Here’s a fun, and approximately antipodean, compliment to Jack London’s stupendous novel The Call Of The Wild. Set in 1880s South Africa, it is a set of semi-fictional stories about an English Staffordshire Bull Terrier named Jock. According to a book called National Character In South African Children’s Literature it was none other than Rudyard Kipling who persuaded James Percy Fitzpatrick to collect his Jock tales in book form. Now that is quite a provenance!
Jock Of The Bushveld
By Sir Percy Fitzpatrick; Read by various 28 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 12 Hours 46 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Publisher: March 19, 2010 Jock of the Bushveld is a true story by South African author Sir Percy Fitzpatrick when he worked as a storeman, prospector’s assistant, journalist and ox-wagon transport-rider. The book tells of Fitzpatrick’s travels with his dog, Jock, during the 1880s. Jock was saved by Fitzpatrick from being drowned in a bucket for being the runt of the litter. Jock was very loyal towards Percy, and brave. Jock was an English Staffordshire Bull Terrier.
I get the sense that Rastignac The Devil is a satire, using the furniture of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers. But I feel really embarrassed about not knowing what is going on, sub-textually, in this interesting, but baffling, novella by Philip José Farmer. Is it all an allegorical satire of some event in 17th century France?
A couple of other notes. Mike Resnick’s Starship series has a character named “Slick.” Slick is an alien with a sentient symbiotic skin (called a “gorib”). Rastignac The Devil has aliens and humans with just such a similar concept – very cool! Gregg Margarite, the narrator, does a very good job with the abundance of French words.
Anyway, like I said, I liked the story, thought it was weirdly cool, but don’t feel like I’ve understood it at all. Could someone fill me in?
Rastignac The Devil
By Philip José Farmer; Read by Gregg Margarite 2 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 1 Hour 59 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 19, 2010 Here is high fidelity fiction at Philip José Farmer’s story-telling best. It’s a vibrant, distractingly different tale of three centuries into the future. And as you read you’ll have a vague, uneasy feeling that it’s all taking place somewhere in the unexplored parts of the universe, even today. From Fantastic Universe May 1954.
Infinivox is offering a free listen to “The Scarecrow’s Boy” by Michael Swanwick, a story we talked about last week that’s part of the just-released We, Robots anthology.
My friend, Julie D. of the Forgotten Classics podcast, has recently completed her unabridged reading of Dorothy Macardle’s novel The Uninvited. Now she’s working on a pure Science Fiction story, picked from SFFaudio Challenge #4. But that’s not all, Julie begins the podcast with some thoughts on James Gunn’s best known work, a series of scholarly collections entitled: The Road To Science Fiction. I have volumes 3 and 4 in my paperbook collection.
There are also two more recent volumes The British Way (Vol. 5) and the other places Around The World (Vol. 6). But I won’t post their cover art here because they really suck.
Breaking Point
By James Gunn; Read by Julie D.
Podcast – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Forgotten Classics
Podcast: March 2009 – The ship was proof against any test, but the men inside her could be strained and warped, individually and horribly. Unfortunately, while the men knew that, they couldn’t really believe it. The Aliens could—and did.
Yet another story in SFFaudio’s 7th Anniversary Carnival of Characters!
Melancholy Elephants
By Spider Robinson; Read by Spider Robinson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 34 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Spider on the Web
Published: 2007
Themes: / Science Fiction / Art / Copyright / Human Mind / Mathematics /
The moment I realized that copyright was at the center of the story, I thought: Jesse would love this. I’m fairly certain he’s read it, though. There can’t be a lot of fiction where copyright plays a part, and besides; Spider Robinson is one of his favorites.
A law to extend copyright is proposed, and Dorothy, an artist, visits a Senator in future Washington to persuade him to vote against. The story is not dry exposition about law. It’s about art, the human mind, mathematics, and the universe. A lot to pack into 34 minutes, for certain, and it did leave me feeling melancholy, like the elephants.
It’s important to note that this story won a Hugo Award in 1983, long before copyright ran headlong into the digital age. “Melancholy Elephants” stands beside other great science fiction stories that so clearly saw the future coming.
The story was read by Spider Robinson as part of his Spider on the Web podcast.
Here’s a fun, and approximately antipodean, compliment to Jack London’s stupendous novel The Call Of The Wild. Set in 1880s South Africa, it is a set of semi-fictional stories about an English Staffordshire Bull Terrier named Jock. According to a book called National Character In South African Children’s Literature it was none other than Rudyard Kipling who persuaded James Percy Fitzpatrick to collect his Jock tales in book form. Now that is quite a provenance!
Jock Of The Bushveld
