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.
The SFFaudio Podcast #077 – Jesse talks with Julie Davis and audiobook narrator Wayne June about Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case Of Doctor Jekyll And Mr. Hyde.
Talked about on today’s show: AudiobookCase.com, Fred Godsmark, Audio Realms, Wayne June is “naturally creepy”, narrating audiobooks is hard work, how do you read to people?, word pronunciation and Lovecraft’s invented language, I, Cthulhu by Neil Gaiman, Gaiman is a modern master, The Rats In The Walls by H.P. Lovecraft |READ OUR REVIEW|, devolving and retro-volving and retro-retrogression, “it’s a sentence but what does it mean?”, H. Beam Piper, reading for the ear, reading aloud is a juggling act, physical copies of audiobooks vs. downloads, The Essential Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde: The Definitive Annotated Edition edited Leonard Wolf, Kevin J. Anderson on Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, as a parable for addiction, the temperance movement, religion, “an almost theological work [or treatise]”, “the war in the members”, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde as an homunculus, Mr. Utterson, Cain’s heresy: “I am not my brother’s keeper.”, Dickensian writing, Charles Dickens and Henry James, how evil is Mr. Hyde?, what about those vague debaucheries?, the Greek origin of the word “obscene”, Lovecraft’s indescribably unspeakable prose, The Statement Of Randolph Carter by H.P. Lovecraft, The Thing From Another World, Michael Caine and Cheryl Ladd version of Jekyll & Hyde, The Story Of The Door, the difference between doing good and not doing evil, evil as being self-centered (and prideful), natural selection vs. evolution, ladders vs. branches, progression vs. change, evolution vs. free will, the notoriously optimistic Victorians, Alan Moore’s The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Hulk and Two-Face, Brad Strickland on Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, Marxist and feminist critiques, BBC Radio 4 radio drama version of Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, Let The Right One In (movie) vs. Let The Right One In (book), Poole (the butler), Inspector Newcomen, Jekyll (Je-Kill, I-Kill, Jackal), Forrest J. Ackerman‘s real middle name, Geek-ill, Edinburgh, Soho, a “fine bogey dream”, cocaine usage in the 19th century, Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, The Reapers Are The Angels by Alden Bell, Jayne Slayre (The Literary Classic…with a Bloodsucking Twist) by Charlotte Brontë and Sherri Browning Erwin, Assam And Darjeeling by T.M. Camp |READ OUR REVIEW|, zombies and vampires, The Loving Dead by Amelia Beamer |READ OUR REVIEW|, mindless sexualized creatures, if you were an urban fantasy author what would you bring together and what would your urban fantasy name be?, the science of lycanthropy vs. the science of zombification, airships, Charles de Lint, Emma Bull, Jim Butcher, Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, parallel worlds, proto-urban fantasy, Territory by Emma Bull, The Castle In Transylvania by Jules Verne, Melville House books, translated by Charlotte Mandel, can you do a Transylvanian accent?, Amy H. Sturgis, calling Jules Verne a Science Fiction writer is probably inaccurate, Around The World In Eighty Days by Jules Verne, Phileas Fogg is the most English of all Englishmen, The Vampyre by John William Polidori, Ken Rusell’s Gothic, Switzerland, The Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym by Edgar Allan Poe, the strange case of Strange Case, “it’s full of Octobery goodness.”
When I compiled this list of the latest new releases from Tantor Media I discovered that there was a very companionable video for nearly every one.
First up is City Of Dragons, a book we’ve decided we’re going to be doing a readalong for. That is a bunch of podcasty bloggy friends will (hopefully) read and/or be listening to this book/audiobook for discussion on an upcoming SFFaudio Podcast! An exciting prospect eh?
City Of Dragons
By Kelli Stanley; Read by Cynthia Holloway
11 CDs or 2 MP3-CDs – Approx. 13 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: April 5, 2010
ISBN: 9781400116645 (cd), 9781400166640 (mp3-cd) February, 1940. In San Francisco’s Chinatown, fireworks explode as the city celebrates Chinese New Year with a Rice Bowl Party, a three-day-and-night carnival designed to raise money and support for China war relief. Miranda Corbie is a thirty-three-year-old private investigator who stumbles upon the fatally shot body of Eddie Takahashi. The Chamber of Commerce wants it covered up. The cops acquiesce. All Miranda wants is justice—whatever it costs. From Chinatown tenements, to a tattered tailor’s shop in Little Osaka, to a high-class bordello draped in Southern Gothic, she shakes down the city—her city—seeking the truth.
