Diaspar is surrounded by deserts on an Earth where the oceans dried up millions of years ago.

The City is an isolated, technological marvel, ruled by the Central Computer. Birth and death have been eliminated. Instead, in an endless cycle, people emerge from the Hall of Creation, already mature, imprinted with memories of their earlier lives, to live for a thousand years, until they are "recalled," and stored once again, in the vast memory banks of the Central Computer.

But, in finding eternal life, mankind has lost its soul. Instead of lasting love, there is passionless sex. Instead of friendship, there are casual acquaintances. Instead of challenges, there are virtual adventures. Instead of goals, there are shallow hobbies.

Life in The City is stagnant, stale, and meaningless. Nothing new has happened for at least ten million years.

Until Alvin walks out of the Hall of Creation — a "unique" with no past lives, no past memories.

No one in living memory has been outside The City — its citizens are born with an unreasoning dread of the unknown. But Alvin has no fear of the outside world. In fact, he has an overwhelming curiosity, a drive to explore, to see what lies beyond The City's towering, impregnable walls. When he finally escapes, he discovers a place he could hardly have imagined. A place called Lys, where its telepathic citizens know birth — and death.

In Lys, Alvin finds friendship and love. He also discovers un-Earthly creatures who help him understand the forces that defeated mankind, and drove the people of Diaspar to cower in fear behind their walls. His discoveries lead to a fateful journey to the stars and back. On returning, Alvin brings with him something so strange, so alien, and powerful, it will change the world forever. But for better or worse not even he can guess

This full-cast recording features almost 9 hours of dramatic audio, original music and sound effects.

Listen to samples

Read about my "Close Encounter" with Sir Arthur

South Africal author Lauren Beukes wins 2011 Arthur C. Clarke Award

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Read other quotes from Arthur C. Clarke

Clarke's biography

I'm a Jet Pilot is a story about Will, a young boy who has always wanted to fly jets. His flight in the cockpit of a jet airliner is exciting enough by itself, but it's just the beginning, as it leads to him going behind the scenes of the Navy Fighter Weapons School known around the world as Top Gun.

The book was recorded using one of the most unique microphones in the world: the KU 100 made in Germany by Neumann. The KU 100 dummy head is a binaural stereo microphone. It resembles the human head and has two microphone capsules built into the ears. When listening through high-quality headphones it gives the illusion of being right at the scene of the recording. It's like being there.

The recording of the commercial airliner was made in the cockpit of a Boeing 737-300 operated by US Airways, flying from San Diego to San Francisco, California. The recording engineer was sitting in the cockpit "jump seat" behind the pilots. You hear passengers coming aboard, chatter from the tower and other planes, and taxi and takeoff instructions for our flight, then you can almost feel the extraordinary power as the huge engines wind up and roar, taking you down the runway and into the sky. On route, there's brief, but accurate information about aerodynamics — the science of what makes planes fly.

When the story moves to the Top Gun school, the microphone was on the runway, less than 100 feet from where the F14s and F18s were taking off. The thunder was ear-shattering and breathtaking. Later, sounds were recorded in the Miramar control tower and the room where the training dogfights are monitored. If you've seen the movie Top Gun, this is the actual room where Maverick, Iceman, Goose, Viper, and the other fighter pilots gathered for briefings.

Listen to samples from the audio book here

Certainly one of the most, if not the most influencial and celebrated poets of the last century, Thomas Stearns Eliot had a profound and lasting influence on English literature.

Born in St. Louis Missouri and educated at Harvard University, Eliot moved to London to attend Oxford. After his marriage to his first wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood in 1915, he moved to England and became an English citizen in 1927. During the course of his career his circle of friends included philosopher Bertrand Russel, poet Ezra Pound, and writer James Joyce.

He started The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock in 1910. When it was published in 1915 it almost immediately made him famous. Many of his most famous poems were written when he was relatively young, most notably: The Waste Land in 1922, and The Hollow Men in 1925. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.

More recently, he may be best known for his delightful, book of light verse Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, which became the basis for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats, one of the longest-running play in Broadway history.

We've chosen to feature four of his best-known poems in this audio book: The Hollow Men, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Preludes, and Portrait of a Lady. Each is dramatically narrated and accompanied by original music.

You can read the poems and listen to samples here

Audiofile Magazine says "It feels like a traditional folk ballad, beautifully sung and orchestrated..."

This epic sea adventure was among the finalists in the "Original Works" category at the 2007 Audies®. It was also awarded an Earphone Award from Audiofile Magazine. Read the review.

It's the story of a lonely lighthouse keeper looking for redemption, and the remarkable cat that helps him during a terrible hurricane.

Narrated by Dennis Regan, it features original sound effects and music composed by Steve O'Connor. It's a dramatic, almost theatrical, experience.

Read the entire epic poem and listen to a sample here

Production has begun on Christopher Stasheff's ground-breaking Sci-Fi Fantasy novel. A magical mix of witchcraft, high-tech, and political science. This is the novel that virtually created a genre. Follow Rod Gallowglass and Fess, his faithful robotic horse, as they travel the length and breadth of Gramarye, a planet where elves, witches, ghosts, and all the other mythic figures of Earth’s Middle Ages are a reality. A world where Good and Evil are as sharply defined as Black and White. A world on the brink of self-destruction – torn between the roots of its past, and the greed of an unknown future. Only Rod Gallowglass, hard-headed product of a technological civilization, can save the people from their doom – by becoming the Warlock. But Rod Gallowglass does not believe in magic!