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.
Baby Is Three
By Theodore Sturgeon; Read by Theodore Sturgeon
2 MP3s – Approx. 58 Minutes [ABRIDGED]
Publisher: Caedmon Records
Published: 1977
Product #: TC 1492
First published in Galaxy October, 1952.
Here are Don Sibley’s illustrations from the original publication in Galaxy:
[via the Library Of America]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Tony Smith, of StarShipSofa, was telling me, a few months ago, that he was working on a new podcast. I’m not much for plans. I don’t like to be disappointed. I don’t want to know what’s coming out next month or next year. Instead, I look backwards into what I see as the ever settling waters of history.
Tony had said the show was going to be crime fiction themed. He was excited. I was non-committal. But, now I’m excited.
That show he mentioned has come to fruition and is perfectly wonderful.
The first episode of Crime City Central features a short story by one of the world’s all-time best crime fiction writers, Lawrence Block. Keller The Dog-Killer was first published in the May 2008 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine – but it was originally a part of a novel, called Hit Parade, which itself was a part of a series of short stories that were fix’d-up into another novel (and then spawned more novels, which themselves were fairly episodic – and which included Hit Parade) – hence this short story. The “Keller” series features the adventures of Keller. He’s a shy stamp collector and curiously amiable freelance hit man who operates out of New York. You’d probably not want to know Keller in real life – he’s rather dangerous. But as a fictional character, he’s very fun to hang out with.
Aficionados know that Lawrence Block often narrates his own audiobooks, and he does a great job at it. But the narration here by reader Ray Sizemore is top shelf too. He does a seamless back and forth between Keller and Dot (his agent) and the story flows very smoothly.
I highly recommend giving it a listen. |MP3|
Here’s the podcast feed:
http://crimecitycentral.com/feed/
Posted by Jesse Willis
One of (if not the most) adapted novels in the history of cinema is The Hound Of The Baskervilles. I myself love the novel and have seen at least a half dozen screen adaptations. But the latest adaptation I’ve witnessed is my new favourite.
Bert Coules’ 1988 BBC Radio adaptation is absolutely fantastic. It keeps nearly every scene I like from the novel. Better yet, it’s use of sound, to both cut from scene to scene and to drive the action forward, is absolutely masterful. Audio drama of this quality is just that step above. It’s truly wondrous listening!
According to the notes on RadioArchive.cc (where I got it) this version has never been rebroadcast on the radio. That’s a big shame, it’s an absolute treasure!
Even more strangely this adaptation is actually the first of two separate Bert Coules adaptations of Hound done for BBC Radio.
The torrent is HERE.
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Adapted from the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Performed by a full cast
2 MP3 Files via Torrent – Approx. 110 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC
Broadcast: 1988
Cast:
Sherlock Holmes … Roger Rees
Dr John H Watson … Crawford Logan
Sir Henry Baskerville … Matt Zimmerman
Dr James Mortimer … Peter Craze
Jonathan Stapleton … Jonathan Tafler
Beryl Stapleton … Caroline Gruber
Barrymore … Richard Tate
Mrs Barrymore … Barbara Atkinson
Mrs Hudson … Barbara Atkinson
Arthur Frankland … Norman Bird
Laura Lyons … Moir Leslie
Postmaster … John Baddeley
Violinist: Katherine Adams
Script by: Bert Coules
Produced and directed by: David Johnston
Posted by Jesse Willis
The Dead Astronaut is a part of a larger subset of J.B. Ballard stories adapted for the long running CBC radio series The Vanishing Point. This tale of a haunted Cape Kennedy is typically Ballardian, surreal, full of abandoned buildings, abandoned people, and abandoned dreams.
The Vanishing Point – The Dead Astronaut
Adapted from the story by J.G. Ballard; Dramatized by Lawrence Russell; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 28 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBC Radio
Broadcast: 1988
First published in Playboy, May 1968.
Cast:
Gordon Clapp … Philip
Donna Goodhand … Judith
Peter McNeil … Quentin
Tom Duckworth … the voice
Here’s the original art that accompanied the story’s publication in Playboy:
[via JGBallard.ca]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Norm Sherman’s Drabblecast doesn’t do audiobooks right. At least – it doesn’t do them the way I like them. Sherman, like a small fraction of audiobook producers, has decided to place a music bed atop all his readings. I hate that.
But since Robert Sheckley’s The Store Of The Worlds isn’t available anywhere else, in the audio format, you may want to check it out anyway. Robert Sheckley was a great writer, and the music bed, while both distracting and ham handed manipulative, doesn’t wholly ruin the story.
The Store Of The Worlds
By Robert Sheckley; Read by Norm Sherman
1 |MP3| – Approx. 36 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Drabblecast
Podcast: November 19, 2010
First published in Playboy, September 1959 (under the title The World of Heart’s Desire).
Posted by Jesse Willis
The first time I read Philip K. Dick’s The Skull, it took me a couple of attempts to really get into it. But with PKD you out to give it a couple of good attempts. So I kept trying. Reading along with the text helped, and after about 150 words or so I could manage the story without the extra textual assistance. I guess this is one of those stories that doesn’t translate to audio that well. That said, once I did get into it it I did find it worthwhile. The Skull is a time travel story that makes a nice companion piece to Michael Moorcock’s Behold The Man. It’s about a future criminal who goes on a mission to kill a religious revolutionary from the 1960s.
The Skull
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 50 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 01, 2009
Conger agreed to kill a stranger he had never seen. But he would make no mistakes because he had the stranger’s skull under his arm. From If Worlds of Science Fiction, September 1952.
|ETEXT| Wikisource
|ETEXT| Gutenberg
|PDF| Made from the publication in IF.
Recently a friend pointed out a 1962 French short film, done in photomontage style, called La Jetée. It’s nicely comparable and totally French:
[Thanks Mel!]
Posted by Jesse Willis