Tom Godwin – Page 3

LibriVox: Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 009

SFFaudio Online Audio

With 9 volumes of short stories now out there’s no doubt there’s a plethora of SF listening available over on LibriVox.org. I love these collections, they have a good variety and not too much repetition …. oh wait, I take that last part back. It’s the constant repetition that is impairing these collections. LibriVoxateers, please stop recording Kurt Vonnegut’s 2BR02B. Otherwise, keep up the great work!

Sounding good in this collection are Jerome Lawson’s reading of The Cosmic Express and the quick humor of Frederic Brown’s Earthmen Bearing Gifts. The standout though is Irving E. Cox’s Impact. It is a tale about a deserter from an interstellar trading ship who causes the ship’s captain no end of troubles. It’s a cool old story despite the wretchedly old-fashioned woman teacher character (she’s jealous, blackmailing and shrewish).

Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 009
By various; Read by various
10 Zipped MP3s or Podcast – Approx. 4 Hours 25 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 20th 2009
Science fiction (abbreviated SF or sci-fi with varying punctuation and case) is a broad genre of fiction that often involves sociological and technical speculations based on current or future science and technology. This is a reader-selected collection of short stories that entered the US public domain when their copyright was not renewed.

2BR02B
By Kurt Vonnegut; Read by smokemonkey
1 |MP3| – Approx. 17 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Previous FREE MP3 versions of this story are HERE, HERE, and HERE and HERE. You can stop recording this very mediocre story now people.

The Cosmic Express
By Jack Williamson; Read by Jerome Lawsen
1 |MP3| – Approx. 26 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 20, 2009
Originally published in Amazing Stories in November 1930, later reprinted in the December 1961 Amazing Stories. Unfortunately this reading excludes the 1961 introduction to the tale by Sam Moskowitz. You can read that HERE.

The Day Time Stopped Moving
By Bradner Buckner; Read by Tom Weiss
1 |MP3| – Approx. 43 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

Earthmen Bearing Gifts
By Fredric Brown; Read by Alan Winterrowd
1 |MP3| – Approx. 6 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 20, 2009
First published in the June 1960 issue of Galaxy magazine. “Mars had gifts to offer and Earth had much in return—if delivery could be arranged!” Another reading is available HERE.

Impact
By Irving E. Cox; Read by Tom Weiss
1 |MP3| – Approx. 54 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 20, 2009
From Amazing Science Fiction Stories, January 1960. They were languorous, anarchic, shameless in their pleasures . . . were they lower than man . . . or higher?

Longevity
By Therese Windser; Read by Betsie Bush
1 |MP3| – Approx. 4 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
From Amazing Science Fiction Stories May 1960. A morality tale—1960 style.

The Measure of a Man
By Randall Garrett; Read by Barbara King Gardner
1 |MP3| – Approx. 25 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 20, 2009
From April 1960 Astounding Science Fiction magazine. “What is desirable is not always necessary, while that which is necessary may be most undesirable. Perhaps the measure of a man is the ability to tell one from the other … and act on it.” Another version is available HERE.

No Moving Parts
By Murray F. Yaco; Read by Tom Weiss
1 |MP3| – Approx. 45 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 20th 2009
From Amazing Stories May 1960. We call them trouble-shooters. They called ’em Gypsies. Either way, they were hep to that whole bit about….

The Nothing Equation
By Tom Godwin; Read by Daniele F.
1 |MP3| – Approx. 22 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 20th 2009
From Amazing Stories December 1957. The space ships were miracles of power and precision; the men who manned them, rich in endurance and courage. Every detail had been checked and double checked; every detail except—

The Stoker and the Stars
By Algis Budrys; Read by Jason Mills
1 |MP3| – Approx. 25 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 20th 2009
From Astounding Science Fiction February 1959. When you’ve had your ears pinned back in a bowknot, it’s sometimes hard to remember that an intelligent people has no respect for a whipped enemy … but does for a fairly beaten enemy.

