The Aylesford Skull
The Adventures of Langdon St Ives, Book 3
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Narrated by:
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William Gaminara
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By:
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James P Blaylock
About this listen
A skeletal hand clutching an iron key lies hidden within a mermaid's wooden sarcophagus; a hand-drawn map is stolen from beneath the floorboards an old museum. All while an eccentric inventor - he Sleeper - dreams of a passage to the centre of the hollow earth. And by dreaming, brings the passage into being....
Pursued by kidnappers thinking of riches and murder, Katherine Perkins and her two cousins must descend into the depths of the hollow earth in order to return the Sleeper to his ancestral home on the shores of Lake Windermere. But to awaken him might mean the end of his dream, the closing of the Windermere Passage, leaving the three intrepid explorers marooned in a savage land forgotten by time itself.
Zeuglodon, set in the world envisioned in James P Blaylock's The Digging Leviathan, is a landscape of colour, mystery, and adventure, in which reality and fantasy are shifting currents, and nothing is quite what it seems to be.
James P Blaylock is one of the founding fathers of modern steampunk along with fellow writers and friends Tim Powers and K.W. Jeter. He has won the World Fantasy and Philip K. Dick Awards. Blaylock lives in Orange CA with his wife, they have two sons.
©2013 James P. Blaylock (P)2013 Audible LtdListeners also enjoyed...
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Seventeen-year-old Anglet Sutonga lives repairing the chimneys, towers, and spires of the city of Bar-Selehm. Dramatically different communities live and work alongside each other. The white Feldish command the nation's higher echelons of society. The native Mahweni are divided between city life and the savannah. And then there's Ang, part of the Lani community who immigrated over generations ago as servants and now mostly live in poverty on Bar-Selehm's edges.
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Steeplejack Audio Climbs the Tops of Storytelling
- By Kerra Bolton on 12-08-16
By: A. J. Hartley
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The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack
- Burton & Swinburne, Book 1
- By: Mark Hodder
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
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Sir Richard Francis Burton and Algernon Charles Swinburne are sucked into the perilous depths of a moral and ethical vacuum when Lord Palmerston commissions Burton to investigate assaults on young women committed by a weird apparition known as Spring Heeled Jack - and to find out why werewolves are terrorizing London's East End.
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Fun Steampunk but on the outlandish side
- By Robert L. on 02-08-12
By: Mark Hodder
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The Book of Magic
- By: Gardner Dozois - editor, Scott Lynch, Elizabeth Bear, and others
- Narrated by: Karissa Vacker, Sile Bermingham, Maxwell Caulfield, and others
- Length: 24 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Hot on the heels of Gardner Dozois's acclaimed anthology The Book of Swords comes this companion volume devoted to magic. How could it be otherwise? For every Frodo, there is a Gandalf... and a Saruman. For every Dorothy, a Glinda... and a Wicked Witch of the West. What would Harry Potter be without Albus Dumbledore... and Severus Snape? Figures of wisdom and power, possessing arcane, often forbidden knowledge, wizards and sorcerers are shaped - or misshaped - by the potent magic they seek to wield.
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some stinkers mostly good
- By M.T. on 12-11-18
By: Gardner Dozois - editor, and others
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Greenglass House
- By: Kate Milford
- Narrated by: Ben Levin
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s wintertime at Greenglass House. The creaky smuggler’s inn is always quiet during this season, and 12-year-old Milo, the innkeepers’ adopted son, plans to spend his holidays relaxing. But on the first icy night of vacation, out of nowhere, the guest bell rings. Then rings again. And again....
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A magical mystery with twists and heart
- By Jane Pearl on 02-13-22
By: Kate Milford
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Instruments of Darkness
- A Novel
- By: Imogen Robertson
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In the year 1780, Harriet Westerman, the willful mistress of a country manor in Sussex, finds a dead man on her grounds with a ring bearing the crest of Thornleigh Hall in his pocket. Not one to be bound by convention or to shy away from adventure, she recruits a reclusive local anatomist named Gabriel Crowther to help her find the murderer, and historical suspense's newest investigative duo is born.
