Jesse Willis – Page 22

It’s A Good Life by Jerome Bixby

SFFaudio Online Audio

It's A Good Life by Jerome Bixby

It's A Good Life by Jerome Bixby - illustration by Quinn

It’s A Good Life is a 1953 short story by Jerome Bixby. Set in the small town that used to be in Ohio. It’s entire population loves and fears three year old Anthony Fremont. Anthony is omnipotent.

This story has been adapted several times by The Twilight Zone. The original series did a very faithful adaptation, a sequel episode, “It’s Still A Good Life“, featured a grown-up Anthony and his daughter. There was also an adaptation within Twilight Zone: The Movie. Even The Twilight Zone radio drama series adapted it.

Here’s the audiobook, as podcast in two parts on Rick Jackson’s The Time Traveler Show (along with an interview with the narrator, William Dufris).

It’s A Good Life
By Jerome Bixby; Read by William Dufris
Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3| – Approx. 2 Hours 4 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: The Time Traveler Show
Podcast: August 2006
Anthony Fremont can go anywhere he wants, he can read thoughts, he can project sensory information, he can create, he can destroy, he can mold reality, he can kill. Anthony Fremont is three years old. First published in Star Science Fiction Stories No.2.

Podcast feed:

http://www.timetravelershow.com/shows/feed.xml

Here’s a |PDF| made from the publication in Science Fantasy, #16, 1955.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Story Of The Inexperienced Ghost by H.G. Wells

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The Story Of The Inexperienced Ghost by H.G. Wells

The Story Of The Inexperienced Ghost (aka The Inexperienced Ghost) is, on its face, merely a humourous ghost story. But I get the sense that there’s quite a bit of satire going on in it. It may be doing to the straight-up ghost story (in a far more lighthearted way) what The Red Room does to the Gothic Horror story.

The Story Of The Inexperienced Ghost
By H.G. Wells; Read by Toby Paradis
1 |MP3| – Approx. 27 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: 2008
First published in The Strand, March 1902.

Here’s a fully illustrated |PDF| made from the original printing.

Mrs. P. (aka Kathy Kinney) reads The Story Of The Inexperienced Ghost:

Posted by Jesse Willis

Protecting Project Pulp: Letter From The Stars by A.E. van Vogt

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Letter From The Stars by A.E. van Vogt

This short epistolary Science Fiction story, Letter From The Stars (aka Dear Pen Pal), is about a foolish person who writes to an alien criminal. Like many episodes of PPP lately it is straight-up pulpy fun, but with a twist.

Protecting Project Pulp No. 60 – Letter From The Stars
By A.E. van Vogt; Read by Josh Roseman
1 |MP3| – Approx. 18 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Protecting Project Pulp
Podcast: September 17, 2013
It was just a peaceful correspondence between two lonely shut-in strangers — but the destiny of the universe was to depend on the answers! First published in The Arkham Sampler, Winter 1949.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Hypnobobs: The Flowering Of The Strange Orchid by H.G. Wells

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The Flowering Of The Strange Orchid by H.G. Wells

In less than 3,000 words H.G. Wells planted the seed, as it were, for a rare and delicate subspecies of Science Fiction we might call Botanical Horror SF. As Mr. Jim Moon, of the wondrous Hypnobobs podcast, points out in his introduction to his reading, this seed would later flower into a John Wyndham novel we all know and love.

So, grab some coffee, head into the greenhouse, and listen to this curious story of where it all started.

The Flowering Of The Strange Orchid by H.G. Wells

The Flowering Of The Strange Orchid
By H.G. Wells; Read by Jim Moon
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour 21 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Hypnobobs
Podcast: April 6, 2012
First published in Pall Mall Budget, December 27, 1894.

Podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Hypnobobs

And, here’s an illustrated |PDF|.

The Flowering Of The Strange Orchid by H.G. Wells

Posted by Jesse Willis

Protecting Project Pulp: The Opener Of The Way by Robert Bloch

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Opener Of The Way by Robert Bloch - Illustration by Virgil Finlay

Here’s a creepy tale by a then young disciple and contemporary of H.P. Lovecraft. Taking Egyptian mythology as his starting point Robert Bloch delivers a pretty good tale in the style of the master.

Protecting Project Pulp No. 59 – The Opener Of The Way
By Robert Bloch; Read by Simon Hildebrandt.
1 |MP3| – Approx. 42 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Protecting Project Pulp
Podcast: September 9, 2013
A tremendous tale about the dread doom that overtook an archeologist in that forgotten tomb beneath the desert sands of Egypt. First published in Weird Tales, October 1936.

