Audio Drama – Page 23

CBC: The Vanishing Point: J.G. Ballard’s The Dead Astronaut

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Dead Astronaut by J.G. Ballard

The Dead Astronaut is a part of a larger subset of J.B. Ballard stories adapted for the long running CBC radio series The Vanishing Point. This tale of a haunted Cape Kennedy is typically Ballardian, surreal, full of abandoned buildings, abandoned people, and abandoned dreams.

CBC - The Vanishing Point The Vanishing Point – The Dead Astronaut
Adapted from the story by J.G. Ballard; Dramatized by Lawrence Russell; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 28 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBC Radio
Broadcast: 1988
First published in Playboy, May 1968.

Cast:
Gordon Clapp … Philip
Donna Goodhand … Judith
Peter McNeil … Quentin
Tom Duckworth … the voice

Here’s the original art that accompanied the story’s publication in Playboy:

Playboy, May 1968 - illustration by Charles Schorre

[via JGBallard.ca]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Recent Arrivals from AudioComics

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

AudioComics has launched its debut line of Full Cast Audio Movies, inspired by stories from comics, graphic novels, and genre fiction!

Titanium Rain: A near-future, sci-fi epic. Civil war in China spirals into global conflict. Nations are destroyed, millions killed. For Air Force pilot Alec Killian, survival will mean shedding some of his humanity in exchange for biotech and machine.

Honey West: Murder on Mars: Hollywood’s sexiest detective goes undercover on the set of a low-budget sci-fi film. Who killed the movie’s starlet – the sweet Ingénue, the aging teen idol, the agent boyfriend, or the killer robot?

The Domino Lady: All’s Fair in War: Thrill to the exploits of the Domino Lady and her alter ego, Ellen Patrick, in the Raymond Chandleresque Southern California of 1935. First in a series of Domino Lady releases.

The Batsons: Do you think your family’s strange? Meet The Batsons, a spooky-kooky family of misfit monsters who reside in Flemme Falls, where “awful is lawful and everyone’s mean.” First two episodes: The Trouble with Fang and Carmilla’s Crush.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of The Red Panda Adventures – Season 7

SFFaudio Review

If you haven’t already started listening to The Red Panda Adventures you’re doing yourself a grave disservice. Go back to the beginning and start with Season 1 (that’s HERE).

The Red Panda Adventures – Season 7
By Gregg Taylor; Performed by a full cast
12 MP3 Files via podcast – Approx. 6 Hours [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: Decoder Ring Theatre
Podcast: August 2011 – July 2012
Themes: / Fantasy / Superheroes / Mystery / Crime / Nazis / War / WWII / Adventure / Toronto / Androids / Espionage / Zombies / Magic / Aliens / Poetry / Astral Projection / Hypnosis / France / Germany / Berlin / Dinosaurs / Identity / Forgery / Romance /

The Red Panda Adventures is a comic book superhero series with a world, now in it’s seventh season, that is only comparable in scale to the entire Marvel or DC universes. But unlike either DC and Marvel, the Red Panda universe has all been written by one man, Greg Taylor. Because of that it has a consistency like the best seasons of Babylon 5.

The first episode of Season 7 follows right on the heels of last season’s final episode. In the season opener, From the Ashes, Kit Baxter gets a visit from the highest power in the land. And what with the Red Panda being presumed dead there’s only one thing to do – find a replacement for Canada’s greatest superhero. The government suggests that an unkillable machine, bent on vengeance, become the new Red Panda. And Kit, is fairly forced to accept the government’s choice. Now I won’t summarize any more of the plot. But, I will say this – Season 7 is a very different season than the previous six seasons.

What isn’t different is Taylor’s scripting. It’s still great, in fact its almost unbelievably great. Taylor has one of those highly distinctive writing styles, one that’s instantly recognizable – he’s like an Aaron Sorkin, a David Mamet, or an Ian Mackintosh. And with Taylor’s style comes a whole lot of substance too. He does incredible things with each half-hour script. Each standalone tale features a carefully measured combination of snappy repartee, genuine mystery, thrilling suspense, and clever action. And he does it all within a expanded universe so consistent so as to have become a kind of complete alternate history. His seven year series, and running, has created an image so vivid as to be completely realized. Taylor’s 1930s-1940s Toronto is far realer to me than any Gotham or Metropolis offered up in comics or movies. In fact to find anything comparable you’d have to go to the Springfield of The Simpsons!

Indeed, for the last seven years I’ve followed The Red Panda Adventures rather avidly and with each season I’ve become more engrossed in the show. The release of a new episode has become so inextricably linked to my listening habits so as to become like a good a visit from an old friend. It’s truly wonderful.

