LibriVox – Page 40

Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson

SFFaudio Online Audio

William Coon, who appeared on SFFaudio Podcast #063, has a terrific sounding UNABRIDGED recording of Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson over on LibriVox. Here’s what one of the proofers said about Bill’s narration:

“[Markheim] is GREAT! You’ve got just the right balance of shrewdness and madness and you really bring it off well. I listened to it over and over, catching new things every time. Thanks for several wonderful days of listening!”

Myself I’ve also been enjoying this narration as well as an abridged reading I found over on RadioArchive.cc (Markheim was also recorded for the first episode of a four part BBC Radio 7 Drama series entitled Short History of Gothic).

In a strange way Markheim is a kind of hardboiled/noir version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Like Scrooge, Markheim is a sinner who at Christmas, finds himself confronted by the consequences of his sin. But whereas 19th century miserliness is Scrooge’s big problem, Markheim’s issue is of a more alarming type. His petty crimes have slowly accelerated from his youth, until now, when he finds himself, in this tale, a bloody-handed murderer. But like A Christmas Carol, both characters (Scrooge and Markheim) find their hinge points only when confronted by a visit from the supernatural.

Markheim as illustrated by Michael Lark

Illustration by Michael Lark, found in The Essential Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde – The Definitive Annotated Edition.

Markheim
By Robert Louis Stevenson; Read by William Coon
1 |MP3| – Approx. 44 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: 2006
|ETEXT|

A Short History Of Gothic – Markheim
By Robert Louis Stevenson; Read by Hugh Bonneville
1 Broadcast – Approx. 30 Minutes [ABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 7
Broadcast: December 12, 2009
Provider: RadioArchive.cc
“Hugh Bonneville reads Robert Louis Stevenson’s macabre tale charting one man’s rapid fall from grace.”

The Weird Circle Weird Circle – Markheim
Based on the short story by Robert Louis Stevenson; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 25 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: MBS, NBC, ABC
Broadcast: May 20, 1945
Provider: Archive.org
This is a radical adaptation, set in a contemporary (to 1945) setting, and providing much of the presumed back-story (stuff that isn’t actually in the text of Stevenson’s original tale).

Here are a couple more Markheim illustrations [this time by Lynd Ward – found in The Haunted Omnibus (1937)]

Robert Louis Stevenson's Markheim as illustrated by Lynd Ward - from The Haunted Omnibus (1937)

[also via Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Let’em Breathe Space by Lester del Rey

SFFaudio Online Audio

Who’s up for a little locked spaceship murder mystery? It’s a 1953 novella by Lester del Rey…

Let’em Breathe Space
By Lester del Rey; Read by Gregg Margarite
2 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 1 Hour 47 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 7, 2010
The old space freighter Wahoo is all Dr. Pietro can afford for his expedition to the rings of Saturn. Although built for a crew of 6 the good doctor crams 19 people into the Wahoo, and after 5 months they are really getting on each other’s nerves. Then someone starts killing people and poisoning the air giving plants in the hydroponics bay. Can our hero Paul Tremaine find the killer before he suffocates? Perhaps you should hold your breath. First published in the July 1953 edition of Space Science Fiction magazine.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/4745

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks also to Betty M.]

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: White Fang by Jack London

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVox I’m not much for re-reading books. I will do it, but I usually prefer a new book to even a fondly remembered one. But I do make exceptions, now and again. One book, which I re-read on what is fast becoming a seasonal basis is Jack London’s The Call Of The Wild. I can’t say I get more and more out of it every time I read it, but I do find that it’s many charms are highly resilient to repeated reading, that its lessons are true, in a way only fiction can deliver, and that it makes for a terrific source of entertainment when read aloud. Go on, read this passage aloud:

Buck staggered over against the sled, exhausted, sobbing for breath, helpless. This was Spitz’s opportunity. He sprang upon Buck, and twice his teeth sank into his unresisting foe and ripped and tore the flesh to the bone. Then François’s lash descended, and Buck had the satisfaction of watching Spitz receive the worst whipping as yet administered to any of the teams.

“One devil, dat Spitz,” remarked Perrault. “Some dam day heem keel dat Buck.”

“Dat Buck two devils,” was François’s rejoinder. “All de tam I watch dat Buck I know for sure. Lissen: some dam fine day heem get mad lak hell an’ den heem chew dat Spitz all up an’ spit heem out on de snow. Sure. I know.”

From then on it was war between them.

