“Local Custom” by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
The first of the seven books set in the Liaden Universe tells a rich and sweeping story of warring families and star-crossed lovers in a fantastic, other-world galaxy.
Master trader Er Thom knows the local custom of Liaden is to be matched with a proper bride, and provide his prominent clan Korval with an heir. Yet his heart is immersed in another universe, influenced by another culture, and lost to a woman not of his world. And to take a Terran wife such as scholar Anne Davis is to risk his honor and reputation. But when he discovers that their brief encounter years before has resulted in the birth of a child, even more is at stake than anyone imagined. Now, an interstellar scandal has erupted, a bitter war between two families-galaxies apart-has begun, and the only hope for Er Thom and Anne is a sacrifice neither is prepared to make…
Shanks For The Memories
Dreamwatch #126, February 2005
Brief extract from the interview by Ian Spelling
Michael Shanks is about to record an audiobook adaptation of the SF novel “Local Custom”, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. “It’s interesting,” Shanks notes. “I’m not a huge reader anymore. My wife [Andromeda actress Lexa Doig] is the reader of the family. I’m not into SF novels or anything like that. It was just the notion of, ‘Oh. I’d like to read an audiobook,’ and then once I started reading the book I realised what it was exactly that I’d signed up for.”
“It’s one of those books that has words with all the apostrophes in strange places and because it’s SF you know you can’t even draw on your experience of how to say Lithuania properly. It’ll actualyl say, ‘She’s from the planet Alph’ha’hey,’ and you’re thinking, ‘What? Is somebody around to tell me how I’m supposed to sat this?’ So I think it’s going to be tricky, to say the least, about narrating a SF audiobook, but it’s an experience I wanted to have.”
“I appreciate the notion of audiobooks for the visually impaired or, quite frankly, for those people who would rather listen than read. If anybody is going to buy this audiobook just to listen to me for three hours, well, God bless them.”
Narrated by Michael Shanks, “Local Custom” will be available as an unabridged 8-CD set from Buzzy Multimedia in May 2005. The usual cost for audiobooks is $47.95. Fans of Stargate SG-1’s newest cast member Ben Browder may be interested in his narration of “Interlopers” by Alan Dean Foster, also from Buzzy Multimedia.
Audiobooks from Buzzy Multimedia
Read an extract from “Local Custom”
Buy the “Local Custom” novel from Amazon.co.uk