Mister Ron, of Mister Ron’s Basement Podcast, has posted up the first installment of The Steam Man Of The Plains aka The Steam Man Of The Prairies aka The Huge Hunter. Whatever you call it, I think this is the first American Science Fiction novel with a robot! Written by Edward S. Ellis, it was first published in 1868. This is a “dime novel” and kind of a proto-steampunk story, I guess.
If there’s one public domain novel I don’t mind seeing endless re-releases and re-recordings of it’s this one…
The Call Of The Wild
By Jack London; Read by Jeff Daniels
CDs – Approx. 3 Hours 12 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: May 25, 2010
ISBN: 9780307710260
Sample |MP3| Jack London’s The Call Of The Wild was written in 1903, but Buck’s gripping adventure makes for a thrilling listen on audio more than 100 years after it was first published. This gripping story follows the adventures of the loyal dog Buck, who is stolen from his comfortable family home and forced into the harsh life of an Alaskan sled dog. Passed from master to master, Buck embarks on an extraordinary journey that ends with his becoming the legendary leader of a wolf pack.
Now this should be interesting…
Wolf: The Lives of Jack London
By James L. Haley; Read by Bronson Pinchot
10 CDs or 1 Mp3-CD – Approx. 13 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: May 25, 2010
ISBN: 9781441758965 (cd), 9781441758972 (mp3-cd) Jack London was born a working-class, fatherless San Franciscan in 1876. In his youth, he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling west coast—by and by playing the role of hobo, sailor, and oyster pirate. From his vantage point at the margins of Gilded Age America, he witnessed such iniquity and abuses that he became a life long socialist and advocate for reform. His adventures in the American wilderness and underworld informed his fiction, and his writing came to captivate the nation as it defined his era. Within his own short lifetime, London became the most popular, and bestselling, author of his generation. By adulthood he had matured into the iconic American author of such still-universally loved books as The Call Of The Wild, White Fang, and Sea Wolf, but in spite of his success, he was at war with himself. The highest-paid writer in America, he was constantly broke. Famous as he was for conjuring the brutality of nature in story after story and novel after novel, upon the actual deaths of his favorite animals he would dissolve into helpless tears. Sick, angry, and disillusioned, after a short, breathless life, he passed away at age forty, but he left behind him a glorious literary legacy. Award-winning author James L. Haley explores the forgotten Jack London—a man bristling with ideas, whose passion for social justice roared until the day he died. In Wolf, Haley returns Jack London to his proper place in the American pantheon, resurrecting the author of White Fang in his full fire and glory.
Made by makers…
Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World
By Mark Frauenfelder; Read by Kirby Heyborne
7 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – Approx. 8 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: June 07, 2010
ISBN: 9781400117819 (cd), 9781400167814 (mp3-cd) From his unique vantage point as editor in chief of Make magazine, the hub of the newly invigorated do-it-yourself (DIY) movement, Mark Frauenfelder takes listeners on an inspiring and surprising tour of the vibrant world of DIY. The Internet has brought together large communities of people who share ideas, tips, and blueprints for making everything from unmanned aerial vehicles to pedal-powered iPhone chargers to an automatic cat feeder jury-rigged from a VCR. DIY is a direct reflection of our basic human desire to invent and improve, long suppressed by the availability of cheap, mass-produced products that have drowned us in bland convenience and cultivated our most wasteful habits. Frauenfelder spent a year trying a variety of offbeat projects, such as keeping chickens and bees, tricking out his espresso machine, whittling wooden spoons, making guitars out of cigar boxes, and doing citizen science with his daughters in the garage. His whole family found that DIY helped them take control of their lives, offering a path that was simple, direct, and clear. Working with their hands and minds helped them feel more engaged with the world around them.
Frauenfelder reveals how DIY is changing our culture for the better. He profiles fascinating “alpha makers” leading various DIY movements and grills them for their best tips and insights. Beginning his journey with hands as smooth as those of a typical geek, Frauenfelder offers a unique perspective on how earning a few calluses can be far more rewarding and satisfying than another trip to the mall.
