Robert E. Howard – Page 30

The 4th Annual SFFaudio Challenge

SFFaudio Commentary

The 4th Annual SFFaudio Challenge For the past few years, on November 11th, we’ve offered the following challenge to SFFaudio readers:

“We’ll give you an audiobook if you make one for everyone else.”

Sweet deal huh?

And, we’re offering the same deal this year. We’ll give you a BRAND NEW audiobook if you make make an audiobook out of one of the eTexts we provide you links to. All you’ll need to do is claim a title (by email), record the audiobook using your own voice, and follow the rules (see the first comment of this post for the rules).

Still feeling a little unclear on how it all works? Then have a look at our past SFFaudio CHALLENGES:

This year we’ve got 20 ebooks that need turning into audiobooks and we’ve got 20 BRAND NEW audiobooks to give away as prizes! No matter where you are on the planet Earth, if you finish and release your claimed audiobook, we will ship you your prize!

Interested?

If so, THE FIRST THING you need to do is PICK ONE OF THESE ebooks…

Challenge Titles:

***[CLAIMED BY Krisztina Hidasi on NOV. 29, 2009]
Star Dragon*
By Mike Brotherton
A 2003 novel.
*This novel is released under a Creative Commons license. I recommend confirming the audiobook version being okay with Mike Brotherton before claiming this title.
|MIKE BROTHERON’S WEBSITE|
***

***[CLAIMED BY Jerry Pyle on NOV. 13, 2009] COMPLETED
D-99*
By H.B. Fyfe
A 1962 Novel.
*This novel comes courtesy of WONDER AUDIO |HTML|PDF|***

***[CLAIMED BY Mike Hagerty on NOV. 15, 2009]
The Inheritors (An Extravagant Story)
By Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford
A 1901 novel.
|PROJECT GUTENBERG|
|WIKIPEDIA ENTRY|***

***[CLAIMED BY Scott Hall on NOV. 13, 2009]
The Planet Strappers
By Raymond Z. Gallun
A 1961 novel.
|PROJECT GUTENBERG|***

***[CLAIMED BY Julie Davis on NOV. 12, 2009]
Breaking Point
By James E. Gunn
A novelette.
From Space Science Fiction, March, 1953
|PROJECT GUTENBERG|***

***[CLAIMED BY Evan Wade on NOV. 12, 2009]
The Night Of The Long Knives
By Fritz Leiber
A novella.
From Amazing Science Fiction Stories January 1960.
|PROJECT GUTENBERG|***

***[CLAIMED BY Kevin Jackson on NOV. 13, 2009]
Pariah Planet
By Murray Leinster
A novella (34,000 words) – but advertised as a novel.
From Amazing Stories, July 1961.
|PROJECT GUTENBERG|***

***[CLAIMED BY Matt Soar on NOV. 13, 2009]
The Iron Heel
By Jack London
A 1908 novel.
|PROJECT GUTENBERG|
|WIKIPEDIA ENTRY|***

***[CLAIMED BY David Sobkowiak on NOV. 12, 2009]
Empire
By Clifford D. Simak
A 1951 novel.
|PROJECT GUTENBERG|***

***[CLAIMED BY Danielle Blake on NOV. 15, 2009]
Pagan Passions
By Randall Garrett and Larry M. Harris
A 1959 novel.
|PROJECT GUTENBERG|***

***[CLAIMED BY Kelly Fann on NOV. 13, 2009]
Ministry Of Disturbance
By H. Beam Piper
A novelette.
From Astounding Science Fiction, December 1958.
|PROJECT GUTENBERG|***

***[CLAIMED BY Chris Johnson on NOV. 13, 2009]
A Slave is a Slave
By H. Beam Piper
A novella.
From Analog Science Fact—Science Fiction April 1962.
PROJECT GUTENBERG|***

***[CLAIMED BY Ross Smith on NOV. 13, 2009]
Sweet Their Blood And Sticky
By Albert R. Teichner
A short story.
From “Worlds of If” November 1961.
|PROJECT GUTENBERG|***

