The New York Times website has a June 20th, 2009 audio clip |MP3| (just 3 minutes) of Ray Bradbury riffing on public libraries and the internet (love of libraries + hate of internet). This interview was in aide of his recent appearance at the cash strapped H.P. Wright Public Library in Ventura, California.
Here’s the |PDF| detailing how you can help.
[via Black Gate]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Julie Hoverson from 19 Nocturne Boulevard, writes in to say:
“One of our episodes, The Outpost, just won the 2008 Mark Time award for best science fiction audio drama!!”
Congratulation Julie! 19 Nocturne Boulevard is a podcast audio drama anthology series. Among the episodes are several dramatized H.P. Lovecraft adaptations. These are Chillin’ (a modernization of Cool Air), Within the Walls of Eryx, and The Temple. Julie also hints of several more Lovecraftian pieces in the works.
And for those who like me, were wondering, here’s the hidden podcast feed for the show:
http://neohoodoo.libsyn.com/rss
Posted by Jesse Willis
Here’s a podcast that I’ve been listening to, on and off (mostly off), for years. Miette is a mystery to me and seemingly pretty much everyone else. She’s been putting out a weekly (or so) podcast since 2005 and yet we don’t know a lot about her. We know she loves to read short stories. That she’s got an accent people don’t easily pin down, and that she’s got a dog. Other than that…. well, we really don’t know.
What makes it all even more puzzling is that she’s an “obscurantist.”
Now I like the obscure, but she, well… she’s just out there – Miette has gone past the obscure and into the hinterlands of the truly odd. Every once in a while I want to throw her a lasso (or a lifeline) but I’m kind of afraid because she might pull me out there with her!
That sheer out-there-ness also makes me feel so normal. Miette’s the absolute omega to the omnivorous celebrity mainstream and me I’m just the guy who gets to say “sorry I don’t have TV” three or four times a week.
Perhaps Miette is from a parallel universe?
It would explain a lot.
Assembled below are some of the Miette-read tales that attracted me to her podcast. None of them are youur typical short story – most are experimental in some way, usually they’re at least odd, strange, or weird. The thing is though, these tales that I’ve picked here are the most centric of Miette’s stories!
SFFaudio interest:
Fun With Your New Head
By Thomas Disch; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 7 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
The Cask of Amontillado
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 22 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race
By J.G. Ballard; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 7 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
The Red Room
By H.G. Wells; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 7 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
I See You Never
By Ray Bradbury; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 11 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
How the World Was Saved
By Stanislaw Lem; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 11 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
The Necrophil
By Felipe Alfau; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 40 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
A story about a woman who dies too much.
The Yellow Wallpaper
By Charlotte Perkins Gilman; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Aprrox. 47 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
The Ghosts
By Lord Dunsany; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Aprrox. 15 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
On An Experience In A Cornfield
By Robert Sheckley; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 29 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
The Judgment
By Franz Kafka; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| Approx. 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
A World of Sound
By Olaf Stapledon; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 18 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas
By Ursula K. Le Guin; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
of Aural Noir interest:
A Letter to A.A. (Almost Anybody)
By Charles Willeford; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 29 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
The Lost Soul
By Ben Hecht; Read by Miette
1 |MP3| – Approx. 29 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
It Had To Be Murder
By Cornell Woolrich; Read by Miette
2 MP3s – Approx. 84 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3|
Podcast feed:
http://www.miettecast.com/feed/
iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|
Posted by Jesse Willis
A short video of city lover China Mieville talking about H.P. Lovecraft’s The Horror Of Red Hook (which is set in New York City). Lovecraft didn’t like living in NYC.
Lovecraft spelled out his inspiration for The Horror At Red Hook in a letter to Clark Ashton Smith:
“The idea that black magic exists in secret today, or that hellish antique rites still exist in obscurity, is one that I have used and shall use again. When you see my new tale The Horror at Red Hook, you will see what use I make of the idea in connexion with the gangs of young loafers & herds of evil-looking foreigners that one sees everywhere in New York.” -from H. P. Lovecraft, Selected Letters Vol. 2
Lovecraft’s wife, Sonia Greene, wrote of her husband’s xenophobia:
“Whenever we found ourselves in the racially mixed crowds which characterize New York, Howard would become livid with rage. He seemed almost to lose his mind.”
-From Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos
And here is a reading of the story itself…
The Horror Of Red Hook
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by April Sadowski
1 |MP3| – Approx. 45 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Broken Sea Audio Productions
Podcast: October 2008
Red Hook is a mysterious slum in New York City, full of gangs, crime, and just perhaps a terrible cult. Detective Malone had a case that had tendrils extending into Red Hook. It seems that one Robert Suydam, a corpulent and scruffy recluse, has been looking younger, more radiant and prosperous. What does that have to do with the recent spate of kidnappings? First published in the January 1927 issue of Weird Tales.
[via Monster Rally, Ominvoracious, Wikipedia and BSAP]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Boyd Pearson’s Eldritch Dark is a website dedicated to Weird Tales author Clark Ashton Smith. Pearson calls Smith: “one of the greatest and least recognized literary talents of the 20th century.” Personally I’ve not read a word by the man – but, I may get around to it later this summer.
Pearson list some suggested readings for Smith virgins. It includes:
* Nyctalops (Poem) |MP3|
* The City of the Singing Flame (Short Story) |7 MP3s|
* The Hashish Eater -or- The Apocalypse of Evil (Poem) |7 MP3s|
I’m confident that some enterprising SFFaudio reader will make suitable HuffDuffer feeds out of some of these or the many other files found on the Eldritch Dark’s Spoken Word sub-page. Hint! Hint! Hint!
And please, whoever does it, can you kindly post links to those feeds into the comments section? We’ll all be the richer for it!
Posted by Jesse Willis
Blake’s 7 fans can rejoice! B7 Productions has announced the next Blake’s 7 “The Early Years” audio drama CD. This is a prequel series story exploring the origins of one of the key B7 characters prior to her meeting Roj Blake. Jan Chappell, the original Blake’s 7 Cally, returns to the role she made famous back in 1978.
The announced release includes two prequel stories on a CD with the plots centering on the alien telepath Cally and her clone sisterhood. The CD includes two thirty-minute adventures, Blood & Earth written by Ben Aaronovitch and Flag & Flame written by Marc Platt.
Blake’s 7 – Cally: Blood & Earth/ Flag & Flame
By Ben Aaronovitch and Marc Platt; Performed by a full cast
1 CD – Approx. 60 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: B7 Productions
Published: August 24, 2009
ISBN: 9781906577070
Jan Chappell, who last played Cally back in 1980, says of her return to the series:
“It’s a source of utter bewilderment that Cally is still part of my life, but delighted to embrace her return. It’s astonishing to be playing the character thirty years on and to know that Blake’s 7 still has such an ardent following. Who would have known that back in 1978 we were making television history.”
Previous audio prequels have explored the early lives of Avon, Travis, Vila and Gan with future releases planned to reveal the origins of Jenna, Zen, Servalan and Blake. Those unfamiliar with this Blake’s 7 revival should |READ OUR REVIEW| of the first set. Excellent stuff!
Posted by Jesse Willis