Robert Sheckley – Page 9

The SFFaudio Podcast #131 – TALK TO: Julie Hoverson of 19 Nocturne Boulevard

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #131 – Jesse, Scott, and Tamahome talk to Julie Hoverson of 19 Nocturne Boulevard

Talked about on today’s show:
how do you say “hiatus”?, “one woman butt kicking army”, third year anniversary, 74 episodes, The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft audio drama, Bill Hollweg is in The Deadeye Kid, Maine accents, The Leech by Robert Sheckley (secretly), comedy, A Date With Dana was funny, classic storylines, The Rookie won the Mark Time Award, “line up to get killed by their favorites”, “I love creepy old ladies”, Crumping The Devil, The Imp Of The Perverse, Lovecraft’s The Thing On The Doorstep, Within The Walls Of Eryx is “straightforward sci-fi”, Dis Belief is from a Jorge Luis Borges story, puns, finding the copyright owner, finding quality audio drama, Julie’s audio blog about oversight, we need curation, Voice Hollywood does their own ratings, Julie will be at the next Balticon, Balticon Podcast, there’s never enough people to help, Geek Girl Con, editing the parts together, simultaneous recording?, Julie is in The Radio Drama Handbook by Richard J. Hand and Mary Traynor, The Grand Guignol is violent theater, The Thrice Tolled Bell is like a Hammer film, “cuz I’m crazy”, what dramas does Julie like?, We’re Alive (The Zombie Podcast, also from Blackstone Audio), why do it?, Julie tried to develop a “dead serial killer buddy movie”, Wormwood, comics, Five Fingers Of Doom, short stories, timing your podcast releases, “the mentality of slackness”, for the nasty creepiness: One Eighteen: Migration, Julie’s The Gift Of The Zombi an Xmas show, zombies in love, “zombies are the new cowboys”, a half-hour is a good length, fan dogs on Facebook, “what’s the best science fiction audio drama around?”, Kim’s Warp’d Space involves milk runs, Children Of The Gods, The Leviathan Chronicles, Julie is in Edict Zero (created by Jack Kincaid who did The Geek’s Guide To The Galaxy intro), a cop show on a future colony, how complicated can a show be?, “there’s always engaging things”, Big Finish are pros, “fanfic”, Darker Projects Star Trek tie-ins (Tamahome listened to Lost Frontier), Jesse wants A Princess Of Mars drama, who’s got the rights?, adapting a novel, William Shakespeare, Cymbeline Revisited, Edwardian Entertainments, The Yellow Wallpaper

Posted by Tamahome

The SFFaudio Podcast #130 – READALONG: Human Man’s Burden by Robert Sheckley

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #130 – Scott, Jesse, Tamahome and Jenny discuss Human Man’s Burden by Robert Sheckley.

Talked about on today’s show:
uppity damn robots, hilarious characterization, soulless robots, Galaxy Magazine September 1956, Star Trek, Harry Mudd, Sears Roebuck catalogues, freeze dried vs. flash frozen, Kiln People by David Brin, The Twilight Zone episode “The Lonely“, robot wives, manufactured fingernails, center of gravity, “could she have been a robot?”, Gunga Sam the foreman robot, duenna is Portuguese for chaperone, Gunga Din, the Writing Excuses podcast with Lou Anders, HuffDuffer, John Scalzi, Casablanca, The Dark Knight, Edward Flaswell, “Sure pal. Sure.”, Frontier Bride, mail order bride, freeze dried preacher, programmed by “a human supremacist of the most rabid sort”, was Flaswell talked into feeling bad, what is the Human Man’s Burden?, is it all a marketing ploy?, The Mote In God’s Eye, the Gold Rush, why is the combustion god?, “Him strong him good, believe me brothers, it is even as I say.”, Rudyard Kipling poem’s The White Man’s Burden, the justification for empire, satire, the page 99 illustration, labeling people, ultra deluxe model bride, “oil glistened on their honest faces”, Tama can prove the robots are having sex, “in their carefree robot fashion”, a series of robots on the moon ordering from Sears Roebuck catalogues (15 F&SF covers by Mel Hunter), Charles van Doren, face-parts, “the robot frontier”, Asteroids in fiction (Wikipedia entry), TZ ep.: “Two“, Dumb Martian by John Wyndham, TZ ep.: “The Lateness Of The Hour“, android vs. gynoid, Firefly, Gunga Sam knows best, Sheila was down-selling herself, this is a feminist story?, Human Man’s Burden could be a cartoon, Kindles/Xboxes/Wiis/PS3s are sold as cheaply as possible because of the profit being in the media they play, iTouch vs. iPhone, free robots in our homes selling moon makers and solidovisions, nesting dolls, Human Man’s Burden probably isn’t public domain, Psycho by Robert Bloch, The Status Civilization, Seventh Victim, Mindswap, Warrior Race, The Space Merchants, Blackstone Audio, Charles Stross, Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan.

