SFFaudio – Page 475 – 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.

Seeing Ear Theatre: Tripping Astral

Monday, August 23, 2010Monday, August 23, 2010 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

One very kind person has added an early (perhaps the first) Seeing Ear Theatre production to the Internet Archive! It’s called Tripping Astral and it’s described thusly:

When a matter transfer experiment goes wrong, a scientist finds himself stranded on a alien planet.

I am, of course, adding it to our popular Seeing Ear Theatre post and will add any credits if and when we can find them.

SEEING EAR THEATRE - Tripping Astral Tripping Astral
By Brian Smith?; Performed by a full cast
7 Zipped MP3 Files – Approx. 1 Hour 37 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Seeing Ear Theatre
Published: 1997
Provider: Archive.org
“An illustrated audio adventure, about Jack Torn, a research scientist on the moon, a possible–or probable?–alien invasion, and a stunning new invention that might just save the world, or end it… So kick back, but bring a bit of your mind, welcome to the theater of the imagination…
PLEASE NOTE: Tripping Astral was originally an illustrated audio production (with “synchronized, streaming pictures and animations”) they are not available at this time.

Episode 1 “Pilot” |MP3|
Episode 2 “Oh Holy Night” |MP3|
Episode 3 “Cavescapes” |MP3|
Episode 4 “Hello Again” |MP3|
Episode 5 “Wanting Wings” |MP3|
Episode 6 “The Fall” |MP3|
Episode 7 “Brooklyn Bridges” |MP3|

[Thanks MSA!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #072 – READALONG: Assam And Darjeeling by T.M. Camp

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #072 – Jesse and Scott talk with Julie Davis, of the Forgotten Classics podcast about Assam And Darjeeling by T.M. Camp |READ OUR REVIEW|.

Talked about on today’s show:
Assam & Darjeeling by T.M. Camp, Podiobooks.com, iTunes, serialized fiction, entertaining copyright notices, where do you do your podcast listening?, I’ve got my hands full of car, the volume on Assam And Darjeeling is way too low!, remastering Assam And Darjeeling for audiobook, listening to podcasts at double speed (only on iTouch and iPhone), the premise of Assam And Darjeeling, Hades, the underworld, Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle |READ OUR REVIEW|, Escape From Hell by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle , The Divine Comedy: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri, Virgil’s The Aeneid, Ovid, the Brothers Grimm, witches, Greek Mythology, Edgar, no one can be as cruel as a kid, Joss Whedon, in the hands of a skillful author, Matters Of Mortology by T.M. Camp, Kij Johnson‘s The Fox Woman, the Black Gate blog, foxes in mythology, Aesop’s Fable The Fox And The Grapes, Cernunnos, Herne the Hunter, making the switch from comedy to horror and horror to comedy, the Shaggy Man (in the Oz series), Tom Bombadil, he has psychic powers too?, page 18, masterly dialogue put into the mouths of young children, the PDF version of Assam And Darjeeling, What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson, life after death, Inception, Edgar Alan Poe should go into the underworld to get his wife Virginia, The Memory Palace episode about Edgar Allan Poe’s death (Episode 20 strong>This Ungainly Fowl), This American Life is really bleak, WNYC’s Radiolab isn’t, general fiction is generally bleak, A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O’Connor, Science Fiction vs. general fiction, Social Science Fiction, Science Fiction has a second layer, it’s not all style, The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin, Staggerford by Jon Hassler, there are ways to tell powerful stories, A Man In Full by Tom Wolfe, Bangsian Fantasy, Fantasy, re-reading The Lord Of The Rings, the more I think about it the more I think I don’t like Fantasy, SFSite.com, derivative Fantasy, romance novels, Jane Austen, John Thorne, The Long Walk by Stephen King (Richard Bachman), The Stand, It, Salem’s Lot, The Shining, Under The Dome, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, long vs. short, The Cell by Stephen King, 28 Days Later, Desperation by Stephen King, The Rapture, if you were a character in this book who would you be?, the rule that makes any book better: talk about food, Lawrence Block, the economy of the afterworld, lampshading, I’m done with sequels, Mike Resnick’s Starship series, Jim Butcher’s Dresden series, The Fall Of Hyperion by Dan Simmons, Make Room, Make Room by Harry Harrison, Soylent Green, Adventures by Mike Resnick, mammoths vs. mastodons, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, The Star Beast by Robert A. Heinlein, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The New York Times Book Review Podcast: YA Literature

Sunday, August 22, 2010Sunday, August 22, 2010 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

The August 6th episode of The New York Times Book Review podcast has a segment on Young Adult literature:

This week: Francine Prose on the novels of Hans Keilson; Pamela Paul on adults who read Y.A. novels; Mary Roach on her new book, “Packing for Mars”; Julie Bosman with notes from the field; and Jennifer Schuessler with best-seller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host.

Have a listen |MP3| (the YA segment starts at about 13 minutes in).

