Jules Verne – Page 10

LibriVox short stories galore!

SFFaudio Online Audio

A “few” short hidden gems from Librivox.org. Among their short story collections, now up to number nineteen, are some very good short Fantasy, SF, and Horror stories. These stories run from two and a half minutes to nearly fifty two minutes long. All are good for a short listen between audiobooks.

Bread Overhead
By Fritz Leiber; Read by Cori Samuel
1 |MP3| – Approx. 36 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 25th 2007
The Staff of Life suddenly and disconcertingly sprouted wings — and mankind had to eat crow!

The Masque of the Red Death
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Juan Carlos Bagnell
1 |MP3| – 16 Minutes
Death comes to visit a prince who is trying to avoid a plague.
Themes: / Horror /

Dracula’s Guest
By Bram Stoker; Read by Dimitri Fotopoulos
1 |MP3| – Approx. 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
A prequel to Dracula.
Themes: / Horror /

Ligeia
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Peter Yearsley
1 |MP3| – Approx. 47 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
A haunting tale of lost love.
Themes: / Horror /

The Damned Thing
By Ambrose Bierce; Read by Greg Elmensdorp
1 |MP3| – Approx. 21 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
It shall not drive me away. No, this is my house, my land. God hates a coward….
Themes: / Horror /

Facts Concerning The Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family
By H. P. Lovecraft; Read by Smokestack Jones
1 |MP3| – Approx. 22 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
A tale of unusual genealogy.

The Cats of Ulthar
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat
1 |MP3| – Approx. 9 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Feline revenge.
Themes: / Horror / Cats /

Charon
By Lord Dunsany; Read by Steven Collins
1 |MP3| – 2 Minutes 30 Seconds [UNABRIDGED]
Themes: / Fantasy /
The ferryman Charon’s last duty.

The Music of Erich Zann
1 |MP3| Approx. 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by Smokestack Jones
A college student wonders about the strange music played by an old man.
Themes: / Horror / Music /

In the Year 2889
By Jules Verne; Read by Esther
1 |MP3| – Approx 38 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Verne’s story about life in America a thousand years in the future.
Themes: / Science Fiction /

Crossroads of Destiny
By H. Beam Piper; Read by Trask
1 |MP3| – Approx. 23 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Themes: / Science Fiction /
Parallel universes and a television show.

The Gifts of Asti
By Andre Norton; Read by Mark Nelson
1 |MP3| Approx. 41 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Themes: / Fantasy /
Varta, the last priestess of Asti, lives alone with Lur, a telepath of the lizardfolk, in Asti’s isolated mountain retreat. Decadent Memphir has long since drifted away from the austere paths of Asti, and now the barbarians of Klem are sacking the city, and the smoke of its burning drifts up to the temple.

The Street That Wasn’t There
By Clifford D. Simak and Carl Richard Jacobi; Read by Peter Yearsley
1 |MP3| 36 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Themes: / Science Fiction /
Classic pulp action.
Read by Peter Yearsley

The Hoard of the Gibbelins
By Lord Dunsany; Read by Mark F. Smith
1 |MP3| – Approx. 11 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Themes: / Horror /
The Gibbelins eat, as is well known, nothing less good than man.

A World Is Born
By Leigh Brackett; Read by Rowdy Delaney
1 |MP3| – Approx. 52 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
The first ripples of blue fire touched Dio’s men. Bolts of it fastened on gun-butts, and knuckles. Men screamed and fell.
Themes: / Science Fiction /

Posted by Dave Tackett

LibriVox release of An antarctic Mystery by Jules Verne

OnlineAudio

A while back we brought you the story of LibriVox’s release of an audiobook version of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Narrative Of Arthur Godron Pym. Now, we can tell you about the sequel, written decades later by another author. An antarctic Mystery (AKA An Antarctic Mystery or The Sphinx of the Ice Fields) is a newley released unabridged audiobook read by Esther (AKA Starlite).

