Category: Online Audio

Hypnobobs: The Horror Of The Heights by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

I’m becoming convinced that Mr Jim Moon, of the Hypnobobs podcast, is wholly made of pure running awesome.

His wonderful narration and his podcast sound design (with it’s elegant clockwork logic), he delivers great fiction with incredibly well researched audio essays – and does all this on a regular basis.

He’s like a marvelous homemade fruit jelly that you just want to spread all over everything – okay maybe that sounds a little strange but his podcast is truly that wonderful. I just love it to bits.

Take last week’s podcast. From his great “Library of Dreams” Mr Jim Moon performed Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Horror Of The Heights. I’d never heard of it, it’s terrific, and Jim Moon’s reading of it is perfect.

The Horror Of The Heights by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Illustration by Virgil Finlay for The Horror Of The Heights by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (from Famous Fantastic Mysteries, December 1947)

Hypnobobs - The Horror Of The Heights by Sir Arthur Conan DoyleThe Horror Of The Heights
By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Read by Jim Moon
1 |MP3| – Approx. 57 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Hypnobobs
Podcast: May 12, 2012
“There are jungles in the upper air, and there are worse things than tigers which inhabit them….” First published in The Strand Magazine, November 1913.

Podcast feed:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Hypnobobs

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Here’s a |PDF| assembled from the publication in the December 1947 issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries.

The Horror Of The Heights

And here’s a |PDF| made from the original publication in The Strand Magazine, November 1913.

The Horror Of The Heights by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Horror Of The Heights by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Horror Of The Heights by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Horror Of The Heights by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Posted by Jesse Willis

Adjustment Team by Philip K. Dick

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Below you’ll find Gregg Margarite’s reading of Philip K. Dick’s Adjustment Team (courtesy of The Drama Pod) – but first here’s the printable |PDF| I made for it from it’s original publication in Orbit SF.

The Drama PodAdjustment Team
By Philip K Dick; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 59 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: The Drama Pod
Published: November 14, 2011
Something went wrong … and Ed Fletcher ended up in the biggest thing in his life. First published in Orbit Science Fiction, No.4 (Sept.-Oct., 1954).

Illustrations by Faragasso:

Adjustment Team by Philip K. Dick

Adjustment Team by Philip K. Dick

Posted by Jesse Willis

CBC: Nightfall: Late Special by Clint Bomphray

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Early last morning I played a Nightfall episode expecting it to be an adaptation of a William Hope Hodgson story – but it turns out I had selected the wrong one – what I got instead was a surprisingly surprising story – I kept expecting a stone ship to turn up, but it never did – instead there was a horrific car accident, some truly terrific voice acting, and a set of uniquely creepy circumstances – all of it optimized for the audio medium – this episode typifies the entire Nightfall series – it’s great audio drama – it’s truly frightening and it’s highly recommended!

CBC - NightfallNightfall #06 – Late Special
By Clint Bomphray; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 26 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBC Radio
Broadcast: August 8, 1980
Source: Archive.org
A car crash during a late season blizzard strands a young woman in an abandoned train station, where she meets a mysterious stranger who obliges her to make a singularly existential choice.

Cast:
Terry Tweed … Claire Acton
Chris Wiggins … Tom Parker, the Conductor
David Hughes … Vic
Trisha Allen … the Telephone Operator
Judy Sinclair … Claire’s Mother
Richard Donat & Frank Perry … Dick & Frank, the Police Officers

Recording Engineer:
John Jessop

Sound Effects:
Bill Robinson

Production Assistant:
Nina Callaghan

Story Editor:
John Douglas

Producer:
Bill Howell

[via, in part, Nightfall-25.com]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Think: The Lives Of Jack London (an interview with biographer James L. Haley)

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Think with Krys BoydThink, a “topic-driven interview and call-in program hosted by Krys Boyd” from KERA (in Texas), covers many topics. But back on July 22, 2010 it broadcast an episode entitled The Lives Of Jack London. Here’s the official description:

He prospected for gold, hunted seals and wrote some of the most popular adventure novels of the early 20th Century. But what was Jack London really like? We’ll talk this hour with biographer, historian and novelist James L. Haley whose new book is “Wolf: The Lives Of Jack London” (Basic Books, 2010).

|MP3|

In many ways this is a surprising interview – well worth hearing. There are a few facts I’d never heard before and a few fascinating interpretations. The strangest part, at least for me though, were about London’s socialism and the lengths Hayley goes to apologize for it.