***[CLAIMED BY Ted Puffer on NOV. 18, 2009]
The Impossibles (Book 2 in the Psi-Powers series)
By Randall Garrett and Laurence M. Janifer (writing as Mark Phillips)
A 1963 novel.
Published in Analog as “Out Like a Light. This is the sequel to Brain Twister.
|PROJECT GUTENBERG|***

***[CLAIMED BY Bruce M Campbell on NOV. 13, 2009]
Cubs Of The Wolf
By Raymond F. Jones
A novelette.
From Astounding Science Fiction November 1955.
|PROJECT GUTENBERG|***

***[CLAIMED BY Karen Savage on NOV. 13, 2009]
Ultima Thule
By Mack Reynolds
A novella.
From Analog Science Fact & Fiction March 1961.
Part of the “United Planets” series.
|GUTENBERG.ORG|***

***[CLAIMED BY Lee Huttner on NOV. 12, 2009]
Spring-Heeled Jack – The Terror of London
By anonymous
A 1840s penny dreadful novella.
|GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA|

***[CLAIMED BY David Drage on NOV. 12, 2009]
The Thing On The Roof
By Robert E. Howard
A short story.
First published in Weird Tales February 1932.
|GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA|***

***[CLAIMED BY Mary Casey Walsh on NOV. 13, 2009]
Pigeons From Hell
By Robert E. Howard
A novelette.
First published by Weird Tales in 1938.
|GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA|***

***[CLAIMED BY John Aho on NOV. 12, 2009]
The Air Ship Boys (or The Quest of the Aztec Treasure)
By H.L. Sayler
A 1909 novel.
|PROJECT GUTENBERG|***

SECONDLY, you’ll want to DEEPLY CONSIDER all that your project will entail. [THINK AHEAD, PLAN IT OUT]

After you’ve carefully thought it through you can write me an email, with the details of your plan.

Answer these questions:

1. How are you planning to release your audiobook? Via LibriVox? Podiobooks.com? In your own podcast? Through Audible.com? Somehow else?

2. How long do you expect it to take? When will you be finished? How many hours will it take to record it? Will you proof listen as you go?

Answer those questions in your email to me. Emails that show a lack of forethought WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. So, have a bit of a read of the ebook you’re interested in narrating. Consider the difficulty involved, and then, if you’re still excited about The 4th Annual SFFaudio Challenge, email me with your plan.

My email address is:

[email protected]

Make the subject line:

“The 4th Annual SFFaudio Challenge”

Once an email is received, showing the appropriate forethought required, I will stake your claim in this post.

LASTLY, here are the goodies available (provided by Simon And Schuster Audio, Brilliance Audio, Poe Audio and The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society)…

Prizes:

Swoon
By Nina Malkin; Read by Caitlin Greer
8 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: May 2009
ISBN: 0743582004

Star Trek (Movie Tie In)
By Alan Dean Foster; Based on the movie written by Roberto Orci and Alex Hurtzman; Read by Zachary Quinto
7 CDs – 8 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9780743598347
|READ OUR REVIEW|

The Dragon’s Eye (Book 1 in the Erec Rex series)
By Kaza Kingsley; Read by Simon Jones
8 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: April 2009
ISBN: 0743581393

The Monsters Of Otherness (Book 2 in the Erec Rex series)
By Kaza Kingsley; Read by Simon Jones
9 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: April 2009
ISBN: 0743581415

Search For Truth (Book 3 in the Erec Rex series)
By Kaza Kingsley; Read by Simon Jones
11 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: June 2009
ISBN: 0743583868

The House Of The Scorpion
By Nancy Farmer; Read by Raul Esparza
9 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: October 2008
ISBN: 0743572467

Leviathan
By Scott Westerfeld; Read by Alan Cumming
CD – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: October 2009
ISBN: 0743583884

The Mortal Instruments (includes City of Ashes, City of Bones, and City of Glass)
By Cassandra Clare; Read by Ari Graynor and Natalie Moore
MP3 3 CDs? – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: October 2009
ISBN: 1442303778

Hush, Hush
By Becca Fitzpatrick; Read by Caitlin Greer
8 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: October 2009
ISBN: 074359956X

The Search For The Red Dragon
By James A. Owen; Read by James Langton
8 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: January 2008
ISBN: 074356913X

Here There be Dragons
By James A. Owen; Read by James Langton
7 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: January 2008
ISBN: 0743569105

The Shadow Dragons
By James A. Owen; Read by James Langton
9 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: October 2009
ISBN: 0743583744

The Indigo King
By James A. Owen; Read by James Langton
8 CDs – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: October 2008
ISBN: 0743574710

Earth Abides
By George R. Stewart; Read by Jonathan Davis
13 CDs – 15 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781441806147
|Listen to an AUDIO SAMPLE|

H.P.Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror
Based on the story by H.P. Lovecraft; Performed by a full cast
1 CD – [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: HPLHS / Dark Adventure Radio Theatre
Published: 2007
|READ OUR REVIEW|

H.P.Lovecraft’s The Shadow Out of Time
Based on the story by H.P. Lovecraft; Performed by a full cast
1 CD – [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: HPLHS / Dark Adventure Radio Theatre
Published: 2008

H.P.Lovecraft’s Shadow Over Innsmouth
Based on the story by H.P. Lovecraft; Performed by a full cast
1 CD – [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: HPLHS / Dark Adventure Radio Theatre
Published: 2008

Edgar Allan Poe Audiobook Collection 6-8: The Cask of Amontillado and Other Stories
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Christopher Aruffo
3 CDs – Approx. 3 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Poe Audio / Acoustic Learning
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9780980058147

Edgar Allan Poe Audiobook Collection 9: The Pioneers
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Christopher Aruffo
6 CDs – Approx. 7 Hours 32 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Poe Audio / Acoustic Learning
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9780980058154

Edgar Allan Poe Audiobook Collection 10: Deus et Machina
By Edgar Allan Poe; Read by Christopher Aruffo
4 CDs – Approx. 4 Hours 39 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Poe Audio / Acoustic Learning
Published: September 2009
ISBN: 9780980058161

As claims are accepted they will be noted on the list. As prizes are shipped they will be noted on the list. Links to where the completed audiobooks can be found will be added to this post!

Get selecting folks!

[extra thanks to Gregg Margarite and Rick Jackson]

COMPLETED TITLES:

Ultima Thule
By Mack Reynolds; Read by Karen Savage
13 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 2 Hours 29 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 23, 2009
Ronny Bronston has dreamed all his life of getting a United Planets job that would take him off-world. He finally gets the opportunity when he is given a provisional assignment with Bureau of Investigation, Section G. But will he be able to complete his assignment and find the elusive Tommy Paine? First published in Analog Science Fact & Fiction March 1961.

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/rss/3735

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

D-99
By H.B. Fyfe; Read by Jerry Pyle
20 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 4 Hours 40 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 03, 2010
EARTHMEN IN TROUBLE Harris was caged in an underwater “zoo” by a pack of blue lobsters. Maria drew a five-year sentence on a puritanical planet for trying to buy a souvenir–and for being excessively feminine. Taranto and Meyers had committed the crime of being shipwrecked on a planet that didn’t like strangers. Gerson was simply kidnapped. And nobody had any idea why five citizens of Terra were being held on other worlds–and the ultra-secret Department 99 existed only to set them, and others like them, free. This tense novel is the story of one evening’s work for Department 99–their successes and failures–and of the strange crisis that almost wrecked D-99.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/3755

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

The audiobook is also available in two etext formats |PDF | and |HTML| – in case you’d like to read along!

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Conan the Cimmerian by Robert E. Howard

SFFaudio Review

SFFaudio Essential The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Todd McLaren
18.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: 2009
Themes: / Fantasy / Conan / Sword and Sorcery /

What do readers want out of fantasy fiction? Epic quests to banish evil from the world? Coming of age stories of young wizards and warriors growing up and into their great, latent powers? Many do: I enjoy these types of stories myself, from time to time.

