Dark and riveting, Morgan’s entry in the very popular dystopian, postapocalyptic YA subgenre blends science fiction, romance, and characters’ shadow sides with a mostly engrossing plotline. In a future lived on spaceships, long after the earth’s destruction, teenage delinquents are usually sentenced to die for their transgressions. Then 100 of them, who are deemed disposable guinea pigs, are instead sent to the ravaged earth in order to see if it is habitable for humans. Clarke, Wells, Bellamy, and Glass are the four narrators. A mash-up of The Lord of the Flies, Across the Universe, and The Hunger Games this has already been turned into a television series.
The Nine Billion Names of God: The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke, 1951-1956 (Audiobook, mp3)
With so little serious sf currently available on unabridged audio, the release of this comprehensive collection of Clarke's short stories is an occasion for celebration, for he is an undisputed master of hard sf, that which combines creative storytelling with ideas grounded in plausible science. Clarke is, after all, best known as the writer behind 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of the few films that depicts space travel realistically.
Published in 1953, 1952, and 1979, respectively, this trio of novels follow Clarke's recurring theme of humans thrusting themselves into space and then not necessarily liking what they find. The religious images that run throughout Clarke's work also are present here.
'It is 1968. Paddy Clarke is ten years old, breathless with discovery: He reads with a child's voraciousness, collecting facts the way adults collect grey hairs and parking tickets. Doyle captures the speech pattern of childhood brilliantly, the weird logic of incessant questions, the non-sequiturs and wonderments ... Like all the great comic writers Roddy Doyle has become an explorer of the heart.' Joseph O'Connor, Irish Times
Across The Sea Of Stars - Arthur C. Clarke (Audiobook, mp3)
ACROSS THE SEA OF STARS is a treasury of science fiction containing 18 of the finest short stories. In three groupings, "Expedition to the Earth," "Tales from the White Hart," and "Reach for Tomorrow," the selections include such memorable tales as "Encounter at Dawn," "The Sentinel," "Armaments Race," "Jupiter Five" and "Time's Arrow."
