June 2009 – Page 8

Aural Noir Review of FALCO: Venus In Copper – a RADIO DRAMA

Aural Noir: Review

SFFaudio Essential Falco: Venus In Copper
Based on the novel by Lindsey Davis; Performed by a full cast
3 CDs or Audible Download – Approx. 3 Hours [RADIO DRAMA]
Publisher: BBC Audio / Audible.com
Published: July 2006
ISBN: 1846071399
Themes: / Crime / Ancient Rome / Detective / Murder / Noir /
Sample: MP3

“Greetings! Marcus Didius Falco at your service, private informer, investigator to you. If you need references ask the emperor. I’ve just done a big job for him. It went very well, so well his chief spy got jealous and threw me in prison, accused me of stealing some imperial lead. Those ingots are going to haunt me forever. I’d have given them the money if anyone had bothered to ask. Still it wasn’t all bad rotting in jail. I had company, a very friendly rat. But before I had time to get to know him better my mother bailed me out.”

Marcus Didius Falco is the central character and narrator of Venus In Copper (the third in a series of novels by Lindsey Davis). Falco’s narration and dialogue is sprinkled with half-nods and sly-winks to the private detective stories of the 20th century. At least one or two lines out of Falco’s mouth each episode echoes something from Chandler, Chinatown or another quip you’ll half recognize. Falco lives in 70’s AD Rome under the rule of Emperor Vespasian. He works as a ‘private informer’ solving mysteries for the citiy’s elites or the nouveau riche freed slaves. That latter is the case with this mystery, concerning the investigation of a black widow set to marry into a rich family made up of freed slaves. The serpentine plot takes the fore of the drama with Davis and dramatist Mary Cutler (a friend of Davis’s) beeing careful to detail Falco’s personal life just enough to make us care about them all. I mentioned that the program seems to delight in referencing the 20th century private detective story. But it also seems highly interested in showing us actual historical 1st century AD detail. The feel for Rome itself, the interplay between fact actually informs the plot – how wonderful and refreshing for a historical mystery! Te program is both comforting in its familiarity and simultaneously fascinating in its new setting. The characters are likewise familiar and new. Venus In Copper is wonderful.

Anton Lesser, playing Falco, is absolutely extraordinary, carrying the program to the heights of radio drama excellence. Anna Madeley, playing Falco’s aristocratic girlfriend, is also amazing. In fact the entire cast does excellent work. Falco’s world is depicted with a rich soundscape with atmospheric effects and well themed music. The only flaw in the entire production was an artificial sounding talking parrot – but then again I don’t think I’ve ever heard a convincing talking parrot imitation. The program is available in stereo on CD or (occasionally via BBC iplayer) or in monaural via Audible.com. Highly recommended.

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 018

SFFaudio Online Audio

Here’s another LibriVox short story collection for you. As usual there are a few repeats sprinkled among the first time recorded tales. Of those latter tales I’ve made a few notes:

Narrator Bellona Times has a nice setup and a decent voice for Breakaway. This tale is Science Fiction for astronauts. An utterly unselfconscious telling of the first Earth to Moon mission – written and published more than a dozen years before it actually happened.

In Edgar Allan Poe’s satire Some Words With A Mummy an amateur Egyptologist gets his hands on an ancient Egyptian mummy. He decides to unwrap it, with startling results. This isn’t Poe’s greatest story, it seems to be very much of its era, but because it is still Poe it is still very good. Narrated by the ever capable Gregg Margarite.

Mex was written by what appears to be a Laurence M. Jannifer (under a pseudonym). It is hard to follow as narrator Daniele races through the standard LibriVox introduction then does some very strange things to what should be Mexican accented English.

I hadn’t even heard of Walt Sheldon prior to the two tales released in this collection. First up, Two Plus Two Makes Crazy has a great title! It depicts a Logan’s Run-like society as seen from the tech department. Fun.

A wacky physics professor stars in the other Sheldon tale: This Is Klon Calling. This one is a mite predictable, but it is entertaining nonetheless. Both Sheldon tales are read by the ever talented Gregg Margarite.

Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 018
By various; Read by various
10 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 2 Hours 6 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 3, 2009
Science fiction (abbreviated SF or sci-fi with varying punctuation and case) is a broad genre of fiction that often involves sociological and technical speculations based on current or future science or technology. This is a reader-selected collection of short stories that entered the US public domain when their copyright was not renewed.

