Tor.com’s blog has posted a short |MP3| interview with Mary Robinette Kowal the newest John W. Campbell Award winning “Best New Author”! She’s not just the “Best New Author” (and thus the holder of the “Campbell Tiara“), she’s also a puppeteer (not the Niven kind), an audiobook narrator, and an audiobook reviewer (for SFFaudio). Über-congrats to MRK!
Posted by Jesse Willis
Clarkesworld #23, the August 2008 issue, has an audio short story on offer (told in 2nd person perspective!)…
Blue Ink
By Yoon Ha Lee; Read by Cat Rambo
1 |MP3| – 16 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Clarkesworld Magazine
Published: August 2008
In what I hope will be a tradition, I expect/hope, that David Tackett of QD will gift us a review of this story in the comments below. Dave?
Posted by Jesse Willis
Orson Scott Card’s August essay is up on Audible.com. His subject is Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes!
You can check it out on the site itself, or just have a listen |MP3|. In what may be a world exclusive, Card compares the writing styles of Ray Bradbury to Isaac Asimov. And, there’s mention of the new Stefan Rudnicki narrated edition of Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Hi! I’m Rich, a videogame maker, musician and composer. I’ve done audio work of one kind or another for more years than I care to count (I’m actually over 400 years old -it’s a rare condition). In 2001, I co-founded Digital Eel, an indie game development group (Seattle, WA area). These days, I do design and create sfx and strange music for our games. My interest in audio drama (radio-tinged) began in the 60’s listening to Lights Out and Inner Sanctum on scratchy LP’s, but I primarily blame the Firesign Theatre and Douglas Adams for my abiding appreciation of the medium. Okay, anyhow, I picked out five SF and horror favorites from radio’s glory days for your audio perusal. In other words, unlike things smaller than your elbow, they are safe to stick in your ears. Mostly. Enjoy!
Oh, be sure to check out my website, Radio Tales Of The Strange & Fantastic, for more radio drama goodness…
1.
X Minus One: Mars is Heaven
Story by Ray Bradbury; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 28 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: NBC Radio
Broadcast: May 8, 1955
“Mars is Heaven!”, a short story by Ray Bradbury, was first published in 1948 but remains one of the most popular science fiction stories to this day. Many will recall it from the Martian Chronicles set released two years later; a classic Bradbury collection that has never gone out of print. What will the first men on Mars find when they land there? An unwelcome alien environment? A dead lifeless place or…a place of the dead? If you like The Twilight Zone, you’ll dig this story, and the X Minus One version is one of the best.
2.
Suspense: Donovan’s Brain
By Curt Siodmak; Performed by a full cast
2 MP3s – [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBS Radio
Broadcast: May 19 & 25, 1944
Part 1 |MP3|, Part 2 |MP3|
Donovan’s Brain, the classic “brain kept alive in a jar” tale, was first published in 1942 as a novel by Curt Siodmak (whose story and screenplay for Universal’s classic monster movie, The Wolf Man, scarifyed moviegoing audiences a year before). Today, the 1953 film version is more well known but Suspense nailed it on CBS radio nine years earlier with an unforgettable one hour version directed by, and starring (not surprisingly), the formidable Orson Welles. Is it good, you ask? Does it deliver…suspense? Sure, sure, sure…
3.
Dimension X: The Roads Must Roll
By Robert A. Heinlein; Performed by
1 |MP3| – [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: NBC Radio
Broadcast: September 1, 1950
In the future depicted in The Roads Must Roll, the 1940 Nebula award-winning short story by Robert A. Heinlein, automobile, truck and train traffic had become impossibly congested and unmanageable, so the engineers have taken over and have converted roads and highways into rolling roads -similar to conveyor belts but on a massive scale- that move people and goods from place to place at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour. Hang on to your potatoes! Problem is, the technicians who keep the roads rolling are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with their status. They believe that because rolling roads are of prime importance to the nation’s infrastructure, they should be rewarded more highly than other workers. And when such issues of technological change, politics, unions and class come together, serious conflict is bound to occur…
4.
