Rudyard Kipling – Page 8

LibriVox: The Wrong Box by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

Aural Noir: Online Audio

LibriVox Robert Louis Stevenson wrote The Wrong Box with his stepson, Lloyd Osbourne. This is the same kid whose drawing had inspired Treasure Island seven years earlier. Interestingly, it was published while Stephenson (age 39), and Osbourne (age 21), were traveling in Polynesia. Here is an 1888 photograph of Lloyd Osbourne and Robert Louis Stevenson in Tahiti (Osbourne is standing, Stevenson is seated):

Lloyd Osbourne and Robert Louis Stevenson in Tahiti, 1888

Of The Wrong Box, Rudyard Kipling wrote:

“I have got R.L. Stevenson’s [The Wrong Box] and laughed over it dementedly when I read it. That man has only one lung but he makes you laugh with all your whole inside.”

Indeed, as the RLS website describes The Wrong Box as “a humorous tale of misunderstandings, drunkenness, attempted fraud, false identities and other mishaps.” After having watched a scratchy old VHS copy of the movie I discovered this audiobook on LibriVox! I am enjoying it immensely. This enjoyment is assisted by its wonderful narrator. Andy Minter has a very appropriate accent for both the text and the telling.

The Wrong Box
By Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne; Read by Andy Minter
1 |M4B|, 16 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 6 Hours 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: September 14, 2008
The Wrong Box is a comedy about the ending of a tontine (a tontine is an arrangement whereby a number of young people subscribe to a fund which is then closed and invested until all but one of the subscribers have died. That last subscriber then receives the whole of the proceeds). The story involves the last two such survivors and their relations, a train crash, missing uncles, surplus dead bodies and innocent bystanders. A farce really.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/the-wrong-box-by-robert-louis-stevenson-and-lloyd-osbourne.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

There is also a 1966 film adaptation starring Michael Caine, Dudley Moore, Peter Cook and Peter Sellers:

[via Robert-Louis-Stevenson.org and Edinburgh City Libraries and Information Services]

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: If by Rudyard Kipling

SFFaudio Online Audio

I’m not much for poetry. Perhaps that’s because, as a published poet myself, I know just how crappy most poetry really is. Still, there are a few poems that do speak to me. Here’s one, a popular one, from 100 years ago, that I revisited recently.

If
By Rudyard Kipling; Read by Chip
1 |MP3| – Approx. 2 Minutes [POEM]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 29, 2006
Described as “a memorable evocation of Victorian stoicism” and the poetic crystalization of the British virtue of keeping a “stiff upper lip.” First published in 1910.

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man my son!
—Rudyard Kipling

And also:

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Jock of the Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVox Here’s a fun, and approximately antipodean, compliment to Jack London’s stupendous novel The Call Of The Wild. Set in 1880s South Africa, it is a set of semi-fictional stories about an English Staffordshire Bull Terrier named Jock. According to a book called National Character In South African Children’s Literature it was none other than Rudyard Kipling who persuaded James Percy Fitzpatrick to collect his Jock tales in book form. Now that is quite a provenance!

Jock Of The Bushveld
By Sir Percy Fitzpatrick; Read by various
28 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 12 Hours 46 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Publisher: March 19, 2010
Jock of the Bushveld is a true story by South African author Sir Percy Fitzpatrick when he worked as a storeman, prospector’s assistant, journalist and ox-wagon transport-rider. The book tells of Fitzpatrick’s travels with his dog, Jock, during the 1880s. Jock was saved by Fitzpatrick from being drowned in a bucket for being the runt of the litter. Jock was very loyal towards Percy, and brave. Jock was an English Staffordshire Bull Terrier.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/3952

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #051 – TOPIC: THE YELLOW PERIL

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #051 – Jesse and Scott are joined by Luke Burrage and Professor Eric S. Rabkin to discuss THE YELLOW PERIL.

