Tag: Lawrence Block

The SFFaudio Podcast #102

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #102 – Scott, Jesse and Tamahome talk about new audiobook, book, and comic book releases.

Talked about on today’s show:
The Infinite Worlds Of H.G. Wells, Sherlock Holmes, Memory by Donald E. Westlake, Hard Case Crime, A Good Story Is Hard To Find, nihilism, SFSignal’s 122 books that bring Scott to tears, All The Lives He Led by Frederik Pohl (a semi-nihilistic novel), Yellowstone, “half minus negative zero”, A Matter Of Time by Glen Cook, The Black Company, Abel One by Ben Bova, blood and flesh and shirtless, Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente, BoingBoing, Russian Ark, Enigmatic Plot vs. Enigmatic Pilot, Enclave (aka Razorland) by Ann Aguirre, The Maze Runner by James Dashner, The Scorch Trials, The Hunger Games, Hunt The Space Witch and Other Stories by Robert Silverberg, WWW: Wonder by Robert J. Sawyer, Starstruck, Blair Butler, “Geoff Boucher’s Los Angeles Times Hero Complex ‘Get Your Cape On’ pick of the week”, The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi, Macmillan Audio, Audible.com, Brilliance Audio, Warriors edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, Forever Bound by Joe Haldeman, Lawrence Block, O. Henry-ish, “I see no reason to buy through iTunes” (vs. Audible.com), Limitless (aka The Dark Fields) by Alan Glynn, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Flowers For Algernon, Understand by Ted Chiang, acquiring a whole bag of pills, “smart people are neat”, Tantor Media, History Is Wrong by Erich von Däniken, Jesse becomes momentarily depressed, The Guns Of August by Barbara W. Tuchman, John Lee, the John Cleaver series, have world events have sped because of modern technology?, Libya, Tripoli, “The Graveyard Of Empires”, “from the halls of Montezuma to the shores Tripoli”, NPR, A History Of The World In Six Glasses by Tom Standage, beer, wine, spirits, tea, coffee, cola, the Today In Canadian History podcast, the Canadian Navy, I Don’t Want To Kill You by Dan Wells, I Am Not A Serial Killer, “normally I don’t do this”, Dexter, the Writing Excuses podcast, Homeward Bound by Harry Turtledove, alternate history, We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Grover Gardner, Eric S. Rabkin, George Orwell’s 1984, Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, William Dufris, binary fission, Tantor Media is very innovative in including ebooks with their audiobooks, we need a new demarcation to desperate urban fantasy romance from SF, “conspiracy and ignorance based books”, The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds, Tales From A Thousand Nights And The Night (aka 1,001 Nights!) translated by Richard Burton, The Thousand Nights And A Night is the first fix-up novel, Nostromo by Joseph Conrad, South America, Three Men In A Boat (To Say Nothing Of The Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome, To Say Nothing Of The Dog by Connie Willis, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein, Atlantis And Other Places by Harry Turtledove, Slave To Sensation shouldn’t be a science fiction novel, Orson Scott’s Card Intergalactic Medicine Show, Rejiggering The Thingamajig by Eric James Stone on Escape Pod #277, body-swapping, I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein, gender-swapping, For Us The Living: A Comedy Of Customs by Robert A. Heinlein, Heinlein’s old theme: “naked people talking to each other”, Heinlein likes to examine social preconceptions and social prejudices, “not a Heinlein classic but still classic Heinlein”, Eifelheim, Luke Burrage, Idiot America by Charles P. Pierce, George Washington riding a dinosaur, The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson, contemporary with Tolkien (rather than derivative of Tolkien), Michael Moorcock, Eric Birghteyes by H. Rider Haggard, Bronson Pinchot, The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams, anthropomorphic fiction, quasi-Science Fiction, quasi-Fantasy, Coyotes In The House by Elmore Leonard |READ OUR REVIEW|, The Call Of The Wild by Jack London, We Three by Grant Morrison, Transmetropolitain, Warren Ellis, Tama’s pet peeve in comics is silent panels, Audible Frontiers, The Death Of Grass by John Christopher, The Tripods, The Sam Gunn Omnibus, The Steel Remains, Cliffs Notes are now available as audiobooks, Brave New World, The Spiral Path by Lisa Paitz Spindler, Eat Prey Love by Kerrelyn Sparks, William Coon’s Eloquent Voice titles, Andre Norton’s The Time Traders, Gilgamesh The King by Robert Silverberg |READ OUR REVIEW|, Philip K. Dick, Henry James, Anton Chekov, Paul of Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth.com The Whisperer In Wax, wax cylinder tech, Embedded by Dan Abnett, SFSignal.com.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #090 – TALK TO: Charles Ardai

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #090 – Jesse talks to Hard Case Crime author and editor Charles Ardai.

