September 2011 – Page 5

The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

Aural Noir: Online Audio

Sometimes titled “The Diamond Necklace” this story is a 3,000 word short story that is often upheld as a tale at, or very near, the pinnacle of ironic fiction. Guy de Maupassant’s short story La Parure is usually given the English title “The Necklace” – despite “La Parure” literally translating into English as “The Finery”.

The Necklace has been reprinted hundreds of times, in books, textbooks and newspapers. It has been collected volumes of “mystery or detective” stories – which is pretty damn odd considering that it has neither a detective nor a mystery in it. And stranger still, it has been anthologized in collections with titles like Masterpieces Of Terror And The Unknown and Isaac Asimov Presents The Best Horror And Supernatural Of The 19th Century.

How does this modest little tale, featuring a Parisian couple, and their acquaintances, a story with no supernatural elements at all qualify as a “supernatural” tale?

How can a story, like The Necklace, in which nobody dies, or is even physically injured, be considered ‘a tale of terror or horror’?

Perhaps the mystery lies not within such questions, but instead with one’s interpretation. Perhaps, just as with the translation from one language to another, there are kinds of horrors, kinds of terrors, indeed kinds of fates which can only be classified as a moral horror, a social terror, or one of life’s little mysteries that leaves us asking questions like the ones above.

Guy de Maupassant has created a story for the ages, a mystery story in which you, the reader, are the detective. Your job is to solve the case of…

The Necklace (La Parure)
By Guy de Maupassant; Read by Patti Cunningham
1 |MP3| – Approx. 19 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 21, 2009
|ETEXT|
Mathilde is a beautiful bride of a mid-level Parisian bureaucrat. Her natural elegance and grace seem somewhat out of place with her husband’s junior position. This is the story of a beautiful woman who works hard and gets everything she wants. First published in the February 17, 1884 issue of Le Gaulois (a French daily newspaper).

Here’s the cover illustration (artist unknown) for La Parure from the October 8, 1893 issue of Gil Blas (a Parisian literary magazine):

The Necklace (La Parure) illustration from Gil Blas, 1893

The most evocative illustrations I’ve seen for The Necklace are by Gord Rayner- they accompany an uncredited radio style play adaptation (for four actors) in the 1960s Canadian textbook entitled Sense And Feeling edited by R.J. Scott. Here’s the 12 page play |PDF| and here are the illustrations:

THE NECKLACE - Illustration by Gordon Rayner from SENSE AND FEELING

Update:

Here’s a wonderful radio dramatization that keeps most of the tale intact:

Favorite Story – The Necklace
Adapted from the story by Guy de Maupassant; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 27 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: KFI
Broadcast: October 7, 1947
Cast:
Heather Angel … Mathilde Loisel
Hans Conried … Pierre Loisel

Posted by Jesse Willis

Ancient Rome Refocused: Interview with Eric Shanower artist/author of the Age Of Bronze comics

SFFaudio Online Audio

I’m a big fan of Roman history, but over the last twenty-five years or so I’ve pretty much exhausted every source and story. I could probably tell you more about the Imperial family tree than my own. And that’s probably why I hadn’t subscribed to any new Roman history podcast recently. But, a recent visit to Age-Of-Bronze.com informed me that Eric Shanower, the artist/author of Age Of Bronze (an amazing comic book series detailing from beginning to end the entire epic story of The Trojan War), was a recent guest interviewee on a podcast called Ancient Rome Refocused.

Here’s the interview: |MP3|

There’s also a transcript of the interview HERE.

Podcast feed: http://rob33.hipcast.com/rss/ancient_rome_refocused.xml

And, if you’re looking for a massively longer interview, check out SFFaudio Podcast #080, which is my own two hour talk with Shanower from last fall.

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBCR4 + RA.cc: Bond’s World – a documentary about the world of James Bond

Aural Noir: Online Audio

First broadcast on BBC Radio more than 10 years ago I discovered this interesting documentary over on RadioArchive.cc, the terrific radio only torrent* site. Bond’s World compares the reality of the British SIS (secret intelligence service) with Fleming’s SIS, examines the peculiarities of Fleming’s writing and plots, as well as showcasing the varied impact of the globally popular Bond films.

Bond’s World
Presented by Jeremy Black
MP3 via Torrent – Approx. 28 Minutes [DOCUMENTARY]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: January 1, 2001
Historian Jeremy Black, with the aid of KGB double agent Oleg Gordievski and writer of espionage stories Nigel West, investigates the remarkable survival of James Bond past the end of the Cold War era into which he was born. What has been his impact, what are his politics, and why is he still relevant today?

