The SFFaudio Podcast #197 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Dig Me No Grave by Robert E. Howard
The SFFaudio Podcast #197 – Dig Me No Grave by Robert E. Howard, read by Robertson Dean (from Tantor Media’s The Horror Stories Of Robert E. Howard). This is a complete and unabridged reading of the short story (37 Minutes) followed by a discussion of it by Jesse, Tamahome, Jim Moon.
Talked about on today’s show:
No CONAN, Cthulhu The Mythos And Kindred Horrors, H.P. Lovecraft, a Lovecraftian story in the Howard style, dressing up the scenery, Howard did research on the cheap, if Robert E. Howard were a movie maker…, Malak Tus, a mish-mash, demon elder gods you know nothing about, a Satanic pact story, immortality, Mr Jim Moon is most like the dead man on the table, revering books like a Lovecraft character, bibliophilia, “the lure of the old books”, Howard doing Dickens, Grimlin was dead…, is this a Christmasy story?, Victorian lesson, nothing happens in this story, Conrad is shocked by candles and a robe, a giant peacock in the sky, the will, yellow peril, disturbing eyes that burn like yellow coals, the demon/god’s avatar, Nyarlathotep, The King In Yellow, the emissary of the god, John Grimlin, off to a demon’s larder, the demon possesses his mortal remains (and therefore his soul?), the weird scream, the lost city of Koth, Shintoism is particularly bad?, noxious winds, this is madness heaped on madness, eight brazen towers, Turkey, “his demon worshipping devotees”, should we make much of there being no wine?, Jacob Marley, was it an accident?, what would a demon do with a county estate?, “your ancestors need money!”, burnt offerings, burn a cheque, are peacocks particularly scary?, Satan as the peacock angel, the peacock as a symbol of pride, Howard’s magpie salt and pepper approach to research, love it for what it is (the momentum of the story), Howard’s weird tales, what would Conan do?, Howard’s studies (were business), boxing stories and boxing ghost stories, the Kirowan and Conrad stories, Old Garfield’s Heart, The Thing On The Roof, the Marvel Comics adaptation of Dig Me No Grave, Mr Jim Moon’s new collection of weird stories M.R. James, Bram Stoker, E. Nesbit, every story has an illustration, introductions, afterwords, and footnotes, The Seven Of Spectres, “photoshoppery”, The Horla by Guy de Maupassant, Hypnobobs, there’s a Horla there, it’s hard to illustrate an invisible monster, a hidden skull, once you see it you’ll never unsee it, haunted pictures, an animated gif?, moving paintings (in Harry Potter), J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter books grow with the audience, what tradition is Rowling coming out of?, what makes Rowling’s writing work?, J.R.R. Tolkien, Rowling was aware of all of the traditions of fantasy, E. Nesbit, C.S. Lewis, family adventure stories, Michael Moorcock, school stories, jolly japes, the Rupert books, anthropomorphic animals, cozy humour, three layered storytelling, Voldemort, “the flight of death”, Harry Potter is structured around scenes or sets, drawing on the old traditions, the serialized page turning aspect, unique writing voices, a timeless feel, The Causal Vacancy, Hot Fuzz, what if Lethal Weapon happened here?, Shaun of the Dead, shall we go to the pub and wait it out?
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #197 - AUDIOBOOK/ READALONG: Dig Me No Grave by Robert E. Howard [ 1:16:05 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadFantastic Imaginings, edited by Stefan Rudnicki
Just in, this very interesting anthology, edited by Stefan Rudnicki! I couldn’t find a Table of Contents on this package or on the Audible site, so I included it below. Why don’t audio publishers find the Table of Contents important when it comes to anthologies and collections? Because… THEY ARE.
