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.
I sure wish I’d been at this convention! This pic was taken at what I’m assuming was a Texas Science Fiction convention. Maybe ArmadilloCon 28? Standing behind all those scrumptious Infinivox audiobooks is Allan Kaster, the mind behind Infinivox Science Ficion audiobooks lineup. Here‘s the original blog post.
Wildside Press has started posting cover art for their upcoming line of unabridged audiobooks! The imprint will be called “Wildside Audio Library” and will be delivering quality narrated productions previously released by Audio Realms as well as never before released titles like H. Beam Piper’s Little Fuzzy. Check these babies out…
Hey cool! Maureen O’Brien has also recorded…
Dawn of Flame
By Stanley G. Weinbaum; Read by Maureen O’Brien
10 Zipped MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Maria Lectrix
Podcast: April 2006
After a worldwide plague breaks civilization, Joaquin Smith and his sister build an empire up the Mississippi Valley. Who would be brave or foolish enough to stand in their way? Who but a young backwoodsman named Hull Tarvish?
Little Fuzzy is a minor classic of Science Fiction by H. Beam Piper. Thanks to the wondiferous hobby of Maureen O’Brien it is now available in its unabridged entirety as an amateur produced MP3 audiobook. All 17 chapters are available now for free via archive.org.
Little Fuzzy
By H.Beam Piper; Read by Maureen O’Brien
17 Zipped MP3 Files – 6 Hours 45 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
PODCAST: Maria Lectrix
COMPLETED: October 2006
The planet Zarathustra is going through a dry spell. Land-prawns, ecologists, and scared bureaucrats are coming out of the woodwork. But there’s more trouble to come. The cutest little alien critter you’ve ever seen: Little Fuzzy.
The story revolves around determining whether a small furry species discovered on the planet Zarathustra is sapient. Along the way a gentle kind of libertarianism that emphasizes sincerity and honesty is advocated. This is generally considered a “juvenile” novel.
The narrator, Maureen O’Brien, first released each chapter as an instalment on her Maria Lectrix Podcast which she describes as “Six days a week of public domain audiobooks — mystery, history, adventure, devotion — for people with Catholic tastes.” About Little Fuzzy she writes:
“Right now, I’m making an audiobook of H. Beam Piper’s novel Little Fuzzy. It’s in the public domain and on Gutenberg, because Piper didn’t renew copyright. Piper is one of my younger brother’s favorite authors, so I’m really doing it for him. But the funny thing is that I actually am enjoying the book a lot more than I did back in junior high; I guess the legal and corporate maneuvering makes more sense to me now.”
Little Fuzzy is finished, I asked her what else she’d been working on. It seems that Maureen’s been in fandom more than a dozen years, helping out at some conventions and writting for an shared world superhero zine, Vanguard Dossier. She says…
“I record public domain stuff because I am cheap and have time on my hands. Also, it’s nice to give something back to the Internet that’s given so much to me. Back in the BBS days, you were expected to upload a certain amount of material to offset all the files from other people that you were downloading. I think I’ve done that now.”
And has she ever she’s recorded dozens of other stories, novels, poems and plays too!
“I’m afraid my choice of literary works is a bit haphazard, as I usually pick on whim something I like, something I’ve been meaning to read, or something I run across that looks interesting. My original plan was to podcast mostly short stories, short essays, and a few longer works. Instead, novels and epic poems have taken over my podcast.
For quite a while, I was broadcasting something from the works of antebellum New York SF/Fantasy writer Fitz James O’Brien every Monday. Partly this was because I like his stuff and think he’s unfairly neglected. But partly it’s because I had a hard time deciding what to read on Mondays and he narrowed that down quite a lot. But Fitz had a very interesting take on life, and I enjoyed that a lot. He was also amazingly prolific; there are still tons of stories by him that I haven’t done.
I also really enjoyed reading Lord Dunsany, who has been one of my all time favorite authors since I first encountered his stories. When he really gets rolling, his fantasy can veer abruptly from the highest flights of beauty and language to the silliest comedy within a few sentences. He was wonderful to read; and I fully intend to read some more stories by him later this year. I would love to hear someone adapt one of his spooky plays as an audio drama; I think they might work very well.
