BBC R7: Chandler, Daly, Wells, Matheson, King!

SFFaudio Online Audio

BBC Radio 7 - BBC7The coming week on BBC Radio 7 is chock full of must listen content. These are all re-runs so you’ve probably heard at least one or two of them before. Myself, I’m most excited about hearing Anton Lesser’s reading of the Wells story. I’ve only known his work in one series, that FALCO radio drama series I’m always telling everyone about. Also, this 1970s by Wally K. Daly “Scream” series could be good. I’ll check it out, as this week sees its first two (of three) stories airing. Likely next week will see the rebroadcast of the final chapter. So which of these draws your interest?

BBC Radio Collection - The Little Sister by Raymond ChandlerThe Little Sister
Based on the novel by Raymond Chandler; Performed by a full cast
1 Broadcast – Approx. 90 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 7
Broadcast: Saturday at 1pm and 1am
The search for a missing man deepens into an investigation of several brutal murders. Philip Marlowe’s enquiries take him to a Hollywood film set where he wonders which of the suspects is putting on the best performance. Ed Bishop stars as Raymond Chandler’s quick-witted, sharp-talking private eye in a 1977 production dramatised by Bill Morrison and produced by John Tydeman.

Before The Screaming Begins
By Wally K. Daly; Performed by a full cast
3 Broadcasts – [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 7
Broadcast: Monday to Wednesday at 6pm and Midnight
When Tom Harris is abducted by aliens whilst celebrating his wedding anniversary, the police are understandably sceptical of his wife’s account. But the disappearances continue. Stars
Hannah Gordon, James Laurenson, Patrick Troughton, Jennifer Piercey and Robert Trotter, First broadcast in 1978.

The Silent Scream
By Wally K. Daly; Performed by a full cast
2 Broadcast – [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 7
Broadcast: Thursday and Friday at 6pm and Midnight
James Laurenson returns as Tom Harris in the sequel to Before The Screaming Begins. The threat from the aliens increases. First broadcast in 1979. Martin Jenkins production co-stars Hannah Gordon, Donald Hewlett and Colin Douglas.

BBC Radio 7 - Fantastic JourneysFantastic Journeys: The Door In The Wall
By H.G. Wells; Read by Anton Lesser
1 Broadcast – [UNABRIDGED?]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 7
Broadcast: Saturday at 6.30 pm and 00.30am
On the eve of great success in public life, Lionel Wallace is troubled by the vision of a lost childhood paradise behind a mysterious door in a wall. Will he concentrate on his career – or succumb to the temptation to pursue this vanished world? First heard earlier this year (2009). The first of a five part series of short stories.

Duel by Richard MathesonDuel
By Richard Matheson; Read by Nathan Osgood
1 Broadcast – Approx 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC 7 / 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Saturday at 6.30pm and 12.30am
“Driving to San Francisco, a businessman finds himself the victim of a deadly game being played by the driver of a huge, mysterious truck. Later to become Steven Spielberg’s classic 1971 film.” Previously broadcast in 2006 and 2007.

I Am Legend
By Richard Matheson; Read by Angus McInnes
9 Broadcasts – approx 5 Hours [UNABRIDGED?]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 7
Broadcast: Monday to Friday at 6.30pm and 00.30am
“Taking place in New York, it’s a tale of vampires and a man immune to the plague that has decimated most of the population.” Adapted by Scott Stainton Miller.Produced by Eilidh McCreadie. Previously broadcast in 2006 and 2007.

Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption by Stephen KingRita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption
By Stephen King; Read by Clarke Peters
5 Broadcasts – [UNABRIDGED?]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 7
Broadcast: Monday to Friday at 1.30pm, 8.30pm and 1.30am
In a brutal American prison, wrongly-convicted Andy Dufresne develops an ingenious method of survival – and conceives an even more resourceful plan of escape. This was the story that inspired the film The Shawshank Redemption.