I always bet on the man with the bigger mustache…
Deathride: Hitler vs. Stalin—the Eastern Front, 1941-1945
By John Mosier; Read by Michael Prichard
10 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – Approx. 12.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: June 15, 2010
ISBN: 9781400117369 (cd), 9781400167364 (mp3-cd) John Mosier presents a revisionist retelling of the war on the Eastern Front. Although the Eastern Front was the biggest and most important theater in World War II, it is not well known in the United States, as no American troops participated in the fighting. Yet historians agree that this is where the decisive battles of the war were fought. The conventional wisdom about the Eastern Front is that Hitler was mad to think he could defeat the USSR because of its vast size and population, and that the Battle of Stalingrad marked the turning point of the war. Neither statement is accurate, says Mosier; Hitler came very close to winning outright. Mosier’s history of the Eastern Front will generate considerable controversy both because of his unconventional arguments and because he criticizes historians who have accepted Soviet facts and interpretations. Mosier argues that Soviet accounts are utterly untrustworthy and that accounts relying on them are fantasies. Deathride argues that the war in the East was Hitler’s to lose, that Stalin was in grave jeopardy from the outset of the war, and that it was the Allied victories in North Africa and consequent threat to Italy that forced Hitler to change his plans and saved Stalin from near-certain defeat. Stalin’s only real triumph was in creating a legend of victory.
We’ve talked about it on the podcast, and here it is…
Terminal World
By Alastair Reynolds; Read by John Lee
15 Audio CDs or 2 MP3-CDs – Approx. 19.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Publisher: June 1, 2010
ISBN: 9781400117116(cd), 9781400167111 (mp3-cd) Spearpoint, the last human city, is an atmosphere-piercing spire of vast size. Clinging to its skin are the zones, a series of semi-autonomous city-states, each of which enjoys a different—and rigidly enforced—level of technology. Following an infiltration mission that went tragically wrong, Quillon has been living incognito, working as a pathologist in the district morgue. But when a near-dead angel drops onto his dissecting table, Quillon’s world is wrenched apart one more time. If Quillon is to save his life, he must leave his home and journey into the cold and hostile lands beyond Spearpoint’s base, starting an exile that will take him further than he could ever imagine. But there is far more at stake than just Quillon’s own survival, for the limiting technologies of the zones are determined not by governments or police but by the very nature of reality—and reality itself is showing worrying signs of instability.
Death Cloud is the first in a series of novels in which Sherlock Holmes is re-imagined as “a brilliant, troubled and engaging teenager”…
Young Sherlock Holmes: Death Cloud
By Andrew Lane; Read by Dan Stevens
3 CDs – Approx. 3 Hours [ABRIDGED?]
Publisher: Pan Macmillian Audio
Published: June 2010
ISBN: 9780230745124 The year is 1868, and Sherlock Holmes is fourteen. His life is that of a perfectly ordinary army officer’s son: boarding school, good manners, a classical education – the backbone of the British Empire. But all that is about to change. With his father suddenly posted to India, and his mother mysteriously ‘unwell’, Sherlock is sent to stay with his eccentric uncle and aunt in their vast house in Hampshire. So begins a summer that leads Sherlock to uncover his first murder, a kidnap, corruption and a brilliantly sinister villain of exquisitely malign intent…
The SFFaudio Podcast #058 – Jesse and Scott talk with John DeNardo from SFSignal.com about Science Fiction books, audiobooks, TV, movies and comics.
