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.
In another cute move similar to Sfbrp #138, see if you can understand what’s happening in this 30 minute Robert Reed story called Pack over at Clarkesworld online magazine. *spoiler alert* Narrator Kate Baker gives her theory at the end. By the way, in the beginning, I thought the story was all Web 2.0 about blogging, but Kate was talking about her acceptance speech for her Hugo.
|MP3|
Podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/clarkesworldmagazine/podcast?format=html
Posted by Tamahome
Luke Burrage is doing something very cute with his latest podcast, it’s a review of The Sword Of The Lictor (Book 3 in the “Book of the New Sun” series). Did he mention he’d had sex with his girlfriend last night? … Yes, he did. … Then I thought, “Hey?! What happened to the standard Luke intro?” And, “What’s with all the mentioning of his having had sex with his girlfriend last night?”
Is Luke being random?
Or is this something a little deeper?
I began laughing about half-way through when I think I twigged to what he was pointing at. Luke’s having some metafun.
Indeed:
I don’t want to spoil it too much, but I thought it was delightful. He drops some random things in there, playing with our expectations – all without spoiling it too much. He’s telling his own story, the review is flawed in some ways, but you actually start seeing a bit of his genius in a way. I thought I knew where the review was going but by the end of the podcast I must admit that he is way cleverer than I am. It’s a classic (review). Don’t blame me if you don’t stick with it.
That all said, do not make this your first SFBRP podcast – start elsewhere.
Have a listen |MP3|
Podcast feed: http://www.sfbrp.com/?feed=podcast
Posted by Jesse Willis
The accented SF author and blogger Jo Walton was the guest on Notes From Coode Street podcast #65. She talked about her new half fantasy/half autobiographical novel Among Others. She went on to discuss her Revisiting the Hugos series at Tor. She covers Hugos in the years 1953-2000.
Somehow this led me to obsessively clicking through each year, looking for good books that stood the test of time. I was surprised that she hated Neuromancer (didn’t like the characters, look for bluejo in the comments), and hated The Sparrow (don’t know why). She also has lots of separate blog posts about rereads of different novels she loved, covering plenty of C.J. Cherryh, Samuel R. Delany, and Lois McMaster Bujold. I didn’t find a nice index, but here’s a listing of all of ‘bluejo’s’ (Jo Walton’s) Tor.com posts. I’m looking forward to her series on Hugo-winning novellas.
|MP3| of the podcast episode.
(Note: we’re recording a Neuromancer discussion on November 12th.)
Posted by Tamahome
I first posted about Power Records Plaza back in 2007. It looks like’s in mothballs now, perhaps it has completely fulfilled its mission? The site is dedicated to an obscure 1970s and 1980s record company named Power Records.
Here’s the cover of Power Records #16 – Man-Thing – Night Of The Laughing Dead (a story which abridges and adapts a story begun in Man-Thing #5, May 1974, written by Steve Gerber and with art by Mike Ploog and Frank Chiaramonte):
Night Of The Laughing Dead is a bizarre mix of existentialism and the supernatural. There’s a suicidal clown, the world’s strongest man, and another man that no longer reasons – one who functions only on emotion. That man is YOU …. for you are the Man-Thing!
I told you it was weird.
MP3 file of the audio DOWNLOAD FROM MEDIAFIRE
The audio is also available via WFMU |MP3|
PDF of the comic DOWNLOAD FROM MEDIAFIRE
YouTube combination of the comic and the audio – Part 1 of 2:
YouTube combination of the comic and the audio – Part 2 of 2:
[Thanks Bill!]
Posted by Jesse Willis
“Soon after ‘It‘ appeared in Unknown (the pulp mag competitor of the Weird Tales title which showcased Conan and Kull and Lovecraft), Ted Sturgeon’s name was a household word – at least if you lived in a house-hold where fantasy books lined creaking shelves. More Than Human, ‘Microcosmic God‘ and The Synthetic Man were still in the future, but it was all there – all the talent and the promise – lying there newborn and naked and writhing in a story called ‘It‘ which has never been topped in its field, and which has itself directly or in, directly spawned a virtual army,of gloopy-glop monsters which have infiltrated nearly every comics company which ever went into hock for a four-color printing press.”
-From an essay entitled A Somewhat Personal Pronouncement by Roy Thomas (found in Supernatural Thrillers #1 – December 1972)
If there is a concise history of fictional wetland creatures with non-specific pronoun-noun names I’m not aware of it. Be it an IT, a MAN-THING or a SWAMP THING I’ve a a real HEAP of fascination for the merging (or emerging) of man-like-life from decay and vegetable matter.
Here’s a brief timeline of my own devising:
August 1940 – Street & Smith’s Unknown Fantasy Fiction -> It! by Theodore Sturgeon
(a composite being of mud, mold, decaying foliage surrounds a human skeleton and comes alive)1942 – Hillman Periodicals -> The Heap
(the will of a WWI flying ace clings “to the smallest shred of life through sheer force of will” and arises from swamp muck in a rotted body intermingled with vegetation)May 1971 – Marvel Comics -> Man-Thing
(a “slow-moving, empathic, humanoid” that had once been a man arises)July 1971 – DC Comics -> Swamp Thing
(a plant elemental awakens)December 1972 – Marvel Comics -> Supernatural Thrillers -> A comics adaptation of the original It!
March 1974 – CBS Radio Mystery Theater -> The Creature From The Swamp
I really enjoyed this production from CBS Radio Mystery Theater’s first season. It is obviously inspired by its predecessors but it also incorporates some earlier mythology to good, and mysterious effect.
Go now, follow Larry Drake, a man burned by the flames of the past, follow him into the swamp. See what fate befalls him. See what fate befalls the beautiful woman he rescues from a frightening creature that lays waiting within the marshy depths of the Devil’s Cauldron.
CBS Radio Mystery Theater – #0053 – The Creature From The Swamp
By Ian Martin; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 45 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: CBS
Broadcast: March 7, 1974
Provider: CBSRMT.com
Cast:
Robert Dryden
Jack Grimes
Leon Janney
Joan Loring
Posted by Jesse Willis
I read The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs in the book called SHOCKS edited by Burton Goodman. It was different, less detailed, than the Project Gutenberg edition. There are five actors playing all the characters in the audiobook below.
The Monkey’s Paw
By W.W. Jacobs; Read by David Barnes, Stuart Pyle, Cori Samuel, Jim Mowatt, Peter Yearsley
1 |MP3| – Approx. 25 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 2, 2007
|ETEXT|
Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/the-monkeys-paw-by-ww-jacobs.xml
iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|
Posted by Kevin Long