The SFFaudio Podcast #277 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Dracula’s Guest by Bram Stoker

Podcast

Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker
The SFFaudio PodcastDowncastThe SFFaudio Podcast #277 – Dracula’s Guest by Bram Stoker; read by Robert White (of LibriVox). This is an unabridged reading of the story (30 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and John Feaster.

Today’s podcast is sponsored by Downcast, a wonderful podcast app for iPhone and iPad.

Talked about on today’s show:
1914, Dracula’s Guest And Other Weird Stories by Bram Stoker, our SPONSOR: Downcast, an app for iPhone and iPad, a super-customizable podcast app, Mark Maron’s WTF, Comedy Bang! Bang!, The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast and the premium feed, swapping out of the Music app (aka the old iPod app), an incredibly intuitive app with deep features, download on the go, and lock episodes, awesome, is the narrator Jonathan Harker?, if Dracula wasn’t in the title…, Leslie S. Klinger, a sore throat, having Dracula in the background, Countess Dolingen of Gratz, Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu, Styria, Austria, shout-outs used to be called homages or allusions, striking images, “the dead travel fast”, the wolf itself, the spike or stake, knives, fully formed vampire features, Varney The Vampire, the soldiers, the figure on the road, what is Dracula’s motivation?, is he learning how to be English?, Walpurgisnacht, the “Borgo pass”, adaptations, enigmatic reactions and situations, rescue, Dracula is the puppet master behind virtually everything in the story, Dracula’s colonial mission, why is Dracula going to England?, a veneer of normalcy in Castle Dracula, They Thirst by Robert R. McCammon, Lifeforce, Salem’s Lot by Stephen King, Lovecraft’s description of the plot of Dracula, The War Of The Worlds by H.G. Wells, getting inside, “precious bodily fluids”, a threat from the East, The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft, a threat from a more ancient time, out of fairy tales, a desperate victory, omnipresent, the weather, vampires can control the weather, the white shroud of the snowstorm, non-epistolary approach to Dracula, evocative and visceral, explaining cheesecake, was there a Countess Dolingen?, The Games Of Countess Dolingen (1981), chilling stories, the women, a “he” being rescued, sexuality, the caress of the weather, bier, a whole set-piece, is the tomb scene a glamour?, a seduction, Anno Dracula by Kim Newman, counts and countesses, working class vampires, Eric S. Rabkin on vampirism and lycanthropy, the sailors are Dracula’s Big Mac, the Demeter, Walpurgis Night, are Dracula’s powers expanded on Walpurgisnacht?, superpowers added on the fly, the villagers are always right, The Dreams In The Witch-House, The Haunter Of The Dark, The Lurker In The Crypt, “The Thing In My Coffin”, shared tradition, tradition as superstition, the ancient extinction of the mega-fauna may have engendered a hunting ethos in the native North Americans, The Woman In Black by Susan Hill, Harker is sent by his boss to Transylvania, at the crossroads with the inarticulate driver, thousands of tiny eyes watching Jonathan Harker, is Countess Dolingen aware of Dracula’s plan?, “the dead travel fast”, Russian, a warning from a previous vampire slayer?, a left-handed compliment, the rod, unanswered questions, the lack of clarity makes it evocative, effective accidents, August Derleth-style, what do we really know about Socrates?, water elemental?, meaning was not the point but rather he intended effect, such a good story, a delicious bon-bon sitting on a silk pillow, “interminable”, Dracula’s Guest ought to always precede Dracula itself, had Dracula’s Guest been released as the first chapter of a novel today…

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Posted by Jesse Willis

Author Focus: Robert R. McCammon

SFFaudio Author Focus

Robert R. McCammonThe elusive Robert R. McCammon is one of the most admired living writers of Horror fiction. His output has diminished since he renounced deadlines and the pressures from publishers in 1999. But during his writing career McCammon wrote more than a dozen novels and about as many short stories. Not only an admired writer, he was also in great part responsible for the creation of the Horror Writer’s Association. There are just six commercially audiobooks that we know of that either contain one or more of McCammon’s short stories or abridge one of his novels. Here they are:

Audiobooks:

Audiobook - Nightcrawlers Stories from Blue World by Robert R. McCammonNightcrawlers: Stories from Blue World
By Robert R. McCammon; Read by William Windom
2 Cassettes – 180 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: 1989
ISBN: 0671881426
Includes Night Calls the Green Falcon, Nightcrawlers and Yellowjacket Summer.

Audiobook - Something Passed By: Stories from Blue World by Robert R. McCammonSomething Passed By: Stories from Blue World
By Robert R. McCammon; Read by Michael O’Keefe
2 Cassettes – 180 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: 1990
ISBN: 0671700502
Includes Something Passed By, Makeup, The Red House, Pin, and Chico.

Audiobook - Boy's Life by Robert R. McCammonBoy’s Life
By Robert R. McCammon; Read by Richard Thomas
2 Cassettes – 180 Minutes [ABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: 1991
ISBN: ??????????

Gone South
By Robert R. McCammon; Read by Will Patton
2 Cassettes – 180 Minutes [ABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: 1992
ISBN: 0671760165

Audiobook - The Best Horror Stories of The Year, 1989 edited by Orson Scott CardThe Best Horror Stories of The Year, 1989
Edited by Orson Scott Card and Martin H. Greenberg; Read by ???
4 Cassettes – Approx. 6 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Dercum Audio
Published: 1989
ISBN: 1556561458
Includes McCammon’s Lizardman and stories from eight other authors.

Stalkers by Dean Koontz, Robert R. McCammon and othersStalkers
By Dean R. Koontz and Robert R. McCammon; Read by Various
4 Cassettes – 2 hours, 30 minutes. [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Dove Audio
Published: 1992
ISBN: 1558004904
Very rare! A collection of nineteen original tales by “today’s masters of terror” includes the McCammon tales Lizardman read by David Dukes.

Audiobooks for the Blind and Visually Impaired:*

*These audiobooks are not available to the general public, listeners must qualify by visiting the National Library Service website.

Swan Song
By Robert R. McCammon; Read by David Palmer
? – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: National Library Service
Published: ????
Product #: RC 26498
In a future world born of nuclear rage, an ancient evil as old as time roams a devastated, nightmare wilderness. He is the Man with the Scarlet Eye, the Man of Many Faces, gathering under his power the forces of human greed and madness. He is searching for a child who has the gift of life, a child named Swan, the child who must be destroyed.

Stinger
By Robert R. McCammon; Read by Rick Foucheux
4 NLS Cassettes – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: National Library Service
Published: 1988
Product #: RC 34841
It is dawn in Inferno, Texas, and Cody Lockett is making plans to leave town right after next week’s graduation. Teacher Tom Hammond sees nothing but despair ahead for Cody and others like him, now that the copper mine has closed down and everyone is moving away. Then an indescribable fireball rolls through Inferno, stalking the residents with a terror worse than anyone can imagine.

Mine
By Robert R. McCammon; Read by Pam Ward
3 NLS Cassettes – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: National Library Service
Published: 1990
Product #: RC 35540
Dangerously disturbed Mary Terrell still worships Lord Jack, the leader of a sixties radical underground group. Meanwhile, journalist Laura Clayborne has given birth to a son just as her marriage is falling apart. Mary, believing she’s received an order from Lord Jack, steals Laura’s baby and sets off on a murderous cross-country trek to find her idol, with Laura in hot pursuit.