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/short-science-fiction-collection-018.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Belly Laugh
By Randall Garrett; Read by glenford2000
1 |MP3| – Approx. 6 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 3, 2009
You hear a lot of talk these days about secret weapons. If it’s not a new wrinkle in nuclear fission, it’s a gun to shoot around corners and down winding staircases. Or maybe a nice new strain of bacteria guaranteed to give you radio-active dandruff. Our own suggestion is to pipe a few of our television commercials into Russia and bore the enemy to death.

Breakaway
By Stanley Gimble; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 14 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 3, 2009
She surely got her wish … but there was some question about getting what she wanted. From Astounding Science Fiction December 1955.

Cully
By Jack Egan; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 14 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 3, 2009
By all the laws of nature, he should have been dead. But if he were alive … then there was something he had to find. From Amazing Stories, January 1963.

Earthmen Bearing Gifts
By Fredric Brown; Read by Bookman
1 |MP3| – Approx. 7 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 3, 2009
“Mars had gifts to offer and Earth had much in return—if delivery could be arranged!” First published in the June 1960 issue of Galaxy magazine.

Mex
By Laurence M. Janifer; Read by Daniele
1 |MP3| – Approx. 5 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 3, 2009
Talented William Logan [Laurence M. Janifer], though he hails from Dodger territory, tells a quiet story from down near the Mexican border, where men are very close to ancestral memories and to the things which dwell in the shadows. Logan is one of the more interesting of the newer writers. From Fantastic Universe January 1957.

The Putnam Tradition
By Sonya Dorman Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 15 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 3, 2009
Through generations the power has descended, now weaker, now stronger. And which way did the power run in the four-year-old in the garden, playing with a pie plate? From Amazing Stories January 1963.

Some Words With A Mummy
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 36 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 3, 2009
Some amateur Egyptologists get their hands on an ancient Egyptian mummy. They decide to unwrap it, with startling results. First published in the April 1845 issue of American Review: A Whig Journal.

Summit
By Mack Reynolds; Read by M.White
1 |MP3| – Approx. 10 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 3, 2009
Almost anything, if it goes on long enough, can be reduced to, first a Routine, and then, to a Tradition. And at the point it is, obviously, Necessary. First published in Astounding Science Fiction’s February, 1960 issue.

This Is Klon Calling
By Walt Sheldon; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 9 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 3, 2009
One sure way to live dangerously is to become a practical joker. Should you have any doubts about it you might ask Professor Dane. From the Aug-Sept 1953 issue of Fantastic Universe.

Two Plus Two Makes Crazy
By Walt Sheldon; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 9 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 3, 2009
Walt Sheldon is bitter-bright in this imaginative short satire of Man’s sell-out by a group of staunch believers in the infallibility of numbers. From Fantastic Universe March, 1954.

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases – Torchwood: Lost Souls

New Releases

Coming June 9, 2009 from BBC Audiobooks America: Torchwood: Lost Souls…

Torchwood: Lost Souls – The Torchwood team and Martha face danger at CERN in this special BBC radio episode, starring John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Gareth David-Lloyd and Freema Agyeman. Following the tragic deaths of two of their colleagues, only Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones remain of Torchwood, protecting humanity against the unknown. Martha Jones, ex-time traveler and now working as a doctor for UNIT, has been called to CERN — the world’s largest particle physics laboratory. They’re about to activate the Large Hadron Collider, designed to recreate conditions after the Big Bang and thus give an insight into what the Universe is made of. But so much could go wrong: it could open a gateway to a parallel dimension, or even create a black hole. Voices from the past are calling out to people from the LHC, and scientists have started to disappear. Where have they gone? What is lurking in the underground tunnel — and do the dead ever really stay dead?

Posted by Jesse Willis

Aural Noir Review of The Cutie by Donald E. Westlake

Aural Noir: Review

Hard Case Crime SFFaudio Essential The Cutie
By Donald E. Westlake; Read by Stephen R. Thorne
Audible Download – Approx. 5 Hours 27 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America / Audible.com
Published: March 2009
Themes: / Mystery / Crime / Noir / Murder / New York /

“Mavis St. Paul had been a rich man’s mistress. Now she was a corpse. And every cop in New York City was hunting for the two-bit punk accused of putting a knife in her. But the punk was innocent. He’d been set up to take the fall by some cutie who was too clever by half. My job? Find that cutie – before the cutie found me.”

