pirates – Page 8

Five Free Favourites #3

SFFaudio Online Audio

Five Free Favourites
Five more faves, five more of my best bets. These are stories to make your mind say “yum yum” and your wallet say “nightie-night”…

1.
After A Lean Winter
By David Farland; Read by Rick Jelinek
1 |M4A| File – Approx. 1 Hour [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: MechMuse
Podcast: Spring 2006
I’m very pleased to see all the released MechMuse stories still available online. Of the dozen or so of stories released, I think this one is my favourite. It’s set six months or so after the events of H.G. Well’s The War Of The Worlds and features a protagonist named “Jack London,” who like the other residents of the Yukon, is still struggling against a Martian menace that still survives up there.

2.
Beyond Lies The Wub
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Mac Kelly
1 |MP3| – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: The Time Traveler Show
Podcast: December 2006
The best Xmas gift I received in 2006 was this podcast short story! This was Dick’s first ever published tale, it’s one of his best too. And, I find holds up to multiple listenings. I recommend it often. Knowledge of Homer’s Odyssey is recommended.

3.
The Green Odyssey
By Philip Jose Farmer; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
10 Zipped MP3s or Podcast – 6 Hours 6 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: December 2006
Publisher: LibriVox.org
This FREE audiobook was created on a dare. As one of the titles from the first SFFaudio Challenge I asked budding narrators to make single-voiced audiobooks from a list of public domain titles. This was the very first to meet the challenge – it is also one of the best. Set on a grassy plain on an obscure alien planet – it’s fast, funny, and makes for quite a romp. A novel in the spirit of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court

Subscribe using this feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/the-green-odyssey-by-philip-jose-farmer.xml

4.
Star Surgeon
By Alan E. Nourse; Read by Scott D. Farquhar
14 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – 5 Hours 25 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Podiobooks.com
Published: October 2007
Dal Tigmar is an alien doctor with a sort of interstellar Médecins Sans Frontières. As a recent graduate of the Galaxy’s most prestigious medical school, on Earth, he’s been trained to treat every disease in the book. But racism isn’t a disease even he can treat. This is a real peppy 50 year old novel, that still crackles with energy. It plays out like a typical Heinleinian juvenile, minus the lectures. You’ll love it.

5.
X-Minus One: The Lifeboat Mutiny
Based on the story by Robert Sheckley; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 28 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: NBC Radio
Broadcast: September 11, 1956
Provider: Archive.org
I find a lot of X-Minus One hit or miss, but this Robert Sheckley story works. In fact, I’ve used the script for it twice just this month! Kids love it, adults love it. It’s funny, and it’s FREE! My only nit-pick is that the actor playing the lifeboat is not emotional enough – he totally underplays the scripted dialogue. When I do this part, I always play it highly emotional.

I’m still soliciting podcasters and bloggers for their lists, if you’ve a batch of five free faves you think just can’t be ignored, either post em below, or send me an email.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Podcast Audio Drama: Twin Stars

SFFaudio Online Audio

Twin Stars is…

A science fiction audio adventure drama starring Greg Nugent as Imperial Naval Officer Albert Tysen and Melissa D. Johnson as the Space Pirate Zhang Ping-An, two figures on opposite sides in a battle for the destiny of mankind’s first Empire of the Stars. New Episodes the 1st of Every Month!

I have listened to only the first of the four episodes so far but this is impressive in both production and story line. The “twin stars” are each other’s equals mentally and in ingenuity which sets up an extra area of interest in seeing how they can outwit each other, sometimes in opposition and sometimes in trying to solve the same puzzle while beating the other person.

Check it out via the podcast feed, the iTunes link, or at their website.

Posted by Julie D.

New Releases – Jack O’Connell, Edgar Allan Poe, Tee Morris, C.S. Lewis, Ayn Rand

New Releases

This sounds just up our alley! it’s described as “Gritty noir fiction, mind-bending fantasy, and medical thriller combine in a new novel by an author dubbed the ‘cyberpunk Dashiell Hammett.'” Noir and Fantasy! Yum yum!

The Resurrectionist
By Jack O’Connell; Read by Holter Graham
9 CDs -11½ Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Highbridge Audio
Published: April 2008
ISBN: 9781598875942
[LISTEN TO AN MP3 SAMPLE]
Sweeney is a druggist by trade; Danny, his son, is in a persistent coma, the victim of an accident. Hoping for a miracle, they have come to the Peck Clinic, a fortress-like haven in a post-industrial city overrun by gangs. Doctors there claim to have resurrected two patients who were similarly lost in the void. Gradually, Sweeney realizes that the cure for his son’s condition may lie in “Limbo,” a fantasy comic-book world into which Danny had been drawn at the time of his accident. Plunged into the intrigue that surrounds the clinic, Sweeney searches for answers and instead finds sinister back alleys, brutal dead ends, and terrifying rabbit holes of mystery.

