Audio - Science Fiction 2000

File Updated: 14/12/00

New Audio - Science Fiction Titles 2000

Greg Bear Star Wars: Rogue Planet Published May 2000 by Random House Audio at Ł12.99 ISBN: 1-85686-5231
Read by Michael Cumpsty
Three years after the events of The Phantom Menace, Anakin Skywalker and Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi encounter a mysterious world...
You've seen the movie The Phantom Menace. You've listened to the audiobook based on George Lucas's masterpiece. Now, before the eagerly awaited release of Episode II, comes a stunning new Star Wars novel from one of science fiction's greatest talents, multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Greg Bear. The result is pure adrenaline - an unforgettable journey stretching from the farthest reaches of known space to the battlefield of a young boy's heart, where a secret struggle is being waged that will decide the fate of billions.
Michael Cumpsty's feature film credits include The Ice Storm, Fatal Instinct, and State of Grace.
3 Cassettes Running Time: 5 hrs Abridged by Sharon Mattlin Produced by David Rapkin
About The Author
Greg Bear was born in San Diego, California. His father was in the US Navy, and by the time he was twelve years old, Greg had lived in Japan, the Philippines, Alaska - where at the age of ten he completed his first short story - and various other parts of the US. He published his first science fiction story aged sixteen. His novels and stories have won prizes and been translated around the world.
Greg Bear has been attributed to presaging the interest in Nanotech with his short story Blood Music, and his novella, Heads, has been accused of predicting both quantum computers and the Bose-Einstein Condensate.

Titles by Greg Bear at Amazon.co.uk

Michael Crichton Timeline Published September 2000 by ISIS at Ł19.99 ISBN: 0-7531-0958-1 Buy direct from ISIS: freephone order number (UK) 0800 731 5637 or click on the Order button to visit their website N.B. P&P Ł2.50 or Ł3.50 for two or more titles
Read by William Roberts
Michael Crichton once more stretches the imagination in his latest best-selling story.
An old man is found wandering in the Arizona desert, apparently demented, talking in rhymes. In his pocket is a diagram of a 14th century monastery in France that is being excavated by a team of archaeologists from Yale University.
The head of the team disappears suddenly and three of the team members decide they will track him down. They are Kate Erickson, athletic, passionate about mediaeval architecture and rock climbing; dreamy Chris Hughes; and Andre Marek, obsessed with the mediaeval world. Altogether they possess great knowledge of the fourteenth century - or so they thought, until they find themselves in a world which teaches them how little they really know.
William Roberts was born and raised in Oregon and northern California. He studied Theatre Arts in both the USA and in Britain, becoming an actor, reader and voice-over artist on radio and television. His television credits include Inspector Morse and Why Lockerbie? and his film credits include Deathwish II and Navy Seals.
12 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 15 hrs 34 mins
About The Author
Michael Crichton was born in Chicago in 1942. He took his first degree at Harvard in anthropology, and then qualified as a medical doctor in 1969. His latest book will be his sixteenth, following the worldwide bestsellers Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, Disclosure, The Lost World, and most recently, Airframe. Crichton has also been a screenwriter and producer/ director. His successes include Westworld, The Great Train Robbery, Coma and Twister and he is the creator of the smash hit TV Drama ER. He now lives and works in Los Angeles and is married with one daughter.

Titles by Michael Crichton at Amazon.co.uk

Kathy Tyers Balance Point Published November 2000 by Random House Audio at Ł8.99 ISBN: 1-85686-743-9
Read by Michael Cumpsty
Poisoned by centuries of technological excess, the planet Duro is an unliveable hell, long abandoned by its own inhabitants, who dwell above their polluted world in orbital habitats. But for the refugees fleeing the murderous Yuuzhan Vong there is nowhere else to go. So a deal is struck: in exchange for a new home, the refugees will work to restore the planet to health, under the watchful eye of Leia Organa Solo.
But soon the fragile stability between the Duros, the New Republic and the refugees threatens to collapse into violence. Han Solo, his son, Jacen, and the Ryn called Droma arrive to keep the peace. Jacen Solo’s belief that a true jedi should not fight but should lead others to peace through a deeper understanding of the Force soon becomes his greatest dilemma: at what point does the use of power become aggression? Whatever he decides, his next step could tip the galaxy’s destiny toward the light or toward the darkness - with the life of someone he loves hanging in the balance...
Michael Cumpsty's feature film credits include The Ice Storm, Fatal Instinct, and State of Grace.
2 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 3 hrs Abridged by David Smith Produced by David Rapkin

Titles by Kathy Tyers at Amazon.co.uk

H.G. Wells The Time Machine Published May 2000 by Penguin Audio at Ł9.99 ISBN: 0-14-180186-7
Read by Brian Cox
(CD version)
‘I intend to explore time. Is that plain? I was never more serious in my life’ So speaks the Time Traveller before he embarks on his astonishing journey into the future. His time Machine transports him to a far-distant but dying world where humanity is divided into two classes: the graceful, idle Eloi who inhabit the idyllic surface of the world, and the Morlocks, ugly nocturnal creatures who live and work underground
In The Time Machine, Wells created one of the first and finest science fiction stories: a social allegory that is both vivid and perturbing
Brian Cox has starred in many classical and contemporary roles in theatre and on television. He won Olivier awards for Titus Andronicus and Rat in the Skull, and his acclaimed television work includes The Big Battalions and The Cloning of Joanna May.
3 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 3 hrs 30 mins Produced by John Theocharis
About The Author
H. G. Wells was born in 1866. After working as a draper's apprentice and pupil teacher, he won a scholarship to study biology, and graduated with a first class honours degree. He resumed teaching before starting to write as a journalist. His first novel was The Time Machine (I895), launching his literary career. As well as writing what he termed 'scientific romances', Wells also continued to write non fiction and largely autobiographical novels; one of his most notorious was Ann Veronica (1909), which promoted a socially and sexually liberated 'New Woman'. In 1903 he joined the Fabian Society, but having failed to take command he withdrew in I908. He continued his social crusades, becoming active in the League of Nations movement during the First World War. He travelled widely during the interwar period, lecturing to such institutions as the Petrograd Soviet, the Sorbonne and the Reichstag. His non fiction in his later years boosted his reputation as a popular educator. In 1933 he wrote The Shape of Things to Come (1933), which was subsequently made into a film, scripted by Wells, in 1936. In the late 1930s he helped produce the 'Sankey Declaration of the Rights of Man', a precursor to the United Nation's Charter on Human Rights. He died in 1946. 'One of the great imaginative minds' Henry Sheen, New Statesman
'Wells saw as clearly as anyone into the secret places of the heart, but he also saw the universe, with all its infinite promise and peril' Arthur C. Clarke

Titles by H.G. Wells at Amazon.co.uk