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Not The Best, But Not Too Bad...
- By MJ on 01-13-13
By: Imogen Robertson
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The Bedlam Detective
- By: Stephen Gallagher
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Sebastian Becker, a former Pinkerton man, lives in England and investigates wealthy eccentrics who may be too insane to care for their own affairs. He is asked to investigate rich landowner Sir Owain, but arrives to discover two young girls have been murdered, and it is not the first time children have come to harm in this small town.
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Satisfying!
- By Margaret on 03-26-12
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What Angels Fear
- Sebastian St. Cyr, Book 1
- By: C. S. Harris
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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It's 1811, and the threat of revolution haunts the upper classes of King George III's England. Then a beautiful young woman is found savagely murdered on the altar steps of an ancient church near Westminster Abbey. A dueling pistol found at the scene and the damning testimony of a witness both point to one man - Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, a brilliant young nobleman shattered by his experience in the Napoleonic Wars.
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An Addictive Series
- By Bibliophile1963 on 10-17-16
By: C. S. Harris
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The Invisible Man and The Time Machine
- By: H. G. Wells
- Narrated by: B. J. Harrison
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Invisible Man, a scientist theorizes that if a person's refractive index is changed to exactly that of air his body does not absorb or reflect light, then he will not be visible. He successfully carries out this procedure on himself, but cannot become visible again, becoming mentally unstable as a result. In The Time Machine, we follow the Time Traveller to the year 802,701 A.D.. He finds a golden race of small, soft, innocent people. But what is it that lurks in the dark shadows?
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When The Invisible Man ends and The Time Machine begins
- By kíli on 04-08-18
By: H. G. Wells
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The Monstrumologist
- By: Rick Yancey
- Narrated by: Steven Boyer
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Dr. Warthrop is a scientist who tracks and studies real-life monsters. Assisted by his 12-year-old apprentice, Will Henry, Dr. Warthrop discovers a pod of Anthropophagi and launches a hunt to destroy the foul beasts.
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Reader Be Warned
- By Eddie on 01-25-15
By: Rick Yancey
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The Pale Blue Eye
- By: Louis Bayard
- Narrated by: Charles Leggett
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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When the body of a suicide victim disappears at West Point Military Academy in 1831, only to be discovered hours later missing its heart, the Academy calls on retired detective Gus Landor to investigate. Landor is something of a legend among his peers, noted for an uncanny, Holmesian ability to read people. When Edgar Allan Poe, a new cadet, comes forth with his own cryptic conclusion—that the man Landor is looking for is a poet—Landor is intrigued and enlists Poe as his assistant.
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Could not get through it
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-15
By: Louis Bayard
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The Jekyll Revelation
- By: Robert Masello
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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While on routine patrol in the tinder-dry Topanga Canyon, environmental scientist Rafael Salazar expects to find animal poachers, not a dilapidated antique steamer trunk. Inside the peculiar case, he discovers a journal, written by the renowned Robert Louis Stevenson, which divulges ominous particulars about his creation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It also promises to reveal a terrible secret - the identity of Jack the Ripper.
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pleasantly surprised
- By Genevieve Paquette on 04-17-17
By: Robert Masello
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The Spymaster's Lady
- By: Joanna Bourne
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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She's braved battlefields. She's stolen dispatches from under the noses of heads of state. She's played the worldly courtesan, the naive virgin, the refined British lady, even a Gypsy boy. But Annique Villiers, the elusive spy known as the Fox Cub, has finally met the one man she can't outwit... British spymaster Robert Grey must enter France and bring back the brilliant, beautiful - and dangerous - Fox Cub. His duty is to capture her and her secrets for England.
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Highly enjoyable; Audiobook is fantastic
- By Emily London on 12-28-10
By: Joanna Bourne
What listeners say about The Aylesford Skull
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Michael S. Thomas
- 11-27-23
Classic Sci-fi steampunk
Always wonderful to leave this modern post 2000s world for a more simplistic rich historical Victorian era. Blaylock never disappoints
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- Katherine
- 03-20-15
Absurd steampunk with a subtle wit
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.
James P. Blaylock is most famous for being a protégé of Philip K. Dick and, along with his friends K.W. Jeter and Tim Powers, developing the steampunk genre of fantasy fiction in the 1980s. Blaylock’s most popular steampunk stories take place in Victorian England and feature gentleman inventor Langdon St. Ives and his archnemesis Dr. Ignacio Narbondo, a hunch-backed necromancer. The Aylesford Skull is considered to be the seventh installment of THE NARBONDO SERIES, though each of the LANGDON ST. IVES novels can stand alone.
In The Aylesford Skull, Langdon St. Ives seems to be considering retirement. He and his wife (Alice) and their two small children (Eddie and Cleo) have moved to the country to lead a quiet life. Langdon continues to work on his hobby — building a functioning airship in his barn. Currently he’s trying to figure out how to roll back the roof of the barn so the airship can get out. He’s thinking about acquiring an elephant to provide the pulling power. Meanwhile Alice is fishing for the huge pike that lives in the stream behind their house so she can stuff it. (Are there always fish in Blaylock’s novels? I’m not sure.)
But the peace doesn’t last long. Narbondo’s mother (he has a mother?!) lives up the hill. When she asks St. Ives to help her destroy her son, at first he refuses. But then he discovers that Narbondo has been using a child’s skull to conjure up ghosts. When Narbondo kidnaps Eddie, St. Ives decides to act. He recruits his gentlemen friends from the Royal Academy and off they go to London on a manhunt. Arthur Conan Doyle, who was in town to meet with his publisher, accompanies them. The gentlemen don’t know it yet, but they will also be joined by a few more characters including Alice, Narbondo’s mom, a fortune-teller, and the gardener.
In London they uncover a nefarious plot that involves ghosts, skulls, anarchists, a pipe organ, and a portal to Hell. The plot is zany and chaotic as the characters run around chasing each other all over and underneath London, stopping only for the scientists to dine and for the dastardly villains to monologue. There are plenty of chases, gunshots, and explosions. And, of course, an airship goes up in flames.
I expect that the likelihood of any particular reader enjoying The Aylesford Skull will depend on how well they appreciate Blaylock’s extremely subtle and absurd sense of humor. If it doesn’t amuse you to think of using elephants to solve engineering problems, or to witness a group of gentlemen scientists from the Royal Academy camping in the woods (it’s extremely civilized camping), or to watch them running around London while buildings explode, then you might not find this story entertaining. There are nice period details and dialogue, but the story is slow moving at times (the book’s a bit too long), several of the characters are shallow, and it’s not blatantly funny. Those who are already familiar with Blaylock’s sense of humor and know they enjoy it will surely be entertained by The Aylesford Skull. Those who are unfamiliar with this father of steampunk should certainly give Blaylock a try.
I listened to William Gaminara’s narration of The Aylesford Skull. It’s 12 hours long and produced by Audible Studios. Gaminara does a very nice job with this story and I enjoyed his performance.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Perschon
- 08-01-13
Combining the best of Blaylock
I've been studying Blaylock's work for four years now, since I first read portions of the omnibus collection of his early steampunk works, "The Adventures of Langdon St. Ives." When I was asked to interview Blaylock at a convention, I thought it best to acquaint myself with his non-steampunk writing as well, and read a few of his urban fantasies. I found that I preferred his later writing, which is to be expected. While I enjoy his early steampunk immensely, it's his modern theodicies like "Last Coin" and "All the Bells on Earth" I found to be more compelling. "The Aylesford Skull" combines the best of Blaylock's urban fantasies' villainous horror with the whimsy and romance of his steampunk world, in a book that is easily one of his best. William Gaminara's narration is superb, and his delineation of voices by accent, pitch, and mannerisms is among the best I've heard. I have no idea what prompted an early reader to give it one star, though I will readily admit that Blaylock may not be to the taste of modern readers used to brainless page turners. If you're looking for thoughtful, whimsical, and sometimes dark prose, Blaylock is your man.
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1 person found this helpful