Solaris, Stanislaw Lem's 1961 masterpiece, has
finally been translated directly into English. The
current print version, in circulation for over 4 decades, was the result of
a double-translation. Firstly from Polish to French, in 1966, by Jean-Michel Jasiensko. This version was then taken up by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox who hacked together an English version in 1970. Lem,
himself a fluent English speaker, was always
scathing of the double translation. Something he believed added to the universal misunderstanding of his greatest work. After the relsease of
two film versions of the story, and decades of speculation, a new direct English translation
has been released. Translated by American Professor
Bill Johnston '
The Definitive Solaris' is only available as an audiobook for the time being. Copyright issues, hampered by
several, widely available, editions of the poor English translation may mean it is some time yet before a definitive print edition makes it
onto our bookshelves.
posted by 0bvious
on Jun 19, 2011 -
64 comments
Cory Doctorow's new science fiction story collection,
With A Little Help, is available in text and
audio. The stories range from an order of datamining monks to Google gone terrible wrong, and the readers include Neil Gaiman, Mur Lafferty, Mary Robinette Kowal and Wil Wheaton. The introduction is written by Jonathan Coulton.
posted by NoraReed
on Apr 3, 2011 -
97 comments
Ted Chiang is perhaps the finest author in contemporary science fiction -- and the most rarefied.
A technical writer by trade and a graduate of the distinguished
Clarion Writers Workshop, Chiang has published only twelve short stories in the last twenty years, one dozen masterpieces of the genre whose insightful, precise, often poetic language confronts fundamental ideas -- intelligence, consciousness, the nature of God -- and thrusts them into a dazzling new light.
Click inside for a complete listing of Chiang's work, with links to online reprints or audio recordings where available, as well as a collection of one-on-one interviews, links to his nonfiction essays, and a few other related sites and articles.
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 27, 2010 -
116 comments
One day ago,
Neil Gaiman wrote the beginning of a story, which was
retweeted by BBC Audiobooks America as the
first of a thousand or so tweets that would compiled and edited to become an audiobook. People are
still contributing, and
BBCAA's blog has four scenes compiled (
1,
2,
3,
summary of scenes 1-3, and
4), for a total of 175 tweets. When 1,000 or so tweets are logged, they'll be edited into a script, and produced in a studio to make the final audiobook, which will be released for free on BBCAA's website. This isn't the first game of
exquisite corpse played via twitter that made a piece to be refined and presented in some way.
The first Twitter opera was
one of a few recent "gimmicks" to garner attention for the
Royal Opera House (
twitter opera feed,
ROH twitter feed,
ROH blog). The result, Twitterdammerung, was
given a decent review by opera critic
Igor Toronyi-Lalic.
posted by filthy light thief
on Oct 14, 2009 -
32 comments
Shit's gettin' way too complicated for me 1. Barack Obama puts some salty language (in quotations attributed to others) in his memoir
Dreams of My Father.
2. Obama reads the audiobook himself.
3. Obama gets elected President.
4. Blogger posts remix-ready clips of POTUS profanity online.
I can't wait to see what teh intertubes make of this.
posted by Artifice_Eternity
on Feb 5, 2009 -
79 comments
LibriVox is out to share public domain literature via podcast and soundfiles. Free. Volunteers do the reading. The
catalog has only a short list of completed works, but there are many "in progress." I was pleased to see
Psmith in the City is complete.
posted by mmahaffie
on Dec 27, 2005 -
14 comments
