The SFFaudio Podcast #013

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #013 – We’ve got an absolutely unique interview with the incredibly cool Mister Ron from the Mister Ron’s Basement podcast! Mister Ron has a podcast devoted to humorous fiction from the 19th and early 20th century.

In the interview we talked about Mister Ron’s podcast, H.G. Wells, Sherlock Holmes spoofs, August Derleth, Solar Pons, O. Henry, Stephen Leacock, Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, Edgar Allan Poe, Benjamin Franklin, Bud Grace, Piranha Club, Stanley Huntley, A Journey To The Sun, Pfaff’s Beer Cellar, Mortimer Thomson, podcasting, archive.org.

Also talked about on today’s show:
Audiobooks, The Little Book, Selden Edwards, The Accidental Time Machine, Joe Haldeman, time travel, James P. Hogan, Thrice Upon A Time, movies, what’s right with Frequency, what’s right and wrong with the Star Wars: Clone Wars movie, and what’s worrisome about the new Star Trek movie trailer and finally what’s playing this week on BBC7.

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: The Son Of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxNow available from the good folks at LibriVox and narrator Ralph Snelson: The Son Of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs! I’ve added this audiobook to our nifty EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS page. There you’ll find Books 1 and 3 in the Tarzan series as well. According to the LibriVox forums, Mr. Snelson is already working on Book 5 in the Tarzan series. The missing Book 2 is also in progress, but with multiple narrators. A complete FREE ERB audio library isn’t too far away now!

LibriVox Audiobook - The Son Of Tarzan by Edgar Rice BurroughsThe Son Of Tarzan
By Edgar Rice Burroughs; Read by Ralph Snelson
27 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 9 Hours 51 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 22, 2008
This is the fourth of Burrough’s Tarzan novels. Alexis Paulvitch, a henchman of Tarzan’s now-deceased enemy, Nikolas Rokoff, survived his encounter with Tarzan in the third novel and wants to even the score.

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/son-of-tarzan-by-edgar-rice-burroughs.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman

SFFaudio Review

Science Fiction Audiobook - The Accidental Time Machine by Joe HaldemanThe Accidental Time Machine
By Joe Haldeman; Read by Kevin R. Free
7 CDs – 8 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Recorded Books
Published: 2008
ISBN: 9781436120418
Themes: / Science Fiction / Time Travel / Artificial Intelligence / Religion / Academia / Los Angeles / Massachusetts / MIT /

Things are going nowhere for lowly MIT research assistant Matt Fuller—especially not after his girlfriend drops him for another man. But then while working late one night, he inadvertently stumbles upon what may be the greatest scientific breakthrough ever. His luck, however, runs out when he finds himself wanted for murder—in the future.

When an MIT graduate student Matt Fuller accidentally invents a time machine he get’s himself into a load of trouble. Not only is his supervising professor a hard-ass thief of academic proportions, the stupid time travel machine can only travel forward into the future! Every time Matt presses the ‘go button‘ he ends up twelve times farther than last time, he’s invented a time machine that only got a one way ticket to the future. Fueled by caffeine, job worries, and a murder charge, Matt blasts himself forward 12 x 12 x 12 into the future – where the only thing stranger than Jesus returning to Earth is a visit from the personified city of Los Angeles. Haldeman’s inventiveness is unparalleled in time travel SF. His hero Matt is picaresque, he’s on an inventive journey and the adventure is unpredictable and compelling. I loved it.

Kevin R. Free, a narrator new to my ears, performs this novel to perfection. Everyone I’ve recommended this novel to has enjoyed the heck out of it – if Recorded Books keeps picking novel/narrator combinations like this we’re in for a real treat. Speaking of Recorded Books, The Accidental time Machine is one of the inaugural publications in their new Sci-Fi imprint. Also terrific, there’s cool art custom cover just this edition [see above], it features actual details from the book – that’s refreshing. A great and peppy novel, an excellent, excellent, reading, fast moving and not too long. This is the kind of Science Fiction story I want to see more of. Speed on over to RecordedBooks.com, or your local library, and request a copy of this audiobook.

