Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – Page 12

Blackstone Audio’s $5 audiobook sale – STUNNING DEALS

SFFaudio News

Can anyone resist Blackstone Audio’s just announced $5.00 clearance sale?

This comes not a month after they announced their $9.99 overstock sale!

$5 for an audiobook.

That’s the deal of the year people!

Admittedly, not all of the available titles in this sale are unabridged, but they mostly are. There are a dozen SFF titles, plenty of crime, mystery and noir as well as a shelfload of history audiobooks. There are even a couple of audio dramas in there.

Here’s just a smattering of what excited me:

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; read by Ben Kingsley
THE AENEID by Virgil; read by Frederick Davidson
BABYLON BABIES by Maurice G. Dantec; read by Joe Barrett
THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London; read by Ethan Hawke
CASINO ROYALE by Ian Fleming; read by Simon Vance
CHRISTOPHER’S GHOSTS by Charles McCarry; read by Stefan Rudnicki
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT by Mark Twain; read by Carl Reiner
CRIMINAL PARADISE by Steven M. Thomas; read by Patrick Lawlor
THE DEAL by Peter Lefcourt; read by William H. Macy
DEATH MATCH by Lincoln Child; read by Barrett Whitener |READ OUR REVIEW|
DON QUIXOTE DE LA MANCHA by Miguel de Cervantes; read by Robert Whitfield
EVIL, INC. by Glenn Kaplan; read by Glenn Kaplan
THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX by Elleston Trevor; read by Grover Gardner
FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley; read by Julie Harris
FRANKENSTEIN, OR THE MODERN PROMETHEUS by Mary Shelley; read by Simon Templeman, Anthony Heald, and Stefan Rudnicki
HOW TO SURVIVE A ROBOT UPRISING by Daniel H. Wilson; read by Stefan Rudnicki |READ OUR REVIEW|
HUCK FINN AND TOM SAWYER AMONG THE INDIANS by Mark Twain and Lee Nelson; read by Grover Gardner
I AM LEGEND by Richard Matheson; read by Robertson Dean |READ OUR REVIEW|
I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves; read by Frederick Davidson
THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS by Jack Finney; read by Kristoffer Tabori
IT’S SUPERMAN! by Tom De Haven; read by Scott Brick
JAMES BOND BOXED SET by Ian Fleming; read by Simon Vance
KING KONG by Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper; novelization by Delos W. Lovelace; read by Stefan Rudnicki |READ OUR REVIEW|
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE by Richard Condon; read by Christopher Hurt
THE MARTIAN CHILD by David Gerrold; read by Scott Brick
MARTIAN TIME-SLIP AND THE GOLDEN MAN by Philip K. Dick; read by Grover Gardner
MILDRED PIERCE by James M. Cain; read by Christine Williams
MYSTIC WARRIOR by Tracy and Laura Hickman; read by Lloyd James
PETER PAN by J.M. Barrie; read by Roe Kendall
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY by Oscar Wilde; read by Simon Vance
THE PRESTIGE by Christopher Priest; read by Simon Vance
QUANTUM OF SOLACE by Ian Fleming; read by Simon Vance
RINGWORLD’S CHILDREN by Larry Niven; read by Barrett Whitener |READ OUR REVIEW|
ROCKET SHIP GALILEO by Robert A Heinlein; read by Spider Robinson |READ OUR REVIEW|
SUPERMAN RETURNS by Marv Wolfman; read by Scott Brick |READ OUR REVIEW|
SWEENEY TODD AND THE STRING OF PEARLS by Yuri Rasovsky; read by a full cast
TARZAN OF THE APES by Edgar Rice Burroughs; read by Ben Kingsley
THE TEN-CENT PLAGUE by David Hajdu; read by Stefan Rudnicki
THERMOPYLAE by Paul Cartledge; read by John Lee
THE THREE MUSKETEERS by Alexandre Dumas; read by Michael York
THE TIME MACHINE by H.G. Wells; read by Ben Kingsley
THE TRIAL by Franz Kafka; read by Geoffrey Howard
UTOPIA by Sir Thomas More; read by James Adams
V FOR VENDETTA by Steve Moore; read by Simon Vance |READ OUR REVIEW|
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS by H.G. Wells; read by Christopher Hurt
WHERE’S MY JETPACK? by Daniel H. Wilson; read by Stefan Rudnicki |READ OUR REVIEW|
THE WINTER OF FRANKIE MACHINE by Don Winslow; read by Dennis Boutsikaris
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO NARNIA by Jonathan Rogers; read by Brian Emerson

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Pulp Reader’s project and some audio drama picks

SFFaudio News

The Pulp Reader blog is an ongoing experiment in “computer generated audio books.” Sez the webmaster (Shonokin):

I read a lot. I also drive a lot, stuck in long commutes every day. There’s a way for a reader and a commuter to do both at the same time. And for me that is through audiobooks. But alas, most of the books I’d like to listen to are not available anywhere, so what to do? Make my own and that’s mostly what this is about. I create Text To Speech (TTS) audiobooks for my daily commute. Since I make them, I might as well share them. So here we are!

