Author: Jesse Willis

The Crawlers by Philip K. Dick is PUBLIC DOMAIN

SFFaudio News

The Crawlers by Philip K. Dick

The Crawlers by Philip K. Dick is PUBLIC DOMAIN.

RE190631 Page 2 (back) Prominent Author, Progeny, Exhibit Piece, Shell Game, A World Of Talent, James P. Crow, Small Town, Survey Team, Sales Pitch, Time Pawn, Breakfast At Twilight, The Crawlers, Of Withered Apples, Adjustment Team, Meddler

As you can see in a scan of the renewal form RE0000190631, pictured above, the renewer has stated that the story was published in the July 1955 issue of Imagination. This is completely false. A listing of the table of contents for Imagination, July 1955 is HERE. And there is indeed a Philip K. Dick short story in that issue. That story is entitled The Chromium Fence, but it is a completely different story. Ironically, it was renewed on the same document containing the deliberate fraud (see the scan below):

RE190631 Page 1 (back)

Because it was not renewed in its 28th year.The Crawlers by Philip K. Dick is PUBLIC DOMAIN.

Here is a |PDF| of it.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Sales Pitch by Philip K. Dick is PUBLIC DOMAIN

SFFaudio News

Sales Pitch by Philip K. Dick

Sales Pitch, a short story by Philip K. Dick, is PUBLIC DOMAIN.

This was not previously known due to a fraudulent attempt to renew the copyright after it had expired.

Sales Pitch was first published in Future Science Fiction, June 1954.

Here is the table of contents for that magazine. It shows its presence in that issue:

Future Science Fiction, June 1954 - table of contents (includes Sales Pitch by Philip K. Dick)

The false claim of renewal, as evidenced by THIS renewal form is revealing. I’ve highlighted the relevant data here:

Future Magazine, Vol 17 No 6, June 1955

No magazine named “Future Magazine, Vol 17, No 6, June ’55” actually exists. Future Science Fiction produced only one issue in 1955, issue #28. The table of contents for it is HERE. You will note it does not contain any stories by Philip K. Dick.

In order for Sales Pitch to be still under copyright it would have had to have been properly renewed within it’s 28th year after publication. It was not.

Sales Pitch by Philip K. Dick is therefore PUBLIC DOMAIN.

Here’s a |PDF| made from a scan of Future Science Fiction, June 1954.

Here is an |ETEXT| version.

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: The House Of The Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

SFFaudio Online Audio

The famous and exquisitely wrought novel, The House of the Seven Gables, in which the relentless working out of an ancestral curse is developed with astonishing power against the sinister background of a very ancient Salem house … from this setting came the immortal tale — New England’s greatest contribution to weird literature — and we can feel in an instant the authenticity of the atmosphere presented to us. Stealthy horror and disease lurk within the weather-blackened, moss-crusted, and elm-shadowed walls of the archaic dwelling so vividly displayed, and we grasp the brooding malignity of the place when we read that its builder — old Colonel Pyncheon — snatched the land with peculiar ruthlessness from its original settler, Matthew Maule, whom he condemned to the gallows as a wizard in the year of the panic. Maule died cursing old Pyncheon — “God will give him blood to drink” — and the waters of the old well on the seized land turned bitter. Maule’s carpenter son consented to build the great gabled house for his father’s triumphant enemy, but the old Colonel died strangely on the day of its dedication. Then followed generations of odd vicissitudes, with queer whispers about the dark powers of the Maules, and sometimes terrible ends befalling the Pyncheons.

-H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror In Literature

The House Of The Seven Gables

For an upcoming SFFaudio Podcast READALONG of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House Of The Seven Gables I point you towards this unabridged 12 hour 20 minute solo narration by Mark F. Smith:

With novels on LibriVox my preferred file type is M4B (DRM-FREE of course) because they’re natively bookmarkable – but a Zipped MP3 version, and a vanilla podcast feed are also available.

Part 1 |M4B|
Part 2 |M4B|
Part 3 |M4B|

Podcast feed:
https://librivox.org/rss/2961

The House Of The Seven Gables - an 1875 illustration of Clifford Pyncheon by John Dalziel

Posted by Jesse Willis

The WEIRD FICTION roots of TRUE DETECTIVE

Aural Noir: Online Audio

True Detective

A couple lines from episode 2 of HBO’s new show, True Detective, made made me gasp in shock and pleasure. The stylish debut episode, though beautifully filmed, didn’t quite explicitly state the weird undercurrent that may be behind the mystery of this novel for television.

The King In Yellow

Det. Rustin Cohle (reading the diary) “I closed my eyes and saw the King in Yellow moving through the forest.”

And then “The Yellow King … Carcosa”

In Carcosa

I really began to get excited when, near the end of episode 2, birds flock into a recognizable shape, a tattoo found on the victim in episode 1.

The Yellow Sign?

a Yellow Sign?

Here are two short stories, listed chronologically, for those lines:

LibriVoxAn Inhabitant Of Carcosa
By Ambrose Bierce; Read by rasputin
1 |MP3| – Approx. [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox
Published: 2009
First published in the San Francisco News Letter and California Advertiser, Dec 25, 1886.

And here’s a |PDF| version.

LibriVoxThe Yellow Sign
By Robert W. Chambers; Read by CrowGirl
1 |MP3| – Approx. 39 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 30, 2011
The King In Yellow is a monstrous and suppressed book whose perusal brings, fright, madness, and spectral tragedy. Have you seen the Yellow Sign? First published in 1895.

And here’s a |PDF| version.

The Yellow Sign - unsigned illustration From Famous Fantastic Mysteries

Posted by Jesse Willis

Minds Of Terminus

SFFaudio Online Audio

Minds Of TerminusMinds Of Terminus is a new audio drama podcast that seems inspired by a number of recent novels (Kiln People, Saturn’s Children). Here’s the elevator pitch:

“In the world of Terminus, technology has advanced beyond contemporary understanding or explanation. Nanotechnology is at its peak, common and ubiquitous. The fields of Artificial Intelligence and Nanorobotics have matured, and swarm intelligences maintain roads, buildings, monitor traffic, collect advertising data, nurse the sick… the applications are nearly endless. It has even become possible for a human being to upload their intelligence and personality into an artificial neural matrix. These copies, however, aren’t seen in the way that a modern-day trans-humanist from our time might regard them. For example, no one regards these mind uploads as a way to attain immortality of any kind. The original lives on, after all, and the copy is regarded as… something other than human.

Something less.

Applying advanced neuroscience, these uploaded personalities can be pruned and teased into any number of purpose-built, utilitarian shapes and designs, and this has become the preferred way to program the robotic helpers used every day in all walks of life, from heavy industrial machines to nannies.

Then one day, all of the humans are gone. The streets are quiet. The AIs begin waking up, but their masters have left them. Who and what are they, when all of the humans are gone? Are they all just bad copies of dead humans?”

Episode 1 |MP3| – Approx. 27 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]

Podcast feed:

http://www.mindsofterminus.com/category/podcasts/feed/

Posted by Jesse Willis

Horror by Guy de Maupassant

SFFaudio Online Audio

In Supernatural Horror In Literature, H.P. Lovecraft’s monograph on weird fiction, he lists seven short stories by Guy de Maupassant, and one poem. It took a bit of research but I tracked down that one poem and found a public domain English translation of it. I then passed on to Mr Jim Moon, of the wonderful Hypnobobs podcast. He has given it voice:

|MP3| – 2 Minutes 11 Seconds [POEM]

Horror by Guy de Maupassant

Posted by Jesse Willis