Sci-Fi Radio

Sci-Fi Radio

An anthology of 1950s magazine short story adaptations, with a pretty good choice of stories. Aired on NPR playhouse and other stations.


E:\S\Sci-Fi Radio ================= Sci Fi Radio - 900204 - 20 - Houston, Do You Read Me by James Tiptree, Jr. - Parts 1 And 2 ******In the story, three astronauts returning to Earth are stymied in their attempts to contact Mission Control in Houston; some women keep popping up on the frequency, and it takes a while for the startling truth to sink in: somehow, the three male astronauts have experienced a time slip and now find themselves a few hundred years in the future. Sci Fi Radio - 890910 - 01 - I'm Scared by Jack Finney ******Collier's (September, 1951) ... A series of fun ideas of what might happen with uncontrolled time travel this story shows someone who has spent some time thinking about time travel. The story is told by a retired man who had an odd experience one day, something most of us would have overlooked. He was listening to the radio while reading a book and he heard several programs that hadn't been on the air for years. He assumes it might have been a replay except no one else heard it. There are many more of these stories, a woman who meets a stray dog that turns out to be the dog she would own years later, a gun that is found and kept in police custody while the same gun is used to commit a murder, a man hit by a car a hundred years after he had died. Sci Fi Radio - 890917 - 02 - Dark Benediction by Walter M. Miller, Jr. - Part 1 Sci Fi Radio - 890924 - 03 - Dark Benediction by Walter M. Miller, Jr. - Part 2 ******Walter M. Miller Jr is best remembered as the author of A Canticle for Leibowitz, but in the 1950s, his novelettes and novellas earned him high praise and acclaim. Sci Fi Radio - 891001 - 04 - The Light Of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Bob Shaw & Ballad Of The Lost C'Mell by Cordwainer Smith - Part 1 Sci Fi Radio - 891008 - 05 - Ballad Of The Lost C'Mell by Cordwainer Smith - Part 2 Sci Fi Radio - 891017 - 06 - Sales Pitch by Philip K. Dick ******first published in Future Science Fiction magazine, June 1954. The premise of omni-present, intrusive and even aggressive advertising and marketing is as relevant as ever. In the end of the story, the character is driven mad by a robot who can forcefully market himself, and refuses to take no for an answer. Sci Fi Radio - 891022 - 07 - Diary Of The Rose by Ursula K. Le Guin ****** Sci Fi Radio - 891029 - 08 - Frost And Fire by Ray Bradbury - Part 1 Sci Fi Radio - 891105 - 09 - Frost And Fire by Ray Bradbury - Part 2 ******Placed there by a past rocket ship, the people of the storied land are within sight of another rocket ship on a distant mountain plateau. The plot follows Sim, the protagonist of this story, and his apparently short life on a planet where people are cursed by radiation to live only eight days. The people of this planet are also gifted with racial memory (they remember their ancestors' memories). However, they do not attempt to reach the sole remaining rocket ship due to the futility of attempting to reach it in one hour, which is the longest length of time between day and night (both deadly). Sim is then moved by the memory of his ancestors to meet with scientists who make halting progress towards the goal of lengthening the world's decreased life span. Sim, motivated by his dwindling days, makes it his goal to extend his life and reach the distant rocket, despite the protests of his sister and other cave-dwellers. Sci Fi Radio - 891112 - 10 - Cold Equations by Tom Godwin ******first published in Astounding Magazine in 1954. In 1970, the Science Fiction Writers of America selected it as one of the best science fiction short stories published before 1965, and it was therefore included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929-1964.The story takes place entirely aboard an Emergency Dispatch Ship (EDS) headed for the frontier planet Woden with a load of desperately needed medical supplies. The pilot, Barton, discovers a stowaway: an eighteen-year-old girl. By law, all EDS stowaways are to be jettisoned because EDS vessels carry no more fuel than is absolutely necessary to land safely at their destination. The girl, Marilyn, merely wants to see her brother, Gerry, and is not aware of the law. When boarding the Stardust, Marilyn sees the "UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL KEEP OUT!" sign, but thinks she will simply have to pay a fine if she is caught. Barton explains that her presence dooms the mission and will result in the deaths of the colonists. He is forced to eject her into space. Godwin's story "The Cold Equations" rocked the science fiction world when it appeared. Sci Fi Radio - 891119 - 11 - Close Encounter With The Diety by Michael Bishop ******Through the means of what he calls "speculative fiction", Michael Bishop examines the various links between man and the supernatural by exploring relat more » ionships and conflicts between mortals and deities of other worlds, in other times, and within other cultures. Sci Fi Radio - 891126 - 12 - Sundance by Robert Silverberg ******Silverberg said in the Best of Introduction that this story "pleases me the most" of all those he's written. It has apparently showed up in college texts on writing techniques. It's the story of Tom Two Ribbons, a Sioux in the future coming to terms with his life and his ancestry. The viewpoint shifts as needed between third, first, and even second person. It's a good story, though it won no awards. Sci Fi Radio - 891203 - 13 - The Wall Of Darkness by Arthur C. Clarke ******In a universe consisting of one star and one planet, there is a mysterious impenetrable wall surrounding the entire planet in the deep freezing southlands. Two men, one with money, the other with building skills, engage in a long-term program to scale the wall and find out what's on the other side. The answer turns out to be mathematical. And rather upsetting. Sci Fi Radio - 891210 - 14 - Vintage Season by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore - Parts 1 & 2 ******Oliver Wilson has rented an old mansion to three vacationers for the month of May. He wants to get rid of them so he can sell the house to someone who has offered him three times its value, provided the buyer can move in during May. His fiancée, Sue, insists that he arrange for them to