Category: Audio Drama

The Diamond Lens by Fitz James O’Brien

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Diamond Lens by Fitz James O'Brien - illustration uncredited - December 1926 issue of Amazing Stories

I’ve created a |PDF| from the printing in the December 1926 issue of Amazing Stories.

Introduction to the October 1933 issue of Amazing in which The Diamond Lens was published

The Diamond Lens - Illustration by Morrey

I’ve created a |PDF| from the printing in the October 1933 issue of Amazing Stories.

In his introductory essay “Expanding The Lens“, found in to the story in The Road To Science Fiction: From Gilgamesh To Wells, editor James Gunn writes:

“[The Diamond Lens] is the first known story in which another world is perceived through a microscope… [this story] opened up another world, not just for readers, but for writers as well.” Gunn goes on to praise O’Brien’s “realistic treatment of the fantastic” and says that “‘The Diamond Lens‘” may be the first modern science-fiction story.”

LibriVox narrator Corrina Schultz describes The Diamond Lens this way:

“This story has a bit of everything – obsessive scientist, psychic medium contacting the dead, clever murder cover-up, racism, creepy stalker, college student shirking his studies, the painful results of pursuing forbidden knowledge, the noble savage…”

Atop those words I myself can heap a few other attractors:

1. The Diamond Lens is bizarre in both plot and focus, with episodic like writing <-Weird for a short story. 2. It has the sensibility of a foreign culture <-The 19th century attitude toward seances is pretty fucking foreign! 3. The protagonist is a mad microscopist. <-Perhaps he was demented by the illicit lure of science? 4. The story features a brutal killing. <-With a whackjob of added racism to complicate matters! 5. It has a noir ending. <-My favourite kind. As you may have guessed I quite enjoyed The Diamond Lens.

Stories like Harl Vincent’s Microcosmic Buccaneers (1929), Theodore Sturgeon’s Microcosmic God (1941) and both Sunken Universe (1942) and Surface Tension (1952) by James Blish all stem from the microscopic pioneering of The Diamond Lens. Whereas the theme, of an alien female object of adoration in an unreachable land, also brings to mind a mighty parallel with Jack Williamson’s The Green Girl (1930). And one final note, a quick read of the Wikipedia entry for Fitz James O’Brien makes me think some of the tale is autobiographical!

LibriVoxThe Diamond Lens
By Fitz James O’Brien; Read by Corinna Schultz
1 |MP3| – Approx. 57 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox
Published: FORTHCOMING
A scientist, having invented a powerful microscope, discovers a beautiful female living in a microscopic world inside a drop of water. First published in the January 1858 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.

The Weird CircleThe Diamond Lens
Based on the story by Fitz-James O’Brien; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 25 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: MBS, NBC, ABC
Broadcast: December 31, 1944
Provider: Archive.org

Arthur C. Clarke describes The Diamond Lens (from an article in Playboy)

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBC Radio 4 Extra: The Eagle Of The Ninth RADIO DRAMA

SFFaudio Online Audio

Last weekend saw the re-broadcast of first episode (of four parts) of the 1996 BBC’s radio dramatisation of The Eagle Of The Ninth, that’s Rosemary Sutcliffe’s excellent YA novel. It was recently turned into a pretty good film (The Eagle). If you’re a fan of Henry Treece, as I am, you’ll probably also like Sutcliffe. The next three parts will air on subsequent weekends. I hope to collect them all over on RadioArchive.cc when it completes. Based on the first episode, listenable HERE, you may want to do the same. Sadly no unabridged version of the audiobook currently exists.

BBC Radio 4 ExtraThe Eagle Of The Ninth
Based on the novel by Rosemary Sutcliffe; Dramatised by Sean Damer; Performed by a full cast
4 (half-hour) Broadcasts – Approx. 2 Hours [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Extra
Broadcast: Sunday October 23, 2011 (and the subsequent three Sundays)
Can Marcus recover his father’s reputation and the lost Eagle from his legion in Rosemary Sutcliffe’s children’s adventure set during the Roman occupation of Britain?

Cast:
Tom Smith
Mark Coleman

Produced by Hamish Wilson

Here’s the trailer for the recent movie version:

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBC Radio 4: Something Wicked This Way Comes AUDIO DRAMA

SFFaudio Online Audio

The BBC is not noted for programming that specifically celebrates Halloween. There is, however, a new production of the Ray Bradbury classic Something Wicked This Way Comes (a full cast radio production), which is one thing that is wickedly coming this way this weekend:

BBC Radio 4The Saturday Play – Something Wicked This Way Comes
Adapted from the novel by Ray Bradbury; Dramatised by Diana Griffiths; Performed by a full cast
1 Broadcast – Approx. 1 Hour [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: Saturday October 29, 2011 (14:30-15:30)
Set in 1960’s Illinois this gem of modern Gothic literature is the memorable story of two boys, James Nightshade and William Halloway, and the evil that grips their small Midwestern town with the arrival of a “dark carnival” one Autumn midnight. These two innocents, both aged 13, (Will is born one minute before Halloween, and Jim one minute after) save the souls of the town (as well as their own). This is a vivid variation on the eternal theme of the fight between Good and Evil. A thrilling, chilling, richly kaleidoscopic sound world ensues; a shimmering mirror maze that reflects your older or younger self, depending on your desires, and a magic carousel that plays Chopin’s Funeral March forwards – with each rotation you gain a year, and rotating backwards – you get younger.