But when my heart yearns for pulse-pounding, savage adventure, curvaceous women and thrilling sword fights, forgotten, vine-grown cities, and ancient, monstrous evil guarding hoarded gems and gold, I turn to Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Cimmerian.

Now, thanks to Tantor Media, we have the luxury of listening to pure, unaltered Howard as well. The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian is the first of three planned releases by Tantor collecting all of the original Conan tales. This 15 CD set (18.5 hours) includes the first 13 Conan stories, in the order Howard wrote them. Narrator Todd McLaren delivers the stories with passion and precision.

The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian was originally published in 2005 by Ballantine Books/Del Rey, followed shortly by The Bloody Crown of Conan and The Conquering Sword of Conan. Taken together, these three books for the first time included all of Howard’s original, unedited Conan stories. For those who may not know, Howard’s tales first appeared in Weird Tales magazine in the 1930s, and were later published in edited form, along with pastiches of variable quality, by Lancer/Ace books in the 1960s and 70s.

The stories in The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian include:
• The Phoenix on the Sword
• The Frost-Giant’s Daughter
• The God in the Bowl
• The Tower of the Elephant
• The Scarlet Citadel
• Queen of the Black Coast
• Black Colossus
• Iron Shadows in the Moon
• Xuthal of the Dusk
• The Pool of the Black One
• Rogues in the House
• The Vale of Lost Women
• The Devil in Iron

Rather than provide a simple plot summary of the short stories listed above, I thought I’d use this platform to talk about Howard’s place in fantasy fiction and the broader field of literature. Many fantasy readers turn their nose up at Howard. They think his stories are all surface, pure story with no depth. Or they mistakenly conflate Howard’s Conan with the dumb brute of the films Conan the Barbarian or Conan the Destroyer. These folks are of course wrong.

It is true that many of Howard’s tales were written for quick publication in the pulp magazines of the era. As a result, some are rather formulaic. But Howard at his worst captivates with his seemingly effortless ability to produce breathless action. He had a talent for depicting whirling combat and wonderful images in a few words, and for poetic turns of phrase.

At his best, Howard wrote with surprising depth worthy of closer analysis, even study. His most ubiquitous, well-known theme was civilization vs. barbarism. Howard believed that as nations became civilized they grew correspondingly decadent and corrupt. Men who fight savagely and shed their blood to carve out shining kingdoms grow soft in times of peace and plenty until greed and sloth set in. Old kingdoms weaken through internal strife until they collapse from within or are invaded from without. In Howard’s works and in the mind of the author himself, the howling “barbarians at the gates” were always waiting to pounce when kingdoms grew weak, and Conan himself was one of the horde. Honest rule by might and the axe was preferable to the soft lies and deception of civilized men, whose faces were masks concealing their falsity.

To quote Conan from “Beyond the Black River,” “Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.”

Other critics have noted existentialist strains running through Howard’s stories, as well as a hard-boiled realism that leant even his most fantastic, otherworldly tales a feeling of grounded, earthly reality. Howard also infused his stories with the myth of the American frontier. Born in Texas in 1906, Howard listened with rapt and wistful attention to old men who had witnessed first-hand the closing of the frontier, settling virgin wilderness and fighting Indians in savage wars for territory.

In my opinion Howard’s best Conan tales don’t appear in The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian: “Beyond the Black River” and “Red Nails” represent Howard at his peak, and are scheduled to appear on Tantor’s later discs. But “The Tower of the Elephant” is worth the purchase price alone, and “Queen of the Black Coast,” “The Scarlet Citadel,” “The Phoenix on the Sword,” “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter” and “Rogues in the House” are all terrific as well. “The Vale of Lost Women” is the only true dud here (it went unpublished in Howard’s lifetime, and was probably better off left in a footlocker), while “The Pool of the Black One” didn’t do a lot for me, either.

