Subject: (urth) Audio recordings of Wolfe

From: Nigel Price <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 21:06:32 +0000

When I recently had the pleasure of meeting Gene Wolfe, among the things we
discussed were the various audio recordings which he has made over the
years. Amongst others recordings, he mentioned one which he had made some
time ago at a science fiction convention.

The organisers set up recording equipment to make a professional-standard
recording of the panel which Gene was on with another author. (I think it
may have been Fred Pohl, but I'm not sure.) The authors arrived early, the
technician set the levels, started the recorder running and went off to
provide tech support at some other event in the convention. Gene and his
companion sat there waiting patiently, but absolutely no one turned up to
the panel! In the end, they decided to fake a discussion.

They invited questions from the floor, and would then specify imaginary
members of the audience to ask questions, saying things like, "Yes sir, the
gentleman with the green T-shirt in the back row. What was your question?"

To cover the lack of a question, Gene and Fred (or whoever) would then say,
"I don't think that the microphone picked up your question, so I'll repeat
it for the benefit of those listening to the recording. What you wanted to
know was..."

They of course asked themselves all the questions about their own work which
they always hoped fans would ask, and then answered them as they saw fit.

Apparently they kept this up for the entire length of the proposed panel
session. Gene says that he never heard the recording broadcast or used in
any way and therefore supposes that the recording engineer tumbled to their
little game when he played back the tape. Still, it's interesting to think
that this recording might still be out there somewhere. I couldn't help
wondering what questions Gene asked himself, the questions which he wishes
we the fans would ask, presumably instead of the ones which we actually come
up with!

I wondered whether anybody here had a copy of this recording, or knew
anything more about it.

The only Wolfe or Wolfe-related recordings of which I do have copies are:

	- Wolfe reading "The Island of Dr Death and Other Stories" and "A Solar
Labyrinth" on a Library of Congress recording
	- Neil Gaiman and others taking part in a dramatised reading of "The Tree
is my Hat"
	- Gene Wolfe being interviewed for a BaltiCon podcast

Again, I'd be fascinated to hear of any other recordings which are out
there.

Nigel

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From: Lane Haygood <lhaygood at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 21:10:04 +0000

If you have blind or seeing-impaired friends, ask them about getting the
American Printing House for the Blind audio recordings of Wolfe's books.  I
listened to the "Book of the New Sun" that way.  Made for an interesting
series of car trips.

Lane

On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 3:06 PM, Nigel Price <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>wrote:

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From: Nigel Price <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 21:19:10 +0000

In terms of commercial audio recordings of his stories, a reading of Wolfe's
short story "Hunter's Lake" is included in "The Best of Fantasy and Science
Fiction Magazine, September-November 2003 (Unabridged Selections)". It's
available from Audible, though I've not heard this recording.

Nigel

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From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 21:26:24 +0000

Good to see you back, Nigel, and apparently in good health.

.

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From: Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 21:37:26 +0000

Just now, I got nowhere trying to search aph.org for Wolfe or New Sun.
any links?

As I've mentioned before, I scrounged the web for Wolfe audiobooks. 
I found MP3 recordings of the Tapes read by Roy Avers (great reading).
I assembled them all up into M4U audiobook format for consolidation and the Resume function.  I can make them available on line via megaupload or something. 

Again, I'm not sure if this is welcome or not.  I really only care if wolfe would be upset or not. any ideas anyone?

I did receive one request from someone who wanted a visually impaired family member to finally get into Wolfe.  I lost the email though, and have not been able to respond. (Curse whoever designed my webmail and put the Delete button so close to the Inbox button.)

What I would have said, is that these recordings have serious problems.  During the Lake Diaturna section, it wobbles in and out of audibility.  Overall, there are many points like this, and the volume wavers a lot.  So I would not recommend them for anyone's first pass on the books.  However, they are very good for reviewing the material if you've read them already. Much of my insights into subtext have come while listening rather than reading, and have allowed a third pass almost simultaneous to my second read.

anyway, no one really bit when I mentioned it. does anyone want them?
I've listened to Sword, Citadel, most of Urth, and a chunk of Shadow. they sound good enough. I was going to wait until I'd listened to all of them, but, hell, they're as-is, so what I found is what I could share.
I also have Wizard Knight, 3 of the long suns and one or two of the short suns.

and Nigel,
I haven't heard details, but I hope you're feeling better.

best,
~witz

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Lane Haygood [mailto:lhaygood at gmail.com]
>Sent: Friday, December 5, 2008 01:10 PM
>To: 'The Urth Mailing List'
>Subject: Re: (urth) Audio recordings of Wolfe
>

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From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 22:21:28 +0000

Witz, I'd love to hear those MP3s. Maybe I could turn my wife on to 
Wolfe with that as a strategem. We enjoyed the Tree Is My Hat audioplay.

