Author: Jesse Willis

ABC RN again disapoints for Christmas

SFFaudio Commentary

ABC RADIO NATIONALABC Radio National, Australia’s public radio broadcaster, is airing a reading of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Like the ABC:RN reading of Dracula from earlier this year, this reading of A Christmas Carol is neither podcast nor available in another online audio format. The problem here is that ABC:RN’s Book Reading show remains committed to make listening next to impossible for Australians not glued to their radios. The official explanation is simple:

“Due to copyright restrictions this reading is unavailable as audio on demand.”

That’s terrible. A Christmas Carol is one of the most recorded audiobooks of all time. Sure their version is covered by copyright. But when will the honchos at ABC:RN get hip? BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 7, while not podcasting, at least make sure to get clearances to make their productions available for online listening. CBC Radio One podcasts its book reading program Between The Covers (as well as nearly every other program) and has started using creative commons music too (on the CBC Radio One program called Spark).

If you’d have liked to have heard the ABC reading why not drop them a line HERE.

Here are some other sources for audio versions of A Christmas Carol:

Wired For Books: A Christmas Carol |ONLINE AUDIO|

LibriVox.org: A Christmas Carol |Podcast Available|

StoryNory.com A Christmas Carol |Podcast|

A Christmas Carol Read by Patrick Horgan |iTunes Podcast Audiobook|

W.O.E.S. 91.3 FM Archive Dramatization |REALAUDIO Part 1|REALAUDIO Part 2|

The Classic Tales Podcast version via this feed:

http://classictales.podshowcreator.com/feed.aspx?feedid=1258

Posted by Jesse Willis

P.S. FREE Apocalypse Al!

Neil Gaiman audio roundup

OnlineAudio

If you start looking around the net for Neil Gaiman audio you’ll be hard pressed not to find it. The quantity is overwhelming in fact. Most of it consists of interviews, most from relatively mainstream media sources. But the guy gets podcast interviews like nobody’s business too. The MP3 files listed below are by no means the newest nor most exclusive but they are all good and they’re new links for us…

NeilGaiman.net / DreamHaven BooksFirst, from the DreamHaven Books and NeilGaiman.net bookstore we’ve got three ultra-short “sample” (but unabridged) MP3s:

Poetry: “Instructions” |MP3| from Speaking In Tongues.
The liner notes for this one reads: “This is a poem about what to do if you find yourself in a Fairy Tale. It is guaranteed to work. If you find yourself in a Fairy Tale, and, despite following these instructions to the letter, you are eaten by wolves or lost, never to be seen again, the publisher will refund the cost of this CD.”

A Christmas card (a very short story): “Nicholas Was” |MP3| from Warning: Contains Language.
Gaiman sez of it: “This is a Christmas card. Exactly a hundred words long (102, including the title).”

Poetry: “A Writer’s Prayer” |MP3| from Telling Tales.
Gaiman describe it as “…written shortly before I began American Gods. I knew the first two verses when I began it, and the conclusion was there when I reached it. This is why I love writing.”

Zombie AstronautNext up, the always reliable Zombie Astronaut has a bit of Neil Gaiman poetry: “The Day The Saucer Came” |MP3|.

And also, from the same moulderingly cosmic source, this recent radio drama gem…

Anansi Boys
Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – 1 Hour [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC World Service / World Drama
Broadcast: Nov 17th 2007
God is dead. Meet the kids. When Fat Charlie’s dad named something, it stuck. Like calling Fat Charlie “Fat Charlie.” Even now, twenty years later, Charlie Nancy can’t shake that name, one of the many embarrassing “gifts” his father bestowed — before he dropped dead on a karaoke stage and ruined Fat Charlie’s life.

And from another site entirely comes…

Authors On Tour PodcastCheck out this 2006 “authors on tour” piece |MP3| of Neil Gaiman speaking to a receptive audience at The Tattered Cover bookstore. Gaiman reads from Anansi Boys tells stories and answers questions about the comic book, book, audiobook and movie businesses.

Posted by Jesse Willis

audible.com’s big Science Fiction and Fantasy push continues

SFFaudio News

Audible.comWe’ve some exciting news regarding audible.com. Earlier this year we told you about audible’s big push for more Science Fiction and Fantasy. Since then the staff at audible.com have been acquiring new titles and new providers at a serious clip. Now we’ve got more news on that front. Here’s the list of some of the upcoming releases – I’m almost certain these are all ‘exclusive to audible’ titles. Included amongst them are the follow up book to our latest SFFaudio Essential designee!

