November 2012 – Page 4

My visit to the new Coquitlam City Centre Library

SFFaudio News

Coquitlam City Centre Library

For the last couple of decades I’ve lived on the same street as my public library. That’s been one of the reasons that I live where I do. But today the local branch of Coquitlam’s public library moved two blocks south and opened for the first time.

The new address is 1169 Pinetree Way.

And the new space is great, very open, with plenty of study areas, and lots of room to grow the collection – and best of all it’s still within walking distance!

The first thing I did when I got there was to make a donation to the library’s collection, a combination of paperbooks, DVDs, comics, and audiobooks. Patrons of Coquitlam public library system should soon see these items on their shelves:

donations to the library's collection

Here’s a partial list:

City Of Dragons by Kelli Stanley |SFFAUDIO PODCAST #061|
Fate Of Worlds by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner
Elidor by Alan Garner
Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris’ Ex Machina (volumes 1-5)
The complete Babylon 5 DVD set (all five seasons plus the movies)
Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle |READ OUR REVIEW|
V For Vendetta by Steve Moore |READ OUR REVIEW|
Armor by John Steakley |READ OUR REVIEW|
I Am Legend and Other Stories by Richard Matheson |READ OUR REVIEW|

And here are some shots of the library’s facilities:

New Arrivals at the Coquitlam City Centre Library
Teens section at the Coquitlam City Centre Library
study area at the Coquitlam City Centre Library
group study room at the Coquitlam City Centre Library

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Grove Of Ashtaroth by John Buchan

SFFaudio Online Audio

“In a remarkable short story, ‘The Grove of Ashtaroth,’ the hero finds himself obliged to destroy the gorgeous little temple of a sensual cult, because he believes that by doing so he will salvage the health and sanity of a friend. But he simultaneously believes himself to be committing an unpardonable act of desecration, and the eerie voice that beseeches him to stay his hand is unmistakably feminine.”

-Christopher Hitchens (The Atlantic Monthly, March 2004)

The Grove Of Ashtaroth was written by the fifteenth Governor General of Canada, John Buchan. Despite that high position, he was the viceregal representative of the Canadian monarch for five years in the 1930s, Buchan is probably better known today as the author of The Thirty-Nine Steps. Buchan’s novelette has been described as a “weird story” (by the makers of Escape) or as “high fantasy” (in The Fantastic Imagination) by editors Robert H. Boyer and Kenneth J. Zahorski, a 1977 anthology).

I’m not sure exactly what it is, except very interesting and certainly within the vague borders of the Fantasy genre. The Grove Of Ashtaroth reminds me of a short story by Philip K. Dick, Of Withered Apples.

You can judge for yourself what you think it is most like.

There’s a hurried, but unabridged, reading available |MP3|. It’s read by Libby Hill for the TV On The Internet podcast (beginning shortly after the twenty minute mark).

I myself have made a |PDF| from the original publication in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, June 1910.

But your best bet, in audio, for the moment at least, is to listen to the 1948 Escape radio dramatization!

Escape – The Grove Of Ashtaroth
Adapted from the novelette by John Buchan; Adapted by Les Crutchfield; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 31 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBS
Broadcast: February 29, 1948
Provider: Archive.org

Cast:
Paul Frees as John Buchan
William Conrad as Lawson

And if you were wondering, the only major difference between the original story and the dramatization is that the unnamed narrator is named (after Buchan himself) in the dramatization.

[Thanks also to Escape-Suspense.com]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Synthetic Voices, a podcast about “speculative audio fiction podcasts”

SFFaudio Online Audio

There’s a handy new podcast called Synthetic Voices. Hosted by Jimmy Rogers, the show features mini-reviews of various podcast fiction pieces he’s listened to over the previous month. Rogers offers extensive shownotes with the accompanying blog posts. I like this.

I found it via a pingback to SFFaudio Podcast #181 which got a mention in episode #11 of Synthetic Voices |MP3|.

Podcast feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/scienceismagic/SyntheticVoices

Posted by Jesse Willis

Dune Roller by Julian May

SFFaudio Online Audio

Julian May’s first published story, Dune Roller, became something of a popular tale – at least with editor Robert Silverberg who had it in two of his anthologies one which collected “masterpieces” and the other which collected “great” tales. Indeed, the novelette was quickly adapted as an episode of the Tales Of Tomorrow TV series. There was also an apparently “abominable” 1972 movie adaptation called The Cremators, and there was this 1961 BBC Home Service radio dramatization (available via torrent over on RadioArchive.cc).

BBC Radio Dune Roller
Adapted from the short story by Julian May; Performed by a full cast
MP3 via TORRENT – Approx. 59 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Home Service
Broadcast: January 26, 1961
On isolated island in Lake Michigan a visiting ecologist discovers an unknown mineral that’s been linked to a local legend of a ravenous creature. First published in Astounding, December 1951.

Dune Roller - illustrated by Julian May

It was also, rather successfully adapted to television for Tales Of Tomorrow:

Download the |MP4|.

Trailer for The Cremators:

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allan Poe (read by Wayne June)

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allan Poe

Nobody does Edgar Allan Poe better than Wayne June.

The Conqueror Worm
by Edgar Allan Poe

Lo! ’tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly-
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Woe!

That motley drama- oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.

Out- out are the lights- out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: The Lady, Or The Tiger? by Frank R. Stockton

SFFaudio Online Audio

Here’s the story for our SFFaudio Podcast readalong, a classic tale about a semi-barbaric king and his beautiful, but very jealous, daughter.

The Lady, Or The Tiger? is a story I had never heard of until this week – and yet as a phrase, as a trope, it is something I had been vaguely aware of.

The Lady, Or The Tiger? seems to be almost unknown in the current generation – but it is still relevany, and still worthy of reading and talking about.

After reading, or listening to it, on tell me which side do you come down on, was it the lady, or was it the tiger?

The Lady, Or The Tiger?
by Frank R. Stockton; Read by David Federman
1 |MP3| – Approx. 17 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 27, 2008
A man sentenced to an unusual punishment for having a romance with a king’s beloved daughter. Taken to the public arena, he is faced with two doors, behind one of which is a hungry tiger that will devour him. Behind the other is a beautiful lady-in-waiting, whom he will have to marry, if he finds her. While the crowd waits anxiously for his decision, he sees the princess among the spectators, who points him to the door on the right. The lover starts to open the door and … the story ends abruptly there. Did the princess save her love by pointing to the door leading to the lady-in-waiting, or did she prefer to see her lover die rather than see him marry someone else? First published in 1882.

And here’s a |PDF| version.

Posted by Jesse Willis