After seeing the contents, I’m eager to dive into this. Oliver Onions, Guy de Maupassant, Harlan Ellison, John Crowley… Harlan Ellison reading John Crowley… this is terrific!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Lofty Ambitions by Harlan Ellison, read by Harlan Ellison
PART 1: THE MYTHS WE LIVE BY
A Youth In Apparel That Glittered by Stephen Crane, read by Stefan Rudnicki (poem)
After the Myths Went Home by Robert Silverberg, read by Stefan Rudnicki
Novelty by John Crowley, read by Harlan Ellison
Pan And The Firebird by Sam M. Steward, read by Stefan Rudnicki
Murderer, The Hope Of All Women by Oskar Kokoschka, performed by cast
The Touch Of Pan by Algernon Blackwood, read by Stefan Rudnicki
The Lost Thyrsis by Oliver Onions, read by Roz Landor
The Bacchae (excerpt) by Eurpides, performed by cast
PART 2: MYTHS THAT BITE
A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman, read by Stefan Rudnicki
Mystery Train by Lewis Shiner, read by John Rubenstein
Continued On The Next Rock by R.A. Lafferty, read by Stefan Rudnicki
Diary Of A God by Barry Pain, read by Enn Reitel
The Repairer of Reputations (excerpt) by Robert W. Chambers, read by Stefan Rudnicki
The Yellow Sign by Robert W. Chambers, read by Stefan Rudnicki
An Inhabitant Of Carcosa by Ambrose Bierce, read by Danny Campbell
The Horla by Guy de Maupassant, read by Arte Johnson
PART 3: SHOCKING FUTURES
Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, read by Stefan Rudnicki (poem)
City Come A’Walkin (excerpt) by John Shirley, read by Don Leslie
A Pail Of Air by Fritz Leiber, read by Stefan Rudnicki
The Machine Stops (excerpt) by E.M. Forster, read by Roz Landor
Looking Backward and Equality (excerpts) by Edward Bellamy, read by David Birney
Gulliver’s Travels (excerpt) by Jonathan Swift read by Scott Brick
Utopia (excerpt) by Sir Thomas More, read byChristopher Cazanove
Monument To Amun by Queen Hatshepsut, read by Judy Young
PART 4: TRAVELING FOOLS
La Bateau Ivre by Arthur Rimbaud, read by Stefan Rudnicki
Inspiration by Ben Bova, read by Stefan Rudnicki
The Bones Do Lie by Anne McCaffrey, read by Stefan Rudnicki
A Princess Of Mars (excerpt) by Edgar Rice Burroughs, read by John Rubinstein
The Great Stone Of Sardis (excerpt) by Frank R. Stockton, read by David Birney
Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland (excerpt) by Lewis Carroll, read by Michael York
Diary Of A Madman (excerpt) by Nicolai Gogol, read by Stefan Rudnicki
The Inferno (excerpt) by Dante, read by Stefan Rudnicki
The Odyssey of Homer (excerpt), read by David Birney
PART 5: TRANSFORMERS
The Stolen Child by William B. Yeats, read by Stefan Rudnicki
The Porcelain Salamander by Orson Scott Card, read by Gabrielle de Cuir
Let’s Get Together by Isaac Asimov, read by Arte Johnson
Dracula (excerpt) by Bram Stoker, read by Simon Vance
Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (excerpt) by Robert Louis Stevenson, read by John Lee
Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti, read by Gabrielle de Cuir
Frankenstein (excerpt) by Mary Shelley, read by Stefan Rudnicki0\ *
The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh (Traditional English Fairy Tale), read by Judy Young
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (excerpt) by William Shakespeare, performed by cast
The Ballad of Tam Lin (Celtic ballad), read by Stefan Rudnicki
Metamorphosis (excerpt) by Ovid, read by Cassandra Campbell
PART 6: REST IN PIECES
Hearse Song
The Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allan Poe, read by Stefan Rudnicki
The New Testament: Revelations (excerpt), read by Stefan Rudnicki
The Colloquy of Monos & Una by Edgar Allan Poe, read by Stefan Rudnicki and Gabrielle de Cuir
From the Crypts of Memory by Clark Ashton Smith, read by Danny Campbell
The Comet by W.E.B. DuBois, read by Mirron Willis
Sand (excerpt) by Stefan Rudnicki, performed by cast
Transience by Arthur C. Clarke, read by Bahni Turpin
The Illusionist by Gareth Owen, read by Stefan Rudnicki
Unchosen Love by Ursula K. LeGuin, read by Stefan Rudnicki
In Lonely Lands by Harlan Ellison, read by Harlan Ellison
News from Nowhere (excerpt) by William Morris, read by Stefan Rudnicki
PART 7: COMMENTARIES
The Special And General Joys of Science Fiction by Ben Bova, read by Stefan Rudnicki
Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849 by Elliott Engel, read by Gabrielle de Cuir
Adolescence And Adulthood In Science Fiction by Orson Scott Card, read by Stefan Rudnicki
Posted by Scott D. Danielson
Recent Arrivals: AudioGo: H.P. Lovecraft’s Book Of The Supernatural edited by Stephen Jones
Recently arrived, and currently being soaked in through my skin and ears, is this giant collection of weird fiction. Assembled from a list of stories found in H.P. Lovecraft’s essay Supernatural Horror In Literature, it is a collection of well known and obscure classics by authors that H.P. Lovecraft loved.
