Terry’s Page Stephen’s Page
Category: Audiobook
The Long Earth — Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
The Jaguar House, in Shadow — Aliette de Bodard
I recently came upon Aliette’s book, The Tea Master and the Detective, which i very much enjoyed and, as i mentioned in that review, i was going to be reading more from Aliette in the future.
So off i went to Aliette’s website to find out more about “The Universe of Xuya”, and so began my hunt to track down each of these stories from years ago and hopefully read them all in chronological order. Before beginning to read, or listen to, these books, it is best to go to that page and have a good read through the background to Xuya and bring yourself up to speed with how everything is in this alternative past/future that Aliette has created.
And so in The Jaguar House, in Shadow we begin our Xuya journey. This story was originally printed in Asimov’s, July 2010 edition, and if you feel inclined i’m sure you can go and buy a second hand copy at your usual second hand places. It’s also in the collection Of Wars, and Memories, and Starlight. Or, instead, you could simply listen to the audio book at StarShipSofa.
If you want to skip all the intro stuff just skip through to 23:58, where the story begins. The narration is by Morag Edwards and it is absolutely delightful and gives the story a wonderful other worldly quality. Admittedly, i listened to this in bed in the pitch dark with the speaker just above my head, and i fully recommend everyone in the whole wide world giving this a go.
Even if you’re not into doing the whole Xuya thing, this is delightful audio book that is soooo well worth a listen simply for its own sake.
Next up: Fleeing Tezcatlipoca.
Aliette’s Page
#scifi #aliettedebodard
Jeff Wayne’s The War of The Worlds — H. G. Wells
Wooohooo…. finally, an audiobook gets to make an appearance on Kindleworm, whatever next?
If you go to Audible you get a 30 day free trial and you’re allowed to keep the audiobook you chose. I chose this because i remember the original Jeff Wayne double album from years gone by; yeah, real vinyl played on a record player and all that — showing my age here. Anyway, i got this because i thought it was like a super extended full story version of that.
It’s a bit of an annoyance as you can only listen to it using the “Audible App”, but you can still listen to your audio book after you cancel your free trial membership as long as you keep the app cluttering up your chosen device.
So onto the review:
As i said above, i got this because i really liked the original version from way back in the long ago and i genuinely thought that this was a super extended version of that, but it isn’t.
It’s a completely redone thing with different actors — sorry ladies, no David Essex on this one:
And worse of all, there’s none of the original music. No songs whatosever. Just crappy remade, piecemeal versions of the original music playing in the background and foreground far too occasionally — and, worse of all, without any lyrics whatsoever.
Sadly, i’m very disappointed with the whole thing. It’s basically a simple radio play of the book with some mood music thrown in.
It would have been superb if the original double album had been built up with the full story, but alas, it wasn’t to be.
So my first attempt at an audio book, after all these years of resistance, has ended in woe.
Final thoughts: if you enjoyed and loved the original version you’ll probably not like this at all — especially if you liked, loved, or had a schoolgirl/boy crush on, David Essex. 
H. G. Wells’s Page