Online Audio – Page 282

William Hope Hodgson’s The House On The Borderland on BBC7

Online Audio

BBC7’s The Seventh Dimension is airing a new commission of The House On The Borderland from their North Ireland producers this week. ~~No word on whether it is unabridged or not, but~~ you can hear it via the Listen Again service. Not sure who Hodgson is or what The House On The Borderland is about? Here’s a take one author’s opinion upon this work:

“A classic of the first water.” – H.P. Lovecraft

Wikipedia sez of it:

“[The House On The Borderland] is a milestone that signals the leaving of the realistic nature of supernatural fiction of the late 19th century. Hodgson follows out of the ghost story and the gothic to create a newer cosmic horror that leaves a great impression on the people who would become the great writers of the weird tales of the middle of the 20th century.”

The House On The Borderland
By William Hope Hodgson; Read by Jim Norton
4 Broadcasts – Approx. 2 Hours [ABRIDGED]
BROADCASTER: BBC7’s The 7th Dimension
BROADCAST: Tues. – Fri. at 6.30pm and 00.30am starting Sept. 4
Two friends camp near the ruins of an old house in a remote area in the west of Ireland, there they discover a manuscript which describes the terrifying experiences of the last owner of the house of the title.

posted by Jesse Willis

2 Seeing Ear Theatre plays, and an Asimov short story podcast + MORE

Online Audio

Discovered this cool podcast in the iTunes podcast directory… Pirate TV Theatre Classic Radio Drama is an unwieldy name for a podcast with this much terrific audio content. Some of it is classic Radio Drama, some of it is more modern Audio Drama (Radio Drama that was never broadcast on radio), none of it is “TV” and some of it is audiobook. The site itself doesn’t allow direct downloads (only online listening) but if you subscribe to the podcast you can access all of the following in the ubiquitous MP3 format…

Included in the feed are radio drama episodes from:

Suspense (The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft)

Dimension X (includes The Green Hills Of Earth by Robert A. Heinlein and First Contact by Murray Leinster, plus more)

X Minus 1 (includes Surface Tension by James Blish, and Colony by Philip K. Dick, plus many more)

Skeleton
By Ray Bradbury; Performed by a full cast
(a 1996 BBC4 Radio Drama, part of the “Tales of the Bizarre” series, introduced by Bradbury himself)

As well as two Seeing Ear Theatre audio dramas:

Murder Mysteries
By Neil Gaiman; Performed by a full cast
(a Seeing Ear Theatre audio drama in two parts)

Orson The Alien! The Untold Story Behind The War Of the Worlds
By Terry Bisson, Brian Smith and George Zarr; Performed by a full cast
(a Seeing Ear Theatre audio drama)

And one story from an audiobook:

It’s Such A Beautiful Day
By Isaac Asimov; Read by Ed Bishop
(from a 1986 audiobook in two parts – from defunct audiobook publisher Listen For Pleasure)

Plug this podcast feed into your podcatcher to get started:

http://www.nomig.net/radiodrama/itunesrss.xml

Or, visit the site and listen online – where you’ll find plenty more, including:

The Caves Of Steel
By Isaac Asimov; Performed by a full cast
(The 1989 radio dramatization that aired on BBC Radio 4)

posted by Jesse Willis

Hugo Nominees avaialable as audiobooks

SFFaudio Online Audio - Worldcon 2007

The result are out, attendees from throughout Japan and the world convened at the Pacifico Yokohama Convention Center and discovered the results of the 2007 Hugo Awards. Though the results can’t be changed you can still argue over them – at least for most of the categories. Here`s a roundup of all the titles the winning and nominated titles thus far adapted into audiobooks:

Best Novel:
(Science fiction or fantasy story of 40,000 words or more.)

Eifelheim
By Michael Flynn; Read by Anthony Heald
14 CD, 17.5 hrs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9781433206115

His Majesty’s Dragon
By Naomi Novik; Read by David Thorn
5 CD, 6.5 hrs – [ABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9780739354131

Glasshouse
By Charles Stross
No audiobook version available yet.

