Some more library audio books we’ve been listening to at work:
The Smithsonian Collection: Old Time Radio Science Fiction
I’ve listened to this before as I recall, but the selections are such classics that I enjoyed them yet again. There’s the obligatory Wells’s "War of the Worlds", as performed by Welles. A highlights-version of the Martian Chronicles and Welles again, performing "Donovan’s Brain." According to the illustrious minds of sci-fi, we’re going to be visiting Mars in the year 2000, and the moon in 1987. Particularly effective was Suspense‘s performance of Bradbury’s "Zero Hour." Yep, don’t turn your back on those children.
We only made it through the first couple of CDs of the fully dramatized audio play of Tribulation Force the second book in the Left Behind series. "Dramatized" is a bit of a hyperbole, since there seemed to be no drama or events of note in the two CDs we heard. The Christians have the most boring apocalypse ever. And they coined the term! Why couldn’t they throw some zombies in there?
We got about two-thirds of the way through Bill O’Reilly’s Culture Warrior, unabridged and read by the author, before sentiment turned solidly against it. The book is much like a rap song, where the author spends the entire time complaining about how everyone disses him, even though he’s totally awesome. Only without rhythm and in a totally condescending tone of voice. The best part is the chapter where he lashes out against Al Franken, calling him a pipsqueak who won’t amount to anything. Bill sure showed him, didn’t he? There’s some interesting summaries of the "secular progressive" forces he’s fighting against, but no real synoposis of what Bill O’Reilly stands for. Ultimately, O’Reilly proves that he’s not as compelling as his own parodies.