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.
I’m not much for re-reading books. I will do it, but I usually prefer a new book to even a fondly remembered one. But I do make exceptions, now and again. One book, which I re-read on what is fast becoming a seasonal basis is Jack London’s The Call Of The Wild. I can’t say I get more and more out of it every time I read it, but I do find that it’s many charms are highly resilient to repeated reading, that its lessons are true, in a way only fiction can deliver, and that it makes for a terrific source of entertainment when read aloud. Go on, read this passage aloud:
Buck staggered over against the sled, exhausted, sobbing for breath, helpless. This was Spitz’s opportunity. He sprang upon Buck, and twice his teeth sank into his unresisting foe and ripped and tore the flesh to the bone. Then François’s lash descended, and Buck had the satisfaction of watching Spitz receive the worst whipping as yet administered to any of the teams.
“One devil, dat Spitz,” remarked Perrault. “Some dam day heem keel dat Buck.”
“Dat Buck two devils,” was François’s rejoinder. “All de tam I watch dat Buck I know for sure. Lissen: some dam fine day heem get mad lak hell an’ den heem chew dat Spitz all up an’ spit heem out on de snow. Sure. I know.”
From then on it was war between them.
Another part of my love for The Call Of The Wild probably comes from my personal connection to the landscape and the romanticism of it all – and frankly that’s completely crazy! I’ve never mushed a dogsled, never faced a starving pack of rabid huskies and have never even been to the Yukon Territory! But, in my defense, I’ve known dog-sledders, lived in a remote northern British Columbia community, and made personal contact with hungry black-bears (on more than one occasion). Heck, I even had partial ownership of two Siberian Huskies for a while. Jack London is a smashing writer and I’m still rather embarrassed to admit there’s one book of his that I’m pretty sure I haven’t read (at least since I was a kid). And that’s this one, White Fang, the spiritual sequel, the opposite number, the bloody companion book to my beloved The Call Of The Wild!
So, now I have a question. Who will take up this adventure with me, listening or reading, for perhaps the first time, to Jack London’s immortal novel White Fang? Leave a comment, let me know if you’d like to participate in an upcoming SFFaudio Podcast Readalong for White Fang.
White Fang
By Jack London; Read by Mark F. Smith 25 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 7 Hours 44 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 03, 2010 When White Fang is birthed in a cave to a wolf sire and a wolf/dog halfbreed dam, he is heir to two traditions. At first he is content to explore and learn laws of the Wild. But then his mother is caught and held by old memories of a past relationship with Man, and White Fang follows her into service with the Indians. Life among sled dogs is hardly less cruel and dangerous than living in the Wild, but brutality notches upward when his drunken master sells him to a nasty, twisted hanger-on at a riverside town of white men. He is stripped of everything soft and gentle when forced to fight to the death for a crowd of bettors. Taming this savage spirit and reclaiming the nobility within looks impossible. Fortunately, and heart-warmingly, a man arrives in White Fang’s life to try. “White Fang” is often called the mirror image of Jack London’s acclaimed “The Call of the Wild” in which a dog follows the reverse arc from tame to free.
The Iron Heel, one of the books from our 4th Annual SFFaudio Challenge. It is now complete and available free from LibriVox! Narrator Matt Soar sez:
I have just this afternoon finally finished the last chapter of Jack London’s The Iron Heel. Phew! It’s been quite an experience – begun in Montreal, completed in France, six months in the making.
He actually wrote that two months ago. See, Matt decided to make a planned creative commons release release PUBLIC DOMAIN! Woohoo! It’s on LibriVox and it has now been catalogued!
And, over in the “about” section of Matt’s site, TheIronHeel.net Matt wrote:
The entire experience has been intriguing, if not uncanny: The story, about an overbearing, immoral government characterized by deception, torture, and warmongering, against a background of civilian exploitation and religious zealotry, is mainly remarkable for the fact that it was written a hundred years ago — rather than, say, five.
Perhaps the only aspects of The Iron Heel that really age it are its breathlessly romantic heroine, occasionally prosaic language, and the author’s fleeting use of dubious terms to describe ethnic minorities. These quibbles aside, I’m really glad I took the time to record it, and hope you enjoy it too.