ISFDB publication history for Human Man’s Burden HERE.

Human Man's Burden by Robert Sheckley - Page 95 - Galaxy Science Fiction magazine, September 1956

Human Man's Burden by Robert Sheckley - ilustration by Weiss

Sears Roebuck Ordering Robot - Art by Mel Hunter

Posted by Jesse Willis

X-Minus One: Skulking Permit by Robert Sheckley

SFFaudio Online Audio

skulk (v.) /skəlk/ – Keep out of sight, typically with a sinister, evil or cowardly motive
Example: The thief skulked in the shadows.

Skulking Permit is a cute Robert Sheckley story. Frankly, it is not one of his best. His best stuff will send your brain into a week long head-shaking fugue state that’ll leaving you both laughing and crying at the pathetic beast called man. But, Skulking Permit definitely is cute and it definitely does deliver the anthropological satire that Sheckley is so very fond of.

In this case there’s a Earth colony, called New Delaware, which had been cut-off for more than two hundred years. Luckily, it has recently been informed that it’ll be receiving a visit from a representative from Earth. To prepare for the occasion they colonists have decided to make everything familiar to the coming representative – make it all homey, like back on Earth – and so they’ve assigned societal roles to every member of the colony’s community. Everyone is getting used to their characters: the mayor is telling everyone what to do (he’s got to write up some laws real quick) and the police chief has to make his own badge. The little red school house and the little white church are being built and painted and the “no aliens allowed within city limits” sign is being put up. But the plan to make New Delaware a little mirror of Earth aren’t going perfectly smoothly. For what exactly is a criminal? And who can possibly play such a demanding role?

“Wanted: one man to do a totally impossible job. Salary: the knowledge that a planet’s life depends upon his being able to do it!”

X-Minus One – Skulking Permit
Based on a story by Robert Sheckley; Adapted by Earnest Kinoy; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 29 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: NBC Radio
Broadcast: February 15, 1956
Provider: Internet Archive
|SCRIPT|
A small colony, cut off from Earth for generations, must prove they are a model of Earth culture when a ship arrives to effect their ‘reclamation’. They strive to provide archetypes of Earth society, including a town criminal… First published in the December 1954 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction magazine.

Cast:
Dick Hamilton
Wendell Holmes
Joe DeSantis
Joseph Boland
Alan Hewitt
Bill Quinn
Mandel Kramer
Ruby Dee

Announcer …. Jack Costello

Directed by Daniel Sutter

Illustrations, by Mel Hunter, from the original Galaxy publication:

Skulking Permit by Robert Sheckley - illustration by Mel Hunter (Galaxy Magazine's December 1954 issue)

Posted by Jesse Willis

X-Minus One: The Lifeboat Mutiny by Robert Sheckley

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Lifeboat Mutiny is a part of Robert Sheckley’s “AAA Ace Series.” The series has eight stories, each involving two partners in the far future encountering various unusual problems. One fan on LibraryThing described the series as being about “two of the unluckiest fellas who ever set out to make a fortune” – I’m still exploring the series, but I note that some non-AAA Ace Sheckley stories also seem to fit into that category – stories like Warrior Race and Untouched By Human Hands!

I find X-Minus One’s shows to be very hit or miss, but this Robert Sheckley story completely works. In fact, I’ve used the script for The Lifeboat Mutiny in school. Kids love it, adults love it. My only nit-pick with this adaptation is that the actor playing the lifeboat is not nearly emotional enough – he totally underplays the scripted dialogue – when I do this part, I always play the lifeboat as highly emotional.

X-Minus One – The Lifeboat Mutiny
Based on the story by Robert Sheckley; Adapted by Ernest Kinoy; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 28 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: NBC Radio
Broadcast: September 11, 1956
Provider: Archive.org
Two planetary surveyors purchase a second-hand lifeboat to survey a water planet not knowing that the ship contains an artificial intelligence created for a war five hundred years in the past.