Narrator Wayne June assures us that he’s done his research on this new series of definitive Edgar Allan Poe readings…

Into That Darkness Peering: Nightmarish Tales Of The Macabre – Vol. 1
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Wayne June
1 CD – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: AudioBookCase.com
Published: March 2008
ISBN: 0977845303
Three tales from the original master of horror fiction, Edgar Allan Poe! Included in this collection are “The Raven”, “The Black Cat” and “The Cask Of Amontillado.”

Tee Morris returns to his, and the world’s first podiobook, restoring lost scenes, adding more production and voices from other favorite podcasters. Read our review of the original version HERE, then set sail with Rafe and Askana again…

Morevi: The Chronicles of Rafe and Askana (Remastered)
By Tee Morris and Lisa Lee; Read by Tee Morris and others
Podiobook (a podcast novel) – [UNABRIDGED?]
Publisher: Podiobooks.com
Published: 2008
Morevi, a landlocked kingdom shrouded by jungles and mystery, falls under the rule of Askana Moldarin. In the dawn of this New Age, hidden traitors in her own regime threaten to destroy everything. The First Queen, independent of council, seeks help to reveal the conspiracy against her… Enter Rafe Rafton, captain of the Defiant.

Soon to be a major motion picture, already an audiobook!

The Chronicles Of Narnia: Book 2 – Prince Caspian (Movie Tie-In)
By C. S. Lewis; Read by Lynn Redgrave
CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Harper Childrens Audio
Published: April 2008
ISBN: 0061435279
Narnia is in trouble! All the magical creatures and Talking Animals have been forced into hiding by an evil king. Fortunately, young Prince Caspian escapes in time to lead the Old Narnians in the fight for their freedom. But when the battle goes badly, Caspian blows an enchanted horn. Suddenly Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie are pulled back into Narnia from England, where they had returned after defeating the evil White Witch. In a race against time and with the aid of the Great Lion, Aslan, they join Caspian and his army in a battle to restore peace throughout Narnia.

At over 1,000 pages in length this is the longest work of speculative fiction published between two covers (Mission Earth by L. Ron Hubbard was published in separate volumes) – it becomes now one of the longest audiobooks ever made at a backbreaking 38 CDs!

Atlas Shrugged
By Ayn Rand; Read by Kate Reading
38 CDs – Approx. 40 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Books On Tape
Published: March 2008
ISBN: 1415949247
First published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged was Ayn Rand’s greatest achievement and last work of fiction. In this novel she dramatizes her unique philosophy through an intellectual mystery story that integrates ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics, economics, and sex. Set in a near-future U.S.A. whose economy is collapsing as a result of the mysterious disappearance of leading innovators and industrialists, this novel presents an astounding panorama of human life-from the productive genius who becomes a worthless playboy…to the great steel industrialist who does not know that he is working for his own destruction…to the philosopher who becomes a pirate…to the woman who runs a transcontinental railroad…to the lowest track worker in her train tunnels. Peopled by larger-than-life heroes and villains, charged with towering questions of good and evil, Atlas Shrugged is a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thriller.

Posted by Jesse Willis

2nd Completed SFFaudio Challenge title: The Queen Of The Black Coast by Robert E. Howard

SFFaudio Online Audio

SFFaudio’s Make An Audiobook Win An Audiobook Challenge #2 Bill Hollweg of Broken Sea Audio Productions is the second challenger to complete a title in the Second Annual SFFaudio Challenge! Available now is a complete and unabridged reading of Robert E. Howard’s Queen Of The Black Coast read by Bill Hollweg!

This is a significant achievment as Queen Of The Black Coast is one of the world’s most important novelettes:

-There is a hefty page on Wikipedia detailing much about this influential tale.

-It took a stunning 40 issues of Conan: The Barbarian (the Marvel comic) to string out just a few lines in this tale.

-In the original Conan movie, which was not faithful to any particular Conan story, there was one clear aspect that was certainly taken from the end of Queen Of The Black Coast.

–Broken Sea Audio Productions is “doing a full cast audio drama of this and other tales of Conan” – look for the audio drama version in early 2008.

Also, the good folks over at Broken Sea Audio Productions have fenced off a separate page for what they are calling “Hooligan Audiobooks”, there you’ll find all the BSAP single voiced narration tales. If you’ve never tried a Howard story, or never read a Conan tale, have a listen to this unabridged beauty:

Queen Of The Black Coast
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Bill Hollweg
Podcast – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Broken Sea Audio Thursday
Podcast: November – December 2007
In the seacoast kingdom of Argos, after a brush with the Hyborian legal system, Conan hops aboard a southward bound ship. Off the coasts of Kush the ship is boarded by black corsairs under the Shemitish she-devil, Bêlit. Conan joins her crew, becomes her consort, and for a long time they harry the Hyborian and Stygian ports. During this stage of his career, Conan gains the name of Amra, the Lion, which is to follow him throughout his later life.

