The SFFaudio Podcast #227 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Dreams In The Witch House by H.P. Lovecraft

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #227 – The Dreams In The Witch House by H.P. Lovecraft; read by Julie Hoverson. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novelette (1 hour 42 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Julie Hoverson, Mirko Stauch, and John Feaster.

Talked about on today’s show:
1933, a pretty terrible Lovecraft story, which story?, science fiction vs. horror, crappy cheesy, Julie’s audio drama adaptation of The Dreams In The Witch House, bad ending vs. interesting journey, nobody wants August Derleth to be right, Mirko likes it, a magnificent failure?, an unusual narrative, standard witch story #4, The Size Of The Universe by Willem de Sitter, is the Dark Man made out of dark matter?, the first fanfic Mary Sue writer, Hypnos, witches, magic, what does a being from beyond space need with baby guts, why is Nyarlathotep crusing the streets with a dude in his pajamas?, Prohibition, a supervillain squad, a nerve specialist, Herbert West, Re-Animator, Douglas Adams, space is really really really big, the total perspective vortex, Lovecraft humour, Pickman’s Model, Walter Gilman is blind to the danger, the Masters Of Horror adaptation, The Whisperer In Darkness, The Colour Out Of Space, a homesteading concept, Darkest Of The Hillside Thickets, The Shadow Out of Tim, the science fiction aspect, a scary fascination, the sunburn, the blown out ear drums, Azathoth, the Pythagorean view, “everything is made of numbers”, mathematics, Galen, is Keziah Mason dead?, is Walter Gilman doomed from the start?, Brown Jenkin looks like Chuck E. Cheese, what is Brown Jenkin?, witches familiars, Blackadder, “bloody milk!”, bubbles -> Beelzebubbles, modern witches, “the witch stole my penis”, mob mentality, Caligula, proscription, Crassus, the Polish landlord and tenants, a drunken loom-mender?, the looming evil, the cross prayer, the cross giver, the cross as a weapon, Walpurgis Night, the skeleton is quantum physics, Halloween, the maypole, the Brocken, pagan rituals, prank gardening, tree stealing, mascot kidnapping, “excessively religious”, Elwood, The Thing On The Doorstep is internally logical, Tales From The Crypt, Lovecraft’s racism, The Haunter Of The Dark, presenting light, superstition, Mount Everest, icky areas, Lovecraft’s characters aren’t into self-preservation, 1960s, addiction, psychedelics, helmet refusers, “outspokenly Wiccan”, The Call Of Cthulhu RPG, 20 sided die, weird angles, 4 sided die, Julie’s die scar, sharp Doritos, caltrops, “grimoire”, sleeping on Elwood’s couch, a cohesive awesome, the endings, the star wanderings, Beyond The Wall Of Sleep, Polaris, an obsession with evil stars, astral projection, the movement of the stars, Lovecraft’s astronomic efforts, The Festival, a weird plot thread, Lovecraft as an untethered balloon, there’s a lot of puppy dog in H.P. Lovecraft, “the poky little Lovecraft”, Montreal, a historical-building-o-phile, Bingo The Birthday Clown, Star Crunch (a Lovecraftian sponsor), “a field of red jelly with bones floating in it”, hot dog water, ultimately everyone is consumed, Tunus the Unstoppable, a soap opera with only three people, an anthropomorphic supercomputer, Krusty the Klown, a fascinating unpleasant series, The Lovecraft Five, Facts Concerning The Late Arthur Jermyn And His Family, He, The Picture In The House, H. Rider Haggard’s She done as a comedy, Brown Monkey’s The Dreams In The Witch House, Uncle George’s House Party, 19 Nocturne Boulevard, The Hole Behind Midnight by Clinton Boomer, Broken Eye Books’s Kickstarter, a professional audio novel, a giant evil naked clown, the HPLHS movie adaptation of The Whisperer In Darkness, the changes, Mr. Jim Moon’s review of The Whisperer In Darkness, it’s fucking terrifying, Julie’s reading, Julie loves to play crazy old people, a love letter to H.P. Lovecraft, “fun, surprising, and terrifying”, The Creeping Unknown, more suspense and less action, Charles Fort (played by Andrew Leman), Septimius Felton by Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Doctor Portsoaken”, “Robert Hagburn”, Charles Dickens, Curse Of The Crimson Altar, Die, Monster, Die!, The Curse, Thriller, Pigeons From Hell, The Resurrected, Bleeders (aka Hemoglobin), a micro-budget with Rutger Hauer.

