Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer is a 25 minute TV documentary produced by David L. Wolper in 1963. It includes a little dramatization of Dial Double Zero, a short story about the emergence of an artificial intelligence within the telephone system.
And it’s also available as a download |MP4|.
[via Maria Popova and Archive.org]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Barton’s younger selves lived on, tormenting him for his living proof that their hopes were dead!
First published in Super Science Stories, April 1949, here’s Jim Moon’s 26 minute unabridged reading of I, Mars by Ray Bradbury. I first encountered this story under it’s alternative title, Night Call, Collect.
|MP3|
|PDF| made from its publication in Super Science Stories.
[Thanks to WonderEbooks!]
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
One of the very few legitimately Science Fiction stories in the CBC Nightfall series was this one, Assassin Game by John G. Fisher. It’s set in a then future in which all university students, in the top fifth percentile, are required to play an assassination game. Exceptional players are recruited by all the best transnational mega-corporations which offer free, but illegal, training in the summers. Chris Wiggins, a great voice actor best known perhaps for his role on Friday The 13th: The Series, plays the school’s president. And a very young sounding Saul Rubinek plays the protagonist, a student, and star player, who is unwilling to pick a sponsor. There’s a whole lot going on in this half hour show – with a big back-story, a vintage future sound design (Star Trek and Pac-Man), and a noirish plot.
Devoted readers may note some strong similarities to Robert Sheckley’s Seventh Victim and derivative tales.
Nightfall #74 – Assassin Game
By John G. Fisher; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 28 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBC
Broadcast: November 5, 1982
Source: Archive.org
In the future, your career will be determined by now many students you eliminate at university. Assassin was just a game at first, then it got real.
Cast:
Saul Rubinek … Joel Unson (a computer science student)
Nicky Guadagni … Wendy Hirsch?
David Ferry … Martin (a political science student)
Ralph McPherson … Alex (Joel’s AI)
Peter Jobin … the computer and the man
Chris Wiggins … university president
Barbara Kyle … Miss and the PA announcer
Posted by Jesse Willis
Brad Lansky and the 4D-Verse
By J.D. Venne; Performed by a full cast
1.5 Hours – [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Protophonic.net
Published: 2012
Themes: / Science Fiction / Hard SF / Audio Drama / Dimensional space / Quantum entanglement / Artificial Intelligence /
Taking up where the previous Brad Lansky title ended, this drama has Brad and Alex exploring the 4D-Verse. They get split up while searching for MAMAI (an artificial intelligence), with Alex moving to a higher dimension while Brad figures how to get him back.
In a previous review I compared a Brad Lansky audio to Meatball Fulton’s Ruby series. This one comes from the same mold. It’s a aural feast from start to finish; among the richest audio you’ll hear. Another comparison leapt to mind this time: the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Not only is the subject matter similar (hard SF involving alien beings), but the tone is similar. Just like Kubrick lingered on shots to allow the viewer time to experience awe, Dieter Zimmerman and crew linger with sound that creates images in the listener’s mind. This is very much a cooperative experience. Break out your best headphones and be prepared to provide imagination.
Lansky: I can’t wait to check out these places!
Alex: What? Are you crazy?
Lansky: No, just an explorer who doesn’t run away when he finds something interesting!
Dieter Zimmerman, one of the creative people behind the Brad Lansky series, was recently interviewed on Fred Greenhalgh’s Radio Drama Revival podcast. Find that episode |HERE|.
All of the Brad Lansky titles can be purchased at Protophonic.net!
Posted by Scott D. Danielson
Our friend Anne has added a wonderful new post to his Anne Is A Man blog about podcasts. Says Anne:
“I used to write that one should always download the In Our Time podcasts and keep for ever. The BBC used to keep only the last episode in the feed. In case one had not kept the episode, the only option to listen was to go to the on-line archive and listen while streaming. While that has become less and less of a bother with WiFi all around and capable smartphones, it still was a pity you had no option. All of this now belongs to the past; the archive is also available for download and one can lay ones hands on any chapter ever.”
The archive has been categorized into five separate feeds, sorted by subject:
In Our Time Archive – Culture
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history of ideas. Topics in the Culture feed include: architecture, the Renaissance, writing forms (like the novel, the sonnett and biography), as well as a multitude of specific persons.
Podcast feed: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/iotc/rss.xml
In Our Time Archive – History
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history of ideas. Topics in the History feed include: The Wars of the Roses, specific battles, a multitude of historical personages, as well as the history of tea.
Podcast feed: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/ioth/rss.xml
In Our Time Archive – Philosophy
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history of ideas. Topics in the Philosophy feed include: just war, rhetoric, great thinkers (Confucius, Popper, Socrates) as well as specific works of philosophy.
Podcast feed: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/iotp/rss.xml
In Our Time Archive – Religion
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history of ideas. Topics in the Religion feed include: fundamentalism, prayer, the Devil, paganism, the Holy Grail, and the Spanish Inquisition.
Podcast feed: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/iotr/rss.xml
In Our Time Archive – Science
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history of ideas. Topics in the Religion feed include: genetic engineering, artificial intelligence (and regular intelligence), quantum gravity, oceanography, aliens and cryptography.
Podcast feed: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/iots/rss.xml
Posted by Jesse Willis