Talked about on today’s show:
Hard Case Crime, Gabriel Hunt (Hunt For Adventure), BBC Audiobooks America, iambik audio, Little Girl Lost by Richard Aleas (aka Charles Ardai), Audible.com, Songs Of Innocence by Richard Aleas (aka Charles Ardai), the best kept secret in the audiobook world, L.J. Ganser, The Confession by Dominic Stansberry, Money Shot by Christa Faust, Noircon, The Bobbsey Twins, Edward Stratermeyer, Titan Books, Choke Hold by Christa Faust, Porn + Mixed Martial Arts, “book reviews aren’t generally found in the adult film industry magazines”, the porn industry vs. newspaper publishing vs. podcasting, the Quarry series, Max Allan Collins, Road To Perdition, Dorchester Publishing, Random House, HCC is a NEW Lawrence Block novel, The Girl With A Long Green Heart, Killing Castro by Lawrence Block |READ OUR REVIEW|, Grifter’s Game |READ OUR REVIEW|, re-numbering the HCC series, “this is a book that demands a naked woman on the cover”, “this the nakedest cover we’ve ever done”, Getting Off by Lawrence Block (writing as Jill Emerson), paperback book, the Gold Medal books, Max Phillips, Dell Mapbacks, Ace Doubles, Robert Bloch, Nightstand Books, Robert McGinnis, Glenn Orbik, an upcoming HCC book (HCC-102) is a collaboration between two major writers one deceased one alive, Memory by Donald Westlake, SFFaudio Podcast #082, there is a ANOTHER NEW unpublished Westlake novel coming to HCC in 2012, The King Of Comedy, Honey In His Mouth by Lester Dent, hard core aficionados, The Dead Man’s Brother by Roger Zelazny, Will Murray, Ken Bruen, Jason Starr, Fake ID, Bust, Slide, Max, finding HCC in bookstores will be nearly impossible until January 25th 2011, The Valley Of Fear by A.C. Doyle is a well known public domain novel cleverly disguised (for fun), Gabriel Hunt: Through The Cradle Of Fear by Gabriel Hunt (aka Charles Ardai) |READ OUR REVIEW|, the tradition of dressing up old books with new art – conning the reader into reading classic literature, Edgar Allan Poe, Sherlock Holmes, the most hard-boiled of the Sherlock Holmes novels, the Lion Books edition of Frankenstein, the pulp tradition, being playful with the book-buyer, the first hardcover HCC, Fifty To One by Charles Ardai is a book for bookcovers, Subterranean Press, Otto Penzler, a hardcover edition of Memory by Donald E. Westlake, the new paperbacks (with Titan Books) will be trader-paperbacks, the mass market paperback business is difficult if you’re not named Dan Brown, paperback book collecting is crazy, who is modeling Naomi Novick, the Quentin Tarantino Roast, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi, Fade To Blonde, Witness To Myself, woman on the cover sells, The Great Gatsby, Cornell Woolrich, Quarry’s Ex, the new sexiness on the covers is because HCC won’t be sold in the mass market format, Jim Thompson, Fright by Cornell Woolrich, Stanley Kubrick commissioned Jim Thompson film script, Richard Stark, Somebody Owes Me Money by Donald E. Westlake |READ OUR REVIEW|, a sequel to Somebody Owes Me Money?, the nephew books, Max Allan Collins, the problem with James M. Cain, Jealous Woman, Sinful Woman, Black Lizard books, The Cocktail Waitress (an unpublished James M. Cain book), John D. MacDonald, knocking my socks half-way off, send Charles Ardai your suggestions and submissions, The Colorado Kid will soon be very hard to find (it is out of print), The Valley Of Fear (the HCC edition is out of print), where are the HCC posters?, HCC t-shirts, Hunt For Adventure will be coming in trade-paperback, Hunt Through Napoleon’s Web, Hunt Among The Killers Of Men, where is the adventure fiction section of bookstores?, “the coffin of Atilla the Hun”, Nor Idolatry Blind The Eye by Charles Ardai, Indiana Jones, Best American Noir of the Century, Otto Penzler’s upcoming adventure anthology, why are there no adventure magazines?, Five Graves To Cairo, The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, Argosy, a Gabriel Hunt adventure magazine?, adventure comics?, Prince Of Persia, the Gabriel Hunt bible, Gabriel Hunt fan-fiction is a-ok with Charles Ardai.

