November 12, 1971, on the eve of Mariner 9 going into orbit at Mars, Ray Bradbury took part in a symposium at Caltech with Arthur C. Clarke, journalist Walter Sullivan, and scientists Carl Sagan and Bruce Murray. In this excerpt, Bradbury reads his poem, “If Only We Had Taller Been.”
[via BoingBoing]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Here’s a rather timely re-post, one based on a post prompted back in 2006 by an astronomer at the University of Hawaii. Professor Esther M. Hu, pointed me towards this reading of an Arthur C. Clarke classic, one read by Clarke himself!
Listening to it again today, and thinking about the significance of science and history of such an event, and the related event happening today, I found Clarke’s reading of The Transit Of Earth to be an incredibly moving experience.
Since then I’ve noticed that there was an introduction written for it too, which appeared in the May 1984 issue of Omni. It’s rather timely, considering that Clarke mentions today’s transit of Venus (which will be the last until 2117):
Here is that issue of Omni in the |CBR| format.
And here are the scans: |Page 70|Pages 71 and 72|Page 108|Page 110|Page 112|Page 113|Page 116|
The Transit Of Earth
By Arthur C. Clarke; Read by Arthur C. Clarke
1 |MP3| – Approx. 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Caedmon
Published: 1975
Product #: TC-1566
[via the still awesome Record Brother blog and hugely resourceful Typnet.net]
Posted by Jesse Willis
There’s probably always going to be a place in my heart for Philip K. Dick’s Beyond Lies The Wub. It was my first PKD short story. It’s very short and usually runs just over fifteen minutes read aloud – which I frequently do. And even though Dick claimed only to have been paid $15 for it*, I find it absolutely invaluable.
I’ve felt that way from the very first time I heard it, back in 2006. The narrator, Mac Kelly, delivered the story at a measured pace that really sang the story to me.
Since then I’ve become even more enamored with Gregg Margarite’s rendition, recorded for LibriVox in 2009.
And that’s the one I’d like to share with you. I share it with you now, but you can share it with your friends too because, not only is the story public domain, the audiobook itself is too!
Beyond Lies The Wub
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 16 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 4, 2009
|ETEXT|
The slovenly wub might well have said: Many men talk like philosophers and live like fools. First published in Planet Stories, July 1952.
And here’s a combination of the narration with the magazine scans:
Posted by Jesse Willis
*As reported in Dick’s introduction to the story in First Voyages, a 1981 anthology of the first published short stories by famous SF authors.
The SFFaudio Podcast #145 – Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. Jesse, Tamahome, Professor Eric S. Rabkin and Jenny discuss Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. |ETEXT|
Talked about on today’s show:
Tam can’t trust anyone over 25, Jesse’s review in 2008, re-reading Little Brother in 2012, South Carolina, did Jenny vote Herman Cain (Stephen Colbert)?, SOPA/PIPA, non-fiction essay combined with YA, cliche, didacticism vs. propaganda vs. agitprop, we loved the infodumping, the underlying Oedipal structure, Robert A. Heinlein, libertarian bent, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers, Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes, ‘this book has well devolved mythic structure’, levers vs. buttons, relevance, Homer, Electronic Frontier Foundation, the future of money, Luke Burrage’s review of Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom, money is hard to understand, Little Brother is a call to arms, National Defense Authorization Act (suspending habeous corpus as outlined in Article One of the United States Constitution), Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell, Ms. Galvez’s Social Studies class, history, Heinleinian straw men vs. Doctorowan straw men, DHS, TSA, pebbles in your shoes, gait recognition, Oedipus = lame-foot, Charles Walker, the yippies, “this is a masterwork”, Jesse hates sequels, will the sequel to Little Brother deliver anything like what we might expect?, idea based writing vs. character based writing, w1n5t0n, trust, Marcus’ moral problem (RFID cloning without consent for the “greater good”), what act of violence is allowable?, moral relativism, the ends vs. the means, adolescence, “when is it time to overthrow the government?”, treason, Jenny makes “a gorgeous point”, Cory Doctorow’s choice to set Little Brother in, Law & Order (Lenny Briscoe), British North American Act, Canada didn’t have a bill of rights until 1981, The Charter Of Rights And Freedoms, Canada’s founding fathers are not demi-gods, Byron Sonne, G-20, is Little Brother a libertarian book?, “freedom is something you have to take for yourself”, Friedrich Hayek, Prometheus Award, the government of California is the hero (or the CHP), authority tries to perpetuate itself, UC Berkley, sex, juvenile vs. YA, “we live on Mars but we keep our houses extremely hot”, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, The Dervish House, Ready Player One, The Diamond Age, Eric makes a minor discovery, Big Brother -> Little Brother, Star-Begotten by H.G. Wells has the origin of “Big Brother”, Olaf Stapledon, “man is the boy who won’t grow up”, Spanish Civil War, The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham (aka The Children Of The Damned), The Iron Heel by Jack London, comparing Doctorow with London, what is propaganda?, pamphleteering, Joseph Goebbels, Eric thinks etymologically, propagation and ideology, the Wikipedia entry on propaganda, is The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress propaganda?, “Oceania is now”, more strawful men, Sinclair Lewis, agitprop fiction, Science Fiction, “it’s a call to arms”, being a hacker, “go forth and hack my children”, “pay attention”, Gitmo by the bay, Iraq, Hacking The X-Box, Mac vs. PC ads, the hacker ethic is the science ethic, LARPing, “just to be smarter about the world around me”, alternative schooling, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), SkyTrain, The People Mover (The DPM), jitney, first person perspective, how to care, the terrorism detector and super-AIDS, Jane Jacobs, Jenny’s favourite character was Andrew, crystallizing the Oedipal issues, the Scoville scale, “the word is mister”, Ange vs. mom, The Tempest, severe haircut lady’s sadism, The Dark Knight Returns, is there a hero-normative angle?, The Puppet Masters, Friday, Have Spaceship-Will Travel, the ideal audience, Good Night Moon, Kirby Heybourne’s narration, transitional objects, Cory’s analogies are wonderful, taking a hiatus from Science Fiction, a pleased (but silent) smile, Jesse still has all his LEGO, a balding grey haired kid, Paranoid Linux, Jenny is ambivalent about whether she is of two minds, that couldn’t really happen here … could it?, Erich Fromm’s Escape from Freedom, the closer you get to power the more obvious it becomes, idelogical blindness, Drew wants to be able to believe, “He loved big brother.”
Posted by Jesse Willis
Thomas M. Disch (author), Brian Aldiss (author), Kim Stanley Robinson (author), Tim Powers (author), Terry Gilliam (filmmaker), Lawrence Sutin (biographer), Paul Williams (biographer), Barry Spatz (analyst), Kleo Mini (second wife), Anne Dick (third wife), Tessa Dick (fifth wife), Jim Blaylock (friend), Russel Galen (agent) talk about Philip K. Dick and his writings in this 1994 TV documentary made for BBC TV’s Arena. The interstitial readings from Dick’s fiction are narrated by Greg Proops.
1126 Fransisco St, Berkley, CA – home of Philip K. Dick from 1950 to 1958:
Posted by Jesse Willis
After watching this mightily impressive video pitch, by the guy who did Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow, I hardly think I need to see the forthcoming Disney adaptation!
If you’re interested in reading the Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter stories be sure to check out David Steifel’s new audiobook website BurroughsGuy.com where the first five Barsoom audiobooks are now available for purchase.
David, who talked to us about the first book in the series for SFFaudio Podcast #137, writes:
Princess [A Princess Of Mars] goes into retirement Feb. 7, 2012
On February 7, 2012, A Princess of Mars, will be retired from this site. After that, listeners may listen to the first two episodes here free of charge, but will need to purchase it to hear the remainder. It may be purchased at http://www.burroughsguy.com.
This action is being taken to help generate revenues to allow me to continue podcasting more of these novels.
In a recent podcast David suggested we treat his audiobooks as shareware. That is, buy them if you can, listen to the podcast episodes if you can’t afford it.
So, if you’re poor, snap up A Princess Of Mars via the podcast feed now, or if you’re able to afford the shareware pricing of $12.99 USD send David some cash, he’s got a great voice, terrific pronunciation of all those Barsoomian names and the acting chops to deliver all the story, action, and drama right and proper.
[via SFSignal.com]
Posted by Jesse Willis
