noir – Page 5 – SFFaudio

9 interesting paperbooks (should they be audiobooks?)

SFFaudio Commentary

There are a ton of cool looking paperbooks in the bookstores these days. Here are 9 paperbooks, that I spotted at Chapters. None of these are available as audiobooks – at least not yet. Should they be? Here’s my take.

#1 – SS-GB by Len Deighton. This was an audiobook, long ago, but it is currently out of print in audio. I have high hopes it will be re-audiobooked sometime in 2011. And I’ll do my darnedest to make it happen.

#2 – I’m always in favour of audiobooking a paperbook containing both a Donald E. Westlake and a Lawrence Block story. This one would probably have to wait until next November to be a viable audiobook.

Christmas At The Mysterious Bookshop edited by Otto Penzler

#3 – Best American Noir Century, edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler. What a crazy title! Though I should point out that in the fine print it reads “The Best American Noir of the Century” – This sounds like it would be a very good listen! With stories by Jim Thompson, James M. Cain and more than a dozen others it ought to have a good dispersionary impact. Reading a best of anthology can also give a quick taste of many authors – which leads to a lot more listening. ~~Sadly, most of the stories actually in it are from the end of the 20th century and some of the one’s I recognize aren’t very noir.~~* – SEE THE COMMENTS

Best American Noir Century edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler

#4 – He Is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson – Assuming that such a collection is a good idea to begin with (we have a similar one for Jack Vance) – this is a natural to turn audiobook – it does everything that a regular themed anthology does, but it does it with a guy instead of an idea. Opinions?

He Is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson

#5 – The Sherlockian by Graham Moore – minimalist cover art rarely works for me. This one totally does. Skimming the back of the book, it sounded rather awesome too!

The Sherlockian by Graham Moore

#6 – Subtitled “A Medieval Noir” this novel, Jeri Westerson’s Veil Of Lies, might be a more dank and dangerous answer to the cozy Brother Cadfael books. Plus I dig the dude with the dagger.

Veil Of Lies: A Medieval Noir by Jeri Westerson

#7 – And if the first book in the series is audiobook-worthy, why not the second too? Maybe we ought to see how the first goes?

Serpent In The Thorns: A Medieval Noir by Jeri Westerson

#8 – Doing the public domain shuffle this book plucks several of my interests! What Alice Knew: A Most Curious Tale Of Henry James And Jack The Ripper by Paula Marantz Cohen – And check out that gorgeous cover!

What Alice Knew - A Most Curious Tale Of Henry James And Jack The Ripper by Paula Marantz Cohen

#9 – Now this one takes the PD mash-up meme just one step too far for me. Adding zombies to The War Of The Worlds? Really? Martians and zombies? The only reason H.G. Wells isn’t turning over in his grave is because he wouldn’t go zombie – ever! I do like the idea of more guts and blood though.

The War Of The Worlds Plus Blood Guts And Zombies by Eric S. Brown

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Hunt Through The Cradle Of Fear by Gabriel Hunt (aka Charles Ardai)

SFFaudio Review

SFFaudio Essential Hunt: Through The Cradle Of Fear (#2 in the Adventures Of Gabriel Hunt series)
By Gabriel Hunt (aka Charles Ardai); Read by Jim VanDusen
6 CDs – Approx. 8 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Realms
Published: November 2009
ISBN: 9781897304761
Themes: / Adventure / History / Mythology / Fantasy / Hungary / New York / Egypt / Greece / Sri Lanka / Libya / Noir /

From the towers of Manhattan to the jungles of South America, from the sands of the Sahara to the frozen crags of Antarctica, one man finds adventure everywhere he goes: GABRIEL HUNT. Backed by the resources of the $100 million Hunt Foundation and armed with his trusty Colt revolver, Gabriel Hunt has always been ready for anything – but is he prepared to enter… The Cradle Of Fear? When a secret chamber is discovered inside the Great Sphinx of Egypt, the mystery of its contents will lead Gabriel to a remote Greek Island, to a stone fortress in Sri Lanka … and to a deadly confrontation that could decide the fate of the world!