Classics Illustrated - Dreams In The Witch-House - illustration by Pete Von Sholly

The Dreams In The Witch House - Room For Rent

Dreams In The Witch-House - illustrated by Ben Templesmith

Posted by Jesse Willis

KCRW: The Treatment: Interview with Mark Waid about Irredeemable

SFFaudio Online Audio

The TreatmentKCRW’s The Treatment interviewed comics author Mark Waid about Irredeemable back in August. Elvis Mitchell, the host, does a solid interview. With him Mark Waid makes a compelling case for comics and Irredeemable in particular.

|MP3|

I sought out the interview after reading the first trade paperback (Irredeemable Vol. 1). I’d heard some good things about Mark Waid’s Irredeemable and I picked up the first trade paperback (Irredeemable Vol. 1) despite my not caring much for superhero comics. Other than the stunning work in Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III’s Batwoman the closest I normally get to supe comics is seeing them get their asses kicked in Garth Ennis’ The Boys.

Irredeemable is a kind of anti-superhero book – the premise being a Superman-like superhero, named The Plutonian, goes crazy and begins murdering his former allies, destroying whole cities and drowning millions of people. The Plutonian is on an unstoppable rampage. The supervillains, his former enemies, want to court him, those who knew him before he turned want to stop him, but both are potential targets of The Plutonian’s unstoppable and god-like superpowers.

I must admit Boom! Studios first collection, issues 1-4, delivers a pretty great story. And though we only get some hints about the solution to the mystery of why such a humanitarian hero would stop, reverse course, and then kill instead of save – is not answered. I’ll probably have to pick up the next volume – though from the sounds of it it’d be good one to pick up at a library as there’s a price jump from Volume 1 to Volume 2 of $7.

Irredeemable - Volume 1

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of 52, Parts 1 and 2 by Greg Cox

SFFaudio Review

52: Part 1 and 52: Part 2
By Greg Cox; Performed by a full cast
12 CDs or 2 MP3-CDs – Approx. 12 hours [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Graphic Audio
Published: February 2008
ISBN: 9781599503684 (part 1), 9781599503691 (part 2)
Themes: / Fantasy / Superheroes / Supervillains / Robots / Time Travel / Crime / Advertising /

The premise of this comic book series translated to graphic novel and then ultimately to audiobook is relatively simple. After a showdown between the Justice League and an assorted gang of supervillains, all the superheroes disappear. Superman, gone. Batman, likewise. Wonder Woman, ditto.

That leaves things wide open for the B-grade villains to wreak havoc and the B-grade heroes to step up and stop them. “52” refers to the weekly events of the year that follows and that are presented in a “real-time” format. We are taken into the story lines of various heroes and sidekicks which are occasionally interwoven.

Supernova and his trusted robot companion Skeets come from the future to capitalize on the lack of heroes by selling advertising rights while fighting crime. Hardboiled former cop Renee Montoya encounters The Question who leads her into an investigation of Intergang activities in Gotham. Black Adam intrigues and frightens the world by attempting to stop crime with such methods as ripping a villain in half on national television. However, his powers can be turned to good when he encounters Isis who immediately points out the error of his methods. And so on.

The adventures unroll and pick up steam in Part I. Naturally, we are left with many cliffhangers and even the stories that seem ended have more to reveal in Part II. Unfortunately Part II is much more muddled than Part I, especially with new villains and heroes suddenly randomly appearing – even sometimes seemingly from out of nowhere. This probably is because the actual comic book featured many more characters and stories than could be contained in this audio offering. In an attempt to keep things on track it may have been necessary to suddenly thrust a new character into the mix. Sadly this merely serves to muddle the stories and leave the listener wondering who all these people are. Also, some of the originally intriguing story lines either seemed to peter-out or take a turn for the worse leaving us not caring. Such was the case in Black Adam’s story. After his family’s story has developed, Isis suddenly acts completely uncharacteristically, sending Black Adam on a destructive spree. Perhaps it was the tendency of the narrative to describe every blow of a fight which made this part of the story suddenly seem to drag. In audio, unlike comic books, we don’t need to hear every “BIFF” or “BAM” to know what is going on. It seems likely again that problem stems from editing the story line to fit onto two CDs instead of mirroring the four graphic novels that were necessary to contain the original comic books.

52 is a full cast recording with sound effects. The recording is really wonderful and the voice talent is spot on in conveying all the emotions and action that we don’t get to see in the original comic book form. Although the 25 actors can be difficult to link to characters at first, the patient listener will soon find identification easy. The cover calls this recording a “movie in your mind” and that is accurate. Everything the listener needs for a full, rich experience is contained inside … except for the clear story line of Part I being continued successfully in Part II.

