Mack Reynolds – Page 2

The SFFaudio Podcast #292 – TALK TO: John Betancourt

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #292 –Jesse talks with John Betancourt, the publisher of Wildside Press, about copyright, the public domain, pulp magazines, author estates, comics, audiobooks, and ebooks.

Talked about on today’s show:
the Pulpscans Yahoo! Group, how to do copyright renewal searches properly, the tools, The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin, Astounding Science Fiction, two ways stories can be protected by copyright, before 1963, publisher renewals, author renewals, renewals after 1950 are on copyright.gov, 1923-1950, a text file for magazine renewals, and a text file for author renewals, Weird Tales, 1920s to the 1950s, OCR failures, looking for something to not be there, a very heavy burden, pseudonyms, false renewals, erroneous renewals, the pre-internet days, the Philip K. Dick estate’s copyright “pattern of abuse”, revisions, the 36 public domain Philip K. Dick stories, “they never got it wrong the other way”, a statistician could do something very interesting there, The Adjustment Bureau / Adjustment Team, the H.P. Lovecraft estate (if there is such a thing), the S.T. Joshi corrected texts, Home Brew (magazine) with Clark Ashton Smith, ebooks, paperbooks, and audiobooks, the Science Fiction Megapack, trademarking, licensing stories, horror, fantasy, golden age of science fiction, Lester del Rey, Westerns, length is not an issue in, Eando Binder, short stories in comics, Jack Binder, Captain Marvel, Whiz Comics, Captain Video, Tom Corbett, the Adam Link stories, Otto Binder, banned from Amazing Stories, “E” and “O”, unattributed short stories in comics, Fawcett Comics, Westbrook Wilson, Richard Lupoff, the space patrol stories, Joseph J. Mallard, a Nazi saboteur lost in the north woods, a dodge for a cheaper rate, silver age comics drop text stories, early DC Comics, Night Of The Living Dead, Zulu, fanzines in the public domain, Ray Bradbury in the public domain, copyright notification is no longer required, USA copyright lifetime + 70 years, 1984 by George Orwell is public domain in Canada but not yet in the USA, Donald A. Wollheim, a quasi-legal loophole, The Lord Of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien was briefly public domain in the USA, the scarcity of the Ace paperbacks of The Lord Of The Rings, the state of Ace doubles etc., unless it’s work made for hire, children’s books, Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, copyright compilation renewals, Analog renews a magazine…, how would we know if an author asks for his or her rights back?, the Guy de Maupassant Megapack, a victim of availability, Jules Verne, translations, a recent obsession, a gold mine [metaphor], an estimated 85% of books and stories published before 1964 are in the public domain, reading the letters pages of Weird Tales, Robert Bloch, spotty renewals, Ray Bradbury changed the name of stories a lot, pulp magazine editors, editorial meddling, respecting the text but keeping your job, annotated text links, nothing new can enter the public domain in the USA, corporate copyright to 95 years, the puppet Sonny Bono, life +70 years for authors is, 1922 and before is without question in the public domain in the USA, Mack Reynolds, buying author estates, Lester del Rey, H.B. Fyfe, unpublished manuscripts, John W. Campbell, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, archaeology for writers, 37 unpublished Mack Reynolds novels were thrown away, what is an author’s estate worth?, thousands of $$, R.A. Lafferty estate sold for $70,000.00, a major SF author’s estate was worth 1/4 million $$, the trend in ebooks, 14,000 different paperbooks and 1,100 ebooks and the ebooks earn 4 times as much as the paperbooks, the audiobook trend, Audible.com, Lois McMaster Bujold audiobooks, 200 audiobooks, a value added for authors, because Amazon owns everything…, a benign dictator forever?, when all competition is gone…, Amazon vs. Hachette, Amazon is demanding a higher and higher cut of ebook sales, 85% of ebook sales are through Amazon, a giant anti-trust situation, it’s like Highlander … there can be only one, when everything goes seamlessly into the Kindle…