Hunt Through The Cradle Of Fear is a fast paced, well researched, modern adventure tale in the vein of Indiana Jones or Jake Sampson: Monster Hunter. The adventure never flags or gets bogged down in the equipment porn many of the other adventure series I’ve read have. Instead, the story both figuratively and literally jets from scene to scene – with a narration that almost as velocitous. Adding to the fun is Sheba, a distressed damsel who is no mere mcguffin – she’s got skills that both Lajos DeGroe, the billionaire heavy, and Hunt both need. When Gabriel Hunt, the titular hero/author, isn’t stowed away on a private jet, chasing after Sheba to who-knows-where, he’s doing battle from the seat of New York taxi or jumping off ramparts into shadowy abysses. Spanning three-quarters of the circumference of the Earth, this story threads together a plot explaining the various archaeological connections between Greece, Egypt and Sri Lanka. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it.

In Chapter 19 there’s a delightful little scene that shows just how playful this book is. Gabriel Hunt, and his buxom companion, are set to meet a shadowy hacker in an Istanbul landmark when they bump into a pair of married writers – one is named Naomi, and she write historical fantasy, the other, her husband, writes adventure stories. If your a bit familiar with Charles Ardai, who wrote Hunt Through The Cradle Of Fear you’ll instantly recognize, as I did, that that was a cameo by both Charles Ardai and his wife Naomi Novik (author of His Majesty’s Dragon |READ OUR REVIEW|! Fun heh? Also promising is the serial but standalone nature of this book. Each book in the series stands alone, but offers callbacks to the earlier adventures as well as advancing the plot and/or revealing more about the Hunt family fortune. This is book 2 in a series, all attributed to Gabriel Hunt, but all ghost-written by various authors. One brief scene referring to events in book 1 Hunt At The Well Of Eternity, for example, made me want to pick up the first book in the series.

If you’re looking for painterly descriptive passages, or angsty characters, you’d do well to avoid this romp. Gabriel Hunt is an adventurer first and foremost. But, if you, like me, enjoy a little back-story – slowly revealed – between hard-fought gun battles and perilous plunges from high places – you’re in for a real treat. When I talked to Fred Godsmark, of Audio Realms, in SFFaudio Podcast #078 I asked him why he produced book 2 in the Gabriel Hunt series, rather than book one. He told me that its was what he was suggested he start with. If Hunt At The Well Of Eternity is half as good as Hunt Through The Cradle Of Fear it’ll definitely be worth picking up too!

Narrator Jim VanDusen is an absolute keeper. His voice perfectly suits the care-free Hunt. But he’s also able to voice the black-hearted villains, the variously accented henchmen, as well as the brainy but busty beauty Sheba (the female lead). It’s always a delightful surprise to find a new narrator, Jim VanDusen is one of these.

But that’s not all! Tacked on to the end of this novel is a bonus 83 minute novelette by Charles Ardai, also read by Jim VanDusen, called Nor Idolatry Blind the Eye (the etext for which is |HERE|). Nor Idolatry Blind the Eye is a terrific adventure tale set in post WWII Libya and starring a shattered mercenary named Malcolm Stewart who is looking for a reason to live. It reminded me of a cross between one of Robert E. Howard’s ghost stories and the 1943 movie Five Graves To Cairo. Like Hunt Through The Cradle Of Fear it is also well researched, fast paced and truly thrilling. Unlike Cradle it’s grim, a meaty noir tale, in the way that a series story never could be. Highly recommended!

