BBC7’s the 7th Dimension will be re-airing a truly AWESOME unabridged reading of Ted Chiang‘s novelette Understand.
This story has been broadcast on BBC Radio 7 previously and it blew my mind when I first heard it! This sort of unabridged reading is what makes me so attuned to what The 7th Dimension is up to. If you listen to no other BBC Radio production this year listen to this one!
Here’s a teaser: Leon is a former coma victim, who has gone experimental medical treatment to repair the massive trauma his brain recieved after he was trapped under ice for more than an hour. He’s regained consciousness, found he has all of his faculties back and a whole lot more. In the tradition of Daniel Keyes’ Flowers For Algernon. It was originally published in “Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine” in 1991.
Understand
By Ted Chiang; Read by Rashan Stone
4 half-hour segments – Approx. 2 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
BROADCASTER: BBC Radio 7
AIRING: Saturdays for four weeks @ 6pm (repeats 12am) UK Time
This will be available via the Listen Again service shortly after it airs.
Ted Chiang is one of the genre’s finest writers. He’s got a short story collection (not on audio) out called “Stories of Your Life and Others” which contains nearly everything he’s published. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
And this recording of “Understand” (a story that is in that collection I mentioned) is first-rate.