The SFFaudio Podcast #045

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #045 – Jesse and Scott are joined by the ghost of Xmas future as they talk about audiobooks, video games, audio drama and lots more. Jesse even reveals an earth shattering bit of trivia about Vincent Price (you’ll never guess it) and what he thinks is clearly “the greatest joke ever.”

Talked about on today’s show:
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Drood by Dan Simmons, The Terror, James Powell, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, The Black Whatever by James Powell, Richard Stark, NPR, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore (as done in the style of Earnest Hemingway), The Hemingway Hoax by Joe Haldeman |READ OUR REVIEW|, Joe Haldeman to be named a Grand Master of Science Fiction, The Best Cigarette by Billy Collins, iTunes U, The Hilarious House Of Frightenstein, Vincent Price, Paul K. Willis (Jesse’s uncle), Rumors And Boarders, Vancouver is the American Science Fiction TV mecca, Arctic exploration, the Northwest Passage, The Illustrated History Of British Columbia by Terry Reksten, Sir Francis Drake‘s secret mission, Queen Elizabeth I, Juan de Fuca, Captain James Cook, Captain George Vancouver, Patrick O’Brian meets Edgar Allan Poe and J.M.W. Turner, Simon Vance, recent arrivals, audio drama, The H.P. Lovecraft Radio Hour Vol. 1, LovecraftRadio.com, The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, Dagon, Blackstone Audio, Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold, Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold |READ OUR REVIEW|, The Reader’s Chair, Audible.com, Dean Koontz, Hideaway by Dean Koontz, our DEAN KOONTZ AUTHOR PAGE, Dragon Tears by Dean Koontz, Jay O. Sanders, The Day After Tomorrow, Rogue Berzerker by Fred Saberhagen, The Adventure Of The Metal Murderer, time travel, Sherlock Holmes, Wings Out Of Shadow, DH Audio, Manfred von Richthofen, Hermann Göring, Paul Michael Garcia, Berzerker Fury, Empire Of The East by Fred Saberhagen |READ OUR REVIEW|, Willie Wonka!, Penguin Audio, Fire by Kristin Cashore, Full Cast Audio, Graceling by Kristin Cashore, Macmillan Audio, Hidden Empire by Orson Scott Card, Shadow Complex, side-scrolling video games, Peter David, the attempt to boycott Orson Scott Card’s video games, casual gamers vs. hard core gamers, Fallout 3, Medal Of Honor, DRM, copyfight, They’re Made Of Meat by Terry Bisson (adapted by FredOSphere), Seeing Ear Theatre, J. Michael Straczynski’s City Of Dreams (available via ThePirateBay.org), Towing Jehovah by James Morrow, Luke Burrage‘s Science Fiction Book Review Podcast (reviewing Anathem by Neal Stephenson), William Dufris, Sci Fi Song’s The Ballad Of Wilson Cole, Mike Resnick’s Starship series, FREE Ringworld by Larry Niven, Grover Gardner IS Tom Parker, New Releases, Audible Frontiers, William Gibson, Burning Chrome, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Jonathan Davis, All Tomorrow’s Parties, The Telling by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Word For World Is Forest, Book Of The Road, The Unpleasant Profession Of Jonathan Hoag by Robert A. Heinlein , The Day Of The Triffids by John Wyndham, The Chrysalids, David Weber‘s Honor Harrington series, The Plague Of The Dead by Z.A Recht, a zombie plague that makes people: calm, reasonable, rational and peaceful?, Macmillian Audio, A Deepness In the Sky by Vernor Vinge, the Blake’s 7 Audio Adventures series is now on Audible.com!, space opera, social Science Fiction, Robin Hood, Babylon 5, Brave New World, 1984, Memoirs From A Bathtub by Stanislaw Lem, Terry Gilliam, Twelve Monkeys, Philip K. Dick, Franz Kafka, Tantor Media, The Unincorporated Man by Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin, Stranger In A Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein, deep exploration of ideas in fiction, Todd McLaren, Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan |READ OUR REVIEW|, the Prometheus Award, libertarianism, Collapse by Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs And Steel, Easter Island, Hawaii, Montana, Greenland, ecosystems, The Teaching Company, World War II: A Military and Social History by Thomas Childers, A Military History of WWII by Trevor Nevitt Dupuy Col. U.S. Army, Ret., Italian Frogmen in WWII, Benito Mussolini.