In my re-listening to the first eleven episodes of this Season 7 I picked up dozens and dozens of minor details in dialogue and plot that I’d missed the first time around. Take one point, early in the season, as an example – a character quotes the tagline of the CBS Radio series Suspense as a part of her dialogue.

How wonderful to find that!

And of course there are all the usual line echoes that we know from all past seasons (if you’re curious there’s a whole thread of Taylorisms over on AudioDramaTalk).

As for Season 7 as a whole, it has a sense of deep loss, very much in keeping with the times in which the story is set and the fallout from Season 6. Earlier I mentioned that Season 7 was unlike previous seasons, that’s because it features two overarching, and eventually intersecting, plots. The first, set in Toronto, deals with Kit Baxter, her new sidekick, her new job as associate editor of the Chronicle, and her developing pregnancy. The other plotline, set in Europe introduces us to a new character, a Lieutenant Flynn, a man in a deep denial, and his attempts to fight the Nazis behind their lines. It’s a radical change, and unforeseen change of pace, but not an unpleasant one.

The smaller scale stories from this season, like The Milk Run, work terrifically well too. As even the characters themselves will admit a plot about the forgery of rationing books doesn’t sound very dramatic next to the events unfolding in war torn France. But it’s a job that has to be done, and should be done, and done well it is. And that’s because the relatively harmless domestic crime of forgery is an important part of the story of WWII Toronto. The The Milk Run script tackles it in a way that makes it seem as if such a story could not not be told. In fact, this whole home-front end of the season’s story holds up very well next to the very dramatic later episodes.

One other such, The Case Of The Missing Muse, works very similairly. It’s a story in which we meet a super-villain, with a super-vocabulary, in a mystery that could have been set in any of the previous episodes. But what with the war time setting it of Season 7, and a new Red Panda running the show, it has a resolution that has its own unique wartime fit.

That replacement Red Panda, who in fact is a character from a previous season is still voiced by the wonderful Christopher Mott. The new Panda has a very different personality and temperament than our good friend August Fenwick. His goals as Red Panda are different, his methods are different, and it’s basically everything you like about when a hero regular superhero, from the comics gets, a replacement. It’s a new origins story – a fresh start – with all the promise that brings.

Some have argued that The Red Panda Adventures is really Kit Baxter’s story – and that certainly could be argued especially within the first arc of Season 7. Indeed, Kit Baxter, aka Flying Squirrel, does not get short shrift there. Besides her regular superhero duties, Kit’s also required to train the new Panda, fill in for the shattered Home Team (from last season) and somehow deal with the fact that her butler now knows she’s the Flying Squirrel! But that’s not all over at The Chronicle, the fictional Toronto newspaper that Kit works for, she, and we, get to visit with one of the best editor voices I’ve ever heard. Editor Pearly is your typical fatherly J. Jonah Jameson type caricature of an editor, but with a voice so crazily stressed out, a voice with lines so quickly delivered, you’ll barely understand a word he’s saying. It’s both fun and funny.

Then, just short of the midway point, a kind of focal transition takes place in between episodes 78 and 79, The Darkness Beyond and Flying Blind. The second arc begins slowly but soon ramps up. The aforementioned “Lieutenant Flynn”, and a team of commandos lead by one Captain Parker must escape from a Nazi stalag prison. Once achieved they spend much of the rest of the season either on the run or doing Special Operations Executive style missions in Nazi occupied France or in Berlin itself! And long time fans of the series will recognize the return of a certain Australian accented commando in one episode.

This new military aspect of the show is actually rather remarkable, being like a kind of Canadian version of WWII Captain America. It features a large male cast, allied soldiers, that act like something like a hybrid of the comics like Sgt. Rock, Sgt. Fury And His Howling Commandos, and The Unknown Soldier. Indeed, in the final episode of Season 7, The Black Heart, the show even gives a nice tip of the hat towards the later Nick Fury (the one who’s an agent for S.H.I.E.L.D.). That final season episode, incidentally, is set to be podcast later this month and features several other reveals, and dare I say reunions, which fans will be sure to love – I know I sure did. Suffice it to say, the Season 7 season-ender is definitely not a cliffhanger.

Here’s the podcast feed:

http://decoderring.libsyn.com/rss

Happy Canada Day everybody, go celebrate with some RED PANDA!

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBCR4 + RA.cc: Roald Dahl’s Man From The South

Aural Noir: Online Audio

The story I want to tell you about today comes from a series called Someone Like You. The series aired on BBC Radio 4 in 2009 with the particular tale being the first of a five part series of dramatizations of Roald Dahl short stories.