Looking at the table of contents I noted that I’d already read several of the stories in this collection – including The Turn Of The Screw (we did a podcast about that one), the engimatic Christmas horror Markheim, the scientific ghost tale What Was It?, the unutterably creepy and horrific The Voice In The Night very recently, and many years ago, perhaps in high school, The Yellow Wallpaper. But even though I’ve read some of these stories already I’m still very excited. Each of the stories seems to be preceded by some relevant words by Lovecraft himself – and at the very least I will be listening to the mini-introductions to those stories I am well familiar with.
Until then I will content myself in listening to the unknown ones. For example, the frightful first person narrative of Who Knows? by Guy de Maupassant is thrilling and wondering me in the exact same way The Horla almost exactly one year ago. It’s wonderful!
H.P. Lovecraft’s Book Of The Supernatural
Edited by Stephen Jones; Read by Bronson Pinchot, Stephen Crossley, Davina Porter, Madeleine Lambert, Mark Peckham
MP3 DOWNLOAD – Approx. 16 Hours 44 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: AudioGo
Published: August 1, 2012
Written by arguably the most important horror writer of the twentieth century, H.P. Lovecraft’s 1927 essay Supernatural Horror in Literature traces the evolution of the genre from the early Gothic novels to the work of contemporary American and British authors. Throughout, Lovecraft acknowledges those authors and stories that he feels are the very finest the horror field has to offer: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Guy de Maupassant, Ambrose Bierce, and Arthur Conan Doyle, each prefaced by Lovecraft’s own opinions and insights in their work. This chilling collection also contains Henry James’ wonderfully atmospheric short novel…The Turn of the Screw. For every fan of modern horror, here is an opportunity to rediscover the origins of the genre with some of most terrifying stories ever imagined.
Here’s the table of contents:
Introduction by editor Stephen Jones – Approx. 7 Minutes
Notes on Writing Weird Fiction By H.P. Lovecraft – Approx. 11 Minutes
The Tale of the German Student by Washington Irving – Approx. 14 Minutes
Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson – Approx. 49 Minutes
Who Knows? by Guy de Maupassant – Approx. 34 Minutes
The Invisible Eye by Erckmann-Chatrian – Approx. 41 Minutes
The Torture by Hope by Villiers de l’Isle Adam – Approx. 15 Minutes
Ms. Found in a Bottle by Edgar Allan Poe – Approx. 29 Minutes
What Was It? by Fitz-James O’Brien – Approx. 34 Minutes
The Middle Toe of the Right Foot by Ambrose Bierce – Approx. 24 Minutes
The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James – Approx. 4 Hours 52 Minutes
The Dead Smile by F. Marion Crawford – Approx. 57 Minutes
The Wind In The Rose-Bush by Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman – Approx. 38 Minutes
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman – Approx. 36 Minutes
The Recrudescence of Imray by Rudyard Kipling – Approx. 30 Minutes
The Hands Of Karma (Ingwa-banashi) by Lafcadio Hearn – Approx. 11 Minutes
The Burial Of The Rats by Bram Stoker – Approx. 1 Hour 7 Minutes
The Red Lodge by H.R. Wakefield – Approx. 35 Minutes
The Captain Of The Pole-Star by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – Approx. 1 Hour 6 Minutes
The Villa Desiree by May Sinclair – Approx. 28 Minutes
The Voice In The Night by William Hope Hodgson – Approx. 36 Minutes
Novel of the White Powder by Arthur Machen – Approx. 48 Minutes
Posted by Jesse Willis
New Releases: AudioGo: H.P. Lovecraft’s Book Of The Supernatural
H.P. Lovecraft’s Book Of The Supernatural
Edited by Stephen Jones; Read by Bronson Pinchot, Stephen Crossley, Davina Porter, Madeleine Lambert, Mark Peckham
MP3 DOWNLOAD – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: AudioGo
Published: August 1, 2012
Written by arguably the most important horror writer of the twentieth century, H. P. Lovecraft’s 1927 essay Supernatural Horror in Literature traces the evolution of the genre from the early Gothic novels to the work of contemporary American and British authors. Throughout, Lovecraft acknowledges those authors and stories that he feels are the very finest the horror field has to offer: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Guy de Maupassant, Ambrose Bierce, and Arthur Conan Doyle, each prefaced by Lovecraft’s own opinions and insights in their work. This chilling collection also contains Henry James’ wonderfully atmospheric short novel…The Turn of the Screw. For every fan of modern horror, here is an opportunity to rediscover the origins of the genre with some of most terrifying stories ever imagined.