Listening to just chapter one, you’ll notice straight away the mention of what sounds like a fictional place. Namely, the “Kerguelen Islands”, a place so remote, so alien, it was the 19th century equivalent of the moon. The Kerguelen archipelago exists, it and a few other remote sub-Antarctic islands fly under French flags and are mostly used as research stations today. But, Kerguelen has a fascinating history. During World War II, Christmas 1940 in fact, a Nazi Kriegsmarine ship, named “Atlantis” visited and there dug “the most southerly German soldier’s grave.” In the 1960s and 1970s Kerguelen was used as an experimental rocket base, sending French and American rockets into suborbital flight. All rumors of secret Chinese or Nazi military bases on Kerguelen are completely unsubstantiated.

Back to the audiobook…

An Antarctic Mystery
By Jules Verne; Read by Esther
Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 8.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 23rd 2007
“Edgar Allan Poe’s telling of Arthur Pym is shown to be true as events come together that bring out clues that help Captain Len Guy trace the fate of his brother’s ship the Jane; the very ship that Arthur Pym was on board at the time of his disappearance. Through the efforts of Mr. Joerling, the crew of the Halbrane is enticed to make the trip to Antarctica to search for any survivors of the Jane.”

You can download the MP3s individually, in one big zipped folder or get the entire novel in podcast form via this feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/an-antarctic-mystery-or-the-sphinx-of-the-ice-fields.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox release of Jules Verne’s The Fur Country

SFFaudio Online Audio

More happy CANADA DAY releases! Completed a full month ahead of schedule, The Fur Country is a lenghty unabridged novel from LibriVox and public domain audiobook narrator extraordinaire Esther (AKA Starlite). Set at “Seventy Degrees North Latitude” in Canada’s far north, this is one of Jules Verne’s least known novels. The perfect choice for a July 1st release!

The Fur Country
By Jules Verne; Read by Esther
47 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 13.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 1st 2007
“In 1859, officers of the Hudson’s Bay Company are given the mission to found a fort at 70 degrees north of the polar circle. At some point, an earthquake occurs, and from then on, laws of physics seem altered (a total eclipse happens to be only partial; tides are not perceived anymore). They eventually realise that they are not where they are supposed to be.”

Get the entire novel in podcast form via this feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/the-fur-country-by-jules-verne.xml

posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox goes to sea for Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe

SFFaudio Online Audio

Avast me hearties! LibriVox, that isle of audio sanity in an ocean of in, has been all at sea of late, but not in a bad way, not at all. The vast crew of LibriVox has been making sea Science Fiction stories – specifically with two speculative fiction classics from the 19th century. The completion of one of them was the subject of a March 25th commentary on the history of SF sea stories. That really warms my cockles, and may even warm yours. Have a listen to one or both of the titles listed below, I’m guessing they’ll shiver your timbers. And be sure to note the COOL NEW PODCAST FEED FEATURE found on completed LibriVox titles…

The Mysterious Island
By Jules Verne; Read by Mark F. Smith
Zipped MP3s or MP3 Podcast – Approx. 22 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 2007
A story of castaways, similar to Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson, this book details the escape from Civil War-era Richmond, Virginia, of five Northern men who dared to go aloft in a balloon in the midst of a hurricane. Deposited on a lonely island in the Pacific, they make do with Yankee ingenuity where Chance has left them nothing. Only later do they find they have a hidden benefactor: Captain Nemo, of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, who resides, alone, secretly on the island. In time, the tiny colony becomes so prosperous that it is able to rescue another castaway from an island a hundred miles away. But all their work will come to naught – their island’s volcano is about to awake!

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/the-mysterious-island-by-jules-verne.xml

The Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by various authors
Zipped MP3s or MP3 Podcast – Approx. 6.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 2007
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is Edgar Allan Poe’s only complete novel, published in 1838. The work relates the tale of the young Arthur Gordon Pym who stows away aboard a whaling ship called Grampus. Various adventures and mis-adventures befall Pym including shipwreck, mutiny and cannibalism. The story starts out as a fairly conventional adventure at sea, but it becomes increasingly strange and hard to classify in later chapters, involving religious symbolism and the Hollow Earth.