Posted by Jesse Willis

SFBRC: Luke Burrage reviews Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Science Fiction Book Review Podcast Luke Burrage of The Science Fiction Book Review Podcast has Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 in mind with his latest podcast. Luke points out some oft forgotten points about this Science Fiction classic. Have a listen direct |MP3| or subscribe via the podcast feed:

http://www.sfbrp.com/?feed=podcast

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri FREE @ Christian Audio

SFFaudio Online Audio

ChristianAudio.com, specializing in Christian audiobooks, offers a free audiobook monthly. This month there’s a classic Fantasy title that will be sure to please literary Christians, pagans and heathens (like me). Here’s a sample |MP3|.

The Divine Comedy: The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso by Dante AlighieriThe Divine Comedy: The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso
By Dante Alighieri; Read by Pam Ward
11 MP3 Files or 11 M4B Files – Approx. 13 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Hovel Audio / Christian Audio Classics
Published: May 2009
Dante Alighieri’s poetic masterpiece is a moving human drama, an unforgettable visionary journey through the infinite torment of Hell, up the arduous slopes of Purgatory, and on to the glorious realm of Paradise-the sphere of universal harmony and eternal salvation. One of the greatest works in literature, Dantes story-poem is an allegory that represents mankind as it exposes itself, by its merits or demerits, to the rewards or the punishments of justice. A single listening will reveal Dantes visual imagination and uncanny power to make the spiritual visible. Translated by John Ciardi.

To get this audiobook:

1. You’ll need to create an account on the site (this requires filling in a bunch of blanks but does not demand you enter a credit card)

2. Add the audiobook to your cart

3. Enter the coupon code “AUG2009” (minus the quotation marks) when prompted

4. Select either MP3s, M4Bs or WMAs (I suggest you choose MP3, it is the most compatible format – even if you’re using an iPod you should still get MP3 as you can always convert the 11 files into one big M4B using the free software called MP3 to iPod Audio Book Converter)

Posted by Jesse Willis

BibliotechTV talks to Evo Terra about audiobooks/podiobooks

SFFaudio News

Bibliotech with Mark JeffreyMy good friend Evo Terra is the latest guest on Bibliotech, a video podcast hosted by Mark Jeffery. Jeffrey should be a familiar name to Podiobooks users as he himself is a Podiobook author (of Max Quick 1: The Pocket And The Pendant |READ OUR REVIEW| and Max Quick 2: The Two Travelers).

Evo talks about the origin (September 2005) and success of Podiobooks.com. Today the site has 335 FREE books in the catalogue, 60,000 members, and 81,000 episodes downloaded in a day!

Posted by Jesse Willis

Recent Arrivals from Blackstone Audio, with YouTubes!

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Science Fiction Audiobook - Flashforward by Robert J. SawyerFlashforward
By Robert J. Sawyer; Read by Mark Deakins
10.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2009

A scientific experiment begins, and as the button is pressed, the unexpected occurs: everyone in the world goes to sleep for a few moments while everyone’s consciousness is catapulted more than twenty years into the future. At the end of those moments, when the world reawakens, all human life is transformed by foreknowledge.

Was that shocking revelation a peek at the real, unalterable future, or was it only one of many possible futures? What happens when a man tries to change it, like the doctor who has twenty years to try to prevent his own murder? How will the foreknowledge of a part of “then” affect the experience of the “now”?

A great book! And it’s going to be a TV series this fall on ABC:


 
Horror Audiobook - Nightmare at 20,000 Feet by Richard MathesonNightmare at 20,000 Feet
By Robert J. Sawyer; Read by Various
10.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2009

One of the finest and most influential horror writers of the twentieth century, Richard Matheson (I Am Legend, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Somewhere in Time) has left his stamp on the collective imagination. Here are more than twenty of Matheson’s most memorable tales of fear and paranoia, personally selected by the author himself. Many of these stories have already entered into popular culture, including the title story, which became a landmark episode of The Twilight Zone, and “Duel”, the nail-biting tale of man versus machines that inspired Steven Spielberg’s first film.

