Online Audio – Page 70

Learning it wholesale – my Halloween 2011 class on Philip K. Dick’s We Can Remember It For You Wholesale

Monday, November 28, 2011 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

World's Best Science Fiction 1967 - We Can Remember It For You Wholesale - illustration by Jack Gaughan

My favourite class at the moment is Monday 4pm-6pm. The students are all about at the same level, all diligent scholars, and all engaged with the material. Since September we’ve been working our way through many of Philip K. Dick’s short stories. Dick is great for teens. Reading his stories we get to thinking deep thought, write essays about interesting topics, and learn plenty of valuable vocab. On Halloween 2011 we finished off Philip K. Dick’s We Can Remember It For You Wholesale. You might think of it as a junior version of The SFFaudio Podcast.

|MP3|

Podcast feed: http://huffduffer.com/tags/rememberit/rss

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Students in the class in, order of appearance, include Kevin, Jennifer, Jay and (eventually) Selina. The actual class doesn’t begin until about twenty minutes in.

If you’re a teacher, and curious, we used the Citadel Press edition, which is a cheap trade paperback (I wish there was a hardcover edition available):

CITADEL PRESS - We Can Remember It For You Wholesale And Other Classic Stories BY Philip K. Dick

I love my job.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Hunter’s Planet Of the Apes Archive: BBC interview with Hunter Goatley

Saturday, November 26, 2011 Jesse Willis

Online Audio

Hunter Goatley’s Planet Of The Apes Archive has been on my radar since 2007. That’s when I discovered the abridged audiobook reading of Pierre Boulle’s Planet Of The Apes (La Planète Des Singes) original novel there. It’s still available and still excellent.

What’s new over there is this BBC Radio 3 Three Counties Radio interview, by Roberto Perron, with Hunter Goatley. Among other things Goatley discusses Rise Of The Planet of the Apes. |MP3|

posted by Jesse Willis

Maria Lectrix: The Pot Of Tulips by Fitz James O’Brien

Thursday, November 24, 2011 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Sez Maureen O’Brien: “This ghost story is pretty fun. Lost treasure! A wronged heiress! Communication from beyond the grave!”

Sez Bibliophilia Obscura:

“The purely supernatural has its place in O’Brien’s stories as well. The Pot of Tulips effectively retells a story, as old as antiquity, of a miser who in death reveals through signs and symbols the location of his hidden fortune.
…
O’Brien writes most of the stories in the persona, apparently well know to him, of the comfortable bachelor, ensconced in his cozy lodgings, be it a haunted boarding house or a decaying Dutch mansion in upper Manhattan. Late evenings with cigar or opium, discussing supernatural possibilities with companions set a cozy tone, which will be upended by a shift of reality as objects of speculation become all too real. It would be wrong to judge O’Brien’s themes as hoary simply because we have encountered them in more well known authors who followed him down these speculative paths. Taken as exemplars of early nineteenth-century speculative fiction, these stories are still worth a read on a chill winter’s night.”

The Pot Of Tulips
By Fitz James O’Brien; Read by Maureen O’Brien
1 |MP3| – Approx. 48 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Maria Lectrix
Podcast: October 30, 2005
Source: Archive.org
A lost treasure, a lady in distress, and a message from beyond the grave! This 1855 story is an earlier appearance of Harry Escott from “What Was It? — A Mystery“, and features the same entertaining mixture of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. First published in Harper’s, Nov. 1855.

Posted by Jesse Willis

What You Need by Lewis Padgett (aka Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore)

Tuesday, November 22, 2011Tuesday, November 22, 2011 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Tom Elliot’s excellent The Twilight Zone Podcast features the original short story What You Need written by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore under their joint pseudonym of Lewis Padgett. If you’re a fan of words and the subtleties of their many meanings you’ll enjoy this tale of a store that will only sell you only what you need.

The Twilight Zone Podcast – What You Need
By Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore); Read by Tom Elliot
1 |MP3| – Approx. 37 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: The Twilight Zone Podcast
Podcast: February 27, 2011
First published in the October 1945 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.

Illustrations by Williams from the original publication in Astounding:
What You Need by Lewis Padgett - illustration by Williams

What You Need has been adapted for television twice (first for Tales Of Tomorrow and later for The Twilight Zone).

While you’ll have to find The Twilight Zone episode yourself Tales From Tomorrow is PUBLIC DOMAIN and here’s the |MP4| video download. This episode originally aired live on February 8, 1952 (Season 1, Episode 19).

Cast:
Billy Redfield
Edgar Stehli

Directed by Charles S. Dubin

Posted by Jesse Willis

RadioArchive.cc: The Last Days Of Shandakor by Leigh Brackett

Sunday, November 20, 2011 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Last Days Of Shandakor by Leigh Brackett (illustration by Alex Schomburg)

I’ve posted about this story before. But I was provoked to point to it again after discovering Alex Schomburg‘s wonderful interior art illustration, above, and the editorial about it, probably written by Samuel Mines, below.

