I’ve been in the car a lot more than usual lately, so I’ve been listening to The Minority Report and other Stories by Phillip K. Dick, read by Keir Dullea (best known as Dave Bowman in 2001.) It’s a fantastic collection of unabridged stories, and Mr. Dullea does PKD’s stories more justice than any of their adapted film counterparts.[1]
It’s been captivating and entertaining to hear him bring stories like We Can Remember it for You Wholesale and Paycheck to life, but it’s also been terrifically inspiring to me. One night about three weeks ago, while driving home and listening, one phrase he spoke came out of my speakers, hit me in that part of my brain that makes me want to be a writer, and knocked out a story idea that has refused to let me do anything else until I bring it into the world and make it real.[2]
Stephen King advises writers to read a lot. If you’re not going to make time to read, he says, you’re never going to make time to write.[3] Harlan Ellison once said that writers shouldn’t write what they know as much as they should write what they love and wish there was more of in the world.[4] It’s good advice that’s kept me focused and given me a justification to read as much as I can without feeling as guilty about it as . . . well, as I do.[5]
Since I don’t have as much time as I’d like to actually read a book, I listen to them when I’m driving, when I’m on the train, and occasionally when I’m at home. There’s also something special about listening to a great actor — like Keir Dullea, for example — performing a great work of literature that speaks to me (ha. ha. ha.) on a different level than reading alone.
So now that I’m nearly done with this audiobook, I went looking for something else. I’ve enjoyed PKD so much, I thought I’d stick with the masters and maybe pick up something from Bradbury or Asimov that my friends would be horrified to learn I hadn’t already read.[6]
While I was browsing, I came across a couple of stories from Asimov that were dramatized on something called Dimension X. A bit of research revealed that Dimension X was a Sci-Fi radio program in the 50s. It was a collaboration between Astounding and NBC, featuring dramatized works from some of the greatest SF writers of the 20th century, like Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Kurt Vonnegut, and Jack Williamson.[7]
A bit of further research revealed that Dimension X is in the public domain, and nearly all of its episodes are available at Archive.org. I listened to The Outer Limit and Nightfall today, and plan to work my way through the remaining episodes over the next several weeks while I finish this SF story that desperately wants to enter our world, if I’d just stop talking about it, and actually hold open the goddamn door.
[1] Don’t buy it from Audible, though. The transfer sound quality is terrible and there are no tracks within each disc when you burn it to CD. Lame.
[2] Delusions of grandeur FTW!
[3] He says this and much more in On Writing . . ., which every writer should read at least once a year.
[4] He then ate a baby for breakfast. Allegedly. Score 100 points if you get this reference without using the Internet. Hell, score yourself 1000 points, actually.
[5]I have this "I should be working now" complex that’s taken over my life
lately, and it seriously cockblocks me a lot of the time.
[6] My best friend Darin, it turns out, still hasn’t seen The Godfather. See how horrified you are? It would so much worse if you knew that, for example, I haven’t read — Ha. Like I’m actually going to tell you. But trust me. You’d think so much less of me, it’s probably best that we pretend this note doesn’t exist beyond the point where I point out that Darin hasn’t seen The Godfather. I mean, WTF? He’s seen Lion King a hundred times, but not The Godfather?
[7] If you enjoy pulp science fiction like the stories from Astounding, you will love this collection called Retro Pulp Tales, from Subterranean Press. I sprung for the lettered edition, because I’m becoming that guy with all those books in my old age.
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What a post, what a discovery, thanks Wil!
Come on! Tell us which books!
Wil, we promise, we won’t tell ANYBODY what books you haven’t read. Honest!
Back in the mid ’70s I was a computer field engineer for Digital Equipment. The fringes of our service area were all about an hour drive away. I used to tape the “CBS Radio Mystery Hour” to use on these drives. A couple of years ago I found a fan site (it escapes me now) that contained the entire collection of 1400+ episodes in MP3 format. I have them all now and play them in the car on trips. Some contain the original commercials and news breaks, as all were recorded off the air by fans. It is quite nostalgic and takes me back to those “good old days”!
jhm783-I bought “CBS Radio Mystery Theater” (1974-1982, 1,399 Shows) for my husband online a few years ago. All nicely packaged on DVD, four discs worth. WONDERFUL listening!
I loved Paul Giamatti’s reading of A Scanner Darkly. I’m very slowly going through eMusic’s library of stuff I’ve never read but don’t feel strongly enough about to kill trees. The most recent was Spider Robinson’s “The Callahan Chronicles,” which was also excellent, notwithstanding the reader’s “Irish” accent. It made for great bus listening–I always felt happy when I got into work.
SP
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who thinks the majority of Audible’s output sucks donkey balls.
I really wanted to be one of their charter subscribers back in the day, but the driver for their MP3 device blew up my computer. Later I bought some Dr. Seuss items from iTunes that were Audible provided, and the sound quality was horrible. Never again.
