Here’s a haunted hotel story, that while being rather melancholy is also surprisingly uplifting.
The Occupant Of The Room
By Algernon Blackwood; Read by Mooseboy Alfonzo
1 |MP3| – Approx. 23 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 15, 2008
First published in Nash’s Magazine, December 1909.
Here’s a |PDF|.
[Thanks to Freedom School Records!]
Posted by Jesse Willis
There are several readings of The Yellow Wallpaper on LibriVox, but the best one to my ears is Michelle Sullivan’s. I think that’s the one we’ll use on an upcoming SFFaudio Podcast.
The Yellow Wallpaper
By Charlotte Perkins Gilman; Read by Michelle Sullivan
1 |MP3| – Approx. 32 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 7, 2008
First published in The New England Magazine, January 1892.
The Yellow Wallpaper
By Charlotte Perkins Gilman; Read by Justine Young
1 |MP3| – Approx. 28 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 2, 2006
First published in The New England Magazine, January 1892.
The Yellow Wallpaper
By Charlotte Perkins Gilman; Read by Lola Rogers
1 |MP3| – Approx. 35 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibirVox.org
Published: February 13, 2007
First published in The New England Magazine, January 1892.
The Yellow Wallpaper
By Charlotte Perkins Gilman; Read by jaggO
1 |MP3| – Approx. 41 [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 25, 2007
First published in The New England Magazine, January 1892.
The Yellow Wallpaper
By Charlotte Perkins Gilman; Read by Kirsten Ferreri
1 |MP3| – Approx. 21 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 8, 2006
First published in The New England Magazine, January 1892.
Here’s a |PDF| made from the original publication.
And here’s one with the modernized title and with the author’s more familiar married name |PDF|.
Posted by Jesse Willis
I could be wrong but I bet The Boarded Window is the second most popular Ambrose Bierce short story assigned in American schools (with the first being An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge).
The Boarded Window is super short (less than 2,000 words), leaves out the usual controversial themes Bierce went for, and is a good ghost story too.
The Boarded Window
By Ambrose Bierce; Read by Joseph Langley
1 |MP3| – Approx. 13 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 28, 2009
First published in the San Francisco Examiner, July 14, 1889.
Here’s a “Special English” adaptation. Designed for ESL students this version is read at a slower pace, with a simplified vocabulary.
The Boarded Window
Adapted by Lawan Davis from the story by Ambrose Bierce; Read by Shep O’Neal
1 |MP3| – Approx. 16 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Voice Of America
Published: 2009
“A man in the deep woods deals with the death of his wife.”
Here’s a |PDF|.
And finally here’s an 1978 video adaptation for the International Instructional Television Cooperative:
Posted by Jesse Willis
It took me two attempts to get into this Fritz Leiber audiobook. Part of the issue was that the first person protagonist is female and the audiobook’s narrator is male. Phil Chenevert, the narrator, is a talented voice actor but he still sounded male. This bothered me all the way up to chapter four when I had my growning indignity balloon deflated by this choice paragraph:
I swung back to the play just at the moment Lady Mack soliloquizes, “Come to my woman’s breasts. And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers.” Although I knew it was just folded towel Martin was touching with his fingertips as he lifted them to the top half of his green bodice, I got carried away, he made it so real. I decided boys can play girls better than people think. Maybe they should do it a little more often, and girls play boys too.
Despite my loss of that criticism, I am still not fully satisfied with the story. Like The Big Time |READ OUR REVIEW| before it, No Great Magic is well written fluff – with not even the shape of a plot beginning until the very end.
It may just be that No Great Magic, and perhaps a good deal of other time travel related SF, are of a kind of “cozy” Science Fiction story that I just don’t fully embrace.
Still, the first person narration by the amnesiac heroine and Chenevert’s narrative skill make No Great Magic worth checking out – and perhaps your tastes and my tastes will differ.
Chenevert, incidentally, put it this way in a LibriVox forum post:
“I hope you have been involved in the theater somewhere in your past or present because this story smells heavily of greasepaint.”
No Great Magic
By Fritz Leiber; Read by Phil Chenevert
8 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 1 Hour 53 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 27, 2012
|ETEXT|
They were a traveling group of Shakespearean players; perfectly harmless, right? wrong. For one thing, why did they have spacemen costumes in their wardrobes,right next to caveman ones? Why was the girl in charge of backstage suffering from amnesia and agoraphobia? No Great Magic is needed to perform the plays they put on, but sometimes great science. No matter where, or when. First published in Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1963.
Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/6656
iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|
Here’s a |PDF| with the original illustrations from Galaxy.
Illustrations by Nodel:
[Thanks also to DaveC]
Posted by Jesse Willis
There are two readings of My Favorite Murder, by Ambrose Bierce, on LibriVox. Bill Mosley’s reading has a more appropriate accent, but Peter Yearsley’s is funnier, perhaps because of his English accent. The high minded language of the protagonist, combined with the frightening descriptions, makes Yearsley’s version more essentially hilarious.
If you’re familiar with Jack London’s Moon-Face, and liked that story, I think you’ll like this one too.
My Favorite Murder
By Ambrose Bierce; Read by Bill Mosley
1 |MP3| – Approx. 25 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 3, 2010
First published in the San Francisco Examiner, September 16, 1888.
The Parenticide Club – My Favorite Murder
By Ambrose Bierce; Read by Peter Yearsley
1 |MP3| – Approx. 49 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: December 29, 2005
And here’s a printable |PDF|.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Have you read the Yellow Sign? Have you read the Yellow Sign? Have you read the Yellow Sign?
Here is snippet from Mary Gnaedinger’s editorial description of Robert W. Chambers’ The Yellow Sign, a wonderfully creepy novelette published in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, September 1943:
The Yellow Sign
By Robert W. Chambers; Read by CrowGirl
1 |MP3| – Approx. 39 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 30, 2011
The King In Yellow is a monstrous and suppressed book whose perusal brings, fright, madness, and spectral tragedy. Have you seen the Yellow Sign? First published in 1895.
And here’s a |PDF| version.
Posted by Jesse Willis