John Joseph Adams is interviewed on the January 9, 2010 WBAI, NY interview show The Hour Of The Wolf. He discusses his upcoming Lightspeed magazine, and plays the reading of a Tony Pi story from his latest anthology, The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes!
I call that a recipe for happiness.
Dynamics Of A Hanging
By Tony Pi; Read by Simon Vance
1 |MP3| – Approx. 2 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: WBAI / Hour Of The Wolf
Broadcast: January 9, 2010
The Pulp Reader blog is an ongoing experiment in “computer generated audio books.” Sez the webmaster (Shonokin):
I read a lot. I also drive a lot, stuck in long commutes every day. There’s a way for a reader and a commuter to do both at the same time. And for me that is through audiobooks. But alas, most of the books I’d like to listen to are not available anywhere, so what to do? Make my own and that’s mostly what this is about. I create Text To Speech (TTS) audiobooks for my daily commute. Since I make them, I might as well share them. So here we are!
Shonokin places the files on Archive.org and then links to them on his/her blog. Shonokin started this project in 2006. And coincidently in 2006 I had a similar problem myself. There were a lot of ebooks out there that weren’t being turned into audiobooks. But with me being a hater of the robot voice I came up with the SFFaudio Challenges |First|Second|Third|Fourth| to solve my dilemma instead.
What Shonokin and I can both agree on, I’m betting, is that audio drama is not best done not by robots* – but by people – real people! Not those damned thieving “Silicon Americans” that Shonokin is employing.
Anyway, here are Shonokin’s thoughts on some recent human done shows that he/she has been listening to:
First off, there’s my love hate relationship with Wormwood, an excellent supernatural detective mystery. The acting is mostly good, the stories are sharp and exciting and the incidental music and sounds effects are great. My only complaint is that it is mixed very poorly. In situations such as driving in a car or surrounded by other ambient noise, you may find you have to fiddle with the volume knob of your radio or mp3 player to alternately listen to quiet dialog and back off on sudden crashing loud jabs of sound. Quite unpleasant aurally, but the stories are good enough to keep me going, annoyed as I am.
Also, the latest seasons of Black Jack Justice and Red Panda have started, which are a joy all the way around. Red Panda is a fun detective pulp with sprinkles of scifi/fantasy and comic book hero action. Black Jack Justice is a hard-boiled detective comedy. Both are great fun but written and played in very different styles.
And then there is also McLevy, an audio drama from the BBC which airs weekly on their iplayer. I find this to be a very fascinating series and have put together a mini webpage about him. In short, James McLevy was a real detective in 1800’s Edinburgh. He wrote several memoirs about his exploits which were very popular. There’s some speculation that aside from the obvious homages to his teacher, Doctor Joseph Bell, that Arthur Conan Doyle may have gleaned some bits of inspiration for Sherlock Holmes from McLevy’s memoirs.
I was fascinated by stumbling across the existence of McLevy but have not found an ultimate website or font of information about him, which is why I put this together. Please visit McLevy The Edinburgh Detective to find out more.
The SFFaudio Podcast #045 – Jesse and Scott are joined by the ghost of Xmas future as they talk about audiobooks, video games, audio drama and lots more. Jesse even reveals an earth shattering bit of trivia about Vincent Price (you’ll never guess it) and what he thinks is clearly “the greatest joke ever.”
Radio Drama Revival has a new Sherlock Holmes podcast audio drama in it’s feed!
Sez host Fred Greenhalgh:
This week we bring back the Quicksilver Radio Theater in a most peculiar of Sherlock Holmes tales set during the Christmas season.
A fat goose, a random mugging, and a precious gem. How do all three relate, and who committed this most unusual crime?
One caveat folks: This is an all-American production (Quicksilver is based out of New York). Don’t expect too much in the way of spot-on English accents. Part 2, presumably the concluding portion of the adventure, will likely be in the feed next weekend… PART 2 is HERE!
Radio Drama Revival – Episode #152 In Search Of The Blue Carbuncle
Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3|
And…
RDR had another Sherlock Holmes AD back in 2008, created by the same Quicksilver team: The Speckled Band Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3|
Naxos Audiobooks, in partnership with AudioFile Magazine, is offering three unabridged Sherlock Holmes short stories FREE for download until December 29th, 2009! The first of these had already been made available, but the other two are definitely new to my collection (and SFFaudio). Narrator David Timson has a really terrific voice for Sherlock Holmes narration. Have a listen to Timson talk about Doyle and Holmes |MP3|. He’ll make you want to get the rest of the Sherlock Holmes short stories and the four Sherlock Holmes novels he narrated for Naxos.
The Adventure of Silver Blaze
By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Read by David Timson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 60 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks
Published: 2009 One of the most famous images of Sherlock Holmes, Sidney Paget’s drawing of Holmes, complete with Deerstalker and Inverness cape, leaning eagerly forward to a an attentive Watson in a railway carriage as they hurtle towards their next adventure comes from ‘The Silver Blaze.’
The Adventure of the Stock-Broker’s Clerk
By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Read by David Timson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 41 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks
Published: 2009 In Stock-Broker’s Clerk, the intrepid pair travel by train to Birmingham, and it is nostalgic to think that despite it being 1889, when Holmes and Watson alighted at New Street station they would have been greeted by cobbled streets, eighteenth-century houses and a town still largely undeveloped.
The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Read by David Timson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 71 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks
Published: 2009 Trains feature consistently throughout the canon, incidentally and as a main component of the story as in ‘The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans’. It is popular amongst railway enthusiasts, as a significant part of the investigation takes place among the subterranean tunnels of the London Underground system.
The SFFaudio Podcast #043 – Jesse and Scott talk about all the Recent Arrivals and New Releases that have been piling up while Scott’s been away fiddling on a roof.
John Joseph Adams is interviewed on the January 9, 2010 WBAI, NY interview show The Hour Of The Wolf. He discusses his upcoming Lightspeed magazine, and plays the reading of a Tony Pi story from his latest anthology, The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes! 
Dynamics Of A Hanging
One caveat folks: This is an all-American production (Quicksilver is based out of New York). Don’t expect too much in the way of spot-on English accents. 
RDR had another Sherlock Holmes AD back in 2008, created by the same Quicksilver team: The Speckled Band Part 1 |
