s The Stress of Her Regard, read by Simon Vance. Today he returns with another review, setting his ears on Viriconium by M. John Harrison, read by Vance for Neil Gaiman Presents:

Review by Dave Thompson: “A Not As Young Man’s Return Journey to Viriconium”

I have been to Viriconium once before – and appropriately – I find that the landscape of the city seems to have shifted since the last time I was here. Sometimes, it’s a bit difficult to find your way around, because as author M. John Harrison once stated, Viriconium is a place that cannot be mapped. It is its own mythology.

Viriconium is three novels and a collection of short stories. The first book – The Pastel City was my favorite last time, and might still be. It’s a tale of technological wastelands millennia in the future, filled with heroes, villains, princesses, and magic. It had lightsabers – baans, or energy swords, years before Star Wars came out. It has teagus-Cromis, the finest swordsman in the land, who was an even better poet. It’s a straightforward epic fantasy that isn’t a doorstop, and it’s the epitome of cool.

A Storm of Wings is the second novel, and Harrison makes some incredibly interesting choices, working very hard to do something radically different than he did the last time he brought us here. It’s a difficult listen at times because instead of fighting monsters, the heroes of the story are fighting something that ends up being much more abstract. It’s the longest of the stories, and it feels the longest. That said, it might also be the one I’m most eager to revisit.

The third novel is In Viriconium. Again, very different from the two that went before it, but this time the experiment is a glorious one – like watching the Coen Brothers make an urban fantasy farce riffing on epic fantasy tropes. It’s laugh-out-loud hilarious at one moment, then deeply disturbing in the next.

Then we get to Viriconium Nights, the short story collection, which is really interesting. Occasionally, characters from the previous books appear, but not always, and almost never quite how we remember them. Here is where Viriconium truly becomes an unmapped city – where all the contradictions of what’s come before in its history and characters are put on display. 

Simon Vance is our tour guide through all this, showing off the different existences of a world, and tying them all together. He does a fantastic job reading Harrison’s stories.

It’s challenging, yes. It might even be frustrating. But I’ll be damned if I’m not already fantasizing about a return trip.

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Dave Thompson is the host and co-editor of PodCastle, the fantasy fiction audio magazine. His own fiction has been published by Bull Spec and Apex Magazine, among others. You can follow him on Twitter @krylyr.

What: Mistborn: The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson, narrated by Michael Kramer for Macmillan Audio on 9 CDs, with bonus PDF of The Elendel Daily

How: Review copy requested from Macmillan Audio after seeing it as a loose-leaf late insert in their catalog.

Why: I’ve heard a lot of praise for Sanderson’s Mistborn novels and really enjoyed hearing him read from (and talk about) The Way of Kings in person in the fall of 2010, where I got a chance to talk to him a little and turned the event into an article in Bull Spec #3. I missed the 1-credit introductory price for The Way of Kings (asleep at the switch, alas) but eventually listened to Elantris and really found the magic system compelling. I’ve also enjoyed the episodes of his Writing Excuses podcast, and following his forays into fantasy literature conversations on reddit, where he comments as mistborn. (And where he’s just spent time answering questions about The Alloy of Law for the Fantasy Bookclub.) I haven’t actually read his Wheel of Time novels yet, either. I was starting to get curious about The Alloy of Law and asked Sanderson if the previous trilogy was required reading. When he said no, and the title showed up in Macmillan’s catalog, I decided to go ahead and see if he was right. (He was, but more about that later.)

The Story:

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I’m pleased to welcome a new regular contributor to the Audible SF/F blog: Dave Thompson. While we have plans (a podcast? two-contributor reviews?) he’s starting out with a review of The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers, read by Simon Vance for Blackstone Audio. Out in April of 2011, the novel was originally published in print in 1989 by Ace Hardcover. A new book, Hide Me Among the Graves: A Novel is due out in March from William Morrow.

Review by Dave Thompson

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