leave, so that he can sell the house, giving them enough money for their impending marriage. The tenants are a man, Omerie Sancisco, and two women, Klia and Kleph Sancisco. They fascinate Oliver with the perfection of their appearance and manners, their strange connoisseur's attitude to everything, and their secretiveness about their origin and about their insistence on that house at that time. Oliver's half-hearted attempts to evict them founder when he becomes attracted to Kleph. The mystery deepens with remarks she lets slip, with the unspectacular but advanced technology of things she has in her room— including a recorded "symphonia" that engages all the senses with imagery of historical disasters— and with the appearance of the would-be buyers, a couple from the same country, who plant a "subsonic" in the house intended to drive the residents out. Sci Fi Radio - 900107 - 16 - Grantha Sighting by Avram Davidson & Call Me Joe by Poul Anderson -... ******Call Me Joe (1957) is a science fiction story by Poul Anderson about an attempt to explore the surface of the planet Jupiter using remotely controlled artificial life-forms. It focuses on the feelings of the disabled man who operates the artificial body. The story was published in Astounding Science Fiction magazine by its editor John W. Campbell. Joe is awakened in his den, when a pack of predators are attacking him. Using his great strength, and weapons made from sculpted ice, he kills the animals and, exultant, bays at the moon above him. A vital component shorts out, and "Joe" reverts to being a human, Ed Anglesey, wearing a special headset on a space station orbiting Jupiter. Anglesey furiously repairs the equipment to restore the connection. It transpires that such equipment failures are happening more and more often. All technical attempts at repair have failed, and instead a psionics expert, Cornelius, is brought to the station to determine if Anglesey himself is the problem. Anglesey uses a wheelchair and is bad-tempered. He dislikes all his colleagues and is disliked in return. He is allowed to stay on the station only because of his ability to establish a telepathic connection with and thereby control Joe, a creature designed to survive the hostile conditions on the Jovian surface. Cornelius conjectures that something in Anglesey's mind rejects or fears Jupiter, and the resulting feedback keeps destroying the delicate equipment. The Science Fiction Writers of America selected Call Me Joe for The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two. Sci Fi Radio - 900121 - 18 - Imposter by Philip K. Dick ******"Impostor" is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick. It was first published in Astounding magazine in June, 1953. Impostor, a feature film based on the story, was released in 2002 starring Gary Sinise, Madeleine Stowe and Vincent D'Onofrio. The story had previously been adapted in 1962 as an episode of the British science fiction television series Out of This World. Spence Olham is confronted by a colleague and accused of being an android impostor designed to sabotage Earth's defences.The impostor's ship was damaged and has crashed just outside the city. The android is supposed to detonate a planet destroying bomb on the utterance of a deadly code phrase. Olham must escape and prove his innocence, providing he is actually Spence Olham. Olham tries to prove he is the real Olham by finding the crashed spaceship and recovering the android's body. Sci Fi Radio - 900128 - 19 - Field Of Vision by Ursula K. LeGuin *******true nuts-and-bolts SF story about the exploration of an alien planet Sci Fi Radio - 900218 - 22 - Shape by Robert Sheckley ******A race of strictly regimented, shape-shifting aliens feel compelled to invade and conquer Earth, but every scouting mission to our planet has disappeared without a trace. A squad of elite commandos is sent in find the answer. Sci Fi Radio - 900225 - 23 - Home Is The Hangman by Roger Zelazny - Parts 1 & 2 ******A sentient space-exploration robot, lost years before, has apparently returned to Earth. One of its original designers has died under suspicious circumstances. Has the Hangman returned to kill its creators? The hero must find the Hangman and stop it, and time is running out. Although based on the same character as the other stories in this collection the theme is more closely related to the ideas Zelazny was developing in the short story "The Force That Through the Circuit Drives the Current" from the collection Unicorn Variations. This story won the 1976 Hugo Award for Best Novella. Sci Fi Radio - 900311 - 25 - The Twonky by Lewis Padgett ******After seeing his wife off on her trip, Kerry West, a philosophy teacher at a small-town college, goes inside his home to contemplate his new purchase – a television set. Sitting down in his office, he places a cigarette in his mouth and is about to light it when a beam shoots from the television screen lighting it for him. Absentmindedly unaware of what has taken place, it is only when the television subsequently lights his pipe that West realizes that his television is behaving abnormally. West soon discovers that the television can walk and perform a variety of functions, including dishwashing, vacuuming, and card-playing. When the television deliveryman returns to settle the bill, the television materializes copies of a five-dollar bill in order to provide payment. Yet the television soon exhibits other, more controlling traits, permitting West only a single cup of coffee and breaking West’s classical music records in favor of military marches to which it dances. After West demonstrates the television to his friend Coach Trout, the coach declares the television set to be a “twonky”, the word he used as a child to label the inexplicable. Sci Fi Radio - 900318 - 26 - Yanqui Doodle by James Tiptree, Jr ******The story is about a soldier in a Latin American country of the near future, one where American troops are fighting against a popular rebellion of "Guévaristas" and are given a variety of drugs by their commanders to make them into "berserkers" and then to help them sleep at night after they have committed atrocities. Sci Fi Radio - xxxxxx - Voices Lost in Calling ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Total 0 folder(s); 23 file(s) Total files size: 121 MB; 121484 KB; 124399628 Bytes ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^