magic – Page 27

Review of Queen Of The Black Coast adapted from the story by Robert E. Howard

SFFaudio Review

Queen Of The Black Coast
Based on the story by Robert E Howard; Performed by a full cast
7 MP3s – Approx. 3 Hours 30 Mintues [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: Broken Sea’s Hyborean Sagas
Podcast: June 2008 to December 2008
Themes: / Fantasy / Piracy / Magic / Noir /

Okay so the cover art for this one isn’t official, not in the slightest. But, since I’m making it for my own collection I thought I’d share with you. The original art came from my personal copy of issue 100 of Marvel Comics’ Conan The Barbarian. It was rendered by John Buscema and Ernie Chan as the final instalment of the Belit story, which had run since issue 58. Those Marvel comics are what got me into the original Robert E. Howard stories to begin with. And, Queen Of The Black Coast is my favourite Conan story. And, now this is my favourite amateur audio drama.

Bill Hollweg, who spearheaded this project, has faithfully adapted Howard’s original narrative. There are changes, but not too many, and when they exist it’s to make it work as an audio drama. This is the tale that gave Conan his gigantic melancholies. It’s a noir fantasy, rich and powerful, pulpy and inspiring. Conan, a northern barbarian, is on the run from the law and hops aboard an outbound ship. Soon after he’s fighting off pirates, and next becoming one himself. Meeting the Belit, the “queen” of the black coast, he begins a passionate romance with the rash and selfish pirate queen. Their adventures together, his loyalty, and her lust for treasure, lead them up a poisoned river, and ultimately to their doom. It’s bloody wonderful.

The audio tapestry is as rich as any amateur audio production ever recorded – with sound effects and music, narration and acting, all at the top of its form. But, the show wasn’t an instant hit with me. Stevie Farnaby’s Conan turned me off at first. His voice just wasn’t right. Episode 1’s acting, where we first hear his raspy growl, was cartoonish, too brutish, not right. But as episode 2 rolled in, and episode 3 rolled on, and episode 4 became 5, and 6 became 7, I came to the conclusion that Stevie Farnaby is the voice of Conan and I was wrong about what Conan sounded like. I’d been voicing him in my head for about 25 years, he didn’t sound like Stevie Farnaby’s Conan. Other fine work includes the narrator Ralph Walters. He’s the voice of the Zombie Astronaut and about a dozen other characters on the Freqency Of Fear podcast. He’s quite a vocal chameleon and does excellent work here. Other actors include director Bill Hollweg himself, voicing much of Belit’s crew, and Charlene Harris as the titular queen. One thing to remember going into this folks, none of the actors were in the same room when this was recorded. They did their lines in a quiet room with no feedback. This is a huge problem in amateur audio drama – the acting can often feel stiff – I’m happy to say this rarely happens in QotBC. Highly recommend listening for fans of Robert E. Howard’s Conan.

Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3| Part 3 |MP3| Part 4 |MP3|
Part 5 |MP3| Part 6 |MP3| Part 7 |MP3|

Podcast feed:

http://brokensea.com/hyboreansagas/?feed=podcast

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases

It’s been a while since we did a new release update, though we’ve been announcing quite a few on The SFFaudio Podcast. Here are a few, expect more to follow soon.

Swallowing Darkness
By Laurell K. Hamilton; Read by Claudia Black
10 CDs – 11 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: November 4th, 2008
ISBN: 9780739370445

I am Meredith, princess of faerie, wielder of the hands of Flesh and Blood, and at long last, I am with child–twins, fathered by my royal guard. Though my uncle, Taranis, King of Light and Illusion, claims that he is the true father since he abducted me from my home, betrayed, and defiled me. And now he has branded my guards as a threat to my unborn children. Bearing an heir has placed me halfway to my aunt’s throne, that much closer to my reign over the Unseelie Court–and well ahead of her son, my cousin Cel, in this race. Now I must stay alive to see my children born and claim my place as queen. But not all in faerie are pleased with the news, and conspirators from every court in the realm plot against me and mine. They seek to strip my guards, my lovers, from me by poisoned word or cold steel. But I still have supporters, and even friends, among the goblins and the sluagh, who will stand by me. I am Meredith Nic Essus, and those who would defy and destroy me are destined to pay a terrible price–for I am truly my father’s daughter. To protect what is mine, I will sacrifice anything–even if it means waging a great battle against my darkest enemies and making the most momentous decision ever made as princess of faerie.

