Narrator Karen Savage has finished her SFFaudio Challenge #5 audiobook, calling The Big Time, by Fritz Leiber, “A classic locked room mystery, in a not-so-classic setting.” And she’s right about that, this is an SF/Mystery classic.
Fritz Leiber says, in his 1982 introduction to The Big Time, that the novella was written over the course of exactly 100 days in 1956 and 1957.
For more on the plot |READ OUR REVIEW| of the Audible Frontiers edition. Savage has a great voice, this is an amazingly clear recording, and she affects a very serviceable set of intonations and accents for the half dozen or so characters with speaking parts in this excellent reading. My only complaint, as with the Audible edition, Savage does not use the tune of Lili Marlene for the reading of the lyrics at the end of chapter 3. Oh well.
The Big Time
By Fritz Leiber; Read by Karen Savage
16 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 3 Hours 44 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 16, 2011
|ETEXT|
You can’t know there’s a war on—for the Snakes coil and Spiders weave to keep you from knowing it’s being fought over your live and dead body! First published in Galaxy Science Fiction’s March and April 1958 issues.
Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/5355
iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|
Here’s Ed Emshwiller’s cover for the Ace Double (D-491) edition of The Big Time:
Here are the stunning Virgil Finlay illustrations from the original Galaxy publications:
[Thanks also to AnnSterling]
Posted by Jesse Willis
I would have loved to use the tune of Lili Marlene for this, but unfortunately, it’s not in the public domain, and all parts of LibriVox projects must be strictly PD.
Poem was written in 1915, recording was 1939.
The record as shown on the Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lili_Marleen) for the song has a copyright notice that reads:
“alle rechte des plattenherstellers und eigentumers des aufgenommenen werkes vorbehalten vervielfaltigung offentliche auffuhrung rundfunksendung untersagt”
translation via Google Translate reads:
“all rights and property of the manufacturer of the plate-recorded works reserved forbidden vervielfaltigung PUBLIC unlimbered broadcast”
Any idea when the tune for Lili Marlene will be “unlimbered”?