October 2011 – SFFaudio

The Iron Door Playhouse: Two Halloween Audio Dramas: Doctor Finkelstein’s Revenge and Ghosts At The Iron Door

SFFaudio Online Audio

Recorded in Malad, Idaho (at The Iron Door Playhouse) in 2010 and 2011 here are two original plays written and directed by our very own Scott D. Danielson. These are humorous Halloween themed audio dramas, recorded live (on stage) by local actors. Both productions feature gentle joking with the Halloween creature conventions, as well as the occasional wry stab at more topical terrors (look for a pathetically pining vampire and a protesting henchperson).

Doctor Finkelstein’s Revenge
By Scott D. Danielson; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 48 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Recorded: October 31, 2010

Ghosts At The Iron Door
By Scott D. Danielson; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 42 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Recorded: October 29, 2011

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Tunnel in the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein

SFFaudio Review

Tunnel in the Sky from Full Cast Audio Tunnel in the Sky
By Robert A. Heinlein; Read by David Baker and cast
10 hours 15 minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Full Cast Audio
Published: 2011
Themes: / Science Fiction / Survival / Space Travel / Society /

Publisher summary: When Rod Walker decides to take the final test for “Deacon” Matson’s interplanetary survival course, he knows he will be facing life-or-death situations on an unsettled planet. What he doesn’t expect is that something will go wrong with the “Tunnel in the Sky” and he and his fellow students will not be able to return to Terra.

Stranded on a hostile planet, Rod and his friends are faced with the challenge of carving a civilization out of the wilderness. They must deal with hunger, deprivation, and strangely savage beasts. But the bigger question is, can they survive each other?

This science fiction classic pits a savage world against the most untameable beast of all: the human animal. Chock full of high adventure, futuristic speculation, witty repartee, and profound philosophy, Tunnel in the Sky represents the greatest SF writer of all time at his peak.

Survival stories are frequent in YA literature, and Tunnel in the Sky was probably one of the first, originally published in 1955. It is referred to as one of “Heinlein’s Juveniles,” and is a great tale of adventure with a life-threatening scenario. Rather than making a statement, as some of Heinlein’s works attempt to do, this book is just danger and kids using what they have learned to create a new society and survive on an alien planet. Anyone who enjoyed The Hunger Games or Ender’s Game would probably also enjoy this story, as it has similar themes. The time period of its original publication is evident in a few moments, but not to the extent I am used to when reading Heinlein.

This was my first experience with Full Cast Audio, and I felt the story was greatly enhanced by being in audio form. There is sometimes transition background music, but it isn’t distracting, and the voice actors do a good job. The narrator manages not to blend in with the other adult characters, making it clear when the story is being told. A few occasions of the word “Huh?” are quite jarring screamed into the listener’s ear, but I think I’ll blame Heinlein for that. After all, the main character of Rod needs to be a little naive for the story to work, and he is, more than a little.

Posted by Jenny Colvin

Alastair Reynolds on The Coode Street Podcast

SFFaudio Online Audio

Gary Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan spend an hour with Alastair Reynolds, talking science fiction. The conversation is focused, no awards are mentioned, and they talk a lot of about Alastair’s inspiration, Arthur C. Clarke, as well as his upcoming novel, Blue Remembered Earth (it’s on Wikipedia already).

Rss feed: http://jonathanstrahan.podbean.com/feed/

|MP3|

Posted by Tamahome

Eerie magazine ads for vintage spoken word record and audio drama albums

SFFaudio News

Eerie was a comics magazine, by Warren Publishing, that ran from 1966 to 1983. It was a (mostly) black-and-white magazine that featured original and adapted stories. Unlike most contemporary comics of its era it didn’t submit the Comics Code Authority so its stories could feature nudity, blood, and plenty of other gruesome goodness.

Below you’ll find some of the many ads for spoken word record albums that ran in the mag. The only one I’ve ever come across myself was the audio drama adaptation of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea |READ OUR REVIEW|.

I’ve received dozens of emails over the years asking about this edition of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. If you’ve got some of the records below, or know of others from similar magazine ads, please leave comments!

Eerie magazine ad from 1975 – “SUPER ADVENTURE RECORD ALBUMS” and “12 EVIL EDGAR ALLAN POE RECORDS!”:

Eerie magazine ad from 1975 - 12 Evil Edgar Allan Poe Records!