Brisingr
By Christopher Paolini; Read by Gerard Doyle
23 CDs – Approx. 27 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Published: September 20th, 2008
ISBN: 0739368044

BRISINGR EXCLUSIVE: The audio edition of Brisingr features a revealing Q & A between best-selling author Christopher Paolini and editor Michelle Frey. OATHS SWORN . . . loyalties tested . . . forces collide. Following the colossal battle against the Empire’s warriors on the Burning Plains, Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have narrowly escaped with their lives. Still there is more at hand for the Rider and his dragon, as Eragon finds himself bound by a tangle of promises he may not be able to keep. First is Eragon’s oath to his cousin Roran: to help rescue Roran’s beloved, Katrina, from King Galbatorix’s clutches. But Eragon owes his loyalty to others, too. The Varden are in desperate need of his talents and strength—as are the elves and dwarves. When unrest claims the rebels and danger strikes from every corner, Eragon must make choices— choices that take him across the Empire and beyond, choices that may lead to unimagined sacrifice. Eragon is the greatest hope to rid the land of tyranny. Can this once-simple farm boy unite the rebel forces and defeat the king?

Red Planet
By Robert A. Heinlein; Read by William Dufris and a full cast
6 CDs- 7 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Full Cast Audio
Published: October 2008
ISBN: 9781934180518
Jim Marlowe’s Martian pet, Willis, seems like nothing more than an adorable ball of fur with an astonishing ability to mimic the human voice. But when Jim takes the creature to academy and runs afoul of a militantly rigid headmaster, his devotion to his pet launches the young man on a death-defying trek across Mars. Accompanied by his buddy, Frank, Jim must battle the dangers of a hostile planet. But it is not only the boys’ lives that are at stake: They have discovered explosive information about a threat to the survival of the entire colony—information that may mean life or death for their families. An irresistible mix of thrilling adventure, crackling dialogue, and brilliant speculation, deftly seasoned with politics, philosophy, and a touch of the mystic, Red Planet is classic Heinlein. Note: This recording uses the author’s preferred text, restoring many cuts made by the original editor.

Guest Law
By John C. Wright; Read by Tom Dheere
1 CD – 52 minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Infinivox
Published: October 2008
ISBN: 9781884612831
There be pirates in the vast void of space! Does not the poet say: “Beware the strangeness of the stranger. Unknown things bring unknown danger?” The noble ship Procrustes was silent as a ghost. Warships can be silent if they are slow; only their missiles need speed. And so it was silently, slowly, that the Procrustes approached the stranger’s cold vessel.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of If I Were You by L. Ron Hubbard

SFFaudio Review

If I Were You
By L. Ron Hubbard; Read by various
2 CDs – 2 Hours 7 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Galaxy Press
Published: 2008
ISBN: 1592122906
Themes: / Fantasy / Consciousness Transference / Magic /
Circus dwarf Little Tom Little is the king of midgets, loved by crowds and carnival folk alike. Only he doesn’t just want to be a bigger circus star, he wants to be just like the circus’ tall and imposing leader. Trouble begins the moment that a set of ancient books containing the secret of switching bodies finds its way into Tom Little’s tiny hands. When he magically trades his small frame with that of the circus chief, finds himself in a giant-sized heap of trouble—his craving for height has landed him smack in the center ring surrounded by forty savage cats!

