audiobook – Page 59

The SFFaudio Podcast #200 – READALONG: Mars Needs Books! by Gary Lovisi

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #200 – Jesse, Mirko, and Gary Lovisi discuss the Science Fiction novel Mars Needs Books! by Gary Lovisi.

Talked about on today’s show:
the great description, Audible.com, it’s a prison novel, it’s a dystopian science fiction novel, it’s a book collector’s novel, Philip K. Dick, a reality dysfunction, The Man In The High Castle, 1984 by George Orwell, “retconning“, Stalin, airbrushing history, a new Science Fiction idea!, Amazon’s Kindle, Mark Twain, “The Department Of Control”, J. Edgar Hoover, Simon is the most evil character ever, oddball individualists, a straw man gulag, one way of keeping the population in control is to send troublemakers away, another is to give them someone to hate, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein, the Attica Prison riot (1971), Arabella Rashid, entertainment media, when you can’t tell what the truth is anymore it’s very easy to control people, maybe it’s an allegory for our times, Paperback Parade, SF writers were wrong about what our times are like, Mars, crime novels, Science Fiction as a metaphor, people are scared of reading, “I like good writing”, Richard Stark’s Parker novels, getting the word out about Mars Needs Books!, Gargoyle Nights, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Jack Vance, horror, fantasy, nice and short, short books pack a punch (and don’t waste your time), Stephen King, Patrick O’Brian, ideas, paperback novels from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, customers want thick books, Winter In Maine by Gerard Donovan, were looking at a different readership today, James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, there’s nothing that doesn’t add to the story, “Lawrence Block is scary good”, Donald E. Westlake, Robert Bloch, Eight Million Ways To Die, A Pair Of Recycled Jeans by Lawrence Block, Evan Hunter (Ed McBain), Charles Ardai (was on SFFaudio Podcast #090), book-collectors, Murder Of A Bookman by Gary Lovisi (is also on Audible.com), collectable glassware, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, cool dialogue, Driving Hell’s Highway by Gary Lovisi (also on Audible.com), That Hell-bound Train by Robert Bloch, noir, Violence Is The Only Solution by Gary Lovisi (paperback), hard-boiled, revenge, betrayal, personality disorder, Sherlock Holmes, westerns, “if there’s one truth in the universe that I know it’s that Germans love westerns”, which frontier are you talking about?, The Wild Bunch, a western with tommyguns, Akira Kurosawa, Outland (is High Noon in space), Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan, hard-boiled, violence, the Martian national anthem, Prometheus Award, libertarian motifs, world-building, GryphonBooks.com, Hurricane Sandy, Wildside Press, POD Books, eBooks, fire and water, that paperback is still in readable condition in 150 years?, fanzines, Jack Vance, The Dying Earth, Robert Silverberg, Dell Mapbacks, paperbacks were disposable, used bookstores, sex books.

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: The Tomb by H.P. Lovecraft

Tuesday, February 5, 2013Monday, February 4, 2013 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

An early tale of “unspeakable horror” this reading by D.E. Wittkower is very good.

The Tomb
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by D.E. Wittkower
1 |MP3| – Approx. 32 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 23, 2008
Jervas Dudley found an abandoned mausoleum in the forest near his home, then he found himself strangely attracted to it. First published in the March 1922 issue of The Vagrant.

Also be sure to check out DrFaustasAU’s unfinished Dr. Seuss style version that begins HERE.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Interlopers by Saki (H.H. Monro)

Thursday, January 31, 2013Wednesday, November 13, 2013 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

A straightforward feud gets interrupted by intruders bent on spoiling the fight. Twice! God intervenes and then others.

The Interlopers
By Saki; Read by C.T. Hart
1 |MP3| – Approx. 13 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 21, 2008
Georg and Ulrich are bitter enemies who meet meet, with weapons, in a Carpathian forest. First published in The Bystander, January 17, 1912.

And here’s a |PDF|.

There was a 1952 comics adaptation, uncredited, entitled Help! – it appeared in Adventures Into Weird Worlds, issue 11, here’s a snippet:

Help! illustrated by Ed Winiarski

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #197 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Dig Me No Grave by Robert E. Howard

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #197 – Dig Me No Grave by Robert E. Howard, read by Robertson Dean (from Tantor Media’s The Horror Stories Of Robert E. Howard). This is a complete and unabridged reading of the short story (37 Minutes) followed by a discussion of it by Jesse, Tamahome, Jim Moon.