RE190631 Page 2 (back) Prominent Author, Progeny, Exhibit Piece, Shell Game, A World Of Talent, James P. Crow, Small Town, Survey Team, Sales Pitch, Time Pawn, Breakfast At Twilight, The Crawlers, Of Withered Apples, Adjustment Team, Meddler

Posted by Jesse Willis

Expediter by Mack Reynolds

SFFaudio Online Audio

Expediter by Mack Reynolds

Mack Reynolds is an SF author who needs more attention. Unfortunately his non-public domain works, the majority of his work, are languishing, orphaned. Escape Pod has paired this less than stellar novelette with an excellent narrator, Corson Bremer, but even so it’s a less than stellar representative example of Reynold’s most thoughtful societal thinking. Expediter merely hints at the kinds of things Mack Reynolds could do. Come to think of it, what we really need is an expediter to make the still copyrighted works of Mack Reynolds available as ebooks (and audiobooks).

Expediter
By Mack Reynolds; Read by Corson Bremer
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour 22 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Escape Pod
Podcast: October 28, 2013
His assignment was to get things done; he definitely did so, Not quite the things intended, perhaps, but definitely done. First published in Analog, May 1963.

Podcast feed: http://escapepod.org/podcast.xml

Here is the |ETEXT|.

And I’ve assembled a |PDF|.

Expediter by Mack ReynoldsIllustrated by George Schelling

Posted by Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Challenge #6

SFFaudio Commentary

The SFFaudio Challenge Number Six THE CHALLENGE:
This is our 6th Annual SFFaudio Challenge. Every November 11th, for the last six years, we’ve offered the following challenge to SFFaudio readers:

“We’ll give you an audiobook if you make one for everyone else.”

That deal still holds. We’ll get you an audiobook if you make make an audiobook out of one of the public domain etexts we suggest. All you’ll need to do is claim a title (by email), record the audiobook, using your own human voice (sorry no robots), and follow the rules (see the first comment of this post for the rules). Some titles will not be public domain in all countries, but this is a global challenge. We’ve also added, for the very first time, a French language title!

Still feeling a little unclear on how it all works? Then have a look at our past SFFaudio CHALLENGES:

PRIZES:
This year we’re doing something a bit different with prizes, something better. Instead of offering those unwieldy physical copies we’ve got DRM-FREE MP3 downloads for you! This not only saves us on postage it also allows for a much greater selection of audiobooks! For each audiobook you complete, you can choose one of more than 1,300 titles available! All prizes this year come courtesy of Tantor Media.

CHALLENGE TITLES:
The Friendly Demon (aka The Devil Frolics With A Butler) by Daniel Defoe |HORRORMASTERS|PDF| (short story)

Seventh Victim by Robert Sheckley |PDF| (short story)*

CLAIMED BY CAINE DORR NOVEMBER 12, 2011

Untouched By Human Hands (aka One Man’s Poison) by Robert Sheckley |PDF| (short story)*

Writing Class by Robert Sheckley |RTF| (short story)*

CLAIMED AND COMPLETED BY WILLIAM COON (of Elquoent Voice) ON NOVEMBER 13, 2011

The Purple Cloud by M.P. Shiel |GUTENBERG| (novel)

City At World’s End by Edmond Hamilton |ARCHIVE.ORG| (novel)

The Common Man by Mack Reynolds |GUTENBERG| (short story)

The Ship Of Ishtar by A. Merritt |GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA| (novel)

Supernatural Horror In Literature by H.P. Lovecraft |WIKISOURCE|GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA| (essay)

Almuric by Robert E. Howard |WIKILIVRES|GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA| (novel)

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell |GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA| (novel)

Animal Farm by George Orwell |GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA| (novel)

Empire by Clifford D. Simak |GUTENBERG| (novel)**

CLAIMED BY BILL KIRBY ON JANUARY 3, 2012

The Great Potlatch Riots by Allen Kim Lang |GUTENEBERG| (short story)

