The SFFaudio Podcast #007

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #007 is so lucky! We’re super hoop-jumping, in this deadly to DRM show – we’re unspooling fences and digging ditches – working around the work-arounds – so, the long and the short:

Scott: Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.

Jesse: No it isn’t.

Topics discussed include:
Golden Age Comic Book Stories, Argosy magazine covers, Pellucidar, At The Earth’s Core, Edgar Rice Burroughs, LibriVox, A Princess Of Mars, multiple narrators, Ender’s Game, Stephen King, The Dark Tower, Frank Muller, George Guidall, Criminal Minds, Peter Coyote, Isaac Asimov, The Foundation Trilogy, more new LibriVox titles, The Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole, The Last Man, Mary Shelley, The Wood Beyond the World, William Morris, Cori Samuel, On The Beach, Nevil Shute, The 2nd SFFaudio Challenge, Julie D., A House-Boat On The Styx, John Kendrick Bangs, Mur Lafferty, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, public libraries, NetLibrary.net, Recorded Books, DRM, overdrive.com, Bill C-61, blank media and iPod levies, what makes DRM evil, Blackstone Audio‘s solution, MP3-CD players, the proper settings for blog RSS feeds, “people will never pay for something they can get for free”, donation models, the Liaden book model, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: At The Earth’s Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs

SFFaudio Online Audio

Another day, another FREE LibriVox Science Fiction Audiobook! Here’s the first in the ERB’s “Pellucidar” series, the second for which is already available (in a single voiced narration). This is the 10th ERB title to be completed for LibriVox. Nice!

LibriVox Science Fiction Audiobook - At The Earth’s Core by Edgar Rice BurroughsAt The Earth’s Core
By Edgar Rice Burroughs; Read by various
16 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 4 Hours 38 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 11th 2008
This is the first book in the Pellucidar series. Pellucidar is a fictional Hollow Earth milieu invented by Edgar Rice Burroughs for a series of action adventure stories. The stories initially involve the adventures of mining heir David Innes and his inventor friend Abner Perry after they use an “iron mole” to burrow 500 miles into the earth’s crust.

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/at-the-earths-core-by-edgar-rice-burroughs.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

SFFaudio Online Audio

Here’s the second LibriVox edition of this Edgar Rice Burroughs classic, this time with a solo narrator!

LibriVox Science Fiction Audiobook - A Princess Of Mars by Edgar Rice BurroughsA Princess of Mars (#1 in the John Carter series)
By Edgar Rice Burroughs; Read by Mark Nelson
14 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 7 Hours 26 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 10th 2008
John Carter, an American Civil War veteran, goes prospecting in Arizona and, when set upon by Indians, is mysteriously transported to Mars, called “Barsoom” by its inhabitants. Carter finds that he has great strength on this planet, due to its lesser gravity. Carter soon falls in among the Tharks, a nomadic tribe of the planet’s warlike, four-armed, green inhabitants. Thanks to his strength and combat abilities he rises in position in the tribe and earns the respect eventually the friendship of Tars Tarkas one of the Thark chiefs. The Tharks subsequently capture Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, a member of the humanoid red Martian race. The red Martians inhabit a loose network of city states and control the desert planet’s canals, along which its agriculture is concentrated. Carter rescues her from the green men to return her to her people.

Subscribe to the podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/a-princess-of-mars-by-edgar-rice-burroughs-2.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Out Of Time’s Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxPaul Williams of the Librivox admin team writes in to say:

Just wanted to clue all of you over at SFFAudio in that Ralph Snelson has completed Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Caspak series over at Librivox. He completed Out of Time’s Abyss on September 16.

Duly noted and detailed below Paul, thanks!

The entire series is now complete, all read by one guy! Huzzah!

Book one is |HERE|
Book two is |HERE|
Book three is here…

LibriVox Science Fiction - Out Of Time’s Abyss by Edgar Rice BurroughsOut Of Time’s Abyss
By Edgar Rice Burroughs; Read by Ralph Snelson
5 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 3 Hours 43 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 2008
Out of Time’s Abyss is a science fiction novel, the third of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Caspak” trilogy. In this conclusion, the mysteries of the lost world’s unique biological systems are revealed.

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/out-of-times-abyss-by-edgar-rice-burroughs.xml

This was a triumph.
I’m making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.
It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction.

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxHot on the heels of the first book in the series, and read by the same narrator, comes The People That Time Forgot. This is another of the short Edgar Rice Burroughs novels that are more and more frequently being added to the LibriVox catalogue of public domain audiobooks.

I’m thinking that it’s about time that LibriVox’s founder, Hugh McGuire, was appointed to the senate. If there is no immediate opening in the senate, we should at least get the nomination papers in for his well deserved appointment to the Order of Canada. Who’s with me on this?

LibriVox Science fiction Audiobook - The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice BurroughsThe People That Time Forgot
By Edgar Rice Burroughs; Read by Ralph Snelson
7 Zipped MP3s or Podcast – 3 Hours 49 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 2008
The People that Time Forgot is a science fiction novel, the second of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Caspak” trilogy. The first novel ended with the hero writing a manuscript of his adventures and casting it out to sea in his thermos bottle. The second novel begins with the finding of the manuscript and the organization of a rescue expedition. (summary adapted from Wikipedia)

Get this free audiobook with this feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/the-people-that-time-forgot-by-edgar-rice-burroughs.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs

SFFaudio Review

LibriVox Science Fiction Audiobook - Pellucidar by Edgar Rice BurroughsPellucidar (2nd in the Pellucidar series)
By Edgar Rice Burroughs; Read by Ralph Snelson
16 Zipped MP3s or Podcast – Approx. 6 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 2008
Themes: / Science Fiction / Hollow Earth / Adventure / Prehistoric Beasts / Exploration / Nautical /

Pellucidar is a difficult audiobook to review because it is quite dependent on the listener being reasonably familiar with its predecessor, At the Earth’s Core. Unfortunately, the LibriVox version of At the Earth’s Core is still in its very early stages, though there is a nice looking commercial version by Tantor available.

Taking the above into account, the LibriVox Pellucidar is an enjoyable listen with plenty of adventure, a grand odyssey, new characters, and one of the coolest “dogs” (hyenadons) ever imagined. Its only flaw, a rather minor one, is its rather abrupt/summarized ending.

Pellucidar continues the adventures of David Innes, and too a lesser extent Abner Perry, in the Hollow Earth land of Pellucidar, after the surprise, cliffhanger ending of its precursor. David treks across much of Pellucidar in search of his lost love, Dian the Beautiful (It must be such a burden going through life with that epithet). Overall a fun adventure story with a few clever twists.

Ralph Snelson does a very straight, non-interpretive, reading of the story with little excess of emotion or dramatization. It is a simple, pleasant reading without bells and whistles. This is another good reading that proves the value of LibriVox’s free audiobooks.

An enjoyable audiobook, but only for those who have heard or read its predecessor (The movie would help a little, but not as much)

Posted by David Tackett