Day: January 16, 2009

Edgar Allan Poe all over BBC7 this week

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

BBC Radio 7 - BBC7 It’s a busy week over on BBC7 with FIVE whole Poe programs playing! All this is in celebration of Poe’s 200th birthday. If Poe were alive today he’d be a rich man, not because any of his writings are still in copyright, but rather because he’d be able to rake in dough just by doing dramatic readings of his own work. But, since he isn’t still alive [as far as YOU know] we’ll just make do with these…

The Strange Case of Edgar Allan Poe
In this imaginative and mysterious drama by Christopher Cook, one of Poe’s own early creations, the detective C. Auguste Dupin investigates the bizarre and strange death of the writer. First broadcast in 1988, it stars John Moffatt and Kerry Shale and is directed by John Powell.
Sunday at 10am and 8pm

The Pit and the Pendulum
Edgar Allan Poe’s chilling short story was first published in 1842. Read by David Horovitch, it is the tale of the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition. The story was abridged by Richard Hamilton and directed by Emma Harding.
Sunday at 11am and 9pm

The Tell-tale Heart
In another of Poe’s atmospheric short stories, a man coldly calculates and commits what he believes is the perfect murder. When he is confronted by members of the constabulary, will his own heart incriminate him? Directed and produced by Clive Stanhope for CSA Word, this classic example of Gothic fiction is read by Richard Pasco.
Sunday at 11.15am and 9.15am

Edgar Allan Poe’s The Gold Bug
Set in 1838, this is Poe’s story of piracy, slavery and a treasure hunt. It was dramatised by Gregory Evans and first broadcast in 2001. Starring Clarke Peters, John Sharlan, Rhashan Stone and William Hootkins, it is directed by Ned Chaillet.
Saturday at 6pm and Midnight

The Fall of the House of Usher
Our final Edgar Allan Poe offering is read by Sean Barrett. A man’s descent into madness seems bound to the house of his ancestors. It is a Radio 7 commission and was first broadcast in 2003.
Thursday and Friday at 6.30pm and 12.30pm

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Collected Public Domain Works of Stanley G. Weinbaum

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxAvailable now from LibriVox and narrator Gregg Margarite comes the Collected Public Domain Works of Stanley G. Weinbaum. Gregg has a smoky voice and a terrific recording setup – this makes this collection a super-solid listen! Start with the first story A Martian Odyssey which is Weinbaum’s most famous tale. It’s a classic of alien human interaction. Isaac Asimov says of it and of Weinbaum:

“With this single story [A Martian Odyssey], Weinbaum was instantly recognized as the world’s best living science fiction writer, and at once almost every writer in the field tried to imitate him.”

It is also argued that this is the first story to satisfy Astounding editor John W. Campbell’s famous challenge:

“Write me a creature who thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man.”

LibriVox Science Fiction - Collected Public Domain Works of Stanley G. WeinbaumCollected Public Domain Works of Stanley G. Weinbaum
By Stanley G. Weinbaum; Read by Gregg Margarite
6 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 4 Hours 33 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 13, 2009
Stanley G. Weinbaum is best known for his short story A Martian Odyssey which has been influencing Science Fiction since it was first published in 1934. Weinbaum is considered the first writer to contrive an alien who thought as well as a human, but not like a human. A Martian Odyssey and its sequel are presented here as well as other Weinbaum gems including three stories featuring the egomaniacal physicist Haskel van Manderpootz and his former student, playboy Dixon Wells.

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/collected-public-domain-works-of-stanley-g-weinbaum-by-stanley-g-weinbaum.xml

Individual stories:

1.
A Martian Odyssey
By Stanley G. Weinbaum; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 58 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Early in the twenty-first century, nearly twenty years after the invention of atomic power and ten years after the first lunar landing, the four-man crew of the Ares has landed on Mars in the Mare Cimmerium. A week after the landing, Dick Jarvis, the ship’s American chemist, sets out south in an auxiliary rocket to photograph the landscape. Eight hundred miles out, the engine on Jarvis’ rocket gives out, and he crash-lands into one of the Thyle regions. Rather than sit and wait for rescue, Jarvis decides to walk back north to the Ares.

2.
Valley of Dreams
By Stanley G. Weinbaum; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 53 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
A sequel to A Martian Odyssey – Two weeks before the Ares is scheduled to leave Mars, Captain Harrison sends Dick Jarvis and French biologist “Frenchy” Leroy to retrieve the film Jarvis took before his auxiliary rocket crashed into the Thyle highlands the week before. Along the way, the Earthmen stop at the city of the cart creatures and the site of the pyramid building creature for Leroy to take some samples. After picking up the film canisters from the crashed rocket at Thyle II, the two men fly east to Thyle I to look for signs of the birdlike Martian, Tweel.

3.
The Worlds Of If
By Stanley G. Weinbaum; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 35 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

4.
The Ideal
By Stanley G. Weinbaum; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 47 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

5.
The Point of View
By Stanley G. Weinbaum; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 38 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

6.
Pygmalion’s Spectacles
By Stanley G. Weinbaum; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 43 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

Posted by Jesse Willis