Here’s a science audiobook that’s got Scott pretty excited. Myself I thought the question of whether we are alone in the universe was answered rather definitely by that Charlie Sheen/Ron Silver documentary called The Arrival…
The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence
By Paul Davies; Read by George K. Wilson
9 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – Approx. 10 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: April 13, 2010
ISBN: 9781400115518 (cd), 9781400165513 (mp3-cd) Fifty years ago, a young astronomer named Frank Drake pointed a radio telescope at nearby stars in the hope of picking up a signal from an alien civilization. Thus began one of the boldest scientific projects in history, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). But after a half century of scanning the skies, astronomers have little to report but an eerie silence—eerie because many scientists are convinced that the universe is teeming with life. The problem, argues leading physicist and astrobiologist Paul Davies, is that we’ve been looking in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and in the wrong way. Davies should know. For more than three decades, he has been closely involved with SETI and now chairs the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup, charged with deciding what to do if we’re confronted with evidence of alien intelligence. In this extraordinary book, he shows how SETI has lost its edge, then offers a new and exciting road map for the future. Davies believes that our search so far has been overly anthropocentric: we tend to assume an alien species will look, think, and behave like us. He argues that we need to be far more expansive in our efforts, and in this book he completely redefines the search, challenging existing ideas of what form an alien intelligence might take, how it might try to communicate with us, and how we should respond if we ever do make contact. A provocative and mind-expanding journey, The Eerie Silence will thrill fans of science and science fiction alike.
Here’s a new twist on an War Of The Rats (which was turned into a movie called Enemy At The Gates)…
Beautiful Assassin
By Michael White; Read by Anne Flosnik
14 CDs or 2 MP3-CDs – Approx. 18 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: March 30, 2010
ISBN: 9781400114306 (cd), 9781400164301 (mp3-cd) Sevastopol, 1942. As the might of the German army threatens to engulf the Soviet Union, a brave, young Red Army sniper named Tat’yana Levchenko becomes a national hero. But who is this beautiful assassin? To the Soviets, she is a refined poet and weapon of destruction with three hundred enemy kills to her name—a dedicated soldier whose skill and courage have rallied a motherland on the brink of despair. To the Americans, she is a Red Communist with movie-star good looks who is championed by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt—a reminder of Soviet suffering and a symbol of the vital need to defeat the Nazis. Invited to the United States at the behest of the White House, Tat’yana sets off on a whirlwind tour with the first lady. Amid the curious crowds, rumors begin to swirl that Tat’yana is a spy, a pawn of politicians and propagandists battling for power and control. But before suspicions can be confirmed, the Soviet soldier vanishes. It will be more than fifty years before a resourceful correspondent uncovers the truth and the full story of the beautiful assassin is finally told.
I’m a huge fan of Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe. This new edition features the talented Simon Prebble, who I’ve really enjoyed listening to since I first heard his reading of The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton. This new edition of Ivanhoe, as with many of Tantor Media public domain sourced audiobooks, features a eBook of the full novel as well.
Ivanhoe
By Sir Walter Scott; Read by Simon Prebble
15 CDs or 2 MP3-CDs – Approx. 18. Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: March 30, 2010
ISBN: 9781400116065 (cd), 9781400166060 (mp3-cd) The epitome of the chivalric novel, Ivanhoe sweeps listeners into Medieval England and the lives of a memorable cast of characters. Ivanhoe, a trusted ally of Richard the Lion Hearted, returns from the Crusades to reclaim the inheritance his father denied him. Rebecca, a vibrant, beautiful Jewish woman, is defended by Ivanhoe against a charge of witchcraft—but it is Lady Rowena who is Ivanhoe’s true love. The wicked Prince John plots to usurp England’s throne, but two of the most popular heroes in all of English literature—Richard the Lion Hearted and the well-loved, famous outlaw Robin Hoo—team up to defeat the Normans and regain the castle. The success of this novel lies with Sir Walter Scott’s skillful blend of historic reality, chivalric romance, and high adventure.
Methinks the teen doth protest too much!