If I Were You (Approx. 95 Minutes) – Nancy Cartwright, best known as Bart on The Simpsons, voices Little Tom Little, the little person who has big dreams. Tom Little wants to become the circus ringmaster. So, when the resident circus magician is at death’s door and offers to teach Tom the ancient art of consciousness transference Tom jumps at the chance. Of course the having is not always as good as the wanting as things soon go awry for the tallest little person in the circus. A little drawn out, this tale was first published in a 1940 pulp magazine called Four Novels. It’s plot goes basically where you’d think it’d go. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, but it doesn’t capture your imagination the way maybe you’d like.

The Last Drop (Approx. 32 Minutes) – This is a fast paced cartoonist fantasy in the tradition of Bugs Bunny, The Food Of The Gods and The Incredible Shrinking Man. A bartender receives a mysterious syrup in the mail from his brother in Borneo. After a little experimentation he discovers that it has the power to change the size of whoever consumes it. The Last Drop is cute, completely ludicrous, and fairly entertaining. As with the other Galaxy Press Hubbard collections, The Last Drop uses multiple actors, voice and sound effects – it’s not an adaptation, but easily could be adapted into a Pixar or Warner Brothers style cartoon. Normally I’d criticize the use of all these enhancements, but with the cartoonish nature of the story, these enhancements don’t spoil the storytelling as badly as they do in other more straight tales. One thing that is rather annoying though, the audio track doesn’t acknowledge the co-authorship of The Last Drop. There is, however, a small print notification on the bottom of the packaging. And, it’s significant. This is the only story that Hubbard collaborated on during his lifetime. The Last Drop was co-authored by L. Sprague de Camp.

The two CDs are handsomely packaged in a cardboard sleeve along with a booklet featuring a brief biography of Hubbard’s career and influences, and an essay by Kevin J. Anderson about the pulp era. The Anderson essay is rife with enthusiasm for the pulps. The author of the Hubbard biographical essay isn’t named, but is nevertheless informative and includes more than a dozen photographs. Curiously, the author of the bio detours for a quick attack at western author Max Brand, when talking about Hubbard’s western stories. This is the same booklet as appears in The Great Secret collection.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Tor.com has FREE Scalzi and Stross audio shorts

SFFaudio Online Audio

Esther writes…

“You’ve probably caught the news about the launch of the new look of the Tor web site, but you might not know about the audio versions of the featured stories.”

WOW! I certainly did know about the Tor launch, but hadn’t been too excited about it. A free ebook giveaway isn’t all that exciting to me, because no matter how fancy the ebook reader you have, the file is still essentially a .txt and that’s about 10,000 times less interesting than an .mp3 – but now we all have reason to be excited about Tor.com!

“After the Coup”
By John Scalzi; Read by John Scalzi
1 |MP3| – Approx. 47 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tor.com
Published: July 2008
“A story in the world of Old Man’s War.” This short story features Harry Wilson, one of the
characters in Old Man’s War.

“Down on the Farm”
By Charles Stross; Read by Charles Stross
1 |MP3| – Approx. 78 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tor.com
Published: July 2008
“A new tale of the Laundry.” This is one of Stross’ Lovecraftian inspired stories. Well, a cross between Lovecraft and Jeeves anyway.

[Thanks Esther!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Magic Kingdom for Sale: Sold! by Terry Brooks

SFFaudio Review

Magic Kingdom For Sale: SOLD!
By Terry Brooks; Read by Dick Hill
12 CDs – 14 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2008
ISBN: 9781423350125
Themes: / Fantasy / Magic /

If you like a big, heaping helping of vanilla with your fantasy, you’ll probably like the flavor of Terry Brooks’ Magic Kingdom for Sale: Sold. Me, I’m a New York Super Fudge Chunk guy and I thought Magic Kingdom tasted lousy.

Yeah, that’s harsh. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all, etc. etc. But I have an obligation to review Brooks’ work for two reasons: I owe it to this website, and I figure I might steer away a couple potential readers who might stumble with tragic results into the banal minefield that is Magic Kingdom.

To be fair, Brooks can write, in terms of stringing grammatically correct sentences together. I’ve read much, much worse stuff than Magic Kingdom. I also have fond memories of Brooks’ Sword of Shannara series, which I read as a teenager and liked (although I knew even then that they were derivative of Tolkien). But I’m afraid to revisit Shannara these days, especially after Magic Kingdom. I just know its not going to hold up.

Magic Kingdom is the tale of Ben Holiday, a 40-year-old lawyer burned out with his profession and his life, having lost his wife to a car accident and finding no satisfaction in his work. While thumbing through a specialty catalog he finds a literal magic kingdom for sale for a million bucks and decides to make the purchase. The broker, a wizard, whisks Holiday away to the fantastic realm of Landover, a once shining kingdom now in serious decline. The land is failing and the great castle of Sterling Silver is tarnished because Landover has been without a king for 20 years.

Holiday soon finds out that he’s not the first king to try to ascend to the throne in that time, however. Far from it. Instead, he’s been duped by the broker, and learns that dozens of previous kings have failed before him, and were meant to. Landover’s peoples are bitter and disenchanted with the string of would-be kings turned failures, and Holiday has a fight on his hands to win their pledges.

But Holiday has help in the form of a doddering old wizard (Questor), a talking dog who once served as a court scribe (Abernathy), a beautiful shape shifting sylph named Willow, a pair of Kobolds, and a pair of hairy, grubby, earth-tunneling gnomes.

The biggest problem I had with Magic Kingdom is that this is kids’ stuff, but it’s not labeled nor probably intended as such. I don’t buy that Magic Kingdom is written for an adolescent audience: its clearly marked as “adult fiction” on the cover of the audiobook I’ve reviewed. Nor is its subject matter for adolescents: At its heart it’s about a man’s middle-age crisis, hardly the stuff to captivate a young audience. And because Magic Kingdom doesn’t know what it wants to be, it suffers mightily. I enjoy good adolescent fantasy lit–C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia and Nancy Farmer’s The Sea of Trolls, for example, are terrific reads for folks of any age–but Magic Kingdom failed to satisfy my grown-up tastes, or my childhood love for good, simple stories.

Secondly, Landover as a world is completely unrealistic and devoid of any personality or charm. With generic place names like “The Greensward,” “the Deep Fell,” “The Wasteland,” and “The Mountains of Melkor,” Landover may as well be anywhere fantasy USA. And the way Brooks describes Landover you’d think it was the size of a postage stamp–two sentences of description here and there and Holiday and his crew have traversed the whole continent without breaking a sweat.

Thirdly, I didn’t much like the main character. There’s nothing to dislike about Holiday, but there’s not much to like, either. He’s bland and featureless. Holiday stumbles around most of the story, avoiding scrapes by luck or occasionally pluck and wit, but mostly because he’s “fated” to become king. He’s revealed as the chosen one almost from the outset of the story, so there’s really no tension or doubt that he will ascend to the throne of Landover. I also found his companions extremely annoying. The kobolds, gnomes, and even Abernathy and Questor resemble a troupe of circus clowns who are there to provide levity, a sounding board for Holiday’s questions, and occasionally bail him out of trouble, but do little else.

Fourthly, the underpinnings of the story have some serious flaws and holes. We find out that the evil wizard who “sells” Landover to Holiday is doing it for the money. Keep in mind that this is a wizard who has powerful magic at his disposal—and can use it freely on Earth—but can’t seem to figure out how to use it to make a few honest bucks. Lame. Brooks draws some extremely tenuous connections between the health of the king and the health of the land, an old Arthurian trope that is not at all developed in Magic Kingdom. Other than a few brief mentions of blighted crops, swirling mists and gloom, and some unhappy farmers, there’s no overt suffering, darkness, or disease, nor any explanations about why a king is needed to restore the land’s health. In short, I had no emotional investment in whether Holiday succeeded or failed in his mission because I didn’t find myself caring about him or the plight of Landover. By the conclusion of the story I was simply glad to see it end.

I could go on and on with the criticisms (the evil wizard allowed Holiday, a brilliant lawyer and a golden gloves boxer, to buy Landover because he thought Holiday was a good candidate to fail at becoming king?) but it’s like shooting ducks in a barrel. I do think there is an audience for Magic Kingdom, and you could do worse if you’re looking for a brainless beach read, but suffice to say that it’s not for readers like me.

I will conclude on one positive note: Narrator Dick Hill does an admirable job holding this mess together with a fine reading voice. His work depicting Questor and Strabo, the dragon, is nicely done, and adds value to the audiobook.

Posted by Brian Murphy

Review of The Red Panda Adventures – Season 3

SFFaudio Review

Superhero Audio Drama - The Red Panda Adventures - Season Three The Red Panda Adventures – Season 3
By Gregg Taylor; Performed by a full cast
12 MP3 Files – Approx. 6 Hours [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: Decoder Ring Theatre
Podcast: September 2007 – May 2008
Themes: / Fantasy / Superheroes / Mystery / Adventure / Magic / Time Travel / Robots /

“None of the other heroes kiss their sidekicks!”

You’d think after thirty-six episodes The Red Panda Adventures would have become formulaic – to have settled into a well-worn style. It sure doesn’t feel that way, RP shows no signs of becoming anything like a mere dry routine. The familiarities are only in the iconic lines of character dialogue that are heard in every episode – bits like: “Kit Baxter, behave yourself!” and “He’ll face justice at the hands of The Red Panda!” If there is a formula, it must be a magic one secretly possessed by Gregg Taylor and the Decoder Ring crew. There’s really no other way to explain how bloody wonderful this show really is.

Plotlines from Season 3 still obviously follow the ‘heroes fight injustice’ thread, but other than that the storytelling is extremely varied. In one show the story is told very heroes-light, with the twin leads barely showing up, in another it’ll be very hero-heavy with barely another actor on the stage. One show will showcase a new villain up to old tricks, another will offer an old villain up to very new tricks. Injustices too run the gamut: from arson, to bootlegging, to racketeering, to pickpocketing, to mysterious and seemingly profitless industrial accidents. Heck, there was even a Christmas show performed entirely in rhymed verse (“Tis The Season!”). Other favorite episodes from Season 3 included the locked room style “A Midwinter’s Murder,” the series of three short adventures chronicled in “Now, The News,”. Scenes too standout, there was a certain scene on Sunnyside beach in “The Rat Lord.” that is utterly classic. And finally, there is the shocking (and I do mean shocking!) season ender – “The Field Trip.”

Voice talent abounds in the Decoder Ring troupe, there’s hardly a performance that isn’t spot on. Although, I should say, there was one actor, who obviously wasn’t very experienced, as he was playing a kid, and obviously was a real kid! But this is an aberration, normally, the child characters are played by female adult actors (as is done on The Simpsons). My favorite returning villain for Season 3 was the Mad Monkey (voiced by Christopher Mott). But this time he’s returned with his own assistant, but just like RP, he can’t seem to wrap his mind around an aggressive female sidekick. New characters like The Red Squirrel (played by Denise Anderson) also charm – I do hope to hear more of her! One thing I’d been missing from the show by listening to the podiobooks collections in the past, was the wonderful commercials. Every episode in the regular Decoder Ring feed has some sort of commercial endorsement. This could be from a website or a company, but often they are just the cutest little skits paid for by family members wishing each other a ‘happy birthday’, or ‘happy anniversary.’ How cool is that?

In the final episode of Season 3, old villains like Professor Von Schlitz are aligning themselves with new enemies like the Third Reich (!) but that isn’t the half of it. See, on the personal front, the blossoming romance between Panda and Squirrel is brought to the fore in the last epsiode. I imagine every longtime listener to the show who’s heard it is just freaked-out to the max about the final scene. Will where the show has now gone ultimately bring the end of the show? We’ll have to wait about two more months to find out.

Happy Canada Day everybody, go celebrate with some RED PANDA!

Posted by Jesse Willis