Here’s a vintage news item on Lawrence Block reading from Hit Parade at a local mystery bookstore Partners & Crime. There’s also nice tip of the hat to audiobook fans at the end too.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Tag: Lawrence Block
Lawrence Block in conversation with Charles Ardai
Lawrence Block speaking, as the guest of honor at Bouchercon 2008, in conversation with Charles Ardai (editor of Hard Case Crime). Block spills the beans on all sorts of interesting tidbits including:
-some bits about Robert Silverberg
-the writing of Killing Castro |READ OUR REVIEW|
-writing standalone novels vs. writing series novels
-the novel that became a popular 1980s TV series
-the revivification of the Evan Tanner series
-the various movie versions of Block’s novels
-why you shouldn’t kill of your series characters
-and plenty more!
Lawrence Block talking about Donald E. Westlake
Lawrence Block talks to a crowd of eager fans about Donald E. Westlake at The Mysterious Bookshop in NYC. Block discussed his friend’s career, the upcoming release of Westlake’s lost novel Memory and their collaborations together.
Subterranean Press states that it will be re-publishing this trio of Westlake/Block collaborative novels novels — Sin Hellcat, So Willing, and A Girl Called Honey — under the overall title of Hellcats and Honey Girls.
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #047
The SFFaudio Podcast #047 – Jesse and Scott talk audiobooks, The Invention Of Lying (the perfect movie for audiobook fans), and hot blimp on zeppelin action.
Talked about on today’s show:
fantastic coffee, recent arrivals, Penguin Audio, Anita Blake, Laurell K. Hamilton, Bloody Bones, The Killing Dance, Burnt Offerings, narrator Kimberly Alexis, paranormal romance, Sookie Stackhouse, True Blood, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, horror, Full Cast Audio, Emmie And The Incredible Shrinking Rat by Lynne Jonell, Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel |READ OUR REVIEW|, the Matt Cruse series, SFFaudio Essential, Starclimber by Kenneth Oppel,Mainspring by Jay Lake |READ OUR REVIEW|, Blackstone Audio, Planet Of Exile by Ursula K. Le Guin, the Hanish Cycle series, The Word For World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin, Avatar, Audible Frontiers, Book Of The Road, Tales Of Earth Sea by Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard Of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin |READ OUR REVIEW|, Harlan Ellison, Recorded Books, The Dark Design by Philip Jose Farmer, more airships, current listens, Game Change, text to audiobook techniques, Dennis Boutsikaris, Engines Of God by Jack McDevitt, new releases, The Eyes Of Darkness by Dean Koontz, Brilliance Audio, Heroes Of The Valley by Jonathan Stroud, the Bartimaeus Trilogy, fantasy, quest, Jonathan Stroud’s Heroes of the Valley: Thalia Kids’ Book Club, Matthew Cody, Tantor Media, Time Travelers Never Die by Jack McDevitt, SFSignal’s review of Time Travelers Never Die, Battlestar Galactica, “McDevitt is ooh-wow Science Fiction in the Arthur C. Clarke tradition,” Flatland: A Romance Of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott, math-fiction, the LibriVox edition of Flatland, narrator James Langton, did you get your free audiobook from Tantor Media?, Scott Brick, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, The Futurist by James P. Othmer, narrator William Dufris, Richard K. Morgan, narrator Simon Jones, Bill Murray, Robin Williams, Dead Poets Society, Zombieland, The Invention Of Lying is a romantic comedy that’s philosophical Science Fiction, Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Macmillan Vs. Amazon.com: ebook pricing dispute, John Scalzi’s Whatever post on the topic, Apple iPad, Amazon’s deletion of 1984, “bailouts for everyone!”, big evil corporations and the “tyranny of the bottom line”, Brilliance Audio, Killing Floor by Lee Child, one star reviews, the Cynical-C Blog, Daily Dose Of Ingersoll, You Can’t Please Everyone, Letter From Mark Twain To A Snake Oil Peddler, LibriVox: Extract From Captain Stormfield’s Visit To Heaven by Mark Twain, the merits and demerits of the iPad and the iPhone vs. the iPod Classic, Frederick Pohl’s The Way The Future Blogs, Pohl on Isaac Asimov |Part 1|Part 2|, the Moonies, Jerry Pournelle at Brigham Young University with Mormons and Scientologists, Life, The University & Everything 28, Margaret Atwood: History Denier, The Year Of The Flood by Margaret Atwood |READ OUR REVIEW|, Fredösphere, Orson Scott Card’s politics vs. his books, Apollo 11, Apollo 12, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, Apollo 16, Apollo 17, NASA’s Constellation Program, 10 NASA Inventions You Might Use Every Day, Wil Wheaton’s audiobooks are on Lulu.com, Just A Geek by Wil Wheaton |READ OUR REVIEW|, Memories Of The Futurecast, Julie’s Forgotten Classics podcast, Scott’s Pick Of The Week: Scenting The Dark And Other Stories by Mary Robinette Kowal, Subterranean Press, Ronald Rabbit Is A Dirty Old Man by Lawrence Block, epistolary novel, Cinderella Sims by Lawrence Block, Hard Case Crime, Jesse’s Pick Of The Week: Da Vinci’s Inquest, Intelligence, Castle, CSI is “six people standing around telling each other information they all already know,” Da Vinci’s Inquest does not use the pro forma police procedural TV show construction, Da Vinci’s Inquest is like The Wire but set in Vancouver, Acorn Video.
