Tag: horror

Radio Tales Of The Strange & Fantastic

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Radio Tales Of The Strange & FantasticRadio Tales Of The Strange & Fantastic is a website devoted to “bring[ing] you stories of the supernatural and the supernormal dramatizing the fantasies and the mysteries of the unknown.” The webmaster, Rich Carlson, has as his goal a “no frills (and no ads, no pop ups, no cookies) in a single page” of the best in OTR Speculative Fiction. And that’s just what it is! Newcomers to classic science fiction, fantasy, horror and adventure radio plays and long time fans of the medium can easily locate and download some of the best examples of the art form. RToTSF links to more than 50 hours of public domain favorites. With particular focus on the well-known novel and short story writers whose speculative works reached a wider audience via radio. Featured authors include the likes of:

Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Ambrose Bierce, Algernon Blackwood, Ray Bradbury, Fredric Brown, John Brunner, Arthur C. Clarke, L. Sprague de Camp, Guy de Maupassant, Arthur Conan Doyle, H. Rider Haggard, Robert A. Heinlein, Shirley Jackson, M. R. James, Fritz Leiber, Murray Leinster, H.P. Lovecraft, Archibald MacLeish, Edgar Allan Poe, Frederik Pohl, Robert Silverberg, Curt Siodmak, Carl Stephenson, Dalton Trumbo, H. Russell Wakefield, Stanley Weinbaum, H. G. Wells, Jack Vance and Roger Zelazny.

This is a site worthy of repeated visits.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Happy Public Domain Day 2008!

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Commentary

CopyrightWatch.caSince the inception of the SFFaudio in 2003, and especially since the SFFaudio Challenge back in 2006, there have been many queries directed my way about copyright. I’ve had no formal training, but having a blog and getting questions about it means I’ve had to learn quite a bit about it. Copyright is a form of protection grounded in law granting original works of artistic creation protection for a set period. Various copyright laws are in force in many countries of the world. One source I’ve found for my own country is the indispensable CopyrightWatch.ca blog. As today is the first of 2008, this day marks the birth of many new public domain works. As CopyrightWatch author Wallace McLean points out “thousands, indeed millions, of creative works from the collective cultural past of our little planet and its many countries [become] Public Domain [today] in most countries of the world” That makes January 1st a birthday party of sorts! Included amongst the newly public domain works are some by notable SFF authors. Here are a few of the details from the extensive post on the blog…

In the largest bloc of countries of the world, with the majority of the world’s population, the general copyright term of life+50 expired no later than midnight this morning for the works whose author, or last-surviving of multiple authors, died in 1957. These works, which have passed out of copyright and become part of our commonly-held cultural heritage, include works of art and literature, accounts of discovery and adventure, biographies and autobiographies, scientific and philosopical treatises, film and theology, architecture and poetry; in short, products of the human mind in every medium, in every field of creativity, discovery, and endeavour.

The life+50 class of the newly-Public Domain includes:

The King Of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord DunsanyAnglo-Irish fantasy writer Lord Dunsany

Brigands Of The Moon by Ray CummingsAmerican pulp sci-fi author Ray Cummings

And many more!




The second-largest bloc in the world copyright map, with about half the countries of the life+50 universe, is the life+70 universe, which includes much of Europe (this means that works by authors, or last-surviving authors, who died in 1937 are now public domain in the life+70 countries. Authors or other creators of “works” who died in 1937) include:

The Dunwich Horror and Others by H.P. LovecraftAmerican fantasy and science fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft

Peter Pan In Kensington Gardens by J.M. BarrieScottish novelist and dramatist J.M. Barrie

And many more!


In the United States, unpublished works by the life+70 class of authors are also in the public domain as of today, joining published works by the same authors, if published before 1923. Published works by those auhors, if published after 1922, may still by under copyright in the U.S. In Canada and the United Kingdom, however, the situation is reversed. While published works by authors who died 50 or more years ago are public domain in Canada (or more than 70 years ago in the U.K.), unpublished works, such as letters and other papers, are still under copyright in Canada for works by authors who died after 1949, and in the U.K. for unpublished works by all authors, no matter how long ago they died. This anamolous class of unpublished works will not see their British Public Domain Day until January 1, 2039, or in Canada until January 1, 2049, unless and until the Parliaments of the two countries finally see fit to eliminate this confusing and culturally counterproductive bit of legislative stupidity.

