adventure – Page 22

LibriVox: Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Quasar Dragon blogmeister Wolfkahn is excited about the newest SF novel to be catalgoued at LibriVox:

“Yes!!! LibriVox has just finished a free audiobook version of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ adventure masterpiece Pellucidar, the first sequel to At the Earth’s Core.”

Meanwhile, that preceding novel in the series (At The Earth’s Core) is still listed as“in progress” and is set to be a multi-voiced production as opposed to this single narratored one. Check it out…

Pellucidar
By Edgar Rice Burroughs; Read by Ralph Snelson
16 Zipped MP3s or Podcast – Approx. 6 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 2008
Pellucidar is a fictional “Hollow Earth” milieu invented by Edgar Rice Burroughs for a series of action adventure stories. The stories initially involve the adventures of mining heir David Innes and his inventor friend Abner Perry after they use an “iron mole” to burrow 500 miles into the earth’s crust. This is the second book in the series.

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/pellucidar-by-edgar-rice-burroughs.xml

[via Quasar Dragon]

Posted by Jesse Willis

FREE LISTENS Review: King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard

Review

King Solomon’s Mines
By H. Rider Haggard

Source: Librivox | Zipped MP3
Length: 9 hr, 52 min
Reader: John Nicholson

The book: Set in British colonial South Africa, King Solomon’s Mines tells of the extraordinary adventures of big game hunter Allan Quatermain. Sir Henry Curtis hires Quatermain as a guide for an expedition to find Curtis’s brother, who disappeared while searching for the biblical King Solomon’s fabled diamond mines. Joining them in the expedition are Curtis’s friend Captain Good and Umbopa, a porter with mysterious purposes.

The action is told in an unadorned style that, along with the descriptions of Africa and its inhabitants, makes this Lost Civilization fantasy seem real. A major part of this realism is the character of Quatermain, who narrates the adventure in the first person with a sense of dry humor and a matter-of-fact tone. Quatermain is not a hero in the traditional sense – he admits to being a coward. Instead of a hero, he is someone that the reader can positively identify with: fair, practical, smart, and opposed to injustice, racism and greed. This enlightened protagonist, the fresh writing style and exciting plot make King Solomon’s Mines a great read.

Rating: 9/10

The reader: Nicholson has a deep plain voice that is a perfect match for Allan Quatermain. The book is filled with difficult-to-pronounce names and words in Afrikaans and Zulu, but Nicholson says them with confidence. Whether or not he’s right, I have no idea. The pace is sometimes too slow for my taste, but he does vary both the pace and volume. The recording has some background whine and a hiss on the esses.

Posted by Seth

Review of The Red Panda Adventures – Season 3

SFFaudio Review

Superhero Audio Drama - The Red Panda Adventures - Season Three The Red Panda Adventures – Season 3
By Gregg Taylor; Performed by a full cast
12 MP3 Files – Approx. 6 Hours [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: Decoder Ring Theatre
Podcast: September 2007 – May 2008
Themes: / Fantasy / Superheroes / Mystery / Adventure / Magic / Time Travel / Robots /

“None of the other heroes kiss their sidekicks!”

You’d think after thirty-six episodes The Red Panda Adventures would have become formulaic – to have settled into a well-worn style. It sure doesn’t feel that way, RP shows no signs of becoming anything like a mere dry routine. The familiarities are only in the iconic lines of character dialogue that are heard in every episode – bits like: “Kit Baxter, behave yourself!” and “He’ll face justice at the hands of The Red Panda!” If there is a formula, it must be a magic one secretly possessed by Gregg Taylor and the Decoder Ring crew. There’s really no other way to explain how bloody wonderful this show really is.

Plotlines from Season 3 still obviously follow the ‘heroes fight injustice’ thread, but other than that the storytelling is extremely varied. In one show the story is told very heroes-light, with the twin leads barely showing up, in another it’ll be very hero-heavy with barely another actor on the stage. One show will showcase a new villain up to old tricks, another will offer an old villain up to very new tricks. Injustices too run the gamut: from arson, to bootlegging, to racketeering, to pickpocketing, to mysterious and seemingly profitless industrial accidents. Heck, there was even a Christmas show performed entirely in rhymed verse (“Tis The Season!”). Other favorite episodes from Season 3 included the locked room style “A Midwinter’s Murder,” the series of three short adventures chronicled in “Now, The News,”. Scenes too standout, there was a certain scene on Sunnyside beach in “The Rat Lord.” that is utterly classic. And finally, there is the shocking (and I do mean shocking!) season ender – “The Field Trip.”

