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.
Noted editor, blogger and cool guy John Joseph Adams has posted a lengthy essay on Audible Frontiers’ new Lankhmar audiobooks, particularity Fritz Leiber’s Swords Against Deviltry), over on Tor.com:
“…So it was with great anticipation that I started listening. But man, I forgot how boring and long that first story is.”
Go read the entire post HERE.
Posted by Jesse Willis
This collection, number 6 in the LibriVox lineup of Ghost stories, has some non-ghostly tales; there are indeed some very ghostly things that happen in a lot of them but it isn’t a pure collection. I’d judge this as a very fair Fantasy collection made a shade horrific. It’s mostly ghostly. And, the inclusion of three Robert E. Howard yarns will likely make it one of the more popular of LibriVox’s many short story collections thus far released. Most narrators here have good recording conditions, some are raw amateurs, beginners in reading and recording, others are polished amateurs. Overall, very fun listening.
Here’s a bit from the forum the LibriVox thread that captures it all nicely:
“What is a ghost story? M.R. James listed a number of features of the ‘English’ ghost story: the pretence of truth; ‘a pleasing terror’; no gratuitous bloodshed or sex; no ‘explanation of the machinery’; with the setting being ‘those of the writer’s and reader’s own day’. Roughly speaking, this gives the taste of what we’re after, but the setting can be anywhere, of course. To me, the most effective stories have perhaps something of love in them, something of sadness, an other-worldliness, a touch of fear, a shiver of the hair on the back of your neck.”
Ghost Story Collection Volume #006
By various; Read by various
10 Zipped MP3s or Podcast – Approx. 3 Hours 32 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 21st 2008
“A collection of ten pieces, read by various readers, about the unreal edges of this world in legend and story; tales of love, death and beyond. If just one story prickles the hair on the back of your neck, or prickles your eyelids with the touch of tears, we will have succeeded.”
Stories included:
Children Of The Moon
By Richard Middleton; Read by Virgil
1 |MP3| – Approx. 13 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 21st 2008
I liked the language in this one, and narrator Virgil seems to be having a lot of fun with it.
Ghosts That Have Haunted Me
By John Kendrick Bangs; Read by James Christopher
1 |MP3| – Approx. 25 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 21st 2008
“My scheme of living is based upon being true to myself. You may class me with Baron Munchausen if you choose; I shall not mind so long as I have the consolation of feeling, deep down in my heart, that I am a true realist, and diverge not from the paths of truth as truth manifests itself to me.”
Gods of the North
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Rowdy Delaney
1 |MP3| – Approx. 21 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 21st 2008
A winter war in the mountains of Vanaheim and a bit of gossamer are all that stand between Conan of Cimmeria and a frosty beauty who spurns him. First published in Fantasy Fan, March 1934. Alternate titles include: The Frost Giant’s Daughter, The Frost King’s Daughter.
A Haunted House
By Virginia Woolf; Read by David Federman
1 |MP3| – Approx. 6 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 21st 2008
A quick stream of consciousness tale with an iconic title by an icon of literature.
The Man Who Was Not On The Passenger
By Robert Barr; Read by Anna Simon
1 |MP3| – Approx. 12 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 21st 2008
An unaccounted for passenger on a luxury liner is somehow tied into a stranger annual payment given to a widow. A well written, almost modernly styled tale. Anna Simon’s reading is Germanic accented, but not at all displeasing.
No Living Voice
By Thomas Street Millington; Read by Annoying Twit
1 |MP3| – Approx. 23 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 21st 2008
Written by an English clergyman. Set in Italy. A vacationer with an out-of-order visa discovers some mischief and strange sounds.
The Old Nurse’s Story
By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell; Read by Jane Greensmith
1 |MP3| – Approx. 51 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 21st 2008
First published in 1852, this is an early Victorian ghost story, a novella by the biographer and popularizer of Charlotte Brontë. This is a dramatic tale full of manor intrigue, mysterious rooms and more mysterious screaming. All that and plenty of descriptions of character complexions .
