Audiobook(s) Review: Star Wars Aftermath Trilogy

I am a child of the 1980s and 1990s, and like many, the first movie I remember seeing is Star Wars: A New Hope. I was that kid wore my VHS copies of those movies out, I played Star Wars with my friends, I had action figures, I had Empire Strikes Back sheets on my bed, etc. Later in life I read all the books in the Extended Universe (through the whole Yuuzhan Vong thing) and somewhat tolerated Lucas’ shenanigans with updating movies and the whole prequel thing.

But I had largely given up on Star Wars. Part of it was age and simply moving on in life. Part of it was realizing that all that came after just couldn’t live up to the magic of original. But then something unexpected happened: my children started watching Star Wars and loving it. Suddenly I was experiencing the wonder of Star Wars through them – yes, even the prequels are wondrous to young kids. We’ve watched the Clone Wars together and Star Wars Rebels, and my oldest and I went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens together. That was it, that was when I decided that Star Wars was back for me – in part because I wanted to support my kids’ love of it, but a large part was that it reawakened that wonder for me as well.

Of course life now is a lot crazier for me, so it’s a slow process, but I have copies of audiobooks for several of the new canon Star Wars books and I started listening to the Star Wars Aftermath Trilogy by Chuck Wendig.

First, I have to comment on the production of the audiobooks, because it really impacts how I reacted to these. It is terrible in all the worst ways of audiobooks. The voice acting narration by Marc Thompson is so overdone that it’s nauseating and then they top that off with sound effects and alien language, making the whole experience rather horrible. I barely made it through the first chapter before stopping and swearing I couldn’t continue because the production was just that awful. But Star Wars and all that…so I gave it another shot.

I learned to tolerate the production. That was the best I could do. Sometimes I simply rolled my eyes at it, and sometimes I had to take long breaks because it is really bad.

All this is very unfortunate, because I know that it influences what I feel about the content of the stories. I can’t help but wonder how much more enjoyable I would have found them if I read the books rather than listened to the audio. But I can’t get that back, just know that my opinions of the stories are heavily influenced by audio and not in a good way.

Basically, the books play out with a major imperial remnant in the Outer Rim gathering its power and other remnants for a final confrontation with the New Republic. Through this we see the liberation of a few planets, we see the fledgling republic forming up its government, and we see old favorites like Wedge, Han and Leia. We see that Palpatine had plans for the eventuality of his death and how those come to shape, and we see a few very big battles. And through all of the imperial happenings, a strong sense of mystery is present. I believe that we get many hints of what is to come and how things shape up for new movies we are getting now. We see some of the origin for the First Order and maybe even the Knights of Ren. We see a lot of unrelated interludes that don’t add anything to the actual events of the trilogy, but seem to setting Easter Eggs for fans to feast upon. We notably do not get any hints of Luke Skywalker and what he’s up to.

And of course Aftermath introduces us to a new group of characters through which we see the end of the imperial remnants after the events at Endor. My first reaction is that I found it a bit hard to really become very emotionally invested in any of them – would I have cared if they didn’t survive? I chalk this up mainly to the audio production that I mention above. How can one become invested with such horribly over-read dialogue and annoying sound effects?

Norra is a character that was always hit or miss with me through the trilogy, Temmin is mostly an annoying teenager, but its overall a good origin story for him and I hope we see something focused on him in the future. Mister Bones is genuinely amusing and perhaps the one place where sound effects weren’t absolutely horrible. Sinjir and Jas really steal the trilogy as the most interesting pair – the way their friendship develops and plays off of each other was by far my favorite parts of these stories.

I guess there is some controversy over the books among the insecure Dudebros of the world and their objection to having a diversity of sexual identity for the characters in these stories. I have zero sympathy for that position and I’m very happy to see Star Wars start to take its problematic misogyny, xenophobia, and shocking lack of diversity for such a vast creation more seriously. The new movies take things further, though there still remains a long, long way to go – hopefully the movies can finally man-up with a nice LGBTQ star and relationship.