The Dominion In 1983 by Ralph Centennius |GUTENBERG| (30 pages)

Ten From Infinity by Paul W. Fairman |GUTENBERG| (novel)

CLAIMED BY KAREN SAVAGE ON NOVEMBER 11, 2011

No Great Magic by Fritz Leiber |GUTENBERG| (short story)

CLAIMED BY DANIEL GURZYNSKI ON NOVEMBER 21, 2011

The Syndic by C.M. Kornbluth |RTF| (novel)*

CLAIMED BY MARK NELSON ON NOVEMBER 13, 2011

Our first French audiobook:

La Vie Électrique by Albert Robida |GUTENBERG| (novel)

So, who wants to sign up?

[*With special thanks to Rick Jackson of Wonder Publishing for selection advice **This etext was part of SFFaudio Challenge #2, but wasn’t completed]

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #121 – READALONG: Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #121 – Scott, Jesse, Tamahome and Gregg Margarite talk about Joe Haldeman’s novel Forever Peace.

Talked about on today’s show:
The Forever War, Forever Peace, Forever Free, Haldeman’s experiences in South-East Asia (during the Vietnam War), William Mandella, Mandala, Julian Class, Philip Klass (William Tenn), racism, remotely controlled soldier robots, jacks, empathy, sharing menstruation, baldness as a fashion, the nanoforge (a molecular nanotechnology), caper, Stranger In A Stranger Land, heist, “two novellas smushed together”, John W. Campbell, Ben Bova, self help groups, one conceit that remains unexamined, magic machine (aka a sub-atomic replicator), Mack Reynolds, telepathy, asymmetric warfare, prescience, Libya, Pakistan, the two peaces of Forever Peace, what of the aftermath?, applying Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics to people, Gregg is a creature capable of killing, not everyone wants to be the black sheep, is 98% of humanity humanizable?, the earth where everyone is gay, the earth where everyone is a clone, “a giant of SF”, The Memory Of Earth by Orson Scott Card, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, do you grok the group?, “The Hammer of God”, Jonestown, David Koresh, a religion that requires you believe in evolution, punctuated equilibrium, treating the bible like a science book (is problematic), we’re gonna drill into you brain and then you won’t have those feelings anymore, a utopian dystopia, Malthusian theory, the singularity, A Clockwork Orange, moral conviction vs. physical restriction, Gregg needs his murderer (and we do too), Starship Troopers, false consciousness, Women’s Studies, The Tea Party,

“False consciousness is the Marxist thesis that material and institutional processes in capitalist society are misleading to the proletariat, and to other classes. These processes betray the true relations of forces between those classes, and the real state of affairs regarding the development of pre-socialist society”,

