There was a Videodrome novel?
September 12, 2015 2:01 PM   Subscribe

Audiobooks for the Damned takes the novelizations of films from the seventies and eighties, records audiobook versions, and uploads them to YouTube.

Westword talked to "Chief Denizen" Jon Olsen. Downloadable versions are in the works.

Most of the recordings are full length (up to ten hours) but there are some half-hour long abridgments created for the 2015 Stanley Film Festival, which ran on the hotel's internal channel. Additionally, the novelization of Blade Runner (not the Dick novel) is just over seventy minutes.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker (20 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
Death to Audiodrome! Long live the old flesh!
posted by yeolcoatl at 3:59 PM on September 12, 2015 [8 favorites]


That's a fun idea.
posted by ph00dz at 5:17 PM on September 12, 2015


I can't tell clicking around on the site: are audio downloads not available anywhere?
posted by roll truck roll at 6:03 PM on September 12, 2015


I found the YA section and read my first piers Anthony book by discovering the Total Recall novization... I would love to hear it in audiobook form!
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 6:07 PM on September 12, 2015


are audio downloads not available anywhere?

Not yet. They're apparently working on it.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:16 PM on September 12, 2015


There were two editions of that Total Recall novelization, OnTheLastCastle. One was hardback with no movie acknowledgement whatsoever, with key character names and dialogue changed. (Douglas Quail? "Proof of alien civilization" versus "We're doing alien artifacts now"?) One was a tie-in paperback clearly given an editorial pass with a dirty cloth after viewing a rough cut of the film (used the phrase "passion of her ardor" or something like that twice on one page). Both were enough that I knew I didn't really need to read any more Piers Anthony.

God I wish I had copies of those. I would read those into a microphone with genuine love. Also the Robocop and Robocop 2 novelizations by Ed Naha.
posted by infinitewindow at 7:22 PM on September 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


People who would do something like this are my sort of lunatic.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 7:53 PM on September 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


*checks shelves* I wonder if they need a copy of the Scanners II novelization, since they did they first one. Makes me wish I still have my copy of "The Fifth Element", which attempted to render every sound effect in the movie in print and is definitely one of the worst things I've ever tried to read.
posted by Earthtopus at 9:07 PM on September 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'm relieved in a way that Escape from New York's novelization isn't part of this. One of the (few?) cases where the movie's novelization was better (and crazier) than the movie itself. The book was proto-cyberpunk, detailed world-building, and quite nightmarish, at least to my 11 yr old self who read it over and over again.

Anyways, that would be an interesting question: what novelizations were better than the source film, when the film was an "original" concept (not derived from an existing book)?
posted by honestcoyote at 10:26 PM on September 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


That might be a very short list, although (and as a slight derail into the wonderful world of meta novelizations can provide) I'll always have a soft spot for my copy of Fred Saberhagen's "Bram Stoker's Dracula".
posted by Earthtopus at 10:57 PM on September 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


Earthtopus: Maybe you could contact them by email asking them if there's any books they want.
posted by BiggerJ at 2:51 AM on September 13, 2015


I bet the Super Mario Bros. novelisation is on the front page.
*clicked the link*
CALLED IT.
posted by wwwwolf at 5:03 AM on September 13, 2015


Ugh, that Poltergeist book. Even my love of morbid kitsch can't get me to revisit that one. Thrilled that they've got William Kotzwinkle's adaptation of E.T., though. As a kid I liked that more than the film. But I still don't see the best one of these I can remember, namely Alan Dean Foster's take on The Last Starfighter.
posted by informavore at 5:31 AM on September 13, 2015


informavore: Please tell them.

Everyone, please tell them about everything. The people need to know such things, and to suffer.
posted by BiggerJ at 6:03 AM on September 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


I was a teen when I read it, but the Independence Day novelization definitely seemed better than the movie to me.
posted by KGMoney at 7:33 AM on September 13, 2015


The sound track from My Dinner With Andre made a great audiobook.
posted by Obscure Reference at 10:47 AM on September 13, 2015


Also WarGames had a novelization that went wayyyyyy overboard giving already well-characterized characters backstory. Did we need to know that the older dude in the missile silo was in summer stock?
posted by infinitewindow at 11:01 AM on September 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


For mp3 downloads:

Not exactly speedy, but it works.
posted by spasm at 12:14 PM on September 13, 2015


Don't know where this went:
listentoyoutube
posted by spasm at 12:18 PM on September 13, 2015


infinitewindow: "Did we need to know that the older dude in the missile silo was in summer stock?"

Not surprising, given that he was John Spencer.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:28 PM on September 13, 2015


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