I Am Not A Serial Killer (Book 1 in the John Cleaver series)
By Dan Wells; Read by John Allen Nelson
6 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – Approx. 7 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: March 30, 2010
ISBN: 9781400115792 (cd), 9781400165797 (mp3-cd) John works in his family’s mortuary and has an obsession with serial killers. He wants to be a good person but fears he is a sociopath, and for years he has suppressed his dark side through a strict system of rules designed to mimic “normal” behavior. Then a demon begins stalking his small town and killing people one by one, and John is forced to give in to his darker nature in order to save them. As he struggles to understand the demon and find a way to kill it, his own mind begins to unravel until he fears he may never regain control. Faced with the reality that he is, perhaps, more monstrous than the monster he is fighting, John must make a final stand against the horrors of both the demon and himself.
Beowulf
By anonymous; Read by Rosalyn Landor
3 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – Approx. 3 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: March 29, 2010
ISBN: 9781400115990 (cd), 9781400165995 (mp3-cd) When sleep was at its deepest, night at its blackest, up from the mist-filled marsh came Grendel stalking… Thus begins the battle between good and evil, for lying in wait and anxious to challenge the ogre Grendel is a young man, strong-willed and fire-hearted. This man is Beowulf, whose heroic dragon-slaying deeds were sung in the courts of Anglo-Saxon England more than a thousand years ago. Beowulf is our only native English heroic epic. In the figure of Beowulf, the Scandinavian warrior, and his struggles against monsters, the unknown author depicts the life and outlook of a pagan age. The poem is a subtle blending of themes—the conflict of good and evil, and an examination of heroism. Its skillful arrangement of incidents and use of contrast and parallel show it to be the product of a highly sophisticated culture.
This new collection of Robert E. Howard Horror fiction includes more than one story that freaked me out when I read them in paperback. Howard is of course best known for famous character Conan of Cimmeria. But some of his best writing was in the horror genre. One story, Pigeons From Hell, was adapted for television for an episode of an anthology series called Thiller (hosted by Boris Karloff). Like most of Howard’s work, it translates well, when in capable hands.
The Horror Stories Of Robert E. Howard
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Robertson Dean
19 Audio CDs or 2 MP3-CD – Approx. 24 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: March 30, 2010
ISBN: 9781400112296 (cd), 9781400162291 (mp3-cd) Robert E. Howard, renowned creator of Conan the barbarian, was also a master at conjuring tales of hair-raising horror. In a career spanning only twelve years, Howard wrote more than a hundred stories, with his most celebrated work appearing in Weird Tales, the preeminent pulp magazine of the era. In this collection of Howard’s greatest horror tales, some of the author’s best-known characters—Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, and sailor Steve Costigan among them—roam the forbidding locales of Howard’s fevered imagination, from the swamps and bayous of the Deep South to the fiend-haunted woods outside Paris to remote jungles in Africa. Included in this collection is Howard’s masterpiece “Pigeons From Hell,” a tale of two travelers who stumble upon the ruins of a Southern plantation—and into the maw of its fatal secret. In “Black Canaan,” even the best warrior has little chance of taking down the evil voodoo man with unholy powers—and none at all against his wily mistress, the diabolical High Priestess of Damballah. Also included is the classic revenge nightmare “Worms Of The Earth” as well as “The Cairn On The Headland.”
Journey To The Center Of The Earth
By Jules Verne; Read by Ed Sala
9 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – Approx. 10 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: Tantor Media
Published: March 30, 2010 An eccentric geology professor acquires an old book and finds an ancient parchment hidden within its pages. On it is a coded message that reveals directions to a secret passageway that leads deep within the earth’s interior. The professor immediately sets off on a daring journey to Iceland, where he and his companions enter into an extinct volcano and make their way to the center of the earth. They soon find a strange underground world where the laws of science are turned upside down. They discover huge caverns, luminous rocks, a subterranean sea, primitive forests, and fearsome prehistoric creatures that time had forgot. The travelers encounter one stirring adventure after another as they explore deep within the bowels of the earth.
Based on the big RPG Fantasy game I didn’t play last year Dragon Age: Origins…
Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne (Book 1 in the Dragon Age series)
By David Gaider; Read by Stephen Hoye
11 CDs or 2 MP3-CDs – Approx. 13 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Published: Tantor Media
Published: March 23, 2010
ISBN: 9781400116218 (cd), 9781400166213 (mp3-cd) After his mother, the beloved Rebel Queen, is betrayed and murdered by her own faithless lords, young Maric becomes the leader of a rebel army attempting to free his nation from the control of a foreign tyrant. His countrymen live in fear; his commanders consider him untested; and his only allies are Loghain, a brash young outlaw who saved his life, and Rowan, the beautiful warrior maiden promised to him since birth. Surrounded by spies and traitors, Maric must find a way to not only survive but achieve his ultimate destiny: Ferelden’s freedom and the return of his line to the stolen throne.