Contributors:
Jeremy Black (Historian)
Oleg Gordievski (KGB Agent)
Nigel West (Author)
Readings by Christian Rodska
Produced by Miles Ward

Posted by Jesse Willis

*If you’re still not familiar with torrent technology I recommend you download and install µTorrent, it’s quick and simple.

Sword and Laser interviews Robert J. Sawyer

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Sword and Laser podcast interviews Robert J. Sawyer, live in front of Dragoncon for a full hour. He even answered a question I posted for him in the Sword and Laser Goodreads group:

What does he think the purpose of science fiction is, and where does he think the line should be drawn between entertainment and instruction?

Also, when will the dinosaur books be back in print?

|MP3|

Posted by Tamahome

Hypnobobs: Naturally by Fredric Brown

SFFaudio Online Audio

Here’s a cute little short story, with a sympathetic protagonist, by the master of the short short, Fredric Brown. Mr. Jim Moon, the proprietor and narrator of the Hypnobobs podcast, calls it a “A Micro Tale”, others may call it “Flash Fiction”. Indeed, its brief length and moral teaching probably makes it the perfect story to read before a college mid-term or final exam! But it also has the effect of explaining why any school for magic, like Hogwarts, could never possibly work.

Hypnobobs – Naturally
By Fredric Brown; Read by Jim Moon
1 |MP3| – Approx. 5 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Hypnobobs
Podcast: August 22, 2011
Henry Blodgett is a terrible math student and knows he’ll fail his upcoming geometry exam. But as a student of black magic he may have found a way out! First published in the September 1954 issue of Beyond Fantasy Fiction.

Podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Hypnobobs

Here is the accompanying art, by “Stone”, from the original publication:

Illustration by Stone of Naturally by Fredric Brown

And here’s the complete text if you’d like to read along:

Naturally by Fredric Brown

Henry Blodgett looked at his wrist watch and saw that it was two o’clock in the morning. In despair, he slammed shut the textbook he’d been studying and let his head sink onto his arms on the table in front of him. He knew he’d never pass that examination tomorrow; the more he studied geometry the less he understood it. Mathematics in general had always been difficult for him and now he was finding that geometry was impossible for him to learn.

And if he flunked it, he was through with college; he’d flunked three other courses in his first two years and another failure this year would, under college rules, cause automatic expulsion.

He wanted that college degree badly too, since it was indispensable for the career he’d chosen and worked toward. Only a miracle could save him now.

He sat up suddenly as an idea struck him. Why not try magic? The occult had always interested him. He had books on it and he’d often read the simple instructions on how to conjure up a demon and make it obey his will. Up to now, he’d always figured that it was a bit risky and so had never actually tried it. But this was an emergency and might be worth the slight risk. Only through black magic could he suddenly become an expert in a subject that had always been difficult for him.

From the shelf he quickly took out his best book on black magic, found the right page and refreshed his memory on the few simple things he had to do.

Enthusiastically, he cleared the floor by pushing the furniture against the walls. He drew the pentagram figure on the carpet with chalk and stepped inside it. He then said the incantations.

The demon was considerably more horrible than he had anticipated. But he mustered his courage and started to explain his dilemma. “I’ve always been poor at geometry,” he began . . .

“You’re telling me,” said the demon gleefully.

Smiling flames, it came for him across the chalk lines of the useless hexagram Henry had drawn by mistake instead of the protecting pentagram.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Gods Of The North by Robert E. Howard

SFFaudio Online Audio

“Anybody ought to be willing to pay a dollar for the privilege of reading, for a whole year, the works of Lovecraft, Smith, and Derleth.”

-Robert E. Howard (from a letter to Fantasy Fan, December 1933)

“I am so happy that we were able to quickly clear up this misunderstanding. We have accepted Orion’s apology without reservation and I thank our lawyers, and Orion’s lawyers, on both sides of the Atlantic for helping us resolve our issues. Orion was a great licensee of ours for many years and we are delighted to have reached an agreement to renew and expand that relationship. We are already brainstorming the many new productive ways we can work together in the future. Those of us who work at Paradox have put a lot of work into protecting and developing our wide array of Robert E. Howard derived brands since we got into the Robert E. Howard business. The new Conan movie will wrap next month, the Age of Conan MMOG recently launched a big expansion, and we are well along in the development of a number of other feature films and licensed products which we will be announcing shortly. Orion is perfectly positioned as a leading science fiction/fiction publisher which can provide the wider audience we want to reach the real thing, REH’s original stories”

-Fredrik Malmberg, President and CEO of Paradox Entertainment, Inc. and its subsidiaries (Conan Properties International) (from a 2010 press release)