It’s title is usually given as Man From The South, but it was originally titled Collector’s Item when it first appeared, in a 1948 issue of Collier’s Weekly.

It’s a fantastic little gem – a true oddity – one which you may even be familiar with from one of the many adaptations and references in movies and TV shows. Charles Dance is the narrator, and is his usual wonderful self in it.Andrew Sachs, the titular man, is both manic and enigmatic.

The file is only available via torrent at the wonderful RadioArchive.cc.

Collector's Item by Roald Dahl

Someone Like You – Man From The South
Based on the story by Roald Dahl; Dramatized by Stephen Sheridan; Performed by a full cast
TORRENT – Approx. 14 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: December 21, 2009
While on shore leave in Jamaica, a young marine agrees to a bizarre wager with an elderly South American.

Cast:
Storyteller ……. Charles Dance
Old Man ……….. Andrew Sachs
Marine ………… Danny Mahoney
Girl ………….. Donnla Hughes
Spanish Woman ….. Rachel Atkins

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Dark Adventure Audio Theatre: The Shadow Over Innsmouth

SFFaudio Review

SFFaudio Essential Dark Adventure Radio Theatre: H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth
Adapted from the novella by H.P. Lovecraft; Performed by a full cast
1 CD – Approx. 77 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: HPLHS
Published: October 27, 2009
Themes: / Horror / Cultists / Deep Ones / Cthulhu Mythos /

The final installment of a great series of faux Old Time Radio dramatisations of Lovecraft stories by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society’s very own Dark Adventure Radio Theatre is probably the easiest to convert in their point of view. By no means do I want to belittle their skill and effort but of all of Lovecrafts stories “Innsmouth”‘s dramaturgy comes easier to audio than, say, The Shadow out of Time [Review]. Bear in mind that Lovecraft was not exactly known for his use of action or suspense in the traditional sense, but this novella about a degenerated community on New England’s seaside features his attempt of a chase and narrow escape plus a final plot twist.

I assume that most readers will at least be vaguely familiar with the plot but for those who are not here’s a very brief overview.

A young man tours New England, more precisly the fictional area that became known as “Lovecraft Country”, in a search for antiques and his family’s history. He learns of the town of Innsmouth which used to be a prosperous fishing and trading port but which has long ago fallen into gloom and decay, shunned by outsiders and inhabited by secretive people on whom generations of inbreeding have not been kind.

Of course, he disregards all warning not to go there and buys a ticket for the bus to Innsmouth. Ahh, the carelessnes of youth!

Sure, he only wants to get a quick peek and then leave again with the evening bus. What he learns from his own observations and the only two people willing to talk to him – an outside shopkeeper and the town drunkard – is bad enough. All the churches of Innsmouth have either been abandoned or have been converted for use by the town’s sinister cult the Esoteric Order of Dagon. The cult that was brought to Innsmouth from the Pacific by one of its most prominent captains at a time when Innsmouth’s economy was failing. The new gods helped but at what terrible price our young protagonist is abuot to find out. Too bad that the bus that was supposed to bring him out of town in the evening has most inconveniently broken down leaves him stranded and cut-off in a town filled with people who are not entirely human anymore and even less keen on snooping outsiders than your usual run-of-the-mill hillbillies. Fortunately, there is a room available in the best (and only) hotel in town… and this is where the fun begins – our protagonist has to escape from Innsmouth.

But remember… you may take a man out of Innsmouth but can you take Innsmouth out of the man?

Find out more and watch <a title=” Shadow over Innsmouth Trailer” href=””>the trailer on Youtube.

There is not really much more to say about the last and thus far final installment of DART that is different from the previous ones. Although the crew does not produce audio dramas for a living they take this serious enough to be on par with most professional publishers, and indeed even better than some. Luckily they don’t take it so serious as to avoid the tongue-in-cheek humour which stands ol’ Lovecraft better than you might think.

The story has been dramatised well, music and sound design are great, the acting convincing and the feeling of an Old Time Radio show has been well preserved. The fact that DART have invented a visit from a government official to the protagonist (a fact actually mentioned in the original story) not only provides a convincing reason why the narrator keeps going on in the typical Lovecraftian monologues but also made it possible to tell the story’s ending a bit more dramatic than its literary predecessor.

Every DART show comes as both MP3 download and “enhanced” physical CD. The Shadow over Innsmouth is no different and the CD contains such props as a “real” match book (with one final match left) of the Gilman hotel, a handdrawn map of Insmouth, a fake newspaper clipping, and a postcard. A nice extra (and free for all) service is the downloadable script to read along.