In addition to Howard’s stories, Tantor also includes a wonderful introduction by Patrice Louinet, which does a far better job than I describing Howard’s themes. “If the true work of art is something that at once attracts and disturbs, then the Conan stories are something special, an epic painted in bright colors, featuring heroic deeds and larger-than-life characters in fabled lands, but with something darker lying beneath,” Louinet writes.

The one problem with the set? Tantor inexplicably failed to include track listings. You have to skip around to find the stories, and while it didn’t bother me too much for this review (I listened straight through), you’re out of luck if you ever want to just pop in a disc and listen to “The God in the Bowl,” for example. Ah well. I know Tantor has corrected this oversight and plans to include track listings on its future releases.

Still, this omission aside, Tantor Media should be commended for releasing the audio versions of the books that every true Howard fan should have in his or her collection.

Posted by Brian Murphy

Canadian Copyright Consultations – now with Robert E. Howard’s CONAN

SFFaudio News

Tony Clement (Minister Of Industry) and James Moore (Minister of Heritage) announcing copyright consultation

As you’re aware I’ve been following the Canadian Copyright Consultations run by Industry Minster Tony Clement and Heritage Minster James Moore. The most recent one, held in Toronto yesterday, was the most vehement of them all. The participants were heavily weighted towards music industry executives and lawyers (I counted at least 19 of them). They told us how badly their industry has been suffering and how their lawyers don’t have the legislation they need to deal with it. Execs from Sony Music Canada, Warner Music Canada and Universal Music Canada all spoke. Nearly all of them asked the minister to pass the ten year old WIPO treaties that make the breaking of DRM a copyright crime.

Several other non-music industry attendees brought up some non-music related points too. Most of these were not concerned about propping up a dying business model, but rather with how to prevent making criminals out of Canadians or how a new copyright law can address the new industries that technology allows. The librarians, for example, had some very serious concerns about the ability to provide services to patrons with any law that protects digital locks and lists statutory damages for their violation. A few others pointed out the problem of Crown Copyright [why don’t we just replace it with creative commons?]. Others insisted that the new copyright law, whatever its content, must be crystal clear and easy to understand – ‘spend some money on education’ – they said [this too is a great idea]. Several folks thought any new legislation should definitely address the problem of “fair dealing” [that we have no parody exemption in Canada is nuts]. A web commenter also suggested that because of the long response time, the current standard of getting permission from a copyright holder, was not-feasible for photocopied materials used in classrooms [this needs to be addressed by any new copyright bill]. And one of the smartest points was from a software guy who pointed out that a ‘retroactive term extensions doesn’t ‘encourage dead artist to create more work.’ It really needed to be said.

Below is a chronological sampling of some of the less representative comments (I’ve included just a few of the many music industry execs and lawyers who spoke). And, I’ve included one commenter’s speeches in full; Jonathan Dry’s words will really hit home with some of our readers in particular. I thought his comments were absolutely terrific.

Jamie Kidd @ Approx. 5:21
Jamie Kidd (jazz musician) – “my new album won’t be marketed in Canada”

Martha Rans @ approx. 5:27
Martha Rans (outreach lawyer) – “return to Vancouver and hold a town hall”

Sophie Milman @ approx. 5:30
Sophie Milman (jazz artist) – “extend the copying levy to iPods”

Dan Glover @ approx. 5:35
Dan Glover (lawyer) – “I make my living by copyright”

Steve Kane @ approx. 5:38 Steve Kane (President of Warner Music Canada since 2004) “When I began my tenure as President of President of Warner Music Canada we had about 180 employees. We currently have 85.” [woots from the crowd]

Sylvana (WEB COMMENTER) @ approx. 5:41
Sylvana (from the web) – “I’m appalled that Canada was recently placed on the U.S. piracy list along with such countries as China, Russia…” [Sylvana is likely referring to this article. I wonder if she read the follow up article by the same author that debunks it?]

Leslie Weir @ approx. 5:50
Leslie Weir (librarian @ University Of Ottawa) – “copyright law must not make it illegal to circumvent a digital lock”

Rob Bolton @ approx. 5:54
Rob Bolton (digital marketing manager @ Warner Music Canada) – “what we have in this country is truly a lawless society and it’s very difficult to build legitimate businesses here”

Paul Vett @ approx. 5:54
Paul Vett (BlackBerry software developer) – “it’d be nice to drop some of the rhetoric and focus on the nuances because it’s quite complicated”

Brian P. Isaac @ approx. 6:03
Brian Isaac (chairman of Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network, lawyer @ Smart & Biggar) – “I make my living enforcing intellectual property”

Jonathan Dry @ approx. 5:20
Jonathan Dry – (Mechanical Designer) –“I’m a mechanical designer from Mississauga. I don’t work in the entertainment industry. [audience claps] I believe we are in this situation because of eternal copyright laws. I’ll start by saying that copyright is meant to foster a broad and diverse culture of creation and derivative works in a country. And we don’t have that now. The eternal copyright has created a vacuum and pulled away the culture of the people from the general populace. I grew up in the 1990s, that was how it was then. In its place was placed a load of mass produced rubbish… music… you could turn on the TV any time [and hear it?]. It’s pretty much the same nowadays and this damages the youth. It takes away a formative decade, the teenage years. Instead of creating a culture of production and of personal achievement we’re given self destructive teenage rebellion. We’ve put all the power to create culture into the hands of a few corporations with eternal copyright. They just buy it up and that’s the end of it.

If we’re going to reform the system… [looks at the timer] three minutes… Okay. As far as the public domain goes we need shorter copyright terms. [points to the timer] Thank you. [moderator offers an apology]

This book [holds up Blood Of The Gods and Other Stories] is published in Mississauga, Ontario. It is by Robert E. Howard. His work is falling into the public domain. [holds up The Coming Of Conan The Cimmerian] He is most known as the creator of Conan The Barbarian. If you like books about screaming barbarians and monsters it’s great stuff. There’s a publishing boom going on, of his work, right now. Del Rey [has] his stuff with annotations, scholarship, letters, all sorts of other stuff – because everything else, the original stories, are now in the public domain. And guys like these guys in Mississauga [indicates Blood Of The Gods] are publishing it. It’s being driven by the entrance of his work into the public domain.

What we need is shorter copyright terms. This is going to drive innovation. Canada could attract a large number of publishers and artists from all over the world if we reduce copyright terms. We are sitting on a gold mine people. It’s being withheld from the general public by a small amount of copyright holders. If we were to loosen that up there would be a cultural explosion and industrial explosion in that industry. I would ask that the Conservative government to go back to your entrepreneurial roots. We have a small publisher in Mississauga making money from the public domain, it’s also driving big ones in the states.

[points to audience member] – no interruptions please. Okay?

We need to go back and allow these entrepreneurial companies, these small startups, to grow big. To exist! Because, right now, they can’t.”

Denis McGrath @ approx. 6:26 Denis McGrath (TV writer and blogger) – “as an artist I want my work to be seen by as many people as possible”

Daniel Seyer @ approx. 6:55 Daniel Seyer (student at University Of Ontario Institute of Technology)- “hello music industry” [audience laughs] I’m a student… [audience member says something] “Hello entertainment industry I guess. It’s nice for everyone to be here” – “keep the playing field open and let the market decide” – “extend tariffs [levies] to hard drives and blank media” – “put a tax on bandwidth” – “don’t do anything that the Americans are doing” [audience laughs]

Simon Shaw @ approx. 7:05 Simon Shaw [movie pirate wearing a Fair Copyright For Canada t-shirt] – “I operate six terabyte servers of movies that I share freely with my friends all around the world. Most of your works are on my servers”

speaker #143 -m @ approx. 7:10
Speaker #143 (anonymous lawyer) – “The previous speaker mentioned this was ‘not a debate about two extremes’ I take offense to that. … On the one hand we continue to be the laughing stock of the world through our outdated copyright laws, and continue to be a cesspool for online pirates such as the last speaker [woots and claps from the audience] or we update the copyright act as the rest of the modernized world has done to protect creator’s rights.”