The titular appellation “The Opener Of The Way” has also recently turned attached to a monster named “Allabar” in the Dungeons & Dragons: Monster Manual 3 (which recommends you use it as a “climactic villain”). The TV Tropes entry “D&D Nightmare Fuel” describes this “monster” thusly:

And then there is Allabar, Opener of the Way, the first 4th Edition living star … instead of a face, imagine dozens upon dozens of unblinking eyes, as well as hundreds of rope-like “growths” around its “body.” Think the moon, when it’s nice and big and clear, so you can see all of the faultlines, valleys and craters. Now imagine every faultline and valley is a huge, thrashing tentacle, and every crater, from the biggest to the smallest, is a never-blinking eye. Imagine that floating in the sky above you at night. Staring at you. Hating you.

Allabar, The Opener Of The Way

Posted by Jesse Willis

Hardware review of the Sony ICF-CS15iPN Personal Audio System (“DREAM MACHINE” Lightning Connector clock radio dock)

SFFaudio Review

Sony ICF-CS15iPN Silver

“DREAM MACHINE” Personal Audio System
Product number: ICF-CS15iPN (Lightning Connector clock radio dock)
Manufacturer: Sony
UPCs: 027242866072 (silver), 027242866089 (black)

I listen to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts, but also radio. And since 2004, for those podcasts and audiobooks, I’ve been using Apple devices with the ubiquitous 30-pin dock connector. As the 30 pin dock connector has been upgraded over the years it’s meant I’ve had to swap docking equipment a couple of times already. For the last few years my go to dock/charger/clock/radio had been Sony’s ICF-CS10iP aka the “Dream Machine.” I actually had four of them: One for my bedside, one on my computer desk, one in my classroom, and one in my bathroom (for listening in the shower). The ICF-CS10iP was a robust tabletop machine. In my experience it could charge an naked iPhone 3, 3GS, 4, or 4S, and it could do so for even those wearing most iPhone cases. One thing it couldn’t do was charge (or dock) any iPad.

When I heard about Apple’s “Lightning Connector” last year I knew that the hardware I’d been using, and appreciating, would eventually come to an end. I started worrying when, last year, I got an iPad Mini (which uses a Lighting Connector). And then, recently, when I received an iPhone 5 as a gift, I knew the days of my wonderful ICF-CS10iP were coming to a close. There is actually a LIGHTNING TO 30 PIN ADAPTER available, $35 CDN from the Apple store (or a whole lot cheaper online), and it will fit and work with the ICF-CS10iP. In fact it is very usable there. That’s how my mom has adapted to the new connector. But for me stacking an iPhone on top wasn’t the ideal solution. So, I started looking into a replacement.

The Sony ICF-CS15iPN is the replacement I’ve been looking for. It has the same general shape as the ICF-CS10iP, but has actually been completely redesigned. Most importantly the Lightning Connector dock is on a swivel and is raised up. This allows for an even wider range of cases, and that’s important as I tend to have a thick case.

The controls have also been rearranged and reorganized into three separate tiers. The front most tiers (near the connector) deal with the dual alarms. The topmost tier deals with power, volume, input, and radio controls. And the rearmost buttons (invisible from the front but raised near to the top) deal with infrequently used but necessary programing like time settings and tuning. Like the ICF-CS10iP the ICF-CS15iPN comes with a simple and handy multifunction remote control.

Now the official documentation suggests that the ICF-CS15iPN is only compatible with the iPhone 5, iPod touch 5th generation, and iPod Nano 7th generation. But I can confirm it can also dock with and sync with the iPad Mini. The official documentation does not mention this functionality. Maybe the increased power needed to charge an iPad Mini will overtax the power supply? Perhaps, but I’ve not had any problems so far (after about three months worth of use).

Sony ICF-CS15iPN docked with an iPad Mini

A free app, oddly titled “D-Sappli“, available in the iTunes App Store, though getting poor reviews, seems pretty serviceable to me. It has a feature to sync your Apple device’s time and radio station presets with the dock (presumably for frequent travelers), allows for a sleep timer (usable for audiobooks), a music play timer (I havent tried it) and a sleep timer (for when the app is running). The main feature of the app though is the larger display screen of the time. The ICF-CS15iPN has a fairly large screen, but the option to have the clock running on your iOS device is there.

Sony ICF-CS15iPN docked with an iPhone 5 and displaying the D-Sappli App

Now for the hard part. Sony products have a terrible naming system. Their “Clock Radio” models, I have learned, all start with “ICF” – it took a whole lot of digging to figure out which model was which, and which was still available, and at which stores. Even when I thought I had the model number right the various iterations ended up being confused a lot of the time. To make things even more confusing the model ICF-CS15iPN comes in two different colors, “Silver” and “Black” and these are sometimes tacked on to the model number at the end as “SL” or “BK” (ICF-CS15iPNSL or ICF-CS15iPNBK).

I now have three ICF-CS15iPN devices now, and I use each one daily. The ICF-CS15iPN is fairly expensive, retail being $120 CDN, but the build quality, solidity, and sound quality all make me very satisfied.

Posted by Jesse Willis