Cast:
Will … Theo Gregory
Jim … Josef Lindsay
Charlie … Henry Goodman
Mr. Dark … Kenneth Cranham
Mr. Coogar/Lightening rod salesman … Gerard McDermott
Miss Foley … Barbara Barnes
Dust Witch … Buffy Davis
Robert … Taran Stanzler
Young Miss Foley … Amelia Clarkson
JED … Ethan Brooke
Composer … David Paul Jones
Sound … Paul Cargill
Produced/Directed by Pauline Harris

[Thanks Roy]

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #131 – TALK TO: Julie Hoverson of 19 Nocturne Boulevard

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #131 – Jesse, Scott, and Tamahome talk to Julie Hoverson of 19 Nocturne Boulevard

Talked about on today’s show:
how do you say “hiatus”?, “one woman butt kicking army”, third year anniversary, 74 episodes, The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft audio drama, Bill Hollweg is in The Deadeye Kid, Maine accents, The Leech by Robert Sheckley (secretly), comedy, A Date With Dana was funny, classic storylines, The Rookie won the Mark Time Award, “line up to get killed by their favorites”, “I love creepy old ladies”, Crumping The Devil, The Imp Of The Perverse, Lovecraft’s The Thing On The Doorstep, Within The Walls Of Eryx is “straightforward sci-fi”, Dis Belief is from a Jorge Luis Borges story, puns, finding the copyright owner, finding quality audio drama, Julie’s audio blog about oversight, we need curation, Voice Hollywood does their own ratings, Julie will be at the next Balticon, Balticon Podcast, there’s never enough people to help, Geek Girl Con, editing the parts together, simultaneous recording?, Julie is in The Radio Drama Handbook by Richard J. Hand and Mary Traynor, The Grand Guignol is violent theater, The Thrice Tolled Bell is like a Hammer film, “cuz I’m crazy”, what dramas does Julie like?, We’re Alive (The Zombie Podcast, also from Blackstone Audio), why do it?, Julie tried to develop a “dead serial killer buddy movie”, Wormwood, comics, Five Fingers Of Doom, short stories, timing your podcast releases, “the mentality of slackness”, for the nasty creepiness: One Eighteen: Migration, Julie’s The Gift Of The Zombi an Xmas show, zombies in love, “zombies are the new cowboys”, a half-hour is a good length, fan dogs on Facebook, “what’s the best science fiction audio drama around?”, Kim’s Warp’d Space involves milk runs, Children Of The Gods, The Leviathan Chronicles, Julie is in Edict Zero (created by Jack Kincaid who did The Geek’s Guide To The Galaxy intro), a cop show on a future colony, how complicated can a show be?, “there’s always engaging things”, Big Finish are pros, “fanfic”, Darker Projects Star Trek tie-ins (Tamahome listened to Lost Frontier), Jesse wants A Princess Of Mars drama, who’s got the rights?, adapting a novel, William Shakespeare, Cymbeline Revisited, Edwardian Entertainments, The Yellow Wallpaper

Posted by Tamahome

CBS Radio Mystery Theater: The Walking Dead (aka Fondly Fahrenheit) by Alfred Bester

SFFaudio Online Audio

Fondly Fahrenheit is Alfred Bester’s superlative achievement in short Science Fiction. Apparently the story was based an account of an U.S. Antebellum Era slave owner who refused to surrender his murderous chattel because the man was just too valuable. In Fondly Fahrenheit Bester makes brilliant use of the psychological concept of transference, literally smacks you in the forehead with an allusion to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and employs POV shifts that effortlessly blow your consciousness right out of your mind (and into someone else’s)!

The story was adapted as a telepay in 1959 under the title Murder And The Android, an episode of NBC’s Sunday Showcase. But the version I want to tell you about is one that I hadn’t realized existed, until just a few days ago! Bester had again adapted his story, and again changed it’s name! Here is Alfred Bester’s own radio drama adaptation of Fondly Fahrenheit, from 1976 He called it The Walking Dead!

CBS Radio Mystery TheaterCBS Radio Mystery Theater #0484 – The Walking Dead
Adapted by Alfred Bester; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 44 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: CBS
Broadcast: May 20, 1976
Provider: CBSRMT.com

Cast:
Jack Grimes
Paul Hecht
Gilbert Mack
Rosemary Rice
Joan Shay

Check out the art I cobbled together for it, thanks in part to Brain Plucker’s new “Lost Art” feature (Virgil Finlay!):

The Walking Dead by Alfred Bester

Posted by Jesse Willis