Other stories include “First Anniversary,” “Dress of White Silk,” “Witch War,” “Dance of the Dead,” “Mad House,” “Prey,” “Blood Son,” “Crickets,” “Wet Straw,” “The Children of Noah,” “Through Channels,” “Old Haunts,” “Disappearing Act,” “The Holiday Man,” “Legion of Plotters,” “The Distributor,” “Long Distance Call,” “Slaughter House,” and “The Likeness of Julie.” Find out why Stephen King (who writes the introduction) has called Matheson one of his favorite writers.

And here is part of the famous Twilight Zone episode based on the cover story:


 
Science Fiction Audiobook - The Invisible Man by H.G. WellsThe Invisible Man
By H. G. Wells; Read by James Adams
5.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2009

On a freezing February day, a stranger emerges from out of the gray to request a room at a local provincial inn. Who is this out-of-season traveler? More confounding is the thick mask of bandages obscuring his face. Why does he disguise himself in this manner and keep himself hidden away in his room?

Aroused by trepidation and curiosity, the local villagers bring it upon themselves to find the answers. What they discover is a man trapped in a terror of his own creation, and a chilling reflection of the unsolvable mysteries of their own souls.

And here’s the trailer for The Invisible Man (1933) starring Claude Rains:


 
Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Recent Arrivals from Tantor Media

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Fantasy Audiobook - The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian by Robert E. HowardThe Coming of Conan the Cimmerian
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Todd McLaren
18.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: 2009

“Between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities…there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars…. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand…to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.”

In a meteoric career that spanned a mere twelve years before his tragic suicide, Robert E. Howard single-handedly invented the genre that came to be called sword and sorcery. Collected in this volume are Howard’s first thirteen Conan stories in their original versions and in the order Howard wrote them. Included are classics of dark fantasy like “The Tower of the Elephant” and swashbuckling adventure like “Queen of the Black Coast.”

Here are timeless tales featuring Conan the raw and dangerous youth, Conan the daring thief, Conan the swashbuckling pirate, and Conan the commander of armies. Here, too, is an unparalleled glimpse into the mind of a genius whose bold storytelling style has been imitated by many yet equaled by none.

The tales contained in The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian are “The Phoenix on the Sword,” “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter,” “The God in the Bowl,” “The Tower of the Elephant,” “The Scarlet Citadel,” “Queen of the Black Coast,” “Black Colossus,” “Iron Shadows in the Moon,” “Xuthal of the Dusk,” “The Pool of the Black One,” “Rogues in the House,” “The Vale of Lost Women,” and “The Devil in Iron.”
 
 
Science Fiction Audiobook - The White Plague by Frank HerbertThe White Plague
By Frank Herbert; Read by Scott Brick
20.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: 2009

A warm day in Dublin, a crowded street corner. Suddenly, a car-bomb explodes, killing and injuring scores of innocent people.

From the second-floor window of a building across the street, a visiting American watches, helpless, as his beloved wife and children are sacrificed in the heat and fire of someone else’s cause.

From this shocking beginning, the author of the phenomenal Dune series has created a masterpiece.

The White Plague is a marvelous and terrifyingly plausible blend of fiction and visionary theme. It tells of one man’s revenge, of the man watching from the window who is pushed over the edge of sanity by the senseless murder of his family and who, reappearing several months later as the so-called Madman, unleashes a terrible vengeance upon the human race. For John Roe O’Neill is a molecular biologist who has the knowledge, and now the motivation, to devise and disseminate a genetically carried plague—a plague to which, like those that scourged mankind centuries ago, there is no antidote, but one that zeros in, unerringly and fatally, on women. As the world slowly recognizes the reality of peril, as its politicians and scientists strive desperately to save themselves and their society from the prospect of human extinction, so does Frank Herbert grapple with one of the great themes of contemporary life: the enormous dangers that lurk at the dark edges of science.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson