Category: Online Audio

LibriVox: Allan’s Wife by H. Rider Haggard

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxYou can make a good case for the sexism in old books. Just look at the Book of Genesis: Lot’s Wife. Noah’s Wife. These are the ladies so oppressed that they didn’t even deserve names. However, I think we can attribute what looks like the exact came same kind of sexism in titling Allan’s Wife more to marketing than anything else. This is, after all, the third novel in the Allan Quatermain series. And it’s not actually very much about his wife, at least at the start. It tells more tales of Quatermain’s time in South Africa, his observations about two dueling witchdoctors (they use their magic to control lighting), his father’s death, and eventually the fate of his wife. For the record Allan Quatermain’s wife (of the title) is named “Stella Carson.” Come to think of it, some clever writer could probably do a whole series of YA books called The Adventures Of Allanah Quatermain (perhaps a secret grandaughter?). Until then…

LibriVox - Allan's Wife by H. Rider HaggardAllan’s Wife
By H. Rider Haggard; Read by Elaine Tweddle
15 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 4 Hours 49 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: December 2009

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/3718

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks also to mim@can and James Christopher]

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBC + RR.cc: McLevy: a 19th century detective series based on a real detective

Jesse Willis

Aural Noir: Online Audio

The Inspector McLevy MysteriesPaul Bishop, who runs the addictive Bish’s Beat blog, writes about an unfamiliar audio drama series that sounds right up our dark alley!

Sez Paul:

“McLevy!

THESE TOP NOTCH AUDIO DRAMAS FROM BBC 4 SURROUNDING INSPECTOR MCLEVY, A TACITURN, VICTORIAN, EDINBURGH SLEUTH, HIS GIRLFRIEND BROTHEL OWNER JEAN BRASH, AND HIS SIDEKICK CONSTABLE MULHOLLAND, ARE A JOY. ORIGINALLY BROADCAST FROM 1999 TO 2006, GOOD WRITING, GOOD CASTING, AND GOOD DIRECTION MAKE THIS FORTY-FIVE MINUTE SHOW A MUST FOR YOUR BBC DOWNLOADER . . .”

Indeed! Though I think a visit to RadioArchive.cc will be even more effiecent!

RadioArchives.ccFrom “Snuffbox” a collector and moderator on RadioArchive.cc:

The dark broodings of James McLevy, a dour Scots detective created by writer James Ashton, are based loosely on the stories of a real-life police inspector. James McLevy was a County Armagh-born builder’s labourer who embarked on a police career in the 1830s and published several collections of his cases.

Ashton’s McLevy, however, is a far deeper and darker character, a man obsessed with meting out justice, and with demons of his own.

Brian Cox is superb as the brooding coffee addict McLevy, ably supported by his sharp side-kick Constable Mulholland. Running throughout the series is McLevy’s love-hate cat-and-mouse realationship with the delicious Jean Brash, propriortress of Edinburgh’s premier bawdy-hoose.

Cast:
McLevy … Brian Cox
Mulholland … Michael Perceval-Maxwell
Jean Brash … Siobhán Redmond
Lt. Roach … David Ashton

Pilot 1999
1. McLevy
1st Series 2000
2. For Unto Us
3. The Trophy Club
4. The Second Shadow
5. The Burning Question
2nd Series 2002
6. A Good Walk Spoilt
7. Wild Justice
8. The Wild Spark
9. Stab in the Back
3rd Series 2003
10. Behind the Curtain
11. A Voice from the Grave
12. The Dark Shadow
13. Servant of the Crown
4th Series 2006
14. A Piece of Cake
15. The Sea Change
16. Sins of the Fathers
17. The Devil’s Disguise
5th Series 2009
18. To Keep Him Honest
19. Picture of Innocence
20. The Chosen One
21. The Reckoning

2 episodes are also available on CD |HERE|

[via Bish’s Beat]

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Security by Poul Anderson

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxNew from LibriVox.org, and featuring the voice talent of Gregg Margarite is:

Security by Poul Anderson

This isn’t the first recording of this 1953 Science Fiction novelette. Maureeen O’Brien (of the Maria Lectrix podcast) recorded a version previously. It, along with a whole bunch more Poul Anderson audio, can be found on our POUL ANDERSON page!

LibriVox - Security by Poul AndersonSecurity
By Poul Anderson; Read by Gregg Margarite
2 MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 1 Hour 19 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Puiblished: December 4, 2009
Security, tells the story of a compartmentalized government physicist ordered by secret police to complete experiments aimed at developing a new weapon. He is brought to a hidden space station and put in charge of the project but there are many questions. In a world of spies watching spies it’s sometimes hard to know what’s patriotic. First published in Space Science Fiction February 1953.

Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3|

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/3798

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Special thanks also to Betty M. and James Christopher @ LibriVox]

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBC Radio 5 + RA.cc: Hergé’s The Adventures Of Tintin

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Adventures of Tintin RADIO DRAMAWhen I was a little boy my best friend was the son of my dad’s best friend. When I met him he had just immigrated to British Columbia from France with his mom and dad. I lived in a house by the government dock and they lived on their sailboat. The same sailboat that they’d emigrated in. He spoke only French. I spoke only English. But that didn’t matter. I taught him English over the summer. We had a long stretch of beach to play on. We’d make sand castles, sand dykes and dams. We’d build rafts out of random beach flotsam. We collect shells and seagull feathers (I figured if we gathered enough feathers we could make a floatplane. Then, in the evenings, while my dad and his dad talked adult talk, smoked pot and drank beer, Gaël and I would share our comics. I would show him my English Batmans and Supermans, he showed me his French Lucky Lukes, Asterices, and Tintins.

