horror – Page 54

SFPRP: The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

SFFaudio Online Audio

Luke Burrage, in the first of two shows with me as a guest on Science Fiction Book Review Podcast, is reviewing and talking about The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells. Its a fun exercise, we run down the whole book and talk about other invisibility stories too. Have a listen…

SFBRP #078 – H.G. Wells – The Invisible Man
1 |MP3| – Approx. 58 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: SFBRP.com
Podcast: Monday, January 18, 2010

Here’s what we talked about:
The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, the public domain status of the writings of H.G. Wells, Luke and Jesse in conversation, The War Of The Worlds, The Island Of Dr. Moreau, The First Men In The Moon, Luke’s review of The Time Machine, Sussex, invasion literature, mad scientist, horror, thriller, the village of Iping, invisibility, scientific invisibility, What Was It?, haunted house, the 2000 film Hollow Man, Smoke by Donald E. Westlake, the development of the invisibility meme, creating tension in a scene with exposition, Luke’s review of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Lawrence Kasdan Raiders Of The Lost Ark story conference |PDF|, a Nazi monkey, Griffin (the titular Invisible Man) as an anti-hero, The Ring Of Gyges (found within Plato’s The Republic), invisibility as a cipher for moral character, invisibility is good for nothing other than spying, if you’re an invisible person you’ll need a confederate, The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, Miss Pim’s Camouflage by Lady Stanley, WWI, Invisible Agent, WWII, isolation, moral isolation, anonymity, Eric Rabkin’s point about, refractive index, albinism, the sleight of hand that H.G. Wells uses in The Invisible Man and The Time Machine, The Crystal Egg by H.G. Wells, Mars, long distance communication, what is the serious problem with invisibility? [the answer is a DEFEATER for any truly HARD SF story], the background for The Time Machine is Charles Darwin, evolution and the class system, the background for The War Of The Worlds is invasion literature, war and colonialism, Eddie Izzard‘s colonialism through flags, the background for The Invisible Man is personal responsibility, isolation and moral character, Thomas Marvel (the tramp with an invisible friend), the parallels between The Invisible Man and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fawlty Towers, psychopathy, sociopathy, the one ring’s invisibility, invisibility for burglary is only half as useful as you’d expect, imagine the Sauron’s ring in the hands of Denethor, Boromir, or Gandalf!, the filmspotting podcast, visit Luke’s website!

http://www.sfbrp.com/?feed=podcast

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Pulp Reader’s project and some audio drama picks

SFFaudio News

The Pulp Reader blog is an ongoing experiment in “computer generated audio books.” Sez the webmaster (Shonokin):

I read a lot. I also drive a lot, stuck in long commutes every day. There’s a way for a reader and a commuter to do both at the same time. And for me that is through audiobooks. But alas, most of the books I’d like to listen to are not available anywhere, so what to do? Make my own and that’s mostly what this is about. I create Text To Speech (TTS) audiobooks for my daily commute. Since I make them, I might as well share them. So here we are!

Shonokin places the files on Archive.org and then links to them on his/her blog. Shonokin started this project in 2006. And coincidently in 2006 I had a similar problem myself. There were a lot of ebooks out there that weren’t being turned into audiobooks. But with me being a hater of the robot voice I came up with the SFFaudio Challenges |First|Second|Third|Fourth| to solve my dilemma instead.

What Shonokin and I can both agree on, I’m betting, is that audio drama is not best done not by robots* – but by people – real people! Not those damned thieving “Silicon Americans” that Shonokin is employing.

Anyway, here are Shonokin’s thoughts on some recent human done shows that he/she has been listening to:

First off, there’s my love hate relationship with Wormwood, an excellent supernatural detective mystery. The acting is mostly good, the stories are sharp and exciting and the incidental music and sounds effects are great. My only complaint is that it is mixed very poorly. In situations such as driving in a car or surrounded by other ambient noise, you may find you have to fiddle with the volume knob of your radio or mp3 player to alternately listen to quiet dialog and back off on sudden crashing loud jabs of sound. Quite unpleasant aurally, but the stories are good enough to keep me going, annoyed as I am.