The Iron Heel
By Jack London; Read by Matt Soar 26 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 8 Hours 18 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox / TheIronHeel.net
Published: July 16, 2010 Generally considered to be the earliest of the modern dystopian novels, The Iron Heel chronicles the rise of an oligarchic tyranny in the United States. It is arguably the novel in which Jack London’s socialist views are most explicitly on display. A forerunner of “soft science fiction” novels and stories of the 1960s and 1970s, the book stresses future changes in society and politics while paying much less attention to technological changes.
If there’s one public domain novel I don’t mind seeing endless re-releases and re-recordings of it’s this one…
The Call Of The Wild
By Jack London; Read by Jeff Daniels
CDs – Approx. 3 Hours 12 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: May 25, 2010
ISBN: 9780307710260
Sample |MP3| Jack London’s The Call Of The Wild was written in 1903, but Buck’s gripping adventure makes for a thrilling listen on audio more than 100 years after it was first published. This gripping story follows the adventures of the loyal dog Buck, who is stolen from his comfortable family home and forced into the harsh life of an Alaskan sled dog. Passed from master to master, Buck embarks on an extraordinary journey that ends with his becoming the legendary leader of a wolf pack.
Now this should be interesting…
Wolf: The Lives of Jack London
By James L. Haley; Read by Bronson Pinchot
10 CDs or 1 Mp3-CD – Approx. 13 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: May 25, 2010
ISBN: 9781441758965 (cd), 9781441758972 (mp3-cd) Jack London was born a working-class, fatherless San Franciscan in 1876. In his youth, he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling west coast—by and by playing the role of hobo, sailor, and oyster pirate. From his vantage point at the margins of Gilded Age America, he witnessed such iniquity and abuses that he became a life long socialist and advocate for reform. His adventures in the American wilderness and underworld informed his fiction, and his writing came to captivate the nation as it defined his era. Within his own short lifetime, London became the most popular, and bestselling, author of his generation. By adulthood he had matured into the iconic American author of such still-universally loved books as The Call Of The Wild, White Fang, and Sea Wolf, but in spite of his success, he was at war with himself. The highest-paid writer in America, he was constantly broke. Famous as he was for conjuring the brutality of nature in story after story and novel after novel, upon the actual deaths of his favorite animals he would dissolve into helpless tears. Sick, angry, and disillusioned, after a short, breathless life, he passed away at age forty, but he left behind him a glorious literary legacy. Award-winning author James L. Haley explores the forgotten Jack London—a man bristling with ideas, whose passion for social justice roared until the day he died. In Wolf, Haley returns Jack London to his proper place in the American pantheon, resurrecting the author of White Fang in his full fire and glory.
Made by makers…
Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World
By Mark Frauenfelder; Read by Kirby Heyborne
7 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – Approx. 8 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: June 07, 2010
ISBN: 9781400117819 (cd), 9781400167814 (mp3-cd) From his unique vantage point as editor in chief of Make magazine, the hub of the newly invigorated do-it-yourself (DIY) movement, Mark Frauenfelder takes listeners on an inspiring and surprising tour of the vibrant world of DIY. The Internet has brought together large communities of people who share ideas, tips, and blueprints for making everything from unmanned aerial vehicles to pedal-powered iPhone chargers to an automatic cat feeder jury-rigged from a VCR. DIY is a direct reflection of our basic human desire to invent and improve, long suppressed by the availability of cheap, mass-produced products that have drowned us in bland convenience and cultivated our most wasteful habits. Frauenfelder spent a year trying a variety of offbeat projects, such as keeping chickens and bees, tricking out his espresso machine, whittling wooden spoons, making guitars out of cigar boxes, and doing citizen science with his daughters in the garage. His whole family found that DIY helped them take control of their lives, offering a path that was simple, direct, and clear. Working with their hands and minds helped them feel more engaged with the world around them.
Frauenfelder reveals how DIY is changing our culture for the better. He profiles fascinating “alpha makers” leading various DIY movements and grills them for their best tips and insights. Beginning his journey with hands as smooth as those of a typical geek, Frauenfelder offers a unique perspective on how earning a few calluses can be far more rewarding and satisfying than another trip to the mall.