There’s a nice piece of shareware called GoldWave (www.goldwave.com) that detects pauses in Audible downloads and divides them into “chapters” that are manageable and easy to bookmark.
If you’ve never heard the shows over at scifi.com’s Seeing Ear Theater -http://www.scifi.com/set/ (edit: audio streams do not function!!) make sure you check them out! Their version of Neil Gaiman’s “Murder Mystery” with Brian Dennehy is fantastic. All of Straczynski’s City of Dreams episodes are great. I especially like “The Damned Are Playing At Godzilla’s Tonight” featuring Steve Buscemi. I personally prefer radio theater to a straight audiobook. EDIT: Now that I checked it looks like none of the streams work at the scifi.com site. Does anyone know where you can still listen to these?
I just finished that same audiobook and loved it. If you haven’t already you should check out I, Robot narrated by my favorite narrator Scott Brick. The Ender and Bean series by Orson Scott Card are also great listens that I’ve listened to repeatedly.
There are lots of classic and neoclassic movies that I have not only not seen, but have no desire to see. This list includes The Godfather. You may now be horrified.
(I have only seen The Lion King once, however, and that only because I was dragged by friends.)
Wil,
So much great art and not enough time.
FG
I think I am more surprised that you haven’t heard of Dimension X more than I’m surprised you haven’t read — (even if I don’t know what — is!). I grew up with old time radio (otr) on the local am radio station (I’m 31 not 80 years old…honest!). We’d try to pull it in with our radios when camping. Nothing is scarier than “The Whistler” or “Suspense” when you are in the middle of the woods. I now listen to downloaded otr on my mp3 player at night to quiet my racing mind and fall asleep (working through Theatre Five right now). I went through a crazy collecting spree and now have close to 100GB of unique programs. HOLY! I just looked and that is equal to ~13,000 files. If they are all half hour shows (and my math is right!) that would be 271 days straight of listening. Wow. I gotta go…I have some listening to do!
Wow that is some good stuff.
My question to you is where can I get a copy of you reading “Why I left Harries All Night Berger Stand” I had that on tape back around 1994 and that was the one story I listened to over and over.
This evening I noticed that Audible.com has Harlan reading “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and I could only imagine his take… “That c*cksucker Nemo and his motherf*cking sea cucumbers the size of whale d*cks…”
I was lucky enough to take a master class with Kier Dullea in college. It’s one of the first times that I realized that I could LEARN to act rather than just acting.
Clay
I second the recommendation of SciFi.com’s Seeing Ear Theater – I bought a couple of their cassette compilations back in the ’90’s and would also love to be able to hear the online programmes again.
Oh, and Wil? I haven’t seen The Godfather either – and I’m in my 40’s…
If you like Dimension X you should also check out X Minus One. It used some of the same storylines but also did many more different episodes. It’s also available on the Internet Archive
wil wheaton, you celebrity, you.
ChuckEye, I would die to hear Harlan’s take! He should do it. I’d so buy them.
Wil, I’ve just discovered the wonderous convenience of audiobooks, or podiobooks as my friend has corrected me. The one part I don’t like are that many of them are abridged. I hate that someone decided what I didn’t need to hear. That being said, the audio World War Z was awesome though.
My current one is Infection by Scott Sigler. Available as a free download in iTunes.
Thanks for the link, Wil. I bought a bunch of Suspense episodes through the Radio Spirit catalog a few years back to listen to while driving. I can’t wait to download some more. Thanks!
PodShow has TONS of Old Time Radio shows, each with a different theme: SciFi, Mystery, Comedy, Detective, Horror, Suspense, Thrillers… all very good with major names like Rod Serling and Orson Wells, with adaptations from both stage plays and short stories. The Thrillers and Scifi are the best (for me), my favorite shows being Dimension X, X Minus One, and 2000 plus (“stories told in the future tense!!”). All have RSS feeds and HUGE back catalogues.
Wil, if you haven’t, be sure to check out the audiobook of _On Writing_. I keep it in regular rotation in the car. There’s something about hearing it read, hearing what gets emphasized and what gets hand-waved, that’s doubly informative.
It’s a terrific audiobook. It spoiled me on countless others.
(You can get it on iTunes, though the sound quality is inconsistent in that Audible way. I don’t know where to get CDs of it anymore.)
I’ve been kicking around an idea for a couple weeks now that just won’t go away. I only mention it here because it’s a script idea and every time I think about it I picture Wil in the lead. Now this posts comes along and I’m jazzed about it again. I’m going to have to take pen to paper today I just now it.
You might also like X Minus 1 or, X – 1. It aired a lot of the same shows I guess, don’t know if they were remade or not. Also can be found in mp3 format.
I’ve never really listened to audiobooks — I don’t normally spend that much time in the car, and when I take long driving trips I’d rather be listening to music. Sounds like an interesting collection, though.
And, I’m 37 and I’ve never seen any of the Godfather movies.
What
A
Freaking
Incredible
Discovery!
