Tag: murder

BBCR4 + RA.cc: The Hound Of The Baskervilles (1988)

Jesse Willis

Aural Noir: Online Audio

BBC Radio 4RadioArchives.ccOne of (if not the most) adapted novels in the history of cinema is The Hound Of The Baskervilles. I myself love the novel and have seen at least a half dozen screen adaptations. But the latest adaptation I’ve witnessed is my new favourite.

Bert Coules’ 1988 BBC Radio adaptation is absolutely fantastic. It keeps nearly every scene I like from the novel. Better yet, it’s use of sound, to both cut from scene to scene and to drive the action forward, is absolutely masterful. Audio drama of this quality is just that step above. It’s truly wondrous listening!

According to the notes on RadioArchive.cc (where I got it) this version has never been rebroadcast on the radio. That’s a big shame, it’s an absolute treasure!

Even more strangely this adaptation is actually the first of two separate Bert Coules adaptations of Hound done for BBC Radio.

The torrent is HERE.

The Hound of the Baskervilles
Adapted from the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Performed by a full cast
2 MP3 Files via Torrent – Approx. 110 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC
Broadcast: 1988

Cast:
Sherlock Holmes … Roger Rees
Dr John H Watson … Crawford Logan
Sir Henry Baskerville … Matt Zimmerman
Dr James Mortimer … Peter Craze
Jonathan Stapleton … Jonathan Tafler
Beryl Stapleton … Caroline Gruber
Barrymore … Richard Tate
Mrs Barrymore … Barbara Atkinson
Mrs Hudson … Barbara Atkinson
Arthur Frankland … Norman Bird
Laura Lyons … Moir Leslie
Postmaster … John Baddeley

Violinist: Katherine Adams
Script by: Bert Coules
Produced and directed by: David Johnston

The Hound Of The Baskervilles - original iIllustration

Posted by Jesse Willis

Moxon’s Master by Ambrose Bierce

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Moxon's Master by Ambrose Bierce

I’m not a very good chess player, but I love playing. There’s a an elegance and a simplicity to the basics of it. And from those basic rules an incalculable complexity emerges – one that makes every game different. But I don’t much like playing against a computer. There’s little sense of victory if I win and if I lose I tend to question the point in playing at all. There’s something about pitting a mind against a mind – and most chess programs I’ve played against don’t seem to have one.

Moxon’s Master, by Ambrose Bierce, is about chess. It uses some basic analogies and metaphors – in just the way H.G. Wells does so well to make the implausible sound plausible. Bierce wields facts about plant tropism and Herbert Spencer’s definition of life in a skillful argument for machine intelligence. It’s rather masterful actually!

LibriVoxMoxon’s Master
By Ambrose Bierce; Read by Roger Melin
1 |MP3| – Approx. 28 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 2, 2012
First published in the San Francisco Examiner, April 16, 1899.

|PDF|

[Thanks also to Laura Victoria and Barry Eads]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Seeing Ear Theatre: The Moon Moth adapted from the novella by Jack Vance

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Yesterday, a friend of mine was woefully mistaken. He said there was only one good audio drama and that it was The Hobbit (referring to the BBC radio dramatization). Well that is a pretty awesome audio drama but he is still totally and completely WRONG.

There are probably hundreds and hundreds of excellent audio dramas, but I was totally caught off guard – what’s that old french saying… ah yes…

“l’homme sensible, comme moi, tout entier à ce qu’on lui objecte, perd la tête et ne se retrouve qu’au bas de l’escalier”

Indeed, I only managed to throw out a couple of quick examples before my friend had retired for the evening.

I pointed out the BBC’s dramatization of The Lord Of The Rings and I a then suggested the CBS Radio Mystery Theater and it’s wonderful Alfred Bester story The Walking Dead).

My friend left unconvinced. And it is only now, today, that others spring readily to mind.

In l’esprit de l’escalier I will throw out one more – to him and to the world – and that will be George Zarr’s masterful adaptation of Jack Vance’s The Moon Moth.

It was one of the first audio dramas I reviewed for SFFaudio, back in 2003, and it is still one of the very finest audio dramas I’ve ever heard.

You could |READ OUR REVIEW|, but I think just hearing a few minutes of it will provide enough motivation to propel both you, and my friend, to both the end and a change of opinion.

SEEING EAR THEATRE - The Moon MothSFFaudio EssentialSeeing Ear Theatre – The Moon Moth
Based on the novella by Jack Vance; adapted by George Zarr; Performed by a Full Cast
2 MP3 Files – Approx. 73 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Seeing Ear Theater
Published: 2000?
On the planet Sirene everyone wears a mask according to his status — or strahk — in society. Communication is accomplished through singing accompanied by a plethora of instruments, each of which signifies a different emotional mood or is used to talk to a different social caste. The problem is, the assassin Angmark is a master of Sirenese customs and — like everyone else on Sirene — his face is hidden behind a mask. Our doddering ambassador-detective’s only hope: to learn to use his own mask — the lowly Moon Moth — before Angmark relieves him of a head to put it on. First published in Galaxy Science Fiction, August 1961.

Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3|

Produced and directed by George Zarr
Sound Design by John Colucci and David Shinn
Music Direction and Sirenese Musical Performance by Douglas Anderson

Cast:
David Garrison as Edwer Thissell and Provisionist Greenward
Tuck Milligan as Haxo Angmark and Messenger Slave
Ian Reed as Esteban Rolver and Bright Sky Bird
Mort Banks as Cornelly Welibus and Maskmaker
Mark Victor Smith as Mathew Kershaul
Leah Applebaum as Computoid, Maiden, Female Slave, and Rex
George Zarr as Steward and Paul
Andrew Joffe as Forest Goblin, Benko, and Sand Tiger
Paul Amodeo as Hostler and Toby

Here are the illustrations, by Dick Francis, from the original publication in Galaxy SF:

The Moon Moth by Jack Vance - illustration by Dick Francis

The Moon Moth by Jack Vance - illustration by Dick Francis

The Moon Moth by Jack Vance - illustration by Dick Francis

And finally, we talked to George Zarr about The Moon Moth, and many other plays, back in SFFaudio Podcast #071. Check it out if you’d like to hear more about how awesome audio drama is.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Kansas Historical Society: The Bender Knife (a podcast about the Bloody Benders of Kansas)

Jesse Willis

Aural Noir: Online Audio

KSHS Cool Things PodcastIn research for another story I came across a cool podcast along the lines of BBC Radio 4’s The History Of The World In 100 Objects. Except that instead of it being a history of the planet it’s just the history of Kansas. The first epsiode of the KSHS’ Cool Things podcast to strike me (out of my chair, through the floor, and then into a shallow grave in a nearby field) was an episode on “The Bender Knife”. Here’s the setup:

Two men settled a claim near the town of Cherryvale in southeastern Kansas in 1870. John Bender, Sr., and John Bender, Jr., built a one-room timber cabin with a trap door that led to a stone cellar. Once the lodging was complete, the Bender men sent for the rest of the family, a mother and a daughter, both named Kate. The family outfitted the house with furniture and supplies, and hung a canvas curtain to divide it into two rooms. The Benders turned the front half into an inn and grocery store where travelers on the nearby Osage Trail could find rest, supplies, and a warm meal. Ma and Kate planted a garden and small orchard near the house. By all appearances, the Benders were like most area settlers: a family of German descent who came west for a fresh start.

Business at the Bender inn would have been brisk. The southeast corner of Kansas had recently opened to white settlers, and men regularly arrived with money to purchase land and livestock. This available cash made the area a dangerous place to travel. Settlers were easy prey for robbers, and it was not uncommon for people to go missing. No one took note of people looking for their family members. This changed when locals started disappearing.

You can read the full story HERE.

Bender Knife

|MP3|

And here’s the Wikipedia entry on the Bloody Benders.

Also check out their “Space Age Stove” episode (featuring a very cool Frigidaire Custom Imperial Flair stove).

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Moon-Face by Jack London

Jesse Willis

Aural Noir: Online Audio

There are few authors worthy of re-writing Edgar Allan Poe – few would dare – and of those few fewer still would succeed in the attempt. Jack London is one such and his short story, Moon Face, is one such success. Sometimes subtitled “A Story Of Mortal Antipathy” this story runs nearly the same length as the Poe story that I think inspired it. I’ve read one essay that argues it was inspired by The Tell Tale Heart, but I think it is another. Sure, the unnamed protagonist may be insane, but I think there’s still something to his lunacy – we can go for decades without encountering our own personal Claverhouse – then one day he will appear – and his mere presence is enough to set one’s teeth on edge.

LibriVox - Moon-Face by Jack London

LibriVoxMoon-Face
By Jack London; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 13 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 01, 2009
|ETEXT|
First published in The Argonaut, July 21, 1902.

Posted by Jesse Willis

StarShipSofa: The Truth Is A Cave In The Back Mountains by Neil Gaiman

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

StarShipSofaSFFaudio EssentialThe latest StarShipSofa podcast, episode #232, features Neil Gaiman‘s 2010 novelette The Truth Is A Cave In The Back Mountains as its “main fiction.” The narrator is Richie Smith and the story begins at about 12 minutes in.

|MP3|

Podcast feed: http://www.starshipsofa.com/feed

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

There are few words that can get me as excited about a story as “Neil Gaiman” – he’s one of only a handful of living writers that’ll make me read anything he writes.

And when a story gets podcast I tend to go a little crazy, extracting the narration from any framing bits within the podcast, running that extracted audio through Levelator, and making my own art for the resulting MP3. Like this:

iPhone Screenshot of THE TRUTH IS A CAVE IN THE BLACK MOUNTAINS by Neil Gaiman

I took the original cover art by the wondrous Tom Gauld from the collection (Stories) where the novelette first appeared, photoshopped it (actually Paint.neted it), used MyFont.com’s “What The Font” feature to find the font (Didot LTStd-Roman), and put it all together.

Looking at it from the outside, it probably sounds completely bonkers to you. And perhaps it is.

But what can I do?

The medication that I’ve been taking for it (two carefully measured cups of coffee every morning) aren’t reducing the behavior in the slightest. Do you think I should up my dosage?

Update: Having now finished listening, I find The Truth Is A Cave In The Back Mountains to be yet more proof that Neil Gaiman is one of the best authors of any century. What Ted Chiang is to Science Fiction Neil Gaiman is to Fantasy.

Posted by Jesse Willis