Call Of The Wild by Jack London FREE @ SimplyAudiobooks.com (too bad it sucks)

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Simply AudiobooksSeptember’s Free Download over on Simply Audiobooks website is Jack London’s The Call Of The Wild.

The Call of the Wild – Jack London’s classic 1903 story of Buck, a courageous dog fighting for survival in the Alaskan wilderness, is widely considered to be his masterpiece. Sometimes wrongly considered simply a children’s novel, this epic vividly evokes the harsh and frozen Yukon during the Gold Rush. As Buck is ripped from his pampered surroundings and shipped to Alaska to be a sled dog, his primitive, wolflike nature begins to emerge. Savage struggles and timeless bonds between man, dog, and wilderness are played to their heartrending extremes, as Buck undertakes a mystic journey that transforms him into the legendary “Ghost Dog” of the Klondike.

Call OF The Wild
By Jack London; Read by Michael Scott
WMD – [ABRIDGED]
Provider: SimplyAudiobooks.com / ThoughtAudio.com
Available: September 2008

Unfortunately, after a simple entry of a name and email address the download comes in a WMD file (Windows Media Download) making it virtually unusable. The MP3 files are in there, but they are very hard to get at. Unless you want to fiddle with it for more than an hour (that’s how long it took me) you’ll have to play it using a windows media device (a Zune presumably) or in a windows media player (sitting in front of your computer).
It’s absolutely not worth it. It turns out the audiobook pictured is not the audiobook you get. Simply Audiobooks displays the free audiobook as the UNABRIDGED Tantor Media version, as read by Patrick Lawlor, but instead what you actually download is the ThoughtAudio.com version (which is ABRIDGED and read by Michael Scott).

So, here’s my suggestion, download the public domain LibriVox version. That version of Call Of The Wild is UNABRIDGED, and is available in naked MP3s, a Zipped MP3 bundle, by torrent and as a podcast :

LibriVox Audiobook - Call Of The Wild by Jack LondonCall OF The Wild
By Jack London; Read by various readers
Zipped MP3s or Podcast – Approx. 3.25 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 2005

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/call-of-the-wild-by-jack-london.xml

The downside is that it is read by multiple readers, which is annoying, but at least it’s not going to suck up your valuable time.

Posted by Jesse Willis

iTunes 8.0 offers more control over audiobooks

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio News

iTunes 8.0The latest version of iTunes NOW finally, gives you some more control over your own audiobooks, at least sort of. According to a post over on Podiobooks.com’s blog:

The new iTunes 8 has launched and fans of audiobooks couldn’t be happier. Prior versions of iTunes kept the Audiobooks section under lock and key. The only files that would display in the Audiobooks section on your iTunes or iPod were books purchased from the iTunes music store. Not very handy to people who buy copies of audio books on CD or download them from other sources on the interwebs.

With 8.0, iTunes now allows you to change the Media Kind for files to Audiobook, taking them out of the Music section (where they never belonged in the first place). So score one for iTunes for enabling those who just want to use the software, but exercise choice in where they get their audiobook content.

Read the full Podiobooks.com blog post HERE.

Posted by Jesse Willis

One Eighteen Migration – a zombie apocalypse podcast

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

One Eighteen MigrationOne Eighteen Migration is a new podcast fiction series by Christian Haunton, Christopher Wiig, and Will Ross. I’ve listened to several shows now, and to be perfectly honest I don’t like it.