Another part of my love for The Call Of The Wild probably comes from my personal connection to the landscape and the romanticism of it all – and frankly that’s completely crazy! I’ve never mushed a dogsled, never faced a starving pack of rabid huskies and have never even been to the Yukon Territory! But, in my defense, I’ve known dog-sledders, lived in a remote northern British Columbia community, and made personal contact with hungry black-bears (on more than one occasion). Heck, I even had partial ownership of two Siberian Huskies for a while. Jack London is a smashing writer and I’m still rather embarrassed to admit there’s one book of his that I’m pretty sure I haven’t read (at least since I was a kid). And that’s this one, White Fang, the spiritual sequel, the opposite number, the bloody companion book to my beloved The Call Of The Wild!

So, now I have a question. Who will take up this adventure with me, listening or reading, for perhaps the first time, to Jack London’s immortal novel White Fang? Leave a comment, let me know if you’d like to participate in an upcoming SFFaudio Podcast Readalong for White Fang.

White Fang
By Jack London; Read by Mark F. Smith
25 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 7 Hours 44 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 03, 2010
When White Fang is birthed in a cave to a wolf sire and a wolf/dog halfbreed dam, he is heir to two traditions. At first he is content to explore and learn laws of the Wild. But then his mother is caught and held by old memories of a past relationship with Man, and White Fang follows her into service with the Indians. Life among sled dogs is hardly less cruel and dangerous than living in the Wild, but brutality notches upward when his drunken master sells him to a nasty, twisted hanger-on at a riverside town of white men. He is stripped of everything soft and gentle when forced to fight to the death for a crowd of bettors. Taming this savage spirit and reclaiming the nobility within looks impossible. Fortunately, and heart-warmingly, a man arrives in White Fang’s life to try. “White Fang” is often called the mirror image of Jack London’s acclaimed “The Call of the Wild” in which a dog follows the reverse arc from tame to free.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/4677

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks also to James Christopher and J.M. Smallheer ]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Ian Fleming’s favourite novels (as a kid)

SFFaudio Online Audio

I’ve just started listening to Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond, a biography by Andrew Lycett, (available from Blackstone Audio). Here’s an interesting bit from early on:

“On Sunday evenings all the boys would gather in the hall of Durnford‘s [preparatory school] main building, a shabby 18th century manor house. Then, while her feet were tickled by some unfortunate child, Nell [the headmaster’s wife] would read them an adventure story. The general favourites were The Prisoner Of Zenda, Moonfleet and, towards the end of Ian’s time, Bulldog Drummond. Lawrence Irving, a pupil shortly before the Flemings, found that he ‘Never read those books again without hearing Nell’s tone and inflection.’ The same went for Ian, though he preferred the populist works of Sax Rohmer who opened up a more fantastic world with his yellow devil villain Doctor Fu Manchu.”

See that? There’s a nice direct connection between Dr. Fu Manchu and Doctor No. And, as I’m discovering by listening to Andy Minter’s reading of The Prisoner Of Zenda, you get a nice resonance between James Bond, playboy adventurer, and Rudolf Rassendyll, English gentleman.

In fact, as I’m writing this I’m very much enjoying The Prisoner Of Zenda, and am considering delving more deeply into the sub-genre it helped create: Ruritanian romance (a story set in a fictional country)

The Prisoner Of Zenda
By Anthony Hope; Read by Andy Minter
1 |M4B|, 22 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 5 Hours 42 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: December 16, 2006
The Prisoner of Zenda tells the story of Rudolf Rassendyll, an English gentleman on holiday in Ruritania, a country not a thousand miles from Bavaria. There, by reason of his resemblance to the King of Ruritania he becomes involved in saving the King’s Life and his Throne from the King’s dastardly brother and his allies. Woods, moated castles, pomp, swordplay, gallantry, villainy and a beautiful princess. What story could ask for more?

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/the-prisoner-of-zenda-by-anthony-hope.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Moonfleet
By J. Meade Falkner; Read by various readers
24 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 7 Hours 58 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 17, 2008
The novel is set in a fishing village in Dorset during the mid 18th century. The story concerns a 15 year old orphan boy, John Trenchard, who becomes friends with an older man who turns out to be the leader of a gang of smugglers. One night John chances on the smugglers’ store in the crypt beneath the church. He explores but hides behind a coffin when he hears voices. He finds a locket which contains a parchment, in the coffin belonging to Colonel Mohune. Unfortunately after the visitors leave, he finds himself trapped inside, and is only rescued two days later when two of the smugglers, Ratsey, the sexton and Elzevir Block, the innkeeper of the Why Not?, the local pub, investigate his disappearance. His aunt insists he leaves her house and Elzevir Block takes him in to live at the pub.

