Category: Online Audio

The Dog And The Horse by Voltaire

Jesse Willis

Aural Noir: Online Audio

One of the earliest detectives in history, or at least the history of literature, is Zadig. Zadig is the main character of Voltaire’s philosophical novel Zadig; Or The Book Of Fate – An Oriental History. I stumbled across it’s existence while reading an old issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in which one chapter was featured under the title The Dog And The Horse. The brief editorial introduction, and some further researches on my own, assert that Zadig in this chapter may have been the inspiration for Edgar Allan Poe’s C. August Dupin!

I can sort of see it too, for The Dog And The Horse shows a kind of giant first step in an evolutionary process of the detective – seeing his marriage turn sour Zadig turns to the study of nature for his joy. A kind of passionate interest in the world is necessary for both the scientific detective and the more Sherlockian sort of detective.

The story is damn funny too.

LibriVoxThe Dog And The Horse
By Voltaire; Read by Lucy Burgoyne
1 |MP3| – Approx. 13 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 31, 2008
First published in 1747.

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|PDF|

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Golgotha Dancers by Manly Wade Wellman

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Here’s a spooky tale that’s set, in part, in an art museum. It’s read by our old friend Gregg Margarite.

LibriVoxThe Golgotha Dancers
By Manly Wade Wellman; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 24 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 8, 2010
A curious and terrifying story about an artist who sold his soul that he might paint a living picture. First published in Weird Tales, October 1937.
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Here’s a |PDF| made from the publication in Weird Tales.

Here is the description of Arnold Böcklin’s The Isle Of The Dead, the painting conspicuous for its absence in the story:

“I started down, relishing in advance the impression Böcklin’s picture would make with its high brown rocks and black poplars, its midnight sky and gloomy film of sea, its single white figure erect in the bow of the beach-nosing skiff.”

And here is the image itself:

The Isle Of The Dead by Arnold Böcklin

Posted by Jesse Willis

At The Earth’s Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs (podcast and audiobook)

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

SFFaudio Podcast #167, out tomorrow, is a discussion of At The Earth’s Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs. If you’d like to prepare I’ve got the perfect audiobook version for you to check out.

It’s narrated but the wonderful David Stifel, of Marsbooks.libsyn.com. David is reading all of the public domain Barsoom books, under the collected title of “The Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs“, and I’m totally loving them.

I think you’ll highly entertained by this fantastic adventure!

At The Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs - PodcastAt The Earth’s Core
By Edgar Rice Burroughs; Read by David Stifel
15 Podcast Episodes – Approx. 6 Hours 26 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Marsbooks.libsyn.com
Podcast: March 2012 – May 2012
David Innes is a man with a remarkable story to tell. He is a mining heir who financed an experimental “iron mole,” an excavating vehicle designed by his elderly inventor friend Abner Perry. In a test run, they discover the vehicle cannot be turned, and it burrows 500 miles into the Earth’s crust, emerging into the unknown interior world of Pellucidar. There David finds a land bigger than Earth’s surface, one that’s inhabited by prehistoric creatures of all geological eras, and dominated by the Mahars, a species of flying reptile both intelligent and civilized, but which enslaves and preys on the local stone-age humans.

Podcast feed: http://www.marsbooks.libsyn.com/rss

Also available, for $12.99, is the audiobook version, which omits the intros and outrous in the podcast, you can grab that HERE.

Posted by Jesse Willis

I, Mars by Ray Bradbury

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Barton’s younger selves lived on, tormenting him for his living proof that their hopes were dead!

I, Mars by Ray Bradbury
I, Mars by Ray Bradbury - illustration by Hannes Bok
First published in Super Science Stories, April 1949, here’s Jim Moon’s 26 minute unabridged reading of I, Mars by Ray Bradbury. I first encountered this story under it’s alternative title, Night Call, Collect.

|MP3|
|PDF| made from its publication in Super Science Stories.

[Thanks to WonderEbooks!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBCR4 + RA.cc: Roald Dahl’s Man From The South

Jesse Willis

Aural Noir: Online Audio

BBC Radio 4RadioArchives.ccThe story I want to tell you about today comes from a series called Someone Like You. The series aired on BBC Radio 4 in 2009 with the particular tale being the first of a five part series of dramatizations of Roald Dahl short stories.

It’s title is usually given as Man From The South, but it was originally titled Collector’s Item when it first appeared, in a 1948 issue of Collier’s Weekly.

It’s a fantastic little gem – a true oddity – one which you may even be familiar with from one of the many adaptations and references in movies and TV shows. Charles Dance is the narrator, and is his usual wonderful self in it.Andrew Sachs, the titular man, is both manic and enigmatic.

The file is only available via torrent at the wonderful RadioArchive.cc.

Collector's Item by Roald Dahl

Someone Like You – Man From The South
Based on the story by Roald Dahl; Dramatized by Stephen Sheridan; Performed by a full cast
TORRENT – Approx. 14 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: December 21, 2009
While on shore leave in Jamaica, a young marine agrees to a bizarre wager with an elderly South American.

Cast:
Storyteller ……. Charles Dance
Old Man ……….. Andrew Sachs
Marine ………… Danny Mahoney
Girl ………….. Donnla Hughes
Spanish Woman ….. Rachel Atkins

Posted by Jesse Willis

Moxon’s Master by Ambrose Bierce

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Moxon's Master by Ambrose Bierce

I’m not a very good chess player, but I love playing. There’s a an elegance and a simplicity to the basics of it. And from those basic rules an incalculable complexity emerges – one that makes every game different. But I don’t much like playing against a computer. There’s little sense of victory if I win and if I lose I tend to question the point in playing at all. There’s something about pitting a mind against a mind – and most chess programs I’ve played against don’t seem to have one.

Moxon’s Master, by Ambrose Bierce, is about chess. It uses some basic analogies and metaphors – in just the way H.G. Wells does so well to make the implausible sound plausible. Bierce wields facts about plant tropism and Herbert Spencer’s definition of life in a skillful argument for machine intelligence. It’s rather masterful actually!

LibriVoxMoxon’s Master
By Ambrose Bierce; Read by Roger Melin
1 |MP3| – Approx. 28 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 2, 2012
First published in the San Francisco Examiner, April 16, 1899.

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[Thanks also to Laura Victoria and Barry Eads]

Posted by Jesse Willis