lost world – Page 2

LibriVox: The History Of Rasselas, Prince Of Abissinia by Samuel Johnson

SFFaudio Online Audio

There are a lot of new audiobooks showing up on LibriVox every day of the week. This means I get to pick and choose amongst a vast roster of titles that I could possibly tell you about. One that I was not planning to post about was a 1759 Fantasy novel by Samuel Johnson. I had nothing against Johnson. I just hadn’t read any of his books. Sure I knew he had written a dictionary, but it wasn’t one of the ones that I had read. The problem really was I just didn’t know enough about Johnson to be interested in his novel. Frankly, the first thing that came to mind when I thought of Dr. Samuel Johnson was how great a character he was in the “Ink and Incapability“ episode of Blackadder. That one never gets old.

But, then today I was listening to my favourite Australian podcast, ABC Radio National’s The Philosopher’s Zone, and they mentioned this book. I suspect this wasn’t fated, it being the 300th anniversary of Johnson’s birth people around the world are thinking about old Johnson – but even if it was fate – either if I changed my mind or my mind was changed – after listening to that show I’m telling you about this novel now. The show |MP3| was actually on Johnson’s stoic christian philosophy – or rather his reaction to the ancient stoics. Host Alan Saunders, and guest, John Wiltshire, talked about a poem and then this book and it’s position in Johnson’s philosophy. It was fascinating! Now to listen…

The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia
By Samuel Johnson; Read by Martin Geeson
17 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 5 Hours 31 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 25, 2009
In this enchanting fable (subtitled The Choice of Life), Rasselas and his retinue burrow their way out of the totalitarian paradise of the Happy Valley in search of that triad of eighteenth-century aspiration – life, liberty and happiness. According to that quirky authority, James Boswell, Johnson penned his only work of prose fiction in a handful of days to cover the cost of his mother’s funeral. The stylistic elegance of the book and its wide-ranging philosophical concerns give no hint of haste or superficiality. Among other still burning issues Johnson’s characters pursue questions of education, colonialism, the nature of the soul and even climate alteration. Johnson’s profoundest concern, however, is with the alternating attractions of solitude and social participation, seen not only as the ultimate life-choice but as the arena in which are played out the deepest fears of the individual: “Of the uncertainties of our present state, the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain continuance of Reason.”

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/rasselas-prince-of-abyssinia-by-samuel-johnson.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

In addition to the reader, Martin Geeson, this audiobook was produced by:

Dedicated Proof-Listener: Stav Nisser
Meta-Coordinator/Cataloging: Leni

[Thanks to all three LibriVoxateers]

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard

SFFaudio Online Audio

Listening For The League's Gentlemen At LibriVox This is the first in a series of posts in which I will examine LibriVox’s back catalogue looking for the characters and references that Alan Moore has put into his comic The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen. This, the first post, features Allan Quatermain, adventurer and man of action, in his first novel. This is prior to his descent into a despicable opium addiction. It’s a single voiced narration, and I’ve made some cool cover art for it too.

Read now Haggard’s introduction from the 1898 edition:

“The author ventures to take this opportunity to thank his readers for the kind reception they have accorded to the successive editions of this tale during the last twelve years. He hopes that in its present form it will fall into the hands of an even wider public, and that in years to come it may continue to afford amusement to those who are still young enough at heart to love a story of treasure, war, and wild adventure.”

King Solomon’s Mines
By H. Rider Haggard; Read by John Nicholson
20 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 9 Hours 50 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: 2006
King Solomon’s Mines, first published in 1885, was a best-selling novel by the Victorian adventure writer H. Rider Haggard. It relates a journey into the heart of Africa by a group of adventurers led by Allan Quatermain in search of the legendary wealth said to be concealed in the mines of the novel’s title. It is significant as the first fictional adventure novel set in Africa, and is considered the genesis of the Lost World literary genre. – Haggard wrote over 50 books, among which were 14 novels starring Allan Quatermain.

Podcast feed:
http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/king-solomons-mines-by-haggard.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Here’s the cool map from the back of the Dell Books “mapback” edition:

King Solomon's Mines - Dell Mapback map

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox presents A Strange Manuscript Found In A Copper Cylinder by James De Mille

SFFaudio Online Audio

Back in February 2007 Robert A. Graff, of Rochester, NY, took up the first SFFaudio Challenge. He read 5 chapters of a novel and then — nothing — but, that isn’t quite the end of this story. Some half-dozen or so LibriVoxiteers have lent their voices, and they’ve now finished off A Strange Manuscript Found In A Copper Cylinder by James De Mille!