Talked about on today’s show:
No CONAN, Cthulhu The Mythos And Kindred Horrors, H.P. Lovecraft, a Lovecraftian story in the Howard style, dressing up the scenery, Howard did research on the cheap, if Robert E. Howard were a movie maker…, Malak Tus, a mish-mash, demon elder gods you know nothing about, a Satanic pact story, immortality, Mr Jim Moon is most like the dead man on the table, revering books like a Lovecraft character, bibliophilia, “the lure of the old books”, Howard doing Dickens, Grimlin was dead…, is this a Christmasy story?, Victorian lesson, nothing happens in this story, Conrad is shocked by candles and a robe, a giant peacock in the sky, the will, yellow peril, disturbing eyes that burn like yellow coals, the demon/god’s avatar, Nyarlathotep, The King In Yellow, the emissary of the god, John Grimlin, off to a demon’s larder, the demon possesses his mortal remains (and therefore his soul?), the weird scream, the lost city of Koth, Shintoism is particularly bad?, noxious winds, this is madness heaped on madness, eight brazen towers, Turkey, “his demon worshipping devotees”, should we make much of there being no wine?, Jacob Marley, was it an accident?, what would a demon do with a county estate?, “your ancestors need money!”, burnt offerings, burn a cheque, are peacocks particularly scary?, Satan as the peacock angel, the peacock as a symbol of pride, Howard’s magpie salt and pepper approach to research, love it for what it is (the momentum of the story), Howard’s weird tales, what would Conan do?, Howard’s studies (were business), boxing stories and boxing ghost stories, the Kirowan and Conrad stories, Old Garfield’s Heart, The Thing On The Roof, the Marvel Comics adaptation of Dig Me No Grave, Mr Jim Moon’s new collection of weird stories M.R. James, Bram Stoker, E. Nesbit, every story has an illustration, introductions, afterwords, and footnotes, The Seven Of Spectres, “photoshoppery”, The Horla by Guy de Maupassant, Hypnobobs, there’s a Horla there, it’s hard to illustrate an invisible monster, a hidden skull, once you see it you’ll never unsee it, haunted pictures, an animated gif?, moving paintings (in Harry Potter), J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter books grow with the audience, what tradition is Rowling coming out of?, what makes Rowling’s writing work?, J.R.R. Tolkien, Rowling was aware of all of the traditions of fantasy, E. Nesbit, C.S. Lewis, family adventure stories, Michael Moorcock, school stories, jolly japes, the Rupert books, anthropomorphic animals, cozy humour, three layered storytelling, Voldemort, “the flight of death”, Harry Potter is structured around scenes or sets, drawing on the old traditions, the serialized page turning aspect, unique writing voices, a timeless feel, The Causal Vacancy, Hot Fuzz, what if Lethal Weapon happened here?, Shaun of the Dead, shall we go to the pub and wait it out?

Dig Me No Grave by Robert E. Howard

Dig Me No Grave - from Journey Into Mystery

Dig Me No Grave by Robert E. Howard - Weird Tales, February 1937

Posted by Jesse Willis

Here’s an annotated table of contents for Rip-Off! edited by Gardner Dozois

Thursday, January 17, 2013Thursday, January 17, 2013 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio News

After talking about it on the last SFFaudio Podcast NEW RELEASES/RECENT ARRIVALS episode, I decided we really needed to know exactly which classic stories were being ripped-off in the new Audible Frontiers collection entitled Rip-Off!.

You’re welcome!

I’ve also made a note of the narrator for each story. And, while I’m at it I should tell you that nearly every story is an hour long. Every story with the exception of James Patrick Kelly’s (which runs about 90 minutes) and Tad Williams’ (which runs just over 26 minutes).

Rip-Off!
Edited by Gardner Dozois; Read by various readers
Audible Download – Approx. 12 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: December 18, 2012
In Rip-Off!, 13 of today’s best and most honored writers of speculative fiction face a challenge even they would be hard-pressed to conceive: Pick your favorite opening line from a classic piece of fiction (or even non-fiction) – then use it as the first sentence of an entirely original short story. In the world of Rip-Off!, Call me Ishmael introduces a tough-as-nails private eye – who carries a harpoon; The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz inspires the tale of an aging female astronaut who’s being treated by a doctor named Dorothy Gale; and Huckleberry Finn leads to a wild ride with a foul-mouthed riverboat captain who plies the waters of Hell. Once you listen to Rip-Off! you’ll agree: If Shakespeare or Dickens were alive today, they’d be ripping off the authors in this great collection. As a bonus, the authors introduce their stories, explaining what they ripped-off – and why. Rip-Off! was produced in partnership with SFWA – Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. Gardner Dozois served as project editor.