Mystery In The Air: The Horla
By Guy de Maupassant; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: NBC Radio
Broadcast: August 21, 1947
The Horla, written in 1887 by Guy de Maupassant, is an unusual horror tale about an invisible alien entity that seeks to inhabit and control human beings. It was cited by Lovecraft as being the inspiration for his classic story, The Call of Cthulhu, and as an important forerunner to the weird
horror genre pioneered by himself, August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, and others, in the early-mid 20th century. This version, from Mystery in the Air (oddly, a summer replacement for the Abbott and Costello Show), benefits from a brisk script and a wonderful live performance by Peter Lorre as your weekly raging psychopath.
5.
Escape: Three Skeleton Key
Story by George Toudouze; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBS Radio
Broadcast: March 17, 1950
“Three Skeleton Key, the small rock on which the (lighthouse) stood, bore a bad reputation. It earned its name from the story of the three convicts who, escaping from Cayenne in a stolen dugout canoe, were wrecked on the rock during the night, managed to escape the sea but eventually died of hunger and thirst. When they were discovered, nothing remained but three heaps of bones, picked clean by birds. The story was that the three skeletons, gleaming with phosphorescent light, danced over the small rock, screaming…”
– from Three Skeleton Key by George Toudouze, Esquire magazine, January 1937
Creepy stuff to be sure, so what happens on they key? Terrifying events which I won’t spoil except to say that if you are afraid of a certain creature, as Indiana Jones dislikes snakes, you may find this story unsettling. But don’t fret. Vincent Price is there to hold your hand….until they come. Escape presented Three Skeleton Key many times due to audience requests. Price played the lead role at least twice. This version is generally considered to be his best performance of this play.
Posted by RC of Radio Tales of the Strange and Fantastic
You want to hear about the multiverse? No? Well, in some universe you do and in it you’ll be checking out WNYC’s Radio Lab‘s podcast/radio show talk about the multiverse! Have a listen |MP3|!
Here’s the description:
Have you wondered if there is another you out there? Somewhere? Sitting in the same chair, reading the same blog post, wearing the same clothes and thinking the same thoughts? Well, Brian Greene says there must be one. Or two. Or lots and lots and lots and lots and… Why? You ask, well listen to Greene’s argument in this week’s podcast.
We are still furiously working on Season 5, so while you wait we bring you today’s podcast of a conversation between Robert Krulwich and Brian Greene, physics and mathematics professor and director of the Institute of Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics at Columbia University. The interview is part of a series called “Giants of Science” hosted by venerable New York institution, the 92nd St Y.
Robert and Brian discuss what’s beyond the horizon of our universe, what you might wear in infinite universes with finite pairs of designer shoes, and why the Universe and swiss cheese have more in common than you think.
[via io9.com]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Good stuff is happening on BBC7 lately, like Mike Walker’s remarkable 6-part historical drama series, Caesar!, that aired over the last two weeks. This Saturday, 7 Drama will present the full cast dramatization of Edith Nesbit’s Five Children and It (which certainly ranks as one of the best ever titles for a kids novel), a story about a magical sand fairy (that) grants five children a series of wishes…
A little background, quoting here from Wikipedia, Edith Nesbit popularized an innovative style of children’s fantasy that combined realistic, contemporary children in real-world settings with magical objects and adventures. In doing so, she was a direct or indirect influence on many subsequent writers, including P. L. Travers (author of Mary Poppins), Edward Eager, Diana Wynne Jones and J. K. Rowling -as well as C. S. Lewis and Michael Moorcock. Yow!
Some will recall Nesbit for her memorable novel, The Railway Children, and the film and BBC television series based on the book (presented wayyy back in the 1960’s). I said some will -if they’re willing to admit that they’re old enough to have watched Star Trek: TOS in prime time.
Now, I have to admit that I haven’t heard this production before but given the Beeb’s track record, the play should be good. At an hour and a half long, there should be enough time to cover the story while keeping things moving at a brisk pace. Also, BBC dramatizations tend to feature excellent child actors. This should be a big plus here. -A lot of “shoulds”, I know, but being a fan of Edith Nesbit’s books to begin with, of course I’m looking forward to this.
Check out Five Children and It with me on Saturday, August 16 from 12:00- 13:30 GMT. Teleport to 7 Drama here to do so. Or you can use the Listen Again feature to hear the show for six days after it airs.
Lastly, you can read and download Edith Nesbit’s novels online at Project Gutenberg. All are in the public domain. Yay!
Posted by RC of Radio Tales of the Strange and Fantastic
