The SFFaudio Podcast #188 – First podcast in 2008, in seven separate installments, here it is, the legendary, unconquerable epic that they didn’t want you to hear. It’s back, stronger, and wholly united into one massive adventure … the mighty BrokenSea Audio Productions adaptation of The Queen Of The Black Coast by Robert E. Howard!
Posted by Jesse Willis
Profound despair, the bloom of outer darkness, the dead sound of a hopeless soul freezing in the utter cold of space filled the face of… The Man Who Found Out.
Having just discovered Algernon Blackwood’s terrific existential horror story, The Man Who Found Out, I am pleased to report that it breaks trail in the territories later mapped out by H.P. Lovecraft and Philip K. Dick.
There’s something fascinating and understated in the clues we get about the story’s central mystery – the purpose of existence – Blackwood knew something of magic, as this story certainly weaves a mystery at the intersection of revelation and science.
And be sure to check out the excellent audio dramatization from Radio Project X too!
The Man Who Found Out
By Algernon Blackwood; Read by Kalynda
1 |MP3| – Approx. 35 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 30, 2011
First published in The Canadian Magazine, December 1912.
The Man Who Found Out
Adapted from the story by Algernon Blackwood; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 28 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: Radio Project X
Podcast: June 12, 2012
Here’s a |PDF| of the story.
Andrew Knowlton and Marie Jones starred in the Radio Project X adaptation of The Man Who Found Out:
Posted by Jesse Willis
Radio Project X, a great new audio drama troupe out of Toronto, makes a combination of compelling and humorous audio dramatizations – recorded live on stage. The latest one to reach my ears is centered around a terrific adaptation of a creepy Theodore Sturgeon story entitled The Other Celia (aka The Blonde With The Mysterious Body). Like the other Radio Project X episodes already released, this program is followed by a series of skits, all funny, and all very Canadian – the kind you’d hear on CBC radio in years past.
Highly recommended!
The Other Celia
Adapted from the short story by Theodore Sturgeon; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour 10 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: Radio Project X
Podcast: August 14, 2012
Something drastic should happen to all snoopers – but nothing as awful and frightful as this! First published in Galaxy, March 1957.
[via The Sonic Society]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Recorded live in Toronto, this is a very faithful adaptation of Beyond Lies The Wub. It uses most of the dialogue and vocabulary from Philip K. Dick’s first published short story.
Beyond Lies The Wub
Adapted from the story by Philip K. Dick; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 45 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: Radio Project X
Podcast: July 10, 2012
The slovenly wub might well have said: Many men talk like philosophers and live like fools. First published in Planet Stories, July 1952.
[via The Sonic Society]
Posted by Jesse Willis
“In a remarkable short story, ‘The Grove of Ashtaroth,’ the hero finds himself obliged to destroy the gorgeous little temple of a sensual cult, because he believes that by doing so he will salvage the health and sanity of a friend. But he simultaneously believes himself to be committing an unpardonable act of desecration, and the eerie voice that beseeches him to stay his hand is unmistakably feminine.”
-Christopher Hitchens (The Atlantic Monthly, March 2004)
The Grove Of Ashtaroth was written by the fifteenth Governor General of Canada, John Buchan. Despite that high position, he was the viceregal representative of the Canadian monarch for five years in the 1930s, Buchan is probably better known today as the author of The Thirty-Nine Steps. Buchan’s novelette has been described as a “weird story” (by the makers of Escape) or as “high fantasy” (in The Fantastic Imagination) by editors Robert H. Boyer and Kenneth J. Zahorski, a 1977 anthology).
I’m not sure exactly what it is, except very interesting and certainly within the vague borders of the Fantasy genre. The Grove Of Ashtaroth reminds me of a short story by Philip K. Dick, Of Withered Apples.
You can judge for yourself what you think it is most like.
There’s a hurried, but unabridged, reading available |MP3|. It’s read by Libby Hill for the TV On The Internet podcast (beginning shortly after the twenty minute mark).
I myself have made a |PDF| from the original publication in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, June 1910.
But your best bet, in audio, for the moment at least, is to listen to the 1948 Escape radio dramatization!
Escape – The Grove Of Ashtaroth
Adapted from the novelette by John Buchan; Adapted by Les Crutchfield; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 31 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBS
Broadcast: February 29, 1948
Provider: Archive.org
Cast:
Paul Frees as John Buchan
William Conrad as Lawson
And if you were wondering, the only major difference between the original story and the dramatization is that the unnamed narrator is named (after Buchan himself) in the dramatization.
[Thanks also to Escape-Suspense.com]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Julian May’s first published story, Dune Roller, became something of a popular tale – at least with editor Robert Silverberg who had it in two of his anthologies one which collected “masterpieces” and the other which collected “great” tales. Indeed, the novelette was quickly adapted as an episode of the Tales Of Tomorrow TV series. There was also an apparently “abominable” 1972 movie adaptation called The Cremators, and there was this 1961 BBC Home Service radio dramatization (available via torrent over on RadioArchive.cc).
Dune Roller
Adapted from the short story by Julian May; Performed by a full cast
MP3 via TORRENT – Approx. 59 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Home Service
Broadcast: January 26, 1961
On isolated island in Lake Michigan a visiting ecologist discovers an unknown mineral that’s been linked to a local legend of a ravenous creature. First published in Astounding, December 1951.
It was also, rather successfully adapted to television for Tales Of Tomorrow:
Download the |MP4|.
Trailer for The Cremators:
Posted by Jesse Willis