News, Reviews, and Commentary on all forms of science fiction, fantasy, and horror audio. Audiobooks, audio drama, podcasts; we discuss all of it here. Mystery, crime, and noir audio are also fair game.
I’ve been scanning magazines and books pretty steadily since I got my Fujitsu Scansnap S1500 last February. The latest mag I’ve scanned is the issue containing James Patrick Kelly’s column in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine featured SFFaudio!
Check it out:
Posted by Jesse Willis
CBC’s sole radio drama series, Afghanada, finished off late last year. But there’s a brand new series beginning today at 11:30am!
Unlike Afghanada this new series will be podcast, making it CBC Radio’s second ever podcast radio drama series (the first being Backbencher).
Here’s the official description of Trust, Inc.:
“A new satirical drama that takes listeners within the walls of a public relations firm. The show follows the schemers and spinners who develop the messages and plot the ideal news narrative for their clients, and their counterparts in the news media who ultimately determine whether they succeed or fail in the quest for just the right headline and soundbite.”
The official Trust, Inc. site: cbc.ca/trustinc/
Here’s the promo |MP3|
Podcast feed: http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/includes/trustinc.xml
iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|
Episode 1 – “Serena Jordan is thrilled. Just three weeks ago, she snagged an awesome new job at the major public relations firm, Leger & Pratt. Hired to be their social media expert, she’s been assigned to the Special Projects Unit, a boy’s club made up of team members Ben Lederman, Ricardo Sandoval and Marshall Whitman. Eager to impress, she’s at the table as the team meets the new ‘brief,’ city councillor, James Yearwood.The assignment: raise his profile as he prepares to make the jump to federal politics. No sweat. Yearwood’s articulate, passionate, good-looking and social media savvy. The boys think it’s s slam dunk. And so does Serena. Until he starts sexting her, that is. Now, Serena is stuck. Should she keep quiet? Tell her team? Confront her client? And possibly risk it all.”
The series is supported with a few fake websites, with real links (like legerpratt.com for the fake firm being portrayed ), the usual social media websites like Twitter and Facebook and such. There is also a promise of YouTube videos.
The “flacklife blog” – a blog about public relations – has a substantial interview with the series creator, Gregory J. Sinclair, HERE.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Guy de Maupassant’s short story, La Main Écorchée (which translates to The Flayed Hand), is a creepy supernatural tale of horror. The title delivers exactly what you might suspect – a gruesome story that doesn’t end at all well for one of the characters. More surprising to me, as compared to W.W. Jacobs’ The Monkey’s Paw, are the characters.
They were not what I expected at all. The story played itself out like a black comedy. Then, in researching the story I learned that in his teens Maupassant was shown, by the poet Algernon Swinburne, a mummified hand!
The Flayed Hand
By Guy de Maupassant; Read by Alan Winterrowd
1 |MP3| – Approx. [UNABRIDGED]
Published: Boomcoach’s Audiobooks
Published: 2009
|ETEXT|
Published under the pseudonym Joseph Prunier, this was Guy de Maupassant’s first short story. It appeared in L’Almanach Lorrai in 1875.
Weird Circle – The Hand
Based on The Flayed Hand by Guy de Maupassant; Perfomed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: MBS, NBC, ABC
Broadcast: October 14, 1943 or December 19, 1943
A severed hand in a trophy room gets its revenge on the one who cut it off.
CBS Radio Mystery Theater – #0080 – The Hand
Based on the short story The Flayed Hand by Guy de Maupassant; Adapted by Ian Martin; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3|- Approx. [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBS
Broadcast: April 24, 1974
Source: CBSRMT.com
A postal surprise in the form of a human hand leaves a man convinced of its apocalyptic portents.
Cast:
Mildred Clinton
Ian Martin
Alexander Scourby
Guy Sorel
Here is the splash page from the Classics Illustrated comics adaptation:
Incidentally, one of my favourite Michael Caine movies, the schlocky 1981 film, The Hand, was probably indirectly inspired by The Flayed Hand:
Posted by Jesse Willis
Of what use is public radio in a time of podcasts?
That is, other than providing the funding for programmes that can be podcast – is there any use for radio medium specifically?