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/moonfleet-by-j-meade-falkner.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Bulldog Drummond by Herman Cyril McNeile (1920), isn’t yet available as an audioboook on LibriVox, but it is available (unabridged) from Naxos Audiobooks |HERE|.

The Insidious Doctor Fu Manchu (aka The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu) by Sax Rohmer (1913), is forthcoming on LibriVox, but is already commercially available through Tantor Media |HERE|.

Posted by Jesse Willis

LIBRIVOX: The Planet Strappers by Raymond Z. Gallun

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVox In his 1977 essay introduction to The Best Of Raymond Z. Gallun, entitled Raymond Z. Gallun, The Quiet Revolutionary, John J. Pierce wrote:

“[Gallun] never bothered with self-promotion. He never even tried very hard to get people to pronounce his name right (it rhymes with ‘balloon’ being an old dutch name, so don’t say ‘gallon’). He let his science fiction speak for itself.”

After trying to pronounce it myself I’m still not sure if the narrator of The Planet Strappers (by Raymond Z. Gallun), Richard Kilmer, has it right. It sounds like he pronounces Gallun, “gah-lun” and not “gah-luhn.” Or should it be “gal-uhn” or maybe “guhl-oon”? I can see why Gallun never bothered trying to clear this up. In any case, Kilmer’s reading of this 1961 novel is clean, uninflected and voluminous in volume – a solid straight reading. I’ll have to get back to you on whether this novel speaks to me.

The Planet Strappers
By Raymond Z. Gallun; Read by Richard Kilmer
16 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 7 Hours 25 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 21, 2010
The Planet Strappers started out as The Bunch, a group of student-astronauts in the back room of a store in Jarviston, Minnesota. They wanted off Earth, and they begged, borrowed and built what they needed to make it. They got what they wanted–a start on the road to the stars–but no one brought up on Earth could have imagined what was waiting for them Out There!

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/3747

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks also to Barry Eads and Jeanie]

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #075 – TALK TO: Hugh McGuire

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #075 – Jesse and Scott talk to Hugh McGuire, the founder of LibriVox.org.

Talked about on today’s show:
LibriVox’s Wikipedia entry, Ear Ideas, Book Oven, Hugh’s top secret audiobook project [coming soon], the free software movement, Richard M. Stallman, Lawrence Lessig, how are things going on the web, viruses and spam, WordPress, Internet Archive, volunteer staffing, the 2010 $20,000 fundraiser, the Wayback Machine, Project Gutenberg, TV Archive, the Library Of Congress Twitter archives, better Twitter than Facebook, “if the aliens ever arrive and look at the YouTube comments we’re screwed”, innovation comes from a wealth of public commons, a looser copyright system will result in more innovation to the benefit of society, The Iliad by Homer (translated by Samuel Butler), the Recorded Books version of The Iliad, solo vs. collaborative recordings, The Most Powerful Idea In The World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention by William Rosen, patents, rewarding innovation with temporary monopolies, the captains of capitalism, innovators should be given prizes vs. a permanent monopoly, extracting rent, rent seeking behavior, legislation to extend copyrights and patents is damaging, the orphan works problem, the chilling effect of a murky copyright regime, Bill C-32 (Canada’s crappy copyright legislation), Canadian libraries don’t promote LibriVox, the Dewey Decimal system, search LibriVox by genre, “I love the 714 section of the library”, redesigning LibriVox (hopefully by the end of 2010), non-English audiobooks on LibriVox, English is just too kick-ass, volunteerism is embraced by Americans, Canadians are more conservative (than Americans), short non-fiction on LibriVox, the Short Non-Fiction Collection Volume 1 on LibriVox, The Somnambulists by Jack London, ratings on LibriVox, solos vs. collaborative readings, plays on LibriVox, the dramatized LibriVox Othello, LibriVox’s King Lear, public domain materials, putting LibriVox audiobooks into the commercial marketplace (Amazon.com and eBay), creative commons vs. public domain, professional narrators getting their start on LibriVox, Mark Douglas Nelson, Gilgamesh, The King by Robert Silverberg, people write books for reasons other than money, five free audiobook editions of Anne Of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, you don’t want me asking you for permission!, a monopoly is the ability to sue your way to profits, 39 Steps by John Buchan (read by Adrian Praetzellis), Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, Aural Noir, literary fiction then crime and mystery and THEN Science Fiction, going straight to the authors, “its piddly for the publisher but it’s NOT piddly for the author”, the bureaucracy of corporations, “Any authors interested getting their books turned into audiobooks…”

Posted by Jesse Willis