Neil Gaiman on Edgar Allan Poe (his work should be read aloud)

SFFaudio News

I love introductions, afterwords, forewords. I buy collections of stories with stories I already have several copies of just for the new introductions, afterwords, and forewords. The only thing that’ll make me buy such a collection without a foreword, afterword, or introduction is if it has new illustrations.

And so one collection I’d love to get my mitts on is Barnes & Noble’s Edgar Allan Poe – Selected Poems & Tales which has both an introduction and new illustrations by Mark Summers!

I first heard about it via Neil Gaiman’s website. Gaiman wrote the introduction, Some Strangeness In The Proportion: The Exquisite Beauties Of Edgar Allan Poe, to the wonderful looking collection.

Edgar Allan Poe: Selected Poems & Tales - with illustrations by Mark Summers and an introduction by Neil Gaiman

The entire inspiring essay is available over on Gaiman’s site.

Here are a few choice lines from it:

Poe isn’t for everyone. He’s too heady a draught for that. He may not be for you. But there are secrets to appreciating Poe, and I shall let you in on one of the most important ones: read him aloud.

Read the poems aloud. Read the stories aloud. Feel the way the words work in your mouth, the way the syllables bounce and roll and drive and repeat, or almost repeat. Poe’s poems would be beautiful if you spoke no English (indeed, a poem like “Ulalume” remains opaque even if you do understand English — it implies a host of meanings, but does not provide any solutions). Lines which, when read on paper, seem overwrought or needlessly repetitive or even mawkish, when spoken aloud reshape and reconfigure.

(You may feel peculiar, or embarrassed, reading aloud; if you would rather read aloud in solitude I suggest you find a secret place; or if you would like an audience, find someone who likes to be read to, and read to him or to her.)

And check out this illustration by Mark Summers (do you see the hidden skull?):

Illustration by Mark Summers from Edgar Allan Poe: Selected Poems & Tales

If you can’t see it, hit “Ctrl -” a few times.

And hey, my birthday is coming up people, and I don’t have this book!

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases: AudioGo: The History Of The World In 100 Objects

New Releases

AudioGo has collected the popular BBC Radio 4 programme The History Of The World In 100 Objects as I guess what we’d call a 25 hour radiobook.

In 2010, the BBC and the British Museum embarked on an ambitious project: to tell the story of two million years of human history using one hundred objects selected from the Museum’s vast and renowned collection.

Presented by the British Museum’s Director Neil MacGregor, each episode focuses on a single object – from a Stone Age tool to a solar-powered lamp – and explains its significance in human history.

Music, interviews with specialists and quotations from written texts enrich the listener’s experience. On each CD, objects from a similar period of history are grouped together to explore a common theme and make connections across the world. Seen in this way, history is a kaleidoscope: shifting, interlinked, constantly surprising and shaping our world in ways that most of us have never imagined.

This box set also includes an illustrated booklet with additional background information and photographs, and each CD includes PDF images of the featured objects.

The landmark series on BBC Radio 4 that tells the story of humanity through 100 man-made objects from the British Museum’s unique collection.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Michael Bekemeyer’s reading of Harry Harrison’s The Velvet Glove

SFFaudio Online Audio

You may recall that one Michael Bekemeyer recorded a Harry Harrison story, The Velvet Glove, for The Time Traveler Show podcast back in 2007. He’s got a new project in development:

And here’s the story:

The Time Traveler Show #22 - Harry Harrison’s The Velvet GloveThe Velvet Glove
By Harry Harrison; Read by Michael Bekemeyer
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: The Time Traveler Show
Podcast: December 28, 2007
First published in Fantastic Universe, November 1956.

[via Rick Jackson aka The Time Traveler]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Commentary: West Of The Sun by Edward Pangborn should be an audiobook

SFFaudio Commentary

A recent email pointed me towards Project Gutenberg and a public domain novel I’d not previously heard of. After doing a little research I now think it would make a really terrific audiobook!

It’s a standalone SF novel by by Edward Pangborn, it was first published in 1953, and its called West Of The Sun.

DELL - West Of The Sun by Edgar Pangborn

Here’s the premise:

On earth it was 2056 A.D. but on the red-green planet it was THE YEAR ONE

There were only six human beings—

DR. CHRISTOPHER WRIGHT, anthropologist— he believed in man’s basic goodness … but could he put his trust in an alien race?

PAUL MASON— he dutifully shared his wife with his best friend.

DOROTHY LEEDS— Paul was her husband, but she knew there were some things more important than love.

SEARS OLIPHANT— the gentle scientist who inspired love in an alien.

ANN BRYAN— the youngest of them all, she had to be taught violence and passion.

EDMUND SPEARMAN— the rebel who had to have his own tribe to rule … even though it meant war with his Earth companions.

Six humans alone against the deadly forces of a strange and distant planet.

Cool sounding right?

I’ve only heard one Pangborn short story, The Good Neighbors, but based on the quality of it, and the reviews I’ve been reading of West Of The Sun (detailed below) I think it’d make a terrific audiobook!

Potential narrators, I suggest you have a look at it HERE.

Galaxy's Five Star Shelf - review from Galaxy, July 1953

Recommended Reading column from Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 1953

Review of West Of The Sun from Imagination, July 1953

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: The Good Neighbors by Edgar Pangborn

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxA first contact story and a mystery story! When a massive alien, the size of a city, enters Earth’s atmosphere fighter jets are scrambled to meet it. The alien seems to be in search of something – but what it is won’t turn out to be what we expect. Here’s part of the description of the alien:

She had a head, drawn back most of the time into the bloated mass of the body but thrusting forward now and then on a short neck not more than three hundred feet in length. When she did that the blunt turtle-like head could be observed, the gaping, toothless, suffering mouth from which the thunder came, and the soft-shining purple eyes that searched the ground but found nothing answering her need. The skin-color was mud-brown with some dull iridescence and many peculiar marks resembling weals or blisters. Along the belly some observers saw half a mile of paired protuberances that looked like teats.

The Good Neighbors by Edgar Pangborn - illustrated by Wood

LibriVox - The Good Neighbors by Edgar PangbornThe Good Neighbors
By Edgar Pangborn; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 12 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: February 21, 2009
|ETEXT|
You can’t blame an alien for a little inconvenience—as long as he makes up for it! First published in Galaxy Science Fiction, June 1960.

And here is a |PDF| made from the original publication in Galaxy.

Posted by Jesse Willis