New Reviews: Science Fiction

R.C. Bray narrates the fast-paced sixteenth entry in the Expeditionary Force series. Army soldier Joe Bishop is all but retired, making his two-star general duties pretty much nonexistent. His current assignment is a punishment for all the shenanigans he's pulled--even though he saved the world. But everything is thrown into chaos when an attempt to activate a Sentinel leads to... Read More

Kerr Lordygan narrates a fascinating science fiction tale in which a world hidden for centuries is forced to confront a conquering force. The Hidden Realm of Angolin follows a strict rule of self-imposed isolation until an enemy stirs across the Abyss. Dharmen Tate is a patriot who is struggling with loyalty after discovering a plot to betray Angolin. Lordygan plays with... Read More

Talented voice actor David Cui Cui embodies the rogue Murderbot in its second adventure. Elena Anderson embodies the computerized voice of ART, the Research Transport vessel who assists Murderbot. Pretending to be a highly augmented human, Murderbot takes on the private job of protecting a team of humans while heading back to the mining facility where it went rogue, hoping to... Read More

Torian Brackett ably portrays the members of a colorful spaceship crew in this debut adventure tale, the first of a planned series. Jal, a wary, emotionally wounded ranger, ends up aboard the Ambit, a rattletrap spaceship, with Saint, a quick-tempered XO; Nash, a sarcastic engineer/medic; and Eoan, a holographic ship-AI who loves humans. Responding to a distress call from a... Read More

Ben Arogundade does a fine job performing this collection of science-fiction short stories set in Africa. His steady voice helps listeners through the unfamiliar terrain of places and things, though there is no "coming together" of these stories as the title suggests. Each is set in its own reality. Most intriguing is "Saturday's Song," an African folktale of seven godlike... Read More

With an easy conversational style, Hollywood stalwart Brendan Fraser leads an A-list crew of fellow Canadian actors in this audiobook. At a time in the future a group of astronauts and a group of hardened criminals are placed in a cryogenic state before their minds are uploaded to a massive quantum supercomputer. Suddenly, it's 500 years later, and the collection of misfits... Read More

Murderbot's fourth adventure is brought to life by a team of talented voice actors and subtle sound effects. Murderbot has traveled far and wide through the universe in an attempt to understand itself and its programming. For a sentient robot programmed to kill, Murderbot has become surprisingly human and decides to help its owner by facing down a deadly corporation. David Cui... Read More

Reams of paperwork, tasteless breakfast cereals, and corporate branding--what else would you take to space? With his natural ease and a large dollop of deadpan silliness, Scott Brick takes the listener on the maiden voyage of the GP GALLANT two hundred light-years into the cosmos in search of untapped, uncharted sales territories. As the crew of misfits stumble upon an alien... Read More

Having a full cast along with sound effects and music should elevate an audiobook production. And multiple narrators are nearly a requirement for this densely populated second half of the second volume in Brown's Red Rising series. The audiobook's many characters orbit around Darrow (Stewart Crank), who rises to infiltrate the upper crust, seeking freedom for those in his lower... Read More

A full cast delivers an original drama from the Hellboy universe. Cynthia, an earnest reporter, investigates the disappearances of several New York elites in 1933. She calls upon the mysterious Lobster to help, but he's on his own case involving break-ins at research labs. Marni Penning shines as the narrator and the character Cynthia, imbuing the noir story with a fun sense of... Read More

Listeners will find it hard to pause this sci-fi political thriller--and unlikely love story. January is a climate refugee who has relocated to a colony on Mars. In London, he was a professional ballet dancer; on Mars, because he's dangerously "Earthstrong" in the lower gravity, he must wear a metal exoskeleton that inhibits his strength. With his British accent and confiding... Read More

The final installment in the Patternist series is actually the author's first novel, originally published in 1976. Robin Miles narrates the series. In the distant future, the world has evolved such that the Patternists are now the dominant culture. They use their telepathic powers to rule and enslave "lesser" beings. Two brothers, Coransee and Teray, vie to become the... Read More

This amalgamation of short stories, poems, and other genres defies categorization. Nancy Wu's performance follows suit, bringing a masterful versatility that marks each chapter with its own uniqueness. The collection opens with "Variations on a Theme from Turandot," in which a young slave slowly alters the narrative of the opera she acts in each night. The work that... Read More

Close your eyes (unless you're driving) and enter a dystopian world of Banshee warriors who are fighting an oppressive patriarchy in this beautifully narrated new novel, a sequel to LAST ONES LEFT ALIVE. At first, the listener may be a little overwhelmed by the complex plot; however, Esther Wane's lilting Irish accents invite them to persevere. Orpen is a strong protagonist who... Read More

Angel Pean sounds young, sweet, and tough as nails in her impressive narration of this second novel by the author of the Earphones Award-winning sci-fi debut THE SPACE BETWEEN WORLDS. Set on an alternate, perhaps future, Earth, where Wiley City residents guard their walled community from gritty Ashtown, this is both a thriller and social commentary. Scales is a mechanic and... Read More

This new production of the Chinese sci-fi epic may be Rosalind Chao's first turn as an audiobook narrator, but you'd never know it. The veteran actor navigates long stretches of speculative physics and descriptions of shocking violence as ably as she voices colloquies among the characters. Listeners who come to the work from the Netflix adaptation will find Chao's warm,... Read More

Gabrielle de Cuir and Stefan Rudnicki expressively give voice to a range of characters in this speculative novella about the environment and the nature of consciousness. In the near future, when elephants have been poached to extinction, Russian scientists have resurrected a herd of mammoths. To teach them how to be wild, their matriarch has been imbued with the consciousness... Read More