Showing posts with label Audiobooks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Audiobooks. Show all posts

Friday, January 26, 2024

Karen S. Wiesner: Combating Big Book Overwhelm with Audiobooks or {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, A Fractalverse Novel by Christopher Paolini


Combating Big Book Overwhelm with Audiobooks or

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review:

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, A Fractalverse Novel

by Christopher Paolini

by Karen S. Wiesner


Within an extensive article I wrote called "Presentation is King", previously published on the Alien Romances Blog, I talked about Christopher Paolini's first science fiction mega-novel, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, which was the first offering in his Fractalverse series, and provided a review for it. While I thought the novel was well-written, I complained about the obscene length that overwhelmed my basic enjoyment of the story. You can read the article here:

               Part 1: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2022/12/karen-s-wiesner-presentation-is-king.html

               Part 2: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2022/12/karen-s-wiesner-presentation-is-king_01963401706.html

               Part 3: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2022/12/karen-s-wiesner-presentation-is-king_02089261396.html

The weird thing is, I wanted to love that book wholeheartedly instead of just liking it but fervently wished it'd been published as three, manageable, separate stories (which it could so easily have been, given the way the book was conveniently divided into several parts) instead of a massive one. That way my overwhelmed brain could have enjoyed it more.

Within my three-part article, I also talked about Paolini's other series, The Inheritance Cycle, which suffered from the same problem. His stories are too big to allow true immersion and would be so much better presented in multiple parts, allowing the reader time between to recover from the page-overloaded, detail-heavy material. This brings to my mind my favorite fantasy series. Most people who love this genre know that J.R.R. Tolkien intended The Lord of the Rings to be one, exceptionally long novel. Wisely, I think, his publisher thought one book would be cost prohibitive and also they wanted to get the material to eager readers faster, so they turned one book into a trilogy. I might never have read that book--my all-time favorite fantasy--if not for the brilliant presentation. As one volume, I would have been instantly intimidated and deterred from even starting it. Instead, we now have three installments, presented in a way that allows readers to enjoy segments of the story without becoming overwhelmed by the sheer size of the material and ponderous details that need to be absorbed to follow it.

I wondered in the time since I wrote the article/review for To Sleep in a Sea of Stars what other people thought of the book. I found a review by Lotte on The Escape Velocity Collection website, which amused me, though it was a bit too harsh in my opinion--however, I didn't fully disagree with the conclusions drawn. You can read Lotte's review here, if you want: https://escapevelocitycollection.com/fiction-fix-to-sleep-in-a-sea-of-stars/.

Two things stood out for me in that review. First, that the reviewer felt Paolini was a good writer and wanted to love To Sleep… just like I did but didn't quite get there. The second thing that stood out was in the very first sentence of the review: "…I've been listening to the audiobook of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars…" This is how the reviewer managed to get through the enormous amount of material without giving up out of exhaustion. I think one of the biggest reasons people prefer to watch a movie over reading the book is because it's just so much easier to grasp the concepts in that visual form. What may be hard to wade through and grasp in a dense, overloaded read is simpler to see and comprehend playing out on a screen. The brain pulls everything together in a different way that doesn't lead to fatigue, the way it might in reading. I think audiobooks may also provide another means of making sense of a tremendous amount of material--not quite as visual as a film, but I was hopeful this was an avenue that could help my brain fatigue with some large books that I genuinely wanted to love.

I thought about it for months and finally decided to start 2024 with a new willingness to listen to audiobooks, which I confess I tend to think of as cheating for a true reader. But if the sole reason I'm avoiding certain books I know I'd enjoy if they were presented in a different way is because the size overwhelms me, why not try?