I suggest there is.
Beyond giving local news and weather, there’s a traditional use which could be used again. Consider these two 1920s BBC publications, pamphlets in the “BBC Transmissions To Schools” series:
Boys And Girls Of The Middle Ages by Rhoda Power with illustrations by Elinor Lambert |PDF|
Broadcasts on Mondays from September 26 – December 12, 1927 at 2:30pm
Boys And Girls Of Other Days by Rhoda Power with illustrations by Elinor Lambert and others |PDF|
Broadcasts on Mondays from January 16 – March 26, 1928 at 2:30pm
BBC, CBC and ABC Radio National do a tremendous job at providing excellence in public adult programming with an educational bent, but in terms of children it seems to fall very short
The above documents show how public radio broadcasting can help with education of elementary school children. I’d love to see some education programming of this sort, aimed at children, turning up on CBC radio, with PDF downloads and podcast feeds as a compliment to national broadcasts.
For more information on the use of radio in schools, BroadcastForSchools.co.uk
Posted by Jesse Willis
Resonance FM, a community based radio station in London, U.K., broadcasts perhaps the smartest comics podcast on the web, Panel Borders. Recently host Alex Fitch has been running a series exploring the influence of H.P. Lovecraft on comics. The first of this series I’ve heard popped up this morning when I went looking for a podcast about Neonomicon, an Alan Moore/Jacen Burrows graphic novel that I picked up late last year and am reading now. HERE‘s the episode.
I’d actually been going off Alan Moore, having been depressed at his continuing with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – but this title, Neonomicon, with a Lovecraftian theme, and the wonderful art of Jacen Burrows made me pick it up. And boy am I ever glad I did!
I’m only about 1/3 of the way through Neonomicon – and so far it is delivering exactly what I wanted, a creepily magnificent story with wonderful Jacen Burrows story art. Moore promises, in the interview, that the story delivers an ‘unflinching’ and ‘evasive-less’ quasi-sequel to H.P. Lovecraft’s The Horror At Red Hook.
I’m savoring every panel.
Here’s the official podcast description:
“Continuing our month of shows about H.P. Lovecraft, Alex Fitch talks to Alan Moore about his final graphic novel that isn’t part of the continuing League of Extraordinary Gentlemen narrative – Neonomicon – which has just been published, along with its prequel The Courtyard, as a graphic novel by Avatar Press. Both comics follow on from Lovecraft’s tale ‘The Horror at Red Hook’ and Alan discusses why he chose that story in particular to explore further, plus the origins of The Courtyard in an abandoned short story collection called ‘Yuggoth Cultures’, and examples of Lovecraftian imagery in his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen saga.”
|MP3|
Posted by Jesse Willis
Inspired by the first Jake Sampson serial and the recent fan art posted to the Jake Sampson blog, I’ve constructed my own Jake Sampson: Monster Hunter playset out of Lego!
Jake Sampson: Monster Hunter – The Hyborean Gate
By Paul Mannering and Mark Kalita; Perfomed by a full cast
5 MP3s – Approx. 62 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: BrokenSea Audio Productions
Podcast: September 2007
Jake Sampson is called to Cross Plains, Texas by a small-time writer to investigate the appearance of a ferocious creature from a world believed to be fictitious.
Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3| Part 3 |MP3| Part 4 |MP3| Part 5 |MP3|
Podcast feed: http://brokensea.com/jakesampson/feed/
iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|
Although it hasn’t been specified in the show so far I imagine that Jake Sampson purchased a prototype of the Grumman Goose. The period is almost exactly right for it, and Sampson is just the sort of wealthy American customer that actually commissioned the Goose’s creation. Based on that, and my enduring affection for this long running adventure series, I’ve been building a Lego version of the Jake Sampson airplane. Here they are: Texas Holdum, Jake Sampson, and Lucy Carter atop a Grumman Goose:
And here’s an apocryphal scene from the first serial, The Hyborean Gate. Passionate listeners will of course be aware that the airplane in that story was actually WWI-era biplane and not a Grumman Goose:
Jake Sampson and Lucy Carter escape:
“Wherever there is strange…”:
Posted by Jesse Willis