While we are apt to shun most video based interviews as unnecessarily gauche we always make an exception for the good folks at Fast Forward: Contemporary Science Fiction a monthly 30 minute television series about Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. They’ve just done an exciting interview with George R.R. Martin! Martin chats about his latest Song Of Ice And Fire series novel A Feast for Crows. An audio only interview can be dound HERE.
Saturday the 26th of November 2005 sees a brand new unabridged reading of an H.P. Lovecraft story on BBC7’s The Seventh Dimension:
The Tomb
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by Ryan McCluskey
STREAMING AUDIO – Approx. 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC7
Broadcast: Nov 26th 2005 [available on the Listen Again service for 6 days following]
Jervas Dudley inmate of an insane asylum describes the sinister events leading up to his incarceration. He tells of how he became obsessed with the tomb of a long-dead family of aristocrats and how his obsession tipped him over into madness when he entered their tomb and spent a night lying in an empty coffin.
House Of Bones
By Robert Silverberg; Read by Jared Doreck
1 CD – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Infinivox
Published: 2005
ISBN: 1884612431
Themes: / Science Fiction / Time Travel / Prehistory /
Another stunning audio achievement from Infinivox! House Of Bones is a unique time-travel story that imbues a deep sense of satisfaction on nearly every level. A top shelf reading by a dynamic reader, a dynamite story and an elegant production combine to make pure aural delight! House Of Bones is a modest tale, recounting the unfortunate fate of the world’s first and perhaps last time traveler. After a misguided test run he’s become trapped 20,000 years in our past, unequipped for survival his future is uncertain. What’s worse he’s surrounded by people so primitive they don’t even have a written language. So primitive they take in his unworthy and skilless self and accept him into their society. This glimpse of what life might have been like for Cro-Magnon man in the late Pleistocene epoch shows us precisely why we can’t judge a society by it’s lack of tool based technology. Silverberg skillfully extrapolates a fascinating working culture out of what little modern archaeologists and paleoanthropolgists know of these people, our ancestors and creates in the process something to think about when using words like “primitive”. House Of Bones is kind of a mirror image of Isaac Asimov’s The Ugly Little Boy. And like that tale this one is a keeper.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Granny, A Ghost Story of the North Carolina Mountains
By Steven Wilson, performed by Prometheus Radio Theatre
1 CD – 30 minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Prometheus Radio Theatre
Published: 2004
Themes: / Ghosts / Southern History /
“If the Lord spares my life, I’ll be back here Saturday,” Granny had said when she left. The Lord didn’t spare her life, but Granny still came back. What unfinished business kept her from her rest? Her twelve-year-old granddaughter, Hannah, was determined to find out. Based on a true story.
According to Steven Wilson, the director, Granny, A Ghost Story of the North Carolina Mountains is based on a story that his grandmother swore “to her dying day” was true. In fact, as a bonus at the end of the radio show, Mr. Wilson shares a clip of his grandmother telling the tale.
Listening to it, I could understand why it kept him awake at nights as a child. Sadly, that sense of creeping chill was not translated to this production. While Steven Wilson and Ethan Wilson turn in creditable performances and Cindy Woods does a nice job as the young Hannah, the rest of the cast are as stiff in their reads as if this were their first time in front of a microphone.
As if in an attempt to compensate for the lackluster performances, the foley effects are so loud that they at times almost overwhelm the dialogue. The show is filled with footsteps, creaking rocking chairs, and an unending parade of insect life which do nothing to enhance any of the action. Indeed, most of the time it was a distraction. At one point, Papa and Hannah were talking and I had to strain to understand what was happening and finally realized that Papa had stirred the fire, walked across the room and sat in the world’s creakiest rocking chair. None of which had anything to do with the story, or the dramatic tension in the scene; it was foley for the sake of foley.
There are some nicely eerie moments, such as when the family first hears the ghost of Granny crooning “Amazing Grace” in the chimney. I wish the rest of the show were half as effective.
Posted by Mary Robinette Kowal
The Pocket And The Pendant
By Mark Jeffrey; Read by Mark Jeffrey
13 MP3 Files – 10 Hours 25 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: markjeffrey.typepad.com / Podiobooks.com
Published: 2005
Themes: / Science Fiction / Young Adult / Physcics / Immortality / Time Travel / Aliens / Time / Ancient Astronauts /
“On April 8th at exactly 3:38 in the afternoon the world STOPPED.”
It is one of the fundamental constants of the universe – every second thrift store one enters will contain a lonely shelf somewhere in the back with a battered paperback copy of Chariots Of The Gods? by Eric von Däniken on it. That is a terrible, terrible book. I encourage you – only partially in jest – to burn down any store that has one. Chariots Of The Gods is a massive failure in every way but one, it’ll help me tell you about a certain 1970s pop culture concept – the “ancient astronauts” theory. This is a speculative/delusional hypothesis that posits that extraterrestrial aliens are responsible for the ancient civilizations of Earth. Basically it argues that ancient people with their distinctive lack of heavy diesel powered machinery, could not possibly have constructed things like the Pyramid of The Sun at Teotihuacán and so the relics of archeological wonders throughout the world must have been constructed by aliens with a ‘higher’ technology. It is of course a ridiculous notion, wholly unsubstantiated by any evidence that wasn’t manufactured by fraudsters. That said, it can occasionally makes for a cool basis for fiction.
Mark Jeffrey’s The Pocket And The Pendant uses the concept of ancient astronauts to very good effect. This is the story of Max Quick a very odd little boy and his companions, other children who’ve found themselves trapped living in a frozen instant of time. Has this time “pocket” has been caused by the strange aircraft in the skies above the USA? What about the almost magical books that everyone who isn’t frozen seem to be after? Only the aptly named “Mr. E.” knows the answer. Weaving together a carefully researched history with an intriguing and well executed scenario Mark Jeffrey has put together an engaging and satisfying adventure that while aimed at a younger audience never talks down to it. Basically Jeffrey does for science fiction what Harry Potter does for fantasy – I’d say he does it better by layering in facts and mythology from many sources. He takes the whacked out theories of Zecharia Sitchin and asks “what if they were true?”, mixes it up with action like The Matrix, the premise of the Doctor Who “Key To Time” arc and with a couple dutiful nod to the 1959 and 1985 The Twilight Zones.
Jeffrey is very inventive with solving the problems he’s created. But there was one thing that bothered me about the story, if Max and his companions are trapped in time how can they see? Let me explain, this is basically the same nitpick I had with H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, without light hitting a retina you can’t see. If time is stopped then the light has stopped (in The Invisible Man the title character’s retinas are transparent!). I’m nitpicky.
Jeffrey reads the novel himself, doing accents, adults children boys girls and aliens. The sound quality is very good and well leveled, but there is one caveat, a constant musical score underlies the reading (almost always keyed to characters and events in the tale). In this case it is fairly benign, and certainly allows an atmosphere of emotion to build in the story – but not having heard the tale without music I’m not sure if it wouldn’t have been better just as a clean reading.
SFFaudio COMMENT: This is the second “Podiobook” we’ve reviewed on SFFaudio, and the quality is WAY, WAY UP THERE, not just in terms of podcast novels, but in terms of novels on audio. Combine this fact with the price, which is just a request for a donation if you enjoyed the experience, and you’re literally crazy by not listening to them. The worst that can happen is you listen, enjoy the heck out of it and then feel guilty for a few years because you were to cheap to throw a few $$$ towards the producers. Go ahead now, give yourself a gift, subscribe to Morevi: The Chronicles Of Rafe And Askana and The Pocket And the Pendant you’ll marvel at your own generosity.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Joe Mahoney, CBC Radio producer and friend to SFFaudio readers around the world, has just announced a new half-hour documentary on Science Fiction (where it’s been, where it’s at, and where it may or may not be going). It will air this coming Tuesday, November 22, on CBC Radio’s The Arts Tonight. The documentary features extensive commentary from award winning authors like Robert J. Sawyer, Robert Charles Wilson, Nalo Hopkinson and Jean-Louis Trudel.
The Arts Tonight is a daily magazine show about the arts in Canada, covering theatre, dance, books, music and the visual arts. It airs weeknights at 10 p.m. (10:30 in Newfoundland) on CBC Radio One. The show is streamed online; you can find more info at www.cbc.ca