Speaker number 43? or 93? @ approx. 7:16
Speaker #43? or #93? (anonymous speaker) – [approaches the microphone] “…kinda funny how there’s so many people from the music industry here – not many normal people.” “The corporations are trying to extend copyright… [something someone in the audience flusters this speaker] …any Cinar executives here? – Ya? You guys never steal.”

The honorable Minister of Indusrty Tony Clement @ approx. 7:18
Tony Clement (Minister Of Industry) – “we got through it all in one piece. It has not degenerated into a U.S. health care town hall meeting”

Watch the whole video for yourself in the (very lame) |WMV| format.

Updates:

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #033

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #033 – Jesse and Scott are burning bright this podcast. We’re talking new releases, recent arrivals, and future audiobook releases. We also briefly discuss the 2009 Hugo Awards. Around the middle we talk about BBC radio drama, specifically those based on the writings of Iain M. Banks and Alfred Bester. Feeling tenser? Perhaps you know the answer to this question…

“How can you get away with murder when everyone knows your thoughts?”

Talked about on today’s show:
New Releases, Recent Arrivals, Infinivox, Aliens Rule edited by Alan Kaster, How Music Begins by James Van Pelt, Okanaggan Falls by Carolyn Ives Gilman, Laws Of Survival by Nancy Kress, Full Cast Audio, Emperor Mage by Tamora Pierce, Red Planet by Robert A. Heinlein, William Dufris, Have Space Suit Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein |READ OUR REVIEW|, Tantor Media, The White Plague by Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert, The Road To Dune |READ OUR REVIEW|, Ireland, Whipping Star by Frank Herbert, The Coming Of Conan The Cimmerian by Robert E. Howard, Todd McLaren, METAtroplis The Dawn Of Uncivilization |READ OUR REVIEW|, Brilliance Audio, Audible.com, Brilliance Audio is releasing hardcopy DRM free versions of the Audible Frontiers audiobooks, Kurt Vonnegut, Audible Modern Vanguard, Dennis Boutsikaris, A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving, Fear Nothing by Dean Koontz, Keith Szarabajka, Sfsignal.com story on Iain M. Banks’ next novel Transition (podcast or audiobook?), RadioArchive.cc, State Of The Art (BBC Radio Drama) based on the story by Iain M. Banks, BoingBoing story on Geoff Ryman’s novel The Child Garden to be podcast (with music), Simon Bloom: The Octopus Effect by Michael Reisman, Simon Bloom: The Gravity Keeper by Michael Reisman |READ OUR REVIEW|, The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester or Tiger Tiger by Alfred Bester, there is no audiobook version of The Stars My Destination, the 1991 BBC Radio Drama version of Alfred Bester’s Tiger Tiger, telepathy, teleportation (jaunting), The Demolished Man would make an amazing audio drama, Fondly Fahrenheit by Alfred Bester, the 2009 Hugo award winners, The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman |READ OUR REVIEW|, Shoggoths In Bloom by Elizabeth Bear (SSS Aural Delights version), Exhalation by Ted Chiang, The Erdman Nexus by Nancy Kress (is not available in audio), Inside Job by Connie Willis (is), Drive by James Sallis (a novella, is too), Wii Sports Resort, Wii Motion Plus, Bowman, turning off cable TV, X-Box 360, Wii Fit, Netflix, watching soccer/football without TV, Free:The Future Of A Radical Price by Chris Anderson, YouTube Star Wars fan Lego animation vs. Lucas Star Wars on DVD.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Robert E. Howard’s Queen Of The Black Coast and Red Nails available again

SFFaudio Online Audio

The first ever audio dramatization of Robert E. Howard’s Queen Of The Black Coast is available again!

Conan: The Uncopyrighted - Robert E. Howard fiction in the PUBLIC DOMAIN

Broken Sea Audio Productions’ fan produced programs were non-commercial, released for free, and 100% legal (being derived from public domain stories) had been unavailable for several months due to the “false copyright notice and we turn-off your internet” provisions of New Zealand’s copyright legislation. This is the same anti-judicial oversight provisions that anti-circumvention DRM lobbyists in Canada are asking for in the current Canadian Copyright Consultations.

