TV Ontario, which is now rivaling CBC for my highest affections, has placed episodes from their wonderful 1990s series Prisoners Of Gravity online. Prisoners Of Gravity was one of the inspirations for SFFaudio. If you like SFFaudio, you’ll love Prisoners Of Gravity. 25 out of 139 episodes are available (so far). Here’s an episode on Time Travel:
In this study of time travel, Commander Rick looks at science fiction books, comics, and movies that explore this popular theme. Guests include authors Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, film director Michael Anderson, and writer P. Larry Hancock; and clips from “Young Einstein,” “Millennium,” “Rude Awakening,” and the television series “Quantum Leap” are featured.
Julie Hoverson’s long running and prolific anthology podcast, 19 Nocturne Boulevard, features original and adapted “strange stories.” Since it began back in 2009 I’ve pretty much ignored it completely. This is pretty odd considering that Hoverson’s output rivals that of the mighty Bill Hollweg and that she’s been doing something I’m always boosting (adapting public domain Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror). To be fair though, I had heard a couple of shows, most recently Snafu, but every time I’d listened to a 19 Nocturne show I’d come away with nothing to say. It took a recent email from Hoverson to get me to write something. Hoverson pointed out her new adaptation of Phillips Barbee’s The Leech. That title stirred a vague memory, then piqued my interest greatly, as I recalled that Phillips Barbee was actually the great Robert Sheckley!
When it was first published, in the December 1952 issue of Galaxy magazine, The Leech was credited to “Phillips Barbee” – a one-off pseudonym, presumably it was only used at all because there were two Sheckley stories running in that issue. All subsequent publications have credited The Leech to Sheckley alone.
As one of the first ever Sheckley stories to be published, The Leech is interesting in itself. But as a kind of precursor to The Blob – which itself has an ancestor of sorts in H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space (which Hoverson has also read) it is even more interesting. The trope of a knowledgeable professor character investigating a dangerous object from space would be picked up for the 1953 BBC serial The Quatermass Experiment. In structure, however, The Leech more closely resembles the 1959 Manly Wade Wellman novel Giants From Eternity (look for a review of that soon). And it also bears some small resemblance to John W. Campbell’s 1938 novella Who Goes there? (and thus the movies The Thing and The Thing From Another World). Even Dean Koontz’s Phantoms |READ OUR REVIEW| has some sort of ancestry or parallel in The Leech. In short this is a kind of a subgenre’s subgenre that I don’t know the name of.
As for Hoverson’s adaptation of The Leech, it’s pretty darned slick, with good acting and sound effects. There’s even a theremin! It’s also fairly faithful to Sheckley’s story going with the humor, using much of the dialogue, the setting and the period. But, as with most audio drama, Hoverson’s script completely disposes with the third person omniscient narration, opting instead for to give the alien a voice – or voices in this case (the Leech seems to be performed as a kind of hive mind). This choice leaves the ending more open to interpretation than does the original text. The Leech is one of the best amateur audio drama adaptations of a public domain story yet! Highly recommended.
19 Nocturne Boulevard – The Leech
Adapted by Julie Hoverson; From the story by Robert Sheckley; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 40 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: 19 Nocturne Boulevard
Podcast: February 23, 2011 Classic era science fiction about a very odd visitor from outer space.The Leech was first published in the December 1952 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction.
Cast:
Professor Michaels … Grant Baciocco
Frank Connors … Bryan Hendrickson
Mrs. Jones … Kimberly Poole
Sheriff Flynn … Glen Hallstrom
General O’Donnell … Chuck Burke
Allenson, scientist … Cary Ayers
Moriarty, physicist … Eleiece Krawiec
Brigadier-General … H. Keith Lyons
Driver … Cary Ayers
Soldier1 … John Carroll
Soldier2 … Lothar Tuppan
Pilot … Mark Olson
The Leech … Suzanne Dunn, Will Watt, James Sedgwick, Julie Hoverson
Music by misterscott99
Editing and Sound: Julie Hoverson
Cover Design: Brett Coulstock
And since we’re talking The Leech, I should also point out there is a new reading, found in the recently completed LibriVox Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 042 collection…
The Leech
By Robert Sheckley; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 40 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 28, 2010
Etext: Gutenberg.org A visitor should be fed, but this one could eat you out of house and home … literally! From Galaxy Science Fiction December 1952.
