Franz Kafka – Page 4

The SFFaudio Podcast #044 – TALK TO: Professor Eric S. Rabkin

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #044 – Jesse and Scott are joined by Professor Eric S. Rabkin of the University Of Michigan to discuss fairy tales, fantastic literature and Science Fiction.

Talked about on today’s show:
Department Of English Language And Literature @ the University Of Michigan, the Winter 2010 semester: English 342 Science Fiction, English 418/549 Graphic Narrative, hey sign us up!, The Teaching Company, Science Fiction: The Literature Of The Technological Imagination |READ OUR REVIEW|, Masterpieces of the Imaginative Mind: Literature’s Most Fantastic Works, Franz Kafka, H.G. Wells, Edgar Allan Poe, Science Fiction (the most important literature for adults), I, Robot by Isaac Asimov |READ OUR REVIEW|, Brothers Grimm, fairy tales, Neuromancer by William Gibson |READ OUR REVIEW|, Asimov’s three laws of robotics, the conversation that is Science Fiction, humans are pattern seeking animals, Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein |READ OUR REVIEW|, The Forever War by Joe Haldeman |READ OUR REVIEW|, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card |READ OUR REVIEW|, the ansible, Armor by John Steakley, Old Man’s War by John Scalzi |READ OUR REVIEW|, Gundam, The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey, Science Fiction as a form of children’s literature, Thomas Disch, Camp Concentration, 334, Kurt Vonnegut, The Plot Against America by Philip Roth, alternate history, Hugo Gernsback, pulp literature, paperback originals, adolescent power fantasies, Frank Reade and His Steam Man of the Plains by Noname, Ralph 124C 41+ by Hugo Gernsback, pushing science education through Science Fiction, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells |READ OUR REVIEW|, The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar by Edgar Allan Poe, From The Earth To The Moon by Jules Verne, Henry James and H.G. Wells in conversation over the future of fiction, The Portrait Of A Lady by Henry James, WWII, the societal effect of the G.I. Bill, tracking an author’s intentions, powerful fiction becomes classic?, Ted Chiang, Blankets by Craig Thompson, has Science Fiction crossed a certain cultural Rubicon?, Momento, Blindness by José Saramago, Briefing for a Descent into Hell by Doris Lessig, Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers, has our culture become “fully Science Fictionized”?, does SF history begin with Frankenstein and end with Neuromancer?, Alan Moore, Watchmen, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, pattern recognition, allusion (and literary allusion).

Posted by Jesse Willis

Miette’s Bedtime Story Podcast

Sunday, June 21, 2009Sunday, June 21, 2009 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Here’s a podcast that I’ve been listening to, on and off (mostly off), for years. Miette is a mystery to me and seemingly pretty much everyone else. She’s been putting out a weekly (or so) podcast since 2005 and yet we don’t know a lot about her. We know she loves to read short stories. That she’s got an accent people don’t easily pin down, and that she’s got a dog. Other than that…. well, we really don’t know.

What makes it all even more puzzling is that she’s an “obscurantist.”

Now I like the obscure, but she, well… she’s just out there – Miette has gone past the obscure and into the hinterlands of the truly odd. Every once in a while I want to throw her a lasso (or a lifeline) but I’m kind of afraid because she might pull me out there with her!

That sheer out-there-ness also makes me feel so normal. Miette’s the absolute omega to the omnivorous celebrity mainstream and me I’m just the guy who gets to say “sorry I don’t have TV” three or four times a week.

Perhaps Miette is from a parallel universe?

It would explain a lot.

Assembled below are some of the Miette-read tales that attracted me to her podcast. None of them are youur typical short story – most are experimental in some way, usually they’re at least odd, strange, or weird. The thing is though, these tales that I’ve picked here are the most centric of Miette’s stories!

SFFaudio interest:

Fun With Your New Head
By Thomas Disch; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 7 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

The Cask of Amontillado
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 22 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race
By J.G. Ballard; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 7 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

The Red Room
By H.G. Wells; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 7 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

I See You Never
By Ray Bradbury; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 11 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

How the World Was Saved
By Stanislaw Lem; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 11 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

The Necrophil
By Felipe Alfau; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 40 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
A story about a woman who dies too much.

The Yellow Wallpaper
By Charlotte Perkins Gilman; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Aprrox. 47 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

The Ghosts
By Lord Dunsany; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Aprrox. 15 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

On An Experience In A Cornfield
By Robert Sheckley; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 29 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

The Judgment
By Franz Kafka; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| Approx. 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

A World of Sound
By Olaf Stapledon; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 18 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas
By Ursula K. Le Guin; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

of Aural Noir interest:

A Letter to A.A. (Almost Anybody)
By Charles Willeford; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 29 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

The Lost Soul
By Ben Hecht; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 29 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

It Had To Be Murder
By Cornell Woolrich; Read by Miette
2 MP3s – Approx. 84 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3|

Podcast feed:

http://www.miettecast.com/feed/

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Friday, February 29, 2008Tuesday, March 6, 2012 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Review

The Metamorphosis
By Franz Kafka; Read by Alex Wilson
3 Zipped MP3, OGG or AAC files – 2 Hours 15 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: The Spoken Alexandria Project
Published: 2006
Themes: / Fantasy / Surreal / 1910s / Insects /

At first read, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka is a bizarre, almost nonsensical story. Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant bug of some sort. No explanation is given for how or why this metamorphosis occurred. Gregor himself seems more concerned with being late to a work assignment than the circumstances of his change.

As the novella progresses, The Metamorphosis becomes more about the unspoken negotiations inside a family as in who does what chores, who makes money for others, and who just gets in the way. When Gregor can no longer provide for the family’s needs, Gregor’s father changes from an invalid to a dedicated worker. Along the way, Greta converts from a loving sister to a young woman looking for suitors. The bizarre transformation of Gregor is not the most important transformation in the family, as evidenced by the final lines.

Alex Wilson, the founder of Spoken Alexandria, provides a understated, but compelling reading. The sound quality is top-notch, even when listening over headphones. The tone of voice is like someone waked in the middle of dream, lending an appropriate otherworldliness to the story of alienation.

Posted by Listener of the Free Listens blog

BBC7 and The 7th Dimension have Matheson’s Duel again!

Thursday, April 5, 2007 admin

Online Audio

BBC Radio 7 always has a slew of good Speculative Fiction in its daily 7th Dimension slot and another nicety is that they often rebroadcast an old show. That’s the case this week with a reading that was specially commissioned last year by BBC7 to celebrate the 80th birthday the legendary Richard Matheson. Here is yet another chance to experience one of his most enigmatic and ominous tales: Duel. Also coming are an abridged reading of Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (get an unabridged reading HERE) and a interestingly described BBC Radio 4 drama that was first broadcast in 1998, Paradise Lost In Cyberspace…

Duel
By Richard Matheson; Read by Nathan Osgood
Radio Broadcast – Approx 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC 7 / 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Saturday at 6.30pm and 12.30am
“Driving to San Francisco, a businessman finds himself the victim of a deadly game being played by the driver of a huge, mysterious truck. Later to become Steven Spielberg’s classic 1971 film.”

Metamorphosis
By Franz Kafka; Read by Benedict Cumberbatch
Radio Broadcast -Approx. 30 Minutes [ABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC 7 / 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Sunday at 6.30pm and 12.30am
“Franz Kafka’s acclaimed novel sees Gregor Samsa awake one morning to find he has turned into a grotesque insect. His family initially react with horror, which slowly gives way to revulsion, then hideous indifference, as Gregor is left to fester in his room and begins to adapt to his new state which his family find so hard to accept. First published in 1912.”

Paradise Lost In Cyberspace
By Colin Swash; Perfomed by a full cast
Radio Broadcasts -Approx. 30 Minute Segments [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC 7 / 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Weekdays starting from Tuesday at 6pm and midnight
“Set in a future world of genetics and cloning where living beyond the age of seventy is prohibited. George Smith is enjoying his 69th birthday when a Central Admin error convinces everyone he’s a year older than he actually is, and his time to die arrives a year too early.”

NOTE: Those outside the UK can get all of the above using the BBC7 Listen Again service for up to 6 days following the broadcasts.

posted by Jesse Willis

BBC Radio 4 has Poe and Kafka

Tuesday, January 16, 2007Monday, January 11, 2010 Jesse Willis

Online Audio

Roy, our UK correspondent, points out that BBC Radio 4 has two classic genre tales, the latter of which is read by Fawlty Towers‘ own Andrew Sachs – you remember him que?

The Pit And The Pendulum
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by David Horovitch
1 reading – 15 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: Monday 15th January (15 mins).
Look for it on ‘Listen Again’ under Afternoon Reading.
David Horovitch reads Edgar Allen Poe’s spine-chilling tale of torture
Use the Afternoon Reading “listen again” service to hear the story.

Metamorphosis
By Franz Kafka; Read by Andrew Sachs
Five 15 Minute readings – [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: Monday 15 – Friday 19 January 2007
Gregor Samsa awakes one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect. The horrified reactions of his employer and his family have made this haunting parable on the human reaction to suffering into one of Kafka’s most famous and best loved works.
Use the Book At Bedtime “listen again” service to catch the entire reading.

posted by Jesse Willis

TellTaleWeekly.org has Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

Monday, November 20, 2006Tuesday, March 23, 2010 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Alexander Wilson‘s podcast, The Spoken Alexandria Project, as well as his Tell Tale Weekly webstore, that helps fund it, both have a free unabridged reading of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis!

Grab the three MP3 files |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3| or subscribe to the podcast via this feed and get the entire novella in one MP3 file:

http://www.spokenalex.org/index.xml

The Metamorphosis
By Franz Kafka; Translation by David Wyllie; Read by Alex Wilson
3 MP3 Files – Approx. 2 hours 15 minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: The Spoken Alexandria Project
Podcast: November 16, 2006
From 1915! This is one of the most famous novellas ever written. From 1915!

“One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.” So begins the classic existential tale about the traveling salesman who too late realizes what he’s become.

posted by Jesse Willis