Overall, I enjoyed the further exploration of the Star Wars journey through this trilogy as I loathed the audio production of it. In terms that I deal with, I would place Aftermath as pretty decent quality in relation to old Expanded Universe – better than a lot of it, but not as good as the best of it.

I do plan to continue exploring the books of the new canon as I have audio copies of several. I’m currently listening the audiobook of Bloodline by Claudia Gray and I plan on either Thrawn or Ahsoka next. The audio production Bloodline is much better if still annoying at times. The audio narration is orders of magnitude better, the sound effects are still there to drag things down. So I think that this production will be less of a barrier as a result.

Star Wars Aftermath Trilogy

Aftermath: Amazon

Life Debt: Amazon

Empire’s End: Amazon

Other Star Wars Books I Mention

Bloodline: Amazon

Thrawn: Amazon

Ahsoka: Amazon

My Wheel of Time Re-Listen: A Mea Culpa

So a couple of months ago I posted my reflections on listening to the audio version of The Eye of the World (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound). Though my first listen, it is perhaps the 6th or 7th time that I’ve ‘read’ the book (maybe more, I really haven’t kept count). But it was my first re-read since I’ve started the blog and gotten into reviewing, something that has created quite a shift in the way I read and exposed me to an ever-widening variety of books. So it was a fun and revealing reflection. I of course promised that I’d keep doing it for each book as I continue in my re-read…err listen…in preparation for the release of Towers of Midnight (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) this fall (I may even make it). Well, life of course has happened.

I’ve been busy with work, even busier in my personal life, but neither nor both can be truly blamed. The simple truth is that I have been enjoying the re-read immensely and really haven’t wanted to spoil it by writing about it. It’s become my time in the truck when I get to listen to the books, a time that I’m happy to keep close. So, I’ve just started The Fires of Heaven (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound), which leaves me with a number of posts to write. I apologize because it’s not going to happen. This is the post where I’ll throw out a bit about each book instead of writing a full post for each.

The Great Hunt (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound). Upon reflection I have to admit that this book is a bit weaker than I remember. As with The Eye of the World there are a few confusing bits that just don’t make much sense. At best, they are inconsistencies. But I do love the broadening of the scope and some of the evolution of the characters. Unfortunately, Mat and Perrin are duds in this one – they react overly petty to Rand’s struggles and Mat still seems just like a rotten little child. But I did enjoy Rand’s subtle shifts and growths as he becomes a natural leader and begins to fit into the role.

The Dragon Reborn (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound). In the past I had always considered this my favorite volume in the series. I doubt that’s really true now. Some of the more annoying aspects of Jordan’s writing really start to drag out. First the repetition – the first 1/3 or so each book is just full of repeat introductions about characters and the world. This gets way old. And the amount of extra descriptions and fluff start to really show, even though they don’t get really bad for a few books yet. I love the descriptions and I generally love Jordan’s writing style, but I still wish it were tighter and that the series were a couple of books shorter.

In this book Mat comes alive through us finally getting to see things from his point of view. I’ve always loved his roguishness, his disdain for authority, and how he still can’t help but do the right thing and even be the hero no matter how reluctant he is about it and how much he denies it. Moiraine becomes more and more annoying to me. I continue to loose respect for her as a terrible and arrogant leader. Her desperation begins to come out, but really she just doesn’t get it and it continues to cause problems. This is probably the most surprising reaction I’ve had in this re-read. The Wonder Girls (Egwene, Elayne, and Nynaeve) all also get a bit more annoying as they take on the Aes Sedai attitude that respect for them is a given rather than something to be earned. This aspect of them really takes off in the following books. But, of the three, I still like Nynaeve the best, even though she is ridiculously stubborn and childish at times. Rand is largely absent and that’s just fine by me. And really people, Faile is not that bad.

