Edgar Allan Poe – Page 43

LibriVox short stories galore!

SFFaudio Online Audio

A “few” short hidden gems from Librivox.org. Among their short story collections, now up to number nineteen, are some very good short Fantasy, SF, and Horror stories. These stories run from two and a half minutes to nearly fifty two minutes long. All are good for a short listen between audiobooks.

Bread Overhead
By Fritz Leiber; Read by Cori Samuel
1 |MP3| – Approx. 36 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 25th 2007
The Staff of Life suddenly and disconcertingly sprouted wings — and mankind had to eat crow!

The Masque of the Red Death
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Juan Carlos Bagnell
1 |MP3| – 16 Minutes
Death comes to visit a prince who is trying to avoid a plague.
Themes: / Horror /

Dracula’s Guest
By Bram Stoker; Read by Dimitri Fotopoulos
1 |MP3| – Approx. 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
A prequel to Dracula.
Themes: / Horror /

Ligeia
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Peter Yearsley
1 |MP3| – Approx. 47 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
A haunting tale of lost love.
Themes: / Horror /

The Damned Thing
By Ambrose Bierce; Read by Greg Elmensdorp
1 |MP3| – Approx. 21 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
It shall not drive me away. No, this is my house, my land. God hates a coward….
Themes: / Horror /

Facts Concerning The Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family
By H. P. Lovecraft; Read by Smokestack Jones
1 |MP3| – Approx. 22 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
A tale of unusual genealogy.

The Cats of Ulthar
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat
1 |MP3| – Approx. 9 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Feline revenge.
Themes: / Horror / Cats /

Charon
By Lord Dunsany; Read by Steven Collins
1 |MP3| – 2 Minutes 30 Seconds [UNABRIDGED]
Themes: / Fantasy /
The ferryman Charon’s last duty.

The Music of Erich Zann
1 |MP3| Approx. 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by Smokestack Jones
A college student wonders about the strange music played by an old man.
Themes: / Horror / Music /

In the Year 2889
By Jules Verne; Read by Esther
1 |MP3| – Approx 38 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Verne’s story about life in America a thousand years in the future.
Themes: / Science Fiction /

Crossroads of Destiny
By H. Beam Piper; Read by Trask
1 |MP3| – Approx. 23 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Themes: / Science Fiction /
Parallel universes and a television show.

The Gifts of Asti
By Andre Norton; Read by Mark Nelson
1 |MP3| Approx. 41 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Themes: / Fantasy /
Varta, the last priestess of Asti, lives alone with Lur, a telepath of the lizardfolk, in Asti’s isolated mountain retreat. Decadent Memphir has long since drifted away from the austere paths of Asti, and now the barbarians of Klem are sacking the city, and the smoke of its burning drifts up to the temple.

The Street That Wasn’t There
By Clifford D. Simak and Carl Richard Jacobi; Read by Peter Yearsley
1 |MP3| 36 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Themes: / Science Fiction /
Classic pulp action.
Read by Peter Yearsley

The Hoard of the Gibbelins
By Lord Dunsany; Read by Mark F. Smith
1 |MP3| – Approx. 11 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Themes: / Horror /
The Gibbelins eat, as is well known, nothing less good than man.

A World Is Born
By Leigh Brackett; Read by Rowdy Delaney
1 |MP3| – Approx. 52 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
The first ripples of blue fire touched Dio’s men. Bolts of it fastened on gun-butts, and knuckles. Men screamed and fell.
Themes: / Science Fiction /

Posted by Dave Tackett

Broken Sea Audio UPDATE: Edgar Allen Poe’s Raven & a NEW Jonny Quest

Online Audio

Broken Sea Audio, has started Halloween early with productions both familiar and un. Here’s the official line:

“Pride they say comes before The Fall. Well Fall is upon us, and pride we have in abundance. Pride in that since March of this year we have grown from an idea into a thriving audio drama production group. October is now here, and to celebrate this most special month BrokenSea Audio Productions presents a Halloween Season to thrill, disturb shock and entertain. We have dead things, serial killers, murder, monsters, strange visages and poems. We have original works and classics. We have some of the best voice acting talent out there and we have you, our dear listeners… So come with us now… down these stone steps… into the damp nitre infested darkness… there are some audio shows that we would like you to listen to……”

And, here are the first few releases…

All Hallows Eve by P.S. Gifford |MP3|

Permanent Beauty by P.S. Gifford |MP3|

Abattoir by P.S. Gifford |MP3|

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe |MP3|

Also new in the BSAP lineup is…

Jonny Quest – The Audio Drama

Subscribe to it via this feed:

http://brokensea.com/jonnyquest/feed/

posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox goes to sea for Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe

SFFaudio Online Audio

Avast me hearties! LibriVox, that isle of audio sanity in an ocean of in, has been all at sea of late, but not in a bad way, not at all. The vast crew of LibriVox has been making sea Science Fiction stories – specifically with two speculative fiction classics from the 19th century. The completion of one of them was the subject of a March 25th commentary on the history of SF sea stories. That really warms my cockles, and may even warm yours. Have a listen to one or both of the titles listed below, I’m guessing they’ll shiver your timbers. And be sure to note the COOL NEW PODCAST FEED FEATURE found on completed LibriVox titles…

The Mysterious Island
By Jules Verne; Read by Mark F. Smith
Zipped MP3s or MP3 Podcast – Approx. 22 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 2007
A story of castaways, similar to Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson, this book details the escape from Civil War-era Richmond, Virginia, of five Northern men who dared to go aloft in a balloon in the midst of a hurricane. Deposited on a lonely island in the Pacific, they make do with Yankee ingenuity where Chance has left them nothing. Only later do they find they have a hidden benefactor: Captain Nemo, of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, who resides, alone, secretly on the island. In time, the tiny colony becomes so prosperous that it is able to rescue another castaway from an island a hundred miles away. But all their work will come to naught – their island’s volcano is about to awake!