Leigh Brackett - Master Painter

MASTER PAINTER:
SOME few decades ago an artist was only a man or woman who painted pictures. The word was not applied to sculptors, to poets, to composers, to actors or to authors. You painted pictures or you weren’t an artist and that was that.

Fortunately the term was expanded to include anyone in any sort of work who dies his job an artistic fashion – whether that work is juggling cigar boxes like the late W.C. Fields or stealing based like Tyrus Raymond Cobb. And authors, since fiction-writing is today rated as an art, are generally awarded the term.

Most of the time they don’t rate it – for the artist must convey feeling through the creation of an illusion that casts a tight web around the beholder and impels him into the mood the artist desires. It is a very special magic and only a very few authors have acquired its mastery.

Leigh Brackett is certainly one of them. She can cast a mood-net more unerringly than the most expert fisherman, can paint word-pictures that strike correspondingly vivid images in the mind and the imagination of the reader. Using the same keyboards employed by less gifted authors she can evoke high tragedy, ecstasy, the sense and vision of unbearable beauty or decay or horror.

We have a hunch that this story finds her at her very best. There may be some who will say that it is not properly science fiction. To which, as in the case of Ray Bradbury, we can only counter, “Who cares?” – THE EDITOR

The Last Days Of Shandakor
By Leigh Brackett; Read by Nathan Osgood
2 MP3 Files via TORRENT* – Approx. 56 Minutes [ABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC 7 / 7th Dimension
Broadcast: March 2007
An epic space adventure written in which Mars is portrayed as a dying planet where desperate Earthmen compete with the last Martians and other alien races for lost knowledge and hidden power. First published in April 1952 issue of Startling Stories.

*Available through the number one source for publicly funded radio drama on the internet, RadioArchive.cc.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Five Free Favourites #14: Jesse’s Five Favourte SFFaudio Podcast READALONGS (of the first 100 shows)

Friday, November 18, 2011Friday, November 18, 2011 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

It probably sounds arrogant to talk about SFFaudio’s own podcast being my favourite podcast. It may sound that way, but it also happens to be what I really think. Not only is recording the podcast the highlight of my week, it’s also my favourite podcast to listen to when it comes out on Mondays. In our first 100 SFFaudio Podcast episodes there dozens and dozens of episodes that I can recall in great depth, episodes where I learned something interesting and had a whole lot of fun while doing so. We talked to some truly amazing people and talked about great ideas in SFF. SFFaudio Podcast episodes come in several flavours, but amongst them I think my favourite kind of show is our READALONGS. READALONGS are essentially our book club show, where we pick an audiobook (or paperbook), and discuss it in great detail. There have been more than thirty READALONGS so far and I’m convinced it would be hard to find a single dud amongst them. Here are five of my favourite readalongs from our first 100 episodes.

Five Free Favourites

1. The SFFaudio Podcast #050 – |MP3|-|POST| – READALONG: The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James
This list isn’t in order of preference, but rather of chronology. That said, if I had a gun to my head I might pick this episode as my personal favourite. This is a book that just had two participants, Scott and me. When I think of our friendship over the last decade I think of this episode. Scott says that this is the episode where the show “shifted gears” and I think he’s right. The show starts with a clip from Eric S. Rabkin’s lecture entitled Masterpieces Of The Imaginative Mind .

2. The SFFaudio Podcast #056 – |MP3|-|POST| – READALONG: The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley
The episode with the most participants, there are six: Scott, myself, Rick Jackson, Gregg Margarite, Jerry Stearns and Julie Davis. Normally we try to avoid having that many people in one show, but for this episode I think it mostly worked. Also, the book was fantastic. I’m a huge fan of Robert Sheckley. If you end up liking this episode check out #076 in which we discuss Sheckley’s Mindswap.

3. The SFFaudio Podcast #064 – |MP3|-|POST| – READALONG: The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
Now this episode is cool for a number of reasons. One is that it’s an episode with both Julie Davis and Luke Burrage in the same episode (something that’s happened only twice). Alfred Bester is one of my favourite writers and this novel is one of the best Science Fiction books I’ve ever read. We all brought something to the table for this episode and we all walked away richer for it.

4. The SFFaudio Podcast #073 – |MP3|-|POST| – READALONG: Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
This episode has both Luke Burrage and Gregg Margarite. We discussed one of the best novels I’d never read before. This is also one of the longest episodes, coming in just shy of two hours. I came away from this book and this wonderful conversation both a smarter person and a wiser man.

5. The SFFaudio Podcast #082 – |MP3|-|POST| – READALONG: Memory by Donald E. Westlake
This episode saw the first appearance of Trent Reynolds, from The Violent World Of Parker. The novel, by one of my favourite authors, was wonderfully noir and we discussed its every turn and twist with a kindly eye. With Trent’s help (and that of Gregg Margarite’s) I walked away from this episode knowing we’d done a very good job. I was happily depressed for the following week.

Posted by Jesse Willis