A lot of the epic poems I’ve podcasted are actually fantasy novels in poetic form. Lucan’s Pharsalia is full of witchcraft and horror, ancient Roman style. Scott’s The Bride of Triermain is pure fantasy, with King Arthur, demigoddesses, bards, phantoms, and all.”
It is all very cool and I’m going to be keeping my ear attuned to Maureen’s passion. I’ve subscribed to her podcast. If you’re interested you too can subscribe by plugging this feed into your podcatcher:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/MariaLectrixAudiobookClub/
Antibodies
By Charles Stross; Read by Jared Doreck and Shondra Marie
1 CD – 54 Minutes 16 Seconds [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Infinivox
Published: 2005
ISBN: 1884612474
Themes: / Science Fiction / Singularity / Conspiracy / Artificial Intelligence / Parallel Worlds /
“Damn it, Bob, I really had high hopes for this world-line. They seemed to be doing so well for a revelatory Christian-Islamic line, despite the post-Enlightenment mind-set.”
The announcement of the solution to the traveling salesman problem heralds the imminent destruction of humanity. No more salesman; no more problem. The story begins when a computer programmer is notified by RSS feed that all NP-complete problems lie in P, and thus computer encryption is forever compromised. Knowing the disaster for what it is, he flees, but with this being such a hard-takeoff he might not make it.
Stross’ ideas are hard, cold, pure, and funny, but it is his storytelling – the effectiveness of the complete tale – that elevates his perspective SF ideas into Science Fiction excellence. This is the kind of fiction I love; thought provoking with shrewdly surprisingly but necessary consequences of the premise. Stross goes from alpha to omega faster than you can guess, and in so doing delivers a solid entry into SF’s growing dialogue about The Singularity. Antibodies reminded of Isaac Asimov’s similarily elegant short story Living Space. Also refreshing is a humourous conspiracy that explains why Microsoft Windows-based computer viruses are so prevalent.
Allan Kaster, who runs the Infinivox wing of Audiotext, has put deep thought into this tale’s production. The narrators, Jared Dorek and Shondra Marie, pair up to deliver the action in this first-person perspective masterpiece of SF. Marie reads all the female voices and Dorek all the male. When each speaks the role of the hero and heroine, they do so in an amalgamated accent that is implied by the text. The production is carefully woven with transition music designed to show textual scene transitions and time passing. But it is the story that elevates this audiobook to SFFaudio Essential status. With a running time just shy of one hour you aren’t likely to have a more quintissential Strossian experience on audio.
Posted by Jesse Willis
The Commuter’s Library unabridged H.G. Wells Collected Science Fiction: The Time Machine & Stories of the Unusual is Audible.com’s Selection of the Day! That means you can get this classic title for $9.95 today.
H.G. Wells Collected Science Fiction: The Time Machine & Stories of the Unusual
By H. G. Wells, Read by Ralph Cosham
7 hours and 28 min [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Commuter’s Library
Published: 2004
Themes: / Science fiction / Time Travel / Evolution / Future /
In addition to the unabridged reading of The Time Machine this audiobook features 9 stories from Stories of the Unusual:
“The Country of the Blind” takes place in a hidden valley where it would seem that a man with sight would be king.
“The Diamond Maker” tells of a fortune that might have been.
“The Man Who Worked Miracles” recounts the problems of defying nature.
In “Aepyornis Island”, a man has a special relationship with a prehistoric bird.
“The Strange Orchid” tells of the macabre appetite of an exotic plant.
“The Cone” is a shocking story of revenge.
“The Purple Pileus” deals with a life-altering fungus.
“The Truth About Pyecraft” is a classic that explains why an overbearing fat man wears lead underwear.
“The Door in the Wall” captures the pathos of lost youth
The Commuter’s Library audio productions of the works of H.G. Wells were singled out for mention by Allan Kaster in this sffaudio interview. Cosham’s reading of The Time Machine also gets a thumbs up in a collection of reviews of various audiobook editions of The Time Machine at The Time Machine site.
The Commuter’s Library is now known as In Audio and the contents of this download are available for purchase as cassette tapes or CDs as two separate listings: The Time Machine and Strange Fiction: Stories by H.G. Wells
Posted by Moriond