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/the-mysterious-island-by-jules-verne.xml

The Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by various authors
Zipped MP3s or MP3 Podcast – Approx. 6.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 2007
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is Edgar Allan Poe’s only complete novel, published in 1838. The work relates the tale of the young Arthur Gordon Pym who stows away aboard a whaling ship called Grampus. Various adventures and mis-adventures befall Pym including shipwreck, mutiny and cannibalism. The story starts out as a fairly conventional adventure at sea, but it becomes increasingly strange and hard to classify in later chapters, involving religious symbolism and the Hollow Earth.

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/narrative-of-arthur-gordon-pym.xml

posted by Jesse Willis

Commentary: The problem of Poe’s Pym

SFFaudio Commentary

Edgar Allan Poe’s only novel The Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym was published in 1838. The unabridged audiobook is available commercially, but the LibriVox version has been stalled at 85% completion for too long. This multi-reader project has been in production for more than a year, and I’m eager to see it completed. I believe it is a crucial work of early Speculative Fiction. It was an influence on H. P. Lovecraft, and his At The Mountains Of Madness and even Steven Utley and Howard Waldrop’s 1977 Black As The Pit, From Pole to Pole is similarly descended from Pym.

The Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym is crucial, not the least because I think a lot of us would like to hear some other related novels that were inspired to follow after it! For myself, one in particular stands out I’ve been hankering to hear is Jules Vernes’ The Sphinx Of The Ice Fields (AKA An Antarctic Mystery). This was Verne’s 1897 sequel to Poe’s Pym. I originally ran across this novel in relation to my fascination with sub-antarctic islands. One day, a few weeks back, I was doing my usual zoom and pan lunchtime tourism on Google Maps. That particular afternoon I spotted a cool little island called Île de la Possession (46°24′S 51°46′E), one of the extremely remote Îles Crozet,which is in a chain of tiny sub-antarctic islands owned by France. This one was particularly interesting looking as it was both volcanic and ice-free. There also happened to be a cool research station visible on the far East side of the island. In cross referencing the island with the images I was seeing on Google Maps I also spotted that they’d named its northern-most mountain “Monts Jules Verne!” It also has a rivers named “Moby Dick” and “Styx.” Now hearing all this you might think this is a real-life version of Vernes’ Mysterious Island, but in fact it has nothing to do with that novel’s made-up island, instead this very real island actually appears in Verne’s sequel to Pym, the novel The Sphinx Of The Ice Fields!

Îles Crozet

Now back to the business…. If you’re even half as excited about seeing the great lineage of Pym turned into audiobooks, please consider volunteering your voice to the project. There are only 4 chapters still unassigned and the majority of the other chapters are already completed.

One last thing, call it more inspiration: For an astoundingly-cool bibliography of Antarctic related fiction (from 1605 to the present day) have a look at Fauno Cordes’ “Tekeli-li” or Hollow Earth Lives: A Bibliography of Antarctic Fiction.

posted by Jesse Willis

BBC Radio 4 has Poe and Kafka

Online Audio

Roy, our UK correspondent, points out that BBC Radio 4 has two classic genre tales, the latter of which is read by Fawlty Towers‘ own Andrew Sachs – you remember him que?

The Pit And The Pendulum
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by David Horovitch
1 reading – 15 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: Monday 15th January (15 mins).
Look for it on ‘Listen Again’ under Afternoon Reading.
David Horovitch reads Edgar Allen Poe’s spine-chilling tale of torture
Use the Afternoon Reading “listen again” service to hear the story.

Metamorphosis
By Franz Kafka; Read by Andrew Sachs
Five 15 Minute readings – [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: Monday 15 – Friday 19 January 2007
Gregor Samsa awakes one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect. The horrified reactions of his employer and his family have made this haunting parable on the human reaction to suffering into one of Kafka’s most famous and best loved works.
Use the Book At Bedtime “listen again” service to catch the entire reading.

posted by Jesse Willis

Tantor offers Nightmares for 30% off + Free Shipping

News

Tantor Halloween Sale

Tantor Media, is having a sale and there are two ghoulishly good audio drama sets included (both of which we’ve reviewed)…

Nightmares V
By Various; FULL CAST
2 CDs or 1 MP3 CD – 2 Hours [AUDIO DRAMA]
|LINK TO PURCHASE|
They’re baaaaaaaaaaaaacckkkkk!!! Rocky Coast Radio Theatre returns with yet another copious cornucopia of classic concoctions, crafted and compiled for the captive congregation (gotta love that thesaurus!). Nightmares on Congress Street, Part V offers dramatized adaptations (complete with music and sound effects) of chilling stories penned by Edgar Allan Poe, Hugh B. Cave, and H.P. Lovecraft, as well as a few additional treats. So douse the lights, snuggle up with your favorite corpse…(oops) “life-challenged” person, and prepare to be thoroughly goosebumped.

Nightmares On Congress Street Part 4 Nightmares IV
By Various; FULL CAST
2 CDs or 1 MP3 CD- 2 Hours [AUDIO DRAMA]
|LINK TO PURCHASE|

Year four of the Rocky Coast Radio Theatre’s spooky radio performances includes theatrical interpretations of works by W.W. Jacobs, Edgar Allan Poe, and Robert W. Service—sure to send shivers down your spine!

posted by Jesse Willis