Added sound effects, and real rush job on the reading don’t detract too much from the appeal of this cute short short story by Harry Harrison (its just five pages). Here’s the description from MisterNizz’s blog:
“A self-replicating machine is, as the name suggests, an artificial self-replicating system that relies on conventional large-scale technology and automation. Certain idiosyncratic terms are occasionally found in the literature. For example, the term “clanking replicator” was once used by Drexler to distinguish macroscale replicating systems from the microscopic nanorobots or “assemblers” that nanotechnology may make possible, but the term is informal and is rarely used by others in popular or technical discussions. Replicators have also been called “von Neumann machines” after mathemetician John von Neumann, who first rigorously studied the idea. In this short story, Harry Harrison depicts a future in a world transformed by Von Neumann machines.”After listening to the story it sounds like a macro scale precursor to the grey goo problem to me.
How The Old World Died
By Harry Harrison; Read by Walt O’Hara
1 |MP3| – Approx. 10 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: misternizz.podbean.com
Podcast: May 26, 2011
This is how the world ended – and this is what will happen next! First published in the October 1964 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction.
[via Mister Nizz’s HuffDuffer.com]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Recording with a killer head cold contributed to the rushed nature of that one, my apologies. I didn’t want my voice to crack.
Was the wind in the background too much?
Mr. N.
The audiobook model of narration, as opposed to some other model, is what I subscribe to. It’s a naked narrator, minus any sound effects, minus any music.
It is my firm belief that any additional sound effects or music added to an audiobook can only detract or distract from the story – it NEVER adds anything of value.
When people get creative it can severely impair the enjoyment of an audiobook – witness Norman Sherman’s The Drabblecast – it consistently adds sound effects/music, and I don’t recommend people listen to that podcast precisely because it does that – its a shame because there are plenty of good stories that get ruined by being Drabblecasted.
To each their own. I rather like Norm’s work.