Hugh McGuire, of LibriVox and iambik audiobooks, speaking at TEDx Montreal. His topic is “The Blurring Lines Between Books and the Internet.”
Posted by Jesse Willis
Tag: LibriVox
LibriVox: The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar by Edgar Allan Poe
In my reading about The Frozen Pirate, back in 2010, I discovered that Edgar Allan Poe’s The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar was possibly the first account of suspended animation.
I normally mention The Case Of M. Valdemar as part of a set lecture I give, explaining to my students why root words are important. I start by asking them if they’ve read any Harry Potter. They usually have, and that’s when I point out that they know, just from the sound of his name, that Voledemort is a bad guy. I point out that J.K. Rowling chose this name carefully, even pointing out that “Voldemort is pronounced with a silent ‘t’ at the end, as is common in French.” I point out that Draco Malfoy’s name too, is just as connotatively powerful. Then I point out that J.K. Rowling didn’t invent these names in a vacuum. I point to Edgar Allan Poe’s The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar.
Hypnosis itself is a somewhat mysterious psychological phenomenon. It arose from the proto-psychological work of the 18th century physician Franz Mesmer. For those in the know “mesmerism” and “animal magnetism” had, by the time of Poe, lost most of their occult mystique. But for the general public, even today, there is a left-over supernatural feel – to the phenomenon – owing in part to the the strangeness of the phenomenon itself, and in part to Poe’s stories about it.
Etymologically the word itself, “hypnosis”, takes its name from Greek – “Hypnos” meaning “sleep” and the suffix “-osis” meaning “disorder” or “abnormal state”.
The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 22 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 12, 2009
In an attempt to halt rumors surrounding a widely publicized incident, the author gives the facts about a grisly experiment in mesmerism that he recently conducted. First published in the December 20, 1845, issue of the Broadway Journal.
Here’s a |PDF| version of the story as taken from the April 1926 issue of Amazing Stories (the very first issue).
Posted by Jesse Willis
The Voice In The Night by William Hope Hodgson
If you want some idea as to what William Hope Hodgson’s short story, The Voice In The Night, is about first think of Samuel Taylor Cooleridge’s The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner.
Then imagine it told at night.
Now collapse that imagined story down to a simple love story.
Let it shiver, pulse, and flow.
Add in a white mist, legions of creeping sporelings, and now imagine all that as if it was written by H.P. Lovecraft.
Now you have an idea.
SF historian Sam Moskowitz, in his introduction to it in Science Fiction By Gaslight, had some high praise for William Hope Hodgson and The Voice In The Night.
“Of the dozens of authors who wrote science fiction by gaslight, Hodgson is one of the very few a portion of whose work will endure … Within the limited range of mounting and sustaining a peak of unrequited horror, [he] achieved heights of genius.”
I’m not sure that this horror tale is going to make you think it’s SF. That’s not what I thought of when I heard it. But Moskowitz is right.
It also, I think, ably demonstrates that horror need not involve a hint violence. That said, The Voice In The Night does have violation in the form of the bloodless monster of the natural world. Others have called it a “minor classic” and I agree, it goes into the sublimely creepy depths of horror.
“Mr. Hodgson is perhaps second only to Algernon Blackwood in his serious treatment of unreality. Few can equal him in adumbrating the nearness of nameless forces and monstrous besieging entities through casual hints and insignificant details, or in conveying feelings of the spectral and the abnormal” – H.P. Lovecraft – from Supernatural Horror In Literature
The Voice In The Night
By William Hope Hodgson; Read by James Christopher
1 |MP3| – Approx. 27 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 11, 2009
A fisherman aboard a ship caught in the doldrums of the North Pacific, on night watch in a fog-bank, hears a voice call out from the sea. The voice asks for food, but it insists it can come no closer, that it fears the light, and that God is merciful. In payment for the food it tells a tale more frightening than any I’ve ever heard around a campfire. First published in the November 1907 issue of Blue Book Magazine.