Very good news, by the way, the audiobook of Wolf: The Lives Of Jack London is available from Blackstone Audio and it’s read by Bronson Pinchot!

Posted by Jesse Willis

Hypnobobs: The Graveyard Rats by Henry Kuttner

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Our First published, in Weird Tales, when Kuttner was just 21 years old, The Graveyard Rats became an instant classic. It has been one of my all time favourite horror stories since I first heard it – in The Greatest Horror Stories Of The Twentieth Century |READ OUR REVIEW| – it’s full of Lovecraftian imagery, has a loathsome protagonist, and it possesses an unshakeable claustrophobic menace that’ll keep you up late for fear of what sleep might bring.

Mr. Jim Moon’s reading of it, for his wondrous Hypnobobs, now makes it one of my all-time favourite podcasts episodes too.

The Graveyard Rats - Illustration from SHOCK
The Graveyard Rats by Henry Kuttner

Hypnobobs #08 - The Graveyard Rats by Henry KuttnerSFFaudio EssentialThe Graveyard Rats
By Henry Kuttner; Read by Jim Moon
1 |MP3| – Approx. 27 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Hypnobobs
Podcast: August 21, 2011
First published in Weird Tales, March 1936.

Podcast feed: http://www.geekplanetonline.com/hosting/originals/hypnobobs/feed.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

And here’s a |PDF| constructed from it’s publication in Shock.

My depiction of Old Masson:
Old Masson by Jesse

Anthony’s depiction of Old Masson:
Old Masson by Anthony

Posted by Jesse Willis

CBS Radio Mystery Theater: The Rise And Fall Of The Fourth Reich by Henry Slesar

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Karel Thole illustration for The Rise And Fall Of The Fourth Reich - from Urania #729

I have a sudden desire to eat Uncle Ben’s rice and buy a 1976 Buick. Yes folks I’ve been listening to more CBS Radio Mystery Theater.

The episode this time was called The Rise And Fall Of The Fourth Reich and was written by Henry Slesar.

Slesar was an interesting writer. He wrote in nearly every capacity that a writer can. Being a copywriter (he apparently coined the phrase “coffee break”). But he wrote plenty of fiction too. He was the head writer on an intriguing sounding daytime soap opera (a thriller series modeled after Perry Mason books), he wrote movie screenplays, TV movie scripts, mystery novels, and dozens of radio dramas. But he also wrote a lot of SF short stories – and that’s where things get a bit murky because I’m actually not sure if this story was an adaptation of the text, or if the text was an adaptation of the play. The play of The Rise And Fall Of The Fourth Reich aired first, being broadcast in the spring of 1975. But the short story of the same name came out shortly thereafter in F&SF.

For our purposes I guess it doesn’t really matter too much either way because the only version of the story available in the audio format is the CBS Radio Mystery Theater play.

Set in Mexico, in the 1970s, the storyline isn’t radically dissimilar from the 1976 Ira Levin novel The Boys From Brazil (later to be made into a film of the same name). I enjoyed the plotting, which features both the quest for immortality, the fruit of horrific Nazi experiments, and most of all the desire for revenge.

Here it is, as it aired exactly 37 years ago today…

CBS Radio Mystery TheaterCBSRMT #0275 – The Rise And Fall Of The Fourth Reich
By Henry Slesar; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 46 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBS Radio
Broadcast: May 16, 1975
A Nazi fantasy? In this weird tale, two scientists discover an aged and sickly Adolf Hitler in 1970’s Mexico City. They begin to try and restore his health and youth through their experiments. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1975.

Cast:
Robert Dryden
Ken Harvey
Paul Hecht
Joe Silver

The Rise And Fall Of The Fourth Reich by Henry Slesar - from Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 1975

[via the wonderful CBSRMT.com]

Posted by Jesse Willis