The best time for me to listen to an audiobook is while getting ready for the day in the morning as well as while I'm doing household chores at various points throughout the day. Normally, I listen to music during those times, which I'd miss, but it seemed like a worthwhile, temporary swap. I'm not a fan of downloaded audio files, in part because I want something tangible for my money that can be utilized even when technology changes, as it inevitably does and would. Finding cd audiobooks wasn't easy (Amazon doesn't seem to carry them, that I found anyway--only offers Audible.com files, and Barnes and Noble has the same issue) but I did manage to purchase audio cds elsewhere for To Sleep in a Sea of Stars as well as all of Paolini's Inheritance Cycle titles, including the brand new offering in that series, Murtagh, Book 5. I started with Eragon, Book 1, since I received that first. I enjoyed listening each day and looked forward to progressing in the story. As soon as I got the audio cds of To Sleep…, though, I switched to that.

This is a much, much better way of digesting Paolini's brilliant Fractalverse, a way that doesn't strain my brain and make me share in Lotte's hilarious, wearied weeping for reprieve: "Please save me. This book is legitimately 900 pages long and I don't deserve this." Thus far, incorporating audiobooks into my "reading" is a revelation for this diehard, traditional bibliophile. I never would have realized what a difference it would make in dealing with what could otherwise be considered an agonizing endeavor in reading a book too big to be believed.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars was well-written with exciting and compelling, well-developed characters and plot conflicts, with plenty of universe and contextual detail to make everything logical. I love science fiction, and, when combined with horror…forget about it. Win-win. I do admit with To Sleep…, I wanted more Alien, less Enemy Mine (Dennis Quaid). Regardless, the bottom line is that I highly recommend not just To Sleep… but the whole Fractalverse series to any fantasy and sci-fi lover. I especially enjoyed listening to Jennifer Hale read To Sleep… with the audiobook. Like Paolini, I'm a huge fan of Mass Effect, and Jennifer Hale was the voice actress for fem Shep in that videogame series. I also learned that Hale, with music producer Todd Herfindal, wrote and performed some beautiful music for To Sleep… Find out more here: https://fractalverse.net/works/music-to-sleep/. If you want to dig deeper into anything in the Fractalverse Universe, Paolini's website has a ton of visuals and explanations for anything from lifeforms to star systems, organizations and religions, as well as a fairly detailed timeline.

There's also talk about a film adaptation or possibly a TV series of To Sleep… I strongly believe either of these would make the most of an incredible story that almost can't be enjoyed in its original format.

Over the next two weeks, I'll review Paolini's other two, subsequent offerings in his Fractalverse.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 


Thursday, March 11, 2021

Problems with Monopolies

Cory Doctorow's LOCUS article for this month delves into a lot of background about markets and monopolies that's new to me:

Free Markets

He begins by explaining that the classic threat to the free market wasn't considered to be government control, but corporate monopoly. Adam Smith in THE WEALTH OF NATIONS warns of the power of rentiers, which Doctorow defines as follows: "A rentier is someone who derives their income from 'economic rents': revenues derived from merely owning something" -- for example, a landlord. Doctorow extends this concept to companies such as Amazon and Google, "Big Tech" in general, with the power to control "access to the marketplace." A monopolist, in this view, isn't simply a corporate monolith with limited competition; it's an entity "who can set prices without regard to the market"

The primary example Doctorow focuses on is, not surprisingly, DRM. In addition to the alleged purpose of preventing copyright infringement (at which he maintains DRM utterly fails), the relevant law "felonizes removing or tampering with or bypassing DRM, even when no copyright infringement takes place." Therefore, a buyer of an e-book (such as a Kindle novel) can't read it on any device not authorized by the seller. As a result, Big Tech, not the author who owns the copyright, gets "permanent veto over how my books can be used: which devices can display them, and on what terms." However, since all e-book platforms (so far) make DRM optional, Doctorow and his publisher have the power to sell his work DRM-free.

He discusses at length the very different status of audiobooks. Amazon requires all audiobooks released through its Audible program, whether produced by Amazon itself or some other publisher, to be "wrapped in its proprietary lockware." That's something I didn't know, since I don't have any audiobooks on the market and never buy books in that medium. In response to that policy, Doctorow turned to Kickstarter to release his books in audio format, and he analyzes in detail how that project worked out. He also explains how much more complicated it is to download and play an audiobook with an independent app than to buy it through Audible. I previously had little or no awareness of the hard line the Big Tech companies take toward "noncompliant apps."

I have an ambivalent reaction toward Doctorow's stance on Amazon. In principle, I acknowledge that dominance of a market by one company isn't desirable. In practice, as a reader I love knowing I can find almost any book I've ever heard of on a single website. It's a vanishingly rare occurence when I can't find a book listed there, no matter how long out of print. I also turn to Amazon first for many items other than books, music, and visual media. I like buying from it because of its reliable, usually fast delivery and because it already has our credit card on file, so I don't have to enter the information on unfamiliar sites. As a writer, for my "orphaned" works I like the ease of self-publishing through Kindle and the fact that the vast majority of e-book buyers are likely to read the Kindle format. At least one of my publishers feels the same way, having pulled their products from all other outlets because those sales were negligible compared to Amazon sales. Yet I do understand having qualms about being at the mercy of one powerful commercial entity's whims.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Friday, January 22, 2016

A Quick Announcement

New Audiobook Release

On Amazon, you can find the audiobook on the main page for this novel, with Kindle, Trade Paperback, and links to an assortment of previous editions. Audible is offering this book free with a new subscription.

Here is the Audible page:
http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Mahogany-Trinrose-Audiobook/B01AC78R5K/

Mahogany Trinrose Audiobook

Mahogany Trinrose: Sime~Gen, Book 4

Written by: Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Narrated by: Christine Rogerson
Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins

Series: Sime-Gen, Book 4
Unabridged Audiobook

Mahogany Trinrose: Sime~Gen, Book 4

Written by: Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Narrated by: Christine Rogerson

Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins

Series: Sime-Gen, Book 4

Unabridged Audiobook

The ancient and dangerous secret of the Sime~Gen Mutation threatens to topple the ruling dynasty of the House of Zeor. How much torment can one teen girl take before the fate of the world doesn't matter to her anymore? How much psychic power can one young woman handle? What options can she create when she has no options left? And - can love truly conquer all? As the great SF writer Andre Norton said of this book: "Imaginative and outstanding. It captures the reader and won't let go."

Read more

Publisher's Summary

The ancient and dangerous secret of the Sime~Gen Mutation threatens to topple the ruling dynasty of the House of Zeor. How much torment can one teen girl take before the fate of the world doesn't matter to her anymore? How much psychic power can one young woman handle? What options can she create when she has no options left? And - can love truly conquer all? As the great SF writer Andre Norton said of this book: "Imaginative and outstanding. It captures the reader and won't let go."


©1981, 2011 Sime~Gen, Inc. (P)2016 Wildside Press, LLC

Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Reviews 5 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg E. C. Tubb's Dumarest of Terra novels

Reviews  5
by Jacqueline Lichtenberg 
E. C. Tubb's Dumarest of Terra novels


This continues the Reviews series of novels for Romance writers to study. 

Here is a Hot Science Fiction/Paranormal Romance without sex scenes and with some antiquated tech in the background.

You'd think the "Mixed Genre" trend we follow on this blog was a new thing.

It is not.

And it didn't exactly start with my Sime~Gen novels -- though they pushed the limits way farther than anything before.

In the mid-1950's Marion Zimmer Bradley gained considerable note for her first sale, a short story published in a magazine.  It had characters and a relationship driven plot.

But at the same time some of the male writers were exploring just how "real" they could make their characters and the relationships in their stories.  Hal Clement caught on with Mission of Gravity where the "Relationship" between a male (sort of) Alien on a high gravity planet and the human male on the high gravity surface in a capsule could relate to each other to solve a technical problem.

During that same era, E. C. Tubb made me a lifelong fan.  I read his Dumarest of Terra novels with that "Yes, but ..." response most women had.  But I was just sent an audiobook version of The Winds of Gath (Dumarest of Terra #1) and was blown away by it.

