A February 28th, 2009 Paradox Entertainment press release (in Swedish), indicates that Random House/Del Rey has signed a deal with Tantor Media to release the “CONAN” licensed Del Rey’s series of paperbooks by Robert E. Howard as audiobooks. Paradox is the parent company for Conan Properties International.
I expect Tantor to do a terrific job with these. Tantor already has many other public domain texts in its audiobook catalogue, including works by Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Of course this whole situation still smells godawful coming as it does less than a week after Paradox’s subsidiary sent another bogus legal threat to Broken Sea Audio Productions (a non-profit fan audio group). Hopefully the horrific stink CPI’s put on the CONAN brand won’t rub off on Tantor’s R.E.H. productions.
Posted by Jesse Willis
I’ve emailed CPI and advised them that I am boycotting all of their licensed works, I’ve also email Tantor wishing them the best of luck, but I won’t be purchasing their REH series.
I know of at least one bookstore who is considered pulling all Conan titles from the shelf over this.