SFBRP #134 – A Science Fiction Book Review Podcast Review Podcast

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Science Fiction Book Review Podcast Our friend Luke Burrage, of the Science Fiction Book Review Podcast, has a new episode up (SFBRP #134) that features a discussion of other book reviewing podcasts. Writes Luke:

“This episode I invited Jesse and Tamahome from the SFFaudio Podcast to review other podcasts that review, or at least talk about, science fiction and fantasy novels and other literature. This was inspired by an overcrowded and shallow look at podcasts on a recent episode of the SF Signal podcast that Jesse took part in, and we all agreed we had more to say on the subject.”

Have a listen |MP3|

Podcast feed: http://www.sfbrp.com/?feed=podcast

Here’s what we talked about:
Luke’s been busy, reviewing podcasts about science fiction book reviews, Tamahome comes from Fushigi Yûgi, The SFFaudio Podcast, writing a blog is slower than talking on a podcast, SFFaudio readalongs are like a book club, talking with authors, TOPIC episodes, FOOD in Science Fiction, STUPIDITY AND INTELLIGENCE in SF, chatting about SFF literature, Luke is not much on comics, TV, or movies, Tamahome adds colour, “a three-body problem”, Robert J. Sawyer, rape, Hominids, “copious shownotes”, a movie is a footnote to the book, When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger, Children Of Men by P.D. James, I Am Legend, pretending there is no movie, Luke doesn’t totally agree with his own argument, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, “it’s The Matrix problem” (sequels), Blade Runner, destroying the sense of wonder, this is why religions eventually collapse too (drilling down), lot’s of hippies having a rave doesn’t interest Luke (or me), gnosticism shouldn’t or can’t be known, sequel-itis or sequel fatigue, it seems as if the only books on store shelves today are series, SFBRP reviews are about just one book per episode and only books, Luke get’s great feedback, Goodreads.com, Amazon.com, SFBRP community is self serving but with wonderful externalities, Luke’s Creative Podcast, A Good Story Is Hard To Find, Scott D. Danielson, Julie Davis, Eifelheim, Catholicism, spoilers, A Good Story Is Hard To Find may be the best podcast out there, SFBRP is irregular, Serenity, Stories Of Your Life by Ted Chiang, Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke, East Of Eden, The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey, historical fiction, Fantasy, mystery, Quiz Show, “the traces of one reality”, the Writing Excuses guys are three Mormons?, SFSignal Podcast #70 with Jesse, podcast lists with no discussion (and no women), The Geek’s Guide To The Galaxy podcast #42 (an interview with Eoin Colfer), [**Eoin should be pronounced “Oh-Ehn”**], the purpose of sequels is to milk the back catalogue, Isabel Allende, the Douglas Adams estate, The Dirk Gently TV series (trailer), John Joseph Adams, David Barr Kirtley is pretty damn good, philosophy, bring the interviewee into the discussion, sycophantic interviews, Jack Womack, Requires Only That You Hate, The Sword And Laser Podcast is a book club podcast, a casual book club, The Jane Austen Book Club, Rim and Scott, The Geek Nights Book Club, board games and computer games, comics and manga, World War Z, The Lies Of Loch Lamora, The Prince Of Nothing, the Geek Nights forum, “speller and gramming”, Rim and Scott (and Luke) are frequent guests on the Friday Night Party Line podcast, Beyond The Door, The Hanging Stranger by Philip K. Dick, Fair Game by Philip K. Dick and The Garden Of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges, the Lightspeed podcast (has spoiler introductions), Jack McDevitt, “he doesn’t want you to worry”, Minding Tomorrow by Luke Burrage, time travel, Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds, The Things (Sffaudio post) by Peter Watts, Courtney Brown of Emory University, the Science Fiction And Politics podcast, Foundation by Isaac Asimov, “all I’m here to do is make you guys argue”, Janelle Monáe, Darwin’s Radio by Gregg Bear, Dan Simmons (Tam was thinking of Darwin’s Blade), Snow Crash, bringing a different spin, The Kick Ass-Mystic Ninjas, Harry Harrison, spoilers don’t necessarily really spoil anything, medieval Germany, when walking a tight-rope Luke strikes a balance, the Gweek podcast, Mark Frauenfelder has a genuine enthusiasm that’s infectious, Ready Player One, Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing format is broken for me, the Paul The Book Guy podcast, it’s a panel show with sound effects and jingles, the segments are way too brief, “books, audiobooks, audio drama”, “a series of commercials” it’s overproduced, The Skiffy And Fanty Show, John DeNardo, Geek Night’s competition for the worst podcast on the internet, War Of The Worlds 2, “Torture Cinema”, Shaun Duke and Jen Zink, “book mountain”, “this podcast is all about me and my slurpee”, picking crappy movies on purpose, “a little bit shallow”, having a barrier to entry, there aren’t as many podcasts about books as one would hope, SFBRP is highly placed on iTunes, The Dragon Page podcast, Arizona, Web Genie, Adventures In Scifi Publishing, podcasts about publishing don’t interest Jesse, stop sending Luke books to review, the many TWiT podcasts, claims of “we’re not shilling” = shilling, do you need to compromise your art for $50?, professional podcasters provide a service, Microsoft Security Essentials, Microsoft made a product that is free, great, and works?, Leo Laporte is has a genuine personality, Jeff Jarvis, Audible ad segments on TWiT have value (and should be compiled), Andy Ihnatko, Macbreak Weekly, the SFBRP:RP, (Tam forgot to mention Coode Street/Galactic Suburbia)