The Shadow Rising (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound). The Shadow Rising is Perrin’s book, it’s as simple as that. Yes Mat continues to develop, but it’s not as drastic as either The Dragon Reborn or The Fires of Heaven. And Rand makes big changes towards being dark, arrogant, angry, and hard – he just isn’t very likeable anymore, and of course it only gets worse from here. But Perrin – this is what makes people like him. A simple man who becomes a lord. A blacksmith’s apprentice who leads an army of farmers against hordes of trollocs and myddraal. A man who is willing to sacrifice his own life for those he loves. A man who saves his people, falls in love, and gets the girl. I so wish I could pause his story-line now and not have to deal with the crap with Berelain and the whole bog-down in Ghealdan and Altara to come in future books.

Moiraine of course reaches new lows in this book, though she’s largely marginalized by Rand not listening to her. As I keep saying, I’ve been really surprised by just how little I like her in my re-listen. Arrogant incompetence best describes her even if she is completely desperate and does manage to help out Rand behind the scenes. Egwene continues to become more intolerable in her own arrogance. Such an adolescent child.

I’ve also become convinced that one of the questions that Rand asked the Aelfinn was something like ‘How can I learn to channel Saidin?’. Somehow, something or someone let him know that Lanfear and Asmodean were going to come at him in the Aiel Waste. It was hinted at far too much for him to not have forewarning – and that points to an answer received from the Aelfinn. Since he couldn’t ask about the Shadow directly and he desperately needed to learn of channeling, I think it makes sense that he asked them about it. Of course the question and answer that I’m speculating he got both touch on the Shadow, so that makes me wonder if there really are ‘dire consequences’ for questions that touch the Shadow, and if there are, just what were those consequences.

The scientist in me simply tries as hard as I can to ignore the issues with the Aiel Waste. It’s simply not a realistic landscape, but I can get past it.

Overall, I can see why The Shadow Rising gets pretty high marks in the series – especially with all the conflict with the Forsaken. They are still menacing foes of legend here. It’s only later that they start to become ‘worst bad guys ever’.


Now I’m on to The Fires of Heaven. Let’s see if it’ll be another 3 books before I write an update. Mea Culpa, but not really because I’m having a blast and that’s all that matters.

My Wheel of Time Re-Read (err…Listen): The Eye of the World

Long-time readers of this blog are probably aware of my love for The Wheel of Time and exactly what it means to me and how it really is ultimately responsible for me starting this blog – I’ve talked about it before, so I won’t repeat here. So, when The Gathering Storm (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) was released last year it rekindled that love and got me excited about the series again (review). I wanted to read more. With this blog and all the great books out there to be read I just couldn’t bring myself to do a re-read – which would take many months. So I decided I would listen to the books – which I’ve not done before.

After I finish each book in the series, I’ll post my thoughts here. These won’t be reviews and they’ll no-doubt contain spoilers for later books (but I’ll refrain from anything major). It’ll be more of a reflection of these books that I love so much – what I think of them now when I haven’t read or re-read them in years, a bit of remembering what I’ve thought in the past, and a few thoughts on what that may mean for the remaining books. It won’t be anywhere near the level of the Tor Wheel of Time re-read, or what you’ll find at The Thirteenth Depository. I’m also posting a few thoughts over on The Thirteenth Depository’s forum – that post is getting lengthy, discussion goes on wild tangents and it is spoiler-laden. But it’s a fun read as well.

Anyway, on to The Eye of the World (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound)….


I suppose I’ll start with the difference of listening versus reading. Audio books are absolutely dependent on the reader’s performance – and for the Wheel of Time books there is a bit of a unique direction taken – a guy (Michael Kramer) reads the points of view of the guys and a woman (Kate Reading) reads the points of view of women. I really like the approach, though for The Eye of the World there aren’t that many points of view from women – something that changes as the books the progress. Of course it is odd – voices are different than they were in my head, though I adjusted. And everyone foreign to the Two Rivers seems to have a bit of an Irish accent (accepting Illianers who sound like pirates) – at least those points of view from the men. The adjustment took a while – longer than usual with audio books, but then I have more invested in these books than any others, so I wasn’t surprised.

