Review of Letters from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien

Jesse Willis

Fantasy Audiobooks - Letters from Father Christmas by J.R.R. TolkienLetters From Father Christmas
By J. R. R. Tolkien; Read by Sir Derek Jacobi, John Moffat and Christian Rodska
2 cassettes – 120 minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Harper Audio
Published: 2000
ISBN: 0618087842
Themes: / Fantasy / Christmas /

“Can you imagine writing to Father Christmas and actually getting a reply? For over twenty years, the children of J.R.R. Tolkien received letters from the North Pole – from Father Christmas himself! They told wonderful stories, of mischief and disaster, adventures and battles. Now, for the first time, these letters are brought to life on tape.”

While most of Tolkien’s work was published to great acclaim by ‘Tolkien the fantasy author’ or even ‘Tolkien professor of linguistics’, Letters From Father Christmas was never intended for publication at all, it was simply a collection of letters written over a twenty year period by ‘Tolkien the father’ to his own children. This makes it all the more special. There is no refinement of theme, or distinguishment of plot. Only the fanciful adventures of Father Christmas (that’s Santa Claus for most people) and the other residents of the North Pole. Sir Derek Jacobi along with John Moffat and Christian Rodska read the letters by performing in the voices of the letter writers. Accented with jingling bells in between letters. This is a skillfully adapted audiobook that transmutes the words of the original letters into audio gold. Unfortunately the letters also had wonderful colour illustrations referred to in the letters themselves. I’ve seen them – they were drawn and coloured by Tolkien himself, beautiful and funny images that can’t be adapted to audio. This is a case where the paperbook actually has something over a perfect audiobook translation of a paperbook. Harper Audio should have included a companion insert or something. But for those who already own a copy Letters From Father Christmas makes for perfect listening on the days leading up to Christmas!

Posted by Jesse Willis

New podcasts of note: Spaceship Radio OTR, Old …

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

New podcasts of note:

Spaceship Radio
OTR, Old Time Radio, mostly from the 1950s, mostly X-Minus One. Besides the radio dramas the show’s host Andy Dome has started a wiki project to create new radio dramatizations.

YogRadio
A lengthy British podcast from Yog-Sothoth.com that mostly focuses on the Call Of Cthulhu role playing game. Their promo is absolutely hilarious!

Posted by Jesse Willis

Escape Pod, the AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME podca…

Jesse Willis

Escape Pod, the AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME podcast magazine is doing a way cool promotion to celebrate their first half-year of continous publication! They’re offering all past donaters of $20.00 USD or more a FREE CD-MP3 of the first half-year’s worth of short stories, flash fiction and more! That’s 26 Weeks of Science Fiction and Fantasy audio goodness. What’s more, your donation will help to create even more stories! The disc is a numbered limited edition of 200, if you haven’t already donated to Escape Pod (which actually pays its authors for its fiction), do so in amount of $20.00 USD or more by PayPal and you’ll be able to get one too! But maybe you’ve listened to every show and don’t want to hear them all again? Crazy, but possible I suppose. Well that’s still no problem, have the disc outfitted with a custom note of your choosing, up to 60 characters in length. It makes a great gift!

posted by Jesse Willis

While we are apt to shun most video based interv…

Jesse Willis

While we are apt to shun most video based interviews as unnecessarily gauche we always make an exception for the good folks at Fast Forward: Contemporary Science Fiction a monthly 30 minute television series about Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. They’ve just done an exciting interview with George R.R. Martin! Martin chats about his latest Song Of Ice And Fire series novel A Feast for Crows. An audio only interview can be dound HERE.

posted by Jesse Willis

Saturday the 26th of November 2005 sees a bran…

Jesse Willis

Saturday the 26th of November 2005 sees a brand new unabridged reading of an H.P. Lovecraft story on BBC7’s The Seventh Dimension:

The Tomb
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by Ryan McCluskey
STREAMING AUDIO – Approx. 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC7
Broadcast: Nov 26th 2005 [available on the Listen Again service for 6 days following]
Jervas Dudley inmate of an insane asylum describes the sinister events leading up to his incarceration. He tells of how he became obsessed with the tomb of a long-dead family of aristocrats and how his obsession tipped him over into madness when he entered their tomb and spent a night lying in an empty coffin.

posted by Jesse Willis

Review of House of Bones by Robert Silverberg

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Science Fiction Audiobooks - House of Bones by Robert SilverbergHouse Of Bones
By Robert Silverberg; Read by Jared Doreck
1 CD – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Infinivox
Published: 2005
ISBN: 1884612431
Themes: / Science Fiction / Time Travel / Prehistory /

Another stunning audio achievement from Infinivox! House Of Bones is a unique time-travel story that imbues a deep sense of satisfaction on nearly every level. A top shelf reading by a dynamic reader, a dynamite story and an elegant production combine to make pure aural delight! House Of Bones is a modest tale, recounting the unfortunate fate of the world’s first and perhaps last time traveler. After a misguided test run he’s become trapped 20,000 years in our past, unequipped for survival his future is uncertain. What’s worse he’s surrounded by people so primitive they don’t even have a written language. So primitive they take in his unworthy and skilless self and accept him into their society. This glimpse of what life might have been like for Cro-Magnon man in the late Pleistocene epoch shows us precisely why we can’t judge a society by it’s lack of tool based technology. Silverberg skillfully extrapolates a fascinating working culture out of what little modern archaeologists and paleoanthropolgists know of these people, our ancestors and creates in the process something to think about when using words like “primitive”. House Of Bones is kind of a mirror image of Isaac Asimov’s The Ugly Little Boy. And like that tale this one is a keeper.

Posted by Jesse Willis