Rainbows End [WINNER]
By Vernor Vinge
No audiobook version available yet.

Blindsight
By Peter Watts
No audiobook version available yet.

Best Novella:
(Science fiction or fantasy story of between 17,500 and 40,000 words).

Inclination
By William Shunn; Read by William Shunn
3 MP3s – Approx. 2 Hours 10 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Science Fic Shunn Podcast
Podcast: April 2007

Get all three parts:
|Part 1 MP3|Part 2 MP3|Part 3 MP3|

A Billion Eves [WINNER]
By Robert Reed
No audiobook version available yet.

Lord Weary’s Empire
By Michael Swanwick
No audiobook version available yet.

Julian: A Christmas Story
By Robert Charles Wilson
No audiobook version available yet.

Best Novelette:
(Science fiction or fantasy story of between 7,500 and 17,500 words)

Yellow Card Man
By Paolo Bacigalupi
No audiobook version available yet.

Dawn, and Sunset, and the Colours of the Earth
By Michael F Flynn
No audiobook version available yet.

The Djinn’s Wife [WINNER]
By Ian McDonald
No audiobook version available yet.

Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter
By Geoff Ryman
No audiobook version available yet.

Best Short Story
(Science fiction or fantasy story of less than 7,500 words)

How To Talk To Girls At Parties
By Neil Gaiman; Read by Neil Gaiman
1 |MP3| – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: NeilGaiman.com
Published: April 2007
A tale of two boys going to a party and encountering those mysterious beings known as “girls.”

Kin
By Bruce McCallister; Read by Steve Eley
1 |MP3| – UNABRIDGED
Podcaster: Escape Pod
Podcast: May 2007

Impossible Dreams [WINNER]
By Tim Pratt; Read by Matthew Wayne Selznick
1 |MP3| – UNABRIDGED
Podcaster: Escape Pod
Podcast: May 2007

Eight Episodes
By Robert Reed; Read by MarBelle
1 |MP3| – UNABRIDGED
Podcaster: Escape Pod
Podcast: May 2007

The House Beyond Your Sky
By Benjamin Rosenbaum; Read by Paul Tevis
1 |MP3| – UNABRIDGED
Podcaster: Escape Pod
Podcast: May 2007

posted by Jesse Willis

Record your Online Audio with Freecorder

SFFaudio News

Speaking of Online Audio, and we do that a lot, I thought I’d mention a new tool for recording it. Frustrated Windows Vista users especially will want to give this software a shot. While there may be easier ways to record streaming audio using Vista, I sure haven’t found one as easy as Freecorder. This is a free Firefox (and Internet Explorer) browser plugin that lets you record any sounds coming through your web browser as either a WAV or MP3. The coolest part is that Freecorder doesn’t include any of the sounds made by your regular computer usage during recording (like the sound made by emptying a recycling bin, or those pesky error message dings). I recorded all three parts of ABC Radio National’s It Just Stopped this way. I sure wish I’d have had this back when The Seeing Ear Theater files were still around. Here’s a snippet from the press release:

“Applian Technologies has just released the Freecorder Toolbar Sound Recorder, a free audio capture program for Windows Vista which restores the audio recording functionality previously available in prior versions of Windows.

Using a new driverless recording process developed by Applian, the software allows customers to capture audio as MP3 files from virtually any application or internet stream. Freecorder Toolbar is free, and available today from www.freecorder.com.”

Prior to Vista, all PCs had relatively easy access to recording web audio. But Windows Vista has severely restricted our ability to record Online Audio. Apparently this is caused by new driver signing requirement of Windows Vista. Know of a better universal workaround? Let us know!