There are three main issues I have with the podcast:

1. It plays looped music and looped sound effects under the narration.

This doesn’t work. I believe, instead, that it is universally just a bad idea. I’ve said it many times in the past, and One Eighteen Migration use of music and effects doesn’t dissuade me of my belief. My empirical studies of audio stories have shown that they are not improved by playing music underneath them. Instead, a music or sound effect wallpaper comes off as if the creators are either not confident in the writing, the narrator, or both. Audio dramas are audio dramas, audiobooks are audiobooks – to split the difference comes off as a half-hearted attempt to do both. Adding music and effects just doesn’t work. The story must be completely adapted to be audio drama, or just remain audiobook. One Eighteen Migration is neither. Music can manipulate mood in film, or in audio drama, or set a scene for an audiobook story, but it cannot underscore a story and get the same effect as it does in a film or in an audio drama. But, it isn’t just neutral either, it contributes to a general noise making the narrator harder to hear in noisy listening conditions (like practically everywhere you take an ipod). Generally though, I think it just illustrates a temptation too common – to improve the work by adding to it. You can’t airbrush a story’s imperfections by painting them with a thick layer of music or adding in looped sound effects.

2. There is too much swearing.

I love swearing, I swear with great pleasure. But, swearing doesn’t work in scripted introductions or in a journal. When you script-in swearing, when it comes off casually, like it’s just another word, it lessens the effect of the naughtiness (defeating the point). Also, the narrator, Jonas, is supposed to be a college professor. I spent 16 years hanging out with college and university professors. Many do swear, but they sure don’t sound like Jonas. They tend to reserve their swearing for direct quotations and for when they spill a coffee on a pile of essays.

3. The story is too slow.

Greenly, South Dakota, its residents and such might have a great story to tell, but I’m not gonna be able to stick around for it. Even the shortest episode, the twenty-two minute opening show, felt very long-winded. It’s told first person past tense. But, the action is told entirely without dialogue. There is no back and forth, just reportage, diary style. Which of course also kills the suspense – which was already killed by being told in past tense (we can’t be worried about whether the hero is going to die if we are constantly reminded he’s telling us what happened today). Perhaps a journal entry style isn’t the best way to tell a zombie apocalypse story.

Subscribe to the podcast feed:

http://oneeighteen.libsyn.com/rss

Posted by Jesse Willis

Quickie Freebie Fun List

Rich

SFFaudio Online Audio

Quickie Freebie Fun List

Hey groovy guys and groovy gals, just in time for the weekend, here’s a quick selection of freebies available for download from BBC 4 and Big Finish. (applause) One, Lost Souls, is a Torchwood spin-off running around 43 minutes. The other, The Coup, is a spin-off from Doctor Who (aren’t they all?) and clocks in at 23 minutes or so. –That means over an hour of full-cast science fiction audio drammer fa nuthin’. Ain’t free stuff great?!

Here’s the scoop direct from the respective websites:

BBC Radio 4 - Torchwood: Lost Souls

FREE Torchwood audio drama: Lost Souls (Available until next Tuesday.)

“The Torchwood Institute was founded by Queen Victoria in 1879 to protect the British Empire against the threat of alien invasion. By 2008, all that remains of the organisation is a small team based in Cardiff. And now, following the tragic deaths of two of their colleagues, the remaining three – Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones – have to protect the human race against another unknown force from the darkness.

“Martha Jones, ex-time traveller and now working as a doctor for a UN task force, has been called to CERN – the world’s largest particle physics laboratory in Geneva – where they’re about to activate the Large Hadron Collider. The LHC is a particle accelerator, which has been built deep underground in a 27 km tunnel under Switzerland and France. Once activated the Collider will fire beams of protons together recreating conditions a billionth of a second after the Big Bang – and potentially allowing the human race a greater insight into what the Universe is made of. But so much could go wrong – it could open a gateway to a parallel dimension, or create a black hole – and now voices from the past are calling out to people and scientists have started to disappear…

“Where have the missing scientists gone? What is the secret of the glowing man? What is lurking in the underground tunnel? And do the dead ever really stay dead?

“Lost Souls stars John Barrowman, Freema Agyeman, Eve Myles, Gareth David-Lloyd, Lucy Montgomery and Stephen Critchlow.”

Written by Joseph Lidster
Produced and Directed by Kate McAll

FREE Big Finish audio drama: U.N.I.T. – The Coup (Available indefinitely.)