following orders (as false consciousness), Stockholm syndrome, identifying with your oppressor, why do people do things that are against their own interests?, Costa Rica, withholding technology vs. holding resources hostage, Plato’s cave, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”, is Jesse making an argument for absolute truth?, what is truth?, “one person’s murder is another person’s dinner”, “God exists or he doesn’t exist”, “assuming we agree on the definition of God”, “we have a bedrock of truth”, Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction, “we’re here and we’re invading your software”, our perception of reality changes, “how can it not always be this way?”, “it’s The Matrix“, Gregg can find reasonable doubt in his own existence, Cogito Ergo Sum (I think therefore I am), René Descartes, “I doubt therefore I am”, Tama has no take, good and bad vs. right and wrong, a mass of conflicting impulses (ambivalence), Heinlein’s militaristic thinking vs. Haldeman’s militaristic thinking, Heinlein’s Future History series, religious conversion, telepathy vs. total immersion, Jonathan Swift, “you can’t reasons someone out of something they weren’t reasoned into”, there are two tenets in Greggism, what you believe doesn’t has to be true, Alan Moore’s personal made-up religion, Scott isn’t a Catholic because of feeling alone, Joseph Campbell “everything is true”, “he was born with a plowshare”, magical thinking, “that’s true for you and that’s fine”, a religious wacko who wants to end the world seems like a tired villain, Source Code, Moon is fantastic (but Source Code is not), the Norwegian whack job, can’t we find another kind of religion, Carl von Clausewitz, The Operative from Serenity (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), effective villains, Robert E. Lee, Adolph Hitler vs. Joseph Stalin vs. Mao Zedong, the Tehran Conference, “Uncle Joe”, Stalin’s ending was noir, Pandora’s Star by Peter F. Hamilton has a great (and dirty) villain, Orson Scott Card’s Buggers, Speaker For The Dead, Ender’s Game, zombies are like a force of nature, Heinleinian villains are not diabolical, the ultimate orbital platform, the English Empire, “besides we’re better than you”, why do English actors always play villains? American accents = movie stars, Vancouver is a science fiction ghetto, iambk audio, the proper pronunciation of “about” in Canada, shock vs. shark, accents are lazy ways of speaking, George Wilson (the narrator of Forever Peace), P.G. Wodehouse, Bertie and Jeeves, the secret language of (drunken) Cockneys, no stupid voices please (in audiobooks), if you hire Nicholson for you movie your movie is a Jack Nicholson movie, Gregg’s signature voice may lose him work, why does the narrative switch between first and third person throughout Forever Peace, Yes, Minister, Goodreads.com, senior civil servant (3rd person) vs. elected official (1st person), The Long Habit Of Living by Joe Haldeman, The Forever War is told in first person (right?)

RECORDED BOOKS - Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman

Posted by Jesse Willis

Everything Is A Remix

SFFaudio Online Audio

Here’s a really terrific project that illustrates, in a very succinct way, the history of creativity. It’s thesis is that there is a fundamental through-line which connects all human creation and that is to copy, modify and mix (or remix) the creations of the past to make something new.

Everything is a Remix Part 1 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

Everything is a Remix Part 3 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

One example, not cited in the series so far, is this thread of remixing:

Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888) -> David Butler’s Just Imagine (1930) -> C.M. Kornbluth’s The Marching Morons (1951) -> Mack Reynolds’ Looking Backward From The Year 2000 (1974) -> Robert A. Heinlein’s For Us, The Living (written in 1938, published 2003) -> Mike Judge’s Idiocracy (2006)

In fact, we recently posted an audiobook reading of C.M. Kornbluth’s The Marching Morons, which took inspiration from the 1930 film Just Imagine. Robert A. Heinlein’s first novel (which went unpublished until 2003) was also a response to this movie. But Just Imagine itself likely took its inspiration from Edward Bellamy’s immensely popular 1888 utopian novel Looking Backward 2000-1887. Science Fiction writer, Mack Reynolds, wrote a couple sequels to Looking Backward but he wasn’t alone – in fact more than a dozen sequels, responses and inspired works followed. The history of Science Fiction is a flowing and knotted tapestry of scientific discovery, theory, ideology, adventure, and drama that cannot be summed up with any simplistic bag with the names like “inspiration” or “genius.”

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 031

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVox A couple of tales that stood out for me in this collection Unborn Tomorrow by Mack Reynolds is a mystery with a male and female pair of New York City private investigators who have a client with a story tell. Its, clever, funny and manages a fairly unique twist on the time travel theme. Waste Not, Want by Dave Dryfoos is the story of an aged widower living in a society in which consumer consumption isn’t just fashionable it’s required by law. This is more of a vignette than a story, but if you’re interested, that idea (compulsory consumption), also pops up in Robert Silverberg’s second novel, Starman’s Quest too.

Short Science Fiction Collection 031
By various; Read by various
15 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 5 Hours 31 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Science Fiction is speculative literature that generally explores the consequences of ideas which are roughly consistent with nature and scientific method, but are not facts of the author’s contemporary world. The stories often represent philosophical thought experiments presented in entertaining ways. Protagonists typically “think” rather than “shoot” their way out of problems, but the definition is flexible because there are no limits on an author’s imagination. The reader-selected stories presented here were written prior to 1962 and became US public domain texts when their copyrights expired.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/3674

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Competition
By James Causey; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 22 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
They would learn what caused the murderous disease—if it was the last thing they did! From Galaxy Science Fiction May 1955.

