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Show Notes – Episode #98 “The Final Frontier”

Shannon and Matt — Fri, 13 May 2011 00:07:20 +0000

We are finishing up the Seattle Geekly podcast by doing one of the things we have enjoyed most: talking to authors. This week we have interviews with Peter Orullian about his first novel The Unremembered and Chris Farnsworth about The President’s Vampire, the second book in his horror/spy thriller series

Plus Shannon watches her final bad movie and since this is the last episode of the podcast we’ll be running down a list of other places you can go on the internet to get your geek fix.

Our Geek Week

Read Yarn by Jon Armstrong
Read The Reapers Are the Angels by Alden Bell
Read first collection of Matt Fraction‘s run on Invincible Iron Man
Caught up with trade collections of Air by G. Willow Wilson
Finished Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
Epic Game Day
Saw Thor in the theater
Free Comic Book Day with Paper Windows at Top Pot and Arcane Comics

Author Talk

Peter Orullian

Christopher Farnswoth

Get Your Geek Fix

GENERAL GEEK MADNESS

MUSIC

Radio Free Hipster/Hipster, please!

BAD MOVIES

Mail Order Zombie

COMICS

Backroom Comics

VIDEO GAMES

WARCRAFT

Music

Music this week was ‘Meantime’ by Adam WarRock, it’s one of the many free tracks you can download from his website and you can also buy his album The War For Infinity off Bandcamp. You also heard ‘It All Makes Sense At the End’ by Molly Lewis from her EP I Made You a CD But I Eated It

Monday News Roundup 04/25

Matt — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 16:46:52 +0000

The big convention weekend has come and gone and, as far as I can tell, Seattle survived! Attendence numbers for Sakura-Con and Norwescon were both impressive, though on very different scales. Sakura-Con topped out at over 19,000 and Norwescon had it’s largest convention ever with 3,600 attendees. We spent the whole weekend at Norwescon and had an amazing time which we will be talking about in some detail in this week’s podcast!

The Monday News is under the fold.

Books

The British Science Fiction Association Award winners were announced this weekend at Eastercon. The winners are:
- Best Novel: The Dervish House by Ian McDonald
- Best Short Fiction: ‘The Shipmaker’ by Aliette de Bodard
- Best Art: Cover for Zoo City by Joey Hi-Fi
- Best Non-Fiction: ‘Blogging the Hugos’ by Paul Kincaid

The winner of the Philip K. Dick Award was also announced this weekend at our very own Norwescon. The award went to The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder, with a special citation to Harmony by Project Itoh. The award cerimony was live-streamed to the Internet for the first time ever this year and the response was good enough that it will most likely be streamed again next year.

Last but not least in awards news, the Hugo nominees were announced this weekend at a joint ceremony held at Norwescon and Eastercon. The nominees include:
The full list of nominees is available at the Worldcon 69 Website.

Amazon announced in a press release that “Library Lending”, a new feature launching later this year, will allow Kindle customers to borrow Kindle books from over 11,000 libraries in the United States. Kindle Library Lending will be available for all generations of Kindle devices and free Kindle reading apps. No specific release date was given.

Comics

Greg Rucka announced in an audio interview with Stumptown Trade Review that he will be creating a new steampunk webcomic. Titled Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Ether the comic will feature art by Eisner Award winner Rick Burchett and will be a “steampunk, pirates, western thing” with airships, floating islands, gunslingers and sword fights. Rucka said that this was planned to be an ongoing series and that he hoped to launch in July.

Tabletop

WizKids has announced the upcomming release of a series of Street Fighter Heroclix. The series will include a starter pack with Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Dhalsim, Blanka and Guile and will also have 21 additional Clix including M. Bison and E. Honda. , the starter set will retail for $19.99 and individual figures will be priced at $2.99. The Street Fighter set will, of course, be compatable with the entire HeroClix line and is scheduled to be in stores this August.

Video Games

Sony’s PlayStation Network has been down since Wednesday due to “an external intrusion.” The netwrok was not crashed but was turned off by Sony in order to “conduct a thorough investigation and to verify the smooth and secure operation of network services going forward” according to the announcement on the Playstation Blog. As of this morning the network remains down and the most recent entry posted by Senior Director of Corporate Communications and Social Media Patrick Seybold says that “I don’t have an update or timeframe to share at this point in time” as far as when service might return.

