Back in 2005 BBC Radio 4 broadcast a compelling documentary on something called “Numbers Stations“, automated shortwave radio stations that are linked to international espionage. Check out the Wikipedia entry for “The Lincolnshire Poacher” and have a listen to an |OGG| recording of an example transmission! Then listen to the doc…
Tracking The Lincolnshire Poacher
By Simon Fanshawe
1 |MP3| – Approx. 28 Minutes [DOCUMENTARY]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: 2005 Simon Fanshawe embarks on a detective journey into the clandestine world of radio cryptography and attempts to solve one of the most unusual broadcast mysteries of all time.
WARNING: This review is a bit of an aberration, it’s a bit more gonzo. It was written this way out of necessity and it is thus perhaps only suitable for those who… ‘heard he was dead.’
Escape From New York
Based on the screenplay by John Carpenter and Nick Castle; Adapted by Bill Hollweg; Performed by a full cast
5 MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 2 Hours 15 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: BrokenSea Audio Productions
Podcast: April 2009 – March 2010
Themes: / Crime / Dystopia / Science Fiction / Alternate History / WWIII / Prison / Horror / New York /
Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3| Part 3 |MP3| Part 4 |MP3| Part 5 |MP3|
In the year 1988 the crime rate in the United States rises 400%. The once great city of New York becomes the one maximum security prison for the entire country. A fifty foot containment wall is erected along the New Jersey shoreline, across the Harlem river, and down along the Brooklyn shoreline. It completely surrounds Manhattan Island. All bridges and waterways are mined. The United States Police Force, like an army, is encamped around the island. The prison’s name: New York Maximum Security Penitentiary, Manhattan Island. There are no guards inside the prison, only prisoners, and the worlds they have made. The year now… 1997.
In the opening crawl (detailed above) we are given a world rife with Science Fiction glory. Escape From New York has a premise full of promise. It is a story pregnant with possibilities – nearly all of which are fulfilled. Escape From New York, my friends, is both a powerful satire of our times and a powerful cinematic experience movie. Now, thanks to the creative love and attention by fans at BrokenSea Audio Productions it is a wondrous audio drama made by fans for fans.
Now hang with me on this. I hope I don’t end up seeming like a crazed french film critic, arguing for the superiority of the second Star Wars trilogy (The Phantom Menace et. al) over the original Star Wars and Empire. Take that first statistic: “the crime rate in the United States rises 400%” – how would that be possible? It certainly wouldn’t match any conventional trend or shift in population growth. Might it then be categorized under some sort of Freakonomics-style explanation? Maybe. But, I think we could argue, quite convincingly, that the only way to increase the crime rate 400% overnight would be to make a whole lot more human behaviors crimes. Disrespecting authority, sharing files with friends, or as the trailer for Escape From L.A. puts it “No talking, no smoking, no littering, no red meat, no freedom of religion. And remember all marriages must be approved by the Department of Health.” So, the world of Escape From New York is really fun. But a world is not enough. You need a plot and a set of characters. As to the latter…
The anti-hero takes many forms but I have a special fondness for Snake Plisken. As in an IMDB grendelkhan says:
“Snake Plissken is the classic anti-hero, ala Clint Eastwood’s Man-with-no-name. Plissken is an ex-soldier turned criminal, recruited/blackmailed into rescuing a hostage president from the prison of New York City. Plissken is a walking ball of anger and a survival machine.”
Indeed, a survival machine who’s been betrayed, lied to shat on by his own government – and he’s got a cool eye-patch, a reverse tramp stamp of a cobra, and a gravelly voice. He is a great character.
“But what of his motivation?” You ask.
Read on…
Plisken, call him Snake, lives in a parallel universe – a USA run like a fun-house-lensed double craptoberfest of moral hypocrisy. If you’ve seen the movie Escape From New York, you’re seeing the 1980 zeitgeist of Manhattan as the epitome of ghettoic urban decay. This fear, that your neighbors are out to get you, the horror that politicians so often rely upon, works great in movies (and in the opening credits to The Equalizer). But this isn’t only a horror story. The prison genre is one of my favorites (check out Animal Factory). Like westerns, these genre stories have a certain set of conventions or constraints that make a story told within those constraints far more satisfying. But neither is Escape From New York just a prison story. For it
is also a quest story, a revenge story, an all out action adventure. There are MacGuffins galore for Plisken to chase after: First up is a world peace conference that is about to end in disaster lest a certain audio cassette is retrieved, then there’s a kidnapped President Of The United States to be rescued, and of course there’s a jet glider (don’t think too hard about that one) as their only escape, but to top it all off there’s a pair of ticking time-bombs in Snake’s body! That’s not just motivation, that’s entertainment folks!
Snake, now motivated, has enough-knock-down-drag-out adventures in the course of just less than 24 hours, so as to numb any thoughy you had about suspending any disbelief. Or as Samuel Taylor Coleridge argued: “[if a writer could infuse a] human interest and a semblance of truth [into a fantastic tale, the reader would suspend judgment concerning the implausibility of the narrative].” If you look at it another way this is the original 24, but with a hard-assed biker veteran saving the USA instead of a Kiefer Sutherland. In the course of just over 2 hours Bill Hollweg and the folks at BSAP have created a faithful and loving tribute to one of 1981’s best movies.
Speaking of 1981, I look forward to hearing BSAP adapt Clash Of The Titans (1981), Excalibur (1981) and Body Heat (1981). They’re already working on a Mad Max II (1981)-inspired series.
