Listen to a reading of Michael Moorcock’s 2002 novelette “Lost Sorceress of the Silent Citadel”

It’s news to me, but back in February 2008, StarShipSofa: The Audio Science Fiction Magazine posted a podcast reading of “Lost Sorceress of the Silent Citadel” (MP3, 87 minutes), a novelette of space opera written by British author and science fiction Grand Master Michael Moorcock that was originally published in the anthology Mars Probes (2002). Narrated by Steve Eley and primarily an homage to the Mars of author Leigh Brackett, here are the opening lines of this aural delight:

They came upon the Earthling naked, somewhere in the Shifting Desert when Mars’ harsh sunlight beat through thinning atmosphere and the sand was raw glass cutting into bare feet. His skin hung like filthy rags from his bloody flesh. He was starved, unshaven, making noises like an animal. He was raving -– empty of identity and will. What had the ghosts of those ancient Martians done to him? Had they traveled through time and space to take a foul and unlikely vengeance? A novella of alien mysteries -- of a goddess who craved life -- who lusted for the only man who had ever dared disobey her. A tale of Captain John MacShard, the Half-Martian, of old blood and older memories, of a restless quest for the prize of forgotten centuries. ...

[via John DeNardo of SF Signal]