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Arrivals from Galaxy Press

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Danger in the Dark by L. Ron HubbardDanger in the Dark
By L. Ron Hubbard; Read by a full cast
2 CDs – Approx. 2 Hours [UNABRIDGED?]
Publisher: Galaxy Press
Published: 2008
ISBN:
After Billy Newman strikes gold while mining in the Phillipines, he believes Lady Luck favors him so much that he buys his own South Seas island for a bargain price . . . or so he thinks. But when the natives fall ill from plague and crops start failing, the tribal chiefs blame Billy for angering the local god Tadamona. Their solution: sacrifice a beautiful young girl before the 75-foot god. Appalled, Billy argues to stop the ritual, but the chiefs demand he cure their ills in just one day or allow the killing to go forward. Desperate, he denies that the deity even exists and dares Tadamona to show himself. Not only does Billy get his wish, he draws a beastly wrath upon the entire island.
 
 
The Iron Duke by L. Ron HubbardThe Iron Duke
By L. Ron Hubbard; Read by a full cast
2 CDs – Approx. 2 Hours [UNABRIDGED?]
Publisher: Galaxy Press
Published: 2008
ISBN:
American arms merchant Blacky Lee is wanted by nearly every government in 1930s Europe— especially the Nazis. They want Blacky’s head for selling them dud weapons, prompting his rapid (and illegal) escape across the Balkans to the kingdom of Aldoria with his business partner in tow. Aldoria is well chosen. Years before, Blacky discovered he was the spitting image of the country’s Prince Philip, learned the archduke’s speaking voice and memorized the royal family tree just in case. When Blacky brazenly impersonates the leader, things go surprisingly well . . . that is, until he finds himself caught in the middle of a Communist plot to rig elections and take over.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Spider Robinson reads The Persistence Of Vision by John Varley

SFFaudio Online Audio

Spider On The Web - Spider Robinson’s podcastJohn Varley’s Hugo and Nebula award winning 1978 novella The Persistence Of Vision is the latest unabridged story to be recorded by Spider Robinson for his Spider On The Web podcast.

Wow! Could your life get any more thrilling than this?

The Persistence Of Vision is the perfect tale for these times. With those bread riots we’ve all got planned for next week and all. Now, all we’ll have to do is let a few of our nuclear power plants do The China Syndrome-thing, get the survivors together, form a few farm collectives, shave off all our body hair, and then paint ourselves a nice shade of purple.

Science Fiction Audio - The Persistence Of Vision by John VarleyThe Persistence Of Vision
By John Varley; Read by Spider Robinson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 2 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Spider On The Web
Podcast: November 2008
Wandering the roads and rails of a future USA, our narrator learns the art of living in a dead economy. Only a mysterious wall on the New Mexico/California border and a collective of the blind-deaf keep his wandering feet from moving on.

And, here are the details for the new Audible Frontiers version (which is done by a different narrator and is minus the sounds of pages turning)…

Audible Frontiers Science Fiction Audiobook - The Persistence Of Vision by John VarleyThe Persistence Of Vision
By John Varley; Read by Peter Ganim
Audible Download – 2 Hours 29 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: September 2008
Listen to a sample |MP3|
On the surface, this Hugo and Nebula Award-winning classic is about a drifter who comes to stay in a New Mexico commune founded by a group of deaf-blind people. But beneath the story, author John Varley examines deep, universal issues. What is the nature of communication? What does an individual gain – or lose – by subsuming himself to the whole? Can an outsider ever truly “belong”? Varley says that he has had more response to this story than anything he has ever written, that some readers have even told him it changed their lives. Listening to The Persistence of Vision, it is easy to understand why.

Posted by Jesse Willis