Trunk and Disorderly audiobook
The great folks at Subterranean Press have put together a spoken-word version of my novelette Trunk and Disorderly (originally published in Asimov's SF Magazine last January). Follow this link if you like listening to your Wodehouseian SF ....
"I want you to know, darling, that I'm leaving you for another sex robot — and she's twice the man you'll ever be," Laura explained as she flounced over to the front door, wafting an alluring aroma of mineral oil behind her.Our arguments always began like that: this one was following the script perfectly. I followed her into the hall, unsure precisely what cue I'd missed this time. "Laura --"
She stopped abruptly, a faint whine coming from her ornately sculpted left knee. "I'm leaving," she told me, deliberately pitching her voice in a modish mechanical monotone. "You can't stop me. You're not paying my maintenance. I'm a free woman, and I don't have to put up with your moods!"
Comments
it's in a bunch of sections.
Congrats on the "Skylark"!!! Well-deserved. You've long-since leaped to the top of my Favorite Authors list.
Having run ripshod thru most of your novels, I'm finally working into the "Family Trade" series, while waiting for what's coming this summer ..
Thank you, Charlie!
Posted by: Howie Modell | March 12, 2008 11:12 PM
It's terrific!
Posted by: Soon Lee | March 12, 2008 11:31 PM
This was up on SFFaudio a few weeks ago. Brilliant stuff!
Posted by: Daniel Warner | March 13, 2008 1:06 AM
i can only hope that saturn's children will be half as funny as this.
Posted by: ian | March 13, 2008 2:36 AM
Seems that I'll have to listen to it.
Asimov's SF magazine online version is incomplete, and they won't even admit to it up front..
Bastards.
Posted by: Y.Schmidt | March 13, 2008 9:42 AM
Your a sick man Stross. Not for the pygmy mammoth and its actions but for a Drone's Club version of a Dalek. a sick, sick man. keep up the good work
Posted by: Charles | March 13, 2008 2:08 PM
I loved this when it was in Asmiov's Mr S. Got me through a very painful physio session :) I'll have to dump the audio onto the mp3 player for those "Exciting" sales meetings.
Posted by: Serraphin | March 13, 2008 2:11 PM
As in P.G. Wodehouse style? I love P.G Wodehouse books! Your story wouldn't happen to contain an all-knowing robot butler, would it? I'll have to listen to it to find out. Perhaps you could write a Robert Benchley-influenced Sci-fi story next? (Just kidding)
Posted by: Paula | March 13, 2008 4:26 PM
Paula: my next SF novel, SATURN'S CHILDREN (due July 1st) isn't a continuation of TRUNK AND DISORDERLY, but it does include a very frightening robot butler called Jeeves ...
Posted by: Charlie Stross | March 13, 2008 5:49 PM
Is / will this be available in print anywhere else aside from Asimov's?
Posted by: Mark | March 13, 2008 5:53 PM
Mark: I am currently negotiating with my publishers (Ace and Orbit, not the small guys) about a possible short story collection for 2009. In which case you'll get a whole bundle of stuff (including: tentatively, the two or three best stories from my previous small-press collection, stuff I've written since ACCELERANDO including TRUNK AND DISORDERLY and MISSILE GAP, and hopefully a big fat original novella that won't show up anywhere else).
This isn't definite yet so it may not happen (although if the big guys won't take a collection it's almost inevitable that a smaller publisher will do so within another year). The problem is that it's been received wisdom for many years that single-author short story collections don't sell well. I'd love to prove the received wisdom wrong, but first I need to get the opportunity ...
Posted by: Charlie Stross | March 13, 2008 7:37 PM
If you can't wait that long, Jonathan Strahan's "The Best SF and Fantasy of the Year Vol. 2" from Night Shade Books lists "Trunk & Disorderly" in its ToC.
http://nightshadebooks.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=95
Looks like I'll be buying both.
Posted by: Soon Lee | March 13, 2008 7:51 PM
I didn't get that story. Was it supposed to be amusing?
Posted by: hal | March 14, 2008 5:11 AM
*Gently pulls covers above head*
Oh hal...
Posted by: Serraphin | March 14, 2008 8:35 AM
Three cheers for "Trunk and Disorderly."
For those who are both big sci-fi and big Wodehouse fans, all 9 of us at last count, this is a masterpiece.
I honestly had to pull off the road twice listening to it today, because I was laughing so hard I could not drive safely.
The line that combines Bertie's preoccupation with aunts with the opening of HG Well's "War of the World" is, if you have read both and are in on the joke, the funnest line ever written in science fiction and one of the funniest lines ever written anywhere.
Posted by: phil | March 14, 2008 10:22 PM
Okay... I thought you were an authorial genius.
Nope, wrong again...
Mad super-genius is more like it.
Posted by: B. Dewhirst | March 14, 2008 10:58 PM
I'm one of the 9 sci-fi/Wodehouse fans in the world ;-). This is *hilarious*. Many, many thanks!
Posted by: Kara | March 14, 2008 11:50 PM
I must look into reading this Wodehouse person.
Posted by: Waparius | March 16, 2008 1:36 AM
This was awesome. I'm glad I heard the audio version before reading the story because the reading really made this piece.
Posted by: Steve Burnap | March 16, 2008 10:09 PM
It's fun, but I want it in text. The reader is terrible, and audio is not what it's meant for...
Posted by: Zeph | March 17, 2008 9:42 AM
I loved it. Who is the reader?
Posted by: GammaBlog | March 18, 2008 12:08 AM
I also would like to know who the reader is, but not because I liked him, because I didn't. He was way too fast and self-consciously witty, at least for my taste. (I am quite certain it wasn't you, Charlie, so I'm not afraid to say so.)
The story itself, OTOH, is fabulous. And I'm looking forward to Saturn's Children. Pre-ordering it right now; between that and Neal Stephenson's Anathem, it's looking to be a good spring.
Posted by: Brian Eisley | March 18, 2008 11:27 PM
"Paula: my next SF novel, SATURN'S CHILDREN (due July 1st) isn't a continuation of TRUNK AND DISORDERLY, but it does include a very frightening robot butler called Jeeves"
Sounds great! It'll be a great book to take on my annual little vacation (remote cabin by a lake with no phones, cell phone coverage, no wireless or other internet coverage, unreachable by work..... in other words, it's HEAVEN!) I just hope I can somehow stop myself from reading your book beforehand in July when I buy it.
Posted by: Paula | March 21, 2008 8:07 PM
So I reread "Trunk" and I have one remaining question. What did Stross mean by "U" and "non-U"?
Posted by: hal | April 16, 2008 1:15 AM
Hal, you're not British, are you?
U and non-U (Wikipedia).
Posted by: Charlie Stross | April 16, 2008 1:24 AM