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BBC ONE (TV): The Sky At Night – Bases On The Moon – a 1963 interview with Arthur C. Clarke

SFFaudio News

The Sky At Night is a monthly documentary television programme on astronomy produced by the BBC. The show has had the same presenter, Sir Patrick Moore, from its first airing on 24 April 1957. This is the longest-running programme, with the same host, in television history. I discovered it only recently, via torrent, and have become utterly smitten with its sciencey goodness. Here’s the latest broadcast, actually a repeat from 1963 with Arthur C. Clarke!

Here’s the official description:

Many of the early Sky at Night programmes were destroyed or lost from the BBC library. Recently this early and very rare programme from 1963 with Arthur C Clarke, was discovered in an African TV station. Patrick and Arthur were both members of the British Interplanetary Society and here they discuss bases on the Moon and Mars. Arthur C Clarke made very few interviews, so this really is a broadcasting gem- once lost, but now found.

The programme is also available via |TORRENT|.

[Thanks African TV station!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

SFBRP #069 – A Princess Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

SFFaudio Online Audio

I had forgotten that Luke Burrage’s Science Fiction Book Review Podcast used to be, occasionally, available as a live video feed. Take for example his SFBRP #069 from October 23, 2009 show (still available as a video).

It was a review of A Princess Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Have a look:

So, it looks to me like the video was not something that was really needed. But it is interesting to see how Luke’s setup worked. Since then Luke has replaced the video with a still photograph of himself posed with whichever book (or audiobook) he is reviewing – I love these, (HERE‘s my current favourite).

And of course the audio version of SFBRP #069 is also available: |MP3|

Podcast feed: http://www.sfbrp.com/?feed=podcast

Posted by Jesse Willis

A Princess Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs COMPLETE, UNABRIDGED and FREE – Read by a professional actor!

SFFaudio Online Audio

SFFaudio Podcast #137, out today, it is a discussion of A Princess Of Mars. If you’d like to prepare, we’ve got the perfect audiobook version for you to check out. It’s narrated David Stifel, of Marsbooks.libsyn.com. David is actually reading all of the public domain Barsoom books, under the collected title of “The Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs“, and in the process he’s become something of a Burroughs expert. I think you’ll be mightily impressed by the first audiobook because we sure were!

A Princess Of Mars
By Edgar Rice Burroughs; Read by David Stifel
16 Podcast Episodes – Approx. 8 Hours 38 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Marsbooks.libsyn.com
Podcast: May 2011 – July 2011
John Carter, a veteran American Civil War, goes to Arizona at the war’s end. But when he runs afoul of the Apaches he attempts to evade their pursuit by hiding in a strange cave. The cave has strange properties though as Carter finds himself mysteriously transported to Mars! There, Carter discovers that he possess incredible strength, which he uses to escape imprisonment from a fierce tribe of Green Martians. The aliens soon capture the beautiful Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium and Carter’s mission becomes clear. He’ll need to free himself, his newly found love and save the entire planet from a coming doom.

Episode 01 |MP3| Episode 02 |MP3| Episode 03 |MP3| Episode 04 |MP3|
Episode 05 |MP3| Episode 06 |MP3| Episode 07 |MP3| Episode 08 |MP3|
Episode 09 |MP3| Episode 10 |MP3| Episode 11 |MP3| Episode 12 |MP3|
Episode 13 |MP3| Episode 14 |MP3| Episode 15 |MP3| Episode 16 |MP3|

Podcast feed: http://www.marsbooks.libsyn.com/rss

Posted by Jesse Willis

RadioArchive.cc: The Last Days Of Shandakor by Leigh Brackett

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Last Days Of Shandakor by Leigh Brackett (illustration by Alex Schomburg)

I’ve posted about this story before. But I was provoked to point to it again after discovering Alex Schomburg‘s wonderful interior art illustration, above, and the editorial about it, probably written by Samuel Mines, below.

Leigh Brackett - Master Painter

MASTER PAINTER:
SOME few decades ago an artist was only a man or woman who painted pictures. The word was not applied to sculptors, to poets, to composers, to actors or to authors. You painted pictures or you weren’t an artist and that was that.

Fortunately the term was expanded to include anyone in any sort of work who dies his job an artistic fashion – whether that work is juggling cigar boxes like the late W.C. Fields or stealing based like Tyrus Raymond Cobb. And authors, since fiction-writing is today rated as an art, are generally awarded the term.

Most of the time they don’t rate it – for the artist must convey feeling through the creation of an illusion that casts a tight web around the beholder and impels him into the mood the artist desires. It is a very special magic and only a very few authors have acquired its mastery.