The Great Gatsby and Grifter's Game

Frankenstein and The Valley Of Fear (a Sherlock Holmes novel)

Posted by Jesse Willis

9 interesting paperbooks (should they be audiobooks?)

SFFaudio Commentary

There are a ton of cool looking paperbooks in the bookstores these days. Here are 9 paperbooks, that I spotted at Chapters. None of these are available as audiobooks – at least not yet. Should they be? Here’s my take.

#1 – SS-GB by Len Deighton. This was an audiobook, long ago, but it is currently out of print in audio. I have high hopes it will be re-audiobooked sometime in 2011. And I’ll do my darnedest to make it happen.

SS-GB by Len Deighton

#2 – I’m always in favour of audiobooking a paperbook containing both a Donald E. Westlake and a Lawrence Block story. This one would probably have to wait until next November to be a viable audiobook.

Christmas At The Mysterious Bookshop edited by Otto Penzler

#3 – Best American Noir Century, edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler. What a crazy title! Though I should point out that in the fine print it reads “The Best American Noir of the Century” – This sounds like it would be a very good listen! With stories by Jim Thompson, James M. Cain and more than a dozen others it ought to have a good dispersionary impact. Reading a best of anthology can also give a quick taste of many authors – which leads to a lot more listening. Sadly, most of the stories actually in it are from the end of the 20th century and some of the one’s I recognize aren’t very noir.* – SEE THE COMMENTS

Best American Noir Century edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler

#4 – He Is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson – Assuming that such a collection is a good idea to begin with (we have a similar one for Jack Vance) – this is a natural to turn audiobook – it does everything that a regular themed anthology does, but it does it with a guy instead of an idea. Opinions?

He Is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson

#5 – The Sherlockian by Graham Moore – minimalist cover art rarely works for me. This one totally does. Skimming the back of the book, it sounded rather awesome too!

The Sherlockian by Graham Moore

#6 – Subtitled “A Medieval Noir” this novel, Jeri Westerson’s Veil Of Lies, might be a more dank and dangerous answer to the cozy Brother Cadfael books. Plus I dig the dude with the dagger.

Veil Of Lies: A Medieval Noir by Jeri Westerson

#7 – And if the first book in the series is audiobook-worthy, why not the second too? Maybe we ought to see how the first goes?

Serpent In The Thorns: A Medieval Noir by Jeri Westerson

#8 – Doing the public domain shuffle this book plucks several of my interests! What Alice Knew: A Most Curious Tale Of Henry James And Jack The Ripper by Paula Marantz Cohen – And check out that gorgeous cover!

What Alice Knew - A Most Curious Tale Of Henry James And Jack The Ripper by Paula Marantz Cohen

#9 – Now this one takes the PD mash-up meme just one step too far for me. Adding zombies to The War Of The Worlds? Really? Martians and zombies? The only reason H.G. Wells isn’t turning over in his grave is because he wouldn’t go zombie – ever! I do like the idea of more guts and blood though.

The War Of The Worlds Plus Blood Guts And Zombies by Eric S. Brown

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #072 – READALONG: Assam And Darjeeling by T.M. Camp

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #072 – Jesse and Scott talk with Julie Davis, of the Forgotten Classics podcast about Assam And Darjeeling by T.M. Camp |READ OUR REVIEW|.

