Tag: LibriVox

LibriVox: The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxNow this is strange, I recommend you read this audiobook despite it having some pretty awful writing. I’ve never found myself rooting the the villain as much as with this book, a book in which the mostly off-screen antagonist outshines the on-screen protagonists. First published in 1913 the titular character of The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu (aka The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu) has come to epitomize a the embodiment of a socio-cultural meme known as THE YELLOW PERIL. The purported protagonists, Dr. Petrie and Sir Denis Nayland Smith, are a pair of casually racist assholes. They carry their ignorant colonial bully-boy tactics with them into every scene like a foul and infecting stench. Their agenda, to protect white supremacy at all costs, makes their foe’s vaguely villainous goals all the more palatable. But what is it that their enemy, Dr. Fu-Manchu, wants to do exactly? He is clearly ruthless. Is it simply world domination? Maybe. But even if that’s true, I can’t imagine he’d be as offensive as these two English assholes. When Fu Manchu does finally show up he seems more of a curious zoologist than an arch-fiend. It sounds bad, and it is, with bad writing for the most part, but it’s also very something iconic, and in that sense it is both important and worthwhile.

I think what Sax Rohmer did was write the novel, in earnest, from the heroes’ perspective – what time has done has has turned the heroes into villains and the villain into the hero.

We did couple of podcasts on this book and this subject earlier this year: The SFFaudio Podcast #051 and #052, and I’ve been thinking about the yellow peril again recently. After watching the glossily re-imagined Hawaii Five-O pilot (if you value your vaunted opinion of humanity’s as the paragon of animals stay far clear) I was reminded of the yellow peril’s turn in the original Hawaii Five-O TV series. It had a 13 episode arc that spanned from the first episode in 1968 to the final episode in 1980. That was good stuff. The racism that infects The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu had been replaced in the original Hawaii Five-O by a RED MENACE (guised as YELLOW PERIL). Since that last episode aired the USA has come a long way in the racism department, but bad writing, in books and television, will always be with us.

LibriVox - The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu by Sax RohmerThe Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu
By Sax Rohmer; Read by FNH
30 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 7 Hours 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 9, 2010
The first of the Fu-Manchu novels this story follows the two characters who are set against the machinations of the insidious doctor.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/3488

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks also to Gesine and Leni!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

William Coon, who appeared on SFFaudio Podcast #063, has a terrific sounding UNABRIDGED recording of Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson over on LibriVox. Here’s what one of the proofers said about Bill’s narration:

“[Markheim] is GREAT! You’ve got just the right balance of shrewdness and madness and you really bring it off well. I listened to it over and over, catching new things every time. Thanks for several wonderful days of listening!”

Myself I’ve also been enjoying this narration as well as an abridged reading I found over on RadioArchive.cc (Markheim was also recorded for the first episode of a four part BBC Radio 7 Drama series entitled Short History of Gothic).

In a strange way Markheim is a kind of hardboiled/noir version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Like Scrooge, Markheim is a sinner who at Christmas, finds himself confronted by the consequences of his sin. But whereas 19th century miserliness is Scrooge’s big problem, Markheim’s issue is of a more alarming type. His petty crimes have slowly accelerated from his youth, until now, when he finds himself, in this tale, a bloody-handed murderer. But like A Christmas Carol, both characters (Scrooge and Markheim) find their hinge points only when confronted by a visit from the supernatural.

Markheim as illustrated by Michael Lark

Illustration by Michael Lark, found in The Essential Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde – The Definitive Annotated Edition.

LibriVoxMarkheim
By Robert Louis Stevenson; Read by William Coon
1 |MP3| – Approx. 44 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: 2006
|ETEXT|

BBC Radio 7 - BBC7A Short History Of Gothic – Markheim
By Robert Louis Stevenson; Read by Hugh Bonneville
1 Broadcast – Approx. 30 Minutes [ABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 7
Broadcast: December 12, 2009
Provider: RadioArchive.cc
“Hugh Bonneville reads Robert Louis Stevenson’s macabre tale charting one man’s rapid fall from grace.”

The Weird CircleWeird Circle – Markheim
Based on the short story by Robert Louis Stevenson; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 25 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: MBS, NBC, ABC
Broadcast: May 20, 1945
Provider: Archive.org
This is a radical adaptation, set in a contemporary (to 1945) setting, and providing much of the presumed back-story (stuff that isn’t actually in the text of Stevenson’s original tale).