Wednesday Reviews – Other Kingdoms, Deathless and Dark Jenny

Shannon and Matt — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:41:46 +0000

With the relocation of the Seattle Geekly HQ safely behind us and a brief break in the convention schedule we’ve been able to catch up a bit on our reading. We have reviews of three books this week; Shannon reviews Other Kingdoms by Richard Matheson and Matt reviews Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente and Dark Jenny by Alex Bledsoe.

Other Kingdoms is the newest book by renown genre fiction author Richard Matheson, perhaps best know for I am Legend. It’s been close to ten years since his last published work, so this one has been highly anticipated.

The story is narrated by octogenarian Arthur White (aka Arthur Black) about his time in 1918-1919 in a magical “Other Kingdom” in northern Britain. The story starts having Arthur seeing the last of World War I, and being told to go to Gatford, the hometown of someone he saw die in the trenches. What Arthur doesn’t realize is that his life in Gatford will include witches, fairies, griffins and other fairytale creatures.

Supposedly written in 1982 by Arthur White, the narrator brings up differences between the early 1900’s and the “modern” time. It’s almost as if you’re reading a journal rather than being told the story.

It’s obvious that Matheson is a skilled storyteller and his style comes through strong in this book. The language and cadence of his words are there just as they were in I am Legend and his other works. This is one of those books I would’ve loved to read on my Nook, to look up words for me.

Many genre fiction authors, including Stephen King and Dean Koontz, have named Matheson as an influence,. If you’re a fan of Matheson this would be a great one to pick up. If you haven’t read any of his work, pick this up then go back and read his earlier books.

Other Kingdoms by Richard Matheson was published Tor and is available in hardback with a cover price of $24.99

Deathless is Catherynne M. Valente‘s tribute to, and re-interpretation of Russian folklore. Many of the figures that appear will be immediately recognized by anyone familiar with Eastern European fairy tales but the setting has been updated to the early 20th century. It tells the story of Marya Morevna, a young girl growing up in St. Petersburg in the time immediately before the Communist revolution of 1917. Marya is unique among her sisters in that she is aware of the magical world that still exists around and behind everyday reality. She sits at her window and watches as a series of birds drop out of the sky to become young men intent on marrying her sisters, she speaks with the domovoi, or house spirits, that live in her family’s home and she unintentionally summons Likho, a spirit of bad fortune in the form of an of an old, one eyed woman, who gives her a book containing the history of the mythological world around her.

Marya’s adventures take her through the tumultuous post-revolutionary period in Russia all the way through World War II in the real world and through a sometimes violent and frightening courtship with Koschei, the Tsar of Life in the fairy tale world. The troubles of real-world Russia are mirrored in the fairy tale world where Koschei is locked in an endless war with his brother Viy, the Tsar of Death. Marya is faced with the choice of abandoning her humanity and living out her life in the fairy world or betraying her friends and loved ones and remaining human.

Catherine M. Valente does an amazing job of giving Deathless the feel of a traditional folk tale, both through language and the structure of the story. She also does a good job of providing context and exposition for those of us that might not be as familiar with Russian history and folklore as we might be. I did feel like I might have gotten more out of the book if I had known the mythology better, but I certainly didn’t have any trouble keeping up with the story in spite of my lack of knowledge.

Put Deathless on your list. It is an original novel with strong roots in traditional storytelling and it is an extremely enjoyable read.

Deathless by Catherine M. Valente was published by Tor and is available in hardback with a cover price of $24.99

Dark Jenny is the third of Alex Bledsoe‘s Eddie LaCrosse mysteries. The books are a hard boiled detective novels in a fantasy setting. The protagonist, Eddie LaCrosse is a former mercenary turned “sword jockey”, a sort of medieval private investigator, who solves mysteries for his clients for twenty five gold pieces a day plus expenses. LaCrosse has all the characteristics of the traditional noir detective, he is an honorable man in a dishonorable profession with a clear and uncompromising moral code. The big difference is that in addition to dealing with the usual gangsters and femmes fatales he has to deal with magic, knights and nobles.