Voice talent abounds in the Decoder Ring troupe, there’s hardly a performance that isn’t spot on. Although, I should say, there was one actor, who obviously wasn’t very experienced, as he was playing a kid, and obviously was a real kid! But this is an aberration, normally, the child characters are played by female adult actors (as is done on The Simpsons). My favorite returning villain for Season 3 was the Mad Monkey (voiced by Christopher Mott). But this time he’s returned with his own assistant, but just like RP, he can’t seem to wrap his mind around an aggressive female sidekick. New characters like The Red Squirrel (played by Denise Anderson) also charm – I do hope to hear more of her! One thing I’d been missing from the show by listening to the podiobooks collections in the past, was the wonderful commercials. Every episode in the regular Decoder Ring feed has some sort of commercial endorsement. This could be from a website or a company, but often they are just the cutest little skits paid for by family members wishing each other a ‘happy birthday’, or ‘happy anniversary.’ How cool is that?

In the final episode of Season 3, old villains like Professor Von Schlitz are aligning themselves with new enemies like the Third Reich (!) but that isn’t the half of it. See, on the personal front, the blossoming romance between Panda and Squirrel is brought to the fore in the last epsiode. I imagine every longtime listener to the show who’s heard it is just freaked-out to the max about the final scene. Will where the show has now gone ultimately bring the end of the show? We’ll have to wait about two more months to find out.

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

Posted by Jesse Willis

April & May New Releases

New Releases

Two years after the first book, comes “book 2” of one of the first podcast novels…

Max Quick 2: The Two Travelers
By Mark Jeffrey; Read by Mark Jeffrey
Publisher: Podiobooks.com
Published: April 2008 – ????
Five quiet years have passed in Starland, California since the the time of the Pocket. But when a crazed old man shows up with a warning, Max, Casey, Ian and Sasha suddenly find themselves on the run. Max and Ian go through an Arch back to 1912, where a mysterious Machine is under construction that seems connected to Max’s unremembered secret. Meanwhile, Casey and Sasha follow the old man to the strange town of Arturo Gyp. But there is more afoot than meets the eye: the enemies of Mr. E – the nefarious Archons – are abroad. And when Max is at last eye-to-eye with his secret, he realizes nothing will ever be the same again…

Only available as a commercial MP3 download…

Little Brother
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Kirby Heyborne
MP3 Download – 11 Hours 54 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio / Listening Library
Published: April 2008
ISBN: 9780739372869
Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works-and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems. But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they’re mercilessly interrogated for days. When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.

Audio comics! Fully dramatized…

Justice League of America: Exterminators
By Christopher Golden; Performed by a full cast
5 CDs, 1 MP3-CD or WMA Download – Approx. 5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Graphic Audio
Published: May 2008
ISBN: 1599504448
Superman. Batman. Wonder Woman. The Flash. Green Lantern. They are the World’s Greatest Super Heroes, fighting endlessly against corruption and injustice. Each of them is a formidable opponent of evil, but banded together their powers are unmatched. Ever ready, they stand united as the — JUSTICE LEAGUE of AMERICA. When a mass outbreak of super-powered individuals threatens the world, the JLA determines that latent metahuman abilities are being triggered by an alien contagion, one that’s spreading throughout Earth as it transforms its hosts into monstrous engines of destruction. Racing to contain the infection, the world’s greatest super heroes link the parasitic plague to an alien invasion from the team’s earliest days and make a horrifying discovery: the JLA itself is responsible for the imminent disaster they now face.

