Blackstone Audio’s $5 audiobook sale – STUNNING DEALS

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio News

Blackstone Audio Five Dollar Overstock SaleBlackstone AudiobooksCan anyone resist Blackstone Audio’s just announced $5.00 clearance sale?

This comes not a month after they announced their $9.99 overstock sale!

$5 for an audiobook.

That’s the deal of the year people!

Admittedly, not all of the available titles in this sale are unabridged, but they mostly are. There are a dozen SFF titles, plenty of crime, mystery and noir as well as a shelfload of history audiobooks. There are even a couple of audio dramas in there.

Here’s just a smattering of what excited me:

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; read by Ben Kingsley
THE AENEID by Virgil; read by Frederick Davidson
BABYLON BABIES by Maurice G. Dantec; read by Joe Barrett
THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London; read by Ethan Hawke
CASINO ROYALE by Ian Fleming; read by Simon Vance
CHRISTOPHER’S GHOSTS by Charles McCarry; read by Stefan Rudnicki
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT by Mark Twain; read by Carl Reiner
CRIMINAL PARADISE by Steven M. Thomas; read by Patrick Lawlor
THE DEAL by Peter Lefcourt; read by William H. Macy
DEATH MATCH by Lincoln Child; read by Barrett Whitener |READ OUR REVIEW|
DON QUIXOTE DE LA MANCHA by Miguel de Cervantes; read by Robert Whitfield
EVIL, INC. by Glenn Kaplan; read by Glenn Kaplan
THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX by Elleston Trevor; read by Grover Gardner
FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley; read by Julie Harris
FRANKENSTEIN, OR THE MODERN PROMETHEUS by Mary Shelley; read by Simon Templeman, Anthony Heald, and Stefan Rudnicki
HOW TO SURVIVE A ROBOT UPRISING by Daniel H. Wilson; read by Stefan Rudnicki |READ OUR REVIEW|
HUCK FINN AND TOM SAWYER AMONG THE INDIANS by Mark Twain and Lee Nelson; read by Grover Gardner
I AM LEGEND by Richard Matheson; read by Robertson Dean |READ OUR REVIEW|
I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves; read by Frederick Davidson
THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS by Jack Finney; read by Kristoffer Tabori
IT’S SUPERMAN! by Tom De Haven; read by Scott Brick
JAMES BOND BOXED SET by Ian Fleming; read by Simon Vance
KING KONG by Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper; novelization by Delos W. Lovelace; read by Stefan Rudnicki |READ OUR REVIEW|
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE by Richard Condon; read by Christopher Hurt
THE MARTIAN CHILD by David Gerrold; read by Scott Brick
MARTIAN TIME-SLIP AND THE GOLDEN MAN by Philip K. Dick; read by Grover Gardner
MILDRED PIERCE by James M. Cain; read by Christine Williams
MYSTIC WARRIOR by Tracy and Laura Hickman; read by Lloyd James
PETER PAN by J.M. Barrie; read by Roe Kendall
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY by Oscar Wilde; read by Simon Vance
THE PRESTIGE by Christopher Priest; read by Simon Vance
QUANTUM OF SOLACE by Ian Fleming; read by Simon Vance
RINGWORLD’S CHILDREN by Larry Niven; read by Barrett Whitener |READ OUR REVIEW|
ROCKET SHIP GALILEO by Robert A Heinlein; read by Spider Robinson |READ OUR REVIEW|
SUPERMAN RETURNS by Marv Wolfman; read by Scott Brick |READ OUR REVIEW|
SWEENEY TODD AND THE STRING OF PEARLS by Yuri Rasovsky; read by a full cast
TARZAN OF THE APES by Edgar Rice Burroughs; read by Ben Kingsley
THE TEN-CENT PLAGUE by David Hajdu; read by Stefan Rudnicki
THERMOPYLAE by Paul Cartledge; read by John Lee
THE THREE MUSKETEERS by Alexandre Dumas; read by Michael York
THE TIME MACHINE by H.G. Wells; read by Ben Kingsley
THE TRIAL by Franz Kafka; read by Geoffrey Howard
UTOPIA by Sir Thomas More; read by James Adams
V FOR VENDETTA by Steve Moore; read by Simon Vance |READ OUR REVIEW|
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS by H.G. Wells; read by Christopher Hurt
WHERE’S MY JETPACK? by Daniel H. Wilson; read by Stefan Rudnicki |READ OUR REVIEW|
THE WINTER OF FRANKIE MACHINE by Don Winslow; read by Dennis Boutsikaris
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO NARNIA by Jonathan Rogers; read by Brian Emerson