Vincent Price with Paul K. Willis on the set of The Hilarious House Of Frightenstein

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBC Radio 4: The Ingoldsby Legends by Richard Harris Barham

SFFaudio Online Audio

Radio Times - The Ingoldsby Legends - reviewed by Danny ScottBBC Radio 4Apparently the Radio Times pre-Christmas issues are on sale a bit earlier than the normal ‘one week ahead’ of schedule. So, thanks to that, we’ve got data from that early issue for the week of December 12-18, 2009 and it has one article that BBC Radio 4 fans will be definitely interested in reading.

According to Wikipedia: Richard Harris Barham (1788 – 1845) was an English novelist, humorous poet, and a Cardinal in the Church of England. But in the 19th century he was better known by his nom de plume: Thomas Ingoldsby.

In 1837 Barham began a series of stories published in Bentley’s Miscellany (a magazine then edited by Charles Dickens). Described as “grotesque metrical tales” The Ingoldsby Legends became very popular and were later collected into a book.

BBC Radio 4 - The Ingoldsby Legends by Richard Harris BarhamThe Ingoldsby Legends
By Richard Harris Barham; Read by Nicholas Murchie and Lucy Robinson
10 Broadcasts – Approx. 2 Hours 30 Minutes [ABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: December 14-18 and 21-25, 2009 @ 22:45-23:00
A collection of myths, legends, ghost stories and poetry supposedly written by Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor, but actually penned by the Rev. Richard Barham, first published in book form in 1840.

Stories included:
The Leech of Folkestone
In the depths of Romney Marsh, an avaricious woman, bored with her tedious husband, plots with her doctor to rid herself of her spouse. But it seems that more than normal medication is to be employed.
-First published in 1840.

Bloudie Jacke of Shrewsberrie: A Legend Of Shropshire
A grisly and comic poetic tale concerning a local Bluebeard, intent on causing havoc wherever he roams.

Jerry Jarvis’ Wig: A Legend of the Weald of Kent
Is it possible for a wig to be possessed? And can it, in turn, possess a person foolish enough to wear it?
-First published in Bentley’s Miscellany May 1843.

The Specter Of Tappington
-Adapted into an episode of Weird Circle (1945) |MP3|
-Reprinted in Weird Tales October 1928.

The rest of the “Legends” are detailed over on the Wikipedia entry.

[Thanks Roy]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Naxos Audiobooks: The Signalman by Charles Dickens

SFFaudio Online Audio

Naxos AudiobooksNaxos Audiobooks is offering…

“A free classic short story download every week until Hallowe’en!”

These stories will come from a 2007 audiobook short story collection called Classic Ghost Stories, all are read “with relish” by Stephen Critchlow.

First up is…

Naxos Audiobooks - The Signal Man by Charles Dickens The Signal Man (from Classic Ghost Stories)
By Charles Dickens; Read by Stephen Critchlow
1 |MP3| – Approx. 32 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks
Published: October 2007
“These stories are designed to engender a chill in the listener which is not just due to the season. Stephen Critchlow, a characterful actor, is a collector of ghost stories and relishes putting across those slightly odd moments when things don’t just seem to follow the normal process. Charles Dickens was chilling enough in his novels – one only has to remember the entry of Magwitch in Great Expectations! – but as a writer set deeply in the Victorian era and unashamedly a lover of the melodramatic, it comes as no surprise that one of the greatest classics of the genre was The Signalman.”