[via Download Squad via Pocket PC Louisville]

posted by Jesse Willis

ABC Radio National’s Airplay does the surreal with a new Audio Drama

SFFaudio Online Audio

Hurry quick! Head on over to ABC Radio National, Australia’s Public Radio service and have a listen to the streaming RealAudio or WindowsMedia audio of its radio drama program Airplay. They have just finished broadcasting a new Australian play called It Just Stopped.

As with many avant-garde and literary themed plays these days, this one uses old tropes of Science Fiction to try to spice up old mainstream literature lessons. It Just Stopped uses a passive aggressive and (utterly surreal) apocalypse, that seems composed of what philosopher David Hume might call “an end to Uniformity” as a setting for its plot. Like many of the literary plays that adopt SF themes, the focus here is on the psychological, the existential, the urban, and as a result it (and they) has no “sense of wonder” – but in this case, in its place It Just Stopped delivers an experience like that of a Henrik Ibsen staging of The Road Warrior. Yikes! It sure doesn’t sound too appealing when I write it that way, but I really dug it. Check out this, one of many, choice lines of dialogue:

“Richard Pratt does not have cardboard boxes in his soul. But I do.”

For those who really dug the CBC’s Canadia: 2056, you might look at It Just Stopped as the Australian take on the same thing (American values exposed by American characters, as filtered through foreign, but not necessarily hostile eyes). I must have listened to part three of It Just Stopped about five times. It’ll blew my mind. It’ll blow your mind. But, don’t take my word, have a listen for yourself before it all disappears – which I’m guessing will happen in just a few days…

It Just Stopped
By Stephen Sewell; Performed by a full cast
3 Parts – Approx. 90 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: ABC Radio National / Airplay
Broadcast: August 2007

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

“If the world just stops one day, how will this change what we value? What would we do to to ensure our personal survival?”

Oh yes, and FREE APOCALYPSE AL!

posted by Jesse Willis

Missing early Doctor Who TV epsiodes available as Audio Dramas

SFFaudio Online Audio

In the Internet Archive’s Audio Archive section you can find audio from much of Season 3 of the original Doctor Who television series. This is one of the seasons for which many of the original broadcast episodes are missing (a long and infuriating story). Diligence on the part of some die hard fans, and some of the affiliate TV stations in other countries have turned up some of the video, and more of the audio tracks from this season over the decades since they were first broadcast. Since then the BBC had a Doctor Who actor (who played a companion during this time) provide narration for what would normally be a audio visual story. Here are all the completed serials:

Doctor Who – Galaxy 4
By William Emms; Narrated by Peter Purves
4 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED AUDIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC
Broadcast: Sep. 11 – Oct. 2, 1965

“The Doctor, Vicki, and Steven land on an unknown planet inhabited by the hideous Rills, with their Chumbley robots, and the Drahvins. The Drahvins try to enlist the Doctor’s help to destroy the “evil” Rills, but who are the real villains?”

Episode 1 |MP3| Four Hundred Dawns
Episode 2 |MP3| Trap of Steel
Episode 3 |MP3| Airlock
Episode 4 |MP3| The Exploding Planet

Doctor Who – Mission To The Unknown
By Terry Nation; Narrated by Peter Purves
1 |MP3| – [UNABRIDGED AUDIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC
Broadcast: Oct. 9, 1965

“On the planet Kembel three men struggle to repair their crashed spaceship in a hostile jungle.”

Doctor Who – The Myth Makers
By Donald Cotton; Narrated by Peter Purves
4 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED AUDIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC
Broadcast: Oct. 16 – Nov. 6, 1965

“The Doctor, Vicki, and Steven become involved in the siege of Troy.”

Episode 1 |MP3| Temple of Secrets
Episode 2 |MP3| Small Prophet Quick Return
Episode 3 |MP3| Death of a Spy
Episode 4 |MP3| Horse of Destruction

The über Doctor Who fans out there can also have a listen to the majority of the Daleks’ Master Plan, one of the longest serials ever made, but it is not available in its entirety.

[via Quasar Dragon]

posted by Jesse Willis