There’s a new FREE audiobook version of Philip K. Dick’s 1953 novella The Variable Man available from LibriVox and superstar narrator Gregg Margarite!
Here’s the teaser:
“He fixed things—clocks, refrigerators, vidsenders and destinies. But he had no business in the future, where the calculators could not handle him. He was Earth’s only hope—and its sure failure!”
Here are four different covers from various paperbook incarnations of this time travel tale…
And here’s the audiobook…
The Variable Man
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Gregg Margarite 3 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 2 Hours 49 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 3, 2010 Predictability has come a long way. The computers of the future can tell you if you’re going to win a war before you fire a shot. Unfortunately they’re predicting perpetual standoff between the Terran and Centaurian Empires. What they need is something unpredictable, what they get is Thomas Cole, a man from the past accidentally dragged forward in time. Will he fit their calculations, or is he the random variable that can break the stalemate? From Space Science Fiction September 1953.
We talked about it on the most recent SFFaudio Podcast, I’ve listened to it, and I declare it: awesome. Here comes one of the coolest new releases from LibriVox.org this year:
Second Variety by Philip K. Dick!
And with the release there’s now a new file format that makes it easier for some users too. The M4B format is a fully bookmarkable file type that’s compatible with what I use to listen to most audiobooks, Apple iPods. Here’s the full description:
An M4B file is an audio file which can be bookmarked. This is the audio-book file type. These files can have chapter markers which can be skipped through as you would skip through files on a play list. They can have built in cover art and chapter images. They will remember where you left off each time you stop the file and come back to it . And variable speed settings on iPods and a growing number of other mp3 players can be utilized by this file type. The ability to bookmark allows for as little as one large file instead of many small ones without the burden of fast forwarding to find your spot every time you resume listening or the fear of otherwise losing your place. The reduced number of files also makes browsing through your files to find your book and your place in it much less effort.
Second Variety
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |M4B| File or 2 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 1 Hour 44 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 22, 2010 Early victories by the USSR in a global nuclear war cause the United Nations government to retreat to the moon leaving behind troops and fierce autonomous robots called “Claws”, which reproduce and redesign themselves in unmanned subterranean factories. After six bloody years of conflict the Soviets call for an urgent conference and UN Major Joseph Hendricks sets out to meet them. Along the way he will discover what the Claws have been up to, and it isn’t good… First published in the May 1953 edition of Space Science Fiction Magazine.
There’s an old NPR/WNYC piece on Blade Runner that casts the fear of Nexus 6 androids on Earth as a kind of allegory for racism and slavery. Perhaps we could coin a term for this. How about, “The Plastic Peril”? Although that sounds a bit too much like a reference to Autons.
Dreams Of Electric Sheep
By Phillip Martin
June 29, 2007 25 years ago this week, Blade Runner debuted in American theaters. It was set in a Los Angeles of the future, but its portrayals of race and racism had plenty of resonance in 1982. Reporterlooks back on a classic of cyborgian social criticism.
There’s a new FREE audiobook version of Philip K. Dick’s 1953 novella The Variable Man available from LibriVox and superstar narrator Gregg Margarite!
The Variable Man