EERIE 1979 – “Fantastical LP Record Albums”:

EERIE 1979 - Fantastical LP Record Albums

Eerie 1967 – “An Evening With Boris Karloff And His Friends”:

Eerie 1967 - An Evening With Boris Karloff And His Friends

Eerie 1968 – “Wild, New Adventure LP Records”:

EERIE 1968 - Wild New Adventure LPs

Eerie magazine ad from 1966 – “Now You Can Hear Your Favorite Monsters”:

Eerie magazine ad from 1966 - Now You Can Hear Your Favorite Monsters

Eerie magazine ad from 1966 – “Famous Monsters Speak”:

Eerie Magazine 1966 - Famous Monsters Speak

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Diamond Lens by Fitz James O’Brien

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Diamond Lens by Fitz James O'Brien - illustration uncredited - December 1926 issue of Amazing Stories

I’ve created a |PDF| from the printing in the December 1926 issue of Amazing Stories.

Introduction to the October 1933 issue of Amazing in which The Diamond Lens was published

The Diamond Lens - Illustration by Morrey

I’ve created a |PDF| from the printing in the October 1933 issue of Amazing Stories.

In his introductory essay “Expanding The Lens“, found in to the story in The Road To Science Fiction: From Gilgamesh To Wells, editor James Gunn writes:

“[The Diamond Lens] is the first known story in which another world is perceived through a microscope… [this story] opened up another world, not just for readers, but for writers as well.” Gunn goes on to praise O’Brien’s “realistic treatment of the fantastic” and says that “‘The Diamond Lens‘” may be the first modern science-fiction story.”

LibriVox narrator Corrina Schultz describes The Diamond Lens this way:

“This story has a bit of everything – obsessive scientist, psychic medium contacting the dead, clever murder cover-up, racism, creepy stalker, college student shirking his studies, the painful results of pursuing forbidden knowledge, the noble savage…”

Atop those words I myself can heap a few other attractors:

1. The Diamond Lens is bizarre in both plot and focus, with episodic like writing <-Weird for a short story. 2. It has the sensibility of a foreign culture <-The 19th century attitude toward seances is pretty fucking foreign! 3. The protagonist is a mad microscopist. <-Perhaps he was demented by the illicit lure of science? 4. The story features a brutal killing. <-With a whackjob of added racism to complicate matters! 5. It has a noir ending. <-My favourite kind. As you may have guessed I quite enjoyed The Diamond Lens.

Stories like Harl Vincent’s Microcosmic Buccaneers (1929), Theodore Sturgeon’s Microcosmic God (1941) and both Sunken Universe (1942) and Surface Tension (1952) by James Blish all stem from the microscopic pioneering of The Diamond Lens. Whereas the theme, of an alien female object of adoration in an unreachable land, also brings to mind a mighty parallel with Jack Williamson’s The Green Girl (1930). And one final note, a quick read of the Wikipedia entry for Fitz James O’Brien makes me think some of the tale is autobiographical!

The Diamond Lens
By Fitz James O’Brien; Read by Corinna Schultz
1 |MP3| – Approx. 57 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox
Published: FORTHCOMING
A scientist, having invented a powerful microscope, discovers a beautiful female living in a microscopic world inside a drop of water. First published in the January 1858 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.

The Weird Circle The Diamond Lens
Based on the story by Fitz-James O’Brien; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 25 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: MBS, NBC, ABC
Broadcast: December 31, 1944
Provider: Archive.org

Arthur C. Clarke describes The Diamond Lens (from an article in Playboy)

Posted by Jesse Willis

Forgotten Classics: The Beautiful People by Charles Beaumont

SFFaudio Online Audio

“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.”
– David Hume (Of The Standard Of Taste)

We tend to forget. Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series seemed fresh and original when it came out a couple years ago. But that’s because we’d forgotten about Charles Beaumont and The Beautiful People. Westerfeld wrote four novels exploring territory that Charles Beaumont pioneered. It’s short story that packs a helluva punch. Imagine a world when everyone around you says that you are ugly, that you’re fat. that you’re unhealthy, that you’re self image is completely wrong, and most importantly that you’ve got to change because social position will be completely untenable.

Now imagine that world – our world – just a few years in the future. A world in which everyone wears a mask on all the days before and after October 31st.

Pure horror.

The Beautiful People has stuff to say about beauty and ugliness, the proper place of women, the value of book reading, as wells as the passing fads of sleeping and eating.

Here is a |PDF| version.

The Beautiful People illustration by Martin

The Beautiful People
By Charles Beaumont; Read by Julie Davis
1 |MP3| – Approx. 47 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Forgotten Classics
Podcast: October 2011
|ETEXT|
Mary was a misfit. She didn’t want to be beautiful. And she wasted time doing mad things—like eating and sleeping. First published in the September 1952 issue of If Worlds of Science Fiction.

The Twilight Zone adapted The Beautiful People into an episode entitled Number 12 Looks Just Like You.

Posted by Jesse Willis