Here are a couple more Markheim illustrations [this time by Lynd Ward – found in The Haunted Omnibus (1937)]

Robert Louis Stevenson's Markheim as illustrated by Lynd Ward - from The Haunted Omnibus (1937)

Robert Louis Stevenson's Markheim as illustrated by Lynd Ward - from The Haunted Omnibus (1937)

[also via Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Let’em Breathe Space by Lester del Rey

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Who’s up for a little locked spaceship murder mystery? It’s a 1953 novella by Lester del Rey…

LIBRIVOX - Let'em Breathe Space by Lester del ReyLet’em Breathe Space
By Lester del Rey; Read by Gregg Margarite
2 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 1 Hour 47 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 7, 2010
The old space freighter Wahoo is all Dr. Pietro can afford for his expedition to the rings of Saturn. Although built for a crew of 6 the good doctor crams 19 people into the Wahoo, and after 5 months they are really getting on each other’s nerves. Then someone starts killing people and poisoning the air giving plants in the hydroponics bay. Can our hero Paul Tremaine find the killer before he suffocates? Perhaps you should hold your breath. First published in the July 1953 edition of Space Science Fiction magazine.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/4745

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks also to Betty M.]

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: White Fang by Jack London

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxI’m not much for re-reading books. I will do it, but I usually prefer a new book to even a fondly remembered one. But I do make exceptions, now and again. One book, which I re-read on what is fast becoming a seasonal basis is Jack London’s The Call Of The Wild. I can’t say I get more and more out of it every time I read it, but I do find that it’s many charms are highly resilient to repeated reading, that its lessons are true, in a way only fiction can deliver, and that it makes for a terrific source of entertainment when read aloud. Go on, read this passage aloud:

Buck staggered over against the sled, exhausted, sobbing for breath, helpless. This was Spitz’s opportunity. He sprang upon Buck, and twice his teeth sank into his unresisting foe and ripped and tore the flesh to the bone. Then François’s lash descended, and Buck had the satisfaction of watching Spitz receive the worst whipping as yet administered to any of the teams.

“One devil, dat Spitz,” remarked Perrault. “Some dam day heem keel dat Buck.”

“Dat Buck two devils,” was François’s rejoinder. “All de tam I watch dat Buck I know for sure. Lissen: some dam fine day heem get mad lak hell an’ den heem chew dat Spitz all up an’ spit heem out on de snow. Sure. I know.”

From then on it was war between them.

Another part of my love for The Call Of The Wild probably comes from my personal connection to the landscape and the romanticism of it all – and frankly that’s completely crazy! I’ve never mushed a dogsled, never faced a starving pack of rabid huskies and have never even been to the Yukon Territory! But, in my defense, I’ve known dog-sledders, lived in a remote northern British Columbia community, and made personal contact with hungry black-bears (on more than one occasion). Heck, I even had partial ownership of two Siberian Huskies for a while. Jack London is a smashing writer and I’m still rather embarrassed to admit there’s one book of his that I’m pretty sure I haven’t read (at least since I was a kid). And that’s this one, White Fang, the spiritual sequel, the opposite number, the bloody companion book to my beloved The Call Of The Wild!

So, now I have a question. Who will take up this adventure with me, listening or reading, for perhaps the first time, to Jack London’s immortal novel White Fang? Leave a comment, let me know if you’d like to participate in an upcoming SFFaudio Podcast Readalong for White Fang.

LIBRIVOX - White Fang by Jack LondonWhite Fang
By Jack London; Read by Mark F. Smith
25 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 7 Hours 44 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 03, 2010
When White Fang is birthed in a cave to a wolf sire and a wolf/dog halfbreed dam, he is heir to two traditions. At first he is content to explore and learn laws of the Wild. But then his mother is caught and held by old memories of a past relationship with Man, and White Fang follows her into service with the Indians. Life among sled dogs is hardly less cruel and dangerous than living in the Wild, but brutality notches upward when his drunken master sells him to a nasty, twisted hanger-on at a riverside town of white men. He is stripped of everything soft and gentle when forced to fight to the death for a crowd of bettors. Taming this savage spirit and reclaiming the nobility within looks impossible. Fortunately, and heart-warmingly, a man arrives in White Fang’s life to try. “White Fang” is often called the mirror image of Jack London’s acclaimed “The Call of the Wild” in which a dog follows the reverse arc from tame to free.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/4677

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks also to James Christopher and J.M. Smallheer ]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Ian Fleming’s favourite novels (as a kid)

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

BLACKSTONE AUDIO - Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James BondI’ve just started listening to Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond, a biography by Andrew Lycett, (available from Blackstone Audio). Here’s an interesting bit from early on:

“On Sunday evenings all the boys would gather in the hall of Durnford‘s [preparatory school] main building, a shabby 18th century manor house. Then, while her feet were tickled by some unfortunate child, Nell [the headmaster’s wife] would read them an adventure story. The general favourites were The Prisoner Of Zenda, Moonfleet and, towards the end of Ian’s time, Bulldog Drummond. Lawrence Irving, a pupil shortly before the Flemings, found that he ‘Never read those books again without hearing Nell’s tone and inflection.’ The same went for Ian, though he preferred the populist works of Sax Rohmer who opened up a more fantastic world with his yellow devil villain Doctor Fu Manchu.”

