2011 Hugo Award Nominee, 2010 BSFA Award Finalist, 2010 Shirley Jackson Award Nominee, 2010 Parsec Award Finalist for Best Speculative Fiction Story, 2011 Finalist: the Locus Award for Best Short Story, 2011 Theodore Sturgeon Award Nominee
The first half of this month's audio fiction is The Things written Peter Watts and read by Kate Baker.
Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 40 - The Things by Peter Watts [53:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (17320)
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Peter Watts is an awkward hybrid of biologist and science-fiction author, known for pioneering the technique of appending extensive technical bibliographies onto his novels; this serves both to confer a veneer of credibility and to cover his ass against nitpickers. Described by the Globe & Mail as one of the best hard-sf authors alive, his debut novel (Starfish) was a NY Times Notable Book. His most recent (Blindsight)- a rumination on the nature of consciousness which actually became a required text in occasional undergrad courses on philosophy and neuropsych - made the final ballot for a whole shitload of genre awards including the Hugo, winning exactly none of them (although it has won multiple awards in Poland). This may reflect a certain critical divide regarding Watts' work in general; his bipartite novel behemoth, for example, was praised by Publisher's Weekly as an "adrenaline-charged fusion of Clarke's The Deep Range and Gibson's Neuromancer" and "a major addition to 21st-century hard SF", while being simultaneously decried by Kirkus as "utterly repellent" and "horrific porn". (Watts happily embraces the truth of both views.) His work has been extensively translated, and both Watts and his cat have appeared in the prestigious journal Nature.
Watts is currently working on a number of projects, including a sidequel to Blindsight, and fighting bogus criminal charges trumped up by the US Border Patrol. Depending both on the success of these latter efforts and the diligence with which you follow Clarkesworld, he may be in jail by the time you read this.
Website:
rifters.com
My first visit to Clarkesworld, and I get to hear an excellent audio rendition of a story by one of my favorite writers. Containing my joy will be difficult. Thanks to Kate Baker for the subtle, deliciously inflected reading. I will return -- with any luck, accompanied by monetary support for this fine website.
Wow! I've heard some good audio fiction before. I've heard audio fiction that expanded on favorite, even beloved works of art or literature. But this is the first time that I've heard (or read) a story that actually improved--*fixed*, even--the work from which it stems!
Beautifully written, cerrtainly. And another excellent reading by Kate. One person commented about the text story that it was poetic. I agree with that. Except, unlike good poetry, I felt it was too long and rather belaboured its point. Pesonally I felt it would have worked better at a shorter length. But I may be completely wrong about what Mr Watts was trying to do. He is absolutely a terrific writer. And a reworking of a classic story from another protagonist's point of view has been done before, but The Thing was a really surprising project to tackle in this way. On the other hand, it contained many great concepts and ideas - the idea of the human brain being a thinking cancer was absolutely brilliant! And the ideas kept coming. I applaud that in a science fiction story.