If you already are a fan of this series then this audiobook is probably worth your money. Otherwise, you will need to be a dedicated fan of superheroes in general to care enough to get to the end of Part II.

Posted by Julie D.

Review of The Red Panda Adventures – Season 2

SFFaudio Audiobook Review

As a special CANADA DAY treat for everyone worldwide, Podiobooks.com has scored the entire 2nd Season of The Red Panda Adventures! The entire season is up and ready for download today! And here’s our review of it…

Podiobooks Audio Drama: The Red Panda Adventures - Season TwoThe Red Panda Adventures – Season Two
By Gregg Taylor; Performed by a FULL CAST
12 MP3 Files – Approx. 5.5 Hours [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: DecoderRingTheatre.com / Podiobooks.com
Published: 2006/2007
Themes: / Fantasy / Superheroes / Supervillains / 1930s / Toronto / Secret Identities / Hypnotism / Magic / Parallel Worlds /

Mad Monkey: “Security pays, but it can’t live without fear. And all I want is my cut.” -Episode 20: Monkeyshines

Like the first season of The Red Panda Adventures, season two is an incontestably enjoyable frolic through original, but familiar, comic book territory. The Red Panda and his faithful driver, Kit Baxter (AKA Flying Squirrel), patrol Toronto rooftops by static boot, and whunk their way through superhero sized pneumatic tubes concealed about the city, fighting wrongdoers. New and old supervillains, voiced by professional audio actors, execute egregious crimes that can only be foiled by a prosperous panda with hypnotic powers and a volitant rodent with a mean right-hook.

The second season has more of what made the first season so terrific. Standouts in traditional storytelling include episode 14: The Sunday Supplement, Episode 16: The Sweet Tooth, and Episode 20: Monkeyshines. The latter introduces a terrific new antagonist called “The Mad Monkey,” an arch-scoundrel on par with DC Comics rogues like The Joker and The Penguin. Season two also has a few episodes that expand the storytelling in different directions. Episode 18, for instance, was the long requested Secret Origins episode – in which we discover the first ever meeting of Panda and Squirrel. Episode 15: When Darkness Falls tells its tale from the perspective of a young boy in a city with a vigilante superhero. And episode 24: The World Next Door posits the existence of an alternate universe in which the Red Panda is a Nazi fighter and the Flying Squirrel is a teenage boy! In naming this show an SFFaudio essential I’ve got to cite both the writing and the production. The acting here is absolutely tops. Recording the scenes in-studio, together, works. The writing is perky, puissant, perfect, and seemingly effortless. The series scribe, Gregg Taylor, is a master storyteller.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Destructomundo! How Do You Stop It?!!?

Online Audio

Destructomundo PodcastGreetings once again fellow vault-dwellers I have some terrible news.

That is not dead which can eternal lie and with strange aeons even death may die.

Yes, it is true, Destructomundo!, the podcast panel made up of Adam, Ted, Derek, and James, who would normally bring you advice on how to survive an “end of the world scenario” may have finally met a threat to the world that **GASP** cannot be survived! This due, to the Lovecraftian terror that nobody knows how to pronounce, and his eldritch friends. Cthulhu and his mythos are the latest topic on Destructomundo! Also listed are a cavalcade of slightly less dangerous scenarios…

Episode 024 Cthulhu |MP3|
Episode 023 Louisville Zombie Attack |MP3|
Episode 022 Anarchy |MP3|
Episode 021 Technopause |MP3|
Episode 029 Time Travel |MP3|
Episode 019b Supernatural Evil – Part 2 |MP3|
Episode 019a Supernatural Evil – Part 1 |MP3|
Episode 018 Dystopia |MP3|
Episode 017 Doppelgangers |MP3|
Episode 016 Mutants |MP3|
Episode 015 Rocks From Space |MP3|
Episode 014 Bunkers |MP3|
Episode 013 Post Apocalypses |MP3|
Episode 012 Dystopia |MP3|
Episode 011a/011b The Fourth Reich |MP3| & |MP3|
Episode 010a/010b Zombie Apocalypse |MP3| & |MP3|
Episode 009 The Antichrist |MP3|
Episode 008 The Last Man On Earth |MP3|
Episode 007 Doom Cults |MP3|
Episode 006 The Big List |MP3|
Episode 005 Science Run Amok |MP3|
Episode 004 Supervillians |MP3|
Episode 003 Aliens Attack! |MP3|
Episode 002 Rise of the Robots |MP3|
Episode 001 Road Warriors |MP3|

Be sure to only put these hardened MP3s into your “MIL-SPEC” iPod or MP3 player. Subscribe via this insanity inducing feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/destructomundo

posted by Jesse Willis