Friday, January 15, 2010

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVox Strange Maps is a fun blog (and now a book) by Frank Jacobs. Here is a smidgen of the proprietor’s post on Treasure Island:

“…was there a real-life model for the generically named Treasure Island – and if so, where was it? It seems to have been a chance invention by Lloyd Osbourne, RLS’s stepson, while holidaying with the family in a Scottish Highland cottage. As Osbourne later recalled:

‘… busy with a box of paints I happened to be tinting a map of an island I had drawn. Stevenson came in as I was finishing it, and with his affectionate interest in everything I was doing, leaned over my shoulder, and was soon elaborating the map and naming it. I shall never forget the thrill of Skeleton Island, Spyglass Hill, nor the heart-stirring climax of the three red crosses! And the greater climax still when he wrote down the words Treasure Island at the top right-hand corner! And he seemed to know so much about it too – the pirates, the buried treasure, the man who had been marooned on the island … . ‘Oh, for a story about it’, I exclaimed, in a heaven of enchantment …’

And that is how Stevenson got started writing Treasure Island – as a back story to the map originally drawn by his stepson.”

Cool hey?

There’s more to the story, and I encourage you to have a read of the original post |HERE|. After that you should be sufficiently primed to download the public domain audiobook version from LibriVox.org…

Treasure Island
By Robert Louis Stevenson; Read by Adrian Praetzellis
17 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 7 Hours 33 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: December 14, 2007
A mysterious map, pirates, and pieces of eight! When young Jim Hawkins finds a map to pirates’ gold he starts on an adventure that takes him from his English village to a desert island with the murderous Black Dog, half-mad Ben Gunn, and (of course) Long John Silver. Arr Jim lad! R.L. Stevenson (1850-1894) was born in Scotland and travelled extensively in California and the south Pacific.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/treasure-island-by-robert-louis-stevenson-2.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

A map of Treasure Island:

Treasure Island Map

And the 1934 film version:

Posted by Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

As far as I’m concerned there were only two truly excellent things that came out of 1978:

1. Blondie’s Heart Of Glass
2. Terry Nation’s Blake’s 7

One of these is being re-made, improved upon, surpassing the original*, the other never can be nor could be, it was perfected in 1978.

Guess which is which.

I’ll give you a hint. This one is brand new and has just arrived at SFFaudio’s Canadian HQ:

Blake’s 7 The Early Years – Jenna: The Trial / The Dust Run (Vol. 1.5)
By Simon Guerrier; Performed by a full cast
1 CD – Approx. 70 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: B7 Productions
Published: November 30, 2009
ISBN: 9781906577087
The Dust Run – Jenna Stannis has grown up as a spacer, where the normal rules don’t apply. No school, no police, no public imperatives – that’s still all to come. But the situation on Earth is changing and the effects are slowly being felt throughout the Vega system. It’s going to mean trouble for a brash boy called Townsend – who Jenna doesn’t fancy at all. Soon Jenna and Townsend are competing in the Dust Run – racing shuttles through an asteroid field without using computers, making the complex calculations in their heads. It’s dangerous, fool-hardy and really good fun. But they’re playing for the highest of stakes…

The Trial – The election is going to change everything. A man called Roj Blake promises the voters new hope, an end to years of corruption. There are those who can’t let him be heard. But Jenna Stannis is determined to get his message out to the colonies. It’s been years since the Dust Run, and Jenna’s a changed woman. She’s left the Vega system far behind, using her exceptional piloting skills to carve out a life as a smuggler. Blake’s message could earn her a fortune – or cost her, her life.

Blake’s 7 (1978):