The Winds of Gath is an example of the very best MODERN Science Fiction Romance --  because it has the really Hot Hero (Dumarest).  It also has a character that reminds me of the Grandmother in C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner novels.  It does have the "damsel in distress" character but that character is the "Grandmother" character's protege and great-granddaughter so you can guess just how much damsel there is in that distress.

Here it is on audible:
http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-Winds-of-Gath-Audiobook/B00EUE9ULC
And here it is on Amazon -- you can get the collector's old original first edition, or the Wildside e-book or paper reprint:

http://www.amazon.com/Winds-Gath-Dumarest-Terra-Book/dp/0441893023/

Wikipedia says WINDS OF GATH was first published in 1968, but I think it's older than that, and someone picked up a reprint that didn't credit the older edition (common practice).

Here's the wikipedia entry with a list of the 33 novels:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumarest_saga#Books

I have long been a fan of E. C. Tubb -- especially Dumarest of Terra.  But I read them in used ACE Double paperbacks years ago, tucked the author and title names into my GREAT-WONDERFUL-ALWAYS-RECOMMEND list, and went on with my own writing career. 

Little did I know that having forgotten the details in these novels, I would incorporate some of them into my own Sime~Gen Series which only began selling to the major publishers in the 1970's.

Bits and pieces of elements you will find in THE WINDS OF GATH turn up oddly in some of my other novel series.  So if you've found my novels intriguing, you should check out the DUMAREST OF TERRA series then look for how it inspired other writers. 

That effect -- firing up a new generation with an urge to write stories -- is proof positive that Tubb has created a true Classic.  Dumarest lives on via the writers Tubb inspired.  And there are a lot of us. 

Recently, I was given the audiobook of THE WINDS OF GATH -- and copies of the next two in the series in audiobook -- or I probably would not have taken the time to rediscover Dumarest (a sexy hunk to die-for!). 

But the Dumarest novels are not "classic" in the sense of being a chore to read, of being a duty to your education -- they are delightfully entertaining and just plain fun.

If you write SF Romance, you will see the frustrating holes, the MISSING SCENES, and the reason that books like this inspired a whole new type of Science Fiction. 

So when I was given a review copy of the audiobook, GATH went straight to the top of my to-do list.
I am blown away!  Dumarest is sexier than I remember!  Everything I love about Modern Science Fiction Romance is present in this novel even if only by implication. 

Not only is the audiobook's reader, Rish Outfield, top-notch terrific, but the whole composition comes to life in audio because the writing is so good! 

OK, Tubb uses "tape" recording on a scientific instrument, omits cell phones or any Trek-type handheld, no warp drive (they travel in cold sleep or under some drug).  This series was started in the 1960's after all. 

Consider, though, that Tubb was lured into writing more and more of the Dumarest of Terra series for decades after that-- because it just sold and sold.  It was popular for a reason. 

It has stayed popular for a reason -- it is Mixed Genre at its very best, a 2014 novel published in the mid-1960's. 

You have a whole saga of the galaxy spread before you once you get into Book 1.  Books, 1,2, and 3 are in audiobook already.

Read these with a focus on the social issues, and issues of Character (what it takes to be a Good Person - what makes people turn really Dark -- what sorts of social orders foster what kinds of changes in people.)  The characters in the Dumarest novels are deep, multi-faceted, realistic. 

These novels are masterful explorations of the Major Social Issues of 2014 on Earth Today.  These novels give you something to think about.  Like Star Trek at its best, these novels leave you with Questions, with the essential Conundrum of Life, and a hint of what it would take to resolve that puzzle. 

So you can take what Tubb has sketched out, and add in the decorative parts expected in today's market, update the tech, and create a new universe for younger readers to explore. 

The Dumarest of Terra Series is an example of the material scorned worse than video-games are today -- a vacuous waste of time to read, something to keep your kids away from.  Kids who read this stuff were considered social outcasts. 

Guess what!  I disagreed with my elders as a kid when I was reading these books, and on rereading (well, listening), I have confirmed that I was right and they were wrong. 

Tubb's writing is both masterful craftsmanship and as profound as any of the great Classics in Latin and Greek. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com