The SFFaudio Podcast #458 – The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton, read by Zachary Brewster-Geisz.
This UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOK (5 Hours 51 Minutes) comes to us courtesy of LibriVox. A PDF of it is available on our PDF Page.
We will discuss The Man Who Was Thursday next week.
Posted by Jesse Willis
My friend Mr Jim Moon has been podcasting marvelous stories and essays from the “great library of dreams” for five years. But he’s just now started a Patreon campaign! And I’ve just signed up to support his great endeavor.
If you’ve not heard his show, Hypnogoria, you’ve been missing out.
Mr Jim Moon is to the weird and the wonderful what Dan Carlin is to history and politics.
There has never been anything like Hypnogoria before, and podcasting is the only medium in which it could exist.
Hypnogoria is the most thoroughly researched and thoroughly executed oral history of the “weird and the wonderful” you’ll ever hear.
Here are just some subjects that Mr Jim Moon has done episodes about:
the history of werewolfery
the history of Hammer and Amicus films
the life and films of Sir Christopher Lee
the life and films of Peter Cushing
the life and books of Sir Terry Pratchett
the stories of H.P. Lovecraft
the ghost stories of M.R. James
the history of Batman
the stories of Clark Ashton Smith
the stories of G.K. Chesterton
the history of Halloween
the history of zombie movies
the stories of William Hope Hodgson
the life and books of Richard Matheson
the stories of E.F. Benson
the life and films of Ray Harryhausen
the origin of Alien
the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
the stories of H.G. Wells
the stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe
the history of found footage films
the life and films of Vincent Price
the stories of Guy de Maupassant
and those are just the shows I remember!
Check it out Hypnogoria HERE and, the Patreon HERE.
Posted by Jesse Willis
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
Re-runs don not suck at all when they are this good! Today and for the week coming there starts a new batch of terrific old shows on BBC7. And remember there is a promise of ahead of some Arthur C. Clarke too…
“Gimmicks Three” and “Light Verse”
By Isaac Asimov; Read by William Roberts
1 Part – [UNABRIDGED?]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Saturday at 6pm and midnight
A mild mannered elderly lady behaves completely out of character when her house-guest goes behind her back and fixes Max – her malfunctioning robotic manservant.
An oldie but a goodie (if goodie means Eldritch)…
The Tomb
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by Ryan McCluskey
1 Part – [UNABRIDGED?]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Sunday at 6.30pm and 12.30am
First published in 1917, this is a disturbing and Gothic tale by the influential horror writer, H.P. Lovecraft. Jervas Dudley narrates his story from an asylum, describing the sinister events leading up to his incarceration.
A 1978 BBC Radio 4 production…
The Destruction Factor
By James Follett; Performed by a full cast
5 Parts – [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Monday to Friday at 6pm and midnight
This ecological sci-fi tale, very much ahead of its time, is written by the man behind Earthsearch, novelist James Follet. Ralph Exon has created a new strain of plant for an international fertiliser corporation. It’s hoped that this “mutation” will bring relief to the famine ridden countries of the world. In itself, the plant looks quite innocent, but within it, there lurks…. the Destruction Factor.
And a complete novel, in its entirety…
The Man Who Was Thursday
By G.K. Chesterton; Read by Geoffrey Palmer
5 Parts – [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Monday to Friday at 6.30pm and 12.30am
Written in 1908, is an extravaganza presuming the existence in Edwardian London of a secret society of anarchists sworn to destroy the world. There are seven members of the Central Anarchists Council who, for reasons of security, call themselves after the days of the week. Events soon cast a doubt upon their real identities, however, for Thursday is not the passionate young poet he appears to be, but a Scotland Yard detective. Who, and what, are the others then? The author unravels this surreal part-fantasy, part-thriller in his own inventive and exuberant way, using the nightmare of paradox and surprise to probe the mysteries of human behaviour and belief.
Posted by Jesse Willis