The Eddie LaCrosse novels so far have been written as stand alone stories with a small cast of recurring characters. Dark Jenny starts with LaCrosse receiving delivery of a coffin, sent to him by a figure from his past. The story is told mostly as a flashback to LaCrosse’s time investigating a murder in the kingdom of Gand Braun, a Camelot-like oasis of peace and justice in an otherwise chaotic world. The plot borrows heavily from Aurthurian legends but with enough twists that even those familiar with the mythology will still have a couple of surprises.

The mystery is very well written. I think it is probably quite a challenge to write a murder mystery set in a world where magic is a possibility but Bledsoe pulls it off. There are elements of magic in the story but they are incorporated well without being too deus ex machina.

The problem for me came in the combination of fantasy and noir. Both elements of the story were elegantly written but mixing them together was a little jarring at times. A lot of the dialog is very modern sounding with lots of contemporary slang and phrasing. It kind of put me in mind of the movie A Knight’s Tale with Heath Ledger and it’s medieval story set to a modern soundtrack. Fortunately the mystery in the book was compelling enough that I kept turning pages in spite of rolling my eyes at some of the more rough patches in the mix.

Dark Jenny was a fun, fast read and if you can get yourself caught up in the story enough to overlook some of the anachronisms it is entirely worthwhile.

Dark Jenny by Alex Bledsoe is published by Tor and is available in trade paperback with a cover price of $14.99

Monday News Roundup 03/28

Matt — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 16:33:27 +0000

- Kick off your week with a roundup of the geek news you may have missed -

From the “almost entirely self-serving news” department, tabletop gamer geeks in the Greater Seattle area will be pleased to hear that event submissions for Epic Game Day 2 are now open! If you want to host a game at the event, head over to EpicGameDay.com and fill out one of the event submission forms. There are some very nice perks for those who volunteer to be GMs including, but not limited to, a free menu item and (non-alcoholic) drink voucher at AFK Tavern where the event is being held. Epic Game Day will take place April 30th and is absolutely FREE!

The rest of the Monday News is under the fold

Anime

Japanator is reporting that Sentai Filmworks will be releasing Angel Beats! on Blu-ray and DVD in the U.S. for the first time. Angel Beats! follows the adventures of Otonashi, Yuri, and Angel, three students at a high school that is actually a Purgatory where students learn to give up any lingering attachments they still have from life before continuing to an afterlife or reincarnation. The series was written by Jun Maeda and directed by Seiji Kishi. It originally ran in Japan between April and June of last year.

Books

‘Shada’, the Doctor Who episode written by Douglas Adams which was never completely filmed and never aired, is being adapted into a novel by Dr. Who and Sara Jane Adventures writer Gareth Roberts according to SFX. The episode was intended to be the final serial of the 1979-80 series with the fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, but production was interrupted by a strike at the BBC and it was never completed. Pieces of the footage that was shot were used in ‘The Five Doctors’ and Adams re-used some of the elements of the plot in Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. The novelization is scheduled to be released in march of 2012.

Movies

Those who listened to the interview with Brian Herbet and Kevin J. Anderson that was in Episode #94 of our podcast will have heard Brian Herbert talking optimistically about a new version of a Dune movie. It seems that his optimism may have been somewhat… optimistic. *shudder* SyFy’s Blastr.com is reporting that the plug has been pulled on Paramount’s development of the film. The project had gone through two directors and several screenplays and had never built up much in the way of momentum towards actually getting made. The possibility still exists for another film version to be made but it will almost certainly have to start from scratch.

TV

Deadline.com is reporting that Showtime is developing a live-action TV series based on the comic book Chew. Supernatural and Eureka writers Terri Hughes Burton and Ron Milbauer reportedly wrote the script and Stephen Hopkins, who has directed episodes of 24 and Californication, is attached to direct. This story has been pretty well confirmed with tweets from Chew creators John Layman and Rob Guillory. No information about a potential air date was given.

Fringe has fought off the “death slot” of Fox Friday nights and been renewed for a fourth season. Ratings have falling somewhat since the move to Fridays, but that didn’t stop Fox from ordering another full 22 episodes. The announcement was initially made in a tweet from series executive producer J.H. Wyman and later confirmed in a press release. In spite of it’s somewhat lower ratings Fringe remains the best performing show Fox has had in the “death slot” and will likely remain there next season.