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Greek And Roman Ghost Stories by Lacy Collison-Morley [non-fiction]

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxLooking for a bit of background on ancient ghost stories? Here’s the introduction to a 1912 scholarly work (full of footnotes) that was recently turned into an audiobook:

“This collection was originally begun at the suggestion of Mr. Marion Crawford, whose wide and continual reading of the classics supplied more than one of the stories. They were put together during a number of years of casual browsing among the classics, and will perhaps interest others who indulge in similar amusements.”

LibriVox - Greek And Roman Ghost Stories by Lacy Collinson-MorleyGreek And Roman Ghost Stories
By Lacy Collison-Morley; Read by Timothy Ferguson
7 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 1 Hour 56 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 4, 2009
Source: Gutenberg.org
A non-fiction work, comparing and collecting ghost stories by Classical Greek and Republican or Imperial Roman authors.

1 – The Power of the Dead to Return to Earth – Approx. 16 Minutes |MP3|
2 – The Belief in Ghosts in Greece and Rome – Approx. 9 Minutes |MP3|
3 – Stories of Haunting – Approx. 20 Minutes |MP3|
4 – Necromancy – Approx. 18 Minutes |MP3|
5 – Visions of the Dead in Sleep – Approx. 14 Minutes |MP3|
6 – Apparitions of the Dead – Approx. 27 Minutes |MP3|
7 – Warning Apparitions – Approx. 12 Minutes |MP3|

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/greek-and-roman-ghost-stories-by-lacy-collison-morley.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks also to “isolation” and “Hokuspokus”]

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Pulp Reader’s project and some audio drama picks

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio News

The Pulp ReaderThe Pulp Reader blog is an ongoing experiment in “computer generated audio books.” Sez the webmaster (Shonokin):

I read a lot. I also drive a lot, stuck in long commutes every day. There’s a way for a reader and a commuter to do both at the same time. And for me that is through audiobooks. But alas, most of the books I’d like to listen to are not available anywhere, so what to do? Make my own and that’s mostly what this is about. I create Text To Speech (TTS) audiobooks for my daily commute. Since I make them, I might as well share them. So here we are!

Shonokin places the files on Archive.org and then links to them on his/her blog. Shonokin started this project in 2006. And coincidently in 2006 I had a similar problem myself. There were a lot of ebooks out there that weren’t being turned into audiobooks. But with me being a hater of the robot voice I came up with the SFFaudio Challenges |First|Second|Third|Fourth| to solve my dilemma instead.

What Shonokin and I can both agree on, I’m betting, is that audio drama is not best done not by robots* – but by people – real people! Not those damned thieving “Silicon Americans” that Shonokin is employing.

Anyway, here are Shonokin’s thoughts on some recent human done shows that he/she has been listening to:

First off, there’s my love hate relationship with Wormwood, an excellent supernatural detective mystery. The acting is mostly good, the stories are sharp and exciting and the incidental music and sounds effects are great. My only complaint is that it is mixed very poorly. In situations such as driving in a car or surrounded by other ambient noise, you may find you have to fiddle with the volume knob of your radio or mp3 player to alternately listen to quiet dialog and back off on sudden crashing loud jabs of sound. Quite unpleasant aurally, but the stories are good enough to keep me going, annoyed as I am.

Also, the latest seasons of Black Jack Justice and Red Panda have started, which are a joy all the way around. Red Panda is a fun detective pulp with sprinkles of scifi/fantasy and comic book hero action. Black Jack Justice is a hard-boiled detective comedy. Both are great fun but written and played in very different styles.

And then there is also McLevy, an audio drama from the BBC which airs weekly on their iplayer. I find this to be a very fascinating series and have put together a mini webpage about him. In short, James McLevy was a real detective in 1800’s Edinburgh. He wrote several memoirs about his exploits which were very popular. There’s some speculation that aside from the obvious homages to his teacher, Doctor Joseph Bell, that Arthur Conan Doyle may have gleaned some bits of inspiration for Sherlock Holmes from McLevy’s memoirs.

I was fascinated by stumbling across the existence of McLevy but have not found an ultimate website or font of information about him, which is why I put this together. Please visit McLevy The Edinburgh Detective to find out more.