I always bet on the man with the bigger mustache…
Deathride: Hitler vs. Stalin—the Eastern Front, 1941-1945
By John Mosier; Read by Michael Prichard
10 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – Approx. 12.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: June 15, 2010
ISBN: 9781400117369 (cd), 9781400167364 (mp3-cd) John Mosier presents a revisionist retelling of the war on the Eastern Front. Although the Eastern Front was the biggest and most important theater in World War II, it is not well known in the United States, as no American troops participated in the fighting. Yet historians agree that this is where the decisive battles of the war were fought. The conventional wisdom about the Eastern Front is that Hitler was mad to think he could defeat the USSR because of its vast size and population, and that the Battle of Stalingrad marked the turning point of the war. Neither statement is accurate, says Mosier; Hitler came very close to winning outright. Mosier’s history of the Eastern Front will generate considerable controversy both because of his unconventional arguments and because he criticizes historians who have accepted Soviet facts and interpretations. Mosier argues that Soviet accounts are utterly untrustworthy and that accounts relying on them are fantasies. Deathride argues that the war in the East was Hitler’s to lose, that Stalin was in grave jeopardy from the outset of the war, and that it was the Allied victories in North Africa and consequent threat to Italy that forced Hitler to change his plans and saved Stalin from near-certain defeat. Stalin’s only real triumph was in creating a legend of victory.
We’ve talked about it on the podcast, and here it is…
Terminal World
By Alastair Reynolds; Read by John Lee
15 Audio CDs or 2 MP3-CDs – Approx. 19.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Publisher: June 1, 2010
ISBN: 9781400117116(cd), 9781400167111 (mp3-cd) Spearpoint, the last human city, is an atmosphere-piercing spire of vast size. Clinging to its skin are the zones, a series of semi-autonomous city-states, each of which enjoys a different—and rigidly enforced—level of technology. Following an infiltration mission that went tragically wrong, Quillon has been living incognito, working as a pathologist in the district morgue. But when a near-dead angel drops onto his dissecting table, Quillon’s world is wrenched apart one more time. If Quillon is to save his life, he must leave his home and journey into the cold and hostile lands beyond Spearpoint’s base, starting an exile that will take him further than he could ever imagine. But there is far more at stake than just Quillon’s own survival, for the limiting technologies of the zones are determined not by governments or police but by the very nature of reality—and reality itself is showing worrying signs of instability.
Death Cloud is the first in a series of novels in which Sherlock Holmes is re-imagined as “a brilliant, troubled and engaging teenager”…
Young Sherlock Holmes: Death Cloud
By Andrew Lane; Read by Dan Stevens
3 CDs – Approx. 3 Hours [ABRIDGED?]
Publisher: Pan Macmillian Audio
Published: June 2010
ISBN: 9780230745124 The year is 1868, and Sherlock Holmes is fourteen. His life is that of a perfectly ordinary army officer’s son: boarding school, good manners, a classical education – the backbone of the British Empire. But all that is about to change. With his father suddenly posted to India, and his mother mysteriously ‘unwell’, Sherlock is sent to stay with his eccentric uncle and aunt in their vast house in Hampshire. So begins a summer that leads Sherlock to uncover his first murder, a kidnap, corruption and a brilliantly sinister villain of exquisitely malign intent…
Here’s a fun, and approximately antipodean, compliment to Jack London’s stupendous novel The Call Of The Wild. Set in 1880s South Africa, it is a set of semi-fictional stories about an English Staffordshire Bull Terrier named Jock. According to a book called National Character In South African Children’s Literature it was none other than Rudyard Kipling who persuaded James Percy Fitzpatrick to collect his Jock tales in book form. Now that is quite a provenance!
Jock Of The Bushveld
By Sir Percy Fitzpatrick; Read by various 28 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 12 Hours 46 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Publisher: March 19, 2010 Jock of the Bushveld is a true story by South African author Sir Percy Fitzpatrick when he worked as a storeman, prospector’s assistant, journalist and ox-wagon transport-rider. The book tells of Fitzpatrick’s travels with his dog, Jock, during the 1880s. Jock was saved by Fitzpatrick from being drowned in a bucket for being the runt of the litter. Jock was very loyal towards Percy, and brave. Jock was an English Staffordshire Bull Terrier.
Admittedly, not all of the available titles in this sale are unabridged, but they mostly are. There are a dozen SFF titles, plenty of crime, mystery and noir as well as a shelfload of history audiobooks. There are even a couple of audio dramas in there.
