Tag: LibriVox

LibriVox: The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxAt 110 years old The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz (aka The Wizard Of Oz), is one of the few children’s classic novels, that children read, and that WAS a children’s novel from the very beginning. Today a tour through the kids literature section of your local big box bookstore will probably turn up a dozen or so “classic novels” that purport to be ‘kid lit’ of some sort. For publishers what makes them ‘children’s classics’ is that they are public domain and they have recognizable titles. Few were written with actual children in mind, and due to the age many can use an English language that’s so archaic as to be hard for many adults to read. Not so with The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz. Sure it’s public domain too, but unlike most it was actually written with children wholly and completely in mind, unlike say, The Call Of The Wild, Frankenstein or Dracula.

In a 1975 essay entitled The American Grimm, comics legend Roy Thomas describes L. Frank Baum as the New World’s successor to “Hans Christian Anderson” and “The Brothers Grimm”. Writes Thomas:

“After trying his, hand at both acting and journalism, Lyman Frank Baum decided to create a unique Americcan fairy tale which did not owe its entire existence and background to the European tradition of goblins, witches, elves and the like. To do this, he set the beginning and ending of his story (which was originally called simply The Emerald City and at one point even From Kansas To Fairyland) in the heart of the American prairie. Of course. he didn’t completely keep out the witches.”

The Free Listens blog rates LibriVox’s audiobook version, as narrated by J. Hall, rather highly! Consider:

“J. Hall narrates the book with a pleasant American accent that would be at home at NPR. This isn’t a professional reading; Hall has several minor stumbles and he doesn’t attempt distinguishing voices for the characters. However, these minor faults can be easily overlooked when one considers the excellent pacing and emphasis with which Hall reads. The recording is free of any background sound, but has a compressed sound when played at higher volumes, perhaps due to noise filtering. All in all, this is a excellent choice if you’re looking for a recording of The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz that comes without silly voices or overacting.”

LIBRIVOX - The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz by L. Frank BaumThe Wonderful Wizard Of Oz
By L. Frank Baum; Read by J. Hall
1 |M4B| File, 25 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 3 Hours 45 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 10, 2007
The timeless story of the Wizard Of Oz. Follow Dorothy as she leaves Kansas for Oz on a cyclone. She meets many strange, and wonderful people and creatures along the way. Enjoy it again with your children and family.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/the-wonderful-wizard-of-oz.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Map Of The Marvelous Land Of Oz (art is credited to Ed Hannigan)

"We're Off To See The Wizard..." (Art credited to John Romita)

[via Free Listens]

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: The Iron Heel by Jack London

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxThe Iron Heel, one of the books from our 4th Annual SFFaudio Challenge. It is now complete and available free from LibriVox! Narrator Matt Soar sez:

I have just this afternoon finally finished the last chapter of Jack London’s The Iron Heel. Phew! It’s been quite an experience – begun in Montreal, completed in France, six months in the making.

He actually wrote that two months ago. See, Matt decided to make a planned creative commons release release PUBLIC DOMAIN! Woohoo! It’s on LibriVox and it has now been catalogued!

And, over in the “about” section of Matt’s site, TheIronHeel.net Matt wrote:

The entire expe­ri­ence has been intrigu­ing, if not uncanny: The story, about an over­bear­ing, immoral gov­ern­ment char­ac­ter­ized by decep­tion, tor­ture, and war­mon­ger­ing, against a back­ground of civil­ian exploita­tion and reli­gious zealotry, is mainly remark­able for the fact that it was writ­ten a hun­dred years ago — rather than, say, five.

Per­haps the only aspects of The Iron Heel that really age it are its breath­lessly roman­tic hero­ine, occa­sion­ally pro­saic lan­guage, and the author’s fleet­ing use of dubi­ous terms to describe eth­nic minori­ties. These quib­bles aside, I’m really glad I took the time to record it, and hope you enjoy it too.

LIBRIVOX - The Iron Heel by Jack LondonThe Iron Heel
By Jack London; Read by Matt Soar
26 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 8 Hours 18 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox / TheIronHeel.net
Published: July 16, 2010
Generally considered to be the earliest of the modern dystopian novels, The Iron Heel chronicles the rise of an oligarchic tyranny in the United States. It is arguably the novel in which Jack London’s socialist views are most explicitly on display. A forerunner of “soft science fiction” novels and stories of the 1960s and 1970s, the book stresses future changes in society and politics while paying much less attention to technological changes.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/4342

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks a ton Matt!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

FREE LISTENS Review: The Lost World

Seth

Review

The Lost World
by Arthur Conan Doyle
Source: LibriVox (zipped mp3s)
Length: 8 hr, 22 min
Reader: Mark F. Smith

The book: Not to be confused with the Michael Crichton novel of the same name, Conan Doyle’s The Lost World is an unbelievable adventure, in both senses of “unbelievable”. Like Watson in Conan Doyle’s more famous Sherlock Holmes series, the narrator, Edward Malone, is a tag-along to the real main character of the book, the conceited and quarrelsome Professor Challenger. Malone, a newspaper reporter, accompanies Challenger on  an expedition to a plateau in the jungles of South America, where dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts are rumored to live.

