A Princess of Mars
by Edgar Rice Burroughs (A. C. McClurg, 1917)
audiobook read by Scott Brick (Tantor, 2008)
A freewheeling adventure aimed very much at an adolescent male market. Burroughs affects an erudite narrative voice (for pulp), and has invested sufficient thought to fudge a depiction of Martian culture. Events, however, transpire in an extemporised cavalcade, dreamlike and dramatically untethered.
The Quantum Thief
by Hannu Rajaniemi (Gollancz, 2010)
audiobook read by Scott Brick (Macmillan, 2011)
Mind-bending SF that readers are left to unpack largely without assistance. Rajaniemi adopts a non-expository, sink-or-swim approach that is more refreshing than frustrating (though also at times rather gratuitous). Brick’s audiobook narration carries a noir-ish detachment that plays to the quasi-virtual setting.
Salt: A World History
by Mark Kurlansky (Knopf Canada, 2002); audiobook read by Scott Brick (Phoenix Books, 2003)
A comprehensive discourse on the role salt has played in shaping world history and individual cultures. Unfortunately, Kurlansky loses focus and digresses—often at great length—into subsidiary areas of food preparation. His inclusion of recipes is particularly grating in audiobook form.