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.
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|
Narrator Karen Savage has finished her SFFaudio Challenge #5 audiobook, calling The Big Time, by Fritz Leiber, “A classic locked room mystery, in a not-so-classic setting.” And she’s right about that, this is an SF/Mystery classic.
Fritz Leiber says, in his 1982 introduction to The Big Time, that the novella was written over the course of exactly 100 days in 1956 and 1957.
For more on the plot |READ OUR REVIEW| of the Audible Frontiers edition. Savage has a great voice, this is an amazingly clear recording, and she affects a very serviceable set of intonations and accents for the half dozen or so characters with speaking parts in this excellent reading. My only complaint, as with the Audible edition, Savage does not use the tune of Lili Marlene for the reading of the lyrics at the end of chapter 3. Oh well.
The Big Time
By Fritz Leiber; Read by Karen Savage 16 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 3 Hours 44 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 16, 2011
|ETEXT| You can’t know there’s a war on—for the Snakes coil and Spiders weave to keep you from knowing it’s being fought over your live and dead body! First published in Galaxy Science Fiction’s March and April 1958 issues.
Here’s a very cool find, the most modern radio dramatization adaptation of Guy de Maupassant’s The Horla yet! This 19th century classic of Science Fiction and Horror is made grand as a radio drama! The CBS Radio Mystery Theatre’s version is more than 40 minutes long, which gives the plot enough time to truly develop the story.
As with so many authors who become famous, this adaptation blurs the distinction between the unnamed protagonist of the original short story and the author himself. The afflicted man, thus, is Guy de Maupassant himself! The adaptation take quite a few other liberties with the story, adding a few telephone conversations, moving scenes around and changing the focus slightly. There is major fire, but unlike the original short story the fire is not of the protagonist’s home. As with all CBS Radio Mystery Theater productions there is a narrator, but as with all the ones I’ve heard, it isn’t a crutch for the storytelling. I heartily recommend this production.
Unfortunately I couldn’t find a direct link to an MP3 file anywhere online but it is available on Archive.org as a part of a fifty |Zipped File| collection. Actually, all 1,399 episodes of the terrific series (!) are available THERE too. And for more information on the CBS Radio Mystery Theater check out this site (it has a very handy searchable database).
CBS Radio Mystery Theater – The Horla
Based on the story by Guy de Maupassant; Adapted by Sam Dann; Performed by a full cast Zipped MP3 File (with many others) – Approx. 43 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBS
Broadcast: February 22, 1974 A man becomes obsessed with a ship in the harbor he is convinced harbors a terrible evil that is the doom of mankind.
Cast: Paul Hecht
Bryna Raeburn
Robert Dryden
Dan Ocko
Hey, you know who we haven’t talked about for a long time? HighBridge Audio! Here is the Fall 2011 HighBridge Audio catalogue |PDF|
There’s plenty of cool stuff in there and on their website. And while I’m very dubious of the enhanced audio track featured in the preview clip |MP3| of their upcoming audiobook of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, I have very high hopes for Highbridge Audio’s production of this gem (it’s slated for release at the end of November):
Dancing Aztecs
By Donald E. Westlake; Read by Brian Holsopple
MP3 Download – Approx. 12 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Highbridge Audio
Published: November 29, 2011 Specialist in the scam, the con, and the rip-off, Jerry Manelli is running around New York hot on the trail of a priest—a thousand-year-old, two-foot-tall, ugly, misshapen, dancing Aztec priest made of solid gold, with eyes of pure emeralds, worth a million dollars. Somebody stole it from its museum home in South America and smuggled it through U.S. Customs in a shipment of plastic imitations. But the wrong one got delivered, and the million dollar statue, mixed with the fifteen copies, is somewhere in New York. Jerry Manelli is searching for it, as are Wall Street financiers, New Jersey union thugs, Manhattan aristocrats, college professors and PR men, liberated women and unliberated wives, tough guys and conmen, and sharpshooters of every kind. From Harlem to Greenwich Village, from Long Island to Connecticut, the motley group races in and around New York in this comic adventure of the 1970s.
The September 2011 issue of Lightspeed Magazine (issue #16) features a reading by one of the finest narrators around, Harlan Ellison! There’s also a text interview with the author, David Brin |HERE|. Asked what inspired the story Brin sez:
“Most of the universe is the regions between galaxies, yet no stories are ever set in that vast emptiness. I like a challenge.”
And based on this you might suspect, rightly, that the plot tries to answer a problem in physics.
Bubbles
By David Brin; Read by Harlan Ellison
1 |MP3| – Approx. 37 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Lightspeed Magazine
Podcast: September 2011 “Most of the universe is the regions between galaxies, yet no stories are ever set in that vast emptiness. In “Bubbles” by David Brin, we get to know Serena, a lonely entity traveling the space between galaxies.” First published in a 1987 anthology, The Universe edited by Byron Preiss.
Categorized as “historical” and “romance” but it doesnt sound like either from the clip. It’s told in 2nd person and narrated by Jim Dale!
The Night Circus
By Erin Morgenstern; Read by Jim Dale
CDs – Approx. 14 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: September 13, 2011
ISBN: 9780307938909 A fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands. True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance.
When I heard that there was a new movie called “Killer Elite” I expected that it was just another pointless remake – this time of the 1975 Sam Peckinpah movie of the same name. Turns out it isn’t a remake, just a lifted title, and that the plot is actually based on a 1991 novel called The Feather Men! On the Wikipedia entry for the author, Ranulph Fiennes, he’s described as an “adventurer” and the novel is supposed to be based on true events.
Killer Elite (previously published as The Feather Men)
By Ranulph Fiennes; Read by Jonathan Cowley
Digital Download – Approx. [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: September 6, 2011
ISBN: 9780307934352 Here is a gripping novel, inspired by real-life events, about a private team of British vigilantes that sets out to eliminate a gang of cold-blooded contract killers. From 1977 to 1990, four former British soldiers die, one by one, supposedly due to accident or illness. But soon a link is established between the victims: a shared mission in the desert kingdom of Oman, where they fought for a sultan against insurgents and ruined the life of a rival sheikh, who in turn has sent a band of assassins to methodically slay the soldiers and salvage his pride. Now these clever assassins are on the run from an underground group of SAS vets with nothing to lose, no time to waste, and a desire to dispense their own form of justice—no matter the cost.
The Monkey’s Paw
CBS Radio Mystery Theater – The Horla
Of the latest Random House Audio releases these three seem the most interesting to me. First up, one we’ve covered before…
The Night Circus
Killer Elite (previously published as The Feather Men)