Sometime after my father died and I moved north, I learned that Gaël, who I’d eventually lost touch with, had changed his name to Jeff. I miss that kid.

I haven’t seen any audio versions of Asterix, and Lucky Luke is quite scarce these days, but Tintin is available in radio drama form:

The Adventures Of Tintin

In these productions Tintin doesn’t have a French (or Belgian) accent, and his dog, Snowy, is more talkative than I remember him being in the comics. Nevertheless, this is still a fun series – especially as something to listen to after reading the comics. The shows are all only 30 minutes long, except for the two part episodes, The Calculus Affair and The Red Sea Sharks. A half-hour is really far too short to include every panel of dialogue and hour is better.

The Adventures Of Tintin

You can get all 13 episode of both seasons (and the special) by torrent over at RadioArchive.cc.

The Adventures Of Tintin – The Black Island
The Adventures Of Tintin – The Secret Of The Unicorn
The Adventures Of Tintin – Red Rackham’s Treasure
The Adventures Of Tintin – Destination Moon
The Adventures Of Tintin – Explorers On The Moon
The Adventures Of Tintin – Tintin In Tibet
The Adventures Of Tintin – The Seven Crystal Balls
The Adventures Of Tintin – Prisoners Of The Sun
The Adventures Of Tintin – The Calculus Affair – Part 01
The Adventures Of Tintin – The Calculus Affair – Part 02
The Adventures Of Tintin – The Red Sea Sharks – Part 01
The Adventures Of Tintin – The Red Sea Sharks – Part 02
The Adventures Of Tintin – The Castafiore Emerald

For more information on this series visit Tintinologist.org.

Posted by Jesse Willis

FREE @ Audible.com: A Confederacy Of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Hot on the heels of the FREE Ringworld download from yesterday comes another FREE classic novel of a very different and wonderful kind of fantastik. A Confederacy Of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole would never have been published had the author’s mother not found a smeared carbon copy of the manuscript after her son’s 1969 suicide at age 31. She took it to Loyola University in New Orleans and demanded someone read it. Reluctantly, Walker Percy (himself an author), began to read through the manuscript. He became more and more captivated with each page. When the book was eventually published in 1980 it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction!

Blackstone Audio - A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy TooleA Confederacy of Dunces: Free Version
By John Kennedy Toole; Read by Barrett Whitener
FREE Audible Download – Approx. 13 Hours 32 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2005
Provider: Audible.com
A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs.

So enters one of the most memorable characters in recent American fiction: Ignatius J. Reilly, an obese, self-absorbed, hapless Don Quixote of the French Quarter, whose half-hearted attempts at employment lead to a series of wacky adventures among the denizens of New Orleans’ lower depths.

This offer expires December 15, 2009.

[via Audible.com’s Twitter feed]

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBC Radio 4: The Ingoldsby Legends by Richard Harris Barham

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Radio Times - The Ingoldsby Legends - reviewed by Danny ScottBBC Radio 4Apparently the Radio Times pre-Christmas issues are on sale a bit earlier than the normal ‘one week ahead’ of schedule. So, thanks to that, we’ve got data from that early issue for the week of December 12-18, 2009 and it has one article that BBC Radio 4 fans will be definitely interested in reading.

According to Wikipedia: Richard Harris Barham (1788 – 1845) was an English novelist, humorous poet, and a Cardinal in the Church of England. But in the 19th century he was better known by his nom de plume: Thomas Ingoldsby.

In 1837 Barham began a series of stories published in Bentley’s Miscellany (a magazine then edited by Charles Dickens). Described as “grotesque metrical tales” The Ingoldsby Legends became very popular and were later collected into a book.

BBC Radio 4 - The Ingoldsby Legends by Richard Harris BarhamThe Ingoldsby Legends
By Richard Harris Barham; Read by Nicholas Murchie and Lucy Robinson
10 Broadcasts – Approx. 2 Hours 30 Minutes [ABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: December 14-18 and 21-25, 2009 @ 22:45-23:00
A collection of myths, legends, ghost stories and poetry supposedly written by Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor, but actually penned by the Rev. Richard Barham, first published in book form in 1840.

Stories included:
The Leech of Folkestone
In the depths of Romney Marsh, an avaricious woman, bored with her tedious husband, plots with her doctor to rid herself of her spouse. But it seems that more than normal medication is to be employed.
-First published in 1840.

Bloudie Jacke of Shrewsberrie: A Legend Of Shropshire
A grisly and comic poetic tale concerning a local Bluebeard, intent on causing havoc wherever he roams.

Jerry Jarvis’ Wig: A Legend of the Weald of Kent
Is it possible for a wig to be possessed? And can it, in turn, possess a person foolish enough to wear it?
-First published in Bentley’s Miscellany May 1843.

The Specter Of Tappington
-Adapted into an episode of Weird Circle (1945) |MP3|
-Reprinted in Weird Tales October 1928.

The rest of the “Legends” are detailed over on the Wikipedia entry.

[Thanks Roy]

Posted by Jesse Willis