Profound despair, the bloom of outer darkness, the dead sound of a hopeless soul freezing in the utter cold of space filled the face of…The Man Who Found Out.
Having just discovered Algernon Blackwood’s terrific existential horror story, The Man Who Found Out, I am pleased to report that it breaks trail in the territories later mapped out by H.P. Lovecraft and Philip K. Dick.
There’s something fascinating and understated in the clues we get about the story’s central mystery – the purpose of existence – Blackwood knew something of magic, as this story certainly weaves a mystery at the intersection of revelation and science.
And be sure to check out the excellent audio dramatization from Radio Project X too!
The Man Who Found Out
By Algernon Blackwood; Read by Kalynda
1 |MP3| – Approx. 35 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 30, 2011
First published in The Canadian Magazine, December 1912.
The Man Who Found Out
Adapted from the story by Algernon Blackwood; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 28 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: Radio Project X
Podcast: June 12, 2012
The greatest resource for public radio fans on this planet has Richard Matheson’s spooky novel A Stir Of Echoes! Yes, RadioArchive.cc has the 2009 audiobook that’s perfect for this time of year. It was produced for what was then called BBC Radio 7 (and now called BBC Radio 4 Extra) and broadcast as an abridged reading. If you’re more inclined for the UNABRIDGED edition check out Blackstone Audio’s version, which we reviewed not too long before the original broadcast |READ OUR REVIEW|.
A Stir Of Echoes
By Richard Matheson; Read by Trevor White
5 MP3s via |TORRENT| – Approx. 2 Hours 21 Minutes [ABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 7
Broadcast: 2009 Tom Wallace lived an ordinary life in a seemingly normal neighbourhood until his brother-in-law hypnotises him; a chance event that awakens psychic abilities he never knew he possessed. Now he can hear the private thoughts of the people around him, and learns shocking secrets he never wanted to know.
“is the Beetle, from Richard Marsh’s The Beetle (1897). In that novel, a shapechanging Egyptian princess, who can take the form of a giant, malign beetle, a beautiful androgyne, and an old woman or man, pursues a vendetta against a British M.P.”
Prior to the release of The Beetle as a LibriVox audiobook I hadn’t even heard of it. But a little online research indicates that The Beetle came out the same year as Bram Stoker’s Dracula and initially outsold it! How did I not hear of this book before?
The Beetle
By Richard Marsh; Read by various readers 48 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 11 Hours 56 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 24, 2009 A story about a mysterious oriental figure who pursues a British politician to London, where he wreaks havoc with his powers of hypnosis and shape-shifting, Marsh’s novel is of a piece with other sensational turn-of-the-century fictions such as Stoker’s Dracula, George du Maurier’s Trilby, and Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu novels. Like Dracula and many of the sensation novels pioneered by Wilkie Collins and others in the 1860s, The Beetle is narrated from the perspectives of multiple characters, a technique used in many late nineteenth-century novels (those of Wilkie Collins and Stoker, for example) to create suspense.
The Man Who Found Out
The Man Who Found Out
Attentive readers of Alan Moore’s 