Devil’s Asteroid
By Manly Wade Wellman; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour 6 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
“The Rock Bred Evolution in Reverse!” From Comet July 1941.

Heist Job On Thizar
By Randall Garrett; Read by Norm
1 |MP3| – Approx. 24 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
In the future, we may discover new planets; our ships may rocket to new worlds; robots may be smarter than people. But we’ll still have slick characters willing and able to turn a fast buck—even though they have to be smarter than Einstein to do it. From Amazing Stories October 1956.

The Hunted Heroes
By Robert Silverberg; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 31 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
The planet itself was tough enough—barren, desolate, forbidding; enough to stop the most adventurous and dedicated. But they had to run head-on against a mad genius who had a motto: Death to all Terrans! From Amazing Stories September 1956.

The Last Supper
By T.D. Hamm; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 4 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Before reading this story, prepare yourself for a jolt and a chill in capsule form. O. Henry could have been proud of it. It could well become a minor classic. From If Worlds of Science Fiction September 1952.

Old Rambling House
By Frank Herbert; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 17 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
All the Grahams desired was a home they could call their own … but what did the home want? From Galaxy Science Fiction April 1958.

Pythias
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 12 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Sure, Larry Connaught saved my life—but it was how he did it that forced me to murder him! From Galaxy Science Fiction February 1955.

Revenge
By Arthur Porges; Read by Steven Anderson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Hell may have no fury like a woman scorned, but the fury of a biochemist scorned is just as great — and much more fiendish. From Amazing Stories February 1961.

Solander’s Radio Tomb
By Ellis Parker Butler; Read by Steven Anderson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
“I first met Mr. Remington Solander shortly after I installed my first radio set. I was going in to New York on the 8:15 A.M. train and was sitting with my friend Murchison and, as a matter of course, we were talking radio.” First published in Amazing Stories June 1927, later in Amazing’s April 1956 issue.

Stop, Look and Dig
By George O. Smith; Read by Ric F
1 |MP3| – Approx. 36 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
The enlightened days of mental telepathy and ESP should have made the world a better place, But the minute the Rhine Institute opened up, all the crooks decided it was time to go collegiate! First published in Space Science Fiction, March 1953.

Such Blooming Talk
By L. Major Reynolds (aka Louise Leipiar); Read by Steven Anderson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 7 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
A bit of levity never hurt anyone—even a science fiction editor, writer or reader, we hope. And a laugh has been known to lighten a heavy load and even change the path of history. So—we give you this brief moment with an amazed scientist and his startling creations—for a brief chuckle. From Fantastic Universe March 1954.

Sweet Their Blood And Sticky
By Albert R. Teichner; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 14 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
They weren’t human—weren’t even related to humanity through ties of blood—but they were our heirs! From “Worlds of If” November 1961.

Unborn Tomorrow
By Mack Reynolds; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 31 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Unfortunately, there was only one thing he could bring back from the wonderful future … and though he didn’t want to … nevertheless he did… From Astounding Science Fiction June 1959.

Vanishing Point
By C.C. Beck; Read by MGVestal
1 |MP3| – Approx. 10 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
In perspective, theoretically the vanishing point is at infinity, and therefore unattainable. But reality is different; vanishment occurs a lot sooner than theory suggests… From Astounding Science Fiction July 1959.

Waste Not, Want
By Dave Dryfoos; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 18 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Eat your spinach, little man! It’s good for you. Stuff yourself with it. Be a good little consumer, or the cops will get you…. For such is the law of supply and demand! From If Worlds of Science Fiction September 1954.

[In addition to the readers, this audio book was produced by Gregg Margarite, Wendel Topper and Lucy Burgoyne]

Posted by Jesse Willis