To round off this the final audio drama the HPLHS offers a nicely designed box in the shape of a classic tube radio that holds all four currently available CDs.

The only thing that this leaves me wanting is more. I want more Dark Adventure Radio shows! Alas, the HPLHS has been awfully quiet on the audio front recently. One can only assume that their resources have been eaten up mainly by their film endeavours.

Posted by Carsten Schmitt

Review of We’re Alive: A Story of Survival – Season One

SFFaudio Review

We’re Alive: A Story of Survival – Season One
By Kc Waylan and Shane Salk; Performed by a full cast
12 CDs – Approx. 14.2 Hours [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2011
ISBN: 9781455114580
Themes: / Horror / Zombies / Post-Apocalypse / Los Angeles /

This exciting audio drama is based on an immensely popular podcast that has received hundreds of positive reviews and has had over four million downloads—and counting.

Uneven and slightly amateurish, but also fun, mildly addictive and highly listenable, We’re Alive: A Story of Survival, the first season (Modern Myth Productions, LLC) should appeal to fans of the zombie/post-apocalyptic/survivalist genres.

Unlike most audiobooks, which typically feature a single narrator reading text in unadorned style, We’re Alive is an audio drama. It employs a large cast, incorporates a wide range of sound effects, and is scripted in a way that caters to the ear, emphasizing dialogue and interpersonal relationships over lengthy descriptive narrative. Our minds are left to fill in the gory details, and it works. It’s simultaneously fresh and retro, reminding me of what the old radio shows of yesteryear must have been like. We’re Alive was launched and remains an ongoing podcast (check it out HERE) but you can obtain the entire first two seasons from Blackstone Audio, Inc.

The storyline is about what you’d expect: A zombie apocalypse strikes without warning, quickly overwhelming most of the population. Three young Army reservists (Michael, Angel, and Saul) commandeer a humvee and seek out survivors in downtown Los Angeles. After rescuing a couple civilians they find an apartment building, clear it of zombies, and begin to fortify it, rigging it up with a generator and stocking up on food, water, and ammunition. More survivors eventually trickle in and/or are rescued by the group, including Burt, an aging Vietnam veteran who acts and sounds a lot like Clint Eastwood. Soon there’s a small but thriving community holed up in the apartment building.

We’re Alive has a few problems. I had a hard time distinguishing between some of the women. The men are generally given more agency and are more fully developed characters. There are some writing weaknesses, including characters that bicker and bitch over trifles and at times seem more concerned with saving face than staying alive. This creates plenty of distractions and gets the group in more trouble than it should, at first with zombies and later with a greedy, nasty group of human convicts (the “Mallers”). Also, a few of the characters’ skill-sets seem a bit too fortuitous (one of the women is a pro archer — rather convenient).

The story also uses zombies that break sharply with most undead traditions. Some have a rudimentary intelligence, at least one can talk and strategize, and at times they are directed by some unseen controlling force to capture and carry away their victims rather than consuming them. While I’m not a strict zombie purist, these traits lessen their scare factor and weakened them as a threat. Zombies are at their best when they’re relentless, merciless eating machines; take away that characteristic and they become caricatures. There’s even some species of large zombie monsters lurking in the background, though they’re not described well and it’s impossible at least through season one to determine if they’re a large zombified animal or a creature of pure fancy. In short, if you’re a zombie purist, or expecting undead in the Romero mold or new Dawn Of The Dead style, be prepared for a lot of “rule breaking.”

But We’re Alive also has plenty of good things going on, enough to give it my recommendation. Most of the characters grow on you and the voice acting is reasonably good. There are enough plot twists and turns to keep you guessing. There’s a hardly a dull moment—when not fighting the undead or the Mallers, the survivors are fighting amongst themselves, often chafing against Michael’s inflexible never-question-my-orders military style of leadership. Ex-lawyers and teachers find themselves growing vegetables on the rooftop, serving as quartermasters, or standing guard duty, with inevitable grousing and dereliction of duties. As the survivors’ supplies start to dwindle, they’re forced to take increasingly dangerous runs for food and ammo into the “hot zone” of zombie and looter-infested downtown L.A. There’s also a larger backstory about the hows and whys of the zombie outbreak that’s still unrevealed but will undoubtedly be a part of latter seasons.

While it lacks the moral/philosophical questions and hardcore grittiness of The Walking Dead, We’re Alive is nevertheless fun stuff and I’m looking forward to listening to season two.

Posted by Brian Murphy