I, Mars by Ray Bradbury

SFFaudio Online Audio

Barton’s younger selves lived on, tormenting him for his living proof that their hopes were dead!

I, Mars by Ray Bradbury
I, Mars by Ray Bradbury - illustration by Hannes Bok
First published in Super Science Stories, April 1949, here’s Jim Moon’s 26 minute unabridged reading of I, Mars by Ray Bradbury. I first encountered this story under it’s alternative title, Night Call, Collect.

|MP3|
|PDF| made from its publication in Super Science Stories.

[Thanks to WonderEbooks!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBCR4 + RA.cc: Roald Dahl’s Man From The South

Aural Noir: Online Audio

BBC Radio 4RadioArchives.ccThe story I want to tell you about today comes from a series called Someone Like You. The series aired on BBC Radio 4 in 2009 with the particular tale being the first of a five part series of dramatizations of Roald Dahl short stories.

It’s title is usually given as Man From The South, but it was originally titled Collector’s Item when it first appeared, in a 1948 issue of Collier’s Weekly.

It’s a fantastic little gem – a true oddity – one which you may even be familiar with from one of the many adaptations and references in movies and TV shows. Charles Dance is the narrator, and is his usual wonderful self in it.Andrew Sachs, the titular man, is both manic and enigmatic.

The file is only available via torrent at the wonderful RadioArchive.cc.

Collector's Item by Roald Dahl

Someone Like You – Man From The South
Based on the story by Roald Dahl; Dramatized by Stephen Sheridan; Performed by a full cast
TORRENT – Approx. 14 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: December 21, 2009
While on shore leave in Jamaica, a young marine agrees to a bizarre wager with an elderly South American.

Cast:
Storyteller ……. Charles Dance
Old Man ……….. Andrew Sachs
Marine ………… Danny Mahoney
Girl ………….. Donnla Hughes
Spanish Woman ….. Rachel Atkins

Posted by Jesse Willis

Moxon’s Master by Ambrose Bierce

SFFaudio Online Audio

Moxon's Master by Ambrose Bierce

I’m not a very good chess player, but I love playing. There’s a an elegance and a simplicity to the basics of it. And from those basic rules an incalculable complexity emerges – one that makes every game different. But I don’t much like playing against a computer. There’s little sense of victory if I win and if I lose I tend to question the point in playing at all. There’s something about pitting a mind against a mind – and most chess programs I’ve played against don’t seem to have one.

Moxon’s Master, by Ambrose Bierce, is about chess. It uses some basic analogies and metaphors – in just the way H.G. Wells does so well to make the implausible sound plausible. Bierce wields facts about plant tropism and Herbert Spencer’s definition of life in a skillful argument for machine intelligence. It’s rather masterful actually!

LibriVoxMoxon’s Master
By Ambrose Bierce; Read by Roger Melin
1 |MP3| – Approx. 28 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: May 2, 2012
First published in the San Francisco Examiner, April 16, 1899.

|PDF|

[Thanks also to Laura Victoria and Barry Eads]

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Unreconstructed M by Philip K. Dick is PUBLIC DOMAIN

SFFaudio News

The Unreconstructed M by Philip K. Dick

The Unreconstructed M - illustration by Frank Kelly Freas

The Unreconstructed M - illustration by Frank Kelly Freas

The Unreconstructed M by Philip K. Dick is PUBLIC DOMAIN.

It’s public domain status was not previously known because the copyright was thought to have been renewed. But it wasn’t.

The confusion stems from this document:

RE220675

You will note that the renewal form shows The Unreconstructed M as having been published in a magazine called Other Worlds, November 1956.

That is completely false.

Here is the table of contents for the November 1956 issue of Other Worlds:
Other Worlds, November 1956 - table of contents

The Unreconstructed M was actually published in the January 1957 issue of Science Fiction Stories (aka Original Science Fiction Stories).

Here is the table of contents from that issue:
Science Fiction Stories, January 1957 - table of contents (includes The Unreconstructed M by Philip K. Dick)

Here is a |PDF| made from it’s publication in Science Fiction Stories.

The Unreconstructed M by Philip K. Dick is PUBLIC DOMAIN.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Last War by Stanton A. Coblentz

SFFaudio Online Audio

Originally published in the January 1951 issue of Fantastic Novels Magazine (on pages 118, 119, and 120) The Last War by Stanton A. Coblentz is a public domain poem that has never been reprinted.

Here it is, along with the gorgeous original art.

Thanks to Jim Moon of the Hypnobobs podcast for his wonderful reading of it.

|MP3|

The Last War by Stanton A. Coblentz

Posted by Jesse Willis