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/narrative-of-arthur-gordon-pym.xml

posted by Jesse Willis

Commentary: The problem of Poe’s Pym

SFFaudio Commentary

Edgar Allan Poe’s only novel The Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym was published in 1838. The unabridged audiobook is available commercially, but the LibriVox version has been stalled at 85% completion for too long. This multi-reader project has been in production for more than a year, and I’m eager to see it completed. I believe it is a crucial work of early Speculative Fiction. It was an influence on H. P. Lovecraft, and his At The Mountains Of Madness and even Steven Utley and Howard Waldrop’s 1977 Black As The Pit, From Pole to Pole is similarly descended from Pym.

The Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym is crucial, not the least because I think a lot of us would like to hear some other related novels that were inspired to follow after it! For myself, one in particular stands out I’ve been hankering to hear is Jules Vernes’ The Sphinx Of The Ice Fields (AKA An Antarctic Mystery). This was Verne’s 1897 sequel to Poe’s Pym. I originally ran across this novel in relation to my fascination with sub-antarctic islands. One day, a few weeks back, I was doing my usual zoom and pan lunchtime tourism on Google Maps. That particular afternoon I spotted a cool little island called Île de la Possession (46°24′S 51°46′E), one of the extremely remote Îles Crozet,which is in a chain of tiny sub-antarctic islands owned by France. This one was particularly interesting looking as it was both volcanic and ice-free. There also happened to be a cool research station visible on the far East side of the island. In cross referencing the island with the images I was seeing on Google Maps I also spotted that they’d named its northern-most mountain “Monts Jules Verne!” It also has a rivers named “Moby Dick” and “Styx.” Now hearing all this you might think this is a real-life version of Vernes’ Mysterious Island, but in fact it has nothing to do with that novel’s made-up island, instead this very real island actually appears in Verne’s sequel to Pym, the novel The Sphinx Of The Ice Fields!

Îles Crozet

Now back to the business…. If you’re even half as excited about seeing the great lineage of Pym turned into audiobooks, please consider volunteering your voice to the project. There are only 4 chapters still unassigned and the majority of the other chapters are already completed.

One last thing, call it more inspiration: For an astoundingly-cool bibliography of Antarctic related fiction (from 1605 to the present day) have a look at Fauno Cordes’ “Tekeli-li” or Hollow Earth Lives: A Bibliography of Antarctic Fiction.

posted by Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Challenger working on The Skylark Of Space by E.E. "Doc" Smith

SFFaudio News

More “Challenge” news…

Mark P. Steele, wrote in to say:

“Hi there. I ran across your challenge late, but decided to try anyway.”

The book Mark P. is interested in is the The Skylark Of Space by E.E. “Doc” Smith. Very cool, say I.

As you well know, Bob, The Skylark of Space is one of the earliest novels of interstellar travel. First published in 1928. It is oft considered the first literary Space Opera.

Frederick Pohl said of it:

“With the exception of the works of H.G. Wells, possibly those of Jules Verne it has inspired more imitators and done more to change the nature of all the Science Fiction written after it than almost any other single work.”

According to Mark P.’s research, BOTH the original 1928 and the later 1958 revision are in the public domain, and Mark P. is planning on recording the 1958 version.

Mark asks: “Is anyone else working on this?”

Well Mark, no, I know of no-one else who is working on that title. So far, we’ve got only three audiobooks in various stages of completeness in “The SFFaudio Challenge”:

CHALLENGERS SO FAR:

-Mark Nelson has COMPLETED & RELEASED (awaiting verification) an unabridged recording of The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose Farmer.

-Steven H. Wilson has has finished the recording of Badge Of Infamy by Lester del Rey
– and we expect a Podiobooks.com release of it relatively soon.

-Mark P. Steele is preparing to record The Skylark Of Space (1958) by E.E. “Doc” Smith.

Would anyone else like to publicly stake a claim from the titles on the challenge list?

Also, it seems Mark P. Steel wouldn’t mind some technical assistance – as he writes…

“The main problem that I have is the static on the recording. I’m using Audacity, and filtered the static, but it sounds somewhat hollow and metallic, thus making me skeptical of the usability,of the recording. My next step is to try and move the mike away from the computer, on the possibility that it’s the fan hum I’m getting.”

Hmmm, I’m tech-challenged myself, but I can offer a custom bit of cover art to get Mr. Steele inspired:

The Skylark Of Space by E.E. Doc Smith

Can anyone else give Mark P. some advice on how to get the static out of his recording?

posted by Jesse Willis