Category Archives: Podcasts etc.

Foundation Trilogy as a TV series

12 Saturday Oct 2019

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I’m glad to hear that Isaac Asimov’s original Foundation trilogy is finally being filmed as ten-episode series. Although sadly it’s not being made for the cinema by the Independence Day director, as was mooted about a decade ago. It’s being made for TV in Ireland by Skydance for Apple Studios, by the director of the recent Ghost In The Shell. Filming reportedly starts next month, for a wrap-up in June 2020 and a screening in perhaps Fall 2020 or early in 2021.

I assume it’s the original trilogy (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation). Not the non-Asimov prequels now also available, or Asimov’s own sequel novels.

If you can’t wait, there’s a pre-PC 1973 Foundation Trilogy radio adaptation by BBC Radio on Archive.org, which runs eight hours. Sound design by the famous Radiophonic Workshop. There’s also another copy here.

The freeware AIMP Player and its “Headphones” preset is what you want to listen to this. Presumably it emulates more closely radio speakers, as in the original audio broadcast, dampening the sharp electronic music enough to make it listenable.

New Neal Stephenson interview

23 Friday Aug 2019

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Conversations with Tyler: Neal Stephenson, July 2017, a 54-minute podcast interview which ranges widely and isn’t just marketing ra-ra and plot-summary for the new book…

I find that, of all of the science fiction writers that I read when I was a kid, [Heinlein’s] stuff has stayed with me more than others. He had this knack for capturing little moments, little human interactions, and images that produced really vivid memories in my head that are still with me.

Direct MP3 downloads at Listen Notes are hidden behind the … icon, thus…

Audiobook: Arabian Nights: Volume 10 released

28 Sunday Jul 2019

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Burton’s Arabian Nights Volume 10 as an unabridged audiobook, including the Terminal Essay. Free from Librivox. I’d previously blogged on the earlier nine audiobooked volumes here, and had also linked to a means to lookup Librivox’s cryptic titling of the stories (such “Night 998”) and translate them into proper story titles.

If you don’t take to a reader’s voice, don’t forget that excellent free media players such as AIMP let you pitch-shift and speed-shift audio during real-time playback. Though that tends to work best on a desktop PC rather than an Android tablet.

Call: ‘Penumbra’, a journal for criticism and scholarship of weird fiction

15 Monday Jul 2019

Posted by in New books, Odd scratchings, Podcasts etc., Scholarly works

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S.T. Joshi is back from his Australian tour and his blog has just updated.

He’s wittled his Lovecraft biography down to a mere 8,000 words and has committed the results to a vinyl LP record! This is due for release shortly, with music — and I assume also with graphic design and sleeve-notes of the sort that will please the vinyl collectors.

Joshi also notes an Italian translation of the first volume of I Am Providence is due for October 2019, with the dust-jacket sporting an affordable “29 Euro” tag. The second volume of the German language translation is less certain on the date, but is reported as likely to appear at around the same time.

News also of a new Joshi editorship, of …

a new magazine to be published next summer by Hippocampus Press: Penumbra. This will be an annual magazine, consisting of up to 100,000 words, chiefly devoted to criticism and scholarship of weird fiction (exclusive of Lovecraft), but it will also include a small amount of original fiction (about 30,000 words in each issue).

Submissions are invited.

Podcast: Into The Weird

14 Sunday Jul 2019

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, Podcasts etc.

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Into The Weird: A Marvel Bronze Age Comic Book Podcast is a new one to me. It’s an ongoing audio survey with ten episodes, to date. The show surveys the weird-horror elements depicted in the classic (and, often, no-so classic) Marvel Comics output of the 1970s. Their latest podcast discusses the Lovecraftian in Marvel’s Doctor Strange, specifically in two Marvel Premiere issues from 1972.

Audio: The Horror in the Burying-Ground

11 Thursday Jul 2019

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“The Horror in the Burying-Ground” by H. P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald (c. 1933-34). Newly recorded as a free 35 minute audio story, narrated by Ian Gordon, who always does a good reading.

The Lovecraft Encyclopedia suggests that, given the dating, Lovecraft was having some fun with the story and was not taking it overly seriously…

this is evidently the last of the tales he ghostwrote for her. Much of the story is narrated in a backwoods patois [and was likely meant,] if not as an actual [self]parody, at least as an instance of graveyard humor.

Nevertheless it found its way to Weird Tales and was published May 1937 under Heald’s name.

One wonders if the illustration’s somewhat Lovecraft-like head, looking over the shoulder of and spooking a vaguely Heald-like face, was meant to convey anything to Weird Tales insiders?

The remaining Howard Days videos for 2019

07 Sunday Jul 2019

Posted by in Historical context, Podcasts etc., Scholarly works

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I don’t see more of videos coming online from the 2019 Howard Days, so below are links to what I take to be the final tranche.

Previous posts here at Tentaclii have already covered Howard Day 2019 – the first videos (trailer, keynote, and a main panel) and More Howard Days (“What’s new with REH”, and an excellent “History of Project Pride” which gives a fine insight into how just a few dynamic can-do people make all the difference to a small town).

The remains videos to be linked are:

* The Writers of REH, a 58 minute panel during which “Biographers of Howard answer biographical questions”.

* Glenn Lord Symposium 2019: Nicole Emmelhainz, giving a 40 minute talk about Howard’s letters and correspondents.

* Glenn Lord Symposium 2019: Ralph Norris, giving a short 20 minute talk about Howard’s Kull character.

* Fists of the Ice House 2019 is a 48 minute talk on Howard’s boxing stories, given dynamically in the very place where the author used to box. Followed by a 50 minute panel on Sailor Steve Costigan of the boxing stories.

Many thanks to Ben Friberg for the uploads and (I assume) he was also the one to be thanked for the clear audio and professional recordings.

Others? Unfortunately YouTube has near-enough turned off their ‘sort by date’, to the extent that it’s now very difficult to get a comprehensive slate of ‘most recently posted’ videos in the results for any keyword or phrase. So my apologies if someone else has also posted a Howard Days 2019 video, but I wasn’t able to find it. Nothing pops up on ListenNotes either, which is the best podcast search-engine. Sadly it’s 2019 and the world still lacks a ‘timely blog-post search’ engine like the old Technorati, but using the general search-engines to approximate that didn’t turn up anything in the form of .MP3s or video.

* The Abeline Reporter local newspaper has a good long write-up and crisp photos, “Howard Days celebrates Cross Plains writer’s legacy”. I’m pleased to see that this is accessible outside the USA (many small town newspapers block outsiders now). It includes the interesting news that…

At this moment, Howard is way bigger in France than he is the [United] States,” said French scholar Patrice Louinet, who regularly travels to Cross Plains to present at Howard Days. “He’s everywhere [in France].”

The local cemetery website also has a nice look at the excellent promotional poster for 2019, along with the artist’s details if you’d care to commission him for something similar for your town…