METROPOLIS, the audio book

The good folks at BrokenSea Audio Productions are presenting a crackerjack serialized reading by Damaris Mannering of the 1926 science fiction novel Metropolis, by Thea von Harbou. The book was first published in Germany two years after release of the famous dystopian film directed by Fritz Lang, which Von Harbou co-wrote with her then-husband Lang. (Interestingly, considering the subject matter of both the movie and the novel, Von Harbou joined the Nazis in 1932, she and Lang divorced, and Lang fled Germany.) The novel fills in a lot of gaps in the film, many of them created, I imagine, by scissor-happy German and American “editors” over the years. As a longtime fan of Metropolis the movie, I’m finding this audio reading fascinating, and it helps clarify many parts of the Lang movie. The audio novel isn’t complete yet, but you can begin downloading it right here. Highly recommended.