BBC Audiobooks America has just brought in a bunch of previously U.K. only BBC audiobooks. For North American customers this means a big savings on that crazy overseas shipping price. Among the available titles is the first in the series of radio dramatizations of Lindsey Davis books (Shadows In Bronze)! This is the “FALCO” series that I’m always telling everyone to try. Here’s the big list:
Posted by Jesse Willis
Rich of Radio Tales of the Strange & Fantastic reports…
A new The Scarifyers adventure is coming on September 1st 2009. Nicholas Courtney, Terry Molloy and Brian Blessed star in the fourth Scarifyers audio adventure.
The Scarifyers: The Curse Of The Black Comet
Sir Basil Champion (Brian Blessed) is the world’s worst explorer. In a career that has seen him lost in the Kalahari, captured by pygmies, and held captive for two-and-a-half years in a pit of rabid guinea fowl, it seems his luck can get no worse – until he is eaten by a rhinoceros. Some weeks after his unlikely demise, MI-13 is called upon to investigate a mysterious outbreak of the Black Death – at a Chelsea solicitor’s during the reading of Sir Basil’s will…
Has Sir Basil’s legendary bad luck reached out from beyond the grave, or is there a more sinister explanation? And what is the connection with his ill-fated Egyptian expedition fourteen years earlier? Lionheart (Nicholas Courtney) and Dunning (Terry Molloy) must journey from London to the highlands of Scotland and the lost tombs of Egypt, to uncover the truth behind Champion’s death… and The Curse of the Black Comet.
Here is Brian Blessed (Doctor Who, Blackadder, and Cats) in an out-take from The Curse of the Black Comet.
|MP3|
Posted by Jesse Willis
The Once Upon A Geek Blog is reporting:
“Tom Baker is returning to Doctor Who! Baker has recorded five audio dramas that will be released by the BBC starting in September at a rate of one a month.”
Baker’s Doctor will be joined by former DW cast member Richard Franklin (reprising his role as Mike Yates) in a series of five linked adventures.
Here are the descriptions of each CD:
Doctor Who: Hornets’ Nest – The Stuff of Nightmares 1 of 5
By Paul Magrs; Performed by a full cast
1 CD – [AUDIO DRAMA]
Release Date: September 3, 2009
‘Wanted: retired army Captain for light household duties and fireside companionship. Must tolerate mild eccentricity and strong scientific advice. Knowledge of Giant Maggots, Super Intelligent Spiders and Prehistoric Monsters a positive boon.’ Responding to an advert apparently worded for him alone, Captain Mike Yates (retired) is reunited with a ghost from the past. But why has the Doctor, that mysterious traveller in Time and Space, sent for his former UNIT acquaintance? Trapped by a horde of vicious creatures in an apparently innocuous English country cottage, the two old friends are on the brink of an enormous adventure. As the Doctor relates his recent escapades, it becomes clear to Mike that they – and the Earth at large – are facing an enemy of unimaginable power and horrific intent. The nightmare is only just beginning…
Doctor Who: Hornets’ Nest – The Dead Shoes 2 of 5
By Paul Magrs; Performed by a full cast
1 CD – [AUDIO DRAMA]
Release Date: October 8, 2009
What is so special about a pair of ballet shoes on display in Cromer’s Palace of Curios? When the Doctor meets Ernestina Scott there in 1932, they discover the horrific truth together.
Doctor Who: Hornets’ Nest – The Circus of Doom 3 of 5
By Paul Magrs; Performed by a full cast
1 CD – [AUDIO DRAMA]
Release Date: November 5, 2009
In Blandford, 1832, ringmaster Antonio exerts a strange influence on the townsfolk. When the Doctor steps into the ring, he discovers that Antonio has some familiar demons of his own…
Doctor Who: Hornets’ Nest – A Sting in the Tale 4 of 5
By Paul Magrs; Performed by a full cast
1 CD – [AUDIO DRAMA]
Release Date: December 3, 2009
In a bleak midwinter, an order of nuns protect their Mother Superior from ravaging dogs. But something is very wrong here indeed – and the Doctor is about to get badly stung.
Doctor Who: Hornets’ Nest – Hive of Horror 5 of 5
By Paul Magrs; Performed by a full cast
1 CD – [AUDIO DRAMA]
Release Date: December 3, 2009
The Doctor and Mike must face their enemy in a final battle. They have an unwilling accomplice – and loyalties are about to be tested to the limit.