Big Finish - UNIT: The Coup“To wet your appetite for the full UNIT mini-series, we are giving away the introductory UNIT story, The Coup, absolutely free for you to download and enjoy! Originally available only as a free CD with Doctor Who Magazine, this drama stars Nicholas Courtney and sets the stage for the new UNIT adventures.

“The UK division of the UNIT prepares to cede its authority to a new organisation… But who is attempting to sabotage the hand-over?

“The Coup stars Nicholas Courtney (reprising his well-known role) as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart with Siri O’Neal, Nicholas Deal and an appearance by David Tennant in the fourth story as Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood.”

Written by Simon Guerrier
Directed by Ian Farrington

Posted by RC of RTSF

Five Free Favourites #9

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Jesse here, with another batch of Five Free Favourites, five listens that won’t cost you a penny, but that will pay hefty rewards.

Have you got your own list of free favourites that you can count on the fingers of one non-hyperdactyli’d hand?

Five Free Favourites

1.
Despoilers Of The Golden Empire by Randall GarrettDespoilers Of The Golden Empire
By Randall Garrett; Read by Maureen O’Brien
5 Zipped MP3s – Approx. 2 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Maria Lectrix
Podcast: April 1st 2008
A seasoned military commander travels to another world to find the metal that brings power, and ends up bringing down a barbaric empire.
Maureen O’Brien’s Maria Lectrix podcast, has lots of content I care nothing about (theological audiobooks) – but, it also has several digital tons of content I care dearly about. On April 1st, 2008 released Despoilers Of The Golden Empire. She called it “…a very good story by Randall Garrett, and it makes a very good comment on sf as a genre….it was originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, for April Fools’ Day.” This story is probably better enjoyed by fans of history, than by fans of science fiction. But if you’re like me, a fan of both, you’ll absolutely love it.

2.
Escape PodEP073: Barnaby in Exile
By Mike Resnick; Read by Paul Fischer
1 |MP3| File – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Escape Pod
Podcast: September 28th 2006
Few authors have as many of their stories podcast as Mike Resnick, (although James Patrick Kelly’s definitely got to be in first place). Back in September 2006 Escape Pod podcast this tearful tale. At the time I was comparing to Pat Murphy’s classic Rachel In Love. Which is about as high a compliment you can give to an SF story. Powerful listening, bring a hanky.

3.
The Silver Tounged DevilThe Silver Tongued Devil
By Roger Gregg; Performed by a full cast
2 MP3s – [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: The Sonic Society (via Crazy Dog Audio Theatre)
Podcast: October 2006
Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3|
The Sonic Society has podcast much of the finest audio drama of the modern era. Their October 2006 podcast included a program that was originally broadcast on RTÉ (Ireland National Radio). Described as A documentary of poetry, pretension, and possession. and our review of it explained it thus: “This entire piece is done like a radio documentary, NPR-style, complete with interviews of average people about the ‘Silver Tongued Devil’. The actors who did these segments were perfect! If I had listened to this on the radio without knowing that Crazy Dog had done it, I’d have thought it was news. Who is the ‘Silver Tongued Devil’? He’s an incredibly famous poet from Cork who has the god-like ability to make people swoon with his words. Again, the piece is multi-layered, achieving both hilarity and poignancy.”

4.
Badge Of Infamy by Lester del Rey
Badge Of Infamy
By Lester del Rey; Read by Steven H. Wilson
15 MP3s – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Podiobooks.com
Published: January 2006
Daniel Feldman was a doctor once. He made the mistake of saving a friend’s life in violation of Medical Lobby rules. Now, he’s a pariah, shunned by all, forbidden to touch another patient. But things are more loose on Mars. There, Doc Feldman is welcomed by the colonists, even as he’s hunted by the authorities. But, when he discovers a Martian plague may soon wipe out humanity on two planets, the authorities begin hunting him for a different reason altogether.Here’s a novel I dearly regret not having talked more about. I never reviewed it, as I was just listening for sheer enjoyment. It was released in January 2006 as part of the First SFFaudio Challenge. It was narrated by Steven H. Wilson of Prometheus Radio Theatre, and he did an outstanding job on this terrific little novel about a disgraced doctor. Lester del Rey was a major player in his day and his novels don’t show their years as many of their contemporaries do. I love novels set on a colonized Mars, if you do too, this is a sure bet.

