Tag: ghosts

Forgotten Classics: Dark Posessions by James Powell

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Forgotten ClassicsJulie Davis, of the Forgotten Classics podcast, did me a personal favour by recording one of James Powell’s stories for me. The tale, Dark Possessions, was first published in the February 1992 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

I dig this tale because it showcases just how creative James Powell’s writing is. He manages to surprise the reader, yet he does so within the very rigid traditions of the mystery genre. Let me explain. Dark Possessions is a murder mystery. A locked room murder mystery. A locked room murder mystery years set after the event. A locked room murder mystery set years after the event and solved by furniture.

FURNITURE!

Oh and it’s a ghost story too!

And, last but not least, Julie does an amazing job bringing it to life! Have a listen…

Forgotten Classics - Dark Possessions by James PowellDark Possessions
By James Powell; Read by Julie Davis
1 |MP3| File – Approx. 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Forgotten Classics
Podcast: April 26th 2009
A little something extra from the mind of James Powell, in which we have a deep experience of mystery and furniture.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Don’t Stop by James Patrick Kelly

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Hey! Here’s a new FREE READS reading from James Patrick Kelly (a terrific SF author and a pioneer in MP3ing his fiction)…

Asimov’s Science Fiction June 2007Don’t Stop
By James Patrick Kelly; Read by James Patrick Kelly
1 |MP3| – Approx. 41 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Free Reads
Podcast: January 21 2009
A woman runs with ghosts, both figurative and literal.
First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in June of 2007. It is currently on the Preliminary Ballot for the Nebula Award, given each year by the Science Fiction Writers of America. A woman runs with ghosts, both figurative and literal.

Podcast feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/freereads/

Posted by Jesse Willis

Mister Ron’s Basement: A Journey To The Sun & The Ghost Exstinguisher

misterron

SFFaudio Online Audio

Podcast - Mister Ron's BasementMister Ron, from Mister Ron’s Basement Podcast has a couple of vintage spoofs of SF and Fantasy for us. Ron writes:

“it turns out that Stanley Huntley must have had a passion for spoofing Jules Verne. Just a few months after he had put A Trip to the South Pole in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1880, he went after Around the World in Eighty Days with the story A Journey to the Sun by Jules Verne, Jr. It features the English Baronet Sir Fillemup Frog, who bets his friends that he can climb up to the Sun. It’s a silly, but fun story.”


A Journey to the Sun
By Jules Verne, Jr. (aka Stanley Huntley); Read by Mister Ron
1 |MP3| – Approx. 11 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Mister Ron’s Basement
Podcast: November 17th 2008
Also up from the basement, from 1905, what may be the original ghost-busting story…

The Ghost-Extinguisher
By Gelett Burgess; Read by Mister Ron
1 |MP3| – Approx. 25 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Mister Ron’s Basement
Podcast: October 2008
A scientist discovers perfects the Japanese technique for disabling ghosts and putting them in jars.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Scott D.

SFFaudio Review

The Graveyard Book by Neil GaimanThe Graveyard Book
By Neil Gaiman; Read by Neil Gaiman
Audible Download – Approx. 8 Hours[UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Harper Audio
Published: 2008
Themes: / Fantasy / Ghosts / Childhood / Revenge / Parenting / Afterlife / Humor / YA /

In a few words: Not as disturbing as Coraline (which is… a bit) and every ounce as entertaining as I hoped.

Now, details: The Graveyard Book is Neil Gaiman’s latest YA novel. The story is about Nobody Owens, a young boy who starts the novel as a toddler that ends up in a graveyard late at night, all by himself. I’ll let Gaiman tell you how that happens, because the journey is all the fun here. Nobody Owens grows up, and Gaiman’s ghosts do all the parenting.

Again, Gaiman manages to be both sinister and funny at the same time, like he’s telling you the worst thing you’ve ever heard, but with a smile and a wink. Here’s the first lines of Chapter 1:

There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife. The knife had a handle of polished black gold, and a blade finer and sharper than any razor. If it sliced you, you may not even know you had been cut. Not immediately.

