Audiobook Fix: WotF XXIII and A War of Gifts by Orson Scott Card

Audible.com is not new to publishing audio short fiction. In 2003, they published audio “Best of 2002″ collections from Asimov’s, Analog, and Fantasy & Science Fiction magazines. They followed that up with a whole year of Fantasy & Science Fiction audio goodness. Here in 2007, Audible offers another innovative audio collection: L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future, Volume XXIII, completely unabridged.

There are 13 stories here by new writers, professionally presented by several excellent narrators, including Scott Brick and Stefan Rudnicki, who are both Audie Award winners. This is the first volume of Writers of the Future that I’ve read (heard) cover-to-cover, and there wasn’t a weak story in the lot. The stories are mostly science fiction, with a few fantasies thrown in. Two stories really stood out to me.

In “The Stone Cipher” by Tony Pi (read by Stefan Rudnicki), every stone statue in the word starts to speak, in unison, silently and very slowly. Once this is noticed, cameras are brought in so that the speech can be played at normal speed. Lipreaders translate, and … it’s a countdown. The story perhaps is a little highhanded in message, but the payoff is well worth the time. Rudnicki gives the story just the right ominous tone.

Myron Willis reads “Our Last Words” by Damon Kaswell, an awe-inspiring tale about a man who is sent into the future by the military to report on the results of certain things. What he finds out leaves him quite alone, so he continues to move into the future in bigger and bigger chunks of time, resulting in things that Stephen Baxter would have proud to have written. Willis’s emotional performance gives the story even more power.

Also included are three short, nonfiction pieces intended for people interested in writing or illustrating: “Art and Communication” by L. Ron Hubbard (read by Scott Brick), “If I Only Had the Time” by Kevin J. Anderson (read by the author), and “Here’s the Thing” by Judith Miller (read by the author). In each, the author shares some of his or her experience with the hope of benefiting other writers.

The Writers of the Future contest has a sister contest, “Illustrators of the Future.” I applaud Audible for having the foresight to include a PDF file containing the illustrations for each of the stories which were created by the winners of the Illustrators competition. My only quibble is that it would have been helpful to have had the table of contents displayed somewhere in the description of the book on Audible’s site. Regardless, the quality of the stories and the quality of the narration has me hoping that there will be more of this kind of thing in the future from Audible.

[Editor’s note: During the week of November 29, 2007, Audible.com is offering a free listen to the first story, “Primetime” by Douglas Texter, also, be sure to check out The Fix’s review of the print edition of WoTF XXIII, and .]

Publisher: Galaxy Press (Sept. 2007)
Length: 15 hours 25 min.
Price: $16.46

I offer a disclaimer before writing about Orson Scott Card’s A War of Gifts. I attended his Boot Camp in 2005 but have been enjoying the audio versions of his work for many years before that. I largely avoid writing reviews of his stuff, but it’s difficult to talk about science fiction audiobooks without talking about Orson Scott Card for a couple of reasons. First, he’s one of the only science fiction authors out there that has nearly every book he’s written available in unabridged audio editions, and second, the consistent excellent quality of those audio editions is worth comment.

As far as short fiction is concerned, Card has several titles available. Fantastic Audio published two collections that are out of hard copy print, but still available on Audible: The Elephants of Posnan and Other Stories and Angles and Other Stories. Audio Renaissance has published the entire Ender Saga, which includes the collection of Ender stories called First Meetings, and now they’ve added this new novella.

A War of Gifts is read by Stefan Rudnicki and Scott Brick in a style that is common in all of Card’s audio editions. Multiple narrators take turns reading, switching at changes in point of view in the story. This is a very effective way to enhance the listener’s ability to follow the story, as long as all the narrators are good. Which they certainly are—here in A War of Gifts and in all Card’s audio fiction.

A War of Gifts is a story that takes place at Battle School while Ender Wiggin was there. The main character is a boy named Zeck Morgan, the son of a zealous Christian minister. (Incidentally, Brick plays a stunning zealous Christian minister…) Zeck is sent to Battle School against his pacifistic wishes. Holidays are forbidden at the Battle School, so when some Dutch students find a small way to celebrate Sinterklaas Day, Zeck’s beliefs force him to act. This is a touching story, presented near perfectly.

Publisher: Audio Renaissance (2007)
Audio CD: $13.57
ISBN: 1593976313
Audio download: $13.97
Length: 2 hours 26 min.