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/short-science-fiction-collection-vol-009.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 007

SFFaudio Online Audio

Despite the title, this is the 8th Short Science Fiction Collection from LibriVox. The accounting is wonky because #007 was preceded by #008 by a month or so (#008 was completed first). New narrators in this volume include David N. Castle, Bryden Jones, Alex Clarke and Corey M. Snow. Some of these tales are rehashes of previously incarnated recordings, but with new narrators (its time to stop re-recording Kurt Vonnegut’s 2 B R 0 2 B Librivoxers). Still, most of the ten stories are new to audio. Of most significance to me personally is the release of Ralph William’s Cat and Mouse, as read by Betsie Bush. This is a story from our 3rd Annual SFFaudio Challenge! Betsie is the first to complete an audiobook from the 3rd Challenge (she took just 3 weeks to file her claim and finish) and will soon be enjoying her pick from among the prizes. Thanks Betsie! Thanks Librivoxers!

Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 007
By various; Read by various
10 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 4 Hours 5 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: December 05, 2008
Science fiction (abbreviated SF or sci-fi with varying punctuation and case) is a broad genre of fiction that often involves sociological and technical speculations based on current or future science and technology. This is a reader-selected collection of short stories that entered the US public domain when their copyright was not renewed.

Stories included:

2 B R 0 2 B
By Kurt Vonnegut; Read by Alex Clarke
1 |MP3| – Approx. 18 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Previous FREE MP3 versions of this story are HERE, HERE, and HERE.

… After A Few Words …
By Randall Garrett; Read by Corey M. Snow
1 |MP3| – Approx. 18 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
A previously recorded version exists HERE. Described as “a 1960’s virtual reality” by Brian Edwards on the LibriVox Forums.

The Beast of Space
By F.E. Hardart; Read by Bryden Jones
1 |MP3| – Approx. 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
First published in the July 1941 issue of Comet magazine. A tale of the prospectors of the starways.

The Bell Tone
By Edmund H. Leftwich; Read by Alex Clarke
1 |MP3| – Approx. 12 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
First published in the July 1941 issue of Comet magazine. It is no use. It’s too late. The earth—I must dig—alone.
*This story has been recorded by Miette for her podcast too |MP3|!

Cat And Mouse
By Ralph Williams; Read by Betsie Bush
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour 3 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: December 5th 2008
This was the cover story for the Astounding Science Fiction issue for June 1959. Set in Alaska, and being a most unusual Science Fiction story – it’s about hunting!

Cry From A Far Planet
By Tom Godwin; Read by Bryden Jones
1 |MP3| – Approx. 35 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
First appeared in the September 1958 issue of Amazing Science Fiction Stories. The problem of separating the friends from the enemies was a major one in the conquest of space as many a dead spacer could have testified. A tough job when you could see an alien and judge appearances; far tougher when they were only whispers on the wind.

Droozle
By Frank Banta; Read by Mooseboy Alfonzo
1 |MP3| – Approx. 17 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Taken from the pages of Galaxy magazine’s December 1962 issue. Droozle was probably the greatest writer in the world—any world!

An Incident on Route 12
By James H. Schmitz; Read by James Christopher
1 |MP3| – Approx. 10 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: December 5th 2008
Previous iterations are found HERE and HERE.

The Man Who Hated Mars
By Randall Garrett; Read by David N. Castle
1 |MP3| – Approx 32 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
First published in the September 1956 issue of Amazing Stories. To escape from Mars, all Clayton had to do was the impossible. Break out of a crack-proof exile camp—get onto a ship that couldn’t be boarded—smash through an impenetrable wall of steel. Perhaps he could do all these things, but he discovered that Mars did evil things to men; that he wasn’t even Clayton any more.

The Mightiest Man
By Patrick Fahy; Read by David N. Castle
1 |MP3| – Approx. 11 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
From the pages of Worlds of If magazine (November 1961). “He had betrayed mankind, but he was not afraid of the consequences—ever!”

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/short-science-fiction-collection-vol-007.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

2 versions of Cold Equations up on Zombie Astronaut

Online Audio

The Zombie Astronaut has just posted up two adaptations of the same script. And though they the script is flawed, audio drama fans shouldn’t pass-up this opportunity to listen to two dramatizations of an iconic story, let alone one with an identical script. Compare and contrast:

Cold Equation was adapted for both NBC’s X-Minus One and WMUK’s Future Tense (based on the short story The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin). The story was first published in the August 1954 issue of Astounding Science Fiction Magazine. The script for both productions was by George Lefferts. He not only fundamentally changed one of the characters (perhaps in a bid to make an unpalatable idea less so), he also changed the name of the radio drama, dropping the “s” from the original story’s title. Both these decisions make the drama less powerful than it should be. The ideas presented in The Cold Equations are supposed to be hard, are supposed to be frustrating. The removal of the “s” from the title also ignores the brutal truth that there is more than one kind of calculation going on in this story. This tale is not just a physics lesson, it is also a philosophical treatise…

What’s one little rule?