Rattle Of Bones
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Rowdy Delaney
1 |MP3| – Approx. 24 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 21st 2008
First published in the June 1929 issue of Weird Tales magazine. Solomon Kane, stops at a grim inn of the Black Forest. To survive the night he’ll need fight demonry and witchcraft, and bandits all.
The Red Room
By H.G. Wells; Read by Virgil
1 |MP3| – Approx. 22 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 21st 2008
From the 19th comes one of the most copied stories of the modern 20th and 21st centuries. The Red Room illustrates the internal human conflict between rationality and the irrational fear of the unknown. The protagonist spends the night in a haunted room in isolated castle in an effort to debunk the legends surrounding it. The most recent example is the Stephen King’s story “1408” from the audio collection Blood and Smoke.
The Skull In The Stars
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Rowdy Delaney
1 |MP3| – Approx. 24 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 21st 2008
First published in the January 1929 issue of Weird Tales magazine. The protagonist, Solomon Kane, is a Puritan who must go against his own moral code to defeat a creature of darkness.
Podcast feed:
http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/ghost-story-collection-volume-006.xml
Posted by Jesse Willis
I was cheering up a young friend of mine by showing her video of Weird Al’s White and Nerdy the other day. It worked. Afterward, in explaining who Weird Al was, I described the character he played in the movie UHF. I said:
“He’s a sort of guy everybody thinks is a loser – incredibly passionate about his interests. In other words, he’s a nerd like me.”
My young friend then sez: “You know you’re a loser?” and then she laughed.
It was funny.
After the convulsions died down, I said: “I know that some people think of me that way.”
I explained that I know I’m a nerd. That I wear the nerd badge with pride. I like, and always have liked Weird Al and the whole ’embrace your inner nerd’ mentality he exemplifies. Which brings me to The Wonder Stick:
Julie D., of Forgotten Classics podcast (and a contributor to SFFaudio), has just wrapped up the final installment of her wonderful reading of The Wonder Stick by Stanton A. Coblentz. It was Coblentz’s first novel. You can kind of tell it his first novel, much of the dialogue is rather simplistic, especially with crowds of cavemen speaking like a Greek chorus (but then again, cavemen probably weren’t super eloquent). I get the sense that kids will really dig this adventure. Had I read it, when Julie had (in junior high school or high school), I’d have probably have enjoyed it even more than I did.
The Wonder Stick is the story of Ru, a young caveman who’s an outsider. Ru is scorned by his community despite his superior intellect, insight and cunning. In the end Ru triumphs, and gets the respect he so rightly deserves. It’s really the story of the original triumph of the nerds.
What The Wonder Stick doesn’t quite have is the modern ethos of the nerds (it is also absent from the W&N video), namely: We don’t need the respect of the non-nerds. We have our own community. So, to my young friend, and to all you nerds, I highly recommend downloading…
The Wonder Stick
By Stanton A. Coblentz; Read by Julie D.
Podcast – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Forgotten Classics
Podcast: May – September 2008
A prehistorical science fiction novel that does everything but invent the wheel. The “wonder-stick” of the title, is a real invention which provided an unparalleled quantum leap in human technology.
|MP3| Chapters 1 – 2 |MP3| Chapters 3 – 5
|MP3| Chapters 6 – 7 |MP3| Chapters 8 – 10
|MP3| Chapters 11 – 12 |MP3| Chapters 13 -15
|MP3| Chapter 16 |MP3| Chapters 17
|MP3| Chapters 18 – 19 |MP3| Chapters 20 – 21
|MP3| Chapters 22 – 24 |MP3| Chapter 25 – 26 & Conclusion
and then watching…
Posted by Jesse Willis
Who’s the narrator that’s a reading machine to all the listeners?
MARK!
Ya, damn right!
Who is the man that would complete the challenge for his brother man?
MARK!
Can you dig it?
Who’s the cat that won’t cop out when there’s unrecorded audiobooks all about?
MARK!
Right On!
They say this cat Mark mutters…
SHUT YOUR MOUTH!
I’m talkin’ ’bout Mark!
THEN WE CAN DIG IT!
He’s a complicated man
But everyone understands his letter clear readings
MARK NELSON!