The novel was just catalogued yesterday – that makes it a mere 120 years since it was originally serialized in Harper’s Weekly in 1888. De Mille, the son of a United Empire Loyalist (for you American’s that’s what Benjamin Franklin called “Royalists”), was variously a professor of classics, rhetoric and history. He also holds the distinction of being Canada’s first Science Fiction author.

Strange Manuscript is considered a Swiftian satire, the setting is that of an Antarctic “lost world” inhabited by pre-historic creatures and an insidious death cult. It has been compared variously to Edgar Allan Poe’s Narrative of Gordon Pym, H. Rider Haggard’s She, King Solomon’s Mines or even to Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World. The title and locale were likely inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s Ms. Found in a Bottle.

The main narrative follows the adventures of Adam More (keep that last name in mind), a British sailor shipwrecked on the homeward voyage from Tasmania. After More passes through a subterranean tunnel of volcanic origin, he finds himself in a lost world of prehistoric animals, plants and people, all sustained by a natural volcanic heat despite the long Antarctic night (which may remind you of Marvel comic’s Ka-Zar and his “Savage Land”). The secondary plot about the persons who found the manuscript written by More, forms a frame for the main narrative. In his strange volcanic world, More finds a highly developed human society comparable to Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, Erewhon by Samuel Butler and Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The copper cylinder’s manuscript describes a society that has reversed the values of Victorian life: wealth is scorned and poverty is revered, death and darkness are preferred to life and light. Rather than accumulating wealth, the natives seek to divest themselves of it as quickly as possible.

A Strange Manuscript Found In A Copper Cylinder
By James De Mille; Read by various
31 zipped MP3s or Podcast – 9 Hours 16 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 2008
Adam More, a British sailor is shipwrecked in Antarctica. There he stumbles upon a tropical lost world of prehistoric animals, plants, and a cult of death-worshipping primitives. He also finds a highly developed human society which has inverted the values of Victorian society. Wealth is scorned and poverty revered; death and darkness are preferable to life and light. Rather than accumulating wealth, the natives seek to divest themselves of it as quickly as possible. At the beginning of each year, the government imposes wealth (the burden of “reverse taxation”) upon its unfortunate subjects as a form of punishment. A secondary plot about the four yachtsmen who find the manuscript forms a frame for the central narrative.

Get this audiobook via the podcast feed:

HERE

Posted by Jesse Willis

Maria Lectrix Podcast: The Moon Pool by A. Merritt

SFFaudio Online Audio

Maureen O’Brien, of the Maria Lectrix podcast, may be the hardest working narrator in podcasting, she has started recording yet another novel, The Moon Pool by Abraham Merritt. Maureen sez of it:

“Fantasy and horror in the South Seas! This 1919 classic influenced many writers and filmmakers, including the creators of the TV show Lost and the roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons. Abraham Merritt was a journalist, editor, and pulp writer. He died in 1943. His novels Burn, Witch, Burn! and Seven Footprints to Satan have been adapted into movies.”

This was A. Merritt’s first novel and it was written in two parts. The first was called “The Moon Pool” it appeared June 22, 1919 in the early pulp called All-Story Weekly. Merritt followed up the successful tale with a longer sequel, “The Conquest of the Moon Pool,” which appeared in six installments starting February 15, 1919. Later they were combined to form the novel below…

The Moon Pool
By A. Merritt; Read by Maureen O’Brien
35 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Maria Lectrix
Podcast: January 2008 –
Dr. Walter T. Goodwin is sailing on the Southern Queen back to New York, after a botanical expedition to the d’Entrecasteaux Islands when he meets his old friend, Dr. David Throckmartin. Throckmartin looking haunted, relates a tale of disaster and death during an expedition on the Caroline Islands in the western Pacific Ocean. On the island of Ponape they found a strange stone door which…

You can download the MP3 files directly from the Internet Archive page for it or subscribe to the fantasy podcast feed:

http://marialectrix.wordpress.com/category/fiction/fantasy/feed/

Posted by Jesse Willis