[via The Pulp Reader blog]

*with apologies to Robotz Of The Company for slander.

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Podcast: The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy

Scott D.

SFFaudio Online Audio

tor.com PodcastsA few weeks ago, Tor.com launched their fiction podcast (Tor.com Story Podcast) with Mur Lafferty at the helm. Today, they launched another podcast, called The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy, hosted by John Joseph Adams and David Barr Kirtley.

They plan to talk all things geek, it looks like, and this episode is a must-listen if you plan to survive the coming zombie invasion. Their guest is Chet Faliszek, lead writer/game designer on Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2, and they spend an hour discussing zombies and apocalyptic stories for your enjoyment.

Podcast Feed: http://www.tor.com/rss/category/geeksguide

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

LibriVox: D-99 by H.B. Fyfe

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxJerry Pyle, one of the participants in the Fourth Annual SFFaudio Challenge writes in to say:

hey jesse…

good news! i just completed D-99! you can find it here:

http://librivox.org/d-99-by-h-b-fyfe/

this was such an amazing experience. i just want to thank you for letting me be a part of the sffaudio challenge.

jer

Thank you Jerry!

Jerry has that all backwards of course – it was Jerry, along with the other cool folks at LibriVox that deserve our thanks. He and they have made us all a public domain Science Fiction audiobook that we can both enjoy and share with our friends forever and ever! If there’s any gratitude left after Jerry and LibriVox take their fair share it should go to Rick Jackson of Wonder Audio. Rick both suggested and commisioned the proofing of the etext for the Challenge. H.B. Fyfe himself is beyond accepting our thanks personally – he was transmuted, in 1997, into a force more powerful than we can possibly imagine. Should we need to we could spread any other deserved thanks a little further afield – we could also thank one of the audiobook publishers who supplied the prizes from which Jerry can now pick!

So Jerry, which 4th Annual SFFaudio Challenge prize would you like?

LIBRIVOX - D-99 by H.B. FyfeD-99
By H.B. Fyfe; Read by Jerry Pyle
20 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 4 Hours 40 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 03, 2010
EARTHMEN IN TROUBLE Harris was caged in an underwater “zoo” by a pack of blue lobsters. Maria drew a five-year sentence on a puritanical planet for trying to buy a souvenir–and for being excessively feminine. Taranto and Meyers had committed the crime of being shipwrecked on a planet that didn’t like strangers. Gerson was simply kidnapped. And nobody had any idea why five citizens of Terra were being held on other worlds–and the ultra-secret Department 99 existed only to set them, and others like them, free. This tense novel is the story of one evening’s work for Department 99–their successes and failures–and of the strange crisis that almost wrecked D-99.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/3755

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

The audiobook is also available in two etext formats |PDF | and |HTML| – in case you’d like to read along!

[Special thanks also to Barry Eads (aka KiltedDragon) and James Christopher (aka Steampunk) @ LibriVox and Rick Jackson @ Wonder Audio!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Scott D.

SFFaudio Review

Science Fiction Audiobook - Catching Fire by Suzanne CollinsCatching Fire (The Hunger Games, Book 2)
By Suzanne Collins; Read by Carolyn McCormick
11 Hours, 41 Minutes – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Scholastic Audiobooks
Published: 2009
Themes: / Science Fiction / Dystopia / Government / Survival / Reality Television /

Catching Fire is an excellent book, staged about six months after Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark won the Hunger Games in Book 1. In this one, Katniss and Peeta head off for their victory tour, a trip around each of the 12 districts, ending with the capital, then their district.

Just before leaving, Katniss receives a visit from the President. There is unrest in the districts, some are preparing to rebel, and the president blames Katniss and her act of defiance during the televised Hunger Games. The President tells her that she must not only convince the districts, but him as well that her stunt was and act out of love, not out of rebellion. Things become more difficult when a Quarter Quell is announced, which occurs every 25 years. This throws Katniss and Peeta both back into the line of fire.

Suzanne Collins, the author, has written another great book. However, it follows the same basic storyline as the first book. Even so, there are a few things in it that are very surprising. I would not discourage anyone from listening to it. It is still a wonderful story.

Carolyn McCormick, the reader, did an excellent job once again. She read the parts very well. I really enjoyed listening to it. I really don’t have anything negative to say.

Posted by Danielson Kid (age 15)