Into That Darkness Peering: Nightmarish Tales Of The Macabre - Vol. 1&2

Into That Darkness Peering: Nightmarish Tales Of The Macabre - Vol. 1&2
Written by Edgar Allan Poe;

Read by Wayne June
Publisher: AudioBookCase.com

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,” Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven

Edgar Allan Poe has a penchant for murder, insanity and boarding up bodies under floorboards and behind walls. These were my ponderings on my stuffy Northern Line journey.

Listening to these exceptionally well read stories of the ‘Macabre’, took me back to Roald Dahl’s ‘Tales of the Unexpected’ - that early eighties TV series.

I was always sent to bed around the time it was on TV, but I remember creeping into my parents bedroom while they were watching it in the living room, and turning their bedroom telly on really carefully (it was one of those twisty knob ones that made a 'clcking' sound when you turned it on). I never got the whole story with the sound turned off...but i felt rebillious anyhoo!

Wayne June has a timbre to his voice that fits with the spooky, sinister content of Poe’s poetry and short stories. He captures Poe’s rhythmic beats in The Raven, for example, and carry’s us in its gravitational pull to the bitter end.

Poe was a master of selecting words that created mood, and Wayne June underlines this with his reading. The spooky music at the introduction and end of each tale (although even more ‘Tales of the Unexpected’) also create a mournful mood.

Forgiving the ‘old’ language of the 1800s his stories still capture the imagination.  Insantiy is a regular theme, and in, "The Tell-Tale Heart," a man betrays his crime when he thinks he hears the beating heart of the man he has murdered.

I think my favourite tale (or, worst tale? Or, best worst tale…??) is "The Black Cat". Poe loved making his readers very uncomfortable in their skin. Our narrator becomes an alcoholic and thus begins his descent into insanity. He describes himself as an animal lover at the beginning of the tale; thus his describtion of his abuse of the cat and subsequent murder jarred with me. We hear our narrators obvious embarrassment as he describes the alcoholic madness that took over whilst torturing and murdering the poor thing! Even worse, in a rage, he does the same thing to his wife…

If you like a spooky tale, and don’t mind the olde worlde language – you’ll love these audiobooks.

Audiogeist.com



The Heavenfield

Written & read by I G Hume

Published by: TheHeavenfield.com

Price: 0

Following on from audiogeist.com’s post last week on The Heavenfield, the gripping sci-fi thriller podiobook  i stumbled across on twitter…

A team of researchers are trialing ‘The Standing point’, a technology rather like Star Trek’s teleporting technology (‘beam me up Scotty), although, it seems to beam them to a place they really have no concept of. One minute it’s a place similar to ‘Heaven’…then, for reasons we’re still trying to figure out, it’s complete Hell, topped with grotesque and very fast moving demons.

Let me first say that the listening experience of this podio was spot on. I G Hume took on personas (yes, even the women), delivering well rounded characters that I could easily imagine. I liked the quirkiness of the sharply spoken Grace Palmer, Head of Research. She’s am eccentric chain smoker, heavy drinker and keeps calling her newbie team member Tim. His name is Thomas.

Thomas Sullivan is a genuine geek, straight out of college. He’d caught the Base Commander’s attention with academic papers that pointed to genius. He stumbles into the fray of espionage, enlisted as a Theoretician, blushing and stuttering…we never really get to see the outcome of his true potential.

Hume is good at suspense. The team gets stranded in The Heavenfield after an attack on their base. Low on air, and with the hellish red (Eeooww! Dried blood!) dust eating away at their suits – they have to wait until Maunsworth house is back online before they can be ‘teleported’ home. It seems the demons and specters of The Heavenfield want to keep them there though…

When I first started listening to the Heavenfield, I envisaged a guy in his living room reading and recording his own novel (a little like Daniel Bedingfield of the literary world). So saying, I’m sure I caught birds tweeting in the first episode…but this could almost be intentional, as the following episodes resulted in subtle but relevant periphery sounds that underlined the whole experience as a professional one.

On a different note, I did find the story line hard to follow. It took me a while to figure out who Alexi was, and who he was working for. Although, this could be the point of the tale if the ending is anything to go by. Um…sequel perhaps Mr. Hume?

The people he’s working for already have the technology that our team at Maunsworth house is testing, and he sets out to sabotage Standing Point, on a mission to kill Grace Palmer and especially Thomas Sullivan.

I downloaded via iTunes, and got a little confused with which version to download. I imagine the podiobooks recently been updated and spit into Book One and Book Two.

The interactive website is also well worth a visit – treats galore with artwork and t-shirts available to buy, plus biogs of all the characters.

BBC Audiobooks sold

BBC Worldwide has two thirds of its audiobook division to AudioGo Ltd, a company set up by a former Polygram executive.

BBC Worldwide which publishes titles including John Peel Remembered and Lynne Truss’ Certain Age reviewed on Audiogeist, as well as bestseller, Richard Burton's Under Milk Wood. The deal, understood to be worth at least £10m, is likely to be the first of several disposals of assets considered non-core by BBC Worldwide, the corporation's commercial arm. The sale of a stake in BBC Magazines which publishes titles including the Radio Times and Top Gear, is expected to form part of this process.

AudioGo Ltd is a new, private company owned by film producer Michael Kuhn. The  announcement to audiobook fans via Twitter last week was; @BBCAudiobooks 'We've been making the news this week: we've got a new name! From now on BBC Audiobooks will be known as AudioGo...'

 Audiogeist.com

Did you hear about the Audible iTunes App?

Great news! Audible.com, the Internet’s leading provider of digital audiobooks (and more), is now available on iPhone and iPod Touch (says iTunes)! This FREE app incorporates innovative features including Wi-Fi delivery of your Audible.com library and multitasking (iOS 4 and compatible device required) so that you can do other things on your iPhone whilst listening.

If you're not already an Audible.com subscriber, they've included seven teaser excerpts to convince you of how good they truely are.

BONUS: Create a new, free Audible account in the app and receive a free excerpt of The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World.

Audible for iPhone features the best audiobook listening experience:
• Chapter Navigation, Bookmarking, Sleep Mode, Button Free Mode, and Play as you Download
• Wireless transfer of your books from My Library to your device over Wi-Fi
• Multitasking for background audio playback and background downloading (iOS 4 and compatible device required)

And the fun extras you’ve been waiting for:
• Earn badges and check your personal listening habits
• Get insider information about author events and more with the Audible Newsfeed
• Connect to Facebook and Twitter and let your friends know what you’re listening to and more

Note: This version of the application only accepts audible.com accounts. Audible.co.uk, .de, and .fr are coming soon. Let's hope they hurry up!

audiogeist.com

Audiobook Awards 2010

The Audiobook Store is hunting for the best audiobook for 2010.

In it's second year running, a panel of experts have selected the best 20 new audiobooks of 2010 for you to vote on. If you have a listen and vote for your favourite, you'll have a chance to win £50 of Audiobook Store vouchers. (Winner will be notified by email)

So, heard any good books lately?