In more Doctor Who news, the BBC has released a teaser for the upcoming sixth series into the wild. New episodes start April 23.

Wednesday Review – Journal of a UFO Investigator

Matt — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:53:36 +0000

Author David Halperin has written a pretty unusual book in Journal of a UFO Investigator. It is part coming-of-age story, part X-Files, part 2001: A Space Odyssey and part Naked Lunch. It tells the story of Danny Shapiro, an overly intelligent thirteen year-old growing up in the late 60′s. Danny’s life is complicated by a dying mother and a father who seemingly blames him for his mother’s failing health. His only companions are the other two members of his UFO Investigators club and his only refuge from the realities of his life is his UFO journal.

The line between imagination and reality quickly blurs in the story. While researching his own journal, Danny meets the three members of the “Super-Science Society”, precocious teenagers like himself, and joins them in trying to find a missing copy of an account of a UFO encounter that includes handwritten notes rumored to have been written by three Men in Black.

Danny’s telling of events ranges across time and space and includes alien abduction, the Roswell UFO crash, the Men in Black and even touches on the Hollow Earth theory. Fans of UFO lore and X-Files or Fringe style conspiracy theories will find a lot to like in Journal of a UFO Investigator, but there is more to the book than that.

This is David Halperin’s first novel and elements of the story are autobiographical. There is an authenticity to the description of life as a disaffected teenager that is quite clear in the brief times when Danny surfaces from the depths of his UFO investigations. People who grew up feeling like outsiders will find Danny’s character strikingly familiar.

This is a book that could be endlessly debated. There are events that take place that are clearly imaginary and events that are clearly real, but most of the book is one big grey area. This is not a book to pick up if you are looking for a throwaway summer read, but if you are looking for something a little more thought provoking definitely pick it up.

Journal of a UFO Investigator by David Halperin is published by Viking and is available in hardback with a cover price of $25.95.

Wednesday Reviews (Tuesday Edition) – Dreadfully Ever After

Shannon — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 00:14:52 +0000

Dreadfully Ever After by Steve Hockensmith, the final book in the Pride & Prejudice & Zombies trilogy, is out today. I was lucky enough to get a copy a few weeks ago and read it. As many of you know I wasn’t that impressed by Seth Grahame-Smith’s original, but I did enjoy Hockensmith’s previous installment in the series Dawn of the Dreadfuls. Hockensmith had much more freedom to shape the characters than Grahame-Smith did and that really improved the quality of the storytelling.

Dreadfully Ever After is a delightful end to the trilogy. The story starts off with one of the main characters getting bit by one of the dreadful zeds and most of the rest of the characters trying to find a cure before it’s too late. Not only does the action take place in the familiar English countryside, but the story takes us to London where the city has been sectioned off to keep the zeds under control. There’s plenty of zombie dispatching action by the familiar characters as well as a new set of ninjas, and a bunny!

It would be hard to jump right into this without reading the other two but I would definitely recommend this book if you were a fan of the series. Dreadfully Ever After shows that Hockensmith can and will be a great storyteller in his own right in either horror or a blend of horror and comedy

Dreadfully Ever After is published by Quirk Books and has a cover price $12.95.

Available 3/24/11 – Quirk Books put together a trailer for the book. Enjoy!

Show Notes – Episode #94 “ECCC 2011 Part Two”

Shannon and Matt — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 06:23:37 +0000

Finishing off our ECCC coverage this week, we have more interviews recorded on Saturday and Sunday at the con. In this episode we talk with writer Eric Trautmann, webcomic creators Neal Bailey, Alina Pete, and Rebecca Hicks, artist Echo Chernik, we catch up with Creator’s Edge editor-in-chief Chuck Messinger and Ed Ward the founder and operator of the Paper Windows comic subscription service. We were also lucky enough to sit down with William F. Nolan, author of Logans Run, among many other things, who was celebrating his 83rd birthday at Emerald City!

Beyond our Emerald City coverage, we also talk with with bestselling authors Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson about their new book Hellhole and get the rundown on the upcomming Gamestorm 13 with Outreach Coordinator Jason.

It’s a long show this week but we’re cramming in enough goodness to keep you going as we return to our bi-weekly format.