Talked about on today’s show: SFSignal.com, Charles Tan (of the Bibliophile Stalker), books vs. movies, Blade Runner, SFSignal reviews audiobooks, the Warhammer 40K series, Infinivox, Aliens Rule edited by Allan Kaster, James Swallow, the Blake’s 7 audio dramas, Black Library, Dresden Files, Jim Butcher, WWW: Wake by Robert J. Sawyer |READ OUR REVIEW|, Mike Resnick’s Starship series, Orson Scott Card, Theodore Sturgeon, Alastair Reynolds, Hard SF, Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained by Peter F. Hamilton, Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks, The Space Opera Renaissance edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, The New Space Opera 2 edited by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan, Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, The Science Fiction Hall Of Fame – Volume One, Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds, Tantor Media, steampunk, airships, Deep Navigation by Alastair Reynolds, NESFA Press, Subterranean Press, Phases Of The Moon by Robert Silverberg, “Book Cover Smackdown,” Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, Gentlemen Of The Road by Michael Chabon, interior magazine art, The Lifecycle Of Software Objects by Ted Chiang, The Merchant And The Alchemist’s Gate by Ted Chiang, The Story Of Your Life by Ted Chiang, reviewing Science Fiction books, PC Gamer, the philosophy of reviewing, The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James, Star Trek, Doctor Who, deus ex machina, social Science Fiction, Fringe, Eureka, Paul Bishop, Bish’s Beat, Flashforward, Robert J. Sawyer’s episode, Luke Burrage, iO9: Good Character Development Includes The All-Important “F*@% Yeah” Moment, Terry Pratchett Explains Why Doctor Who Is Ludicrous, Frequency, CERN, HBO, True Blood, Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris |READ OUR REVIEW|, A Game Of Thrones, Ringworld as an audio drama or a miniseries, V, Shogun, “In the interest of full disclosure”, books received vs. books reviewed, the ethics of reviewing free books, Karen Burnham, Spiral Galaxy Reviewing Laboratory, paranormal romance, Lisa Paitz Spindler, Danger Gal, recent arrivals, The Unincorporated War by Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin, Brilliance Audio, Cory Doctorow, For The Win, Little Brother, Jesse’s Pick Of The Week:Logicomix: An Epic Search For Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Watchmen, Zeus: King Of The Gods by George O’Connor, Scott’s Pick Of The Week:The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby, About A Boy, Fever Pitch, John’s Pick Of The Week:Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds, We, Robots edited by Allan Kaster, The Complete Drive-In by Joe R. Lansdale.
James Gurney’s handsomely illustrated book, Dinotopia, The World Beneath, has been adapted into an audio drama using a full cast of actors, original music by Tim Clark, and sounds recorded in Bali, Sumatra and the Amazon by Tom Lopez. The two and a half hour audio adventure was produced by ZBS Foundation.
Tom Lopez lives an awesome life, creating amazing audio drama while traveling the world!
Dinotopia: The World Beneath
Based on the book by James Gurney; Performed by a full cast MP3 Download – Approx. 2.5 Hours [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: ZBS Foundation
Published: 2010 (originally released on CD in 1996)
ISBN: 1881137430 Close your eyes, open your imagination, and be transported to Dinotopia, the only place in the world where dinosaurs and humans live side by side. This peaceful island, first brought to light in James Gurney’s phenomenal bestseller, comes alive again in this spectacular audio journey. Join Arthur and Will Denison as they explore all the great landmarks, discover the hidden byways, meet the inhabitants (including the dinosaurs), and learn about the unusual lifeways of this fabulous land apart from time. No other audio adventure so effectively creates an entire world (a reality unlike any other) and so immediately plunges you into the full ambiance of an unknown civilization. All the excitement and adventure of this unique expedition is now within your reach through this very special production.
The SFFaudio Podcast #043 – Jesse and Scott talk about all the Recent Arrivals and New Releases that have been piling up while Scott’s been away fiddling on a roof.
“Just wanted to let you know about the radio play recently made of my short story, The Resident Member. It’s a steampunky sort of humorous Victorian ghost story.”
Indeed, good show old boy! My heartiest congratulations. Hear hear and wot-ho.
Though… I will point out that the Something Wicked gentlemen have a podcast feed that’s even less substantial than the poltergeist in your story. Being as I am a gentleman myself I shall add it to my personal HuffDuffer feed. That way those for whom a podcast feed is desirous can place it in their podcatcher properly.
The Resident Member
Based on a story by Paul Marlowe; adapted by Digby Young; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Something Wicked Presents…
Published: November 20, 2009 …Poltergeists, death, and romance interrupt a quiet dinner at the Etheric Explorers Club… On any given day, the intrepid members of the Etheric Explorers Club can be found frustrating prophesies, wrestling with ancient evils, and generally striding boldly down the dark alleys of life, in order to fill in those portions of man’s map of reality that are, perhaps, better left blank. As with any club, though, there are always members who stay behind so as not to miss a second helping of pudding. This is their story. First published in Something Wicked Issue 7.
Stars:
Gideon Emery
Joe Vaz
Digby Young
Damon Berry
Christa Schamberger Young
Mister Ron, of Mister Ron’s Basement Podcast, has posted up the first installment of The Steam Man Of The Plains aka The Steam Man Of The Prairies aka The Huge Hunter. Whatever you call it, I think this is the first American Science Fiction novel with a robot! Written by Edward S. Ellis, it was first published in 1868. This is a “dime novel” and kind of a proto-steampunk story, I guess. 
The Steam Man of The Prairies
