LibriVox – Page 21

LibriVox: Polaris by H.P. Lovecraft

SFFaudio Online Audio

Polaris by H.P. Lovecraft

Polaris offers many of the features you’ll find in other H.P. Lovecraft short stories. There’s the repeated language – something that turns up at the beginning of the story will echo at the end, like in The Statement Of Randolph Carter. There’s the atavism, and atavistic guilt you see in stories like The Rats In The Walls. There’s the background of racism, as in The Temple or Cool Air. But what sets this story apart is Lovecraft’s love of astronomy. Many stellar bodies get distinctive shout outs in Polaris. And the fact that the main character spends all his free time staring out at the night sky is reflective, or perhaps refractive, of Lovecraft’s own desire to become an astronomer.

And also like many of his other stories, Polaris had its origins in a dream. Here’s a snippet from the Wikipedia entry for Polaris, quoting a Lovecraft letter:

“Several nights ago I had a strange dream of a strange city–a city of many palaces and gilded domes, lying in a hollow betwixt ranges of grey, horrible hills…. I was, as I said, aware of this city visually. I was in it and around it. But certainly I had no corporeal existence.”

Polaris
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by jpontoli
1 |MP3| – Approx. 10 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 19, 2008
First published in The Philosopher, December 1920.

Polaris
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by Clay Beauchamp
1 |MP3| – Approx. 10.5 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 6, 2012
First published in The Philosopher, December 1920.

And here’s a |PDF| made from the publication in Weird Tales.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Ray Bradbury’s The Flying Machine and The Fruit At The Bottom Of The Bowl

SFFaudio Online Audio

I’m not sure exactly how I came across this broadcast recording. But I’m very glad I did. It’s as part of a collection called The Golden Apples Of The Sun – a five part half hour of radio drama series adapting Ray Bradbury stories. This episode, episode 2, includes a pair of stories.

The first, The Flying Machine, is a short “fantasy” set in a mythical China. The story was familiar somehow so I looked it up and realized it was in an issue of Playboy that I have. I have appended the beautiful accompanying illustration (by Franz Altschuler).

In the same broadcast was an iconic tale of an obsessive compulsive murderer. Called, The Fruit At The Bottom Of The Bowl, it was first published as Touch And Go! in a mag called Detective Book (November 1948). Unfortunately, I don’t have a beautiful scan of the first publication of that. Instead, I have a terrible scan (see below).

But, my new friend John Feaster, who I found through LibriVox, mentioned an adaptation of it in the EC Comics comic called Crime SuspenStories (#17). And that I do have a nice picture of.

The Golden Apples Of The Sun – The Flying Machine
Adapted from the story by Ray Bradbury; Adapted by Lawrence Gilbert; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 30 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 5
Broadcast: January 30, 1991
Source: Archive.org

Producer Peter Hutchings.

Cast:
Paul Maxwell
Don Fellows
Ed Bishop
Paul Downing

The Flying Machine from Playboy August, 1954 - illustration by Franz Altschuler

Touc And Go! by Ray Bradbury - from Detective Book, November 1948

Touch And Go! adapted from the story by Ray Bradbury - from Crime SuspenStories #17

And The Fruit At The Bottom Of The Bowl was adapted to TV for The Ray Bradbury Theater. And it stars Michael Ironside and Robert Vaughn!

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Man Who Found Out by Algernon Blackwood

SFFaudio Online Audio

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

Here’s a |PDF| of the story.

Andrew Knowlton and Marie Jones starred in the Radio Project X adaptation of The Man Who Found Out:

Andrew Knowlton and Marie Jones in The Man Who Found Out (Radio Project X)

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Naudsonce by H. Beam Piper

SFFaudio Online Audio

Here’s part of Phil Chenevert’s introduction to his latest LibriVox narration, a novelette by H.Beam Piper called Naudsonce:

The joint Space Navy-Colonial Office expedition was looking for new planets suitable for colonization; they had been out, now, for four years, which was close to maximum for an exploring expedition. They had entered eleven systems, and made landings on eight planets. Three had been reasonably close to Terra-type but were all disqualified by terrible animals or warlike inhabitants. Now, finally here was an ideal world; their last chance before returning in disgrace. Now the only thing was to get an agreement from the local king or whatever to the colonization. Easy, right? Well first, you’ve got to talk to them …… and there the trouble starts.

