dogs – Page 8 – SFFaudio

Crime City Central: Keller The Dog-Killer by Lawrence Block

Aural Noir: Online Audio

Tony Smith, of StarShipSofa, was telling me, a few months ago, that he was working on a new podcast. I’m not much for plans. I don’t like to be disappointed. I don’t want to know what’s coming out next month or next year. Instead, I look backwards into what I see as the ever settling waters of history.

Tony had said the show was going to be crime fiction themed. He was excited. I was non-committal. But, now I’m excited.

That show he mentioned has come to fruition and is perfectly wonderful.

The first episode of Crime City Central features a short story by one of the world’s all-time best crime fiction writers, Lawrence Block. Keller The Dog-Killer was first published in the May 2008 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine – but it was originally a part of a novel, called Hit Parade, which itself was a part of a series of short stories that were fix’d-up into another novel (and then spawned more novels, which themselves were fairly episodic – and which included Hit Parade) – hence this short story. The “Keller” series features the adventures of Keller. He’s a shy stamp collector and curiously amiable freelance hit man who operates out of New York. You’d probably not want to know Keller in real life – he’s rather dangerous. But as a fictional character, he’s very fun to hang out with.

Keller The Dog Killer - from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, May, 2008 - Illustration by Mark Evans

Aficionados know that Lawrence Block often narrates his own audiobooks, and he does a great job at it. But the narration here by reader Ray Sizemore is top shelf too. He does a seamless back and forth between Keller and Dot (his agent) and the story flows very smoothly.

I highly recommend giving it a listen. |MP3|

Here’s the podcast feed:

http://crimecitycentral.com/feed/

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Moon-Face by Jack London

Aural Noir: Online Audio

There are few authors worthy of re-writing Edgar Allan Poe – few would dare – and of those few fewer still would succeed in the attempt. Jack London is one such and his short story, Moon Face, is one such success. Sometimes subtitled “A Story Of Mortal Antipathy” this story runs nearly the same length as the Poe story that I think inspired it. I’ve read one essay that argues it was inspired by The Tell Tale Heart, but I think it is another. Sure, the unnamed protagonist may be insane, but I think there’s still something to his lunacy – we can go for decades without encountering our own personal Claverhouse – then one day he will appear – and his mere presence is enough to set one’s teeth on edge.

LibriVox - Moon-Face by Jack London

Moon-Face
By Jack London; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 13 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 01, 2009
|ETEXT|
First published in The Argonaut, July 21, 1902.

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Beautiful Joe by Marshall Saunders

SFFaudio Online Audio

I spotted this terrific looking book while browsing book covers at a local big box bookstore.

Beautiful Joe COVER

It turns out the book is a Canadian classic, one I’d never read, or even heard of, but one which I probably should have. The illustrator, Scott Plumbe, writes of it on his blog saying:

“[Beautiful Joe was written] in the 1890s by Canadian author Margaret Marshall Saunders [it was] inspired by a real life dog who had been cruelly maltreated by his owner and was later taken in by the kindly Morris family.”

What makes the novel rather different, and thus all the more interesting, is that it’s told from the perspective of the main character (a dog). Hoping that somebody had recorded it, I did a search and found a single voiced narration of Beautiful Joe over on LibriVox!

The vintage introduction makes it sound as if Beautiful Joe is a religious novel, but the actual text is fairly secular (at least so far). This seems to be a book designed with a message in mind, that cruelty to animals is wrong, worthy of banning.

Beautiful Joe
By Marshall Saunders; Read by Allyson Hester
2 M4Bs (1,2), 19 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 10 Hours 2 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 6, 2008
Beautiful Joe is a real dog, and “Beautiful Joe” is his real name. He belonged during the first part of his life to a cruel master, who mutilated him in the manner described in the story. He was rescued from him, and is now living in a happy home with pleasant surroundings, and enjoys a wide local celebrity. The character of Laura is drawn from life, and to the smallest detail is truthfully depicted. The Morris family has its counterparts in real life, and nearly all of the incidents of the story are founded on fact.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/beautiful-joe-by-marshall-saunders.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

The Wikipedia entry for Beautiful Joe mentions that there is a park, in Meaford, Ontario, named after Beautiful Joe. When you do a search on YouTube for same you can only get this effable, and oddly unironic, tour:

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Jock of the Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVox Here’s a fun, and approximately antipodean, compliment to Jack London’s stupendous novel The Call Of The Wild. Set in 1880s South Africa, it is a set of semi-fictional stories about an English Staffordshire Bull Terrier named Jock. According to a book called National Character In South African Children’s Literature it was none other than Rudyard Kipling who persuaded James Percy Fitzpatrick to collect his Jock tales in book form. Now that is quite a provenance!