[via Mary Burkey’s Audiobooker blog]

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #020

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #020 – Today Jesse and Scott talk with James Powell, a terrific Mystery, Science Fiction, Fantasy and Crime writer. He was first published in April 1966 and has approximately 140 published short stories in such magazines as Playboy and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. But most of his tales, including his most famous have been published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine! His tales are relentlessly logical, often hilarious, and swift. He is an absolute master of the short story. Powell is what’s known in the business as a “Pussycat writer” which means he doesn’t put sex and violence on the page, it all happens off-stage. Look for his latest tale, Clowntown Pajamas in the February 2009 issue of EQMM.

Talked about on today’s show:
A Cozy For The Jack-O-Lanterns, A Dirge For Clowntown, Clowntown Pajamas, Monaco, France, Crippen & Landru, The Friends Of Hector Jouvet |READ IT|, Peter Sellers, A Murder Coming, the review in which I first mention A Dirge For Clowntown rules for what Powell calls “Elf Economics”, The Theft Of The Valuable Bird, Midnight Pumpkins (Cinderella as Hard Fantasy), Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock style stories, Clowntown Pajamas, the hidden but clear rules of clown and mine behavior, Toronto, 1940s, QUESTION: Who does James Powell read? ANSWER: Charles Dickens, Jorge Luis Borges, J.R.R. Tolkien, and lately Michael Swanwick‘s The Edge Of The World, as wells as A Passage To India, E.M. Forster, Bouchercon, Frederic Dannay, Santa’s Way, The Tamerlane Crutch (a takeoff on the Maltese Falcon and A Christmas Carol), Lawrence Block, Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine, The Quest For Creeping Charlie, 1950s, George Orwell, Winter Hiatus, Iced: The New Noir Anthology of Cold, Hard Fiction edited by Peter Sellers, The Dawn Of Captain Sunset (a superhero champion of the elderly), round robin style short stories, The Best Fantasy Stories Of The Year: 1989 edited by Orson Scott Card and Martin H. Greenberg (ISBN: 1556561431), the difficulty of writing a Science Fiction Mystery story, John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, of A Dirge For Clowntown Scott says: “[it is] one of the finest mysteries I’ve ever read set in a different world,” Dercum Audio, Durkin Hayes, The Book Of Lies, Brad Meltzer, A Murder Coming edited by Peter Sellers (ISBN: 0886466377), calling all publishers: COLLECT JAMES POWELL!

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBC Radio 4 during December

SFFaudio Online Audio

BBC Radio 4Our agent in London has the pulse of what’s going to air on BBC Radio 4 over the month of December 2008. Sez Roy:

“I’ve completed a quick scan of what’s on offer from BBC Radio over the coming festive season. Looks far from a vintage season, but I’ve spotted a few genre items…

Saturday 13th Dec R4 14:30-16:00 Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward

Monday 15th Dec R4 22:45-23:00 Book At Bedtime A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens; read by David Jason. This 10 part reading continues each weekday night until Boxing Day (Dec. 26th).

Tuesday 16th Dec R4 11:30-12:00 I Was Douglas Adams’s Flatmate. Ok, not drama, but the personal recollections of someone who shared an flat with the creator of so much humorous SF might be interesting.

Sunday 21st Dec R2 00:00-00:18 The Devil’s Christmas read by Christopher Eccleston
Christopher Eccleston (Doctor Who) reads four ‘dark tales for Christmas‘. Continues nightly to Christmas Eve. Claims to be a repeat, but I don’t know when original transmission was.

Monday 22nd Dec R4 14:15-15:00 The Borrowers part 1 by Mary Norton
Well I think this can be considered ‘Fantasy’ and I for one will be listening. Part 2 is at the same time next day (Tuesday 23rd).

Wednesday 31st Dec R4 14:15-15:00 Mr. Luby’s Fear Of Heaven by John Mortimer
Frankly I’m not sure quite how genre relevant this will be. It was originally aired as a joint NPR/BBC production under the ‘Earplay’ banner, but I believe this is a new production.”

Thanks Roy, there are a few in there I’ll be coveting for a special spot under my digital Xmas tree!

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Short Horror Story Collection #005

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVox - Horror Story Collection 005Horror 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