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.
The Bobbsey Twins At The Seashore was the third Stratemeyer Syndicate‘s longest running series. It details the semi-nauticaul adventures of the Bobbsey family, which includes two sets of fraternal twins: Bert and Nan, who are 12 years old, and Flossie and Freddie, who are six. I got my copy through an inheritance. My grandmother had kept many of the books that her five sons grew up with. Based on the penciling in this one I’m guessing it was greatly valued by my father. He put his name, address and phone number in it, probably when he was around five years old. By the time I got to it, the other day, both the front and back covers had fallen off, and all the previous repair work only just held the pages in. So, with great pain, I cracked the remainder of the spine, peeled off the masking tape and now, with the help of a couple of students and a $500 scanner, I have a digital picture book edition to enhance our enjoyment of the audiobook. |PDF|
The Bobbsey Twins At The Seashore
By Laura Lee Hope (aka Lilian C. Garis); Read by various 21 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 3 Hours 40 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 03, 2011
|ETEXT| In this third volume of the “Bobbsey Twin Series”, the twins – Nan and Bert and Freddie and Flossie – go with their family to visit relatives at the seashore. Excitement and adventure are sure to abound!
There’s an interesting documentary about Jorge Luis Borges over on RadioArchive.cc. Its presenter, Peter White, traveled to Buenos Aires, talked to a Borges biographer and a former student. He sits in the club that Borges sat in and walks the streets where Borges walked. The focus here is especially on Borges’ blindness, but the documentary is good for those who are still sighted too.
Libraries, Labyrinths, Borges, And Me
Presented by Peter White; Reader Peter Woolf
1 MP3 – Approx. 28 Minutes [DOCUMENTARY]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: May 19, 2009
Source: RadioArchive.cc Peter White, who has been blind since birth, presents ‘In Touch’ Radio 4’s programme for the blind and partially sighted. This is not his only job at the BBC, where he also presents documentaries on various subjects. Peter is very interested in Jorge Luis Borges’ work. Here Peter travels to Buenos Aires to find out what why Borges seems to be more quoted than read, and to use his own blindness to bring new perspective Borges’ his life and work. Produced by Mark Smally.
In less than a year William Hart has assembled an amazing blog over on CthulhuWho1.com. It’s mostly about Lovecraftiana, but it strays into other areas too. The way I found it was via Fritz Leiber’s detailed Wikipedia entry. Last listed among the audio files there was this gem. An informative scripted interview recorded and released in 1978…
An Hour with Fritz Leiber: The Author And His Works
Interviewer Randall Garrett
2 MP3 Files – Approx. 1 Hour [INTERVIEW]
Publisher: Hourglass Productions
Published: 1978
Source: cthulhuwho1.com
Recorded at the 1978 Fantasy Faire 8 in Pasadena, California in September 1978.
I’m absolutely amazed that Ancient Faith was able to get permission from HarperCollins and the Lewis estate to podcast this novel. Hart has a pleasing British accent and the confidence of someone who is comfortable in front of a microphone. She makes a couple of repetition errors, but is otherwise flawless. The recording quality is very good, as is befitting such a professionally produced podcast. The other books in The Chronicles of Narnia series are also available for free through the same website, so head on over to collect all seven books.
And, for my part I’ve HuffDuffed all eight files.
The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe
By C.S. Lewis; Read by Dr. Chrissi Hart
8 Podcast MP3 Files – Approx. 4.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Ancient Faith Radio / Under The Grapevine
Podcast: March – May 2009
A fantasy novel for children by published in 1950 and set circa 1940. It is the first-published book of The Chronicles of Narnia series and is the best known book of the series. Although it was written and published first, it is second in the series’ internal chronological order, after The Magician’s Nephew.
Character list:
Lucy Pevensie, the youngest Pevensie child
Edmund Pevensie, the third of the Pevensie children.
Susan Pevensie, the second oldest of Pevensie children
Peter Pevensie, the oldest of the Pevensie siblings
Aslan, a lion
The White Witch
Tumnus, a faun
Professor Digory Kirke, takes the Pevensie children in when they are evacuated from London
Mr. Beaver, a friend of Tumnus
Mrs. Beaver, Mr. Beaver’s wife
The Dwarf, the White Witch’s right hand man (hench-dwarf)
Maugrim (aka Fenris Ulf), a wolf
Father Christmas
Mrs. Macready, the housekeeper for Professor Kirke
Giant Rumblebuffin
The SFFaudio Podcast #098 – Scott and Jesse talk with Luke Burrage about the new audiobook releases. And we also play Philip K. Dick’s “Preserving Machine” game in which you pick a piece of music and transform it into an animal.
Talked about on today’s show:
New releases, The Adjustment Bureau by Philip K. Dick, Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review, Roger Ebert, “Meet Cute”, Phil Gigante, The Stainless Steel Rat, Gregg Margarite, Russian Ark, Hermitage, The SFBRP Podcast, Your Movie Sucks, Dune, “This movie is a real mess, an incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion into the murkier realms of one of the most confusing screenplays of all time.”, Korean movies mix humor, horror, drama, “the tone is off” in Shakespeare too, Unknown (a special edition of Out Of My Head), Berlin, Bronson Pinchot, Richard Matheson, On Stranger Tides, Bronson Pinchot has “a whole crew full of pirates in his mouth”, Audible.com, Beverly Hills Cop, Gideon’s Sword by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, Arthur C. Clarke’s Richter 10 by Mike McQuay, a Gene Wolfe writing exercise, The Unincorporated Man by Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin |READ OUR REVIEW|, “trickster, prodigy, master thief”, techno-thriller-ish, Planet Of The Damned by Harry Harrison, West Of Eden, Bill The Galactic Hero, Long After Midnight by Ray Bradbury, Tantor Media, Michael Prichard, Drink Entire: Against the Madness of Crowds, The Odyssey of Homer, “he’s in a boat, Poseidon hates him, then he’s home”, the origins of Necromancy are in The Odyssey, Philip K. Dick was directly inspired by The Odyssey, An Improvised Life: A Memoir by Alan Arkin, James Randi, The Black Widowers, The Trapdoor Spiders, Isaac Asimov, the Amazing Larry, Luke jumps on giant balloons |VIDEO|, Galaxy Science Fiction magazine, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Physics Of The Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny And Our Daily Lives By The Year 2100 by Michio Kaku, Art Bell and Coast To Coast AM, Jesse thinks string theory is bullshit, 2012, Higgs boson, Tachyons, what’s wrong with futurism, Popular Mechanics/Popular Science and the flying car, filtering metastases, The Troubled Man by Henning Mankell, Cynical-C, Kenneth Branagh as Wallander, the relationship between Science Fiction and detective fiction is that both allow the reader to participate in them, who-dun-it? vs. what happened?, Sherlock Holmes vs. Columbo, Agatha Christie vs. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself, The Writing Excuses Podcast, The Orbit Books Podcast #1, Jack Womack, Tamahome, sycophantic interviews are bad, Robert J. Sawyer, “the best stuff happens after the interview”, Richard K. Morgan’s article on Tolkien, The Space Dog Podcast, Ballentine Books, The Fountains Of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke, Lester del Rey, Utopia by Sir Thomas More, Simon Prebble, Gulliver’s Travels, dystopia, A Truly Golden Little Book, No Less Beneficial Than Entertaining, of the Best State of a Republic, and of the New Island Utopia, Steen Hansen, “immersed in Americanism”, The United States vs. Canada, American utopianism vs. Canadian muddling through, British North America Act, the long gun registry, Winston Churchill, did Winston Churchill write SF?, Newt Gingrich as an alternate history novel, Plato’s The Republic, Mein Kampf, Dianetics, Meatball Fulton (aka Tom Lopez), Ruby, Lady Windermere’s Brass Fantabulous, Part 2, “purposefully ridiculous”, new Audible.com releases, Audible Frontiers, When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger, Jonathan Davis, The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds, “grimy and grungy and punky”, Pushing Ice, mining the Oort cloud, Century Rain, Journey To The Center To The Earth, Gulliver’s Travels, Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Kenneth Brannagh, Jorge Luis Borges, Stromboli, The Wise Man’s Fear (Kingkiller Chronicles, Day 2) by Patrick Rothfuss, Random House Audio, The Vampire Archives: The Most Complete Volume of Vampire Tales Ever Published edited by Otto Penzler, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, undeadliest, Dreamsongs by George R.R. Martin, Heart Of Darkness, Alas Babylon by Pat Frank, Heavy Time by C.J. Cherryh, Lord Of Light by Roger Zelazny, Sri Lanka, Death Cloud by Andrew Lane, Venus by Ben Bova, The Children Of Dune by Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert, “talented readers” is a compliment?, “horribly unreadable” “throwthemacrosstheroomable”, family curse, Christopher Tolkien and Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson, Saga Of Seven Suns, Hellhole, sickmyduck, The Preserving Machine by Philip K. Dick |ETEXT|, Doc Labyrinth, Mozart bird, Beethoven beetle, Wagner animal, this is Dick talking about music, “Hey Jesse you must be the coolest teacher out there”, what would The Beatles be, put Lady Gaga in out comes Lady Gaga?, Vampire Weekend into meercats, what gender is this website?, Band Of Horses would yield themselves, “Weird Al” Yankovic?, “I wonder what will happen next?”, A Scanner Darkly, Radiohead would be an owl, if the term “sellout” applies to anyone in the universe it applies to Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert, planetary romance vs. space opera, Greenland vs. Iceland, Berlin means bogtown, are Malad residents are Malodorous?
Backbencher, CBC Radio’s podcast radio drama about a novice Member Of Parliament, Nellie Gordon, is back with Season 2. Sez the official website:
“Each episode in Season 2 will be available to live stream or podcast for 2 weeks after each broadcast. Then will be available to purchase through iTunes.”
March 3, 2011 – EPISODE 9 – DOWN AND DIRTY – by Wendy Lill |MP3| Well the rumours of the Federal election were true and now MP Nellie Gordon is home in her riding of East Nova pounding the pavement again. But for some reason, everything is different this time around.
Joanne Miller is Nellie Gordon
Louise Renault is Renée LeBlanc
Cory Bowles is Sean Higgins
Kevin Kincaid is Arthur Jones
Lee J. Campbell is Herb Proctor
Genevieve Steele is Tina Simmons
Jacob Robertson is Ben Gordon
Lucky Campbell is Desmond Cain
Hans Boggild is Rudy the Cabbie
Francine Descepper is the TV assistant
The Bobbsey Twins At The Seashore