Leigh Brackett is certainly one of them. She can cast a mood-net more unerringly than the most expert fisherman, can paint word-pictures that strike correspondingly vivid images in the mind and the imagination of the reader. Using the same keyboards employed by less gifted authors she can evoke high tragedy, ecstasy, the sense and vision of unbearable beauty or decay or horror.

We have a hunch that this story finds her at her very best. There may be some who will say that it is not properly science fiction. To which, as in the case of Ray Bradbury, we can only counter, “Who cares?” – THE EDITOR

The Last Days Of Shandakor
By Leigh Brackett; Read by Nathan Osgood
2 MP3 Files via TORRENT* – Approx. 56 Minutes [ABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC 7 / 7th Dimension
Broadcast: March 2007
An epic space adventure written in which Mars is portrayed as a dying planet where desperate Earthmen compete with the last Martians and other alien races for lost knowledge and hidden power. First published in April 1952 issue of Startling Stories.

*Available through the number one source for publicly funded radio drama on the internet, RadioArchive.cc.

Posted by Jesse Willis

How John Carter Got To Mars

SFFaudio Online Audio

I’ve been hankering to read A Princess Of Mars ever since I heard Ray Bradbury explain how John Carter got to Mars. Bradbury described the scene in the novel saying:

“He wished himself there.”

I love that.

I’ve extracted and abridged the scene itself from the audiobook (it runs over three chapters) into this eleven minute |MP3| (the narration is by Mark Douglas nelson).

Here’s the newspaper strip’s three panel explanation:

How John Carter got to Mars

Here’s Jesse Marsh’s six panel explanation:

How John Carter got to Mars in six panels

Here’s the old Marvel Comics explanation – [update: art by Gil Kane] (done in an eight panel flashback):

John Carter Warlord Of Mars - Eight Panel Explanation

UPDATE: Here’s a 14 panel explanation as appeared in DC Comics’ Tarzan Family No. 65 (1976):

Tarzan Family No. 65

The Dynamite Entertainment adaptation was spread over two issues (and 15 panels):

Dynamite Entertainment - Warlord Of Mars - illustration by Stephen Sadowski

The trailer for the 2012 film version (currently called Disney’s John Carter), has none other than Michael Chabon working on it. The soundtrack written by Arcade Fire and performed by Peter Gabriel is entitled My Body Is A Cage:

BONUS: Carl Sagan on Mars and Burroughs:

[via StereoGum and JohnColemanBurroughs.com]

UPDATE: Murray Anderson’s version from Weird Worlds, Vol 1., #1, Aug-Sep 1972:
Weird Worlds, Vol. 1, #1

Posted by Jesse Willis

Free Listens review: “A Martian Odyssey” by Stanley G. Weinbaum

“A Martian Odyssey” by Stanley G. Weinbaum

Source: LibriVox (mp3)
Length: 58 minutes
Reader: Greg Margarite

The book: In 1970, The Science Fiction Writers of America voted “A Martian Odyssey” as the second best science fiction story of all time, after Isaac Asimov’s “Nightfall” (previously reviewed). While I disagree that it’s that great of a story, I can appreciate how influential it was on all science fiction that came after it.

The tale is told by astronaut Dick Jarvis to his fellow explorers on the first human mission to Mars. After Jarvis’s sidetrip from the expedition ends in a rocket crash, he sets out on foot for the main rocket. Along the way, he meets several alien species including the intelligent bird-like creature who introduces itself as “Tweel.”

Tweel and Jarvis’s attempts to communicate and understand one another comprises the leap that Weinbaum made over his contemporaries. Weinbaum imagines an intelligent being who is not just odd sounding or funny-looking, but actually alien in its thought patterns. This took the alien in science fiction from being either a bug-eyed antagonist or a green-skinned stand-in for other humans, to being a rational but unknown xenobiology species. Although this isn’t among the best science fiction stories you’ll ever read, it is a good one that all fans of the genre should know.

Rating: 7 / 10

The reader: Greg Margarite has read numerous science fiction stories for LibriVox. He has an expressive voice that clearly conveys the printed page. In this story, Jarvis is narrating his adventures to the other members of the crew, so Margarite gives the astronaut a cocky tone that fits well with his character. He emphasizes the international nature of the rest of the crew by giving them accents for their few lines. Margarite narrates other Weinbaum stories in the Collected Public Domain Works of Stanley G. Weinbaum at LibriVox, including the sequel to this story “The Valley of Dreams.

Posted by Seth