The C-Chute is one of the few Isaac Asimov stories that features aliens. Set during an interstellar war, it tells the story of a group of humans that are captured and imprisoned by an alien species. Most of the action of the tale comes in the playing out the group’s psychology. They all have differing backgrounds, experiences and motivations. – It kind of sounds like Cube right? – The story was originally submitted under the title “Greater Love.” But, as it was altered to The C-Chute as a part of several modifcations demanded by Galaxy Magazine editor, H.L. Gold. Asimov, who didn’t like the changes, was inspired to write another short story (The Monkey’s Finger) in which a fantasy writer, and his editor, get into a similar dispute.
Here’s the Galaxy magazine teaser for The C-Chute:
“Captured by an unthinkably alien race, the terrestrial spachsip formed a desperate human microcosm. Somebody had to be a hero … but who was it to be … and why?”
X-Minus One – The C-Chute
Based on the short story by Isaac Asimov; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 29 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: NBC
Broadcast: February 8, 1956
Provider: Archive.org During Earth’s first interstellar war, a civilian transport traveling to Earth is captured by a spaceship piloted by the Kloros, a chlorine-breathing race of intelligent beings. They place two of their own on board the humans’ spaceship. With the human passengers sequestered as prisoners of war, the Kloros head to an unknown destination. The human passengers fall into argument and dispute, some coming to blows, with contradicting feelings on what should be done. Opinions range from a violent counteroffensive to a passive acceptance of their situation. Only Mullen, a shy, mild-mannered, short bookkeeper, is willing to make an attempt to take back control of the ship, which he does by exiting via the C-Chute which is normally used for launching corpses for burial in space.Based on the story by Isaac Asimov, originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1951
Here’s the art from the original Galaxy Magazine publication in the October 1951 issue:
For nearly a year I’ve been studying the extensive influence of Fredric Brown’s 1944 short story, Arena. It took a recent article, on roughly the same topic, over on the excellent bare•bones e-zine blog, to prompt me to actually finish writing up this post – which is essentially a collection of inspired by and/or similar stories. That other post, by Jack Seabrook, mostly covers the Outer Limits‘ response to Arena – which is something that I’ve only briefly mentioned. Seabrook’s article and the thoughtful comments it’s spawned are well worth looking at |HERE|. One of the comments there also points out the connection to Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game (but that’s another post altogether). My post on Arena begins here:
Arena (noun) – [Latin harēna, arēna, sand, a sand-strewn place of combat in an amphitheater, perhaps of Etruscan origin.] -1. An enclosed area, often outdoor, for the presentation of spectacular events -2. The part of a Roman amphitheater that was covered with sand to absorb the blood spilled by the combatants.
The SFFaudio Podcast #051 had a brief primer, by Professor Eric S. Rabkin, on Fredric Brown‘s spectacular short story Arena. Rabkin pointed out the curious description of the alien, and the year in which the story was first published (1944). The story being a fascinating metaphor for the Pacific War. The description of the alien, a “red sphere with several dozen fully retractable thin tentacles” is nicely comparable it with the Imperial Japanese battle ensign…
War flag of the Imperial Japanese Army:
Now if we keep looking for symbols, we can certainly find them. Take the blue sand of the arena itself. If Carson represents the USA, and the alien represents Japan, would the pervasive blue sand not therefore be representative of the Pacific Ocean? Of course it would!
