News, Reviews, and Commentary on all forms of science fiction, fantasy, and horror audio. Audiobooks, audio drama, podcasts; we discuss all of it here. Mystery, crime, and noir audio are also fair game.
H.P. Lovecraft fans take heed, this fascinating and informative interview is absolutely unmissable!
S.T. Joshi‘s matter-of-fact description of Cthulhu’s decent into the Pacific Ocean made me think of Philip K. Dick’s own godlike alien (the Glimmung) in Galactic Pot Healer.
Changesurfer Radio – S.T. Joshi – Lurking Terror: H.P. Lovecraft’s Socialism
Interviewer Dr. J. Hughes
2 MP3 Files – Approx. 29 Minutes [INTERVIEW]
Broadcaster: WHUS / Changesurfer Radio
Broadcast: Friday, September 21, 2001 Recorded and broadcast on University of Connecticut’s radio station, WHUS, this is an interview with weird fiction scholar S.T. Joshi about H.P. Lovecraft’s life and political views.
Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3|
Talked about on today’s show:
Scott’s virtual velvet lounge (has a jazz band), Dream Park, Jerry Pournelle, Stefan Rudnicki, Scott ranked it 3/5 stars on GoodReads.com, zombies, cargo cult, murder mystery, World Of Warcraft, LARPing, the wikipedia entry for Dream Park, The Barsoom Project, Seventh Victim by Robert Sheckley, Dungeons And Dragons, The California Voodoo Game, Dream Park is much more interesting than DisneyWorld, Niven novels have robotic personal interactions, misogyny, The Mote In God’s Eye, Lucifer’s Hammer, Around The World In Eighty Days by Jules Verne |READ OUR REVIEW|, the murder provides a plot, California, holographic technology, H.P. Lovecraft, Alex Griffin, “The South Seas Treasure Game”, cementing relationships through gaming, Zork, “open mailbox”, Infocom, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, Baldur’s Gate, Tolkien-derived adventure play, the least interesting part of Dungeons & Dragons is the mechanics, too many players (characters), Call of Cthulhu (role-playing game), pen and paper RPGs can be incredibly immersive, consensual hallucination, William Gibson, Community‘s spoof of Dungeons and Dragons, The IT Crowd, Fallout 2, Fallout 3, avoid the “Dunwich Building”, Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn, RPG mechanics can get in the way of RPG storytelling, reality game shows, The Amazing Race, 1980s Dungeons & Dragons hysteria, Mazes And Monsters, comic book hysteria, video game hysteria, StarCraftas a lifestyle, The Guild, the Afterword of Dream Park is missing from the audiobook, Papua New Guinea, Inuit mythology, Mars, has time been kind to Dream Park?, Audible Frontiers, “this is weakest Larry Niven book I’ve ever read”, The Dungeon Master: The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III by William Dear, Columbine by Dave Cullen |READ OUR REVIEW|, psychopath, the problem of psychopathy, parental responsibility, The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, Minority Report, gesture control, the Spruce Goose, The Aviator, Martin Scorsese, WWII, HBO’s The Pacific, World War II in HD, the Battle of Saipan, HBO’s Band Of Brothers, Australia, Chicago, Museum Of Science And Industry, submarines, San Francisco, Get Lamp, Helvetica (a documentary on a font), Futura, Gothic doesn’t look gothic in Helvetica, narrators are like the fonts of audiobooks,
Robert E. Howard sold The Thing On The Roof, a thirteen page horror story, to Weird Tales for $40. It is one of his Cthulhu Mythos Tales. As such it is set within the universe created by H.P. Lovecraft. I think I first encountered it in David Drake’s 1986 Baen Book Cthulhu: The Mythos And Kindred Horrors. But, after looking through my Robert E. Howard paperbacks collection I note that it was also hidden within my 1976 Zebra edition of Pigeons From Hell, edited by Glenn Lord . Can you believe The Thing On The Roof wasn’t listed on the table of contents?!?!
Was that supposed to be funny? An easter egg?
Strangely, The Thing On The Roof features a book collector who’s after a book that doesn’t have all of its contents either. Or maybe this mystery is indicative of something just a little more sinister. I’m seeing more odd parallels here. See, my avocation has been book collecting ever since I visited the Yucatan! And there’s a creepy stone object I got while down in Mexico – maybe it’s cursed?
Wait, who is that clomping on my apartment door? I better finish this post before I answer it.
To sum up, The Thing On The Roof is available, complete and unabridged, over on the Cthulhu Podcast. It is read by FNH, who also recorded The Insidious Doctor Fu Manchu awhile back. Highly recommended:
The Thing On The Roof
By Robert E. Howard; Read by FNH
1 |MP3| – Approx. 22 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Cthulhu Podcast
Podcast: May 15, 2011
|ETEXT| An archaeologists, and book collector, is asked by an old rival to find a copy of the obscure first edition of Friedrich Wilheim von Junzt’s Nameless Cults. He may live to regret the favour. First published in the February 1932 issue of Weird Tales.
Also, check out the excellent Roy Thomas adaptation done for Marvel Comics’ Chamber Of Chills issue #3 back in 1972 (available at the Diversions Of The Groovy Kind blog):
The SFFaudio Podcast #109 – a complete and unabridged reading of The Hanging Stranger by Philip K. Dick. First up, the complete story from Wonder Audio, followed by a discussion of it with Jesse, Scott, and Tamahome.
The book: While on a architectural tour of New England, a man visits the isolated port of Innsmouth. Locals from neighboring towns view the place with suspicion and treat the odd-looking Innsmouth natives with disgust. While there, he hears rumors of strange goings-on and investigates further. His investigations turn up more than he expects.
This is a dark and frightening tale that also causes some unease when it comes to digging beneath the surface as a modern-day reader. Lovecraft is obviously drawing upon pre-War racist attitudes and fears of miscegenation in his portrayal of the Innsmouth people. He shows mistrust of non-Western people and their “demonic” religions. Though thematically distasteful, this novella is probably my favorite H.P. Lovecraft story, though I can’t say I’ve read Lovecraft’s entire oeuvre.
Rating: 8/10
The reader: Puckett narrates this story in a melancholy tone that fits well with the mood. For characters like Zadoc, he drops into a believable-enough dialect. He has a few repeats of phrases and there is some background noise, but otherwise this is a good recording.
Written in three days (October 16–19, 1924), this classic H.P. Lovecraft short was published posthumously in Weird Tales. If you’re Lovecraft fan you may already know that the dwelling of the title was a real building, which still stands at 135 Benefit Street in Providence, Rhode Island. Today, a strange, nigh gargantuan tree o’rehangs it (viewable at 41°49′46.9″N 71°24′30.5″W). Kind of makes you wonder what nourishes the roots of such monstrous vegetation. Doesn’t it?
The Shunned House
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour 8 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 19, 2010
|ETEXT|
“A tale of revolting horror in the cellar of an old house in New England.” First published in the October 1937 issue of Weird Tales.
Changesurfer Radio – S.T. Joshi – Lurking Terror: H.P. Lovecraft’s Socialism
Written in three days (October 16–19, 1924), this classic H.P. Lovecraft short was published posthumously in Weird Tales. If you’re Lovecraft fan you may already know that the dwelling of the title was a real building, which still stands at 135 Benefit Street in Providence, Rhode Island. Today, a strange, nigh gargantuan tree o’rehangs it (viewable at 