Gods Of The North, first published in 1934, is still just one of two Conan stories available on LibriVox.org (the other being Red Nails). Gods Of The North is a 3,500 word vignette, it’s been republished under the titles The Frost Giant’s Daughter and The Frost King’s Daughter. The reason it survives, and is known today, has nothing to do with marketing campaigns, intellectual property protection or lawyers. It survives for one reason alone – it survives because of it’s fans. In fact, it survives despite it being originally written as a piece for sale. It was actually rejected by Weird Tales magazine editor Farnsworth Wright:

The Frost-Giant's Daughter Rejection Letter

Check it out… Gods Of The North was first published in a fan magazine (that had just sixty subscribers) – a fan magazine that counted both H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard among its feature (and letters column) contributors. Neither Lovecraft nor Howard wrote to, or for, THE FANTASY FAN because it was a profitable venture – they wrote to it, and for it, because they were themselves fans of fantasy and the stories and poems they were weaving. You may know the story. It’s a pretty famous one today, but it isn’t famous because it was a well marketed, properly licensed by the right’s holder, or branded. It is, instead, because it’s a good story that fans (another word for readers) appreciate.

Gods Of The North was nearly forgotten. It lay un-reprinted and virtually unknown for more than thirty years until it was re-discovered and reprinted in the December 1956 issue of Fantastic Universe. Here is the editorial introduction for that reprinting:

The publication of this strange story by Robert E. Howard, author of the Conan stories, so much a part of the Living Library of Fantasy, represents a departure for this magazine. Without abandoning our policy of bringing you, month after month, the best in NEW Science Fiction and Fantasy. We will, front time to time, publish material such as this, hitherto known to only a few students of the field! GODS OF THE NORTH was published in 1934, in Charles D. Hornig’s THE FANTASY FAN, which had a circulation of under a hundred! We thank Sam Moskowitz, Editor and SF historian, who showed us this story.

Here’s the |PDF|, it’s also available (with a slightly different text) at |WIKISOURCE|

Here’s my description of the plot:

A winter war in the mountains of Vanaheim, and a bit of gossamer, are all that stand between Conan of Cimmeria and the frosty beauty who spurns him.

And here’s the audiobook:

Gods of the North
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Rowdy Delaney
1 |MP3| – Approx. 21 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 21, 2008
She drew away from him, dwindling in the witch·fire of the skies, until she was a figure no bigger than a child. First published in the March 1934 issue of The Fantasy Fan.

Here’s the same reading, with additional commentary:

Podcastle #162 – Gods Of The North
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Rowdy Delaney
1 |MP3| – Approx. 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Podcastle
Podcast: June 21, 2011

My copy of Conan’s Brethren (a Gollancz collection of Howard stories), edited by Stephen Jones, features this striking image by Les Edwards (aka Edward Miller):

The Frost King's Daughter - illustration by Les Edwards

Comics adaptations:

Savage Tales #1 (May 1971) – The first comics adaptation, adapted by Roy Thomas (writer) and Barry Windsor Smith (artist):

Savage Tales - The Frost Giant's Daughter

Conan the Barbarian #16 (July 1972) – a colorized version of the ST #1 adaptation, except with Comics Code Authority self-censorship and an additional splash page:

Conan The Barbarian - Night Of The Frost Giants

Savage Sword of Conan #1 (August 1974) – an uncoloured and uncensored (full nudity is back) version of the same adaptation from Conan The Barbarian #16 and Savage Tales #1, but featuring the added splash page (in black and white this time) from CTB #16:

The Savage Sword Of Conan - ADDED SPLASH (in black and white) - The Frost Giant's Daughter

Conan #2 (March 2004) adapted by Kurt Busiek (writer) and Cary Nord (artist) – cover art by Joseph Michael Linsner:

Dark Horse - Conan #2 - The Frost Giant's Daughter - COVER

Conan #2 - The Frost Giant's Daughter - INTERIOR

But the fan connection doesn’t end there. The artist most closely associated with the Marvel Comics run of Conan The Barbarian and Savage Sword Of Conan was John Buscema. But, he never illustrated an adaptation of Gods Of The North or The Frost Giant’s Daughter. And so it was up to fan artists, like the impressively talented Benito Gallego, to step in to imagine what a Buscema version of this fan favourite tale might look like. And he did it twice!

Benito Gellago's illustrations of The Frost Giant's Daughter

[Thanks to Robert E. Howard, Charles D. Horning, Sam Moskowitz, Hans Stefan Santesson, Rowdy Delaney, Gorgon776 and many other fans]

Posted by Jesse Willis