I first read The Eye of the World when I was a freshman in college back in the mid-1990s and it really resonated with me. This partly because the main characters in the book were my age and partly because in many ways it was my first exposure to fantasy (I had read and enjoyed some before but never really explored it much). It was easy to relate to Rand and Perrin – not so much Mat since we didn’t have a point of view from him and the taint of the Shadar Logoth dagger really makes him a jerk for the first couple of books. I remember being particularly amused by how Rand and Perrin keep thinking thoughts about how the other is so much better with girls – as a relatively shy and unconfident young man myself, I could easily relate.

Of course now I’m in my mid-30s and I found myself much more on the side of Nynaeve. Yes she’s a bully and stubborn to a fault (but all the Two Rivers kids are), but it was much easier to relate to someone who is a bit older and looking out for the interests of others than a bunch of headstrong youths. I was also struck by just how flawed Moiraine seems to be. For all her knowledge and wisdom as one of the most powerful Aes Sedai from a noble home in Cairhen, she really turns out to be an idiot much of the time. With a sheltered upbringing and then jumping into the ‘girls club’ of Tar Valon, Moiraine has absolutely no clue how to handle adolescent young men. She’s completely unprepared for people who don’t take her word as law and she is really quite stupid in her refusal to share vital information with her ignorant charges. Funny how in the past all I saw was person of authority.

I had forgotten just how wonderfully subtle Robert Jordan is in his writing. And for all the criticism (that can be rather valid) about his long wind and great detail, Jordan’s writing is remarkably applicable to the story. Tons, and I means tons, of very subtle foreshadowing is present. Darkfriends are almost always hinted at with dark descriptions of one kind or another – or with comparison to ravens or rats. Events that don’t occur for 10 books or more are foreshadowed right at the start. And again, is it any surprise that descriptions of cloth, clothing and weaving are common when the world itself is created by the Wheel of Time that weaves threads in the great pattern/web of life?

I’m also fascinated by some of what I know now in terms of the origins and inspirations of the book. The nice audio interview with Jordan at the end of the stories was simple pleasure to read. It was great to hear him discuss how he wanted challenge the notion that some all-knowing wizard type can show up in a small town, tell someone that the world’s future depended on them and that person would willingly and unquestioningly follow along. He also wanted explore just how communication alters events in direct proportion to its distance from where the events occurred – in this case distance is either actual distance or time. How the myths and legends of the Wheel of Time folks occurred in our own world and how our myths and legends are from them. And of course how due to the timing of the writing and publishing of The Eye of the World, very intentional parallels and similarities to The Lord of the Rings were included in the beginning and how the story slowly and surely diverges as it goes on.

Another aspect that I remember liking when I first read the series is the way Robert Jordan portrays women. I think he’s both rightly and wrongly criticized for his female characterization, but overall I think it’s a really interesting thing and says quite a bit about who he was and what his experience and ideals regarding women were. Jordan was from the American South and was of the baby-boomer generation. Women in the South of his generation and older are traditionally extraordinarily kind on the surface and rather subservient to men. They adhere to the society role very closely. But behind doors they are strong, forceful and live a world of societal politicking that most men never see or understand. This is what he knows –in many ways he sort of reverses this role for the Wheel of Time and then replaces the part where women say only kind things (whether they mean them or not) and has the women say what they think regardless of how kind it is or isn't. It seems an odd sort of view that he wished he could see and he was greatly influenced by the women in his life. I think the result is very often misunderstood (not surprisingly most loudly by males between say 16 and 25 years old). It has its own sort of flaws, but I find it a fascinating view into both Jordan and the traditional role of women in the South.