First published in Galaxy Science Fiction’s 1955 issue with an illustration by Kossin:

Galaxy Magazine - April 1955 - The Lifeboat Mutiny by Robert Sheckley

Galaxy April 1955 - The Lifeboat Mutiny - Illustration by Kossin

Here’s The Middlebury Radio Theater‘s recording of the script too:

The Lifeboat Mutiny
Based on the story by Robert Sheckley; Adapted by Ernest Kinoy; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: The Middlebury Radio Theater Of Thrills And Suspense
Podcast: February 5, 2011

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #106

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #106 – Jesse and Tamahome talk about audiobooks, books, comic books, movies and technology.

Talked about on today’s show:
Scott is away, Warrior Race by Robert Sheckley, the guilt tactic, Robert Sheckley’s The Victim From Space, M. Night Shamylan, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Star Trek: The Next Generation, the limits of sympathy and empathy, Lethal Weapon, civil disobedience, Ghandi, Ahisma, Gregg Margarite, Lauren Bacall, the future of self-published ebooks and curation, SFsignal’s anthology reviews, novels vs short stories, LibriVox, rating systems, Gil T. Wilson, SFSite, Avatar, Coraline, The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman’s narration, William Gibson, Where is the Neuromancer audiobook?, The Matrix, What is noir in film or books?, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Memento, a podcast about noir films (Noircast.net), Limitless aka (The Dark Fields) movie vs book, director Neil Berger, The Illusionist, The Prestige, Christopher Priest, Existenz, WWW: Wake, WWW: Wonder, Robert J. Sawyer, many spoilers in this podcast, Sawyer’s next novel is Triggers, research then write, the Webmind, Jesse doesn’t like series (usually), the ‘talking Dinosaur’ series (the Quintaglio Ascension series), is the WWW series YA?, Cory Doctorow, characters, Golden Fleece is a murder mystery in space, more dino, would anyone make the dinosaur series into a 3D animated film?, Robert J. Sawyer’s Rollback was on CBC Radio One’s Between The Covers podcast, Galileo’s Dream, Red Mars, Michio Kaku, futurism, climate change, Pacific Edge by Kim Stanley Robinson, can a domestic story be thrilling?, Austin Powers, “one million dollars!”, the trap of inflating the stakes, Tim Pratt on Dragon Page podcast (7½ minutes in), the ‘speech thriller’, what’s in the suitcase?, Kiss Me Deadly, “make each sentence do two things”, Midnight Riot (aka Rivers Of London), British lingo, “snog”, series and trends at bookstores, Peter Watts‘s openness, Flashforward TV show, The Gong Show, bring back the hook, Crysis 2: Legion the novel and the game, the economics of hard covers vs ebooks, Kindle openness, the VLC app was removed from the iTunes App store, the Android OS, Embedded, ROM person, the Comics Code Authority repealed!, Mark Millar, Nemesis, The Ultimates, Ex Machina, Chronicles Of Wormwood, Garth Ennis, Howard The Duck, death of superheroes, Superman left America (Action Comics #900), “truth, justice, and the American way”, Superman: Red Son, Battlefields, The Boys, The Punisher with the guy from Hung (Thomas Jane), Warren Ellis wrote a novel (Crooked Little Vein), can we make Peter Watts audiobooks?, synthesized voices on archive.org, Linux for all e-readers, Philip K. Dick, The Electric Ant comic, Tom Merritt, Sword and Laser, TWIT, Munchcast.

far seer

Archie Comics with and without the Comics Code Authority

Posted by Tamahome

LibriVox: Warrior Race by Robert Sheckley

SFFaudio Online Audio

Robert Sheckley’s Warrior Race was briefly mentioned on last week’s SFFaudio Podcast (#104). It’s available in audiobook form as on part of LibriVox’s Short Science Fiction Collection Volume 41. As is usual with so many of the Sheckley tales recorded for LibriVox it’s read by Gregg Margarite. YAY! And since we all seem to be in a pretty good Sheckley groove right now I thought I’d follow through with a pretty |PDF| edition of the story – it was constructed from a scan of the original Galaxy publication pages. This should be a fun read and listen!

LIBRIVOX - Warrior Race by Robert Sheckley Warrior Race
By Robert Sheckley; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 27 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 26, 2010
|ETEXT|
Destroying the spirit of the enemy is the goal of war and the aliens had the best way! First published in the November 1952 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction.

Posted by Jesse Willis