Off the Bookshelf: INTERVIEW WITH THE ROBOT, by Lee Bacon

 

Audio drama from Audible

Voices: Kevin T. Collins, Ellen Archer, Josh Hurley, Eileen Stevens, Eric Mallon, Jonathan Davis, Stephen Bel Davies

Eve is a 12-year-old picked up for shoplifting in New York. When a child welfare worker is called in to interview her and start the process of deciding what to do with  her, a strange story unfolds.

She is actually a robot, an artificial intelligence, on the run from her creator. Her life is told in flashbacks as Ms. Amis interviews her, as Eve grows from a simple cube with no ability to speak, to an aware being with a sense of humor -- and fear, when she learns the devastating secret behind her creation.

Thought-provoking and chilling in some ways. Well-done dramatization. Can we hope for further adventures of Eve and Emory?

Off the Bookshelf: NEIL GAIMAN AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE, by Arvind Ethan David

 

Audiobooks, Audible Original

Performed by Neil Gaiman and Jewel Staite

Okay, this is a fun one. Because Neil Gaiman plays himself ... sort of ... in an audio drama written by someone else.

When an astronaut wakes up in the middle of an emergency, all the ship's functions are going crazy and all data has been erased and he has absolutely no memory, the computer voice tells him he is Neil Gaiman, and he's all alone. He has absolutely nothing to do except wait.

So he starts reading ... you guessed it: stories written by Neil Gaiman. And as he starts exploring through the stories, he starts thinking and living again.

Interesting little piece that ends far too soon, and provokes a lot of thought. I can't tell you any more because that would ruin the fun twists. It's only 30 minutes. Good for a walk around the block, or a trip to the post office and back. Worth the time. And you have to wonder just how much fun our hero had playing an amnesiac reading his stories and criticizing them and then changing his mind.

Off the Bookshelf: STARGAZER, by Dan Wells

Audible, Audio Drama, Middle Grade

Full cast

Zero and Nyx are up to their chins in trouble yet again, on the colony world Kaguya. Colony ships that left Earth after their ship, the Pathfinder, had improved engines, so they are startled when one ship arrives years early. Even worse, Nyx's pirate family managed to sneak on board the new ship and hide among the colonists in cold sleep, and they land on Kaguya ready to do some more pirating and get rich and powerful. 

Problem: a second ship that left Earth is nowhere in sight. Did it crash on a nearby planet? Zero and Nyx barely manage to escape the prison the pirates put them in before they get into more trouble: trying to stop the pirates from finding the wreckage of the missing ship. Oh yeah, and they have to deal with nasty castaways, dragons, xenon in the air, and some prejudice that makes life pretty hard for Nyx.

Will they save the day? Listen and find out. Love this series by one of the contributors to the Writing Excuses podcast, and I certainly hope there's another installment coming out soon.