Naudsonce by H. Beam Piper - illustrated by Leo Morey

Naudsonce
By H. Beam Piper; Read by Phil Chenevert
5 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 1 Hour 56 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 18, 2012
|ETEXT|
First published in Analog, January 1962.

Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3| Part 3 |MP3| Part 4 |MP3| Part 5 |MP3|

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/7235

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Illustrations by Leo Morey:
Naudsonce by H. Beam Piper - illustrated by Leo Morey

[Thanks also to DaveC]

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Heathen by Jack London

SFFaudio Online Audio

Here’s a terrifically interesting story of romantic adventure, and love, between two very heterosexual men.

Did I mention they are heterosexual?

Well they are.

They have wives!

That’s all there is to it.

The Heathen interweaves Jack London’s racist ideas with his experiences as a sailor to make a truly he-manish tale of two macho sailors who form an unbreakable seventeen-year bond after being shipwrecked in the South Pacific. This is manly beefcake Jack London from 1910, working the blood and breed obsessed vein of fiction and friendship that Robert E. Howard did so masterfully in stories like Queen Of The Black Coast and Hills Of The Dead.

Unfortunately, the version that my good friend Gregg Margarite read for LibriVox, a couple years back, was abridged (or perhaps sanitized) – the PDF version below includes a couple of extra lines here, there, and at the end. Important lines. It also includes more swearing.

Damn those abridgers and sanitizers.

Gregg is dead.

I’m confident he’d have wanted to have read the unsanitized and unabridged original had it been available.

The Heathen by Jack London

The Heathen by Jack London - illustration by Anton Fischer

The Heathen
By Jack London; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 46 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: December 3, 2009
First published in Everybody’s Magazine, August 1910.

Here’s a beautiful |PDF| made from a scan of the magazine.

Here are the rest of the terrific illustrations by Anton Fischer:

The Heathen by Jack London - illustrated by Anton Fischer

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #186 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Lady, Or The Tiger? by Frank R. Stockton

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #186 – An unabridged reading of The Lady, Or The Tiger? by Frank R. Stockton (17 minutes), read by David Federman – followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Tamahome, and Julie Hoverson (of 19 Nocturne Boulevard).

Talked about on today’s show:
Monty Hall, Let’s Make A Deal, a can of sardines, a donkey and a block of hay, the Dungeons & Dragons meaning of “Monty Hall”, use in schools, weighting the scales, what is the character of women?, equally loving and equally jealous, love vs. jealousy, how barbaric are women?, where are the female criminals, a fully barbaric king, trial by ordeal, a box with a viper, a box with a knife, the swift choice, a curious justice system, jaywalking into the people’s court, like father like daughter, women were so emotional, unmodernizable sexism, guilt, there are tigers behind both doors, The Price Is Right, imaginary morality in an imaginary land, fairness conflated with arbitrariness, “when he and himself agreed upon anything”, Julie’s problem with philosophy, game theory, a thought experiment, Ray Bradbury style stories convey Bradburian feelings vs. Rorschachian style stories which elicit only the reader’s feelings, The Discourager Of Hesitancy (a sequel to The Lady, Or The Tiger?), smile vs. frown, Batman, Two-Face’s decisions are not actually coin tosses, The Man in The High Castle by Philip K. Dick, I Ching, “the tiger does not eat the straw because the duck has flown away”, phone psychics should agree with their customers, “the cards are telling me…”, psychics as impartial observers, a Ponzi scheme, selection bias, is it a double bluff?, does the father know that the daughter knows?, what is the punishment for adultery?, obsolete pop-culture, zoot suit riots (not just a joke, seriously), “six of one, half a dozen of the other”, “as snug as a bug in a rug”, we have to invent rug technology, nitpicking, Bugs Bunny dialogue, Max Headroom (is still ahead of it’s time), “blipvert”, They Live, shantytowns in the Regan era, Shock Treatment, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

DC Comics - Unexpected, Issue 106, Page 11

The Lady Or The Tiger (variation for a story in Amazing) preliminary art by Ed Emshweiller

Posted by Jesse Willis