Damn straight! The latest Mark Douglas Nelson read audiobook has just posted to the LibriVox library. Mark’s got the voice that makes all the listener’s say aww-yeah. And, he’s choosing the books that make you say boo-yah. Best of all, he’s making them PD (free for all, for all-time).
Space Tug
By Murray Leinster; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
11 Zipped MP3s or Podcast – 6 Hours 18 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 16th, 2008
Joe Kenmore heard the airlock close with a sickening wheeze and then a clank. In desperation he turned toward Haney. “My God, we’ve been locked out!” Through the transparent domes of their space helmets, Joe could see a look of horror and disbelief pass across Haney’s face. But it was true! Joe and his crew were locked out of the Space Platform. Four thousand miles below circled the Earth. Under Joe’s feet rested the solid steel hull of his home in outer space. But without tools there was no hope of getting back inside. Joe looked at his oxygen meter. It registered thirty minutes to live.
Subscribe to the podcast:
http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/space-tug-by-murray-leinster.xml
Posted by Jesse Willis
Horror Story Collection 005
By various; Read by various
10 Zipped MP3s or Podcast – Approx. 4 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 15, 2008
An occasional collection of 10 horror stories by various readers. We aim to unsettle you a little, to cut through the pink cushion of illusion that shields you from the horrible realities of life. Here are the walking dead, the fetid pools of slime, the howls in the night that you thought you had confined to your more unpleasant dreams.
Berenice
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by MorganScorpion
1 |MP3| – Approx. 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
The Black Cat
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Ernst Pattynama
1 |MP3| – 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
The Monkey’s Paw
By W.W. Jacobs; Read by Matthias Whitney
1 |MP3| – Approx. 21 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
The Occupant of the Room
By Algernon Blackwood; Read by Mooseboy Alfonzo
1 |MP3| – Approx. 23 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
The Painter’s Bargain
By William Makepeace Thackeray; Read by Mooseboy Alfonzo
1 |MP3| – Approx. 32 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
The Room in the Tower
By E.F. Benson; Read by MorganScorpion
1 |MP3| – Approx. 29 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Stalley Fleming’s Hallucinations
By Ambrose Bierce; Read by Read by heshman08
1 |MP3| – Approx. 5 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
The Tell-Tale Heart
By Edgar Alan Poe; Read by Reynard T. Fox
1 |MP3| – Approx. 16 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
To Be Read at Dusk
By Charles Dickens; Read by Alex C. Telander
1|MP3| – Approx. 22 [UNABRIDGED]
Transformation
By Mary Shelley; Read by: Alecia
1 |MP3| – Approx. 42 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast feed:
http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/horror-story-collection-005.xml
Posted by Jesse Willis
The Turn of the Screw
by Henry James
Source: Librivox
25 Zipped MP3s
Length: 5 hr, 43 min UNABRIDGED
Reader: Nichole Doolin
The book: A young lady, charmed by a young gentleman in London, agrees to take up a job as a governess to his orphaned niece and nephew. After arriving at the country estate where the children live, the governess begins to see figures around the estate that do not seem to fit with any of the servants currently living there. She learns from other servants that the former governess, Miss Jessel, and her lover, Peter Quint, died mysteriously shortly before she was hired. Are the figures she has been seeing the ghosts of this couple or is it all in her mind?
James keeps up this ambiguity throughout the book, constructing dialogues and events that seem diabolical under one viewpoint and another perfectly innocent by another. The book is told from the 1st person perspective of the governess. This narrator is the only one who seems to notice the ghosts and their effects on the children, but we as readers are not sure we can trust this young lady. The degree to which James draws out the governess’s decent into horror is a bit frustrating at times, but really, this is a short book and a classic in psychology.
Rating: 7/10
The reader: Ms. Doolin sounds like a professional. Her reading is polished, using pauses and inflection to great effect. I found it interesting to compare the voice of the narrator from the first chapters where she is bright and innocent to the later where you can hear the suspicion in her voice. The other characters are not given full-fledged voices, but Ms. Doolin alters her diction and pitch enough to let us know who is talking. The recording is clean and noiseless.
Posted by Seth