Although the premise for the book can now be seen as impossible, Challenger’s assertion of living dinosaurs is met with extreme skepticism by his colleagues in the novel, effectively removing the reader’s ability to criticize it. The story proceeds at a gallop, with new adventures happening every chapter. This book is fast and fun, making it a great light read for the summertime.

Rating: 8/10

The reader: You probably know by now that Mark F. Smith is one of LibriVox’s best readers. He’s done a wide range of books, and I can’t think of any of them that is bad. Smith’s dialog puts the listener into the story and his narration carries a bit of sarcasm at the right places, to help the listener see the wittiness in Conan Doyle’s writing. The recording, as always with Smith, is beautifully done.

Posted by Seth

LibriVox: At The Back Of The North Wind by George MacDonald

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxIt’s kind of a shame that this LibriVox edition of At The Back Of The North Wind is not wholly narrated by Meredith Hughes. She only reads the first three chapters. They are wonderfully narrated.

I happened across this audiobook whilst researching a stack of old hardcovers that I inherited from my grandmother. I must have read it at some point as the story is entirely familiar. But now, looking at it with adult eyes, the ideological argument it makes seems more quaint than persuasive. See, At The Back Of The North Wind is a theodicean Fantasy. It uses the personification of the “North Wind” to explain why evil exists in the world. As such it belongs on the bookshelf between two of C.S. Lewis’ books, The Problem Of Pain and The Lion,The Witch And The Wardrobe.

If you’re looking to get into some late 19th allegorical Fantasy, you probably couldn’t do much better than this wholesome story of what is essentially a gray witch and the good little boy she takes on a series of adventures.

Here’s the color plate from my paperbook edition (it depicts the Diamond, the little boy protagonist, and the North Wind (in the guise of a little girl):

From the 1956 Junior Deluxe Editions - At The Back Of The North Wind by George MacDonald - Illustrated by Colleen Browning

LIBRIVOX - A The Back Of The North Wind by George MacDonaldAt The Back Of The North Wind
By George MacDonald; Read by various
38 Zipped MP3 Files – Approx. 8 Hours 57 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 24, 2007
Diamond the little boy sleeps in the hayloft above the stall of Diamond the horse. The loft is snug but drafty, and after plugging a hole in the wall one night, Diamond is scolded by the beautiful Lady North Wind for closing her “window” into his room. Thus begins their friendship. Spirited away by the North Wind, Diamond embarks on a series of adventures both near to and far from his home. His pure heart and his simple, loving spirit guide him as he journeys to the back of the North Wind and home again. Originally serialized in 1868, beginning with the first issue of “Good Words For The Young” magazine.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/at-the-back-of-the-north-wind-by-george-macdonald.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: The Knights Of Arthur by Frederik Pohl

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxThis is a fun post apocalyptic Science Fiction story that takes a truly preposterous situation and plays it straight.

Two shipmates, late of the U.S. Navy submarine Sea Sprite, stop off in New York. They’re waiting for someone to arrive, but when she turns up things go sideways, for she should be a he, and she ain’t no he. To make matters worse she wants to buy one of the sailors from the other!

As a bonus, especially for fans of Mad Magazine, be sure to check out the fun Don Martin illustrations in the text edition available over on Gutenberg.org.

LIBRIVOX - The Knights Of Arthur by Frederik PohlThe Knights Of Arthur
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Gregg Margarite
2 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 1 Hour 32 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 1, 2010
With one suitcase as his domain, Arthur was desperately in need of armed henchmen … for his keys to a kingdom were typewriter keys! From Galaxy Science Fiction January 1958.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/4456

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks also to Betty M. and Bart de Leeuw]

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: The Diamond Master by Jacques Futrelle

Jesse Willis

Aural Noir: Online Audio

LibriVoxJacques Futrelle was a mystery writer best known for his creation, a rival to Sherlock Holmes, a detective named Professor Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen, (aka “The Thinking Machine“)! Futrelle’s career was tragically, and famously, cut short whilst traveling aboard the titanic:

“[He] steadfastly refused to accept a chance to enter a lifeboat when he knew that the Titanic was sinking under him.”

This story, a novella, was actually adapted to film in a pair of 1920s movie serials. Sadly they no longer exist. But, Futrelle lives on, in this audiobook, and as the protagonist of The Titanic Murders by Max Allan Collins, which is a murder mystery set aboard the Titanic on its final voyage .

LIBRIVOX - The Diamond Master by Jacques FutrelleThe Diamond Master
By Jaques Futrelle; Read by Dawn Larsen
17 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 3 Hours 15 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 23, 2010
A perfect diamond worth millions is mailed, in a plain package, to a diamond dealer. Then he finds that identical diamonds were delivered to other diamond dealers. Where did the gems come from? Who sent them? And why?

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/4161

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks also to Annise]

Posted by Jesse Willis