…

Also entering the public domain around the world today are works of anonymous or pseudonymous authorship which were published in 1957 (or whichever other year applies according to your local copyright term for such works.)

But let us nevertheless pause to celebrate the gains that the public domain has made today, in Canada and throughout the world. It’s your past, your cultural heritage, your public domain. Promote it, celebrate it, and use it, or we will lose it.


Happy Public Domain Day 2008! If you start making audiobooks or audio dramas out of these author’s works let me know. I’ll make links!

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBC Radio 4 @ Xmas: Roald Dahl and M.R. James

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

BBC Radio 4 has two non-Xmasy programs on the schedule for the week of Xmas.

BBC Radio 4The Witches
By Roald Dahl; Performed by full casts
2 Parts Approx 2 Hours[AUDIO DRAMA]
BROADCASTER: BBC RADIO 4
BROADCAST: Sunday 23 December and Sunday December 30th 2007 @ 3.00-4.00pm
A boy who has lost his parents in a car crash is looked after by his Norwegian grandmother. She tells the boy how to identify witches – they are bald (with wigs that itch), have no toes (but they wear fashionable shoes), gloved hands (to hide their long fingernails), large nostrils (to sniff out children) and blue spittle. Fortunately, the boy and his grandmother live in Norway where they are safest from the meanest witches, who spirit away children at the drop of a hat. However, the reading of the boy’s father’s will sends him and his grandmother to England, where the world’s most dangerous witches live. The boy finds himself trapped in a Bournemouth hotel ballroom where groups of witches meet, masquerading as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. As the Grand High Witch whips the meeting into a child-hating frenzy, the witches discover the boy and force him to drink a potion which turns him into a mouse. He then has to run for his life.”

M.R. James At Christmas
By M.R. James; Perfomed by full casts
Five Broadcasts – Approx 75 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
BROADCAST: @ 19:45 December 24th-28th
Introduced by Derek Jacobi as MRJ, the stories are Oh Whistle And I’ll Come To You My Lad, The Tractate Middoth, Lost Hearts, The Rose Garden and Number 13.

Thanks Roy!

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases – 5 Classic SF Titles – Wonder Audio

Time Traveler

SFFaudio New Releases

Five classic Science Fiction tales. Five more reasons to set up an audible.com or iTunes account.

[editor’s note – These titles below all come from a fellow editor’s audiobook company (Wonder Audiobooks). I’m begging you to give them a try. Its hard to appear purely fannish about these stories (given that I’m such good friends with the publisher) so I’ll just forget about trying to appear altogether unbiased and say these are really terrific listens. Fondly Fahrenheit alone will make you scream for joy. Reet!]

fondly_fahrenheit_150.jpgFondly Fahrenheit & Will You Wait?
By Alfred Bester; Read by Pat Bottino
70 min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audiobooks
Availiable at Audible and
Androids cannot kill! Yet that is the case for James Vandaleur’s rare multiple-aptitude android. Feeling he has no choice, Vandaleur flees the authorities, and finds himself in encompassed in even more horrendous murders. The heat is affecting the man-made servant, but scarier still is what is effecting Vandaleur’s mind. A pyrotechnic tour de forceby one the greatest writer and stylist of science fiction.

Chosen by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America as one of the greatest science fiction stories.

Cover - It's a Good LifeIt’s a Good Life
By Jerome Bixby; Read by William Dufris
51 min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audiobooks
Availiable at Audible and
What is more idyllic than a small mid-western agricultural town? Peaksville would sound like a scene right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Except , little Anthony is a monster! What happens when a child is omnipotent, and with his mind he can execute his every desire and petulant whim? Tonight, there’s a birthday party for Dan Hollis at Anthony’s house. It’s a party all the townspeople will remember . . . always!

