Care to finish your Father’s Day festivities with a live Murder at Avedon Hill event?! At 10 pm Eastern time (GMT -05:00) on Sunday, June 15th, I will be hosting a live video podcast event. I will be performing a live reading of Episode 24 (Chapter 23). For those that cannot attend, the audio version of ep. 24 will be released that same day.

To attend:

You can view the live event on the Video pagefor MaAH. For those that would like to use the more intuitive Ustream interface, watch the event at the MaAH Channel on Ustream.tv

Jules Vernes Roman führt uns in das fiktive Städtchen Quiquendone. Hier ticken die Uhren besonders langsam und es bedarf schon mal Jahrzehnte, bevor der Stadtrat eine Entscheidung fällt. Als Doctor Ox auftaucht, eine stadtweite Beleutungsanlage installieren, und auch die Kosten hierzu größtenteils übernehmen will, billigt der Stadrat das Vorhaben erstaunlich schnell. Aber ist dieser Doctor Ox nun wirklich so ein uneigennütziger Mensch, oder führt er nicht doch irgendetwas im Schilde? (Summary by Dirk Weber)

• e-text
• Wikipedia - Jules Verne (Deutsch)
• Wikipedia - Jules Verne (English)
• Wikipedia - Une fantaisie du docteur Ox (in English)
• LibriVox’s Eine Idee des Doctor Ox Internet Archive page
• Zip file of the entire book (81 MB)

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 v. Chr.-65 n. Chr.) gibt stoische Grundsätze zum Tod und zur Trauer. Übersetzung durch Albert Forbiger (1798-1878) von 1867.
(Zusammenfassung von redaer)

This reading is in German.

• Zeno e-text
• Wikipedia - Seneca
• Wikipedia - Ad Marciam de Consolatione
• LibriVox’s Trostschrift an Marcia Internet Archive page
• Zip file of the entire book 74.7MB

“The Rookie” is set amongst a lethal pro football league 700 years in the future. Aliens play positions based on physiology, creating receivers that jump 25 feet into the air, linemen that bench-press 1,200 pounds, and linebackers that — literally — want to eat you. Organized crime runs every franchise, games are fixed and rival players are assasinated.

Follow the story of Quentin Barnes, a 19-year-old quarterback prodigy that has been raised all his life to hate, and kill, those aliens. Quentin must deal with his racism and learn to lead, or hell wind up just another stat in the column marked “killed on the field.”

My Review

What we have here is a high SciFi story blended with equal parts of “The Godfather” and the best sports movie you ever watched. It’s a high action story and I dont just mean sports action. From early on the listener is drawn into the worlds of the future by the characters who leap to life with their personal stories that let us know how harsh their version of the future is.

The lead character starts as a talented racist ( towards alien races ) thrown into a sports team made up predominently of aliens. This gives us an amusing situation which the author never fails to bring into sharp focus.

The story as you might expect from a sports story builds through the entire story towards a climatic bloodthirsty sports ending.

The story includes lots of violence and blood and not all of it the aliens so be warned this isn’t one you want to share with the kids.

Scott Sigler the author has excelled himself in producing this his 3rd audio book. As well as using the voices he has so succesfully used before, he has expanded into excellently applied sound effects. He’s managed to bring the worlds of his invention to life with a sound so rich that other audio books literally pale by comparison, even his other audio books.

In Summary, I loved this book.

Reading 3/3
Production 3/3
Story 3/3

Total Score 9/9

Available from Podiobooks.

Another wonderful independent book store bites the dust … Jay’s Bookstall has been an important fixture in Pittsburgh’s literary community for almost 50 years. We’re sad to see it go, even if it’s due to natural causes.