Revisiting The Wood Beyond The World by William Morris

SFFaudio Commentary

I am in error. Mark your calendars folks!

It seems I mis-gendered the very feminine voice of Cori Samuel who has rightfully pointed out my big error on her blog. Cori writes:

Soooo, almost a year after I started working on it, and several months after Mandarine agreed to take on the huge task of editing this lovely-crazy book, ’tis done. The Wood Beyond the World, by William Morris, is available as a LibriVox audiobook.

It’s a great fantasy story, with interesting characters and strange plots, and it was splendid fun to read the pseudo-archaic language, even if I was tearing my hair out over it at times. Annoyingly, I think the archive.org counter has broken again, it still registers only 197 downloads so far, or else no-one’s downloaded it since the first day it was released — which is possible! SFFaudio set the original challenge and gave the book a good mention in their (excellent) recent podcast, but unfortunately, they DID refer to me as a ‘he’ throughout, so perhaps this is one of those books it’s better to read about than to read/hear. Or else they’d gotten confused with the other semi-freely available recording of the book, which can be found at AudioBooksForFree and runs a whole 10 mins longer than mine (a slower pace, not any deficiency of text, I hasten to note!) Read with a lovely British male accent, but only the lowest audioquality is available for free.

Now I could plead that the podcast where I made this gaff was recorded at 5AM before any coffee was imbibed. That, I’m overburdened, overworked, and underpaid (zero is a number). But, the plain truth is, I hadn’t listen to Cori’s recording at that point.

Which was rather shoddy of me.

RECTIFIED!

I’ve now listened to part 1, and am working my way through part 2. This |MP3| ably illustrates Cori’s lovely, lovely, reading.

So, now I entreat any and all to do as I’ve done, and make that 197 number grow. Please, if you would, download, enjoy…

LibriVox Fantasy Audiobook - The Wood Beyond The World by William MorrisThe Wood Beyond the World
By William Morris; Read by Cori Samuel
12 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 5 Hours 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 9th, 2008
The Wood Beyond The World is a fantasy novel by William Morris, perhaps the first modern fantasy writer to unite an imaginary world with the element of the supernatural, and thus the precursor of much of present-day fantasy literature. His use of archaic language has been seen by some modern readers as making his fiction difficult to read, but brings a wonderful atmosphere to the telling. Morris considered his fantasies a revival of the medieval tradition of chivalrous romances. In consequence, they tend to have sprawling plots of strung-together adventures. In this story, Walter leaves his father and his own unfaithful wife and sets sail in search of adventure. This he finds aplenty, encountering love, treachery and magic in the Wood of the title and travelling through the Mountains of the Folk of the Bears. But can he find happiness and peace by means of this Quest?

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/the-wood-beyond-the-world-by-william-morris.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

Max Warp

SFFaudio Online Audio
BBC Radio 7 - BBC7Doctor Who: Max Warp
Full cast audio drama
Stars Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith
Written by Jonathan Morris
Directed by Barnaby Edwards
Produced by Big Finish Productions
52 minutes

Just heard this on BBC7 and it’s really fun so I thought I’d better post it before it slips away. (Since it already aired last Sunday, oops, it’s only available until November 1, so get cracking!)

Max Warp is a sort of Agatha Christie style murder mystery (eh, well, you’ll see…hear) that crosses paths with Douglas Adams (with one or two direct references as well) and then ends up in Doctor Who’s lap. Terrible sentence I know but where this tale takes place is probably the most fun part.  Here’s the skinny from the Big Finish page:

Broadcasting live from the Sirius Inter-G Cruiser Show. Hosted by outspoken columnist and media personality Geoffrey Vantage, with spaceship-guru-extraordinaire O’Reilley and daredevil pilot Timbo ‘the Ferret’…When a test flight of the new Kith Sunstorm ends in disaster, the Sirius Exhibition Station is plunged into a web of murder and intrigue. Someone – or something – is trying to re-ignite a war between the Varlon Empire and the Kith Oligarchy…only two investigators, the Doctor and Lucie, can hope to uncover the truth.