Our Geek Week

Listening to the audiobook of Cat’s Claw by Amber Benson
Played Crush the Castle
Read River Marked by Patricia Briggs
Reading Journal of a UFO Investigator by David Halperin
Watching Face Off on SyFy

Emerald City ComiCon 2011

Eric Trautmann (Interview starts at 11:30)

Neal Bailey creator of Cura Te Ipsum (Interview starts at 17:06)

Alina Pete creator of Weregeek and Moose Head Stew (Interview starts at 22:19)

Echo Chernik (Interview starts at 26:11)

Rebecca Hicks creator of Little Vampires (Interview starts at 29:15)

William F. Nolan (Interview starts at 35:19)

Chuck Messinger founder of Creators Edge Press (Interview starts at 52:02)

Ed Ward founder and operator of Paper Windows (Interview starts at 55:48)

Geekly Extras

Gamestorm 13 (Interview starts at 59:06)

Hellhole by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson (Interview starts at 1:05:45)

CONTEST!

Win a Pile o’ Books!

We have a pile of books courtesy of Tor and Ace and we want to give them to YOU!

The books include:

River Marked by Patricia Briggs
Glen Cook’s third book in the Instumentalities of the Night series Surrender to the Will of the Night
The Bird of the River by Kage Baker
SIGNED COPIES of Paul of Dune and the brand new book Hellhole by Brian Herbert & Kevin J Anderson!

This contest starts today and we’ll be picking the winner during our show on April 14. We will ship the books to you via USPS.

“How do I enter?”
Please register / log in to our website, and leave a comment on THIS POST. You can just say “hi” or whatever! One entry per person please, we’ll delete any multiple or offensive posts. Make sure you use a valid e-mail address when you register so we can contact you if you win!

“How will you randomly pick someone?”
We have D&D dice of all shapes and sizes, even a 100 sider! We’ll roll and see who wins!

News

Music

Music this week was ‘Avatard’ and ‘Grimm’s Lament’ by H2Awesome from their forthcoming album. Keep an eye on their website for the official release date!

Next show: Episode #95 on March 31st – Spring and Summer Movies: From Suckerpunch to Green Lantern!

Seattle Geekly by http://www.seattle-geekly.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Wednesday Reviews – River Marked

Matt — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:35:01 +0000

River Marked is the sixth and most recent book in Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series. I have to confess that I haven’t read any of the previous five novels but that didn’t keep me from enjoying this one.

Briggs is writing pitch-perfect urban fantasy in River Marked, although the story takes place mostly in a campground on the Columbia River basin which is about as far from an urban setting as you can get. All the usual suspects of Urban Fantasy exist, werewolves, vampires, fairies along with countless other things that go bump in the night. Mercy Thompson is a “walker”, a shape shifter with the ability to see ghosts. In River Marked she and her new husband escape their usual haunts in an attempt at a honeymoon only to find themselves in the territory of a homicidal river spirit. While tracking down the spirit we learn a great deal about Mercy’s past and get a glimpse of some of the behind-the-scenes machinations of the supernatural forces in her life.

Mercy is a great character and Briggs really does hit all the notes that make for a good Urban Fantasy story while still maintaining her own voice. Her setting has depth and enough unique elements to keep it from feeling too derivative.

In spite of being completely new to the series I was able to pick up enough context to follow the broader story arc, but I highly recommend that people not start in the middle of the series, at least not with this particular book. Events take place that, while enjoyable for the new reader, would have a much larger impact for people that knew the characters involved and had seen some of the relationships and events develop over the course of the series. Do not cheat yourself – start with the first Mercy Thompson book, Moon Called and work your way to River Marked. It is a good read on it’s own but I suspect that it would be a landmark for fans of the series.

River Marked by Patricia Briggs is published by Ace and is available in hardback with a cover price of $26.95

Monday News Roundup 03/14

Matt — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:09:30 +0000

To kick off the Monday News I wanted to highlight the third annual Dead Letter Awards, the winners of which were announced in Episode 158 of the Mail Order Zombie podcast. Whatever medium you like your zombies in, be it books, movies, video games, or whatever, there will be something there for you. This is also not your typical award show. Think of it as part Oscar Night and part Zombieland. You can download the episode here and you may hear a few familiar voices as part of the show.

The rest of the Monday News is under the fold.

