LibriVox: Mountain Man by Robert E. Howard

Aural Noir: Online Audio

Robert E. Howard’s Breckinridge Elkins stories are humorous tall tales about a mighty naive but mighty muscled country boy. This one, the very first, starts off a little like Winnie The Pooh, but fear not, all Howard’s usual themes are in there. There’s a bit of a difference though, even though you’ve got a barbaric he-man battling civilized folk the story differs from a CONAN tale in that it’s set in the then contemporary world (1934) and also because it’s told in first person by an unreliable narrator.

The audiobook’s narrator, RK Wilcox, on the other hand, is a very reliable narrator, as you’ll hear in this solid reading of Mountain Man.

Mountain Man by Robert E. Howard

LibriVoxMountain Man
By Robert E. Howard; Read by RK Wilcox
1 |MP3| – Approx. 35 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 25, 2008
|ETEXT|
Introducing the famous Breckinridge Elkins of Hardrock County, suh-the first and foremost What-a-Man of 1934! He was raised on b’ar meat and panther milk – and strong men hunt a hideout when it’s his night to howl! First published in Action Stories, March-April 1934.

Here’s a |PDF| from the original publication in Action Stories.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Commentary: The art of book (and audiobook) arrangement

SFFaudio Commentary

I’ve never understood the appeal of the art of flower arrangement – flowers are pretty, and I guess they’re full of symbolism – but other than that I don’t really get the appeal.

On the other hand, I find that whenever I visit someone’s home I’m immediately off and looking at their bookshelves. To me that’s where the real art of arrangement happens.

I happened to do a little of that myself today.

It started yesterday – when I spotted this perfectly good bookshelf being given away! FREE!

Free Bookshelf!

I snapped it right up, dusted it right off, and found a place for it in my apartment.

My New Bookshelf!

Then I policed up various books, and audiobooks, from various other overflowing shelves and arranged them in a handy and functional order.

Arrangement

They’re all basically grouped by author. Some of the books I’ve had for decades, others are quite new.

Here are a few details:

Blackstone Audio - Robert A. Heinlein Audiobooks

Blackstone Audio - Philip K. Dick Audiobooks

Robert E. Howard books and audiobooks

Top shelf - Robert Silverberg, Guy de Maupassant, Robert A. Heinlein, Mark Twain, Full Cast Audio, Edgar Allan Poe

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #156 – READALONG: The Odyssey by Homer (Books IX – XII)

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #156 – Scott and Jesse talk, in the third of a six part series, about the books IX, X, XI, and XII of The Odyssey.

Talked about on today’s show:
What’s the plural of cyclops?, cyclopskin?, cyclopean, Charybdis and Scylla, from this book many books have come, Philip K. Dick’s early fantasies are peppered with Odysseian goodness, Upon The Dull Earth, On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, Odysseus is a smart liar, “my fame has reached the skies”, Telemachus runs the first four books, Odysseus in third person runs in the second four books, Odysseus in the first person runs the third four books, Calypso vs. Circe, “deep in her arching caverns”, the land of the lotus eaters, lotus addiction, Piper In The Woods by Philip K. Dick, “I’m a plant, doctor”, the 1968 Italian miniseries adaptation of The Odyssey (L’Odissea), why does Odysseus listen to the Sirens?, Circe’s wand, Hermes’ wand, the origin of wizards and sorceresses, Polyphemus, cheeses!, Beowulf, Grendel’s attack in the hall, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, a bachelor’s home vs. a maiden’s home, the cyclops island is a libertarian utopia!, Zeus vs. Poseidon, twenty-power wine!, manifest destiny, the guest gift, “I’ll eat nobody”, “I have a cunning plan my lord”, Odysseus is always messing with the gods, “you shameless cannibal”, the prophecy that Odysseus would blind Polyphemus, raider of cities, swag, Odysseus is not a righting-wrongs kind of hero, Polyphemus’ prayer to his father, Poseidon doesn’t make an on-screen appearance in The Odyssey, what is Aquaman’s hair colour?, Circe (the bewitching queen), Ian McKellan‘s narration of the audiobook, “and so he mounted her bed”, “breeding” great trust, tame lions and wolves, Eurylochus goes on the “away mission”, Eurylochus was “unmanned”, Hermes and the moly, the Wikipedia entry for moly, potions and poison, “The Book Of The Dead”, Cimmeria, Robert E. Howard, “the original Fantasy”, Odysseus becomes the bard, “one death is enough for both men, but you shall now have two”, Hercules, Achilles, Agamemnon is bitter about Clytemnestra murdering him, Charybdis and Scylla is like an old fashioned version of The Cold Equations, O’ Brother Where Art Thou, Dante’s Inferno, Paradise Lost, Riverworld by Philip Jose Farmer, The Aeneid, Strange Eden by Philip K. Dick, Star Trek (Who Mourns for Adonais?), Beyond Lies The Wub by Philip K. Dick, “oh boy”, Hyperion, Odysseus never takes the blame for anything, immortal zombie cows, how does Odysseus end up in that tree?, Ithaca at last!

N.C. Wyeth - Circe

Odysseus Performing The Nekyia

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Release: El Borak And Other Desert Adventures by Robert E. Howard

New Releases

Here’s a release I wasn’t expecting! No story listing is available but I suspect it contains the entire text of the Del Rey edition even if it doesn’t use the art. And the narrator sounds okay too!

El Borak And Other Desert Adventures
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Michael McConnohie
Audible Download – Approx. 25 Hours 17 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible, Inc.
Published: March 2, 2012
Robert E. Howard is famous for creating such immortal heroes as Conan the Cimmerian, Solomon Kane, and Bran Mak Morn. Less well-known but equally extraordinary are his non-fantasy adventure stories set in the Middle East and featuring such two-fisted heroes as Francis Xavier Gordon, known as “El Borak”, Kirby O’Donnell, and Steve Clarney. This trio of hard-fighting Americans, civilized men with more than a touch of the primordial in their veins, marked a new direction for Howard’s writing and new territory for his genius to conquer. The wily Texan El Borak, a hardened fighter who stalks the sandscapes of Afghanistan like a vengeful wolf, is rivaled among Howard’s creations only by Conan himself. In such classic tales as “The Daughter of Erlik Khan”, “Three-Bladed Doom”, and “Sons of the Hawk”, Howard proves himself once again a master of action, and with plenty of eerie atmosphere his plotting becomes tighter and twistier than ever, resulting in stories worthy of comparison to Jack London and Rudyard Kipling. Every fan of Robert E. Howard and aficionados of great adventure writing will want to own this collection of the best of Howard’s desert tales.

AUDIBLE - El Borak And Other Desert Adventures by Robert E. Howard

Posted by Jesse Willis