You’d think what follows would be a bit grisly, and I suppose it is, but it’s all so fantastic that I smiled through most of that chapter, with the sort of glow I get around Halloween. A pair of ghosts (the Owens’s) raising a live boy, that boy growing up and learning his letters off gravestones and his life’s philosophy from the perspective of dead but well-meaning people; well, it’s just a great idea, and it’s perfectly presented by Gaiman. My kids love it too. This is the kind of book that will be revisited in my house often. In addition, I’d say that if you have a Harry Potter fan on your Christmas list, this book might be just the right fit, and it has the added bonus of introducing him or her to the likes of Neil Gaiman, which in turn could open that fan up to the rest of the world of books as well.

Gaiman also narrates, and like I’ve said elsewhere, he’s one of the few authors I’ve heard that could make a comfortable living as an audiobook narrator. I can’t imagine this audiobook being read by someone else, and I’m very happy that it isn’t.

Edited to add the SFFaudio Essential, which was forgotten by the reviewer. He has been sacked.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

The SFFaudio Podcast #009

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #009 – is a podcast that’s cool for kids and disturbing for adults! We don’t set the bar high enough.

If you were a super hero who would you be?

Me? I’d be like Batman, but with less hypocrisy.

Topics discussed include:
Escape Pod, John Joseph Adams, Seeds Of Change, The Living Dead, Brilliance Audio, epic Fantasy, Wizards First Rule, Terry Goodkind, Legend Of The Seeker, HBO, Tru Blood, Charlaine Harris, Foundation, Mercedes Lackey, Sam Tsouvias, Recorded Books, Elantris, Brandon Sanderson, L. Ron Hubbard, Danger In The Dark, The Iron Duke, Blackstone Audio, The Halloween Tree, Colonial Radio Theatre, Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Korean ghosts, Valis, Philip K. Dick, spiritual Science Fiction, The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman, Coraline, LibriVox.org, ALAN E. NOURSE, Star Surgeon, Scott D. Farquhar, Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 008, Tobias Buckell, JJA’s review, Orson Scott Card, Gene Wolfe, METAtropolis, The Aeneid, Batman vs. Superman, Friedrich Nietzsche, Master Morality and Slave Morality, Sleeping Beauty, Ross MacDonald, Audio Partners, The Zebra-Striped Hearse,

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #005

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #005 is alive! Recorded at 5 am! By 5 (minus 3) people! We don’t claim to make sense.

Topics discussed include:

A Bite Of Stars, A Slug Of Time And Thou, Samuel R. Delany, Aye, and Gomorrah, arty Science Fiction, Resonance FM, Dangerous Visions, Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Read, Fantasy, Muhammad, figurative art, movies about Jesus, movies about Buddha,
Paraworld Zero, Matthew Peterson, Audible.com, Audible Frontiers, John Varley, The Persistence Of Vision, Press Enter, Titan, Wizard, Demon, Wonder Audio, The Status Civilization, Robert Sheckley, Mark Douglas Nelson, The Accidental Time Machine, Joe Haldeman, Camouflage, Tobias S. Buckell, Sly Mongoose, Macmillan Audio, Old Man’s War, The Addams Family, Netflix, DVDs, new formats, VHS, Laserdiscs, Apple TV, iPod, Philippa Ballantine (she rented John Carpenter’s The Thing through iTunes), The Office, NBC, Zoe’s Tale, John Scalzi, Paul Williams, LibriVox.org, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Caspak Series, Tantor Audio, John Carter Of Mars, Waiting For A Window, Frederick Greenhalgh, William Dufris, The Grist Mill, The Slasher, F. Paul Wilson, Aural Noir, Joe R. Lansdale, The God Of The Razor, LibriVox’s Ghost Story Collection #006, Robert E. Howard, Gods Of The North, Solomon Kane, Conan, H.G. Wells, The Red Room, Robert Barr, The Man Who Was Not On The Passenger List, Nightfall, CBC, Stephen King, Blood And Smoke, 1408, The Red Room, ghosts, Simon & Schuster Audio, BoingBoing.net, The Ellsberg Paradox, fear, the unknown, Jaws, H.P. Lovecraft, The Statement Of Randolph Carter, Audio Realms, Wayne June.

Posted by Jesse Willis