Jock Of The Bushveld
By Sir Percy Fitzpatrick; Read by various
28 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 12 Hours 46 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Publisher: March 19, 2010
Jock of the Bushveld is a true story by South African author Sir Percy Fitzpatrick when he worked as a storeman, prospector’s assistant, journalist and ox-wagon transport-rider. The book tells of Fitzpatrick’s travels with his dog, Jock, during the 1880s. Jock was saved by Fitzpatrick from being drowned in a bucket for being the runt of the litter. Jock was very loyal towards Percy, and brave. Jock was an English Staffordshire Bull Terrier.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/3952

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Short Science Fiction Collection 028

SFFaudio Online Audio

Here’s a new assemblage of short Science Fiction stories, in audiobook form, that are in the public domain. You can re-cut them, sell them, give them away, put them in your podcast or anything else you want. That’s what “public domain” means! The only thing you can’t do with them is copyright them. These are mostly new stories to LibriVox, mostly from the mid-20th century, but the final story in the collection is from the 19th century. Written by Edgar Allan Poe, fictionalizing a new alchemical invention by a real life contemporary of Poe’s. It comes off as plausible – to readers of the period it may have been mistaken as true, given the time and who the central character is. But we know it’s definitely SF. Right?

tabithat’s reading of The Servant Problem by Robert J. Young is another new story in this collection. It offers an intriguing premise. A ghost town needs to be sold off and appraised by an scrupulously honest real estate agent. The town’s only remaining resident is mum on the issue. But what made everyone else leave and where did they go? The answer is neat, even if it is kind of a shaggy dog tale. Whether it’s a legitimate “Feghoot” or not I’ll leave more discerning listeners to decide.

George O. Smith’s Instinct will probably be more likable to many than my estimation of it. It’s well written, but to mind it’s not particularly fruitful. Sort of a “racial memory” story – which when you think a bit about it is kind of the flip side of “ancient astronauts.” Meh.

Short Science Fiction Collection 028
By various; Read by various
10 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 4 Hours 50 Minutes Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 11, 2009
Science Fiction is speculative literature that generally explores the consequences of ideas which are roughly consistent with nature and scientific method, but are not facts of the author’s contemporary world. The stories often represent philosophical thought experiments presented in entertaining ways. Protagonists typically “think” rather than “shoot” their way out of problems, but the definition is flexible because there are no limits on an author’s imagination. The reader-selected stories presented here were written prior to 1962 and became US public domain texts when their copyrights expired.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/short-science-fiction-collection-028.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Attention Saint Patrick
By Murray Leinster; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 46 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 11, 2009
Legends do, of course, get somewhat distorted in the passage of time. In the future, the passage across space to other planets may cause a slight modification here and there… From Astounding Science Fiction, January, 1960.

Bad Medicine
By Robert Sheckley; Read by Megan Argo
1 |MP3| – Approx. 38 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 11, 2009
A man is mistakenly treated by a psychotherapy machine intended for Martians. while big corporations rule the world, paying a separate police department to enforce brand loyalty. First published in Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine July, 1956

Blessed Are the Meek
By G.C. Edmondson; Read by Mark F. Smith
1 |MP3| – Approx. 13 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 11, 2009
Every strength is a weakness, and every weakness is a strength. And when the Strong start smashing each other’s strength … the Weak may turn out to be, instead, the Wise. This story was first published in the September 1955 issue of Astounding.

Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?
By Bryce Walton; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 26 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 11, 2009
The body tanks had to be replenished and the ship had to be serviced—and the crew was having a Lotus dream in its bed of protoplasm. But Kelly knew how to arouse them… From If Worlds of Science Fiction July 1954.

Instinct
By George O. Smith; Read by Ric F
1 |MP3| – Approx. 29 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 11, 2009
You can keep a good man down, if you’ve got enough headstart, are alert and persistent … so long as he limits himself to acting like a good man… From Astounding Science Fiction March 1959.