The audio sample says it includes “20 classics of the macabre.” I’ll try to get a list.
Here’s the TOC:
an introduction by editor Stephen Jones
Notes on Writing Weird Fiction By H.P. Lovecraft
The Tale of the German Student by Washington Irving
Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson
Who Knows? by Guy de Maupassant
The Invisible Eye by Erckmann-Chatrian
The Torture by Hope by Villiers de l’Isle Adam
Ms. Found in a Bottle by Edgar Allan Poe
What Was It? by Fitz-James O’Brien
The Middle Toe of the Right Foot by Ambrose Bierce
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
The Dead Smile by F. Marion Crawford
The Wind in the Rose-Bush by Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Recrudescence of Imray by Rudyard Kipling
The Hands of Karma (Ingwa-banashi) by Lafcadio Hearn
The Burial of the Rats by Bram Stoker
The Red Lodge by H.R. Wakefield
The Captain of the Pole-Star by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Villa Desiree by May Sinclair
The Voice in the Night by William Hope Hodgson
Novel of the White Powder by Arthur Machen
[Thanks Amy!]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World with Eric Rabkin
Our good friend, Professor Eric S. Rabkin, is teaching one of the free summer Coursera courses. It’s entitled Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World and all of the required readings, except for two of the novels, are available free online!
Here’s the official description:
Fantasy is a key term both in psychology and in the art and artifice of humanity. The things we make, including our stories, reflect, serve, and often shape our needs and desires. We see this everywhere from fairy tale to kiddie lit to myth; from “Cinderella” to Alice in Wonderland to Superman; from building a fort as a child to building ideal, planned cities as whole societies. Fantasy in ways both entertaining and practical serves our persistent needs and desires and illuminates the human mind. Fantasy expresses itself in many ways, from the comfort we feel in the godlike powers of a fairy godmother to the seductive unease we feel confronting Dracula. From a practical viewpoint, of all the fictional forms that fantasy takes, science fiction, from Frankenstein to Avatar, is the most important in our modern world because it is the only kind that explicitly recognizes the profound ways in which science and technology, those key products of the human mind, shape not only our world but our very hopes and fears. This course will explore Fantasy in general and Science Fiction in specific both as art and as insights into ourselves and our world.
This course comprises ten units. Each will include a significant reading, typically a novel or a selection of shorter works. I will offer video discussions of each of the readings and also of more general topics in art and psychology that those readings help illuminate. Each unit will include online quizzes and ask you to write a brief essay offering your own insights into the reading. In order, the units are:
Grimm — Children’s and Household Tales
Carroll — Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
Stoker — Dracula
Shelley — Frankenstein
Hawthorne & Poe — Stories and Poems
Wells — The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, “The Country of the Blind,” “The Star”
Burroughs & Gilman — A Princess of Mars & Herland
Bradbury — The Martian Chronicles
LeGuin — The Left Hand of Darkness
Doctorow — Little BrotherIn Unit I, the specific stories are the ones in the Lucy Crane translation (1886) which was published by Dover and is available online through Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5314). In Unit V, the specific readings are: Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark,” “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment,” and “The Artist of the Beautiful“; Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Black Cat,” “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” “The Bells,” “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee.” All the readings except Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles and Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness will be available online at no charge.