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #074

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #074 – Jesse and Scott talk about the recently arrived audiobooks with assistance and commentary by Luke Burrage

Talked about on today’s show:
New York, “your whole life is a holiday”, The Way Of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, The Wheel Of Time series, “the entire world is imagined from the ground up”, Blackstone Audio, The Shadow Hunter by Pat Murphy, neanderthals, cave bear, “a little cave dude”, The Ugly Little Boy by Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Robert J. Sawyer’s Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, shamanic or shamanistic, The Science Fiction Book Review Podcast, Urban Fantasy Alert, City Of Ghosts by Stacia Kane, the Chess Putnam series, First Drop Of Crimson by Jeaniene Frost (Book 1 in the The Night Huntress World series), paranormal romance vs. urban fantasy, spade vs. Spade, vampires, by , southern Gothic, Flannery O’Connor with zombies, the full zombie vs. the half zombie vampire, The Reapers Are The Angels by Alden Bell, The Walking Dead by , Being Human (tv show), Dark Shadows, Hawaii 50, V, Half Blood Of Brooklyn by Charlie Huston, Stephen King, noir urban fantasy?, On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, Subterranean Press, Bronson Pinchot, pirates, magic, voodoo, Brilliance Audio, Bearers Of The Black Staff by Terry Brooks, Caviar by Theodore Sturgeon, Shannara, Audiofile Magazine, Connecting the Robots and Empire (Foundation) series, demon war, war dudes and siege engines, The Speed Of Dark by Elizabeth Moon, autism, Mary Robinette Kowal’s review of the Books On Tape edition of The Speed Of Dark |READ OUR REVIEW|, Luke’s idea for a paranormal romance set in the stone age, “urban cave fantasy”, Quicksilver by Neal Stephanson, audiobooks are being shaped to the length of an Audible credit, The Baroque Cycle, The Lies Of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch |READ OUR REVIEW|, “it ends in Gibraltar”, Penguin Audio, Zorgamazoo by Robert Paul Weston, Dr. Seuss, Roald Dahl, science fiction, Zero History by William Gibson, Max Headroom, Elmore Leonard, great writing is not enough, Michael May’s Adventure Blog article on back of the book copywriting, taking the risk of writing only the keywords, Starship: Mutiny by Mike Resnick |READ OUR REVIEW|, Kirinyaga by Mike Resnick |READ OUR REVIEW|, Finch by Jeff Vandermeer, StarShipSofa, weird fantasy vs. new weird, the George Zarr talk (The SFFaudio Podcast #071), Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot a BBC radio drama, “if you’re 14 years old and you’re listening to this…”, fantasy women, Ranger’s Apprentice by John Flanagan, Young Adult fiction, the The Ruins of Gorlan series, I Am Number Four, Battlestar Galactica, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, This Immortal by Roger Zelazny, Dune by Frank Herbert, Children Of Dune, Bad Blood by John Sanford, James Lee Burke, Santa Fe Edge by Stuart Woods, by Michael Kramer, the Richard Stark Parker books (Books On Tape), Ed Eagle vs. Eddie The Eagle, New Mexico, puzzling murder, false identity, lush and exclusive resorts, family, vegetarian, car, crash, human, not human, zombie, mystery, maggot infested corpse, brink of death, flesh off her bones, Dust by Joan Frances Turner, should be able to know it, OVERLORDS!, Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, The Caves Of Steel by Isaac Asimov, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein, futuristic gadgetry, Snow Crash, Virtual Light by William Gibson, “the first really good augmented reality book”, The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #062 – TALK TO: Kelli Stanley

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #062 – Scott and Jesse talk to author Kelli Stanley about her novel City Of Dragons!

