Showing results by narrator "David Timson" in All Categories

A Great War is coming, and it will engulf the Imperium of Man. The Space Marines of the Alpha Legion, the last and most secretive of all the Astartes brotherhoods, arrive on a heathen world to support the Imperial Army in a pacification campaign against strange and uncanny forces. But what drives the Alpha Legion?

Under the command of the newly appointed Warmaster Horus, the Great Crusade continues. Fulgrim, Primarch of the Emperor's Children, leads his warriors into battle against a vile alien foe, unaware of the darker forces that have already set their sights upon the Imperium of Man. Loyalties are tested and every murderous whim indulged as the Emperor's Children take their first steps down the road to true corruption - a road that will ultimately lead them to the killing fields of Isstvan V....

Perturabo - master of siegecraft and the executioner of Olympia. Long has he lived in the shadow of his more favoured primarch brothers, frustrated by the mundane and ignominious duties which regularly fall to his Legion. When Fulgrim offers him the chance to lead an expedition in search of ancient and destructive xenos weaponry, the Iron Warriors and the Emperor's Children unite and venture deep into the heart of the great star maelstrom that haunts Perturabo's dreams.

Far out on the Eastern Fringe, the realm of Ultramar stands alone. Having weathered the Word Bearers' attack on Calth and the subsequent Shadow Crusade against the Five Hundred Worlds, the Ultramarines primarch Roboute Guilliman now draws all loyalist forces to Macragge as he contemplates a new future for mankind.

Created in the Emperor's own image, the primarchs had long thought themselves to be princes of the universe and masters of their own destiny - they led the Space Marine Legions in glorious conquest of the galaxy, and no enemy of the Imperium could stand against them. However, even amongst this legendary brotherhood, the seeds of dissent had been sown long before the treacherous Warmaster Horus declared his grand heresy.

In the little hamlet of Wyvern’s Cross, where good manners, tennis and tea are pivotal to the functioning of society, little Dr Bickleigh has a rather large problem: he needs to erase his insufferable wife. His meetings with Ivy are becoming tiresome, and although his burning passion for Gwynyfryd Rattery does not play out as imagined in the toolshed, there is now the infinitely superior Madeleine Cranmere to be worshipped… Resourceful but impulsive, Dr Bickleigh is consumed with the image of his goal.

With the possible exception of Mozart, Verdi is the most popular opera composer who ever lived. Quite early in his career his tunes were being cranked out by barrel organs throughout Europe and were well known to many who may never even have heard his name. But the complex man behind them remains elusive and puzzling. In this portrait-in-sound, Jeremy Siepmann and a group of distinguished actors take an in-depth look behind the popular image of a man who was, and perhaps remains, the most enduring national hero in Italian history and a colossus in the history of music itself.

In 1922, after fifteen years of searching, archaeologists finally discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamun. There, buried alongside the king's mummy, they found more than 5,000 unique objects, from the mundane to the extravagant, from the precious to the everyday. Tutankhamun's spectacular gold mask is justifiably famous, but the rest of the treasures remain largely unknown, their stories untold.

The Heresy came to Calth without warning. In just a few hours of betrayal and bloodshed, the proud warriors of the XIIIth Legion - Guilliman's own Ultramarines - were laid low by the treachery of their erstwhile brothers of the XVIIth. Now, as the planet is scoured by solar flares from the wounded Veridian star, the survivors must take the fight to the remaining Word Bearers and their foul allies, or face damnation in the gloomy arcology shelters beneath the planet's surface.

Left unfinished after Dickens died in 1870, The Mystery of Edwin Drood centers on Edwin Drood's uncle, John Jasper, and his love for Rosa Bud, Edwin's fiancee. Set in the dark, fictional cathedral city of Cloisterham, the novel is awash with guilt, disguise and mystery. It contains some fine writing, and just before his death, Dickens left an indication of where the plot was going, which is included.

In the comfortable English Dorsetshire village of Anneypenny in the 1930s, fruit farmer Douglas Sewell–narrator of the story–sees his friend John die in agony. The death certificate states gastric ulcers but the post mortem’s revealing of poison punctures Anneypenny’s idyllic backdrop. Soon every friend and neighbour seems to harbour something suspicious. Douglas challenges his readers, or listeners, to answer the key questions before throwing out several scenarios and turning them upside-down in a tantalising path to the truth.

The Pickwick Papers, Dickens's first novel, is a delightful romp through the pre-Reform Bill England of 1827. Samuel Pickwick and the rest of the Pickwickians are some of the most memorable of all Dickens's creations, and it is a joy to hear of their adventures in search of "interesting scenes and characters", and the repeated efforts of the quick-witted Sam Weller to rescue them all from disaster.

In this collection are four of the finest cases of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, narrated by his faithful friend and admirer Dr. Watson. What was the horror of the speckled band or the secret behind the curious legacy for men of red hair? These and other puzzles are solved by this bloodhound of a genius.

In a creative twist, a fatally ill man’s great humanitarian act is to seek out and kill someone deserving of death; but the horror of an innocent man being accused of the murder was not an outcome Mr Todhunter, or the friends who advised him, considered. His job is then to prove his own guilt. Dedicated to P.G. Wodehouse, the story is suspenseful, inventive and humorous, with a riveting attention to detail and a profound suggestion of the absurdity of trying to influence destiny.

Award-winning author Dame Susan Hill is best known for her hit ghost story The Woman in Black and her popular ‘Simon Serailler’ detective series, but she has also written extensively for radio. This audio anthology includes full-cast adaptations of two of her early novels, plus an additional 12 BBC Radio plays, many of them available for the very first time since their original broadcasts.

General interest in Buddhism has never been higher. The story and teachings of a man who lived 2,500 years ago have a special resonance for us today, perhaps because he taught a way of life that was not based on belief in a creator god but rather on personal experience. "Test my words for yourself," he said. But what lies behind those distinctive images of the Buddha, seated with unshakeable poise, with eyes half-closed and a slight smile? Jinananda, a Western-born Buddhist, divides the subject into the Three Jewels....

The Diary of Samuel Pepys is one of the most entertaining documents in English history. Written between 1660 and 1669, as Pepys was establishing himself as a key administrator in the naval office, it is an intimate portrait of life in 17th-century England covering his professional and personal activities, including, famously, his love of music, theatre, food, wine and his peccadilloes.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in collaboration with his friend, William Wordsworth, revolutionized English poetry. In 1798 they produced their Lyrical Ballads, poems of imagination and reflection using "the language of men" - pointing the way forward for a generation of Romantic poets.

The life of Franz Liszt was as daring and spectacular as his music. Famed throughout Europe as the greatest pianist of the nineteenth century, he was one of the most original and prophetic composers who ever lived. Beautiful in youth, glowering in age, his high-profile love affairs were the talk of the town wherever he went and his generosity to young musicians was legendary. In this account of his epic life, actors’ readings combine with plentiful musical excerpts to paint a living portrait of a highly complex man.

For many people, Beethoven is the greatest composer who ever lived. In this portrait-in-sound, actors’ readings combine with his music to reveal a titanic personality, both vulnerable and belligerent, comic and tragic, and above all heroic, as he comes to grips with perhaps the greatest disability a musician can suffer. No man’s music is more universal; few men’s lives are more inspiring. In every sense but one - his modest height - he was a giant. The great bonus of this audio-biography is that the development of Beethoven’s music can be heard in the context of his life.