If you’re anything like me you’re more than twice as happy to find a small gem to share with a friend than to revel in the worship and praise of something that is already well advertised. Agora is a recently completed movie in the marketplace of filmed ideas.
The posters to promote the film read: “FREEDOM” “PASSION” “POWER” “AMBITION”
After seeing the movie I can see why the marketers have labeled the characters with the abstract nouns that they did. Freedom, Passion, Power, Ambition. All are probably better at getting more bums in theater seats that the words that I’d like to see on those posters: “HISTORY” “PHILOSOPHY” “SKEPTICISM” “SCIENCE” – I think these words would be more in keeping with the true intellectual spirit of the film – it is a movie about all four of those things.
The audiobook, on the other hand, has yet to have any art made for it because it isn’t completed yet. Underway at LibriVox.org, is an unabridged, multiple narrator reading of Hypatia by Charles Kingsley. This is a historical novel based on the very same life of scientist and philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria. And here’s where you come in. The project is still in need of narrators and proof listeners. To get involved head on over to the LibriVox Forum reader thread or the LibriVox Forum proof listener thread and help bring the story of Hypatia back to life.
Two upcoming audiobooks from Hachette Audio that we talked about on the most recent SFFaudio Podcast…
Black Hills
By Dan Simmons; Read by Erik Davies and Michael McConnohie
18 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Published: February 24, 2010
ISBN: 1600247865 When Paha Sapa, a young Sioux warrior, “counts coup” on General George Armstrong Custer as Custer lies dying on the battlefield at the Little Bighorn, the legendary general’s ghost enters him – and his voice will speak to him for the rest of his event-filled life. Seamlessly weaving together the stories of Paha Sapa, Custer, and the American West, Dan Simmons depicts a tumultuous time in the history of both Native and white Americans. Haunted by Custer’s ghost, and also by his ability to see into the memories and futures of legendary men like Sioux war-chief Crazy Horse, Paha Sapa’s long life is driven by a dramatic vision he experienced as a boy in his people’s sacred Black Hills. In August of 1936, a dynamite worker on the massive Mount Rushmore project, Paha Sapa plans to silence his ghost forever and reclaim his people’s legacy-on the very day FDR comes to Mount Rushmore to dedicate the Jefferson face.
Fang (A Maximum Ride Novel)
By James Patterson; Read by Jill Apple
5 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Published: March 25, 2010
ISBN: 9781600247897 Max and the Flock are flying high over Africa, but this time they’re not alone. A sky full of cargo planes accompanies the team as they bring much-needed aid to the continent’s poverty stricken regions. Among the volunteers is the mission’s benefactor–the mysterious billionaire, Dr. Hans Gunther-Hagen. Max is intrigued by his generosity, but there’s also something about him–and his intense scrutiny of the Flock–that makes her nervous. But Dr. Hans isn’t the only puzzling thing about their trip. The Flock also receives a cryptic message from a young girl, who tells them, “The sky will fall.” Max and the Flock are ready to return home, still unable to make sense of her statement. But the surprises don’t end with their departure, and something unbelievably momentous shakes up the Flock–pushing Max and Fang closer than ever. Will the team be able to stick together through the chaos?
And here’s one I got told about by the author hisself…
Anon Time
By Craig Robertson; Read by Craig Robertson
Podcast – Approx. 7 Hours 42 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Podiobooks.com
Published: 2009 What if you weren’t who you thought you were, what others saw you to be? What if the structure of time depended on you to keep it steady. What if unseen forces, both good and evil, surrounded you, effecting your life in way’s you could not begin to imagine? Well, if that were the case, you’d be Mark De Martel, unobtrusive advertising agent in Los Angeles. Or would you? Possibly you were a Mark, but possibly you would be a powerful warrior, using skills such as the manipulation of gravity itself to save existence.
Tor.com’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy Podcast has an fun interview with Steve Eley—editor of Escape Pod. After the interview wraps the hosts, John Joseph Adams and David Barr Kirtley, talk about audiobooks in a form not at all unlike SFFaudio’s own long running SFFaudio Podcast. Luckily for Messrs. Adams and Kirtley they give right and proper props to SFFaudio.com – and thus avoid a sternly worded email from SFFaudio’s crack legal department (crack as in “excelling in skill or achievement” rather than on crack).
This is a short but informative interview. I find it fascinating, and logical, that the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (held in Ashland) is what made Blackstone’s founders choose to place its business in what looks like little more than a husky village. It looks like Ashland can really punch above its weight!
Brian Price, of Great Northern Audio, has written an essay over on the Audiobook DJ blog entitled Public Allan Poe. In it Price discusses the ubiquity of audio dramatizations and audiobooks based on the fiction of Edgar Allan Poe. His thesis seems to be that because Edgar Allan Poe stories are such a hot property and don’t have any licensing costs associated with them that producers of modern AD based on original scripts are finding it hard to compete. Sez Price:
“From the independent audiobook writer/producer vantage point the public domain is tough to compete against. If I write, produce and try to distribute an original piece and a perspective buyer goes on-line and sees my title and then sees The Tell-Tale Heart he or she is 90 percent of the time going to buy what they’ve heard of. New writers have a hard enough time battling the likes of Stephen King without fighting his Uncle Edgar, as well.
He’s right, of course, but it isn’t all thorns and tears. Price also points out how good most of those adaptations are. One thing he doesn’t consider is that for every version some audio producer creates of an Read the whole essay |HERE|.
Black Hills