Podcast feed:

http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/podcasts/bookupdate.xml

There’s also an accompanying text article HERE.

[via ElaineTM of the Audible Yahoo! Group]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Lecture on Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

Saturday, August 21, 2010Saturday, August 21, 2010 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Here is David Gill’s fascinating three part lecture on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? as recorded at the 2010 Philip K. Dick Festival in Colorado.

I’m afraid there is no HuffDuffing these MP3 files, but they are downloadable.

And, as a bonus, here’s Erik Davis on “Dreaming, PKD, Lovecraft”

[via the Total Dick Head blog]
Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: X-Minus One Project

Thursday, August 19, 2010Friday, August 20, 2010 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVox Now here is a cool project, and it’s one recently mentioned on one of our podcasts! It’s an effort to source and record and proof the “public domain science fiction stories which were turned into half-hour plays for the classic mid-1950’s American radio series, X Minus One.” This collection includes eight such stories. Which one do you think should be remade as a modern audio drama?

X Minus One Project
By various; Read by various
9 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 7 Hours 35 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 9, 2010

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/4249

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

The Coffin Cure
By Alan E. Nourse; Read by Max Lindberg
1 |MP3| – Approx. 41 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 9, 2010
First published in Galaxy April 1957. The X-Minus One adaptation was first broadcast November 21st 1957.

Death Wish
By Robert Sheckley; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 24 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 9, 2010
Compared with a spaceship in distress, going to hell in a handbasket is roomy and slow! First published in Galaxy Science Fiction June 1956.

The Defenders
By Phillip K. Dick; Read by Tom Weiss
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 9, 2010
No weapon has ever been frightful enough to put a stop to war—perhaps because we never before had any that thought for themselves! First published in Galaxy Science Fiction January 1953.

The Moon Is Green
By Fritz Leiber; Read by Juli Carter
1 |MP3| – Approx. 37 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 9, 2010
Anybody who wanted to escape death could, by paying a very simple price—denial of life! First published in Galaxy Science Fiction April 1952.

The Old Die Rich
By H.L. Gold; Read by Juli Carter
2 MP3 Files – Approx. 1 Hour 5 Minutes [UNABRIDGED] –
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 9, 2010
First Published in the March 1953 issue of Galaxy magazine.
Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3|

Project Mastodon
By Clifford D. Simak; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour 10 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 9, 2010
“An interesting variation on the standard time-machine theme. No loops encountered. The short story is tersely written and the end, when technicalities clear, abrupt. This makes it an early example of hard SF with a time machine.” First published in the March 1955 issue of Galaxy magazine.

Time And Time Again
By H. Beam Piper; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 45 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 9, 2010
To upset the stable, mighty stream of time would probably take an enormous concentration of energy. And it’s not to be expected that a man would get a second chance at life. But an atomic might accomplish both— First published in Astounding Science Fiction April 1947.

The Tunnel Under The World
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour 13 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 9, 2010
Pinching yourself is no way to see if you are dreaming. Surgical instruments? Well, yes—but a mechanic’s kit is best of all! First published in the January 1955 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. The X-Minus One adaptation was first broadcast March 14, 1956.

And here are the X-Minus One adaptations:

The Coffin Cure |MP3|[RADIO DRAMA]
Death Wish |MP3| [RADIO DRAMA]
The Defenders |MP3| [RADIO DRAMA]
The Moon Is Green |MP3| [RADIO DRAMA]
The Old Die Rich |MP3| [RADIO DRAMA]
Project Mastodon |MP3| [RADIO DRAMA]
Time And Time Again |MP3| [RADIO DRAMA]
The Tunnel Under The World |MP3| [RADIO DRAMA]

[Thanks also to by BellonaTimes, Betty M., Annise, Gregg Weeks and the crew at Distributed Proofreaders]

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: The Thing In The Attic by James Blish

Thursday, August 19, 2010 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Gregg Margarite has narrated The Thing In The Attic for LibriVox. This is one of James Blish’s “Pantropy” tales and makes up one quarter of his fixup novel The Seedling Stars. Here’s a snippet from the Wikipedia entry on pantropy:

“Pantropy is a hypothetical process of space colonization in which rather than terraforming other planets or building space habitats suitable for human habitation, humans are modified (for example via genetic engineering) to be able to thrive in the existing environment.”

Other examples of pantropic fiction include Olaf Stapledon’s Last And First Men, Clifford D. Simak’s Desertion, Poul Anderson’s Call Me Joe and Frederick Pohl‘s Man Plus.

The Thing In The Attic
By James Blish; Read by Gregg Margarite
2 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 1 Hour 22 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 7, 2010
Honath the Pursemaker is a heretic. He doesn’t believe the stories in the Book of Laws which claims giants created his tree-dwelling race. He makes his opinion known and is banished with his infidel friends to the floor of the jungle where dangers abound. Perhaps he’ll find some truth down there. First published in the July, 1954 edition of If, Worlds of Science Fiction magazine.