H amount of fuel will power a ship with a mass M safely to its destination.

H amount of fuel will not power a ship with a mass of M plus X safely to its destination.

She was 5’2 with brown curly hair and her name was X in an equation that would have to be balanced.

WNBC X-Minus One |MP3| August 25th 1955
WMUK Special Projects Future Tense |MP3| June 22nd 1973

posted by Jesse Willis

Though too modest to toot his own horn himself…

news

Though too modest to toot his own horn himself my co-editor and very dear friend Scott D. Danielson has made his very first professional sale and I think it is very newsworthy, even though it hasn’t yet been adapted to audio (yet)! Scott sold his first ever short story to none other than the new online magazine Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show!

Adrift
By Scott D. Danielson
Publisher: Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show – Issue 2
Published: March 2006
“He was floating in dark space, stars all around. Then he noticed a dark patch of space, as if a dark hole had opened. The hole grew larger and larger, the stars disappearing, until he realized that he was looking at another ship. An immense, completely dark craft approached.”

The print edition of Adrift appears today in issue #2 (that’s the March 2006 issue). This also happens to be the same issue as Middle Woman (the story I REVIEWED back on March 1st – which was a story read by SFFaudio reviewer Mary Robinette Kowal). Adrift has a setting not unlike that of the H.P. Lovecraft Cthulhu Mythos, but is also influenced by the likes of Anne McCaffrey and William Gibson, if you can imagine that. Scott’s prose is polished, shiny, poignant – had I known he had it in him I’d have been way too intimidated to email him all those years ago – this guy’s a natural writer, talented quick and full of great ideas. Now as to the inspiration, were I to guess, I’d say Scott was inspired to write Adrift in particular for two main reasons:

1. Besides running SFFaudio Scott is working on another big site. His personal blog, SFFreader has primarily been a project in which he reads and comments on ALL of the Hugo and Nebula award winning short stories, novellas and novellettes. This neo-Hurculean task has already vastly deepened his already substantial knowledge of SF&F in the short form.

2. Additionally, a few months ago Scott and I had some discussions about what makes an SF story resonate with one person and not with another. When I asked Scott in a private skype conversation to “name a favorite Science Fiction story”, he named The Star by Arthur C. Clarke – a very good story but one that didn’t resonate with me the way it resonates with him. He then asked me to name one of mine and I named The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin – a story Scott hadn’t read at that time. Scott got a hold of a copy of The Cold Equations, read it and felt the same way I had about The Star. There was a distinct gap between the two tales as well as a gap between our two feelings about the stories. In my estimation, the gap was the difference between a meaningful universe and a meaningless universe. I think Scott agreed, because in my view Adrift bridges the gap between The Cold Equations and The Star quite effectively. Now I ask you is this mere coincidence? Or is it meaningful to you?

Do yourself a favour and find out, Issue #2 of Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show is only $2.50 USD and is available now!

posted by Jesse Willis

The host of the Spaceship Radio podcast, Andy Do…

Online Audio

The host of the Spaceship Radio podcast, Andy Doan, has just been interviewed by Podcast 411 host Rob Walsch. For those who haven’t been paying attention, Spaceship Radio is the podcast specializing in bringing public domain radio dramas of Science Fiction to your iPod. Click HERE to listen to the interview. And check out my picks for the best of the Spaceship Radio podcasts done so far…

SSREP25 First Contact – Based on the story by Murray Leinster. Done a little different than the short story but well done.

SSREP17 Simon Jones – A cool interview with Simon Jones, AKA Arthur Dent of the BBC’s Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, and an exclusive to Spaceship Radio as far as I can tell.

SSREP14 The Cold Equation (SIC) – Based on the story “The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin. This is the Science Fiction story like no other, it cleaves its readers into one camp or another. Essential listening.

SSREP09 The Green Hills of Earth – Based on the story by Robert A. Heinlein. It is elegiac Heinlein at his very best and a well done adaptation to boot.

posted by Jesse Willis