Also, the latest seasons of Black Jack Justice and Red Panda have started, which are a joy all the way around. Red Panda is a fun detective pulp with sprinkles of scifi/fantasy and comic book hero action. Black Jack Justice is a hard-boiled detective comedy. Both are great fun but written and played in very different styles.

And then there is also McLevy, an audio drama from the BBC which airs weekly on their iplayer. I find this to be a very fascinating series and have put together a mini webpage about him. In short, James McLevy was a real detective in 1800’s Edinburgh. He wrote several memoirs about his exploits which were very popular. There’s some speculation that aside from the obvious homages to his teacher, Doctor Joseph Bell, that Arthur Conan Doyle may have gleaned some bits of inspiration for Sherlock Holmes from McLevy’s memoirs.

I was fascinated by stumbling across the existence of McLevy but have not found an ultimate website or font of information about him, which is why I put this together. Please visit McLevy The Edinburgh Detective to find out more.

[via The Pulp Reader blog]

*with apologies to Robotz Of The Company for slander.

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases: Robert E. Howard, Jack McDevitt, Joe Abercrombie, Michael Rubens, Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin

New Releases

Tantor Media has released about sixty Science Fiction and Fantasy audiobooks in the last six months.

That’s a staggering figure.

When we started SFFaudio, back in 2003, there were fewer than sixty SFF audiobooks released in an entire year from all the audiobook publishers combined!

Here are just a few 2009 and 2010 Tantor titles that are both previously unposted and personally interesting to me…

Kull: Exile Of Atlantis
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Todd McLaren
10 CDs – Approx. 12 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: December 2009
ISBN: 9781400112272
In a meteoric career that spanned a mere twelve years, Robert E. Howard single-handedly invented the genre that came to be called sword and sorcery. From his fertile imagination sprang some of fiction’s most enduring heroes. Yet while Conan the Cimmerian is indisputably Howard’s greatest creation, it was in his earlier sequence of tales featuring Kull, a fearless warrior with the brooding intellect of a philosopher, that Howard began to develop the distinctive themes and the richly evocative blend of history and mythology that would distinguish his later tales of the Hyborian Age. Much more than simply the prototype for Conan, Kull is a fascinating character in his own right: an exile from fabled Atlantis who wins the crown of Valusia, only to find it as much a burden as a prize. This groundbreaking collection brings together all of Howard’s stories featuring Kull: Exile of Atlantis, The Shadow Kingdom, The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune, The Cat And The Skull, The Screaming Skull Of Silence, The Striking Of The Gong, The Altar and the Scorpion, The Curse of the Golden Skull, By This Axe I Rule!, Swords Of The Purple Kingdom, The King And The Oak, and Kings Of The Night

The Savage Tales Of Solomon Kane
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Paul Boehmer
10 CDs – Approx. 12.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: January 2010
ISBN: 9781400112289
With Conan the Cimmerian, Robert E. Howard created more than the greatest action hero of the twentieth century — he also launched a genre that came to be known as sword and sorcery. But Conan was not the first archetypal adventurer to spring from Howard’s fertile imagination. He was…a strange blending of Puritan and Cavalier, with a touch of the ancient philosopher, and more than a touch of the pagan…. A hunger in his soul drove him on and on, an urge to right all wrongs, protect all weaker things…. Wayward and restless as the wind, he was consistent in only one respect—he was true to his ideals of justice and right. Such was Solomon Kane. Collected in this volume are all of the stories that make up the thrilling saga of the dour and deadly Puritan: Skulls In The Stars, The Right Hand Of Doom, Red Shadows, Rattle Of Bones, The Castle Of The Devil, Death’s Black Riders, The Moon Of Skulls, The One Black Stain, The Blue Flame Of Vengeance, The Hills Of The Dead, Hawk Of Basti, The Return Of Sir Richard Grenville, Wings In The Night, The Footfalls Within, The Children Of Asshur, and Solomon Kane’s Homecoming.