See that? There’s a nice direct connection between Dr. Fu Manchu and Doctor No. And, as I’m discovering by listening to Andy Minter’s reading of The Prisoner Of Zenda, you get a nice resonance between James Bond, playboy adventurer, and Rudolf Rassendyll, English gentleman.

In fact, as I’m writing this I’m very much enjoying The Prisoner Of Zenda, and am considering delving more deeply into the sub-genre it helped create: Ruritanian romance (a story set in a fictional country)

LIBRIVOX - The Prisoner Of Zenda by Anthony HopeThe Prisoner Of Zenda
By Anthony Hope; Read by Andy Minter
1 |M4B|, 22 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 5 Hours 42 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: December 16, 2006
The Prisoner of Zenda tells the story of Rudolf Rassendyll, an English gentleman on holiday in Ruritania, a country not a thousand miles from Bavaria. There, by reason of his resemblance to the King of Ruritania he becomes involved in saving the King’s Life and his Throne from the King’s dastardly brother and his allies. Woods, moated castles, pomp, swordplay, gallantry, villainy and a beautiful princess. What story could ask for more?

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/the-prisoner-of-zenda-by-anthony-hope.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

LIBRIVOX - Moonfleet by J. Meade FalknerMoonfleet
By J. Meade Falkner; Read by various readers
24 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 7 Hours 58 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 17, 2008
The novel is set in a fishing village in Dorset during the mid 18th century. The story concerns a 15 year old orphan boy, John Trenchard, who becomes friends with an older man who turns out to be the leader of a gang of smugglers. One night John chances on the smugglers’ store in the crypt beneath the church. He explores but hides behind a coffin when he hears voices. He finds a locket which contains a parchment, in the coffin belonging to Colonel Mohune. Unfortunately after the visitors leave, he finds himself trapped inside, and is only rescued two days later when two of the smugglers, Ratsey, the sexton and Elzevir Block, the innkeeper of the Why Not?, the local pub, investigate his disappearance. His aunt insists he leaves her house and Elzevir Block takes him in to live at the pub.

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/moonfleet-by-j-meade-falkner.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Bulldog Drummond by Herman Cyril McNeile (1920), isn’t yet available as an audioboook on LibriVox, but it is available (unabridged) from Naxos Audiobooks |HERE|.

The Insidious Doctor Fu Manchu (aka The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu) by Sax Rohmer (1913), is forthcoming on LibriVox, but is already commercially available through Tantor Media |HERE|.

Posted by Jesse Willis

LIBRIVOX: The Planet Strappers by Raymond Z. Gallun

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxIn his 1977 essay introduction to The Best Of Raymond Z. Gallun, entitled Raymond Z. Gallun, The Quiet Revolutionary, John J. Pierce wrote:

“[Gallun] never bothered with self-promotion. He never even tried very hard to get people to pronounce his name right (it rhymes with ‘balloon’ being an old dutch name, so don’t say ‘gallon’). He let his science fiction speak for itself.”

After trying to pronounce it myself I’m still not sure if the narrator of The Planet Strappers (by Raymond Z. Gallun), Richard Kilmer, has it right. It sounds like he pronounces Gallun, “gah-lun” and not “gah-luhn.” Or should it be “gal-uhn” or maybe “guhl-oon”? I can see why Gallun never bothered trying to clear this up. In any case, Kilmer’s reading of this 1961 novel is clean, uninflected and voluminous in volume – a solid straight reading. I’ll have to get back to you on whether this novel speaks to me.

LIBRIVOX - The Planet Strappers by Raymond Z. GallunThe Planet Strappers
By Raymond Z. Gallun; Read by Richard Kilmer
16 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 7 Hours 25 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 21, 2010
The Planet Strappers started out as The Bunch, a group of student-astronauts in the back room of a store in Jarviston, Minnesota. They wanted off Earth, and they begged, borrowed and built what they needed to make it. They got what they wanted–a start on the road to the stars–but no one brought up on Earth could have imagined what was waiting for them Out There!

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/3747

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks also to Barry Eads and Jeanie]

Posted by Jesse Willis