That’s Clay, the strong right arm of Ed Ganolese, talking above. Ed’s a NYC syndicate boss. The mob may have old roots but the syndicate, the crop of gangsters in this novel, only goes as far back as WWII. See during the show in Italy a bunch of D-Day Dodging G.I.s found themselves allied with some old-world black marketeers. And now, twenty or so years later, in the 1960s those bonds lead Clay down strange alleys. He’s forced to turn amateur detectivewhich is something new for a mob enforcer. But his boss Ed, but you call him Mr. Ganolese, is under the squeeze from the “parent company” in Italy. And when Ed asks, Clay does. So, Clay takes the case. He needs to solve the frame-up murder put over on a low level pusher named Billy Billy. Billy Billy is innocent – everyone knows he wouldn’t harm a fly – but the cops like him for the murder. And it looks bad for Billy Billy because he woke-up from his heroin induced stupor in the middle of the murder scene. Everyone knows he’s innocent, Ed knows, Clay knows but the cops, well they just don’t care. Since Billy is someone’s patsy and just a hair’s-breadth ahead of the law that means Clay has really got his work cut-out for him.

I had previously read the paperbook of this novel, but not with the Hard Case Crime title of The Cutie. When I read it originally the novel was called The Mercenaries. The strange thing is that the title seems to have influenced my opinion as to the character of the book, maybe its a combination of things. The title and the way it was read. When I first read the novel about five or six years ago I would have classified it as a rather dark, but with this new title, new cover art (by Ken Laager), and the brightly lit voice acting by Stephen R. Thorne it comes off as surprisingly light. Almost a caper in fact. Part of of it must also be because The Cutie is told in first-person from Clay’s point of view. Narrator Thorne brings a youthful confidence to the part (something my inner voice apparently didn’t). But, it’s still strange how Clay is really a cold blooded and murderous thug – Westlake gives him an excellent backstory. But then again perhaps I’m still hearing Thorne’s reading of Somebody Owes Me Money |READ OUR REVIEW|. The Cutie is fully utterly engaging, I found myself trying to solve the central mystery again, all the while marveling at Westlake’s masterful storytelling. The Cutie is a gritty, fast paced, and well plotted murder mystery with a highly unusual criminal/detective lead. If you haven’t tried a Westlake novel before this, now and with The Cutie is your perfect place to start – this was Donald Westlake’s first novel under his real name.

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 017

SFFaudio Online Audio

Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 017
By various; Read by various
10 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 4 Hours 6 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 21, 2009
Science fiction (abbreviated SF or sci-fi with varying punctuation and case) is a broad genre of fiction that often involves sociological and technical speculations based on current or future science or technology. This is a reader-selected collection of short stories, first published between 1951 and 1962, that entered the US public domain when their copyright was not renewed.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/short-science-fiction-collection-017.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Belly Laugh
By Randall Garrett; Read by Jozef Nagy
1 |MP3| – Approx. 5 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 21, 2009
You hear a lot of talk these days about secret weapons. If it’s not a new wrinkle in nuclear fission, it’s a gun to shoot around corners and down winding staircases. Or maybe a nice new strain of bacteria guaranteed to give you radio-active dandruff. Our own suggestion is to pipe a few of our television commercials into Russia and bore the enemy to death.

Citadel
By Algis Budrys; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 53 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 21, 2009
He was looking for a privacy his strange personality needed. And—never quite seemed to achieve it. All his efforts were, somehow—great triumphs of the race, and great failures for him! From the February 1955 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. This story is told from only one side of the conversation.

Cully
By Jack Egan; Read by Jozef Nagy
1 |MP3| – Approx. 11 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 21, 2009
By all the laws of nature, he should have been dead. But if he were alive … then there was something he had to find. From Amazing Stories, January 1963.

The Defenders
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 50 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 21, 2009
No weapon has ever been frightful enough to put a stop to war—perhaps because we never before had any that thought for themselves! From Galaxy Science Fiction January 1953.

The Good Neighbors
By Edgar Pangborn; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 15 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 21, 2009
You can’t blame an alien for a little inconvenience—as long as he makes up for it! First published in Galaxy magazine, June 1960.
A first contact story.

In The Avu Observatory
By H.G. Wells; Read by Nacelle Droll
1 |MP3| – Approx. 19 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 21, 2009
“The observatory at Avu, in Borneo, stands on the spur of the mountain. To the north rises the old crater, black at night against the unfathomable blue of the sky. From the little circular building, with its mushroom dome, the slopes plunge steeply downward into the black mysteries of the tropical forest beneath.” Set in Borneo. First published in 1894.

Postmark Ganymede
By Robert Silverberg; Read by tabithat
1 |MP3| – Approx. 17 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 21, 2009
Consider the poor mailman of the future. To “sleet and snow and dead of night”—things that must not keep him from his appointed rounds—will be added, sub-zero void, meteors, and planets that won’t stay put. Maybe he’ll decide that for six cents an ounce it just ain’t worth it. From Amazing Stories, September 1957.