[thanks Jenny!]
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #137 – READALONG: A Princess Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The SFFaudio Podcast #137 – Scott, Jesse, Tamahome and David Stifel talk about the audiobook of A Princess Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Talked about on today’s show:
A Princess Of Mars, the martian novels, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ first novel was originally titled Under The Moons Of Mars, “I can write rot as bad as this”, WWI, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Normal Bean vs. Norman Bean vs. normal brain, All-Story, Gods Of Mars, Tarzan, Pellucidar, H.G. Wells, Earnest Hemingway, the science with fantastic elements, Mastermind Of Mars, organ (and brain) transplants, radium rifles with radium bullets, zeppelins, the Martian navy, David has been acting since he was 13 years old, the 1960s resurgence of Burroughs books, Ballantine Books vs. Ace Books (in a war for the drug store paperback racks), the authorized vs. unauthorized editions of Burroughs and J.R.R. Tolkien books, The Lost Continent, Tarzan At The Earth’s Core, Del-Rey Books, Tarzan Of The Apes, getting into narration, Irwin Porges, a rich rhythm of language, “Sator Throg is a personal friend of mine”, Tars Tarkas is David’s impression of James Earl Jones doing Darth Vader, Sola, “rescue the girl, escape from capture, become a gladiator and save the planet”, A Princess Of Mars begins as a western, Zane Grey, Arizona, Idaho, it is a kind of a western on Mars, “all of his slaves worshiped the ground he walked on”, good to his slaves and good to his animals, Burroughs loved animals (especially horses), themes of A Princess Of Mars include a love of animals and nature (and nudism), ERBZine website, the James Killian Spratt edition of A Princess Of Mars (puts the nudity up front and center), modesty vs. showmanship, everybody is nude on Barsoom, Teddy Roosevelt, the 19th century physical culture movement, Conan and Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, the oddness of an author who disdains writing, “back to nature and forward”, Flavor Flav or Max von Sydow, repulsor rays, Son Of Frankenstein, a telescope on Mars is looking at Earth, Percival Lowell, Lieutenant Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, the dying civilization that we see, The War Of The Worlds by H.G. Wells, The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, “esoteric metaphysical spiritualism”, telepathy, John W. Campbell, lying for honorable reasons, the inconsistencies of lies and deceit in a world with telepathy, How John Carter Got To Mars (is kind of like the Mormon idea of the afterlife), astral projection, Houdini, Thuvia, Maid Of Mars, “the thought was made flesh”, Burroughs was a religious man, the unexplained preservation of Carter’s dead body, Bram Stoker, H.P. Lovecraft, “this is a fun book”, “like a Buck Rogers serial”, the serialization, cliffhangers, Swords Or Mars, Synthetic Men Of Mars, “Deja Thoris has laid an egg”, the curiously oviparous martians, the disney John Carter movie, Princess Of Mars, “Tarzan in a vest, does that work for you”, an evil Russian in cahoots with a French countess, “he was a splendid specimen of the white race”, Gone With The Wind, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, The Lord Of The Rings (movies), the Dynamite Entertainment Warlord Of Mars cover (#5 is done in the style of Norman Rockwell), Marvels Comics, Frazetta, HBO, a stage adaptation of A Princess Of Mars, a ballet of Spartacus (!), Gustav Holst’s Mars, Bringer Of War, Flash Gordon, Franz Liszt, Bronson Pinchot was interviewed by Grover Gardner (Blackstone Audio), the process of narrating an audiobook, The Godfather, Deja Thoris doesn’t get much screen time, Sola is a good character, Thuvia gets more of a leading role in Thuvia, Maid Of Mars, arbitrary customs that extend the narrative, S.M. Stirling’s In The Courts Of The Crimson Kings, Burroughs’ Venus books, all planets are occupied by people (except Mercury).
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #137 - READALONG: A Princess Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs [ 1:15:30 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadCampaigns
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