Mex
By Laurence M. Janifer; Read by soualhi1
1 |MP3| – Approx. 5 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 11, 2009
Talented William Logan [Laurence M. Janifer], though he hails from Dodger territory, tells a quiet story from down near the Mexican border, where men are very close to ancestral memories and to the things which dwell in the shadows. Logan is one of the more interesting of the newer writers. From Fantastic Universe January 1957.

The Nothing Equation
By Tom Godwin; Read by Mark Nelson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 21 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 11, 2009
The space ships were miracles of power and precision; the men who manned them, rich in endurance and courage. Every detail had been checked and double checked; every detail except— From Amazing Stories December 1957.

Scrimshaw
By Murray Leinster; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 35 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 11, 2009
The old man just wanted to get back his memory—and the methods he used were gently hellish, from the viewpoint of the others… From Astounding Science Fiction September 1955.

The Servant Problem
By Robert F. Young; Read by tabithat
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 11, 2009
Selling a whole town, and doing it inconspicuously, can be a little difficult … either giving it away freely, or in a more normal sense of “selling”. People don’t quite believe it… From Analog Science Fact Science Fiction November 1962.

Von Kempelen And His Discovery
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 17 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 11, 2009
German chemist, Baron Von Kempelen, possess an alchemical process which can transform lead into gold. The news of the discovery had already caused a two hundred per cent leap in the price of lead in Europe. First published in the April 14, 1849 edition of The Flag of Our Union.

[Thanks also to Wendel Topper and Lucy Burgoyne for proofing and coordinating and cataloging]

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #042 – READALONG: The Coming Of Conan The Cimmerian by Robert E. Howard

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #042 – Jesse is joined by Brian Murphy and Gregg Margarite to talk about the Tantor Media audiobook: The Coming Of Conan The Cimmerian by Robert E. Howard |READ OUR REVIEW|.

Talked about on today’s show:
The Hyena by Robert E. Howard, racism, racism in Robert E. Howard’s fiction, Jack London, H.P. Lovecraft, Solomon Kane, Crom, By This Axe I Rule, Howard/Lovecraft correspondence, plot vs. mood, pessimism, writers who kill themselves, Philip K. Dick, defining chaos, Dark Valley Destiny by L. Sprague de Camp, Blood And Thunder by Mark Finn, Howard’s life and death, The Whole Wide World, Howards’ westerns and historical stories, “with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth”: was Howard or Conan bipolar?, Texas in the early 20th century, Conan’s intellect, The Tower Of The Elephant, Barbarian vs. Cimmerian, Conan’s philosophy (Epicureanism?), fantasy, Howard’s use of magic, The Frost Giant’s Daughter (aka Gods Of The North), magic doesn’t trump steel, existentialism, nihilism, Ymir, The Prisoner, Howard’s animal similes, The God in the Bowl is a murder mystery and a locked room mystery and a detective story!, Yag-Kosha isn’t a great alien design, The Hyborian Age, Marvel’s Conan The Barbarian, The Savage Sword Of Conan, Dark Horse’s Conan, Curtis Magazines, The Scarlet Citadel, big battles and giant snakes, Marvel’s King Conan (Conan The King), The Hour Of The Dragon, Queen Of The Black Coast, barbarian love, Oliver Stone, John Milius, The Howard Conan:

“Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”

The Stone/Milius Conan:

“Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women.”

How do you pronounce names like Cimmeria and Bêlit?, Clark Ashton Smith, Bêlit’s character, Conan the Daoist, Conan’s character, Conan’s morality, Black Colossus, who the hell is Mitra?, The Cimmerian blog, Rogues In The House, Iron Shadows In The Moon, the Vilayet Sea, A Probable Outline Of Conan’s Career, Red Nails, The Pool of the Black One, Rogues In The House, people are animals, Charles Darwin and Robert E. Howard, Clifford D. Simak, man’s successor (intelligent dogs) take over, Thak is a great character name, writing (or just saying that you are), Fantasy seems to be a novel length genre, The Bloody Crown Of Conan, The Conquering Sword Of Conan, narrator Todd McLaren, character voices, bite the wax tadpole, Roy Thomas.

A 1938 newstand full of pulp magazines

Tantor Media - The Coming Of Conan The Cimmerian, The Bloody Crown Of Conan, The Conquering Sword Of Conan

Posted by Jesse Willis