Talked about on today’s show:
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer (aka The Mysterious Dr. Fu-Manchu) – available via Tantor Media, fix-up novel, hypnosis, Sherlock Holmes, the yellow peril incarnate, the yellow peril as the hordes of asia, the Chinese Exclusion Act (USA), Chinese Immigration Act, 1923 (Canada), Tamerlane (the scourge of god), The Yellow Peril by M.P. Shiel, The Purple Cloud by M.P. Shiel, racism, WWI, colonialism, Burma, Thuggees, Boxer Rebellion, genius, The Talons Of Weng Chiang, if you read it as Fu-Manchu being the hero you may like the story more, mad scientist, Faust, Paradise Lost by John Milton, Robur-Le-Conquérant by Jules Verne (aka Robur-The-Conqueror aka The Clipper of the Clouds), The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells, The White Man’s Burden by Rudyard Kipling, colonialism, The Invisible Man, the other colored other, The League Of Extraordinary Gentleman by Alan Moore, Hawley Griffin (The Invisible Man), Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Dr. Henry Jekyll/Mr. Edward Hyde, Mina Murray (from Dracula by Bram Stoker), English 418/549: GRAPHIC NARRATIVE (Winter 2010), The Invisible Man shows I and II, If I Ran The Zoo by Dr. Seuss, Jonah And The Whale, Suess’ anti-Japanese propaganda during WWII, Japanese internment during WWII in USA and Canada, Aryan, India, Nazi Germany, The Thule Society, Sri Lanka, racial stereotypes, Marco Polo, Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, gender and skin color, blondness, Karamaneh (the love interest in The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu), femme fatale, Black Widow (1987), miscegenation, the Chinese hordes vs. the insidious Japanese, War With The Newts by Karel Čapek, Japan, LibriVox.org, Sixth Column by Robert A. Heinlein, beauty as goodness (in fairy tales), King Kong, Last And First Men by Olaf Stapledon, Star Maker, The Iliad by Homer, The Old Testament, The Science Fiction Hall Of Fame edited by Robert Silverberg, Arena by Fredric Brown, Plato, the red scare, Jack London, The Lathe Of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin, Arslan by M.J. Engh, Chung Kuo by David Windgrove, selective memory, polarized memory, Middlemarch by George Eliot, Encounter With Tiber by Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes, China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh, Superfusion: How China and America Became One Economy and Why the World’s Prosperity Depends on It by Zachary Karabell, Firefly, Limehouse, London, Detroit, The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick |READ OUR REVIEW|, alternate history, SS-GB by Len Deighton, Fatherland by Robert Harris, Gorky Park, North Korea, the North Korea embassy in East Berlin.

The Yellow Peril

The Fiendish Plot Of Fu-Manchu (Thanks Gregg!):

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #049

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #049 – Jesse and Scott talk about recent arrivals, new releases, audiobooks, podcasts and plenty more!

Talked about on today’s show:
SFFaudio.com is 7 years old, So I Married An Axe Murder, San Fransisco, California, Alcatraz, recent arrivals, Brilliance Audio, military SF, Fearless: The Lost Fleet Book 2 by Jack Campbell, space opera, Gene Roddenberry‘s Andromeda, Buck Rogers, Live Free or Die: book 1 in the Troy Rising series by John Ringo, Paperback Digital, Cally’s War by John Ringo and Julie Cochrane |READ OUR REVIEW|, John Ringo can give his books away and sell books too, Time’s Eye: A Time Odyssey Book 1 by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, it’s not a sequel it’s an “othrquel“, time is orthogonal to space (in relativity theory), Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke, benevolent aliens, malevolent aliens, H.P. Lovecraft, The Eternal Wall by Raymond Z. Gallun, LibriVox, Gregg Margarite, time travel, Blackstone Audio, Identity Theft by Robert J. Sawyer, Mars, consciousness uploading/downloading, Treason by Orson Scott Card, A Planet Called Treason by Orson Scott Card, Stefan Rudnicki, Spider Robinson, Melancholy Elephants by Spider Robinson |READ OUR REVIEW|, copyright, copyfight, the philosophy of art, The Graveyard Book |READ OUR REVIEW|, The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, Harry Potter, The Dark Is Rising, A Wizard Of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin, ripping off Heinlein is legit when you are Spider Robinson, Friday by Robert A. Heinlein, new releases, Wonder Audio, The Men Return & Worlds Of Origin by Jack Vance, Brilliance Audio, The Songs Of Dying Earth: Stories In Honor Of Jack Vance, Gene Wolfe, The Book Of The New Sun by Gene Wolfe, David D. Levine, Tk’Tk’Tk’ by David D. Levine, The Moon Moth by Jack Vance |READ OUR REVIEW|, Suldrun’s Garden, The Green Pearl, Madouc by Jack Vance, Swimming Kangaroo Books, Need For Magic by Joseph Swope, BBC Audiobooks America, Great Classic Science Fiction: Eight Unabridged Stories, Forgotten Classics podcast talks James Gunn’s The Road To Science Fiction series, paperback book bags, A Game Of Thrones coming to HBO, A Game Of Thrones by George R.R. Martin |READ OUR REVIEW|, Roy Dotrice, John Lee, Shogun (the TV miniseries), FlashForward, Stephen King’s Storm Of The Century, 1408, Scott’s Pick Of The Week: Steve, The First by Matt Watts |READ OUR REVIEW|, @ the CBC store, radio drama, post apocalypse, humor, Canadia: 2056 |READ OUR REVIEW|, The Hitch-hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, Jesse’s Pick Of The Week: The Chronicles Of Solomon Kane, Roy Thomas, Howard Chaykin, Robert E. Howard, The Iliad, Ralph Macchio, Red Shadows by Robert E. Howard, religion, Solomon Kane, The Punisher.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History: Episode #32 Those Rapacious Europeans

SFFaudio Online Audio

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History, my favourite history podcast, has a new episode (#32) in its feed.

Carlin talks about the Magellan circumnavigation expedition and asks the question:

“Are white people special?”

More specifically, was there something special about the Europeans and their drive for conquest? What made them conquer and dominate the Earth in a kind of Globalization 1.0? Were the ages of exploration and colonization a result of a specific kind of European human cruelty? Was it cultural? Religious?

It’s a fascinating topic. Have a listen |MP3|

Podcast feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/dancarlin/history?format=xml

Posted by Jesse Willis