Shonokin places the files on Archive.org and then links to them on his/her blog. Shonokin started this project in 2006. And coincidently in 2006 I had a similar problem myself. There were a lot of ebooks out there that weren’t being turned into audiobooks. But with me being a hater of the robot voice I came up with the SFFaudio Challenges |First|Second|Third|Fourth| to solve my dilemma instead.

What Shonokin and I can both agree on, I’m betting, is that audio drama is not best done not by robots* – but by people – real people! Not those damned thieving “Silicon Americans” that Shonokin is employing.

Anyway, here are Shonokin’s thoughts on some recent human done shows that he/she has been listening to:

First off, there’s my love hate relationship with Wormwood, an excellent supernatural detective mystery. The acting is mostly good, the stories are sharp and exciting and the incidental music and sounds effects are great. My only complaint is that it is mixed very poorly. In situations such as driving in a car or surrounded by other ambient noise, you may find you have to fiddle with the volume knob of your radio or mp3 player to alternately listen to quiet dialog and back off on sudden crashing loud jabs of sound. Quite unpleasant aurally, but the stories are good enough to keep me going, annoyed as I am.

Also, the latest seasons of Black Jack Justice and Red Panda have started, which are a joy all the way around. Red Panda is a fun detective pulp with sprinkles of scifi/fantasy and comic book hero action. Black Jack Justice is a hard-boiled detective comedy. Both are great fun but written and played in very different styles.

And then there is also McLevy, an audio drama from the BBC which airs weekly on their iplayer. I find this to be a very fascinating series and have put together a mini webpage about him. In short, James McLevy was a real detective in 1800’s Edinburgh. He wrote several memoirs about his exploits which were very popular. There’s some speculation that aside from the obvious homages to his teacher, Doctor Joseph Bell, that Arthur Conan Doyle may have gleaned some bits of inspiration for Sherlock Holmes from McLevy’s memoirs.

I was fascinated by stumbling across the existence of McLevy but have not found an ultimate website or font of information about him, which is why I put this together. Please visit McLevy The Edinburgh Detective to find out more.

[via The Pulp Reader blog]

*with apologies to Robotz Of The Company for slander.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Blackstone Audiobooks Overtstock Sale

SFFaudio News

Blackstone Audiobooks Overstock Sale SFFaudio receives FREE audio media in the mail on a regular basis. They generally arrive unsolicited (though sometimes not) and we take it that their arrival equates with a tacit understanding that we’ll either mention the receipt on the website and/or review the audiobook or audio drama. That’s the extent of our formal relationship with any publisher or retailer. We do not use affiliate links to Amazon, or any other audiobook retailer. This lack of affiliation means that we can never feel pressured into reviewing an audiobook or audio drama more positively (or negatively) than we might otherwise.

Now, with all that said, I think I can speak for most of the folks who work at SFFaudio and say that we are all especially fond of Blackstone Audiobooks.

There are a few reasons for this BA love. Blackstone picks great books to turn into audiobooks, pairing them with terrific narrators, and then releases them in DRM free version. That’s really all what you want from a publisher. But that isn’t the end of it. Every so often they blow-out audiobooks that are cramming their wharehouse space. And that’s why right now they’re offering 237 different audiobooks for just $9.99 each.

That’s a STUNNING DEAL my friends!

And, if you buy two audiobooks (or more) you’ll even get FREE SHIPPING (within the USA). Here are just a few of the many titles they’ve got for sale right now:

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; read by Ben Kingsley
THE AENEID by Virgil; read by Frederick Davidson
ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND by Lewis Carroll; read by Michael York
THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London; read by Ethan Hawke
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT by Mark Twain; read by Carl Reiner
FRANKENSTEIN, OR THE MODERN PROMETHEUS by Mary Shelley; read by Simon Templeman, Anthony Heald, and Stefan Rudnicki
I AM LEGEND by Richard Matheson; read by Robertson Dean |READ OUR REVIEW|
IT’S SUPERMAN! by Tom De Haven; read by Scott Brick
KING KONG by Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper; novelization by Delos W. Lovelace; read by Stefan Rudnicki |READ OUR REVIEW|
THE MARTIAN CHILD by David Gerrold; read by Scott Brick
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY by Oscar Wilde; read by Simon Vance
THE PRESTIGE by Christopher Priest; read by Simon Vance
THE PRINCE by Niccoló Machiavelli; read by Patrick Cullen
ROCKET SHIP GALILEO by Robert A Heinlein; read by Spider Robinson |READ OUR REVIEW|
THE SPARTANS by Paul Cartledge; read by John Lee
SWEENEY TODD AND THE STRING OF PEARLS by Yuri Rasovsky; Performed by a full cast
TALES OF BEATRIX POTTER by Beatrix Potter; read by Nadia May
TARZAN OF THE APES by Edgar Rice Burroughs; read by Ben Kingsley
THE TEN-CENT PLAGUE by David Hajdu; read by Stefan Rudnicki
THERMOPYLAE by Paul Cartledge; read by John Lee
THE TIME MACHINE by H.G. Wells; read by Ben Kingsley
THE TRIAL by Franz Kafka; read by Geoffrey Howard
UTOPIA by Sir Thomas More; read by James Adams
V FOR VENDETTA by Steve Moore; read by Simon Vance |READ OUR REVIEW|
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS by H. G. Wells; read by Christopher Hurt
WE WISH TO INFORM YOU THAT TOMORROW WE WILL BE KILLED WITH OUR FAMILIES by Philip Gourevitch; read by Jeff Cummings
WHERE’S MY JETPACK? by Daniel H. Wilson; read by Stefan Rudnicki |READ OUR REVIEW|
THE WINTER OF FRANKIE MACHINE by Don Winslow; read by Dennis Boutsikaris
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO NARNIA by Jonathan Rogers; read by Brian Emerson

