The SFFaudio Podcast #225 – The Iron Heel by Jack London, read by Matt Soar.
This UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOK (8 Hours 9 Minutes) comes to us courtesy of LibriVox.org. The Iron Heel was first published in 1907.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Tag: LibriVox
The Iron Heel by Jack London
I’ve stitched together the 26 MP3 files (8 hours 9 minutes) of Matt Soar’s LibriVox narration of The Iron Heel by Jack London. I’ve removed all redundant intros and extros, Levelated the audio, and done some noise removal. I’ve also added art, taken from the cover of one of the first printings of this 1907 Science Fiction dystopia. You’re welcome.
|MP3|
Gutenberg has the |ETEXT|
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #223 – AUDIOBOOK: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The SFFaudio Podcast #223 – The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, read by David Barnes.
This UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOK (2 Hours 33 Minutes) comes to us courtesy of LibriVox.org. The Metamorphosis was first published in 1915, in German, under the title Die Verwandlung. This translation is by Ian Johnston.
Posted by Jesse Willis
The Iron Heel by Jack London (on YouTube)
Here’s a YouTube version of Matt Soar’s LibirVox audiobook of Jack London’s The Iron Heel.
Posted by Jesse Willis
In The Abyss by H.G. Wells
A very good reading of one of H.G. Wells’ long neglected stories, In The Abyss, is now available from LibriVox. James Christopher narrates this pioneering tale of first contact with a submarine civilization and he does it with the skill that comes from more than five years of contributions to LibriVox!
Those who’ve read H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth will appreciate the Well’s description of what sounds like Deep Ones:
“Two large and protruding eyes projected from sockets in chameleon fashion, and it had a broad reptilian mouth with horny lips beneath its little nostrils. In the position of the ears were two huge gill-covers, and out of these floated a branching tree of coralline filaments, almost like the tree-like gills that very young rays and sharks possess. But the humanity of the face was not the most extraordinary thing about the creature. It was a biped; its almost globular body was poised on a tripod of two frog-like legs and a long, thick tail, and its fore limbs, which grotesquely caricatured the human hand, much as a frog’s do, carried a long shaft of bone, tipped with copper. The colour of the creature was variegated; its head, hands, and legs were purple; but its skin, which hung loosely upon it, even as clothes might do, was a phosphorescent grey.”
In The Abyss
By H.G. Wells; Read by James Christopher
1 |MP3| – Approx. 36 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 3, 2013
“To this he was being towed, as a balloon might be towed by men out of the open country into a town. He approached it very slowly, and very slowly the dim irradiation was gathered together into more definite shapes.” First published in Pearson’s Magazine, August 1, 1896.
Here’s an illustrated |PDF| made from the printing in the Amazing Stories, September 1926. And here’s the |PDF| made from the illustrated first printing in Pearson’s Magazine, August 1896.
Here’s an illustration from an early French translation:
Posted by Jesse Willis
The Coming Of The Ice by G. Peyton Wertenbaker
I posted about this story, as part of a larger LibriVox collection, back in 2009. Then, I described it thusly:
The Coming Of The Ice explains the strange and sad fate of a man who undergoes an operation to make him immortal (and sterile).
I had somehow forgotten about it. But, as I heard someone describe it recently I was reminded of it, tracked it down again, and enjoyed it wholly afresh today.
The Coming Of The Ice deserves to be far better known. Not only is it a really terrific story, but the narration, by Giles Baker, is absolutely outstanding too!
Sam Moskowitz, in his introduction to the 1961 reprint of The Coming Of The Ice wrote the following about it:
One of the gravest editorial problems faced by the editors of AMAZING STORIES when they launched its first issue, dated April, 1926, was the problem of finding or developing authors who could write the type of story they needed. As a stop-gap, the first two issues of AMAZING STORIES were devoted entirely to reprints. But reprints were to constitute a declining portion of the publication’s contents for the following four years. The first new story the magazine bought was Coming Of The Ice, by G. Peyton Wertenbaker, which appeared in its third issue. Wertenbaker was not technically a newcomer to science fiction, since he had sold his first story to Gernsback’s SCIENCE AND INVENTION, The Man From the Atom, in 1923 when he was only 16! Now, at the ripe old age of 19, he was appearing in the world’s first truely complete science fiction magazine. The scope of his imagination was truly impressive and, despite the author’s youth, Coming of
the Ice builds to a climax of considerable power.
Back in 1926 the editorial introduction, presumably by Hugo Gernsback himself, said this about The Coming Of The Ice:
This powerful and tragic story by the author of “The Man From The Atom” tells of a man who acquired terrestrial immortality – tells of a world many centuries hence – a time when everything is changed. This one man remains as a relic of the 20th century, He is alone with strangely developed human beings, the product of ages of evolution. Climactic changes are taking place. The world begins to grow cold. New York is almost in the Arctic region and Italy is covered with snow all the year around. In spite of their enormous intellectual development, all human beings must perish. Our hero alone can withstand the intense cold. He wanted eternal life – and he got it – eternal life, purely intellectual. What does he do with all his years? And how does he enjoy them?, Read this powerful story.
The Coming Of The Ice
By G. Peyton Wertenbaker; Read by Giles Baker
1 |MP3| – Approx. 40 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: February 4, 2009
“Strange men, these creatures of the hundredth century, men with huge brains and tiny, shriveled bodies, atrophied limbs, and slow, ponderous movements on their little conveyances … it was then that I was forced to produced my tattered old paper, proving my identity and my story.” First published in Amazing Stories, June 1926.
|ETEXT|
Here are two PDF versions:
Amazing Stories, June 1926 |PDF|
Amazing Stories, July 1961 |PDF|
[Thanks also to David T. and Carlo!]
Posted by Jesse Willis