[Thanks Rich!]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Wired is reporting that Big Finish Productions is working on a new season of Doctor Who.
“A sci-fi production company is restoring a long-lost piece of Doctor Who history by resurrecting the show’s cancelled 23rd season as a series of audio dramas.
The shows, starring then-Doctor Colin Baker, were originally supposed to air in January 1986. But a cost-cutting network boss pushed back Who’s premiere that year to September, essentially killing the season envisioned by executive producer John Nathan-Turner.”
Word is Nicola Bryant (playing the role of Peri) will also be returning! Peri rocks! Episode 1 of the NEW 23rd season of classic Doctor Who (titled ”The Nightmare Fair”) is set for a November 2009 release, with subsequent episodes following in 2010.
[via Monster Rally]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Spotted in next week’s Radio Times, and soon to be found in my Radio Downloader folder, an item that should be of interest to those classic Doctor Who fans who collected and read the Doctor Who books in the 1980s [me].
Speaking of the 1980s and Doctor Who … did I ever tell you that I once got to shake 3 of Jon Petwee‘s 10 fingers?
It’s all true!
You envy me now don’t you?
On The Outside It Looked Like An Old-Fashioned Police Box
By Mark Gatiss
1 Broadcast – Approx. 30 Minutes [DOCUMENTARY]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: Tuesday 23rd June 11:30-12:00
Mark Gatiss, Doctor Who writer and fanatic, explores the hugely popular Doctor Who novelisations of the 1970s and 80s, published by Target books. Featuring some of the best excerpts from the books and interviews with publishers, house writers, illustrators and the actors whose adventures the books tirelessly depicted.
In an age before DVD and video, the Target book series of Doctor Who fiction was conceived as the chance for children to ‘keep’ and revisit classic Doctor Who. They were marketed as such, written in a highly visual house style. Descriptive passages did the work of the TV camera and the scripts were more or less faithfully reproduced as dialogue.
The books were as close to the experience of watching as possible, and were adored by a generation of children who grew up transfixed by the classic BBC series. Target Doctor Who books became a children’s publishing phenomenon – they sold over 13 million copies worldwide. From 1973 until 1994, the Target Doctor Who paperbacks were a mainstay of the publishing world.
A Brook Lapping production for BBC Radio 4.
[Thanks Roy!]
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #029 – Jesse and Scott are joined by Julie D. of the Forgotten Classic podcast. Listen in as Julie gushes over the new audiobook of Ken Scholes’ novel Lamentation! We also talk Space Opera, libraries, and how to read a paperbook: “Breaking the spine of a book is like breaking the spine of the family dog.” Ya, it’s a Buck Roger-ish show.
Talked about on today’s show:
Hyperion by Dan Simmons, David Weber, “The Honor Harrington” series, On Basilisk Station, military SF, Audible Frontiers, John Ringo, March Upcountry, Off Armageddon Reef, Theodore Sturgeon, More Than Human, Venus Plus X, To Marry Medusa, Nancy Kress, Beggars In Spain, Infinivox, Blackstone Audio, Beggars And Choosers, Beggars Ride, Children Of Men by P.D. James |READ OUR REVIEW|, BBC Audiobooks America, Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer, Doctor Who, Audible’s new format 4, radio drama, audio drama, 2000X: Tales of the Next Millennia |READ OUR REVIEW|, Spoken Books Publishing, Dr. Wasserman’s Time Chamber: Preventing Armageddon by Lee Geiger, Lamentation by Ken Scholes, Fantasy, Foundation by Isaac Asimov, George R.R. Martin, Dune by Frank Herbert, Macmillan Audio, Simon Vance, The Prestige by Christopher Priest, The January Dancer, SciPodBooks, LibriVox, The Green Odyssey, Space Vulture, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Grim Space by Ann Aguirre, the “Gap” series by Stephen R. Donaldson, ScottBrickPresents.com, The Phoenix Legacy, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Tony Smith, StarShipSofa, Trophy Wives, Twitter, Neil Gaiman, OTRcat.com, Worldcat.org, the Amber series by Roger Zelazny, Maria Lectrix, giving up blogs for lent.
Posted by Jesse Willis