BTW, I've cleaned up those text files you sent me quite a bit and will 
continue to do so; when I'm happy with them I'll send them back. Lots of 
symbol "blowouts."

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From: Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 22:25:43 +0000

>From: David Stockhoff [mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net]
>Sent: Friday, December 5, 2008 02:21 PM
>To: urth at lists.urth.net

great. I'd love em. I've done a bit of cleanup, but not much.

I suppose I'll upload those audiobooks soon.

~witz

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From: Nigel Price <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 23:01:21 +0000

>>Good to see you back, Nigel, and apparently in 

Thank you, Brunians!

It's good to be back.

Nigel

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From: Dave Lebling <dlebling at hyraxes.com>
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 23:58:34 +0000

The idea of a panel with Gene Wolfe and Fred Pohl attracting no one 
amazes me. Had I been at that convention there would have been at least 
one attendee!

-- Dave Lebling, aka vizcacha

---

From: Nigel Price <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2008 00:17:47 +0000

Dave Lebling wrote...

>>The idea of a panel with Gene Wolfe and Fred Pohl
>>attracting no one amazes me. Had I been at that
>>convention there would have been at least one
>>attendee!

Absolutely. It's hard to understand. I imagine it must have been quite early
in Wolfe's career, but even so, Pohl was a well established author by then.

Hmmm... Maybe the other author wasn't Pohl!

Then again, I attended the 1987 WorldCon in Brighton and never saw either of
the Wolfes, even though they were both there. I'd not read any of Gene's
books at that stage and he was not yet of interest to me.

Goodness, perhaps I was one of the people who failed to turn up to that
panel as well!

By the way, Wolfe confirmed that he was indeed at the talk which Ray
Harryhausen gave at Brighton. He too heard about animating a six-legged
octopus so that it could attack a model of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Son of Witz said...

>>and Nigel, I haven't heard details,
>>but I hope you're feeling better.

Thanks, Witz. I'm slowly getting there!

Nigel

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From: Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2008 00:19:14 +0000

>Thanks, Witz. I'm slowly getting there!

Nice to hear. all the best.

~witz

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2008 05:52:38 +0000

Son of Witz wrote:
> I assembled them all up into M4U audiobook format for consolidation and
the Resume function.  I can make them available on line via megaupload or
something.
>
> Again, I'm not sure if this is welcome or not.  I really only care if
wolfe would be upset or not. any ideas anyone?<<

I can't speak for Wolfe, and I'm not a lawyer, but the holders of the
copyrights for the audiobooks might well take exception. It might be worth
checking into first. FWIW.

-Roy

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2008 08:11:14 +0000

> Again, I'd be fascinated to hear of any other recordings which are out

I have a 60 minute mono audio cassette from American Audio Prose Library of
a 1984 interview of Wolfe by Chris Merrick.

-Roy

---

From: Nigel Price <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2008 12:28:39 +0000

Roy Lackey wrote:

>>I have a 60 minute mono audio cassette from American
>>Audio Prose Library of a 1984 interview of Wolfe by
>>Chris Merrick.

And this is still available - thank you, Roy! I'll send off for that. The
American Audio Prose Library also offer the recording of Wolfe reading "The
Island of Dr Death and Other Stories" and "A Solar Labyrinth" that I bought
from the US branch of Audible. They even do a joint package of the readings
and the interview bundled together.

Nigel

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From: Stuart Hamm <hammstu at sbcglobal.net>
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2008 13:50:49 +0000

Where can you get a hold of copies of these???

???? Mobile — (415) 786-3624
???? Skype? stuart.hamm
myspace.com/stuhamm
? ??? stuarthamm.net

--- On Sat, 12/6/08, Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net> wrote:

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Audio recordings of Wolfe
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Date: Saturday, December 6, 2008, 12:11 AM

-Roy

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From: Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:45:04 +0000

sorta surprising that they only offer tapes.
they'd sell a hell of a lot more if they digitized them.

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2008 19:18:16 +0000

> and the interview bundled together.

On a related note: I can't find it in the old archives for some reason, but
I think I mentioned here six or seven years ago that Wolfe once appeared on
the late Tom Snyder's old, late night "Tomorrow" TV show with Harlan Ellison
and Azimov. Back in the 1980s, I think. I wasn't able to find a copy at the
time I mentioned it here (if I did), but Wolfe said that that episode was
replayed from time to time on cable TV. I wonder if anyone else here ever
saw it. Better yet, does anyone here have a copy or know where to get one?

-Roy