Talked about on today’s show:
Paul Bishop (of the Bish’s Beat blog), TinEye.com reverse image search, the San Francisco Public Library, eBay, Evernote, scrivner, Zotero (a firefox add-on), ABEbooks.com, comics, Treasure Island (California), Chesterfield cigarettes, hardboiled vs. noir, Roman noir, Raymond Chandler, Nox Dormienda by Kelli Stanley, Mystery Readers Journal, “the protagonist is fucked on page one”, James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, Oedipus is noir, Blood On The Moon, noir western, Robert Wise, Deadly Pleasures Magazine, reviewed to death, cozy fiction, why the A-Team is a terrible scourge (it’s anti-noir), torture-porn, Paul Verhoeven, Reefer Madness, apologists for Robert E. Howard, Ashoka (emperor of India), Plutarch, 1940s, Hays office, Baby Face (1933), the history of fuck, HBO’s The Pacific, the wikipedia entry for “Fuck”, 17th century, enlightenment/restoration era sex toys, “the only words that are truly vile are the ones that are used to hurt and ridicule others”, femme fatale, editing, Minotaur books, the City Of Dragons paperbook, point of view as a camera, William Gibson, Tantor Media, the audiobook version of City Of Dragons, historical female private detectives, the perverse incentive of the California divorce laws, Sally Rand’s Nude Ranch, 1939 World’s Fair, High-Octane Stories From The Hottest Thriller Authors edited by Lee Child, WWII, a fan of the Spanish Civil War, Irish fascists vs. the IRA, Father Charles Coughlin and the Christian Front movement, communism, cynicism, Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Sacramento Street in San Francisco, Sino-Japanese War, the Rape of Nanking, Quiet, Please, marketing a book is up to the author, Decoder Ring Theatre’s Black Jack Justice, KelliStanley.com.

38 appropriate uses of the English language’s most iconic curse:

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

SFFaudio Online Audio

What’s the point of The Lottery? It’s a Rorschach test.

“A chilling tale of conformity gone mad.”
-Kent Brockman, Channel 6 News

There’s a special kind of pleasure that comes from a combination of persistence and serendipity. For years I’ve described the fruits of this activity as “obscure goodness.”

Let me tell you a story. Not that long ago I would frequent numerous Blockbuster and Rogers Video stores looking to buy used VHS movies. I’d dig through endless bins of tapes with a copy of a movie guide close to hand. I found hundreds of amazing movies that way. I found The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (1998), Sorcerer (1977) and The Wicker Man (1973), to name just a few.

Podcast discovery, by the way, can be similarly rewarding. Digging around the internet you can find some truly amazing old programs that nobody seems to be talking about. I’ve already pointed you towards the wonder that is A Bite Of Stars, A Slug Of Time And Thou, for instance. That series has a persistent excellence that should be far better known. This whole website is basically an exercise in the search for “obscure goodness.”

I told you this story only to explain why I’m not going to explain why you should listen to Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery.

The Lottery is by no means the best story I’ve read or heard, in fact it’s nowhere even close to that, but because I found it serendipitously I liked it a lot. Apparently a lot of people have read this story, its pretty famous actually, but it was new to me. Here are two versions, one narrated, one dramatized.

Fiction (from the New Yorker) Podcast The Lottery
By Shirley Jackson; Read by A.M. Homes
1 |MP3| – Approx. 32 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: New Yorker: Fiction
Podcast: November 12, 2008
A village of 300 assembles in a square to observe a time-honored ritual. The heads of each family draws a slip of paper to choose the winner. First published in the June 26, 1948, issue of The New Yorker.

NBC Presents: SHORT STORY – “The Lottery”
Based on the short story by Shirley Jackson; Adapted by Ernest Kinoy; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 28 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: NBC Radio
Broadcast: March 14, 1951
Provider: Archive.org
“A story about a quaint old custom.”
Cast: Charles Seel; Gail Bonney; John McGovern; James Nusser; Jack Nessler; Louise Lorimer; Jeff Corey; Irene Tedrow; Margaret Bryaton; Jeffrey Silver; Steven Chase; Morris King (folk singer).

Posted by Jesse Willis

Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast

Aural Noir: Online Audio

Here is a terrific find for fans of mystery and crime tales! Hosted by Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine‘s editor, Janet Hutchings, comes a new podcast the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast! It features:

“Monthly readings and dramatizations of stories by the world’s leading writers of suspense chosen from the magazine’s archives. The full range of the genre is represented in these riveting audio renditions, from the drawing-room mystery to urban noir—including police procedurals, private-eye tales, psychological suspense, and locked-room and impossible-crime stories.”