Despite its having William Dufris as a narrator, and its having airships, I’m still not 100% convinced I want to listen to…
The Dream Of Perpetual Motion
By Dexter Palmer; Read by William Dufris
11 CDs or 2 MP3-CDs – Approx. 14 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: March 16, 2010
ISBN: 9781400114962 (cd), 9781400164967 (mp3-cd) Imprisoned aboard a zeppelin that floats above a city reminiscent of those of the classic films Metropolis and Brazil, the greeting card writer Harold Winslow is composing his memoirs. His companions are the only woman he has ever loved, who has gone insane, and the cryogenically frozen body of her father, the devilish genius who drove her mad. The tale of Harold’s decades-long thwarted love is also one in which he watches technology transform his childhood home from a mere burgeoning metropolis to a waking dream, in which the well-heeled have mechanical men for servants, deserted islands can exist within skyscrapers, and the worlds of fairy tales can be built from scratch. And as he heads toward a final, desperate confrontation with the mad inventor, he discovers that he is an unwitting participant in the creation of the greatest invention of them all—the perpetual motion machine.
I like it when SFFaudio gets cited on Wikipedia. One of the citations there is a point I made about The Green Odyssey |READ OUR REVIEW| and the Dungeons & Dragons module Dragonlance: DL6 Dragons of Ice. I compared The Green Odyssey‘s roller-ships (a kind of wind powered land ship) with the iceboats of Dragons Of Ice And it was just yesterday I came across another similar variant on the sail-powered-terrestrial-ship:
“Mr. Fogg examined a curious vehicle, a kind of frame on two long beams, a little raised in front like the runners of a sledge, and upon which there was room for five or six persons. A high mast was fixed on the frame, held firmly by metallic lashings, to which was attached a large brigantine sail. This mast held an iron stay upon which to hoist a jib-sail. Behind, a sort of rudder served to guide the vehicle. It was, in short, a sledge rigged like a sloop. During the winter, when the trains are blocked up by the snow, these sledges make extremely rapid journeys across the frozen plains from one station to another. Provided with more sails than a cutter, and with the wind behind them, they slip over the surface of the prairies with a speed equal if not superior to that of the express trains.”
-From Around The World In Eighty Days (chapter XXXI) by Jules Verne
Here’s an image of it from a Golden Picture Classic edition of Around The World In Eighty Days:
Around The World in Eighty Days
By Jules Verne; Read by Mark F. Smith 37 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 6 Hours 33 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 16, 2008 Mysterious Phileas Fogg is a cool customer. A man of the most repetitious and punctual habit – with no apparent sense of adventure whatsoever – he gambles his considerable fortune that he can complete a journey around the world in just 80 days… immediately after a newspaper calculates the feat as just barely possible. With his excitable French manservant in tow, Fogg undertakes the exercise immediately, with no preparations, trusting that his traveling funds will make up for delays along the way. But unbeknownst to him, British police are desperately seeking to arrest him for the theft of a huge sum by someone who resembles him, and they will track him around the world, if necessary, to apprehend him. This is an adventure novel of the first water, with wholly unexpected perils, hair-breadth escapes, brilliant solutions to insoluble problems, and even a love story. And can this be? – That he returns to London just five minutes too late to win his wager and retain his fortune?
Here’s a new audiobook from LibriVox that I am eager to hear. Eric S. Rabkin, who we had as a guest on the SFFaudio Podcast last year, had some fascinating insights about this story in his Teaching Company lecture series Masterpieces of the Imaginative Mind: Literature’s Most Fantastic Works. The narrator for the LibriVox audiobook version is Alan Winterrowd. He’s a blogger and podcaster (he started the Penny Dreadful Podcasts in March 2009).
Doctor Ox’s Experiment
By Jules Verne; Read by Alan Winterrowd 5 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 2 Hours 13 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 24, 2010 An early, light-hearted short story, published in 1872 by Jules Verne. It takes place in the Flemish town of Quiquendone, where life moves at an extraordinarily tranquil pace. Doctor Ox has offered to light the town with a new gas, but actually has other plans in place.
The SFFaudio Podcast #077 – Jesse talks with Julie Davis and audiobook narrator Wayne June about Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case Of Doctor Jekyll And Mr. Hyde.
I like it when SFFaudio gets cited on Wikipedia. One of the citations there is a point I made about The Green Odyssey |
