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.
A few weeks ago Jesse posted my list of Best Free Audiobooks. I got a great response for this post, so I thought I’d do another one with my favorite free short stories that I’ve reviewed at Free Listens. Of course such lists are inherently silly, as they depend upon the listmaker’s tastes, current mood, memory, and a host of other little factors that have nothing to do with the quality of the story. So, if you’d rather, here’s a list of 10 really darn good stories (but maybe not the best):
The SFFaudio Podcast #068 – Scott and Jesse talk about recently arrived audiobooks.
Talked about on today’s show:
Recent arrivals, Penguin Audio, The Books Of Elsewhere: The Shadows by Jacqueline West, The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe, TheBooksOfElsewhere.com, inherited books, The Green Knowe series, kids love series, Nelson DeMille’s The Lion, Lion’s Game, Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges, The Gospel According To Mark by Jorge Luis Borges, Gene Wolfe, George Guidall, Anne McCaffery’s Dragonriders Of Pern: Dragon Girl by Todd McCaffrey, Mexico, Mexico City, “turista”, Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey, the thread threat, the Honor Harrington series, Mission Of Honor by David Weber, Paul W. Campbell, On Basilisk Station by David Weber |READ OUR REVIEW|, Lois McMaster Bujold, Full Cast Audio, The Unicorn Chronicles: Book 4: The Last Hunt by Bruce Coville, Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder by Jo Nesbo, Mobile Infantry vs. the immobile infantry, re-write Starship Troopers as Warehouse Troopers, Water Steps by A. LaFaye, Sense And Sensibility And Sea Monsters for kids, Spaceship Rat, baby rat trauma, capybara, Brilliance Audio, The Deed Of Paksenarrion: Book 2: Divided Allegiance by Elizabeth Moon, The Sad Tale Of The Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bulington, The Vampire Earth: Valentine’s Rising by E.E. Knight, space vampires, Graphic Audio, The Immortals: Book 4: The Realms Of The Gods by Tamora Peirce, More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon (read by Stefan Rudnicki and Harlan Ellison), gestalt, fix-up, Baby Is Three by Theodore Sturgeon, Caedmon, H.G. Wells, Microcosmic God by Theodore Sturgeon, Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold (read by Grover Gardner), The Reader’s Chair, Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold |READ OUR REVIEW|, Paul Is Undead by Alan Goldsher (as read by Simon Vance), zombies, has the public domain classics remixed with supernatural horror jumped the shark?, A Picture Of Dorian’s Gray, Quirk Books, “paranormal romance has got completely out of hand”, Dark Shadows, soap operas, Soap, M*A*S*H, Three’s Company, Bosom Buddies, Blackstone Audio, the Newford series, Widdershins by Charles De Lint, urban fantasy alert, Mindswap by Robert Sheckley, Tom Weiner, Altered Carbon, A Galaxy Trilogy: Volume 3, Giants Of Eternity by Manly Wade Wellman, The War Of The Worlds, “standing on the shoulder of giants”, The Girls With Games Of Blood by Alex Bledsoe, The Return: Book IV of Voyagers by Ben Bova, “sensawunda”, first contact, the Grand Tour series, the Asteroid Wars series, the 2006 Harlan Ellison interview, City Of Darkness by Ben Bova |READ OUR REVIEW|, Neil Gaiman, Around The World In Eighty Days by Jules Verne (as read by Jim Dale), Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy: Live In Concert, Footfall by Larry Niven by Jerry Pournelle, Audible Frontiers, Police Your Planet by Lester Del Rey, Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp, The Sword Of Shannara, The Elfstones Of Shannara, Neal Stephenson, Anathem, Boneshaker, The City And The City, Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson |READ OUR REVIEW|, Palimpsest, WWW: Wake, The Windup Girl, ebooks, Fictionwise, PaperbackDigital, Kelli Stanley, The Functional Nerds Podcast interview of Mike Resnick, Pump Six and Other Stories by Paulo Bacigalupi, The Alchemist And The Executioness by Tobias S. Buckell and Paulo Bacigalupi, Scott’s Pick Of The Week:Despicable Me, Jesse’s Pick Of The Week:Police Your Planet by Lester Del Rey, Zombie Astronaut, The Frequency Of Fear, The Frequency Lite.
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…
The 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.