Chapter 1 |MP3| Chapter 2 |MP3| Chapter 3 |MP3|Chapters 4 & 5 |MP3|

Subscribe to the podcast feed:

http://brokensea.com/feed

Posted by Jesse Willis

Challenger begins podcasting: Queen Of The Black Coast by Robert E. Howard

SFFaudio Online Audio

Are you ready to hear the first ever podcast of a Conan tale? Are you ready for some furious freebooting? What about serious corsairage? Would it bother you if it were buccaneering? Are you truly ready for the blazing prose of the undisputed master of pulp fiction in one of his best loved tales? If the answer is yes to all of these questions then prepare yourself for the first chapter in…

Queen Of The Black Coast
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Bill Hollweg
Podcast – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Broken Sea Audio Thursday
Podcast: Started November 29th
In the seacoast kingdom of Argos, after a brush with the Hyborian legal system, Conan hops aboard a southward bound ship. Off the coasts of Kush the ship is boarded by black corsairs under the Shemitish she-devil, Bêlit. Conan joins her crew, becomes her consort, and for a long time they harry the Hyborian and Stygian ports. During this stage of his career, Conan gains the name of Amra, the Lion, which is to follow him throughout his later life.
Chapter 1 |MP3|

Subscribe to the podcast feed:

http://brokensea.com/feed

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

Airborn SFFaudio Essential
By Kenneth Oppel; Performed by a FULL CAST
10 CDs – 10.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Full Cast Audio
Published: 2006
ISBN: 1933322543
Themes: / Fantasy / Parallel World / Alternate History / Airships / Swashbuckling / Pirates /

…the pirate airship was already adjusting its course, keeping pace, and as it forced us closer to the waves, we would have less space to manoeuvre. There was a great flash from the pirate ship’s underbelly and a thunderous volley of cannon fire scorched the night sky across our bow.

A voice carried by bullhorn shuddered the air. “Put your nose to the wind and cut speed.”

The story of Airborn is told by 15 year old Matt Cruse, a lowly cabin boy on the a ziz-like commercial airship called the Aurora, primarily used as a passenger liner, the Aurora also carries industrial an commercial goods between continents. Matt was actually born in the air and dreams of becoming an officer one day, not only to further his career as an airman but also to better support his family back home. One day, while aloft and on watch, Matt spies a damaged hot air balloon drifting in the South Pacificus. Only Matt’s natural aptitude in the rigging can save the dying man carried in it. When Matt rescues him the feverish old man’s words are of an amazing, and highly improbable creature he’d spotted in the sky. A year or so later, young Kate de Vries, who was granddaughter to the hot-air balloonist, comes aboard the Aurora. Kate herself has dreams of following in her grandfather’s flightpath and becoming a famous naturalist. They might never have discovered her grandfather’s secret though, had it not been for sudden and vicious pirate raid lead by the legendary air-pirate Szpirglas (pronounced Spear-glass). After the attack and crash-landed on an uncharted island off the regular air-routes it is up to Matt to discover the secret of Kate’s grandfather, repair the damaged airship along with the crew and win the heart of Kate herself. If Matt can just pull it all together he might even live long enough to attend the Air Academy and become a officer.

This is a simple, almost classically structured, juvenile adventure story in the Heinleinian tradition. What is so different about this novel is that it isn’t set in a familiar setting – no spaceships and farm boys here, instead we have an alternate history/alternate universe tale, set on Earth, but an Earth which has place names subtly altered (The city of Vancouver is called Lionsgate City, the Pacific ocean is the Pacificus). Most importantly a flourishing airship economy has made the world of Airborn a cross between a benign steampunk world and pneumatic tube etherland of alternate science and technology. The successful airships industry is buoyed not by helium or hydrogen but instead by a mango scented and plentiful noncombustible gas: hydrium. Also in use are ornithopters, which are a fun but failed technology in our world, though they seem to serve well enough in Airborn, at least for short hops. The world’s extant empires are all subtly altered too, it appears that the expansive British Empire centered in “Angleterre, is tempered, perhaps by a more vigorous Germanic or French empire? North America itself is cut-up into “Kanada” and the “American Colonies”. The Aurora itself though is the primary setting of the novel. As a commercial passenger airship it is based out of Lionsgate City (Vancouver) and plies the airways of the Pacific to Sydney, Siberia and beyond.

There is a tremendous difference between a FULL CAST reading and a regular audiobook. A full cast audiobook, and by that I mean a FULL CAST AUDIO production, is as close to an audio drama as you can get without actually becoming a dramatization. Each character has his or her own actor, this along with descriptive text and punctuating music transmogrifies the unabridged words into vibrant mental images. I’d be willing to bet that if you were to hook-up a person listening to Airborn to a Functional Magnetic Resonating Imaging machine the FMRI would show tremendous activity in the visual cortex. There is a sequel, called Skybreaker in the release pipeline coming from Full Cast Audio, if it lives up to the standard set in writing and production it will be an SFFaudio Essential too.

posted by Jesse Willis