Finalrune’s new show! I’ll be releasing it as a free podcast in 5-7 min installments, with a paid download of $2.99 available which includes all episodes as a director’s cut and 2 bonus music tracks.
Fred will be posting a new episodes on Fridays throughout July. But if you’re into it, consider downloading the paid version |HERE|.
The program is genuinely funny, featuring a Philip J. Fry-like goober who hits a troll while driving home from a party he was found too uncool for. The troll, by the way, is more of the “grind your bones to make my bread”-type, rather than the cutesy, pink-haired desktop variety.
Later episodes straddle the line between humor and horror. Audiobook narrator William Dufris, playing the troll, is nearly unrecognizable. It sounds as if he’s been gargling battery acid! And the sound, as with all of the field recorded Final Rune shows, is absolutely wonderful.
The first free episode is available now, check it out…
The Troll Of Stony Brook
By Frederick Greenhalgh; Performed by a full cast
Podcast or MP3 Download – Approx. 36 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: Final Rune Productions
Podcast: July 2010 An awkward teenager, Jamie, is driving home one night from a party when he hits something – something big. His pushy co-worker, Rick, talks him into going back to the scene of the accident… and what they find will change them both forever.
It’s kind of a shame that this LibriVox edition of At The Back Of The North Wind is not wholly narrated by Meredith Hughes. She only reads the first three chapters. They are wonderfully narrated.
I happened across this audiobook whilst researching a stack of old hardcovers that I inherited from my grandmother. I must have read it at some point as the story is entirely familiar. But now, looking at it with adult eyes, the ideological argument it makes seems more quaint than persuasive. See, At The Back Of The North Wind is a theodicean Fantasy. It uses the personification of the “North Wind” to explain why evil exists in the world. As such it belongs on the bookshelf between two of C.S. Lewis’ books, The Problem Of Pain and The Lion,The Witch And The Wardrobe.
If you’re looking to get into some late 19th allegorical Fantasy, you probably couldn’t do much better than this wholesome story of what is essentially a gray witch and the good little boy she takes on a series of adventures.
Here’s the color plate from my paperbook edition (it depicts the Diamond, the little boy protagonist, and the North Wind (in the guise of a little girl):
At The Back Of The North Wind
By George MacDonald; Read by various 38 Zipped MP3 Files – Approx. 8 Hours 57 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 24, 2007 Diamond the little boy sleeps in the hayloft above the stall of Diamond the horse. The loft is snug but drafty, and after plugging a hole in the wall one night, Diamond is scolded by the beautiful Lady North Wind for closing her “window” into his room. Thus begins their friendship. Spirited away by the North Wind, Diamond embarks on a series of adventures both near to and far from his home. His pure heart and his simple, loving spirit guide him as he journeys to the back of the North Wind and home again. Originally serialized in 1868, beginning with the first issue of “Good Words For The Young” magazine.
This is a fun post apocalyptic Science Fiction story that takes a truly preposterous situation and plays it straight.
Two shipmates, late of the U.S. Navy submarine Sea Sprite, stop off in New York. They’re waiting for someone to arrive, but when she turns up things go sideways, for she should be a he, and she ain’t no he. To make matters worse she wants to buy one of the sailors from the other!
As a bonus, especially for fans of Mad Magazine, be sure to check out the fun Don Martin illustrations in the text edition available over on Gutenberg.org.
The Knights Of Arthur
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Gregg Margarite 2 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 1 Hour 32 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 1, 2010 With one suitcase as his domain, Arthur was desperately in need of armed henchmen … for his keys to a kingdom were typewriter keys! From Galaxy Science Fiction January 1958.
Here’s a promotion that, if you’ve got a Mac or Windows machine, and are in the mood to jump through a couple of hoops, you’re sure to appreciate. And, you can start at it right now.
Starting today there are two FREE MP3 audiobooks available, per week, throughout the summer. This comes courtesy of a new website called AudiobookSync.com.
To get the audiobooks you must download the “Overdrive Media Console.” Then you’ll have to give your name and an email address. It’s a bit of a muddle on the site itself, but after clicking around for five minutes or so I think I’ve got the process completely streamlined in my notes below.
First, if you don’t have it already, you’ll need to download the OverDrive Media Console
MAC |HERE|
Windows |HERE|
After it is installed you’ll need to go to the…
First Download page |HERE| to fill in your details
and then, after that’s started, go to the…
Second Download page |HERE| and repeat the process.
Be sure to take careful note where the files are set to download to. Mine defaulted to a folder called:
“\My Media\MP3 Audiobooks\”
There’s also a promise of more audiobooks, week by week, throughout the month of July. And at least some of them are definitely worth getting!
Here’s the complete release schedule:
Available July 1 – July 7 The Angel Experiment by James Patterson [ABRIDGED] Frankenstein by Mary Shelley [UNABRIDGED]
Available July 8 – July 14 Over the End Line by Alfred C. Martino The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
Available July 15 – July 21 Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Available July 22 – July 28 The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Available July 29 – August 4 The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
Available August 5 – August 11 Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Available August 12 – August 18 Beastly by Alex Flinn The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Available August 19 – August 25 Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingston A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
Available August 26 – September 1 Handbook for Boys by Walter Dean Myers Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Tracking The Lincolnshire Poacher
It’s kind of a shame that this LibriVox edition of At The Back Of The North Wind is not wholly narrated by Meredith Hughes. She only reads the first three chapters. They are wonderfully narrated. 