But now two of the three Howard-dervied stories are available other than on Broken Sea’s website. Some fan seems to have uploaded two of the three BSAP Howard productions to the Archive.org servers. And a PirateBay.org search turns up a torrent version of the audio drama. It seems to me that given Archive.org’s size it will be better able to fight off any false claims of copyright ownership over the original stories than was BSAP, but I’m not 100% sure. The torrented audio drama is probably even more bulletproof. But I’d recommend that if you haven’t already you get them both earlier rather than later.

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 Audio Productions
Podcast: June 2008 to December 2008
Provider: Archive.org
|READ OUR REVIEW|

Red Nails – A Tale Of Conan
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Mark Kalita
7 MP3s – Approx. 3.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Broken Sea Audio Productions
Published: December 2007 – January 2008
Provider: Archive.org
“Red Nails, a tale featuring the legendary Conan the Barbarian, was written by Robert E. Howard and began its written serialization in the July 1936 issue of Weird Tales. This thrilling audio novella begins with pirate-adventuress Valeria of the Red Brotherhood on the run after slaying a notable brigand. She is followed by Conan and the two soon fight their way to a great, walled city inhabited by two warring peoples. The adventure seekers soon find themselves embroiled in the feud and mayhem ensues as the city’s rulers make unholy plans for the mighty Cimmerian and his feisty female companion. Listen now as an ancient evil returns from oblivion and a wicked sorceress seeks to gain immortality at the cost of our Hyborian heroes!”

[Thanks internet!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Recent Arrivals from Tantor Media

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Todd McLaren
18.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: 2009

“Between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities…there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars…. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand…to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.”

In a meteoric career that spanned a mere twelve years before his tragic suicide, Robert E. Howard single-handedly invented the genre that came to be called sword and sorcery. Collected in this volume are Howard’s first thirteen Conan stories in their original versions and in the order Howard wrote them. Included are classics of dark fantasy like “The Tower of the Elephant” and swashbuckling adventure like “Queen of the Black Coast.”

Here are timeless tales featuring Conan the raw and dangerous youth, Conan the daring thief, Conan the swashbuckling pirate, and Conan the commander of armies. Here, too, is an unparalleled glimpse into the mind of a genius whose bold storytelling style has been imitated by many yet equaled by none.

The tales contained in The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian are “The Phoenix on the Sword,” “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter,” “The God in the Bowl,” “The Tower of the Elephant,” “The Scarlet Citadel,” “Queen of the Black Coast,” “Black Colossus,” “Iron Shadows in the Moon,” “Xuthal of the Dusk,” “The Pool of the Black One,” “Rogues in the House,” “The Vale of Lost Women,” and “The Devil in Iron.”

The White Plague
By Frank Herbert; Read by Scott Brick
20.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: 2009

A warm day in Dublin, a crowded street corner. Suddenly, a car-bomb explodes, killing and injuring scores of innocent people.

From the second-floor window of a building across the street, a visiting American watches, helpless, as his beloved wife and children are sacrificed in the heat and fire of someone else’s cause.

From this shocking beginning, the author of the phenomenal Dune series has created a masterpiece.

The White Plague is a marvelous and terrifyingly plausible blend of fiction and visionary theme. It tells of one man’s revenge, of the man watching from the window who is pushed over the edge of sanity by the senseless murder of his family and who, reappearing several months later as the so-called Madman, unleashes a terrible vengeance upon the human race. For John Roe O’Neill is a molecular biologist who has the knowledge, and now the motivation, to devise and disseminate a genetically carried plague—a plague to which, like those that scourged mankind centuries ago, there is no antidote, but one that zeros in, unerringly and fatally, on women. As the world slowly recognizes the reality of peril, as its politicians and scientists strive desperately to save themselves and their society from the prospect of human extinction, so does Frank Herbert grapple with one of the great themes of contemporary life: the enormous dangers that lurk at the dark edges of science.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson