[COMPLETE] Hartmann the Anarchist by E. Douglas Fawcett ~ans

Newgatenovelist · Post by **Newgatenovelist** » July 3rd, 2020, 12:28 pm

You listened to the FMF poems! I wasn't expecting that! Some of his poems surprised me, though I guess he's remembered more for his novels. At any rate, you've added the original publication of the Good Soldier for listeners, and inspired me to add a few of his poems!

This novel is odd, but so far delightfully so. A tiny part of me was hoping for something like Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent when I saw it had anarchists, though it was just a very mild thought. But I was way off base there! So far it seems closer to invasion fiction (something like The Riddle of the Sands), but I have a suspicion that it's going to take another turn or two in the coming chapters. Who knows where we'll end up - besides in the air in some kind of hi-tech dirigible?

Section 3

11.06, top half p 44, false start
…whe- whence he was to proceed immediately to New York.

12.07-12.14, pp 44-45, omission
Ere long I rose to leave, [not, however,] without having promised that, should Hartmann ever cross my path…

Section 4

3.00-3.07, mid-page p 48, omission
Previously to this, interruptions had been frequent, [but now] a violent uproar arose…

eggs4ears · Post by **eggs4ears** » July 5th, 2020, 4:10 pm

The Secret Agent meets War of the Worlds? What I am enjoying is how he has to stretch the plot beyond credibility to keep Syanley as narrator.

https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/hartmann_05_fawcett.mp3 - 15:23
https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/hartmann_06_fawcett.mp3 - 11.55

eggs4ears · Post by **eggs4ears** » July 5th, 2020, 4:11 pm

Hi Anne,

I have just started using the most recent version of Audacity. I think the version I've been using is about 5 years old! Do we have specs for exporting MP3 files? I am guessing 'Preset', 'Standard 170-210', 'Fast' and 'Force export to mono'?

Phil

Newgatenovelist · Post by **Newgatenovelist** » July 6th, 2020, 12:15 pm

Ha, I've been bewildered by newer versions of Audacity before now!

I've run your files through Checker as I usually do. (I have *not* yet PLed, this is just about the tech spec.) 5 is okay. For chapter 6, after I've PLed you will need to change the bit rate to a constant bit rate and 128 kbps. To do this:

Click File
Go down to Export and click Export Audio
Toward the bottom of the window that pops up, under File Name and Save As Type, there is a section called Format Options
The first line, Bit Rate Mode, has four options - click the final one, Constant
The next line, Quality, has a drop down menu - click 128 kbps
Then save the file as you would normally

Audacity is usually pretty good about remembering your settings, so with any luck you won't have to fiddle with it again for a while once you've got this ironed out!

Newgatenovelist · Post by **Newgatenovelist** » July 7th, 2020, 2:25 am

Two very small notes for chapters 5 and 6. Maybe this book is more proto steampunk than either of us realised at first...

Chapter 5
14.13, bottom half p 68, omission
…outer chamber. “Good-night.”
[“Good-night.”]
Just before turning in…

Chapter 6 - change bit rate, as above

eggs4ears · Post by **eggs4ears** » July 8th, 2020, 1:22 am

Thanks! Once it is changed from Preset to Constant the other settings are done for you, and as you say it stays like that for ever. I was thrown because there seemed to be no setting for 128kbps.

Anyway...
Chapter 6 ready for spot PL (I'll do the files with omissions later)
and
https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/hartmann_07_fawcett.mp3 - 21:18

Newgatenovelist wrote: ↑July 6th, 2020, 12:15 pm I've run your files through Checker as I usually do. (I have *not* yet PLed, this is just about the tech spec.) 5 is okay. For chapter 6, after I've PLed you will need to change the bit rate to a constant bit rate and 128 kbps. To do this:

Newgatenovelist · Post by **Newgatenovelist** » July 8th, 2020, 6:07 am

I'm glad it worked! I have a fairly recent version of Audacity but I'm not sure that it's the latest one. I was hoping there wouldn't be that much difference in the menu and it would make sense!

Why do the baddies always insist on a complete tour of their lair during which they explain everything so the protagonist can defeat them at the end?

Chapter 6 is spot PL OK.

One note for 7:

4.57-5.02, mid-page p 82, Hartmann’s speech
…and the birth of Death, who gnaws his wretched parent’s [heard patient’s] vitals?

eggs4ears · Post by **eggs4ears** » July 10th, 2020, 6:50 pm

Thanks for the PL note on Ch 7. I am having a bit of a holiday, so will continue to edit and do corrections when I am back home. Ready for PL...

https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/hartmann_08_fawcett.mp3 - 13:45
https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/hartmann_09_fawcett.mp3 - 17:39

Newgatenovelist wrote: ↑July 8th, 2020, 6:07 am Why do the baddies always insist on a complete tour of their lair during which they explain everything so the protagonist can defeat them at the end?

I think a lot of people would associate that with James Bond. Maybe this book is a candidate for the first to do it?

Post by **annise** » July 10th, 2020, 7:52 pm

It's the same when the villain captures the hero. Does he whip out a revolver and kill the hero? Of course not. He ties him to a railway line 3 hours before the next train is due or hangs him over a thousand-foot cliff with the other end of the rope in a cage full of hungry rats, or stakes him at the waters edge of a ocean at low tide. Always giving the hero time for a miraculous rescue by his last struggle or by the heroine riding up at the last moment.

And they both then ride off into the sunset. And live happily ever after - or at least till the next book,

Newgatenovelist · Post by **Newgatenovelist** » July 11th, 2020, 10:59 am

This just gets wilder. Although for a pulp novel there's a fair bit of Milton and Shakespeare!

Section 8 is PL OK.

Section 9

6.38-6.46, indented quote p 110, repetition
‘The third day comes a frost, a killing frost.’”

16.00-16.04, p 123 first full para, repetition
…circled round the doo- circled round the doomed vessel…

eggs4ears · Post by **eggs4ears** » July 12th, 2020, 4:35 am

Thanks! And here come Chapters 10 & 11. Chapter 11 with a note to self that I forgot to read the chapter title - 'A tempest of dynamite'.

https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/hartmann_10_fawcett.mp3 - 14:17
https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/hartmann_11_fawcett.mp3 - 20:42

In Chapter 11, there is an interesting phrase that I had to look up - 'Lord Macaulay's New Zealander'. Perhaps you know it, I didn't. There is an interesting article about it here - https://viviennemorrell.wordpress.com/2015/08/08/the-new-zealander-contemplates-the-ruins-of-london/
Imagining the destruction of London seems to have been quite the thing in the 19th century!

eggs4ears · Post by **eggs4ears** » July 12th, 2020, 5:24 am

And one more ready for PL!

https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/hartmann_12_fawcett.mp3 - 13:05

Newgatenovelist · Post by **Newgatenovelist** » July 12th, 2020, 12:55 pm

Notes for chapter 10. I'll be a bit more sporadic over the next week, but I'll keep going. I want to know what happens!

I had heard of the New Zealander, of all things! There was actually a run of disaster fiction in the 19th century, and London wasn't the only city that was turned into a wasteland. If you want holiday reading in that vein, start with M. P. Shiel's The Purple Cloud. I don't actually think it's the absolute best, but it is one of the more famous examples of the genre. If you're leaning more towards the cli-fi (climate/eco) end of it, maybe go for Richard Jefferies' After London. So many people destroyed London in fiction...

9.26-9.33, bottom half p 133
And even as I looked two more appalling explosions shook the ironclad from stem [heard stern] to stern…

13.07-13.12, top half p 136
A contest at her old level with numerous scattered foes [heard floes/flows] was impracticable…

eggs4ears · Post by **eggs4ears** » July 15th, 2020, 4:55 am

A couple of short ones ready for PL!

https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/hartmann_13_fawcett.mp3 - 9:41
https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/hartmann_13_fawcett.mp3 - 9:01

Thanks for the reading tips - I know After London but not the Purple Cloud.

Newgatenovelist wrote: ↑July 12th, 2020, 12:55 pm I had heard of the New Zealander, of all things! There was actually a run of disaster fiction in the 19th century, and London wasn't the only city that was turned into a wasteland. If you want holiday reading in that vein, start with M. P. Shiel's The Purple Cloud. I don't actually think it's the absolute best, but it is one of the more famous examples of the genre. If you're leaning more towards the cli-fi (climate/eco) end of it, maybe go for Richard Jefferies' After London. So many people destroyed London in fiction...

Newgatenovelist · Post by **Newgatenovelist** » July 17th, 2020, 2:24 am

Some short notes for chapter 11, one of which you've already noted. Why are protagonists in adventure stories sometimes so dim? And so helpless and ineffectual? I guess they have to be, but still...

In spite of all of the hi-tech steampunk-style stuff in this, I didn't really expect to see a modern version of Greek fire. This book is full of surprises!

Chapter title – ‘A Tempest of Dynamite’

12.29-12.35, p 147 second para second sentence, false start
…house-fronts crushing horses and ve- crushing horses and vehicles as they fell…

13.08-13.16, p 147 penultimate sentence, false start
Huge circles of flame raved beneath us, and shot up the- and shot up their feverish and scorching breath.

19.55-20.03, p 152, omission
I ran up, and saw the man was failing [--the blood was spurting from his carotid] like jets from a siphon.