Posted by Jesse Willis

Naxos Audiobooks: 3 FREE Sherlock Holmes short stories

Aural Noir: Online Audio

Naxos Audiobooks, in partnership with AudioFile Magazine, is offering three unabridged Sherlock Holmes short stories FREE for download until December 29th, 2009! The first of these had already been made available, but the other two are definitely new to my collection (and SFFaudio). Narrator David Timson has a really terrific voice for Sherlock Holmes narration. Have a listen to Timson talk about Doyle and Holmes |MP3|. He’ll make you want to get the rest of the Sherlock Holmes short stories and the four Sherlock Holmes novels he narrated for Naxos.

The Adventure of Silver Blaze
By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Read by David Timson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 60 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks
Published: 2009
One of the most famous images of Sherlock Holmes, Sidney Paget’s drawing of Holmes, complete with Deerstalker and Inverness cape, leaning eagerly forward to a an attentive Watson in a railway carriage as they hurtle towards their next adventure comes from ‘The Silver Blaze.’

The Adventure of the Stock-Broker’s Clerk
By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Read by David Timson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 41 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks
Published: 2009
In Stock-Broker’s Clerk, the intrepid pair travel by train to Birmingham, and it is nostalgic to think that despite it being 1889, when Holmes and Watson alighted at New Street station they would have been greeted by cobbled streets, eighteenth-century houses and a town still largely undeveloped.

The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Read by David Timson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 71 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks
Published: 2009
Trains feature consistently throughout the canon, incidentally and as a main component of the story as in ‘The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans’. It is popular amongst railway enthusiasts, as a significant part of the investigation takes place among the subterranean tunnels of the London Underground system.

[via AudioFile]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Changersurfer Radio: Lecture – Those Who Cannot Remember Doc Savage Are Condemned To Repeat Him by Jess Nevins

SFFaudio Online Audio

Jess Nevins, librarian and author of the forthcoming The Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes (2010), gave a scholarly lecture on the earliest origins and strange evolution of the superhuman/superhero meme. Starting in the the early 19th century with a perceived need for better military training, and progressing into the middle of the 20th century, Nevins explains, among other things: Why Doc Savage lost his superpowers (but kept his physique), why The Shadow needed the ability to “cloud men’s minds”, the development of Muscular Christianity and the Physical Culture movements, and even the minor role Sir Arthur Conan Doyle played in all this! There’s lots more in the there too – it’s fascinating!

Those Who Cannot Remember Doc Savage Are Condemned To Repeat Him: The 20th Century Backlash Against Posthuman Bodybuilders
By Jess Nevins
1 |MP3| – Approx. 30 Minutes [LECTURE]
Podcaster: Changesurfer Radio / Institute For Ethics & Emerging Technologies
Podcast: Dec 13, 2009
Recorded: December 4, 2009
Provider: Archive.orgOne bit of local colour that I can add to this fun lecture is a kind of a capper to the story of the Physical Culture and Muscular Christianity movements. Their was a curious practice at the Vancouver YMCA, patrons were encouraged to exercise in the nude. This eventually led a young man named Victor Willis (no relation) to immortalize the results in this song:

[via SFsignal.com]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Sherlock Holmes pastiche: Sebastian Thorne

Aural Noir: Online Audio

No doubt recalling my fondness for August Derleth’s Solar Pons, my friend Julie D. dropped me a line saying:

“the Sebastian Thorn stories paint a nice ‘modern’ Holmesian figure.”

Who? Thorn? Never heard of the fellow.

So, curious, I followed the link that Julie provided and saw that a young gentleman named Andrew Evelyn has been self-publishing his own present day Sherlock Holmes pastiche stories (starring a character named Sebastian Thorn).

Here is the series description:

Consulting detective Sebastian Thorn follows in the footsteps of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot in solving baffling crimes and mysteries accompanied by his friend and partner James Ashton.

And most importantly there are audio versions! Andrew Evelyn has posted his stories into an iTunes podcast feed…

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

But, a little detective work also turns up the regular podcast feed too:

http://sebastianthorn.podbean.com/feed

[Thanks Julie!]

Posted by Jesse Willis