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #040
The SFFaudio Podcast #040 – Jesse and Scott are joined by Steve Feldberg of Audible.com to talk about Audible Frontiers and other Audible.com projects. We talk audiobooks the whole show, giving particular attention to those produced by Audible.com itself. Steve tells us all about a bunch of the upcoming Science Fiction, Fantasy, espionage, and crime audiobooks we can expect to see showing up in the Audible catalgoue this year and next!
Talked about on today’s show:
Audible.com, Audible Frontiers, Gateway by Frederik Pohl, Robert J. Sawyer, Frederik Pohl, how to translate font and textual changes to audio, Oliver Wyman, Jonathan Davis, METAtropolis |READ OUR REVIEW|, Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer |READ OUR REVIEW|, narrator performance, The Wind Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, how do you pick stuff?, Battlestar Galactica, Mike Resnick‘s Starship series, space opera, dialogue driven audiobooks, David Weber‘s Honor Harrington series, female protagonists, Mike Shepherd‘s Kris Longknife series, military SF, Elizabeth Moon’s Vatta’s War series, novella and novelette length audiobooks, METAtropolis, Michael Hogan, Alessandro Juliani, Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer, Stefan Rudnicki, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card |READ OUR REVIEW|, Scott Brick, Hopscotch by Brian Garfield, espionage novels, Death Wish by Brian Garfield, Hopscotch (1980) starring Walter Matthau, Six Days Of The Condor by James Grady, mystery and thriller audiobooks, Jim Thompson, copyright disambiguation, Hard Case Crime, BBC Audiobooks America, Christa Faust, The Ghosts Of Belfast by Stuart Neville, Gerard Doyle, Eragon by Christopher Paolini, Jeremy Gage, Lawrence Block, pseudonymous narrators, Grover Gardner (aka Tom Parker), Mercedes Lackey‘s Elemental Masters series, fairy tales, Starplex by Robert J. Sawyer, WWW: Wake by Robert J. Sawyer |READ OUR REVIEW|, Golden Fleece by Robert J. Sawyer, Kristine Kathryn Rusch‘s Retrieval Artist series, William Gibson, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Count Zero, All Tomorrow’s Parties are all coming to audiobook, wouldn’t a multi-voiced version of Neuromancer be great? Yes it would!, Stanisław Lem, audiobooks are coming, Gene Wolfe‘s The Book Of The New Sun is coming to audio, epic fantasy is hard to turn into audiobooks, David Eddings, Subterranean Press, how the audiobook experience is different than the paperbook experience, Harlan Ellison as a narrator, we need some Jack Vance audiobooks, Brilliance Audiobooks, On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, Seeing Ear Theatre, audio drama, James Patrick Kelly, copyright disambiguation part II, the Bradbury 13, J. Michael Straczynski‘s City Of Dreams, Mary Burkey’s Audiobooker Blog, audiobook reading groups, The Help by Kathryn Stockett, Audible.com’s internal book club.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Charles Ardai interview about Hard Case Crime
Speaking of Ardai and new book lines, here’s an older interview from NPR member station WHYY. Terry Gross interviewed Charles Ardai for her show Fresh Air back on May 5, 2008. In the interview Ardai details his inspirations (including his stories from the holocaust, William Blake and Lawrence Block) for his novel Songs Of Innocence, and the rest of the Hard Case Crime series. Near the end of the interview Ardai discusses the then upcoming 50th book in the HCC series (called Fifty-To-One) – which is a recursive novel about an editor named “Charles” who starts a paperback book line called “Hard Case Crime” – it takes the titles of the first 50 books in the HCC series and uses them as chapter titles to inform the novel’s plot. So cool!
Posted by Jesse Willis