Month: May 2012

LibriVox: Mountain Man by Robert E. Howard

Aural Noir: Online Audio

Robert E. Howard’s Breckinridge Elkins stories are humorous tall tales about a mighty naive but mighty muscled country boy. This one, the very first, starts off a little like Winnie The Pooh, but fear not, all Howard’s usual themes are in there. There’s a bit of a difference though, even though you’ve got a barbaric he-man battling civilized folk the story differs from a CONAN tale in that it’s set in the then contemporary world (1934) and also because it’s told in first person by an unreliable narrator.

The audiobook’s narrator, RK Wilcox, on the other hand, is a very reliable narrator, as you’ll hear in this solid reading of Mountain Man.

Mountain Man by Robert E. Howard

LibriVoxMountain Man
By Robert E. Howard; Read by RK Wilcox
1 |MP3| – Approx. 35 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 25, 2008
|ETEXT|
Introducing the famous Breckinridge Elkins of Hardrock County, suh-the first and foremost What-a-Man of 1934! He was raised on b’ar meat and panther milk – and strong men hunt a hideout when it’s his night to howl! First published in Action Stories, March-April 1934.

Here’s a |PDF| from the original publication in Action Stories.

Posted by Jesse Willis

National Endowment for the Arts: Big Read: A Wizard Of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

SFFaudio Online Audio

National Endowment for the Arts: Big ReadThe National Endowment for the Arts presents a complied interview piece on Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard Of Earthsea.

Contributors include Michael Chabon, Kelly Link, Orson Scott Card, Walter Mosley, R.L. Stine and Le Guin herself!

|MP3|

Subscribe via the podcast feed:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/neabigread

Posted by Jesse Willis

City Of Dreams: The Damned Are Playing At Godzilla Tonight on YouTube

SFFaudio News

SEEING EAR THEATRE - J. Michael Straczynski's City Of Dreams

You’ve heard rumors of the City of Dreams. It’s existence has been officially denied, although unconfirmed reports have placed it beneath the ruins of Machu Pichu in South America. Others say it’s in Arkham, Massachusetts, or hidden in a secret network of tunnels under Moscow.

But we’re here to tell you the truth. Do you want to know where the City of Dreams is?

It’s on YouTube! Yes, the wondrous Twilight Zone-esque series written by J. Michael Straczynski and produced as a part of The Seeing Ear Theatre is available on YouTube. Here’s the first episode:

Episode 1 – The Damned Are Playing At Godzilla Tonight

Part 1 of 3:

Part 2 of 3:

Part 3 of 3:

The dark, ominous tale of the bigoted owner of a small nightclub in the City of Dreams who faces a new sound, and a band that just won’t quit…on either side of the grave.

Written by J. Michael Straczynski

Cast:
Steve Buscemi
Kevin Conway
Christopher Burns
Kevin Daniels
Beth Glover
J.R. Horne
Ezra Knight

[via J. Michael Straczynski’s Twitter feed]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Guardian Short Stories Podcast: My Dream Of Flying To Wake Island by J.G. Ballard

SFFaudio Online Audio

Willliam Boyd explains his love of J.G. Ballard’s short story My Dream Of Flying To Wake Island:

In the short history of the short story – not much longer than 150 years – very few writers have completely redefined the form. Chekhov, pre-eminently, but also Hemingway and Borges. JG Ballard has to be added to this exclusive list, in my opinion. Ballard’s models for his haunting stories are closer to art and music, it seems to me, than to literature. These are fictions inspired by the paintings of De Chirico and Max Ernst, which summon up the mesmerising ostinatos of Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Character and narrative are secondary – image and symbol dominate with a surreal and hypnotic intensity, and the language reflects this. Ballardian tropes – empty swimming pools, abandoned resorts, psychotic astronauts, damaged doctors, the alluring nihilism of consumer society and so forth – are unmistakably and uniquely his. “My Dream of Flying to Wake Island” is a true Ballardian classic.

This is a story you can listen to again and again.

Guardian Short Stories PodcastMy Dream Of Flying To Wake Island
By J.G. Ballard; Read by William Boyd
1 |MP3| – Approx. 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Guardian Short Stories Podcast
Podcast: December 11, 2010
First published in Ambit #60 (Autumn, 1974).

Posted by Jesse Willis

National Endowment for the Arts: Big Read: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

SFFaudio Online Audio

National Endowment for the Arts: Big ReadThe National Endowment for the Arts presents a complied interview piece on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. It features Matthew J. Bruccoli, Maureen Corrigan, Dana Gioia, Andrew Sean Greer, Gish Jen, Robert Redford and Sam Waterston.

|MP3|

There’s a teacher’s guide HERE too.

Subscribe via the podcast feed:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/neabigread

Posted by Jesse Willis