Talked about on today’s show:
Assam & Darjeeling by T.M. Camp, Podiobooks.com, iTunes, serialized fiction, entertaining copyright notices, where do you do your podcast listening?, I’ve got my hands full of car, the volume on Assam And Darjeeling is way too low!, remastering Assam And Darjeeling for audiobook, listening to podcasts at double speed (only on iTouch and iPhone), the premise of Assam And Darjeeling, Hades, the underworld, Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle |READ OUR REVIEW|, Escape From Hell by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle , The Divine Comedy: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri, Virgil’s The Aeneid, Ovid, the Brothers Grimm, witches, Greek Mythology, Edgar, no one can be as cruel as a kid, Joss Whedon, in the hands of a skillful author, Matters Of Mortology by T.M. Camp, Kij Johnson‘s The Fox Woman, the Black Gate blog, foxes in mythology, Aesop’s Fable The Fox And The Grapes, Cernunnos, Herne the Hunter, making the switch from comedy to horror and horror to comedy, the Shaggy Man (in the Oz series), Tom Bombadil, he has psychic powers too?, page 18, masterly dialogue put into the mouths of young children, the PDF version of Assam And Darjeeling, What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson, life after death, Inception, Edgar Alan Poe should go into the underworld to get his wife Virginia, The Memory Palace episode about Edgar Allan Poe’s death (Episode 20 strong>This Ungainly Fowl), This American Life is really bleak, WNYC’s Radiolab isn’t, general fiction is generally bleak, A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O’Connor, Science Fiction vs. general fiction, Social Science Fiction, Science Fiction has a second layer, it’s not all style, The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin, Staggerford by Jon Hassler, there are ways to tell powerful stories, A Man In Full by Tom Wolfe, Bangsian Fantasy, Fantasy, re-reading The Lord Of The Rings, the more I think about it the more I think I don’t like Fantasy, SFSite.com, derivative Fantasy, romance novels, Jane Austen, John Thorne, The Long Walk by Stephen King (Richard Bachman), The Stand, It, Salem’s Lot, The Shining, Under The Dome, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, long vs. short, The Cell by Stephen King, 28 Days Later, Desperation by Stephen King, The Rapture, if you were a character in this book who would you be?, the rule that makes any book better: talk about food, Lawrence Block, the economy of the afterworld, lampshading, I’m done with sequels, Mike Resnick’s Starship series, Jim Butcher’s Dresden series, The Fall Of Hyperion by Dan Simmons, Make Room, Make Room by Harry Harrison, Soylent Green, Adventures by Mike Resnick, mammoths vs. mastodons, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, The Star Beast by Robert A. Heinlein, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #071 – TALK TO: George Zarr

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #071 – Jesse and Scott talk with audio dramatist George Zarr!

Talked about on today’s show:
George Zarr of Seeing Ear Theatre fame, SciFi.com (aka Syfy.com), Brian Smith, John Colluci, RealAudio, NPR, Satellite Radio, “doing your laundry by flushing it down a toilet”, seeing the power of a budget, what audio drama should be and how you should do it, Zippr, the most common error people make on their scripts, adapt first, the baby analogy, how Seeing Ear Theatre worked, Andrew Joffe, Tony Daniel, writing and casting, “I’ll do the Canadian accent eh?”, experimental, Too Late An Experiment In Sound, National Audio Theatre Festivals, Meet The Neighbor, silent pictures for radio, teaching audio drama Columbia College Chicago, a textbook for audio drama, the three building blocks for audio drama (voice, sound effects and music), the Swedish rule, Babylon Wisconsin, adapting short stories to audio drama, tips for writing with kids, the 10,000 bad drawings inside me, writing original stories vs. adapting existing ones (for audio drama), narration in audio drama, A Good Knight’s Work adapted from the story by Robert Bloch, Sherman Oaks, California, Tony Danza, Simon Jones, “Brooklyn vs. Eaton”, John Ritter, Henry Winkler, Sirius Satellite Radio, Three’s Company, Snow Glass Apples by Neil Gaiman, Murder Mysteries by Neil Gaiman, Two Plays For Voices |READ OUR REVIEW|, Dove Audio, Bebe Neuwirth, Brian Dennehy, The Omen IV, Voices In The Wind, Every Now And Then, School Spirit, recording live, David Farquhar, Jake Sampson: Monster Hunter, Tales Of The Gold Monkey, Indiana Jones and The Mummy, Splendid Your Honor, Vlad Tepes: Dracula by Tamora Pierce, The Adventures Of Sexton Blake |READ OUR REVIEW|, Sarah Montague, WNYC, Marcie Mancotti, Barbara Rosenblat, Small Town by Lawrence Block, The Moon Moth adapted from the story by Jack Vance, X-Minus One Project, LibriVox.org, copyright and public domain, adapting Science Fiction, Time In Advance by William Tenn, Child’s Play, Kindred, adapting longer materials (novels), making a sequel to a classic audio drama, Sorry Wrong Number, Jumping Niagara Falls, murder never smelled so good, Fred Greenhalgh and field recorded audio drama, zombies work well as audio drama, Tales From The Crypt |READ OUR REVIEW|, J. Michael Straczynski’s City Of Dreams, the campaign to get CBC to release The Adventures Of Apocalypse Al, EC Comics, By The Fright Of The Silvery Moon, Don Knotts, Don Knotts as a guest on Scooby Doo, Fare Tonight Followed By Increasing Clottiness, Keith David, Aasif Mandvi, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, vampires, van Helsing, Campbell Scott, Carrion Death, This Trick’ll Kill You (the never released on CD episode of Tales From The Crypt), H.G. Well’s The Time Machine adapted by Charles Potter, Humphrey Bogart, Lux Radio Theatre, The Death Of Captain Future based on the story by Allen Steele, Marina Sirtis.

Posted by Jesse Willis