Macmillian Audiobooks being released exclusively through audible.com:

Escapement
By Jay Lake
Release date: June 2008

Rainbow’s End*
By Vernor Vinge
Release date: December 2007
*this year’s Hugo winner (novel)

Jumper: Griffin’s Story*
By Steven Gould
Release date: January 2008
*the movie comes out Feb 14th

Spin
By Robert Charles Wilson
Release date: Q1 2008

Axis
By Robert Charles Wilson
Release date: Q1 2008

The Ghost Brigades
By John Scalzi
Release date: Q1 2008

Territory
By Emma Bull
Release date: Q1 2008

“In house” produced Audible exclusives:

Saturn Returns (Astropolis Book 1)
By Sean Williams
Release date: soon

Centotaxis*
By Sean Williams
Release date: soon
*a novella related to Saturn Returns (“essentially it’s Book 1.5”)

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBC Radio 4 @ Xmas: Roald Dahl and M.R. James

SFFaudio Online Audio

BBC Radio 4 has two non-Xmasy programs on the schedule for the week of Xmas.

BBC Radio 4The Witches
By Roald Dahl; Performed by full casts
2 Parts Approx 2 Hours[AUDIO DRAMA]
BROADCASTER: BBC RADIO 4
BROADCAST: Sunday 23 December and Sunday December 30th 2007 @ 3.00-4.00pm
A boy who has lost his parents in a car crash is looked after by his Norwegian grandmother. She tells the boy how to identify witches – they are bald (with wigs that itch), have no toes (but they wear fashionable shoes), gloved hands (to hide their long fingernails), large nostrils (to sniff out children) and blue spittle. Fortunately, the boy and his grandmother live in Norway where they are safest from the meanest witches, who spirit away children at the drop of a hat. However, the reading of the boy’s father’s will sends him and his grandmother to England, where the world’s most dangerous witches live. The boy finds himself trapped in a Bournemouth hotel ballroom where groups of witches meet, masquerading as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. As the Grand High Witch whips the meeting into a child-hating frenzy, the witches discover the boy and force him to drink a potion which turns him into a mouse. He then has to run for his life.”

M.R. James At Christmas
By M.R. James; Perfomed by full casts
Five Broadcasts – Approx 75 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
BROADCAST: @ 19:45 December 24th-28th
Introduced by Derek Jacobi as MRJ, the stories are Oh Whistle And I’ll Come To You My Lad, The Tractate Middoth, Lost Hearts, The Rose Garden and Number 13.

Thanks Roy!

Posted by Jesse Willis

KFAI’s Xmas Schedule: Paul Levinson, Jeff Green, Tom Lopez, Roger Gregg

SFFaudio Online Audio

Online Audio - Radio Show - Sound Affects A Radio PlaygroundOn its next broadcast Sound Affects: A Radio Playground will be airing Paul Levinson’s The Chronology Protection Case. This is the live version as performed at the Museum of Radio and TV in New York. The show can be heard via live streaming on Sundays and is also broadcast on the radio in the Minneapolis/St. Paul. region – 90.3 FM Minneapolis, 106.7 FM St. Paul. Programs are archived on the KFAI website for two weeks after the broadcast.

Radio Drama - The Chronology Protection CaseThe Chronology Protection Case
By Paul Levinson; Performed by a full cast
Radio Broadcast – [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: KFAI / Sound Affects
Broadcast: December 16th 2007 @ 9:30-10:30 PM (Central Time)
The Chronology Protection Case radio play, a science fiction murder mystery, features Shanahan in the role of Dr. Phil D’Amato, the forensic detective who appears in Levinson’s acclaimed novels, “The Silk Code,” “The Consciousness Plague” and “The Pixel Eye.” When D’Amato is approached by the distraught wife of a missing scientist whose work is embroiled in secrecy, he is plunged into an adventure with a terrifying and powerful force of nature at the heart of a series of mysterious deaths.

The week after, Sunday the 23rd, Sound Affects will air Jeff Green’s Christmas Is Coming to the District of Drudge, one of the “Soundings” stories. Then in 2008 we’ll be hearing a few more of the “Soundings” pieces, interspersed with Roger Gregg’s Big Big Space stories, and a profile of Tom Lopez from ZBS-fame. Lopez is the creator of the extremely popular Ruby the Galactic Gumshoe series! Cool!

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 #2Bill 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. HowardQueen 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