[**Thanks also to Kate O’Hanlon**]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Hugo Blick’s The Shadow Line

Jesse Willis

Aural Noir: Online Audio

The Shadow LineLets assume that each medium offers its own best format. If that’s true, then on TV it is the limited series programme that is the least respected and most underrated. Take The Shadow Line, a BBC 2 television series, created written and directed by Hugo Blick and starring Chewitel Ejifor. The UK paper reviewers seem to want to compare it to The Wire or the Danish series The Killing. But that’s wrong. The Shadow Line isn’t much like either. Really it is just good old fashioned thriller, something the BBC TV has done before. It’s more in the vein of House Of Cards or Edge Of Darkness. But this time it comes primarily from a single creator’s vision. This give it an extended metaphor, the “shadow line” of the title, a thread that pops up in new ways in each episode. It is both a point of dialogue and a mass of ideas. Here’s the show’s premise:

A homicide detective, with partial amnesia, returns to the job to investigate the murder of a recently pardoned heroin importer.

The Shadow Line was aimed high, and it achieved many of its goals. Where it works, it works stunningly well. Where it fails, it fails in small ways, and then moves on. In the end it is an utterly noir thriller, a highly stylized television poem and meditation on life, death and society. The methodically slow paced, cryptic, surprisingly ruthless plot delivers its message in a persuasive form, as a limited series. Most refreshing of all, it does not play, as seems does most TV, to the stupidest person in the room. One commenter put it succinctly:

“This series reminds me why it is worth paying a licence fee. Only the BBC makes drama as good as this. Drama that doesn’t treat the audience like morons.”

Another said this:

“Superb series, and the first time for an awfully long time that I’ve seen a drama on TV that’s made my brain work.”

A third, this:

A sheer joy from start to finish, even with the odd line of clunky dialogue. It was crisp and weird, and the odd, crystal-clear delivery and stylised speech of the characters, from the police to the gangsters, made it stand out from a host of dirge that has been on the screens lately. Yes it had flaws, but the complexity, the suspense, the tension, the labyrinthine plotting and the odd-ball cast of characters made it the best British drama for years.

I agree completely.

Discussion of the programme:
TV.com UK Podcast |MP3|
BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Review podcast |MP3|
British TV Podcast Show #89 |MP3|

Interviews:
Highlights From The Green Room (with Chewitel Ejifor) |MP3|

Posted by Jesse Willis

Marvel Podcast: Daredevil #1 – an unabridged reading

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Mighty Marvel PodcastHere’s an interesting experiment, something I’m not sure works, but think was definitely worth trying. Here’s the official line:

Since his inception in 1964, Daredevil has stood out as a unique figure in comic books: A blind man able to leap through the air and battle evil thanks to a special radar enhancing his other senses. The Man Without Fear has been a Marvel stalwart for nearly 50 years as well as a representative of the visually-impaired in popular fiction, but up to this point, those deprived of sight themselves have had to rely on friends reading them copies of DAREDEVIL in order to experience Matt Murdock’s adventures.

About a month ago, Marvel Senior Editor Steve Wacker came up with the idea to record an audio edition of DAREDEVIL #1 so that the visually-impaired could enjoy the dawn of a new era for DD, his friends and his enemies. Additionally, this special project provides those who can see with a new take on what’s already being hailed as one of the best comics of 2011.

DAREDEVIL writer Mark Waid provides full panel descriptions directly from his script on this audio edition, while Marvel editors Tom Brennan, Ellie Pyle and Jordan D. White lent their voices to Daredevil/Matt Murdock, Kirsten McDuffie and Foggy Nelson, with White and Wacker also providing additional vocals. Marvel.com Video Editor Todd Wahnish recorded the piece, Marvel.com Associate Editor Ben Morse directed and Jordan White edited the final recording.

MARVEL COMICS - Daredevil, Issue #1Daredevil #1
By Mark Waid; Performed by Mark Waid and several other readers
1 |MP3| – Approx. 27 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: The Mighty Marvel Podcast
Podcast: August 18, 2011

Mark Waid – Panel descriptions
Associate Editor Tom Brennan – Daredevil/Matt Murdock
Assistant Editor Ellie Pyle – Kirsten McDuffie
Assistant Editor Jordan White – Foggy Nelson/others
Editor Stephen Wacker – background voices
Marvel.com Associate Editor Ben Morse – Mark Waid

The recording was directed by Ben Morse, engineered by Marvel.com Video Editor Todd Wahnish, and edited by Jordan White.

There’s also an interview with Waid available |MP3|

Daredevil - Issue One, Page One

[via Tristan Winch’s HuffDuffer feed]

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Music Of Erich Zann by H.P. Lovecraft

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Music Of Erich Zann is one of H.P. Lovecraft’s most popular short stories (it runs just 3,450 words).

The Music Of Erich Zann - illustration by Andrew Brosnatch

Here are the opening lines:

“I have examined maps of the city with the greatest care, yet have never again found the Rue d’Auseil. These maps have not been modern maps alone, for I know that names change. I have, on the contrary, delved deeply into all the antiquities of the place, and have personally explored every region, of whatever name, which could possibly answer to the street I knew as the Rue d’Auseil. But despite all I have done, it remains an humiliating fact that I cannot find the house, the street, or even the locality, where, during the last months of my impoverished life as a student of metaphysics at the university, I heard the music of Erich Zann.

That my memory is broken, I do not wonder; for my health, physical and mental, was gravely disturbed throughout the period of my residence in the Rue d’Auseil, and I recall that I took none of my few acquaintances there. But that I cannot find the place again is both singular and perplexing; for it was within a half-hour’s walk of the university and was distinguished by peculiarities which could hardly be forgotten by any one who had been there. I have never met a person who has seen the Rue d’Auseil.

The Rue d’Auseil lay across a dark river bordered by precipitous brick blear-windowed warehouses and spanned by a ponderous bridge of dark stone. It was always shadowy along that river, as if the smoke of neighboring factories shut out the sun perpetually. The river was also odorous with evil stenches which I have never smelled elsewhere, and which may some day help me to find it, since I should recognize them at once. Beyond the bridge were narrow cobbled streets with rails; and then came the ascent, at first gradual, but incredibly steep as the Rue d’Auseil was reached.”

And the Rue d’Auseil, by the way, translates to “street of the threshold” – most appropriate.

Public domain:

LibriVoxThe Music Of Erich Zann
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by Cameron Halket
1 |MP3| – Approx. 19 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 19, 2008
|ETEXT|
A student of philosophy is forced, by lack of funds, to to take lodgings in a run down rooming house in a strange part of Paris. First published in National Amateur (March 1922), then later in the May 1925 issue of Weird Tales.

Creative Commons:

PseudopodEpisode #100 – The Music Of Erich Zann
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by B.J. Harrison
1 |MP3| – Approx. 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Pseudopod
Podcast: July 25th, 2008

Commercial audiobook:

Horror Audiobooks - The Dark Worlds Of H.P. Lovecraft Volume 4 - The Rats In The Walls, The Shunned House, The Music Of Eric ZahnThe Dark Worlds Of H.P. Lovecraft, Volume 4: The Rats In The Walls, The Shunned House, The Music Of Eric Zann
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by Wayne June
3 CDs – 2 Hours 41 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Realms
Published: 2006
ISBN: 1897304242
|READ OUR REVIEW|

Discussion:

H.P. Lovecraft Literary PodcastEpisode #23 – The Music Of Erich Zann
Participants Chris Lackey, Chad Fifer and Andrew Leman
1 |MP3| – Approx. 29 Minutes [DISCUSSION]
Podcaster: H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast
Podcast: September 12, 2010

Other:

The Music Of Erich Zann

There is a very good comics adaptation, by writer Roy Thomas and artist Johnny Craig, done for issue #5 (June 1970) of Marvel Comics’ Chamber Of Darkness (the title was changed to The Music From Beyond).

Here’s a disturbingly wordless stop motion animation adaptation:

Posted by Jesse Willis

Power Records adaptation of Conan The Barbarian (the 1982 Motion Picture directed by John Milius)

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio News

Conan The Barbarian - Movie Adaptation LPBack in 2007 Akim Bischoff wrote our review of the Power Records adaptation of Conan The Barbarian (the 1982 Motion Picture directed by John Milius) |READ OUR REVIEW|. Based on the character created by Robert E. Howard, it was the longest audio dramatization of a Conan story up to that point (it wasn’t surpassed until BrokenSea Audio’s Queen Of The Black Coast – currently available via torrent HERE). Akim concluded his review this way:

My only gripe with the record adaptation is I wish it featured the film’s original score. While the orchestration Power Records uses is vast and surprisingly well done, it’s hard to stand against the classic work of composer Basil Poledouris. Though, with their excellent cast and matching production values, this can be easily overlooked. Especially when listening to the “new” dialog and scenes ultimately left on the cutting room floor. As a fan of all things Conan and especially the films, it creates quite a thrill and leaves you slightly imagining… what might have been.

Now you can hear the entire recording, in five parts, as posted to YouTube:

Here is the same audio dramatization but with some of the Marvel comics adaptation added:

[Thank CROM!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Aural Noir Review of Unknown (A Special Edition of Out of My Head) by Didier van Cauwelaert, translated by Mark Polizzotti

Jesse Willis

Aural Noir: Review

BLACKSTONE AUDIO - Unknown by Dider van CauwelaertUnknown (A Special Edition of Out of My Head)
By Didier van Cauwelaert; Translated by Mark Polizzotti; Read by Bronson Pinchot
4 CDs – Approx. 4 Hours 21 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: December 2010
ISBN: 9781441759788
Themes: / Mystery / Identity / Amnesia / Identity Theft / Science / Botany / France /

This fast-paced thriller is the basis for the February 2011 film Unknown, starring Liam Neeson, Frank Langella, Diane Kruger, and Aidan Quinn. Martin Harris returns home after a short absence to find that his wife doesn’t know him, another man is living in his house under his name, and the neighbors think he’s a raving lunatic. Worse, not a single person — family, colleague, or doctor — can vouch for him. Worse still, the impostor shares all of Martin’s memories, experiences, and knowledge, down to the last detail. He is, in fact, a more convincing Martin than Martin himself. Is it a conspiracy? Amnesia? Is Martin the victim of an elaborate hoax, or of his own paranoid delusion? In his high-powered new novel, Didier van Cauwelaert, the award-winning author of One-Way, explores the illusory nature of identity and the instability of the things we take for granted. Dispossessed of his job, his family, his name, and his very past, Martin Harris is an Everyman caught in an absurd and yet disturbingly convincing nightmare, one that seems to have no exit and that resists every explanation. Part moral fable, part Robert Ludlum-style thriller, Unknown is a fast-paced tale of one man’s desperate attempt to reclaim his existence — even at the cost of his own life.

Unknown is an old fashioned mystery story with an amateur detective who is trying to solve the most important case of his life – his own. The narrative, told in first person, is brisk, fresh, and just slightly foreign. It was such a good for me to have a short novel like this, one that wrapped itself up in less than a day and a half of listening! It reminded me of such wonderful standalone novels as Ed McBain’s Downtown |READ OUR REVIEW| and Donald E. Westlake’s Memory. But unlike those two novels, which had passive protagonists, Martin Harris is competent and determined. He had me investigating and pondering right along with him. I, like he, was attentive to his dilemma, was constantly working through the possibilities of what might be going on, following the thought processes and tripping over the doubts he had in every scene. And, I did all this after seeing the film! I’m really kicking myself about that. Had I read the book, before watching the movie, I think I would have enjoyed the novel quite a bit more. That said, the novel isn’t the movie. The novel is different in tone and detail.

It’s cool to have an intelligent protagonist who thinks through dozens of possible scenarios despite being constantly bombarded by failure. The portrait Didier van Cauwelaert paints, of a distraught victim of identity theft, is full of the kinds of ambiguity and doubt that feels like a very European version of a Robert Ludlum novel. The protagonist may be American, but the novel feels French. The little things that might mean something are everywhere, all the characters seem to have a back story, all of which might be red herrings or just nothing at all and the focus on character and inner-space was surprising. Had the novel been twice the length I doubt I would have enjoyed it half as much.

Bronson Pinchot’s facility with accents is perfect for this novel set in Paris with an American hero. The audiobook is currently available at the Overstock 50% off discounted price (on CD). My thinking is that I did this all wrong, I should have watched the movie after reading the book. If you do it in the right order, let me know what you think of the book, and the movie.

Posted by Jesse Willis