The “Neboola award” nominated Octavia E. Butler was interviewed, very awkwardly, on the Charlie Rose back in 2000. This is the worst Rose interview I’ve ever seen. But, near the end of Part 1 she talks about audiobooks.
[via SFFaudio’s anime Wolverine]
Posted by Jesse Willis
The story I want to tell you about today comes from a series called Someone Like You. The series aired on BBC Radio 4 in 2009 with the particular tale being the first of a five part series of dramatizations of Roald Dahl short stories.
It’s title is usually given as Man From The South, but it was originally titled Collector’s Item when it first appeared, in a 1948 issue of Collier’s Weekly.
It’s a fantastic little gem – a true oddity – one which you may even be familiar with from one of the many adaptations and references in movies and TV shows. Charles Dance is the narrator, and is his usual wonderful self in it.Andrew Sachs, the titular man, is both manic and enigmatic.
The file is only available via torrent at the wonderful RadioArchive.cc.
Someone Like You – Man From The South
Based on the story by Roald Dahl; Dramatized by Stephen Sheridan; Performed by a full cast
TORRENT – Approx. 14 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: December 21, 2009
While on shore leave in Jamaica, a young marine agrees to a bizarre wager with an elderly South American.
Cast:
Storyteller ……. Charles Dance
Old Man ……….. Andrew Sachs
Marine ………… Danny Mahoney
Girl ………….. Donnla Hughes
Spanish Woman ….. Rachel Atkins
Posted by Jesse Willis
I’m not a very good chess player, but I love playing. There’s a an elegance and a simplicity to the basics of it. And from those basic rules an incalculable complexity emerges – one that makes every game different. But I don’t much like playing against a computer. There’s little sense of victory if I win and if I lose I tend to question the point in playing at all. There’s something about pitting a mind against a mind – and most chess programs I’ve played against don’t seem to have one.
Moxon’s Master, by Ambrose Bierce, is about chess. It uses some basic analogies and metaphors – in just the way H.G. Wells does so well to make the implausible sound plausible. Bierce wields facts about plant tropism and Herbert Spencer’s definition of life in a skillful argument for machine intelligence. It’s rather masterful actually!
Moxon’s Master
By Ambrose Bierce; Read by Roger Melin
1 |MP3| – Approx. 28 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 2, 2012
First published in the San Francisco Examiner, April 16, 1899.
|PDF|
[Thanks also to Laura Victoria and Barry Eads]
Posted by Jesse Willis
The Unreconstructed M by Philip K. Dick is PUBLIC DOMAIN.
It’s public domain status was not previously known because the copyright was thought to have been renewed. But it wasn’t.
The confusion stems from this document:
You will note that the renewal form shows The Unreconstructed M as having been published in a magazine called Other Worlds, November 1956.
That is completely false.
Here is the table of contents for the November 1956 issue of Other Worlds:
The Unreconstructed M was actually published in the January 1957 issue of Science Fiction Stories (aka Original Science Fiction Stories).
Here is the table of contents from that issue:
Here is a |PDF| made from it’s publication in Science Fiction Stories.
The Unreconstructed M by Philip K. Dick is PUBLIC DOMAIN.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Originally published in the January 1951 issue of Fantastic Novels Magazine (on pages 118, 119, and 120) The Last War by Stanton A. Coblentz is a public domain poem that has never been reprinted.
Here it is, along with the gorgeous original art.
Thanks to Jim Moon of the Hypnobobs podcast for his wonderful reading of it.
|MP3|
Posted by Jesse Willis
Available either as and MP3 or M4B download, Blackstone Audio is offering a FREE download of Romance by Chuck Palahniuk. Sez the Blackstone Blog:
We’ve teamed up with New York Times-bestselling author Chuck Palahniuk to offer a free audio download of his short story “Romance,” read by Chuck himself and available in audio exclusively from Blackstone. Originally published in Playboy magazine, “Romance” is a twisted love story like only Chuck could tell.
You’ll need to give your name and your email address to get a link to the 22 minute short story.
I just listened to it. Its pretty funny, really sad, and horrifically frightening!
Posted by Jesse Willis