Online Audio – Page 19

Hypnobobs: Mother Of Toads by Clark Ashton Smith

SFFaudio Online Audio

Mother Of Toads by Clark Ashton Smith

The horrors of medieval witchery in rural France! Hear Mr. Jim Moon narrate the “darkly erotic” Mother Of Toads, originally censored in its Weird Tales publication, Mr. Jim Moon reads it in its “full uncut glory.”

Mother Of Toads
By Clark Ashton Smith; Read by Mr. Jim Moon
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour 16 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Hypnobobs
Podcast: January 27, 2013
Weird and powerful was the effect on the young apprentice of the potion given him by Mere Antoinette, known by the villagers as “the Mother of Toads.” First published in Weird Tales, July 1938.

Here’s a |PDF| made from the censored version that appeared in Weird Tales.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Protecting Project Pulp: The Rats In The Walls by H.P. Lovecraft

SFFaudio Online Audio

H.P. Lovecraft’s claimed that his celebrated novelette, The Rats In The Walls, was “too horrible for the tender sensibilities of a delicately nurtured publick.”

The Weird Tales editor, who accepted it, described it as the best his magazine had ever received.

Its publication inspired Robert E. Howard to write to the magazine and that letter was passed on to Lovecraft.

Kingsley Amis described The Rats In The Walls as having “a memorable nastiness.”

And Lovecraft scholar, S.T. Joshi, described it this way: The Rats In The Walls is “a nearly flawless example of the short story in its condensation, its narrative pacing, its thunderous climax, and its mingling of horror and poignancy.”

I call it awesome. How can you not love words like “Obscure rodent manifestations” all strung together? Or this sentence:

“Sir William, standing with his searchlight in the Roman ruin, translated aloud the most shocking ritual I have ever known; and told of the diet of the antediluvian cult which the priests of Cybele found and mingled with their own.”

Protecting Project Pulp No. 47 – The Rats In The Walls
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by James Silverstein
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour 1 Minute [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Protecting Project Pulp
Podcast: June 3, 2013
Delapore, a Virginian, recounts the events which occurred after takes up residence in his ancestor’s feudal English seat. First published in Weird Tales, March 1924.

The Rats In The Walls - illustration by William F. Heitman

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Valley Of Unrest by Edgar Allan Poe

SFFaudio Online Audio

Though Edgar Allan Poe’s The Valley Of Unrest predates most post-apocalyptic ideas, this beautiful poem, about an empty valley, seems to me about exactly that.

Let me plant a seed for you, that may grow as you read it:

What are the azure towers if not skyscrapers?

The Valley Of Unrest by Edgar Allan Poe

Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sunlight lazily lay.
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley’s restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless —
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.
Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!
Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
Uneasily, from morn till even,
Over the violets there that lie
In myriad types of the human eye —
Over the lilies there that wave
And weep above a nameless grave!
They wave:— from out their fragrant tops
Eternal dews come down in drops.
They weep:— from off their delicate stems
Perennial tears descend in gems.

Edmund Dulac illustration of The Valley Of Unrest

First published in 1831, as “The Valley Of Nis” The Valley Of Unrest would take its final form in the April 1845 issue of the American Review:

The Valley Of Unrest by Edgar A. Poe

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Port by H.P. Lovecraft

SFFaudio Online Audio

Part of the Fungi From Yuggoth sequence of sonnets, this poem, The Port, is one of two featuring the mouldering town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts (as depicted in H.P. Lovecraft’s novella The Shadow Over Innsmouth). It also places the seaport town in relation to another of his famous fictional places, Arkham.

The Port
By H.P. Lovecraft

Ten miles from Arkham I had struck the trail
That rides the cliff-edge over Boynton Beach,
And hoped that just at sunset I could reach
The crest that looks on Innsmouth in the vale.
Far out at sea was a retreating sail,
White as hard years of ancient winds could bleach,
But evil with some portent beyond speech,
So that I did not wave my hand or hail.

Sails out of lnnsmouth! echoing old renown
Of long-dead times. But now a too-swift night
Is closing in, and I have reached the height
Whence I so often scan the distant town.
The spires and roofs are there – but look! The gloom
Sinks on dark lanes, as lightless as the tomb!

And here’s the original art by Boris Dolgov:

The Port by H.P. Lovecraft

Listen to Mister Jim Moon’s reading of it: |MP3|

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Thing At Nolan by Ambrose Bierce

SFFaudio Online Audio

Virtually all of Bierce’s tales are tales of horror; and whilst many of them treat only of the physical and psychological horrors within Nature, a substantial proportion admit the malignly supernatural and form a leading element in America’s fund of weird literature.”

-H.P. Lovecraft, from Supernatural Horror In Literature

A 1,500 word horror tale by Ambrose Bierce, typically bundled as the final of seven short horror stories, under the collective “Some Haunted Houses”, The Thing At Nolan was first published on its own. And that’s why I’ve edited up a special The Thing At Nolan from a larger LibriVox version.

The Thing At Nolan
By Ambrose Bierce; Read by Peter Yearsley
1 |MP3| – Approx. 10 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: 2006
First published in San Francisco Observer, August 2, 1891.

And here’s a |PDF|.

There’s also a CBS Radio Mystery Theater adaptation, adapted by actor Arnold Moss! It fills in a lot of the details from the very sketchy sketch of Bierce’s original story. Moss also takes a role!

CBS Radio Mystery Theater CBSRMT #0920 – The Thing At Nolan
Adapted from the story by Ambrose Bierce; Adapted by Arnold Moss; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 44 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBS Radio
Broadcast: November 20, 1978
Source: CBSRMT.com
When a father vanishes while digging a ditch in frontier Missouri, suspicions fall on the rebellious son who recently threatened him with bodily harm. His mother believes his claims of innocence, but the rest of the townsfolk do not.

Cast:
Court Benson
Russell Horton
Arnold Moss
Bryna Raeburn

Posted by Jesse Willis

Listen To Genius: Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti

SFFaudio Online Audio

I listened to a great episode of BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time about Christina Rossetti recently. I was fascinated by their brief discussion of her poem Goblin Market. Melvyn Bragg and guests described it as:

‘celebrated, fascinating, bizarre, extraordinary, powerful, strange, lascivious, and religious.’

I tracked down a reading, a very good one, and I think you’ll agree it is really amazing!

This poem is totally sexual, yet does not feature a word of sex. Full of lesbianism, incest, fruit and at least nine kinds of wow!

Goblin Market
By Christina Rossetti; Read by Kate Reading
1 |MP3| – Approx. 23 Minutes [POETRY]
Publisher: Redwood Audiobooks (Listen To Genius)
Published: 2008?
Source: Listen To Genius
Lizzie and Laura are two innocent sisters inhabiting a beautiful “per-raphaelite” fairy tale pastoral land. They hear the calls of the goblin men, sample the fruit once, buy’s a curl of her hair. First published in 1862.

Here’s a |PDF| featuring illustrations by Rossetti’s brother.

And behold a snippet from John Bolton‘s gorgeous 1983 comics adaptation of Goblin Market:

Goblin Market ilustration by John Bolton

Posted by Jesse Willis