All in all, I’m still in love with the characters and the world that Jordan created. The end of The Eye of the World is a bit confusing and has some issues that I’ve never seen satisfactory explanations for. Some of these may still be resolved in the final books of the series and some are what I’ve come to call EotW-isms – things in The Eye of the World (and to a lesser extent, The Great Hunt) that were either forgotten or retconned changed in later volumes of The Wheel of Time. It’s really been great listening to The Eye of the World – it’s fast become one of my favorite parts of the week – a 3-hour one-way drive (6-hour roundtrip) drive spent with friends who happen to be characters in a book.

Onwards…

Review: You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore (Audio book)

Christopher Moore writes a unique style of SFF – part satire and all comedy. It isn’t for everyone, but it’s definitely for a guy like me. The primary reason it’s not for everyone is that it’s just not serious enough on the surficial level for a lot of people – that and the large amount of what could be considered juvenile humor. Now, this doesn’t bother me, and if you look past the surface, Moore does offer at least a few serious insights into the world around us.

You Suck: A Love Story (US, UK, Canada)is the sequel to an earlier novel, Blood Sucking Fiends (US, UK, Canada) – a novel that I actually haven’t read. It follows a young couple, Tommy and Jody, who have both recently become vampires in San Francisco. As they sort out their feelings for each other they must learn how to survive as creatures of the night – they must have a minion. Tommy, the just-off-the-farm 19 year old now vampire, comes through with a 16 year old goth chick and wannabe vampire. Complicating their effort to live in peace are an old vampire who is very angry with Tommy and Jody and Tommy’s old night crew (and sometimes vampire hunters) from the local Safeway, colloquially known as the Animals.

As I mentioned above, I haven’t read Blood Sucking Fiends, but I didn’t find that a problem. Yes, it’s clear that I was missing out on a bit of history, but it wasn’t hard to piece together what happened in the that book and I didn’t feel that I couldn’t fully appreciate You Suck. The focus really is on the relationship of Tommy and Jody, but it’s the various subplots that steal the show. Abby, the 16 year old goth minion, slowly becomes a dominate force in the book. Her attitude seeks so much to be so very mature while reminding us on occasion that she really is little more than a child. Another subplot that really works for me is that of the Animals. These are a fun mix of complete slackers – we see first meet them after they’ve blown about $500,000 on a blue-skinned hooker from Vegas and from there we get see them drinking and smoking there way through quite an adventure (and there’s turkey bowling too).

Susan Bennett’s reading of this audiobook brings the story to life in ways that few audiobook readers that I’ve listened to have. She very neatly walks the line of creating unique voices for each character without becoming overly derivative and stereotypical. Her portrayal of Abby the minion is particularly well done.

Christopher Moore’s fiction is best known for its irreverent humor – as it should be – but under the surface it becomes clear that he is also a keen observer of humanity. And what better way to show humanity than through humor? Included in You Suck is a touching love story, a unique view into the adolescent goth world, and a unique view of the homeless in San Francisco. Of course there’s also vampires, a blue-skinned hooker, drunken night-shift stoners, a cornball kid from Indiana, the Emperor of San Francisco, and a giant shaved cat named Chet.

My wife can attest to just how strange my sense of humor can be, so it’s no surprise that I find books of Christopher Moore appealing. They are fun and fast and can make you laugh out loud. Moore’s writing easily translates to the audio form and Susan Bennett’s reading further brings the story to life. You Suck: A Love Story makes a great audiobook and I certainly recommend it for those who enjoy humorous books. I’ll now be on the look-out for more audiobooks by Moore. 7.5/10

Related Posts: Review of Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Review: Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne (Audiobook)

One area of my reading that I often feel is underrepresented is classics – genre or not, I need to be better read in them (and I don’t think I can rightly count any that I was forced to read back in high school). In the realm of science fiction classics, I’ve had Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne languishing on The Stack for years now. So, with my relatively new-found time for audio books in my schedule, I was happy to pick up Journey to the Center of the Earth, read by David Colacci (I’m not sure what the translation is – it was originally published in French).

