Audio Realms – Page 6

Review of The Dark Worlds Of H.P. Lovecraft, Volume 4 by H.P. Lovecraft

The Dark Worlds Of H.P. Lovecraft Volume 4: The Rats In The Walls, The Shunned House, The Music Of Eric Zann
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by Wayne June
3 CDs – 2 Hours 41 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Realms
Published: 2006
ISBN: 1897304242
Themes: / Fantasy / Horror / Music / Atavistic Guilt / Cannibalism / Mushrooms /

Curse you, Thornton, I’ll teach you to faint at what my family do! … ‘Sblood, thou stinkard, I’ll learn ye how to gust … wolde ye swynke me thilke wys?… Magna Mater! Magna Mater!… Atys… Dia ad aghaidh’s ad aodaun… agus bas dunarch ort! Dhonas ‘s dholas ort, agus leat-sa!… Ungl unl… rrlh … chchch…

This collection from Audio Realms is the fourth in a series, and the second to be reviewed. There are three CDs and three complete and unabridged stories here, first published between 1922 and 1937. The tales are archaically constructed. If you sat down and try to read one of the paragraph-long sentences that Lovecraft wrote you’d probably begin to wonder why it actually works. Then if you considered that this is the guy who makes curious genealogists or amateur historians the center of his horror stories it becomes almost baffling how he manages to keep our attention at all. There is no doubt though: Lovecraft has our attention. I think I am on safe ground in calling him, at the very least, one of the true giants of Horror fiction. Here are three stories that will prove it…

The Rats In The Walls
The Delapore family, late of Massachusetts, has returned to its ancestral family estate in rural England. Their genealogical and historical research reveals that their ancestors have maintained a strange atavistic responsibility to the land and the ruin upon which their keep was built. Woe be to the friendly neighbors of the long-away Delapores, for the Delapore blood runs thick in their veins and loudly thrums with ancestral duty, as loudly perhaps as the “venimous slithering of ravenous rats in the walls.”

The Shunned House
The house of this story is reported to have been based on a couple of real houses that Lovecraft actually visited. One in particular in Providence, RI at #135 Benefit Street, as in the story, is supposed to be the main inspiration. This story also uses local Providence folklore and history for added depth, but I suspect that if even one fifth of the rest of this story were true we’d have to nuke Rhode Island from orbit, just to be sure. I think some people consider this to be one of Lovecraft’s lesser tales but this one really got me. I am probably a bit more mycophobic than your average person, though. If you don’t like mushrooms, or if you’re even a little afraid of them, listen to this one with the lights on.

The Music Of Eric Zann
One of the most frequently adapted of Lovecraftian tales. The narrator, a near-vagrant, recalls a fellow lodger of a mouldering lodging house in a mysterious French city. Erich Zann is being stalked by a nameless horror that comes to him at night. Only the eerie music he produced was not nearly as haunting as horror that chased him. First published in 1922, still powerful.

SFFaudio Essential narrator Wayne June is back! His grave rumbling voice and his letter perfect pacing makes each of these three tales a shuddersome experience. But I do have a one problem with this entry in the terrific Dark Worlds Of H.P. Lovecraft series. It isn’t the production; these CDs sound awesome. Wayne June’s reading of these three stories is absolutely definitive. His unaccompanied performance is utterly chilling – this series truly must be heard. It isn’t the packaging that is the problem, with original art by Allen K. The images on this series are reminiscent of the art found within the pages of the pulps in which these stories were first published. No, my problem isn’t with any of these things. My problem is with choice to censor a couple of lines of the text in The Rats In The Walls. It makes me want to cry. Maybe Lovecraft was indeed being a racist when he wrote the offending words (in naming Delacore’s cat “Nigger-man”), but I’m a purist. Instead of calling Delacore’s cat “Nigger-man” Audio Realms has changed it to “Blackman.” If the text is good enough to be republished year after year ought we not preserve it as it stands, racism and all? True horror is by its very nature transgressive, but I want all the horror in my life to be in fiction. A cannibalistic incestuous serial murderer of homeless children is scary in fiction but as long as its fiction I’m up for it. Keep all the racist crazy-talk in the fiction, I say, because that is where it all belongs.

Posted by Jesse Willis

More exciting title announcements, this time fro…

News

More exciting title announcements, this time from Audio Realms, publisher of the SFFaudio Essential title The Dunwich Horror and The Call Of Cthulhu. This info comes from Fred Godsmark, the mind behind Audio Realms – in the coming months AR will be releasing a new Lovecraft title “every month during 2006!” Also he’s mentioned that he’ll be producing “a 10 volume set of REH [Robert E. Howard] stories in conjunction with Wildside Press, with artwork by Stephen Fabian.” Cool, cool news!