I’ve been listening to these for hours today. The audio dramatizations are actually pretty good. The short stories tend to be very solid too (and are mostly read by their authors). Sound quality varies though and sometimes the recording level volume is set far too low. Additionally, the proof-listening is occasionally very shoddy (with repeated lines remaining unedited). The latest episode (#7) has three stories all based on the same newspaper article. The results are mixed, but I really like the idea of stories based around a story seed like that. In fact, it reminds me of something John Joseph Adams and David Barr Kirtley were talking about in a recent Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. They mentioned the John W. Cambpell story seed that lead to the writing of Isaac Asimov’s Nightfall and Robert A. Heinlein’s Orphans Of The Sky. Two SF stories that are both very different and very terrific.

My favourite Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast episode so far is #5, Dear Doctor Watson, a Steve Hockensmith short story. Its a kind of Sherlockian pastiche set in the Victorian West. It’s protagonist a kind of amateur Sherlock Watson team that’s only half-hampered by being illiterate and in Montana. Dear Doctor Watson is both fun and well read by two narrators.

I truly hope to see the “Ganelon” stories by James Powell and the “Black Widowers” tales by Isaac Asimov showing up in future episodes. They’re the absolute tops!

Episode 1: Cut! Cut! Cut!
Based on a story by Ellery Queen; Adapted by Ed Bogas; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 12 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcast: Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast
Podcast: August 2009
Ellery Queen receives a phone call from a murder victim in this clever play involving a witness of another species. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine September 1956 issue.

Episode 2: Groundwork
Based on the story by Neil Schofield; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 25 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast
Podcast: September 2009
A nosy neighbor alerts police to suspicious digging in the garden next-door—and she isn’t the only one to get an unexpected comeuppance. First published in EQMM in November 2001.

Episode 3: The Talking Dead
By Melodie Johnson Howe; Read by Melodie Johnson Howe
1 |MP3| – Approx. 27 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast
Podcast: October 2009
A TV writer goes missing, leaving her show’s star without a script and opening up a perfect scenario for murder. In this fourth installment in her series of Diana Poole mysteries, former Hollywood actress Melodie Johnson Howe takes a penetrating look at the off-stage life of a TV idol. First published in EQMM June 2003.

Episode 4: A Lump Of Sugar
Adapted from a story by Ellery Queen; Adapted by Ed Bogas; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 9 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcast: Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast
Podcast: December 2009
Ellery Queen returns in a case involving a cryptic dying message. First published in EQMM in February, 1953. The story later appeared under the titles Murder In The Park and The Mystery Of The 3 Dawn Riders.

Episode 5: Dear Doctor Watson
By Steve Hockensmith; Read by Steve Hockensmith and Mike Willtrout
1 |MP3| – Approx. 36 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast
Podcast: December 2009
A pair of Old West cowboys try to prove they’re worthy of joining a detective agency by retrieving an incriminating letter. But things are not all they appear to be in Missoula, Montana, circa 1890… First published in the February 2007 issue of EQMM.

Episode 6: The Problem Of The Locked Caboose
Based on the story by by Edward D. Hoch; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 27 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcast: Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast
Podcast: January 2010
The solving of so-called “impossible crimes” is the hallmark of Edward D. Hoch’s series character Dr. Sam Hawthorne. In this episode, the New England country doctor is on board a night train when a body is discovered in its locked caboose. First published in EQMM in May, 1976.

Episode 7: Say That Again, The Old Story and Wheeze
By Peter Lovesey, Liza Cody, Michael Z. Lewin; Read by Peter Lovesey, Liza Cody, Michael Z. Lewin
1 |MP3| – Approx. 73 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast
Podcast: February 2010
Three stories (Say That Again by Peter Lovesey, The Old Story by Liza Cody, and Wheeze by Michael Z. Lewin) that take their lead from a single newspaper article provide an entertaining look at how a common creative impetus can take the imaginations of different writers in wonderfully different directions. Includes a short interview with the authors, all leading writers of suspense, recorded at the 2009 Bouchercon World Mystery Convention.

Podcast feed:

http://eqmm.podomatic.com/rss2.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Jesse Willis