Pseudopod 250: The Voice In The Night
By William Hope Hodgson; Read by Wilson Fowlie
1 |MP3| – Approx. 39 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Pseudopod
Podcast: October 7, 2011
A fisherman aboard a ship caught in the doldrums of the North Pacific, on night watch in a fog-bank, hears a voice call out from the sea. The voice asks for food, but it insists it can come no closer, that it fears the light, and that God is merciful. In payment for the food it tells a tale more frightening than any I’ve ever heard around a campfire. First published in the November 1907 issue of Blue Book Magazine.
Tales To Terrify No. 29: The Voice In The Night
By William Hope Hodgson; Read by Lawrence Santoro
1 |MP3| – Approx. 50 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Tales To Terrify
Podcast: July 26, 2012
A fisherman aboard a ship caught in the doldrums of the North Pacific, on night watch in a fog-bank, hears a voice call out from the sea. The voice asks for food, but it insists it can come no closer, that it fears the light, and that God is merciful. In payment for the food it tells a tale more frightening than any I’ve ever heard around a campfire. First published in the November 1907 issue of Blue Book Magazine.
Illustration by Franz Altschuler for it’s appearance in Playboy, July 1954:
Posted by Jesse Willis
The Skull by Philip K. Dick
The first time I read Philip K. Dick’s The Skull, it took me a couple of attempts to really get into it. But with PKD you out to give it a couple of good attempts. So I kept trying. Reading along with the text helped, and after about 150 words or so I could manage the story without the extra textual assistance. I guess this is one of those stories that doesn’t translate to audio that well. That said, once I did get into it it I did find it worthwhile. The Skull is a time travel story that makes a nice companion piece to Michael Moorcock’s Behold The Man. It’s about a future criminal who goes on a mission to kill a religious revolutionary from the 1960s.
The Skull
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 50 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 01, 2009
Conger agreed to kill a stranger he had never seen. But he would make no mistakes because he had the stranger’s skull under his arm. From If Worlds of Science Fiction, September 1952.
|ETEXT| Wikisource
|ETEXT| Gutenberg
|PDF| Made from the publication in IF.
Recently a friend pointed out a 1962 French short film, done in photomontage style, called La Jetée. It’s nicely comparable and totally French:
[Thanks Mel!]
Posted by Jesse Willis
The Dog And The Horse by Voltaire
One of the earliest detectives in history, or at least the history of literature, is Zadig. Zadig is the main character of Voltaire’s philosophical novel Zadig; Or The Book Of Fate – An Oriental History. I stumbled across it’s existence while reading an old issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in which one chapter was featured under the title The Dog And The Horse. The brief editorial introduction, and some further researches on my own, assert that Zadig in this chapter may have been the inspiration for Edgar Allan Poe’s C. August Dupin!
I can sort of see it too, for The Dog And The Horse shows a kind of giant first step in an evolutionary process of the detective – seeing his marriage turn sour Zadig turns to the study of nature for his joy. A kind of passionate interest in the world is necessary for both the scientific detective and the more Sherlockian sort of detective.
The story is damn funny too.
The Dog And The Horse
By Voltaire; Read by Lucy Burgoyne
1 |MP3| – Approx. 13 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 31, 2008
First published in 1747.
Posted by Jesse Willis
The Golgotha Dancers by Manly Wade Wellman
Here’s a spooky tale that’s set, in part, in an art museum. It’s read by our old friend Gregg Margarite.
The Golgotha Dancers
By Manly Wade Wellman; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 24 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 8, 2010
A curious and terrifying story about an artist who sold his soul that he might paint a living picture. First published in Weird Tales, October 1937.
|ETEXT|
Here’s a |PDF| made from the publication in Weird Tales.
Here is the description of Arnold Böcklin’s The Isle Of The Dead, the painting conspicuous for its absence in the story:
“I started down, relishing in advance the impression Böcklin’s picture would make with its high brown rocks and black poplars, its midnight sky and gloomy film of sea, its single white figure erect in the bow of the beach-nosing skiff.”
And here is the image itself:
Posted by Jesse Willis