Available now:

The Shadow Over Innsmouth and Dagon
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by Wayne June
3 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Published: December 2005
“The Shadow Over Innsmouth and Dagon, arguably the most mind provoking stories by H.P. Lovercraft, are read by Wayne June bringing to life the horrors from the mind of the Master himself, in a way that only he can.”

Imminently available:

Weird Tales Magazine
2 CDs or 1 MP3 CD – Approx 2.5
Published: Starting January 2006
Purchased one issue at a time of “short stories, along with poetry, verse and editorials.”

And coming soon:

Conan ???
By Robert E. Howard
Published: Approx. March 2006

Also, if you’re very quick you might just be able to take advantage of two cool preorder offers on the Audio Realms website…

The Sailor On The Seas Of Fate
By Michael Moorcock; Read by Jeffery West with music by Glenn Morrisette
Published: January 2006
“In the second of the original Elric Saga, the fabled albino emperor journeys in self exile through the seas, and the planes of the multiverse, to battle sorcerers and demons. His becomes a journey that gives him glimpses of both his past and his future and gives him the realization that perhaps he has litle choice as to his own path … that he truly a Sailor On The Seas Of Fate.”

@ just $25.95 including USPS Priority Shipping!

also…

H.P. Lovecraft Collection – Volume 3
By H. P. Lovecraft
Published: January 2006
4 more stories by the Father Of Modern Horror.
This volume includes:
“The Horror At Red Hook”
“The Statement Of Randolph Carter”
“The Outsider”
“Herbert West Reanimator”

@ just $19.95 including USPS Media Mail Shipping!

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of The Dark Worlds Of H.P. Lovecraft Volume 1: The Dunwich Horror and The Call of Cthulhu by H.P Lovecraft

The Dark Worlds Of H.P. Lovecraft Volume 1: The Dunwich Horror and The Call Of Cthulhu
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by Wayne June
3 CDs – Approx 3.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Realms
Published: 2005
Themes: / Fantasy / Horror / Gods / Evil / Mathematics / Dreams /

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

When Fantasy is inspired by science it can be especially powerful. H.P. Lovecraft built his mythos using the scientific concepts of his day. There could have been sensible talk of ‘other dimensions’ before the experiments surrounding the nature of light. And much of the alienness of his creations explicitly depend on such concepts in theoretical physics as non-euclidian geometry. With these concepts being in the air Lovecraft set out to plant a seed of churning fear with his fiction – turning the many unknowns science was uncovering into unspeakable horrors that lurk within the imagination. Combine this with Lovecraft’s dense and brooding prose and you’ve got something that no modern author could get away with. No modern author could, Lovecraft does. Audio Realms is starting to release the titles that make any classic fantasy fan salivate. Here in this terrific audiobook are two tales of horror that we declare to be SFFaudio Essential:

The Dunwich Horror is the tale of a backwater New England town with a devolving populace and one particularly strange family’s chronicle. It starts with two small things. The cataloguing of some mouldering old books and a disturbing birth of a new resident. These events are the begining of a new danger for the hamlet of Dunwich and possibly the Earth entire. What’s interesting here, as with so many early horror tales, is that Lovecraft creates evil not by revealing action directly but by atmosphere and appeal to our primitive revulsion reflex. Lovecraftian evil is not something created by moral degeneracy (though he does talk of that), but rather by sheer alieness, an atmosphere of ignorance and most of all a lurking dread.
I’m not sure it would make much sense to be an apologist for the Elder Gods who’d consume us without a thought – but what exactly makes them so evil? Since everyone who finds out has their sanity blasted we’re not likely to find out very soon.

The Call Of Cthulhu is a reconstructed tale. A nephew finds in the his recently deceased uncle’s study some strange documents. A young nephew discovers in his recently deceased uncle’s study some correspondences and notes, along with a mysterious and disturbing statue. It seems that several mysteriously similar cults worship of a being, who they call Cthulhu. A sea voyage eventually yielded a brush with an unearthly force. I won’t reveal any more of the plot, but I will say this, I think Philip K. Dick may have been inspired by this story for his novel Galactic Pot Healer. This creepy tale is perhaps the definitive Lovecraftian work. They even named a great role playing game after it. One suggestion, this one is pretty scary, you may want to wear brown pants while listening.

