Recent Arrivals from Penguin Audio

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Fantasy Audiobook - Ghost Story by Jim ButcherGhost Story
By Jim Butcher; Read by John Glover
15 CDs – 18 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Published: 2011

The eagerly awaited new novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling Dresden Files series.

When we last left the mighty wizard detective Harry Dresden, he wasn’t doing well. In fact, he had been murdered by an unknown assassin.

But being dead doesn’t stop him when his friends are in danger. Except now he has nobody, and no magic to help him. And there are also several dark spirits roaming the Chicago shadows who owe Harry some payback of their own.

To save his friends-and his own soul-Harry will have to pull off the ultimate trick without any magic…
 
 
Fantasy Audiobook - The Magician King by Lev GrossmanThe Magician King
By Lev Grossman; Read by Mark Bramhall
13 CDs – 16 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Published: 2011

Return to Fillory in the riveting sequel to The New York Times bestseller and literary phenomenon of 2009–The Magicians.

The Magicians was praised as a triumph by readers and critics of both mainstream and fantasy literature. Now Grossman takes us back to Fillory, where the Brakebills graduates have fled the sorrows of the mundane world, only to face terrifying new challenges.

Quentin and his friends are now the kings and queens of Fillory, but the days and nights of royal luxury are starting to pall. After a morning hunt takes a sinister turn, Quentin and his old friend Julia charter a magical sailing ship and set out on an errand to the wild outer reaches of their kingdom. Their pleasure cruise becomes an adventure when the two are unceremoniously dumped back into the last place Quentin ever wants to see: his parent’s house in Chesterton, Massachusetts. And only the black, twisted magic that Julia learned on the streets can save them.

The Magician King is a grand voyage into the dark, glittering heart of magic, an epic quest for the Harry Potter generation. It also introduces a powerful new voice, that of Julia, whose angry genius is thrilling. Once again Grossman proves that he is the modern heir to C.S. Lewis, and the cutting edge of literary fantasy.
 

New Releases: The Great Courses (The Teaching Company) Summer 2011 Catalogue

New Releases

The Teaching CompanyAs promised, I’ve got a complete scan of the latest Teaching Company catalogue – and I did it before the prices expire! Strangely this catalogue comes not from a random discard, but instead from my mom, who had it come in her mail. She’d never heard The Teaching Company, or this catalogue of “The Great Courses” and she has no idea how she got on their mailing list!

It isn’t fair. I want to be on that list!

Here’s the Summer 2011 catalogue of The Great Courses |PDF|

And as usual it’s just lousy with educational goodness. Among the many lecture series that struck me as cool sounding were:

How To Become A Superstar Student, 2nd Edition (Page 11)
The Art Of Teaching: Best Practices From A Master Educator (Page 21)
Games People Play: Game Theory In Life, Business and Beyond (Page 31)
The Wisdom Of History (Page 37)
Books That Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life (Page 39)
The World Was Never The Same: Events That Changed History (Page 41)
Classical Mythology (Page 51)

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Black Stone by Robert E. Howard

SFFaudio Online Audio

Robert E. Howard's The Black Stone - art by Gene Day

The Black Stone is one of Robert E. Howard’s Cthulhu Mythos stories. I happen to think it’s is one of his best – which is saying something because Robert E. Howard was an absolutely terrific Horror writer. I probably first encountered it as an adaption, it was a backup story written by Roy Thomas and illustrated by Gene Day in the March 1982 issue of Savage Sword Of Conan (#74). That was actually quite a spectacular issue of the magazine and the The Black Stone, which only took up ten pages, was wonderful. FNH has posted a two part reading of the story to his Cthulhu podcast and it’s well read too:

Cthulhu PodcastThe Black Stone
By Robert E. Howard; Read by FNH
2 MP3 Files – Approx. 41 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Cthulhu Podcast
Podcast: July 2011
|ETEXT|
A biliophile, with extensive knowledge of history, anthropology and ancient religion, reads of a forgotten geological feature in the mountains of Hungary. He decides to take his vacation there, mid-summer, and encounters legend, history and a terrible manifestation from an unspeakably distant epoch. First published in the November 1931 issue of Weird Tales.

Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3|

Podcast feed:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/cthulhupodcast

Here’s another reading, from a cool podcast I’ve just discovered. I expect to be listening to a lot more episodes from it:

The Black Stone by Robert E. HowardThe Black Stone
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Jim Moon
1 |MP3| – Approx. 56 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Hypnobobs
Podcast: January 23, 2011
A biliophile, with extensive knowledge of history, anthropology and ancient religion, reads of a forgotten geological feature in the mountains of Hungary. He decides to take his vacation there, mid-summer, and encounters legend, history and a terrible manifestation from an unspeakably distant epoch. First published in the November 1931 issue of Weird Tales.

Podcast feed: http://hypnogoria.podomatic.com/rss2.xml

The Black Stone is also available in print. The Ballantine Del Rey collection titled The Horror Stories Of Robert E. Howard (ISBN: 0345490207) was released as an audiobook edition available from Tantor Media (read by Robertson Dean):

Horror Audiobook - The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard by Robert E. HowardThe Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Robertson Dean
2 MP3-CDs – Approx. 24 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Audiobooks
Published: 2010
ISBN:
Sample |MP3|

And of course there have been several other talented artistic interpretations of The Black Stone, here’s just a few:

The Black Stone - illustrated by Greg Staples

The Black Stone - illustrated by Lee Brown Coye (from Sleep No More)

Wolfshead cover illustration by Paul Lehr

Wolfshead cover illustration by Paul Lehr

Wolfshead cover illustration by Paul Lehr

Wolfshead cover illustration by Paul Lehr


The Black Stone - art by Jim & Ruth Keegan

The Black Stone - art by Jim & Ruth Keegan


Posted by Jesse Willis