Jesse Willis – Page 14

Someday by Isaac Asimov

SFFaudio News

Last night I discovered that Someday, a wonderful short story by Isaac Asimov, is PUBLIC DOMAIN.

I’ve posted the |PDF| from the original mag to our PDF PAGE (there’re hundreds more there by the way).

Someday set in a future in which everyone is illiterate (Asimov has another story, The Fun They Had, that has a similar premise). It talks about audio vs. video, robotics, artificial intelligence, creativity, empathy, and it has a terrific twist ending.

I think you’ll treasure it as much as I have over the years.

And here’s an audiobook version:

Part 1 of 3:

Part 2 of 3:

Part 3 of 3:

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Little Black Bag by C.M. Kornbluth

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Little Black Bag is a highly regarded C.M. Kornbluth novelette. It was undeniably influential and popular. It won the 2001 Retro-Hugo Award for “Best Novelette” (of 1951), was voted the 13th best all-time short science fiction story (in a 1971 Analog Science Fact & Fiction poll), and was anthologized in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964. Philip K. Dick himself seems to have read it (he had a 1964 short story entitled The Little Black Box).

In his introduction to The Best of C.M. Kornbluth, Frederik Pohl, a friend and frequent collaborator of Kornbluth’s, states that The Marching Morons (see SFFaudio Podcast #112) is a direct sequel to The Little Black Bag. The titular bag is a time-traveled artifact from a future in which the majority of the population is genetically stupid and must be supported by a minority of geniuses who masquerade as assistants to the morons. Thus the bag of the title is filled with self-driven instruments enabling even a complete moron to act as a highly competent doctor.

Three television adaptations of The Little Black Bag have been made: Tales of Tomorrow (1952), Out Of The Unknown (1969), and Night Gallery (1970).

Myself, I think The Little Black Bag is both too well regarded and too popular. It’s popularity suggests that many readers think of themselves as one of the geniuses surrounded by morons. And its being regarded as highly as it is by those geniuses makes me think they are rather stupider than they think.

I invite you to come to your own conclusions.

Escape Pod #429 Little Black Bag
by C.M. Kornbluth; Read by Mat Weller
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour 16 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Escape Pod
Podcast: January 5, 2014
First published in Astounding, July 1950

Here’s a |PDF| made from it’s original publication.

|ETEXT|

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Parasite by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Parasite by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

First published in Harper’s Weekly November 10, 1894 this novella combines the two poles of Doyle’s personality – the skeptic and the dupe. Playing out like a combination of Guy de Maupassant’s The Horla and The Manchurian Candidate. The protagonist, Austin Gilroy, a professor of physiology, meets a woman at a party who can perform frightening feats of mesmerism.

Variously described as being a tale of a “psychic vampire” other editors and anthologists have classified it as “weird fiction” or “horror”

The Parasite
By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Read by Delmar H Dolbier
4 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 1 Hour 54 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: 2012

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/7030

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

The Parasite
By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Read by Carl Vonnoh, III
4 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 1 Hour 58 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: 2006

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/621

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

And here’s an easy reading |PDF| version (41 pages)

Posted by Jesse Willis

CBSRMT: The Prisoner Of Zenda

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Prisoner Of Zenda by Anthony Hope

Anthony Hope’s 1894 novel, The Prisoner Of Zenda, gave rise to a craze for a new sub-genre of romance novels – the “Ruritanian romance” – so called after the fictional European country in which the titular “prisoner” is found. The novel’s plot, in which a visitor from England travels to a fictional European nation and, via an unbelievably convenient coincidence, becomes it’s king, was so popular that it’s echoes were felt well into the 20th century.

The 1933 Marx Brothers film, Duck Soup, takes it’s plot from the Ruritanian romances (it’s set in the country of “Freedonia”), Robert A. Heinlein’s 1956 novel, Double Star, borrows the Zenda plot and takes it to Mars, and the 1988 movie Richard Dreyfuss comedy, Moon Over Parador, places an actor in the role and places the action in a fictional South American country.

This brings us to one of my favourite OTR style radio shows – The CBS Radio Mystery Theater, which had a 1977 adaptation of The Prisoner Of Zenda – this shouldn’t have surprised me as CBSRMT had an adaptation for practically everything (the show ran 1,399 episodes). While their version gives short shrift to many of the novel’s subtleties the 46 minute running time allows for an entertaining, if break-neck, presentation of the story’s highlights.

CBS Radio Mystery Theater CBSRMT #0639 – The Prisoner Of Zenda
By Robert Newman; Adapted from the novel by Anthony Hope; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 46 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Brodcaster: CBS Radio
Broadcast: April 22, 1977
Source: CBSRMT.com
The coronation of a new king is disrupted when the king’s brother drugs him. A distant relative who closely resembles the king steps in to take his place at the coronation.

Cast:
Lloyd Battista
Leon Janney
Evie Juster
Dan Ocko
Howard Ross

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Adventures Of Apocalypse Al (comic + audio drama #1)

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Adventures Of Apocalypse Al

Nearly 10 years I began reporting that J. Michael Straczynski had been asked to write a radio drama for CBC Radio One. Later, we learned that Cynthia Dale had been cast in the title role. And still later that the show was in production. And it was indeed recorded. But it never aired. Over the years the campaign to get it aired plodded along – but without any success. Then a couple years ago word of a comics version came about. Now, after the comics version is actually out (the first issue was dated February 2014) I am stunned to report that there is indeed now a new audio drama available.

As you can see above, a QR code (and the regular http:// address) are given in the latter pages of the first issue of the comic.

I should point out that this is an entirely NEW recording (not the one Canadian taxpayers paid for but never heard) and we don’t know yet if the remaining 3/4 of the story will be produced for audio.

The Adventures of Apocalypse Al – Issue #1
By J. Michael Straczynski; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 19 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Uploaded: 2013
When a mysterious figure gets his hands on the Book of Keys, whose secrets can cause the destruction of the world, Allison Carter is the only one who can stop him. Her journey takes her through a world populated by zombie cops, machinegun toting imps, techno-wizards, closet trolls, demonic theme parks, other dimensions, Ultimate Darkness, and an undead ex-boyfriend.