This is a timeless tale of adventure that’s been told and retold many times since it was originally published in 1864. An esteemed German Professor and his scholarly nephew discover a mysterious message from a 15th Century academic. Once solved, the coded message alludes to an entrance to a passage to the center of the Earth through an Icelandic volcano. They set forth to achieve the goal of the center of the earth with many a surprise along the way.

First, for those readers who are unaware, by day I’m a geologist. The two main characters in The Journey to the Center of the Earth are geologists. With geologists as protagonists being so rare, this fact alone will endear Journey to the Center of the Earth to me for a long time to come. Conversely, with that comes the knowledge of geology that I have. Now, I fully realize that the book is over 100 years old, so the geology is going to be out-of-date. But, with my knowledge so close, the degree to which the book is impossible and the way in which some geologic terms are misused, I was often ripped from narrative as I put on my geo-cap and cried fowl.

As for the story – I have to say that it feels different from much of what’s written today. This is all about adventure and discovery – there are no real thematic elements – this is from a time when, apparently, the adventure was enough. Reflecting on this, I can now see why it has made the jump to TV and movies so often – it really does lend itself to this type of portrayal. However, for it work as a TV/movie, changes need to be made due to the tendency of the adventure to stop short just when it should hit the accelerator – great prehistoric beasts and even prehistoric man are eventually encountered, yet these are kept at a distance and to my disappointment, not explored in any way.

Perhaps it’s due to bias inserted by the reader or even a translation issue, but the main character – Harry, Henry, or Axel, depending on the translation and conversational use – really comes across as annoying and self-absorbed. It could also be something lost to the ages of the 19th Century. Whatever the reason, Henry (as my version used), really gets annoying, and the entire novel is told from his 1st person perspective. The other characters have none of nuance that modern characterization often shows – the venerable professor becomes an excitable and grumpy old man and the steadfast guide, Hans, does all the work and receives little attention. In retrospect, I’d love to see a satirical interpretation of Journey to the Center of the Earth from Hans’ perspective ala Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

It seems that Journey to the Center of the Earth doesn’t really hold up all that well to our modern times. The science fiction novel has evolved greatly since this early form, leaving the feeling of an extended outline lacking the flesh of a novel. However, the audio version was a fine way to spend my long drives and I’m very happy that I did listen to this – I’m not sure I’d have been all that pleased at reading the book though. In short, this classic is something I’m happy to have experienced, but it doesn’t translate well into the 21st Century. 5.5/10

Review: The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason (Audiobook)

With my recent move came a longer commute that I make once or twice a week. To fill in some time and arrest the static, I have begun picking up the occasional audiobook. The first book I grabbed is the Da Vinci Code knockoff, The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason and read by Jeff Woodman (US, UK, Canada), thinking that mindless entertainment goes well with driving. I was wrong.

The Rule of Four follows four roommates at Princeton University. Starting with typical college antics, a conspiracy revolving around one roommate’s (Paul) research into an ancient Roman book slowly develops. Paul’s best friend, Tom, the narrator of the story, struggles with his past, his girlfriend, and his future as Paul’s research heats up and becomes deadly serious.

I intentionally used a rather cliché phrase to close the above paragraph – as it’s entirely appropriate for any description of this book. To put things bluntly, if I were reading this book, I would have been shocked if I lasted more that 50 pages. The book is simply that bad. The best way to describe things is that the authors attempt to show off for the entire book. The first half is dominated by silly, nostalgic college stories with the overwhelming feel of how ‘cool’ the authors were for attending Ivy League institutions. Even the authors attempts to forgo this problem only serve to reinforce it – the modest origins of two of the roommates and the token black guy for the third – the fourth is your stereotypical Wall Street banker’s son. Beyond the sickening feeling of how awesome college at Princeton is, the authors make darn sure that the reader is aware of their historical brilliance and literary prowess. Several times I found myself exclaiming ‘Oh God’ as I listened and I even decided I’d rather endure the interspersed static of 80s and 90s pop music or NPR stories I’d already heard than listen to one more minute of the book.

The story itself was cliché, utterly predictable, and populated with characters that I couldn’t find any interest in. Only the isolation of a long drive allowed me to continue. The ending, while definitely not a surprise, does work out well, but it is far from redeeming the rest of the book.

Another aspect of an audiobook is the presentation by the reader, Jeff Woodman. In this case, the reader only seems to reinforce the weaknesses of the book. He insists on making sure each character has a unique voice, and the result is damn near offensive – especially for the token black guy. When not offensive, it is certainly annoying. The main two characters come across as whiney wimps that I really just wanted to hit and the rest are nearly as bad. As mentioned above, the silence of the void (or bad 80s music) was often preferable to listening to this book.

My expectations were low to begin with, and those low expectations served me well since the book was even worse than I had imagined. I can’t recommend The Rule of Four for reading and I certainly can’t recommend the audio version. 2/10

The Sagan Diary (audio book) by John Scalzi

The Sagan Diary is a novelette by John Scalzi that falls in between The Ghost Brigades and forthcoming The Lost Colony in the sequence he began with Old Man’s War. The presentation is a series of diary entries from Jane Sagan just prior to her retirement.

The Sagan Diary is not an action book – the diary entries are pure introspection of Jane Sagan, Special Forces officer. No background into the world is really given, or even much of an introduction to the character. For this reason (and the lack of action) The Sagan Diary will likely only appeal to fans of Scalzi’s other books. At some times the introspective exploration bored me, but at others it was a really powerful expression of emotion – particularly the chapter about sex (which is really a chapter about love); this is really the shining moment of The Sagan Diary. The chapter is basically the thoughts in Jane’s head while she ignores what her lover is trying to tell her – we’ve all been there before, and the playfully raw emotion expressed perfectly characterizes her.

My only real criticism of the book is the use of language. The language is very flowery and metaphorical at times, using lots of big words. These are supposed to be the internal thoughts of person who didn’t really learn to speak true language at first – just thoughts. She even describes at length her limited vocabulary and use of language. It becomes hard to believe that these diary entries are from this person.

I have not actually read the book yet (I’ll get it when Scalzi’s book tour comes through town next month) – this review is based on the audio book, making this one of the more difficult reviews I’ve written. Can I really tell how readable the book is? Would I feel the same about the use of language? Did I miss anything when that asshole cut me off?

The accessibility of this book is truly wonderful – by this I mean that you can download the audio files here for free and burn them on just two CDs. The audio length of the book is just under an hour and a half. Each chapter is read by a different author-friend of Scalzi's. Readers are Elizabeth Bear, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ellen Kushner, Karen Meisner, Cherie Priest and Helen Smith. All the readers do a wonderful job, with a couple perfectly capturing what I’ve imagined Jane’s inner voice to be – particularly Mary Robinette Kowal.

Due to the rather narrow range of audience that I would think The Sagan Diary will appeal to, I rate it a 6 on my 10-point scale. Fans of Scalzi’s books can likely ignore that rating, as they should like it. The best part is that you can try the audio version for free with little investment in time, and if you like it you can buy the snazzy Subterranean version.

John Scalzi's The Sagan Diary on Audio

John Scalzi has made his novella, The Sagan Diary, available for audio download at his website - for free! This story covers the period of time between The Ghost Brigades and The Last Colony. You can get the print version from Subterranean and Amazon.

Each chapter is read by a different author-friend of Scalzi's. Readers are Elizabeth Bear, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ellen Kushner, Karen Meisner, Cherie Priest and Helen Smith. Take advantage of this deal if you are interested in Scalzi's writing at all - as a fan or potential fan.