Time Travelers Never Die
By Jack McDevitt; Read by Paul Boehmer
12 CDs – Approx. 14.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
ISBN: 9781400114337
Publisher: Tantor Media
Publsihed: January 2010
When physicist Michael Shelborne mysteriously vanishes, his son Shel discovers that he had constructed a time travel device. Fearing his father may be stranded in time—or worse—Shel enlists Dave Dryden, a linguist, to accompany him on the rescue mission. Their journey through history takes them from the Enlightenment of Renaissance Italy through the American Wild West to the civil rights upheavals of the twentieth century. Along the way, they encounter a diverse cast of historical greats, sometimes in unexpected situations. Yet the elder Shelborne remains elusive. And then Shel violates his agreement with Dave not to visit the future. There he makes a devastating discovery that sends him fleeing back through the ages and changes his life forever.

Best Served Cold
By Joe Abercrombie; Read by Michael Page
22 CDs – 27.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: December 2009
ISBN: 9781400113279
Springtime in Styria. And that means war. There have been nineteen years of blood. The ruthless Grand Duke Orso is locked in a vicious struggle with the squabbling League of Eight, and between them they have bled the land white. While armies march, heads roll, and cities burn, behind the scenes bankers, priests, and older, darker powers play a deadly game to choose who will be king. War may be hell, but for Monza Murcatto, the Snake of Talins, the most feared and famous mercenary in Duke Orso’s employ, it’s a damn good way of making money too. Her victories have made her popular—a shade too popular for her employer’s taste. Betrayed, thrown down a mountain, and left for dead, Murcatto’s reward is a broken body and a burning hunger for vengeance. Whatever the cost, seven men must die. Her allies include Styria’s least reliable drunkard, Styria’s most treacherous poisoner, a mass murderer obsessed with numbers, and a barbarian who just wants to do the right thing. Her enemies number the better half of the nation. And that’s all before the most dangerous man in the world is dispatched to hunt her down and finish the job Duke Orso started. Springtime in Styria. And that means revenge.

The Sheriff of Yrnameer
By Michael Rubens; Read by William Dufris
8 CDs – Approx. 9.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: August 2009
ISBN: 9781400113255
Meet Cole: hapless space rogue, part-time smuggler, on a path to being full-time dead. His sidekick just stole his girlfriend. The galaxy’s most hideous and feared bounty hunter wants to lay eggs in his brain. And the luxury space yacht Cole just hijacked turns out of be filled with interstellar do-gooders, one especially loathsome stowaway, and a cargo of freeze-dried orphans. Reluctantly compelled to deliver these defenseless, fluidless children to safety, Cole gathers a misfit crew for a desperate journey to the far reaches of the galaxy. Their destination: the mysterious world of Yrnameer, the very last of the your-name-heres—planets without corporate sponsors. But little does Cole know that this legendary utopia is home to a murderous band of outlaws bent on destroying the planet’s tiny, peaceful community. Follow Cole’s adventures through a delightfully absurd science-fiction universe, where the artificial intelligence is stupid, dust motes carry branding messages, and middle-management zombies have overrun a corporate training satellite. In the spirit of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, The Sheriff of Yrnameer is sci-fi comedy at its best—mordant, raucously funny, and a thrilling must-listen.

The Unincorporated Man
By Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin; Read by Todd McLaren
19 CDs – Approx. 24.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: May 2009
ISBN: 9781400111725
The Unincorporated Man is a provocative social/political/economic novel that takes place in the future, after civilization has fallen into complete economic collapse. This reborn civilization is one in which every individual is incorporated at birth and spends many years trying to attain control over his or her own life by getting a majority of his or her own shares. Life extension has made life very long indeed. Now the incredible has happened: a billionaire businessman from our time, frozen in secret in the early twenty-first century, is discovered and resurrected, given health and a vigorous younger body. Justin Cord is the only unincorporated man in the world, a true stranger in this strange land. Justin survived because he is tough and smart. He cannot accept only part ownership of himself, even if that places him in conflict with a civilization that extends outside the solar system to the Oort Cloud. People will be arguing about this novel and this world for decades.