And so it goes, and I’d love to tell you more about this story but that would be spoiling things.  Listen to Max Warp yourself.  You can do so right now by clicking here!

Posted by RC of RTSF

BBC Radio 4: On The Beach by Nevil Shute dramatized

SFFaudio Online Audio

BBC Radio 4Roy of the U.K. writes in to say there’s a “Classic Serial” on BBC Radio 4 that is worthy of our attention. It’s a BBC dramatisation of this recently mentioned Nevil Shute novel: On The Beach

A 1957 novel set in the then future 1963. A nuclear conflict has devastated the northern hemisphere, polluting the atmosphere with radioactive fallout and killing all animal life. While the nuclear bombs were confined to the northern hemisphere, global air currents are slowly carrying the fallout to the southern hemisphere. The only part of the planet still habitable is the far south of the globe, specifically Australia and New Zealand, South Africa, and the southern parts of South America, although all of these areas are slowly succumbing to radiation poisoning as the fallout continues to circulate southwards!

BBC Radio 4 Radio Drama - On The Beach based on the novel by Nevil ShuteOn The Beach
Based on the novel by Nevil Shute; performed by a full cast
2 Parts – Approx. 2 Hours [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 / Classic Serial
Broadcast: Sunday Nov. 2nd 2008 & Sunday Nov. 9th 2008 @ 15:00-16:00

These will each be repeated once at 21:00-22:00 on the following Saturdays.

And, Roy tells us to stick around for the “Bookclub programme” that immediately follows the first broadcast of Part 1 as it features Fay Weldon discussing her 1989 novel The Cloning Of Joanna May. That’s later repeated the following Thursday at 16:00 (30 minutes).

Thanks Roy!

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Agony Column SF in SF Recordings

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Agony Column The Agony Column has a couple of new recordings from the recent SF in SF:

Richard Bottoms interview |MP3|

Joe R. Lansdale interview |MP3|

Joe R. Lansdale reading |MP3|

Rudy Rucker reading |MP3|

Barry N. Malzberg reading |MP3|

Cecilia Holland reading |MP3|

You can subscribe to the feed at this URL:

http://trashotron.com/agony/indexes/tac_podcast.xml

Posted by Charles Tan

a LibriVox FIRST (full cast unabridged narration): Wanted 7 Fearless Engineers

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxHere’s what I’m fairly certain is a LibriVox FIRST! A full cast unabridged narration of a story. That is, multiple narrators, reading one work, in concert. Something similar has already been done for plays (check out Macbeth), but this is the first prose fiction I’ve heard done for LibriVox this way.

The first chapter is somewhat reminiscent of the Louis Wu recruitment scene as depicted in the opening chapters of Ringworld – which is cool, because that’s a great scene. First published in Amazing Stories magazine’s February 1939 issue, and later reprinted in the April 1956 issue, this tale was written under a pseudonym of Astounding SF editor F. Orlin Tremaine.

The narrators, Andrew Coleman, Cori Samuel, David Barnes, Lizzie Driver and Philippa, are actually performing this audiobook, not just reading it. Very cool. The recording environment for these readers is dead silent, their volumes are all excellent and uniform. If you’re planning on doing a multiple narrator production, make this audiobook your model!

LibriVox Science Fiction Audiobook - Wanted 7 Fearless Engineers by F. Orlin TremaineWanted 7 Fearless Engineers
By Warner Van Lorne (aka F. Orlin Tremaine); Read by Andrew Coleman, Cori Samuel, David Barnes, Lizzie Driver & Philippa
8 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 2 Hours 3 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 23, 2008
A great civilization’s fate lay in Dick Barrow’s hands as he led his courageous fellow engineers into a strange and unknown land. None of them knew what lay ahead–what dangers awaited them–or what rewards. But they did not hesitate because the first question asked them had been: “Are you a brave man?”
Chapter 1 |MP3| Chapter 2 |MP3| Chapter 3 |MP3| Chapter 4 |MP3|
Chapter 5 |MP3| Chapter 6 |MP3| Chapter 7 |MP3| Chapter 8 |MP3|

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/wanted-7-fearless-engineers-by-warner-van-lorne.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis