The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis AUDIO DRAMA

SFFaudio News

Focus On The Family, an “American evangelical tax-exempt non-profit organization” has been creating audio dramas that I’ve been completely ignoring (probably unjustly) for years.

It looks like they’ve got some terrific source material and some solid acting expertize for their most recent project, an audio dramatization of The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. More details |HERE|.

It may be that The Screwtape Letters was written as a response to Letters From The Earth by Mark Twain – certainly the two books take the epistolary form and are set in a Bangsian Fantasy world. Twain’s take was skeptical athiesm, Lewis’s was was rational apologetic. Call and response?

In the June 6, 1962 issue of The Christian Century published C.S. Lewis’s answer to the question:

“What books did most to shape your vocational attitude and your philosophy of life?”

Here was C.S. Lewis’s list:

1. Phantastes, A Faerie Romance For Men And Women by George MacDonald |GUTENBERG|
2. The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton |GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA|
3. The Aeneid by Virgil |LibriVox AUDIOBOOK|
4. The Temple: Sacred Poems And Private Ejaculations by George Herbert
5. The Prelude; Or, Growth Of A Poet’s Mind by William Wordsworth
6. The Idea Of The Holy by Rudolf Otto
7. The Consolation Of Philosophy by Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius |GUTENBERG|
8. Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell |GUTENBERG (ABRIDGED VERSION)|
9. Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams |GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA|
10. Theism and Humanism by Arthur James Balfour

Given Lewis’ stuggle with both Christiainity and atheism is it not curious that The Bible doesn’t show up on that list? Probably not. It may have been #11.

[via the Audiobook DJ blog]

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: The Shadows by George MacDonald

SFFaudio Online Audio

shadowsfin2.jpgThe Shadows
By George MacDonald; Read by Catherine Eastman
2 Zipped MP3s or Podcast – Approx. 1.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 27, 2007

Though no longer well known, his works (particularly his fairy tales and fantasy novels) have inspired admiration in such notables as W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Madeleine L’Engle. The Shadows is one such fairy tale. The strange Shadows spend their existence casting themselves upon the walls and forming pictures of various sorts: mimicking evil actions of those who have done wrong in the hopes of causing their repentance, playing a comic dumb-show to inspire a playwright and dancing to inspire a musician, nudging a little girl to comfort her grandfather, and playing with a sick little boy as he waits for his mother to return home. For all that their forms are black, their hearts are of the whitest.

This fantasy for younger readers/listeners has a couple of things in its favor for adults other than just the historical interest in its author.  The reader here, Catherine Eastman, does an outstanding job and the story is quite imaginative. Highly recommended for younger listeners and not too bad for adults either.

Complete Audiobook [zip], individual MP3s here.

And here’s the podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/the-shadows-by-george-macdonald.xml

Posted by Dave Tackett

LibriVox has classic Fantasy: The Princess And The Goblin by George MacDonald

SFFaudio Online Audio

Standing tall and proud in the history Fantasy fiction is George MacDonald’s much loved The Princess And The Goblin. First published in 1872, the story of Princess Irene, her myserious grandmother, her unbelieving nurse, and her loyal friend Curdie weaves magic and monsters together into a delightfull Victorian children’s novel. The influence of The Princess And The Goblin upon subsequent fantasy fiction can be felt in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. All thanks for this, the first known unabridged FREE reading of this classic, go to narrator Lizzie Driver. Thanks Lizzie!

The Princess And The Goblin by George MacDonald;The Princess And The Goblin
By George MacDonald; Read by Lizzie Driver
18 Zipped MP3 Files – Approx. 5 Hours 32 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 2007
The Princess and the Goblin is an enthralling fantasy tale written by George MacDonald. Her nurse Lootie raises the princess Irene in a house on a mountain, it is here that she meets her mysterious great-great-grandmother, and her friend the minor boy Curdie. Things are peaceful for Irene until the hideous race of goblins that live beneath the mountain start planning something big.