Another story voted as one of the greatest stories by SFFWA. The story was adapted into a classic Twilight Zone episode.

devil-on-salvation-bluf-150.jpgThe Devil on Salvation Bluff
By Jack Vance; Read by Candace Platt
61 min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audiobooks
Availiable at Audible and
On the planet, Glory, missionaries live in a constant unpredictable environment. Sister Mary and her husband, Brother Raymond, try to contend with the flits, which live satyr-like existences. The missionaries are exasperated with this world’s seemingly disregard for cause and effect. The only constant is the clock that they brought with them. And therein lies the problem.

the-game-of-rat-and-dragon-150.jpgThe Game of Rat and Dragon
By Cordwainer Smith; Read by Matthew Wayne Selznick33 min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audiobooks
Availiable at Audible and
Future humanity has found the secret of faster-than-light travel, but it comes with great dangers. To minimize these dangers, man can pilot ships through the up-and-out with cats as their partners. Underhill share his mind with his cat-partner, the Lady May, and must travel to the terrible open places between the stars. Only be working together can they defend themselves and the ship’s passengers against the dragons in the emptiness of space.

last-of-the-deliverers-150.jpgThe Last of the Deliverers
By Poul Anderson; Read by William Coon
32 min – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audiobooks
Availiable at Audible and
A small town in Ohio leads a peaceful Utopian existence in a world after the collapse of the super powers. Their pastoral existence is rattled when an old communist comes to their village. Uncle Jim, the resident old capitalist wages an ideological battle with the traveling guest to the townspeople’s dismay.

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Yorker Fiction Podcast: Jorge Luis Borges’s The Gospel According to Mark

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

At first blush this Borges story may not appear SFFaudio related, it certainly isn’t Science Fiction or Fantasy, it isn’t set in the future, doesn’t have any magic or legendary creatures – but I’m firmly in the camp that it is still relevant to us – we cover horror too you know. But still, this isn’t the “boogeyman-under-the-bed-with-a-sweetmeats-fetish” horror – it’s moral horror, the “oh the humanity” horror – the kind of horror that fills both Kurtz and Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness. Listen up folks because The Gospel According To Mark (first published in The New Yorker on October 23, 1971) is read by travel writer extraordinare Paul Theroux! And be sure to listen for Theroux’s ruminations, with The New Yorker’s fiction editor Deborah Treisman, on Borges and the tale itself – it’s found at the end of the story…

Fiction (from the New Yorker) PodcastThe Gospel According To Mark
By Jorge Luis Borges; Read by Paul Theroux
1 |MP3| Approx. 22 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Fiction (a New yorker Podcast)
Podcast: October 15th 2007
Espinosa, a medical student, discovers that traditional religious ideals overcome the morality of human beings.

You can subscribe to the podcast via this url:

http://feeds.newyorker.com/services/rss/feeds/fiction_podcast.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox Short Horror Story Collection #2 – out now

Dave

sffaudio online audio

With two stories by H. P. Lovecraft and a Solomon Kane story by Robert Howard, there was no way that I could resist this latest LibriVox offering. Tales of horror and stories of the weird by the masters at the bargain price of $0.00.

Horror Story Collection 2
10 MP3 files – 2 hours 39 minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 15th, 2007

“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.”

1. A Ghoul’s Accountant
By Stephen Crane; Read by Julie Bynum
1 |MP3| Approx. 6 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

2. Ex Oblivione
By Howard Phillips Lovecraft; Read by Maxim Lenyadin
1 |MP3| – Approx. 7 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

3. The Picture In The House
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by: Glen Hallstrom
1 |MP3| – Approx. 20.5 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

4. Rattle of Bones
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Paul Siegel
1 |MP3| – Approx. 14.5 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

5. The Raven
By Edgar Allen Poe; Read by: Zoe Earley
1 |MP3| – Approx. 8 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

6. The Soul of the Great Bell
By Lafcadio Hearn; Read by Paul Sze
1 |MP3| – Approx. 16 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

7. The Story of Mimi Nashi Hoichi
By Lafcadio Hearne; Read by Mark Nelson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 24 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

8. The Tell-Tale Heart
By Edgar Allen Poe; Read by Sharontzu
1 |MP3| – Approx. 17 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

9. The Spider
By Hans Heinz Ewers; Read by DrWombat
1 |MP3| – Approx. 42 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

10. The Thing at Ghent
By Honore de Balzac; Read by Julie Bynum
1 |MP3| – Approx 4 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

Get the complete audiobook in a big zipped file [zip], or use the
podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/horror-story-collection-002.xml

Posted by Dave Tackett.