Narrator Wayne June’s voice will give you the absolute lurking creeps. His deep raspy voice is also used to good effect for all the narration, when he is infrequently called upon to do the voices of the damned he distinguishes between them well. This is the best Lovecraft adaptation to audio I’ve heard and more frightening than hell. For full effect a listener should turn down the lights, put on a good set of headphones, sit in a lonesome room with a view of the sea and pray that Lovecraft was just making all this stuff up.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Misery and Pity by C. J. Henderson

Misery and Pity
By C. J. Henderson, read by Jeffery West, Bob Barr and C.J. Henderson
1 CD/ 55 minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Realms
Published: ??
ISBN: 0973159634
Themes: / Horror / Damnation / Possession / Vampires / Fantasy / Suicide / Charity

On the back cover of this audio book, C. J. Henderson is given the unblushing accolade “The Master of Modern Horror”, but I found the stories in this collection to be charming throwbacks. The stories often have classic arrangements, such as two old friends meeting at a restaurant to swap tales and compare their fates, or dark, Poe-like trips into hells of a character’s own making. They juxtapose the familiar with the impossible, the ominous with the disarmingly reassuring, and make for a tasty light lunch of dark imaginings.

The title story, read by Jeffrey West borrows, I assume, from Chinese myth, but in a way that doesn’t seem the least bit Chinese. Two old friends meet in an exotic Hong Kong Dim Sum where the diners bring their birds with them and let them roost in the rafters while they eat. A simple comment about one’s latest doings and destiny leads to a story of Chinese soul-vampires and a fiery confrontation with a monster that is the last of its kind. West’s narration is modern and seamless, almost invisible for its perfect attention to the story.

Bob Barr, on the other hand, narrates “Hope” with visible and sensational style. Somehow, he brings the narrative force of a tent revival and a fireside ghost story together, occasionally slowing the story to such a languid pace that you feel not only the weight of each syllable, but of their attack and decay as well. It’s very effective for a tale dealing with sin, damnation, and unutterable evil wearing the most insidious disguise.

But that’s where the professional narration ends, and where the quality of the material begins to dip, too. C.J. Henderson’s readings sound nerdy and occasionally belabored. And if he brings any authorial insight to the pieces, it is to point out that they are artificial and clattery. “The Buzzing of Flies” seems especially overwrought, as well as dull and predictable. “That’s the One” makes no real sense, being an illustration of life imitating a random thought about a specific work of art, but it has a loose freedom that seems to float where the previous story falls. Perhaps the finest of the final three is “Sacrifice”, which seems to be a wicked, wicked satire of the bizarre and pointless reactions we have to the injustices of the world.

All in all, Misery and Pity isn’t a bad way to kill almost an hour. The whole package has a likeable simplicity to it, and an unselfconscious lightness that makes it frivolously fun. Groundbreaking? Life-changing? Nah, but it is enjoyable.

Posted by Kurt Dietz

Review of Elric of Melniboné by Michael Moorcock

Elric of Melniboné
By Michael Moorcock, Read By Jeffrey West and Michael Moorcock
5 CD’s – 5.5 Hour [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Realms
Published: 2003
ISBN: 097315960X
Themes: / Fantasy / Epic Fantasy / Magic / War / Gods /

If SFFAudio gave 5-star ratings, then Elric of Melniboné would definitely garner all five. I was so impressed with this audiobook that I wrote and thanked the director.

This audiobook reminded me that I need to be very careful with absolutes. In the past I’ve said that I dislike unabridged audio with music and sound in the background, but here one is that does it so perfectly that I have to amend my statement. The music here was carefully placed, and is an extremely effective soundtrack for the book. It is played at a sound level that was never distracting, yet had the same effect for me as a soundtrack has in a movie – it increased my emotional involvement. The audio sounded as good in the car as it did my headphones.

Elric, whose skin is the color of bleached bones, is the Emperor of Melniboné, but is not without rivals. In his manner, he is not quite what Melnibonéans expect. Though he’s smart and contemplative, the average citizen wants action. The brother of the woman he loves wants to rule, and Elric himself often wonders if Melniboné would be better off without him, but fights to keep the throne all the same.

Michael Moorcock wrote this story in a unique mythic style that makes it truly epic. There were times in the book where it felt like he was talking of the entire world as a whole, and other times when we see things from Elric’s point of view as he deals with gods and demons in scenes of real power.

Jeffrey West did a wonderful job reading this novel. He’s a fine reader, without question, and I can’t help but to think that an epic (though short) piece like this posed some challenges for him. He was first-rate, as was the entire production. This one goes in my permanent collection.

One further note: Michael Moorcock himself reads the introduction, which runs about ten minutes. It is not an “author’s introduction”, but is part of the story.

You can find this audiobook at Audio Realms, and they’ve got a sample you can listen to. (Real Audio required to hear the sample.)

Posted by Scott D. Danielson