Art

The eighteenth annual Spectrum awards for excellence in science fiction and fantasy art were chosen on Saturday. The winners include:
The full list of winners is available here.

Books

Fantasy Magazine is relaunching with a new editor and a new online format for its March issue. Following in the footsteps of its sister publication, Lightspeed, Fantasy will be offering all of its content online with electronic subscriptions and copies of individual issues available for purchase as well. Each issue will include four short stories (two originals and two reprints), three nonfiction articles, closely tied to the fiction, plus one feature interview. Fantasy will also be prodcing two fiction podcasts. The March issue will include stories by George R.R. Martin, Holly Black, Tanith Lee, and Genevieve Valentine and is available now.

Comics

If you listened to the podcast last week you will remember us talking about yet another delay in the release of DC’s new Batwoman comic. Now series artist J.H. Williams III has commented about the delay on his blog. He said that the delay was not the choice of the creators but offered no details, saying only that he is “not at liberty to really discuss [it].” The up side to the delay, according to Williams, is that they have had plenty of time to get ahead on production and he showed off some artwork for the cover of issue #3 to help ” keep spirits up.” The series is now expected to debut next month.

MMO

BioWare released a new trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic in to the wild at PAX East this weekend. Enjoy!

TV

Entertainment Weekly is reporting that both BBC One and BBC America have confirmed air dates for the new series of Doctor Who. The sixth series will air on BBC One on April 23 and on BBC America on the same day a few short hours after it’s premiere in England. The first empisode will be a two-parter written by Steven Moffat. The series will include guest appearances by Mark Sheppard (Romo Lampkin from Battlestar Galactica and Crowley on Supernatural) and Alex Kingston (River Song).

SyFy *shudder* has started airing the final ten episodes of Stargate Universe but the possibility exists for the story to continue. Show producer Joseph Mallozzi wrote on his blog about the chance for SG:U to return as a TV movie after the series finale titled ‘The Gauntlet’.

Hopefully, by the time its airs, we’ll have definite word on a potential movie or two. If it’s a go and fans can look forward to a proper end to Destiny’s mission, then Gauntlet will certainly set the stage for a grand conclusion. If, on the other hand, things don’t pan out and Gauntlet does turn out to be the bittersweet finale, fans will be thrilled, touched, heartbroken – and left to wonder what could have been.

‘The Gauntlet’ is scheduled to air in May.

Wednesday Review: Alas Babylon

Shannon — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 18:30:42 +0000

We’ve all seen the films from the 1950s about school children learning how to Duck and Cover, they are a staple of retro-kitsch and an almost charming look back at early cold war naiveté. Pat Frank’s novel Alas Babylon is the story of what would’ve happened if the fears behind all those early nuclear age civil defense films had come to pass. Centering around Fort Repose, Florida, and a character named Randolph (Randy) Bragg, Alas Babylon is a prototype of the post-apocalpytic novel.

The story winds it’s way from the beginning of a war, completely different from WWI or WWII, since in the 1950’s the world had started to amass nuclear and atomic weapons. The population of Fort Repose quickly find out that they are cut off from the world, if there is still one out there. Without modern day conveniences like the internet, they had to rely on portable, transistor, and ham radios for information.

I found this book through Audible’s recommendations list. All I knew was that it was an apocalyptic novel, but I had never heard of Pat Frank, or the novel itself. While listening to it I thought it was a startlingly accurate and wonderfully written “retro” novel, not realizing that it actually was a novel from the 50′s and not just a modern look back until the end credits listed the original publication date as 1959.

I thoroughly enjoyed Alas Babylon and was struck by the detail of what the author included to make the setting and time so real. I don’t remember learning much about the politics of the late 1950’s, so I found some of the politics talked about in the book a bit confusing, but it didn’t bog the story down too much.

One other issue to be aware of with the book is that it conveys the sexism and racism of the time. Women are still considered the weaker sex, and the African Americans in the story are still segregated in every public place.

Listening to the book, I was transported back to the late 1950’s and even though I don’t think it would’ve been a great time for me, it was great hearing an apocalyptic story set back then.

If you are a fan of zombies or just a fan of post apocalyptic fiction you really should read Alas Babylon. David Brin cited it as being pivotal in his creation of The Postman, so if you’d like to experience one of the first apocalyptic novels set in the nuclear age, pick it up.