Masters Of Science Fiction aired its first episode last night on ABC stations in the USA. We’ve got all the audio dope on this video program…
HERE‘s an audio recording from NPR and TV critic David Bianculli talking about the show. What makes this series so intriguing is that it is using actual Science Fiction stories (GASP!) for its episodes…
The first tale was based on John Kessel’s A Clean Escape (which was previously adapted into a Seeing Ear Theatre Original Playhouse audio drama (no longer available online). Hardcopies of this audio drama can be found in an out of print collection, available on ABEBooks.com (and one is currently on on ebay.com):
Seeing Ear Theater, Volume 1
By Terry Bisson, Brian Smith, James Patrick Kelly, Allen Steele, John Kessel and Gregory Benford
FULL CAST PRODUCTIONS with introductions by Harlan Ellison
2 Cassettes – Approx 3 hrs. [UNABRIDGED DRAMATIZATIONS]
ISBN: 0787118133
Date Published 1998
Published by Dove Audio
Stories Included:
THREE ODD COMEDIES by Terry Bisson
“They’re Made Out of Meat”
“The Toxic Donut”
“Next”
Into The Sun by Brian Smith
Think Like a Dinosaur by James Patrick Kelly
The Death of Captain Future by Allen Steele
A Clean Escape by John Kessel
The Bigger One by Gregory Benford
Also, BuddyTV.com has an |MP3| interview with Sam Waterson about his role in the Masters Of SF first episode A Clean Escape (and irreverently about his role on Law and Order).
More, WUNC in North Carolina has a terrific radio interview |MP3| with Kessel about the adaptation of his short story A Clean Escape to TV.
Seeing Ear Theatre still has John Kessel’s “A Clean Escape” in their archive. The streaming audio is still there last time I checked 08/09/07.
D,
Unfortunately the SET version of A Clean Escape is no longer archived. Here’s where it was…
http://www.scifi.com/set/playhouse/clean/
Here’s the post about the whole debacle surrounding the SET pulldown:
http://www.sffaudio.com/2007/06/wake-up-time-to-die-seeing-ear-theatre.html
That’s awful. And I was thinking about listening to it this weekend after having seen “A Clean Escape” on Masters of Science Fiction. I’m sure I’m not the only one looking for it. Hopefully it will turn up somewhere on the web.
It is a shame, a terrible shame.
On the other hand, I recently got back an email from John Kessel himself, he had recorded the short story and has plans of reposting it to his website.
I think the only likely place you’ll find a recording of the audio drama itself is on a cassette.