Toy Shop
By Harry Harrison; Read by Albatross
1 |MP3| – Approx. 12 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 21, 2009
The gadget was strictly, beyond any question, a toy. Not a real, workable device. Except for the way it could work under a man’s mental skin… From Analog April 1962.

Vital Ingredient
By Gerald Vance*; Read by James Christopher
1 |MP3| – Approx. 16 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 21, 2009
Frankie was ready for the big test—Ten-Time Winner of the world title. He was young and fit and able; also, he had Milt’s cunning brain to direct every feint and punch. This left only one thing in doubt, the— From Amazing Stories September 1956. *This story may have been written by Randall Garrett.

The Vortex Blaster
By E. E. “Doc” Smith; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 46 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 21, 2009
The Lensman and the observer helped Storm into his heavily padded armor. Their movements were automatic—the ointment, the devices— From the pages of the pulp magazine Comet, July 1941.

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 016

SFFaudio Online Audio

Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 016
By various; Read by various
10 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 3 Hours 19 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 2009
Science fiction (abbreviated SF or sci-fi with varying punctuation and case) is a broad genre of fiction that often involves sociological and technical speculations based on current or future science or technology. This is a reader-selected collection of short stories, first published between 1951 and 1962, that entered the US public domain when their copyright was not renewed.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/short-science-fiction-collection-vol-016.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

All Day September
By Roger Kuykendall; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 19th, 2009
Some men just haven’t got good sense. They just can’t seem to learn the most fundamental things. Like when there’s no use trying—when it’s time to give up because it’s hopeless…
From Astounding Science Fiction June 1959.

Beyond The Door
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 14 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 19th, 2009
Did you ever wonder at the lonely life the bird in a cuckoo clock has to lead—that it might possibly love and hate just as easily as a real animal of flesh and blood? Philip Dick used that idea for this brief fantasy tale. We’re sure that after reading it you’ll give cuckoo clocks more respect. From Fantastic Universe January 1954.

Blessed Are the Meek
By G.C. Edmondson; Read by M.White
1 |MP3| – Approx. 11 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 19th, 2009
Every strength is a weakness, and every weakness is a strength. And when the Strong start smashing each other’s strength … the Weak may turn out to be, instead, the Wise. This story was first published in the September 1955 issue of Astounding.

The Calm Man
By Frank Belknap Long; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 29 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 19th, 2009
Dip the pen of a Frank Belknap Long into a bottle of ink and the result is always bound to be a scintillating piece of brilliant imaginative science fiction. And he’s done it again in the tortured story of Sally. From Fantastic Universe, May 1954.

The Crystal Crypt
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 42 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 19th, 2009
Stark terror ruled the Inner-Flight ship on that last Mars-Terra run. For the black-clad Leiters were on the prowl … and the grim red planet was not far behind. First published in the January 1954 issue of Planet Stories.

The Gift Bearer
By Charles L. Fontenay; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 13 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 19th, 2009
This could well have been Montcalm’s greatest opportunity; a chance to bring mankind priceless gifts from worlds beyond. But Montcalm was a solid family man—and what about that nude statue in the park? From Amazing Science Fiction Stories’ September 1958 issue.

Out Of This World Convention
An essay by Forrest J. Ackerman; Read by Jozef Nagy
1 |MP3| – Approx. [CONVENTION REPORT]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 19th, 2009
An eye-witness account of the 14th World Science Fiction Convention in session. First published in Fantastic Universe in January 1957.

A Scientist Rises
By D.W. Hall; Read by dana-allen
1 |MP3| – Approx. 18 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 19th, 2009
All gazed, transfixed, at the vast form that
towered above them. From the November 1932 issue of Astounding Stories.

Texas Week
By Albert Hemhuter; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 11 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 19th, 2009
One of the chief purposes of psychiatry is to separate fantasy from reality. It is reasonable to expect that future psychiatrists will know more about this borderline than the most learned doctors of today. Yet now and again even the best of them may encounter situations that defy all logic. From the January 1954 issue of Fantastic Universe.

Year Of The Big Thaw
By Marion Zimmer Bradley; Read by Greg Weeks
1 |MP3| – Approx. 17 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 19th, 2009
“In this warm and fanciful story of a Connecticut farmer, Marion Zimmer Bradley has caught some of the glory that is man’s love for man—no matter who he is nor whence he’s from. By heck, you’ll like little Matt.”
From the May 1954 issue of Fantastic Universe.

Posted by Jesse Willis