Here’s just a smattering of what excited me:
THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; read by Ben Kingsley THE AENEID by Virgil; read by Frederick Davidson BABYLON BABIES by Maurice G. Dantec; read by Joe Barrett THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London; read by Ethan Hawke CASINO ROYALE by Ian Fleming; read by Simon Vance CHRISTOPHER’S GHOSTS by Charles McCarry; read by Stefan Rudnicki A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT by Mark Twain; read by Carl Reiner CRIMINAL PARADISE by Steven M. Thomas; read by Patrick Lawlor THE DEAL by Peter Lefcourt; read by William H. Macy DEATH MATCH by Lincoln Child; read by Barrett Whitener |READ OUR REVIEW| DON QUIXOTE DE LA MANCHA by Miguel de Cervantes; read by Robert Whitfield EVIL, INC. by Glenn Kaplan; read by Glenn Kaplan THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX by Elleston Trevor; read by Grover Gardner FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley; read by Julie Harris FRANKENSTEIN, OR THE MODERN PROMETHEUS by Mary Shelley; read by Simon Templeman, Anthony Heald, and Stefan Rudnicki HOW TO SURVIVE A ROBOT UPRISING by Daniel H. Wilson; read by Stefan Rudnicki |READ OUR REVIEW| HUCK FINN AND TOM SAWYER AMONG THE INDIANS by Mark Twain and Lee Nelson; read by Grover Gardner I AM LEGEND by Richard Matheson; read by Robertson Dean |READ OUR REVIEW| I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves; read by Frederick Davidson THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS by Jack Finney; read by Kristoffer Tabori IT’S SUPERMAN! by Tom De Haven; read by Scott Brick JAMES BOND BOXED SET by Ian Fleming; read by Simon Vance KING KONG by Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper; novelization by Delos W. Lovelace; read by Stefan Rudnicki |READ OUR REVIEW| THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE by Richard Condon; read by Christopher Hurt THE MARTIAN CHILD by David Gerrold; read by Scott Brick MARTIAN TIME-SLIP AND THE GOLDEN MAN by Philip K. Dick; read by Grover Gardner MILDRED PIERCE by James M. Cain; read by Christine Williams MYSTIC WARRIOR by Tracy and Laura Hickman; read by Lloyd James PETER PAN by J.M. Barrie; read by Roe Kendall THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY by Oscar Wilde; read by Simon Vance THE PRESTIGE by Christopher Priest; read by Simon Vance QUANTUM OF SOLACE by Ian Fleming; read by Simon Vance RINGWORLD’S CHILDREN by Larry Niven; read by Barrett Whitener |READ OUR REVIEW| ROCKET SHIP GALILEO by Robert A Heinlein; read by Spider Robinson |READ OUR REVIEW| SUPERMAN RETURNS by Marv Wolfman; read by Scott Brick |READ OUR REVIEW| SWEENEY TODD AND THE STRING OF PEARLS by Yuri Rasovsky; read by a full cast TARZAN OF THE APES by Edgar Rice Burroughs; read by Ben Kingsley THE TEN-CENT PLAGUE by David Hajdu; read by Stefan Rudnicki THERMOPYLAE by Paul Cartledge; read by John Lee THE THREE MUSKETEERS by Alexandre Dumas; read by Michael York THE TIME MACHINE by H.G. Wells; read by Ben Kingsley THE TRIAL by Franz Kafka; read by Geoffrey Howard UTOPIA by Sir Thomas More; read by James Adams V FOR VENDETTA by Steve Moore; read by Simon Vance |READ OUR REVIEW| THE WAR OF THE WORLDS by H.G. Wells; read by Christopher Hurt WHERE’S MY JETPACK? by Daniel H. Wilson; read by Stefan Rudnicki |READ OUR REVIEW| THE WINTER OF FRANKIE MACHINE by Don Winslow; read by Dennis Boutsikaris THE WORLD ACCORDING TO NARNIA by Jonathan Rogers; read by Brian Emerson
I’m not much for re-reading books. I will do it, but I usually prefer a new book to even a fondly remembered one. But I do make exceptions, now and again. One book, which I re-read on what is fast becoming a seasonal basis is Jack London’s The Call Of The Wild. I can’t say I get more and more out of it every time I read it, but I do find that it’s many charms are highly resilient to repeated reading, that its lessons are true, in a way only fiction can deliver, and that it makes for a terrific source of entertainment when read aloud. Go on, read this passage aloud:
White Fang