5.
LibriVox Audiobook - To Build A Fire by Jack LondonTo Build A Fire
By Jack London; Read by Betsie Bush
1 |MP3| – 40 Minutes 03 Seconds [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: 2006
A man and his husky, travel through the Klondike in seventy-five below zero weather (Fahrenheit). I’d heard of this story for a long time, and I’d always liked Jack London’s novels. I’ve compared it to Tom Godwin’s The Cold Equations, saying that ‘the two tales are, essentially, the same ruthless story.’ This is also a I regret that this is not a better reading. Betsie Bush’s version is not recorded very well, her voice is fine, but the mic she’s using is weak, there’s a hum and even some noise. There is a very cheap semi-pro version available HERE and a version by a professional narrator HERE.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Black Jack Justice – Season One

Jesse Willis

Aural Noir: Review

Black Jack Justice - Season 1Black Jack Justice – Season One
By Gregg Taylor; Performed by a full cast
12 MP3s or podcast – Approx. 5 Hours [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Podiobooks.com / Decoder Ring Theatre
Published: September 2006
Themes: / Mystery / Crime / Private Detective / Toronto /

“There was no time to explain the extra sensory properties of a truly eye-popping hangover.”
– from “Justice Incorporated”)

Black Jack Justice is a free podcast audio drama available through Podiobooks.com and Decoder Ring Theatre. Set in post WWII Toronto, it follows the cases of a pair of private detectives who right wrongs and investigate the investigateable. This review of the first season started life as a brief mention in an upcoming Five Free Favourites post. But, as I was re-living the show in my mind, and then, fannishly re-listening to the first season, I realized that it was totally unjust to leave Black Jack Justice – Season One without a full and glowing review. Let me put it simply. This is the greatest mystery audio drama since the Nero Wolfe series that aired on CBC Radio in the 1980s. Just like The Red Panda Adventures, also produced by Decoder Ring Theatre, Black Jack Justice is also written by Gregg Taylor. Like Panda, this show is absolutely top shelf entertainment. Not a single episode will leave you cold – every single one is fast, witty and clever. Black Jack Justice – Season 1 is like a good old fashioned cup of java and a slice of cherry pie and the heroes, Trixie Dixon and Jack Justice, are the greatest detective team since Nick and Nora.

The production of any given episode of Black Jack Justice is both an echo of those old time radio dramas like Richard Diamond, Private Detective and tribute to the superior techniques of modern storytelling. Actors Christopher Mott and Andrea Lyons, playing Jack and Trixie, are letter perfect, firing an endless rat-atat-tat of peppy dialogue that delivers exposition and character with equal enthusiasm. Mott’s Jack is hard and canny, but with a soft center shown only to dames in trouble and lost kittens. Lyons’ Trixie is whip smart sexy, she knows what she wants and she takes it – no ifs ands or gun butts. Guest actors, many familiar from their roles on The Red Panda Adventures, are also uniformly excellent – they typically play characters like cops, heiresses, and mob bosses. Audio production is minimal, with music being the main addition to the mix. Both Jack and Trixie have their own musical themes that play as they narrate their cases. The stories are lean and snappy, quick paced adventures. The show even has extremely subtle breaking of the fourth wall (of the style found in The Pirates of Penzance) – I absolutely love it. If Martin Backnell, the creator of Black Jack Justice weren’t totally fictional, he’d be smiling so wide at this series.

Posted by Jesse Willis