Annotated table of contents:

Introduction by John Scalzi, read by Scalzi

Fireborn by Robert Charles Wilson – Introduction by Wilson, inspired by a “Rootabaga” story by Carl Sandburg – Read by Khristine Hvam

The Evening Line by Mike Resnick – Introduction by Resnick, inspired by Pride And Prejudice by – Read by L.J. Ganser

No Decent Patrimony by Elizabeth Bear – Introduction by Bear, inspired by Edward II by Christopher Marlowe – Read by Scott Brick

The Big Whale by Allen M. Steele – Introduction by Steele, inspired by Moby Dick by Herman Melville – Read by Christian Rummell

Begone by Daryl Gregory – Introduction by Gregory, inspired by David Copperfield by Charles Dickens – Read by Jonathan Davis

The Red Menace by Lavie Tidhar – Introduction by Tidhar, inspired by The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx – Read by Stefan Rudnicki

Muse Of Fire by John Scalzi – Introduction by Scalzi, inspired by Henry V by William Shakespeare – Read by Wil Wheaton

Writer’s Block by Nancy Kress – Introduction by Kress, inspired by Paul Clifford by Edward Bulwer-Lytton – Read by David Marantz

Highland Reel by Jack Campbell – Introduction by Campbell, inspired by Macbeth by William Shakespeare – Read by Nicola Barber

‘Karin Coxswain’ Or ‘Death As She Is Truly Lived’ by Paul Di Filippo – Introduction by Di Filippo, inspired by Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain – Read by Dina Pearlman

The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal – Introduction by Kowal, inspired by The Wizard Of Oz by L. Frank Baum – Read by Allyson Johnson

Every Fuzzy Beast of the Earth, Every Pink Fowl of the Air by Tad Williams – Introduction by Williams, inspired by the Book of Genesis by anonymous – Read by Marc Vietor

Declaration by James Patrick Kelly – Introduction by Kelly, inspired by The Declaration Of Independence by Thomas Jefferson – Read by Ilyana Kadushin

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #195 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Polaris by H.P. Lovecraft

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #195 – Polaris by H.P. Lovecraft, read by Jim Moon. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the short story (11 Minutes) followed by a discussion of it by Jesse, Tamahome, Jim Moon.

Talked about on today’s show:
The Philosopher (an amateur magazine), is this a Christmas story?, The Festival, Lord Dunsany, The Necronomicon, Lovecraft’s Christianity, religion vs. Tradition, Lovecraft’s relationship to his characters, WWI, eldritch gibbering, fainting fits, Lovecraft loved his snoozing, reincarnation vs. mind transfer, time travel, alternate realities?, neanderthal in North America?, what is the setting?, The Horror Of The Museum, The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, swamps vs. bogs vs. fens, “Eskimos” vs. “Inutos”, dishonorable dirty fighting, The Shadow Out Of Time, Dagon, The Call of Cthulhu, The Tomb, it’s The Outsider in reverse, Atlantis, Athens, Lemuria, the Land of Lomar, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Hyperborea, King Kull, Mu, the Dream Lands, atavism, The Rats In The Walls, “a penchant for strange foods”, Jack London, Carl Jung, race memory, the evolutionary path, dishonorable yellow hordes, the yellow peril, “line up and die”, startings and endings, repeated phraseology, a dunsany-esque story, the Dunsany mode, Edgar Allan Poe, its like an extended prose poem, Silence: A Fable, Shadow: A Parable, Ligea is labyrinthine, “battered by adjectives”, The Highwayman by Lord Dunsany, poetic stories, accessible Dunsany stories, In The Fields We Live, “sinister, whimsical, and beautifully odd”, Victorian magazines, The King Of Elfland’s Daughter, C.S. Lewis, Michael Moorcock, world-building, a consistency of reality, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, lost epochs, “the wisdom of the Zobnarrian Fathers”, “bubble and blaspheme”, the alien outer gods, Lovecraft’s interest in astronomy, Charles Wain (aka the plow, aka the big dipper), mapping the skies, messages and impressions, Arcturus, Cassiopeia, Aldebaran, Philip K. Dick, “the world is alive”, a leering star, astrological time, if the seeing is good…, Lovecraft’s desire to be an astronomer, Lovecraft’s formal education.

Polaris by H.P. Lovecraft

Posted by Jesse Willis