Next, check out the original story, available in an unabridged audiobook version created by Rick Jackson (aka The Time Traveler) for The Time Traveler Show podcast…
Arena
By Fredric Brown; Read by William Spurling
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: The Time Traveler Show
Podcast: July 23rd, 2006 The mysterious Outsiders have skirmished with Earth’s space colonies and starships. Their vessels are found to be faster and more maneuverable, but less well armed. Survivors of these encounters are able to provide little other information about the enemy. Fearing the worst, Earth builds a war fleet. Sure enough, scouts report a large armada approaching the solar system. Earth’s defenders go to meet them. All indications are that the two fleets are evenly matched. First published in the June 1944 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine.
In the comics department, there was a 1976 Marvel Comics magazine adaptation in Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction. Of it, Pete Doree (Of The Bronze Age Of Blogs) sez:
“Arena is one of my all-time favourite one-off comic stories, from Roy Thomas’ short-lived Worlds Unknown. Rascally Roy obviously liked it as much as me, as he reprinted it in the last issue of his b/w follow up Unknown Worlds Of Science Fiction. What I like about it is that it’s storytelling pared right down to the bone: One man. One monster. Winner takes all. It’s that simple, and that elegant. The set up is so primal that you’re practically dealing in archetypes. Plus you get the amazing pairing of John Buscema & Dick Giordano on art. It was adapted from a story by Frederic Brown, a great old school sci-fi writer.”
And, check out this editorial from Marvel Comics issue 4 of Unknown Worlds:
Keeping with the art theme, there’s Boris Vallejo’s depiction from the March 1977 Starlog Magazine printing of Arena (more on that |HERE|):
TV, movies and other SF authors also seem to have taken inspiration or paralleled Fredric Brown’s Arena too:
Star Trek: Arena:
Outer Limits: Fun And Games:
The one man against one man theme, as developed in Arena, departed the SF genre entirely with the 1968 film Hell In The Pacific. The movie stars Lee Marvin and Tishiro Mifune as shot down American and Japanese fighter pilots who make WWII more personal.
The meme sunk to its lowest low with the frighteningly awful (and least faithful) variation in “The Rules Of Luton” episode of Space 1999.
The meme transmogrified back into a man vs. alien confrontation for Barry B. Longyear’s 1979 novella Enemy Mine. Willis Davidge, a human fighter pilot, is stranded along with Jeriba Shigan, a Drac, on a hostile alien planet foreign to them both.
The movie version of Enemy Mine, 1985, magnified the allegory with a theme of racial brotherhood.
In 1989, Star Trek: The Next Generation first adopted the idea for an episode entitled “The Enemy“.
Another variation, in 1991, in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called “Darmok” nearly eliminates the physical conflict, replacing it with an intellectual puzzle on the difficulties of communication.
Star Trek: Enterprise, in an attempt to recycle every previous Star Trek series plot, did their own take with the 2003 episode entitled Dawn:
Update:
David Schleinkofer illustrated the Reader’s Digest Edition of Arena in the early 1980s:
I love history, it’s news for people who want to know what really happened (and are willing to wait for it). For years I’d been waiting for someone to start a podcast just like Today In Canadian History. After more than six-months I can declare it a total success. Today In Canadian History is the perfect length for a daily podcast, running about ten minutes per episode. It uses concise interviews with enthusiastic experts to spectacular effect. Unlike some other history podcasts, Today In Canadian History is a true generalist history podcast – it covers everything – historical figures and events, natural disasters (and phenomena), military adventures and important legislation and social policy. I could recommend a dozen episodes to any history enthusiast, but for starters I’ll point you to just three:
TV Ontario, which is now rivaling CBC for my highest affections, has placed episodes from their wonderful 1990s series Prisoners Of Gravity online. Prisoners Of Gravity was one of the inspirations for SFFaudio. If you like SFFaudio, you’ll love Prisoners Of Gravity. 25 out of 139 episodes are available (so far). Here’s an episode on Time Travel: 
X-Minus One – The C-Chute