Said to be a “funny, fast-paced science fiction adventure” this is author Michael Reisman’s first book…

Simon Bloom: Gravity Keeper
By Michael Reisman; Read by Nicholas Hormann
CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: April 22, 2008
ISBN: 9780739363539
Ordinary sixth-grader Simon Bloom has just made the biggest discovery since gravity–and it literally fell into his lap. Or onto his head, anyway. You see, Simon has found the Teacher’s Edition of Physics, a magical reference book containing the very formulas that control the laws that govern the universe! By reciting the formulas out loud, he’s able to do the impossible–like reverse the force of gravity to float weightlessly, and reduce friction to zoom across any surface! But a book that powerful isn’t safe with Simon for long. Before he knows it, he is being pursued by evil forces bent on gaining control of the formulas. And they’ll do anything to retrieve them. Now, Simon and his friends must use their wits and the magic of science in a galactic battle for the book, and the future of the universe.

Another juvenile novel, sounds a bit like The Secret World Of Og…

Puddlejumpers
By Mark Jean and Christopher Carlson; Read by Sean Kenin
CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: April 22, 2008
ISBN: 9780739363379
Ernie Banks, named for the legendary Chicago Cubs shortstop, is a troubled, thirteen-year-old juvenile delinquent. Abandoned on the doorstep of the Lakeside Home for Boys when he was three years old, his only proof that he once belonged to somebody is a vintage Ernie Banks baseball card, a crystal acorn he wears on a string around his neck, and a strange spiral birthmark on the bottom of his right foot. As a last reprieve before being sent to a juvenile detention facility, Ernie is allowed to spend three weeks on a working farm. When Ernie arrives at the home of Russ Frazier, he learns that the widower’s baby was kidnapped years before. Ernie is determined to solve the case. He teams up with Joey, a local tomboy, to investigate clues that lead them on a dangerous journey into a forbidden world of dark secrets, magic puddles, and the cavernous underground kingdom of the Puddlejumpers–eleven-inch-tall water creatures with whom Ernie has a mysterious connection.

Only rarely are audiobooks embargoed, the last one I remember was a Harry Potter, here’s another, I think we can probably guess why it won’t be showing up on shelves early…

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
By James Rollins; Read by L.J. Ganser
CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: May 20, 2008
ISBN: 9780739358986
Warning: SPOILERS….
It’s 1957, the atomic age is in full swing, and McCarthy-era paranoia has the nation on edge. But for Indiana Jones, the Cold War really heats up when his latest expedition is crashed by a ruthless squad of Russian soldiers. Commanded by a sword-wielding colonel who’s as sinister as she is stunning, the menacing Reds drag an unwilling Indy along as they brazenly invade American soil, massacre U.S. soldiers, and plunder a top-secret government warehouse. Their objective: a relic even more precious–and powerful–than the mythic Ark, capable of unlocking secrets beyond human comprehension.

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases – S.M. Stirling, Mary Shelley, Frank Herbert

New Releases

Another in S.M. Stirling’s alternate planet series (a parallel world first introduced in The Sky People), have a listen to the Dragon Page interview/chat with Stirling |MP3|, it too sounds like a cool book, The Sky People earned an SFFaudio Essential designation…

In The Courts Of The Crimson Kings
By S.M. Stirling; Read by Todd McLaren
10 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – 13 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
EAN: 9781400106103 (CDs), 9781400156108 (MP3-CD)
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Published: March 2008
On Mars, early hominids evolved civilization earlier than their earthly cousins, driven by the needs of a harsh world growing still harsher as the initial terraforming ran down. Without coal, oil, or uranium, their technology was forced onto different paths, and the genetic wizardry of the Crimson Dynasty united a world for more than 20,000 years. Now, in a new stand-alone adventure set in this world’s 2000 AD, Jeremy Wainman is an archaeologist who has achieved a lifelong dream: to travel to Mars and explore the dead cities of the Deep Beyond, searching for the secrets of the Kings Beneath the Mountain and the fallen empire they ruled.

Unhyped, unbalyhooed, and probably the last novel that needs to be re-recorded, never the less I think the fact that Simon Vance is narrating makes this a worthy edition…

Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus
By Mary Shelley; Read by Simon Vance
7 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – 8 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Published: February 2008
EAN: 9781400106349 (CD), 9781400156344 (MP3-CD)
Mary Shelley’s tragic story of a scientist who created a monster is perhaps even more compelling today than when it was written nearly two centuries ago. The brilliant Victor Frankenstein fashions a new form of life only to discover, too late, the irreparable damage he has caused.

Here’s the first in a new batch of old, non-Dune, Herbert novels getting their first unabridged releases…

Hellstrom’s Hive
By Frank Herbert; Read by Scott Brick
10 CDs, 1 MP3-CD – 4 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
EAN: 9781400105649 (CDs), 9781400155644 (MP3-CD)
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Published: March 2008
America is a police state, and it is about to be threatened by the most hellish enemy in the world: insects. First published in Galaxy magazine in 1973 as “Project 40,” Frank Herbert’s vivid imagination and brilliant view of nature and ecology have never been more evident than in this classic of science fiction.

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBC 7: H.G. Wells, Brian Aldiss, Hergé’s Tintin and a promise of Arthur C. Clarke tales to come)

SFFaudio Online Audio

By the sheer volume of H.G. Wells stories airing this coming week on BBC Radio 7 you’d might think it was H.G. Wells who had just died, and not Arthur C. Clarke! But no, BBC7 is planning on playing some Clarke for they announced the following: “As a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke we will be repeating these programmes [four readings commisioned and broadcast in 2007] in the near future.” Good on them! Until then…

In typical Wellsian fashion (time travel used to be fantasy until Wells got his mitts on it) this 1901 tale transforms a Fantasy concept (the existence of past lives) into a SF theme, casting a future life (as of a dream), that is both vivid and recognizable – written before both of the World Wars it depicts a world in which tanks, airplanes and something that sound like a nuclear weapon exists…

A Dream Of Armageddon
By H.G. Wells; Read by Robert Bathurst
2 Parts – Approx. 2 Hours [ABRIDGED?]
Broadcaster: BBC7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Monday and Tuesday at 6.30pm and midnight
A tale of an advanced civilisation descending into mindless war was an uncannily close prediction of the horrors of WW2 when it was written in 1901.

This one, sounding more like Lovecraft than it has any right to, should be a treat for sailor and land lubber alike…

The Sea Raiders
By H.G. Wells; Read by Robert Bathurst
1 Broadcast – Approx. 30 Minutes [ABRIDGED?]
Broadcaster: BBC7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Wednesday at 6.30pm and 12.30am
Another classic tale of high adventure by sci-fi master H. G. Wells. Strange monsters from the deep start terrorising the horrified residents of Devon’s coastline.

Yep, you’ll find Wells was responsible for most of the well worn tropes of SF – this next one is described as the inspiration for the Star Trek (original series) episode “Wink of an Eye”…

The New Accelerator
By H.G. Wells; Read by Robert Bathurst
1 Broadcast – Approx. 30 Minutes [ABRIDGED?]
Broadcaster: BBC7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Thursday at 6.30pm and 12.30am
A friend of H.G. Wells is on the verge of making a scientific breakthrough which promises to revolutionise human life – so the two friends decide to road-test the new drug – with exciting but dangerous consequences.

And a Brian Aldiss tale, first broadcast back in May 2007…

Song Of The Silencer
By Brian Aldiss; Read by Nigel Anthony
1 Broadcast – Approx. 30 Minutes [ABRIDGED?]
Broadcaster: BBC7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Friday at 6.30pm and 12.30am
To establish universal peace, scientists have constructed a massive computer designed to mimic human thought and act as a guide to world decision making. But will flicking the switch signal the end of the human race?

First broadcast on BBC Radio 5 in 1993, here’s a treat of an audio drama…

The Adventures of Tintin
Based on the Hergé comic book series; Performed by a full cast
6 Broadcasts – 3 Hours [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC7
Broadcast: Monday to Monday at 9am, 8pm and 1am
Famous boy reporter Tintin has been covering the return of the Sanders-Hardiman expedition from Peru. When all the participants fall mysteriously ill, Tintin is compelled to investigate.

All of the above will be available on the “listen again” page the day after they air.

Posted by Jesse Willis