Which of the other SFF titles from 2009 (and forthcoming in 2010) from Tantor are of interest to you folks? Click HERE to check out the list. Then post your list below.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Final Rune: Three Skeleton Key MODERN AUDIO DRAMA

SFFaudio Online Audio

Fred Greenhalgh, the host of Radio Drama Revival and the force behind FinalRune Productions has sent out a thank you email with a bonus! Included in it is a new production of Three Skeleton Key. Which is among the most famous of old time radio tales!

Sez Fred:

“Thank You, Thank You

2009 has been a huge year for FinalRune. Initially we didn’t think we would produce much work, but instead we have released three spectacular re-creations of old time radio plays and produced our first live radio show on Halloween – all of which blew away our expectations.

None of this could have happened without huge contributions of time and talent from numerous individuals, most notably those at The Mad Horse Theater Company. A big THANK YOU to our new friends, and we hope to have many more great productions together.

Of course, we also have a huge thank you for you, our listener, for caring about this kind of work and encouraging us to make more. 2010 promises many exciting projects, which we’ll fill you in about as soon as we possibly can.

For now, we’re proud to announce the release of the terrifying final installment of our three-part OTR project with Mad Horse, the classic Three Skeleton Key, re-energized with a fine set of performances on location at a lighthouse in Maine.”

Three Skeleton Key
Based on the story by George G. Toudouze; Adapted by James Poe; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 24 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Final Rune Productions
Published: December 23, 2009
Three men who tend the light at a reclusive island off the coast of French Guiana see a rogue ship adrift in the Atlantic. The reason for the derelict ship soon becomes obvious – it has been overrun by hundreds of thousands of ferocious ship’s rats. The rats land on the isle and soon we are in for a claustrophobic tale of terror as the three men struggle to keep their minds from cracking under the pressure of thousands and thousands of squeaking, scratching, hungry rats. First published as a short story in Esquire magazine’s January 1937 issue. Later adapted for radio by Suspense and Escape.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Blackstone Audiobooks Overtstock Sale

SFFaudio News

Blackstone Audiobooks Overstock Sale SFFaudio receives FREE audio media in the mail on a regular basis. They generally arrive unsolicited (though sometimes not) and we take it that their arrival equates with a tacit understanding that we’ll either mention the receipt on the website and/or review the audiobook or audio drama. That’s the extent of our formal relationship with any publisher or retailer. We do not use affiliate links to Amazon, or any other audiobook retailer. This lack of affiliation means that we can never feel pressured into reviewing an audiobook or audio drama more positively (or negatively) than we might otherwise.

Now, with all that said, I think I can speak for most of the folks who work at SFFaudio and say that we are all especially fond of Blackstone Audiobooks.

There are a few reasons for this BA love. Blackstone picks great books to turn into audiobooks, pairing them with terrific narrators, and then releases them in DRM free version. That’s really all what you want from a publisher. But that isn’t the end of it. Every so often they blow-out audiobooks that are cramming their wharehouse space. And that’s why right now they’re offering 237 different audiobooks for just $9.99 each.

That’s a STUNNING DEAL my friends!

And, if you buy two audiobooks (or more) you’ll even get FREE SHIPPING (within the USA). Here are just a few of the many titles they’ve got for sale right now:

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; read by Ben Kingsley
THE AENEID by Virgil; read by Frederick Davidson
ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND by Lewis Carroll; read by Michael York
THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London; read by Ethan Hawke
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT by Mark Twain; read by Carl Reiner
FRANKENSTEIN, OR THE MODERN PROMETHEUS by Mary Shelley; read by Simon Templeman, Anthony Heald, and Stefan Rudnicki
I AM LEGEND by Richard Matheson; read by Robertson Dean |READ OUR REVIEW|
IT’S SUPERMAN! by Tom De Haven; read by Scott Brick
KING KONG by Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper; novelization by Delos W. Lovelace; read by Stefan Rudnicki |READ OUR REVIEW|
THE MARTIAN CHILD by David Gerrold; read by Scott Brick
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY by Oscar Wilde; read by Simon Vance
THE PRESTIGE by Christopher Priest; read by Simon Vance
THE PRINCE by Niccoló Machiavelli; read by Patrick Cullen
ROCKET SHIP GALILEO by Robert A Heinlein; read by Spider Robinson |READ OUR REVIEW|
THE SPARTANS by Paul Cartledge; read by John Lee
SWEENEY TODD AND THE STRING OF PEARLS by Yuri Rasovsky; Performed by a full cast
TALES OF BEATRIX POTTER by Beatrix Potter; read by Nadia May
TARZAN OF THE APES by Edgar Rice Burroughs; read by Ben Kingsley
THE TEN-CENT PLAGUE by David Hajdu; read by Stefan Rudnicki
THERMOPYLAE by Paul Cartledge; read by John Lee
THE TIME MACHINE by H.G. Wells; read by Ben Kingsley
THE TRIAL by Franz Kafka; read by Geoffrey Howard
UTOPIA by Sir Thomas More; read by James Adams
V FOR VENDETTA by Steve Moore; read by Simon Vance |READ OUR REVIEW|
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS by H. G. Wells; read by Christopher Hurt
WE WISH TO INFORM YOU THAT TOMORROW WE WILL BE KILLED WITH OUR FAMILIES by Philip Gourevitch; read by Jeff Cummings
WHERE’S MY JETPACK? by Daniel H. Wilson; read by Stefan Rudnicki |READ OUR REVIEW|
THE WINTER OF FRANKIE MACHINE by Don Winslow; read by Dennis Boutsikaris
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO NARNIA by Jonathan Rogers; read by Brian Emerson

Posted by Jesse Willis

We’re Alive: A Story Of Survival – a zombie audio drama serial

SFFaudio Online Audio

We’re Alive: A Story Of Survival is a new horror serial podcast that makes use of one the world’s most currently popular tropes, ZOMBIES!

One of the more difficult storytelling problems, in creating a zombie story, is addressing the word itself. “Zombie,” as we use it, is a relatively new word and it conjures up some highly specific images. But, since it refers to something of the modern world, but not actually in the modern world it can’t be simply taken for granted – at least not quite yet.

George Romero, the inventor of the modern zombie story, didn’t have this problem. He had his protagonists call their foes “the dead.” And the story was played straight. Now that this meme is free floating, fully realized and yet still insubstantial the writer of We’re Alive: A Story Of Survival, Kc Wayland, felt the need to address the problem. This is what he did:

Michael: They were like animals and they sure as hell weren’t like us anymore. Not with those eyes.

Angel: Then what were they?

Saul: Zombies.

Michael: Come on Saul, this isn’t the time.

Saul: No joke sarge! What if they are?

Michael: Think about it just for a second.

Exactly. This writerly technique is called “Lampshade Hanging.” It’s needed when some aspect of the story threatens the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief. The idea is simple: call attention to the problem and then having called that attention, move on. It sounds counterinutive, but it works. The audience is perversely mollified, satisfied that the writer knows what we know. Okay, enough of meta-zombies. Here’s this zombie show’s zombie premise:

A small riot in LA has spread past its containment. Three reserve soldiers are called to their deserted duty station. Believed to be the last remaining armed servicemen in the area, Michael, Angel, and Saul witness the true cause of the riot; people are starting to change and attack each other. Armed with only what they can carry, they set out to secure an apartment building and rescue survivors scattered amongst the shattered remains of civilization. In a world turned upside down, every day is a struggle, as those who have taken refuge in the tower find out that their safe haven is under constant threat. In this place, however, the strengths of those who stand together, might just be enough to live long enough to see things start to change.

There are 13 episodes out so far. It’s an interesting story, being a full blown zombie apocalypse set in Los Angeles.

Podcast feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/itpc/wwwwaylandws/Wayland_Productions/Were_Alive_-_Podcast/rssxml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[via Radio Drama Revival]

Posted by Jesse Willis