Tag: science fiction

X Minus One: A Gun For Dinosaur based on the short story by L. Sprague de Camp

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

I was surprised to learn this X-Minus One audio drama had never been posted to SFFaudio before. We’ve talked about L. Sprague de Camp’s A Gun For Dinosaur on the SFFaudio Podcast a couple of times (episodes #055 and #035), but for some reason it had never actually been posted on the website!

Now that I’ve got a copy of the original magazine where the short story was first published, and I’m looking at the fantastic illustrations by Ed Emshwiller, I think I’ve found the perfect time!

X-Minus OneX-Minus One – A Gun For Dinosaur
Based on the short story by L. Sprague de Camp; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx.30 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: NBC
Broadcast: March 7, 1956
Provider: Internet Archive
In the bloodiest and most ferocious arena of all prehistoric Earth, hunting reptile heavyweights isn’t for human lightweights. First published in the March 1956 issue Galaxy magazine.

A Gun For Dinosaur illustrated by EMSH
A Gun For Dinosaur illustrated by EMSH
A Gun For Dinosaur illustrated by EMSH

And here’s the cover and splash page for Marvel Comics’ Worlds Unknown, which featured a 14 page adaptation of the story:

Worlds Unknown #2 - A Gun For Dinosaur - COVER

Worlds Unknown #2 - A GUN FOR DINOSAUR Adapted by Roy Thomas, art by Val Mayerik and Ernie Chua - Page 1

Posted by Jesse Willis

Forgotten Classics: The Green Girl by Jack Williamson

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Forgotten ClassicsThis week’s episode of the Forgotten Classics podcast saw the explosive conclusion of Julie Davis’ reading of the “scientific classic” The Green Girl by Jack Williamson. This short novel was one of our SFFaudio Challenge #5 audiobooks and so now Julie has won a prize (as well as our enduring respect)!

When I added The Green Girl to the challenge Rick Jackson, of Wonder Publishing described it to me as “early sense of wonder SF.” I think that’s right. I guess I knew what that meant, vaguely anyway, but now that I’ve heard it I’d suggest the fantastic events, with their grandeur of scale, are magnificently preposterous. That said, The Green Girl is never quite cartoonish as there is a reverence, if not slavishly accurate reverence, for both science and the value of scientific knowledge. It’s this that distinguishes The Green Girl from many of its contemporary pulps.

WONDER EBOOKS - The Green Girl by Jack WilliamsonThe Green Girl
By Jack Williamson; Read by Julie Davis
5 MP3 Files (Podcast) – Approx. 4 Hours 27 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Forgotten Classics
Podcast: August 2011
|PDF|EPUB|
Melvin Dane has been seeing a vision of a green girl since he was a child. Images of her came over the ether. Is she just fantasy? Or a reality that managed to cross time and space? And now, with the Earth under threat of extinction, will Melvin ever meet that girl of his dreams? With an alien force trying to bring Earth back to the Ice Age, Melvin and his foster father, scientist Sam Walden, embarked on a heroic quest to save their world. Their adventures took them from their sleepy little cottage in the beaches of Florida to the unexplored and totally unexpected world beneath the ocean. First published in the March and April 1930 issues of Amazing Stories. Later collected in 1950 as Avon Fantasy Novel #2.

Chapters 1-8 |MP3|
Chapters 9-16 |MP3|
Chapters 17-24 |MP3|
Chapters 25-29 |MP3|
Chapters 30-32 |MP3|

Podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/forgottenclassics

I’d hoped to find a copy of Amazing Stories, March 1930, in which the first half of the novel was serialized, but haven’t found one so far. If you’ve got a copy I’d love to add them below (please email me)! In the meantime, here are three scans from the April 1930 issue:

Amazing Stories April 1930 - Page 60 - The Green Girl by Jack Williamson

Amazing Stories April 1930 - Page 61 - The Green Girl by Jack Williamson

Amazing Stories April 1930 - Page 77 - The Green Girl by Jack Williamson

[Thanks again also to Rick Jackson of Wonder Ebooks where you can find plenty more vintage SF and criminally under-published crime books]

Posted by Jesse Willis

The First Edition – interview with Isaac Asimov and Frederik Pohl

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

TVOF - The Voices Of FandomForgive me, I’ve posted part of this before, but it’s good enough to post twice. Frederik Pohl and Isaac Asimov were interviewed for a 1972 show called The First Edition. Apparently the show never aired, and was never edited.

“THE FIRST EDITION – FIRST SHOW – 1972 – Raw interview material for unfinished show”

Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3|

I repost the interview, in part because of how damn cool it is, and also in part because it is just the excuse I need to post what might very well be Frederik Pohl and Isaac Asimov first appearance together in print (in the letters column of the June 1939 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories). Be sure to listen, it’s a terrific interview! In it Asimov responds to the “New Wave” and attacks neo-Luddites, and Pohl protests the takeover of Science Fiction by the “English lit majors” (Pohl didn’t finish high school).

Be sure to read the letters below in which the two Brooklyn boys, Fred and Isaac, grumble about SF. Pohl has some sharp words for the art of Frank R. Paul and Asimov swears he will eat Uranus!

Frederik Pohl and Isaac Asimov in the letters column of Thrilling Wonder Stories - June 1939

[via The Voices Of Fandom and with props to “Burbank396”]

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: The Eyes Have It by Philip K. Dick

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxOne of the shortest, if not the shortest, of all of Philip K. Dick’s many short stories. First published in 1953, in Science Fiction Stories #1, The Eyes Have It, is just a simple story about a literal man and the ridiculous alien invasion he imagines. It’s a silly little piece of fluff. A mere lighthearted thought experiment. Just a fun little story of no real account or import. In fact it’s barely …. wait one second … could it … ? …. what if … ? … HEY! That’s that just what they want you to think!!!

LIBRIVOX - The Eyes Have It by Philip K. DickThe Eyes Have It
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 8 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 20, 2010
|ETEXT|
A little whimsy, now and then, makes for good balance. Theoretically, you could find this type of humor anywhere. But only a topflight science-fictionist, we thought, could have written this story, in just this way….

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBC Radio 4: Cat Women Of The Moon (a documentary about sex and gender in Science Fiction)

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Sex In Space

Radio Times review (by Jeremy Aspinall) of Cat Women Of The MoonBBC Radio 4Cat Women Of The Moon
Presented by Sarah Hall
2 Part Broadcast – Approx. 1 Hour [DOCUMENTARY]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: August 30, 2011 and September 6, 2011 11.30am-12.00 UK Time
Cat Women Of The Moon was a Fifties film that followed a popular motif in science fiction; an all-women society surviving without men. In the first of these two programmes, Sarah Hall looks at how science fiction has been used to examine relationships between the sexes – and in some cases, more than two sexes. In many novels the exploration of sexuality is unconventional and experimental. Some societies have more than one sex; in others, people can change sex at will. In other science fiction worlds, people form relationships with aliens or they might have sex with artificial life forms. The programme includes contributions from leading science fiction writers including Iain Banks, China Mieville and Nicola Griffith. The programme is presented by the Sarah Hall, author of The Carhullan Army and The Electric Michelangelo, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Producer by Nicola Swords

I did a search and it appears that the complete 1954 film of Cat Women Of The Moon is in the public domain. Even better it is easily available for download from the Internet Archive |CAT WOMEN OF THE MOON| in a variety of formats (though there isn’t a 3D version as far as I could see). Here’s the |AVI|.

[Many thanks to Roy for the spot!]

Posted by Jesse Willis