I’m probably going to need to buy a new hard drive to download all of these old radio classics.. War of the Worlds, Superman, Green Hornet, AAH! I’m in heaven!
Dude, you rock!
BTW.. Audible kinda blows because of the DRM crap.. BUT.. *cough*There are ways around that…*cough* Once converted to OGG vorbis, I use my wonderful iRiver H-140, complete with RockBox firmware, to listen to them. RockBox has automatic bookmarks, so it makes listening very enjoyable.. 🙂
Thank you SO MUCH for posting this. I used to listen to X-1 on the radio when I was a kid and it would seriously creep me out. I can’t wait to llisten to them all! WHOOO!!
Loved the post, hope you get your story out soon… You are a really great storyteller!!!Thanks for beinmg you…
Your Muse will always strike when you least expect it. 🙂
When you’re lucky, you remember it; if you’re really lucky, you have pen and paper nearby.
Good luck with your new project!
~PJ~
I haven’t read The Left Hand of Darkness. I know, I KNOW. I’m working on it! It is on my list. I have it in my possession….I just need it to be summer time again. The GD TV is controlling my life right now. I can’t escape it!!! I hate the season! It is not even anything good.
Yay, new Wil story!
Dimension X looks nifty! I wonder whatever happened to Alein Voices–Leonard Nimoy and some other Trek actors doing radio shows of classic sci-fi. They did a few of them on (I think) the sci-fi channel when I was in college, and they were so fun.
What a great post!
Wil, thanks for linking to those sites. I read the Asimov and Heinlein books/stories and some of the others way back when, so I’m looking forward to listening to the adaptations.
Also, I’m 50, not 80, and I have seen The Godfather but not the sequels. And I’ve seen The Lion King probably 50 times and Disney’s Tarzan at least 25 times (4 times in a movie theater, because I liked it that much!).
Have a great day.
Hey, when does your episode of Numb3rs air?
I really can spell “alien”… *facepalm*
I’ve never liked fiction in audiobook format, but I’ll listen to radio programs, and the occasional non-fiction. Am I the only one? Have I just never had the right audiobook?
I recently listened to the audiobook version of “Fahrenheit 451” (one of all too many books I’d been embarrassed to admit I hadn’t yet read). It’s read by Bradbury himself and definitely worth a listen.
I picked it up from my local library – a lifesaver for audiobibliophiles (is that a word?) on a budget.
Retro Pulp Tales? Holy Crap! I know (slightly) two of the guys with stories in that book.
Weird – I just listened to Nightfall a week or so ago on a science fiction podcast. That was great. I like to think of ‘The Nine Billion Names of God” as a companion piece to that 🙂
(also – yay, CBS Radio Mystery Theater. I bought that set a couple years ago. I grew up listening to it, and still enjoy it.)
XM has a lot of the shows that have been talked about (Dimension X, Suspense, etc) on their OTR channel 164. I love it and pretty much listen to that and 163 (Sonic Theater) all of the time!
Sonic also has been playing a lot of the audio books of Orson Scott Card. They started w/Ender’s Game.
Wil’s right about Audible (should be “Barely Audible”), avoid them like the plague. The sound quality is horrible, you can’t understand what any of the actors are saying in the car at all.
Write about trips you’ve taken on the train.
Let me guess on what you haven’t read: The Lord of the Rings. You have not read The Lord of the Rings. If so, shame, shame. Well, not really shame, just make the time to read it if you haven’t.
In your Copious Free Time you could do worse than have a listen to BBC7 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/). They plunder the BBC archives for old radio programmes, and have an hour a day of science fiction, which includes everything from readings of “Brave New World” to productions of “Mort” and “Small Gods”. This week there’s a reading of “Slaughterhouse 5”, which started on Monday. They keep the last six days online, so you’re not too late!
Do I get a bonus point if it’s “Slaughterhouse 5” that you haven’t read? 😉
I didn’t read the above comments. But from what I’ve heard of the irascible Ellison, it reminds me of his likenesses happy euthanization in “Bimbos of the Death Sun,” a nice little book for con goers that has more than a few references to people I actually know (or knew at one time), Ellison, and a few others. VTSFFC people rule(d).
Long live the memory of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
I have to recommend the SciFi podcast Escape Pod, as it is my main conduit to finding new science fiction these days. I’m well versed in the classics, but would pretty much curl up with Heinlein & Asimov permanently if it weren’t for weekly doses of newer work in my podcast list.
Dimension X! I have a few of those on tape. A Vancouver radio station (101.1) has a sweet radio drama program on Sunday nights 10-Midnight. It’s not all drama though. I used to listen every week. I think I have Nightfall on tape, too. I should give it another listen.
Okay…
well, so a lot of people told you already that old time radio is mega cool; let me just add: if you like Dimension X, you’ll also like X Minus One which is basically the same show under a different name 2 years later or so.
And as one of the greatest Asimov fans alive (I have about 260 of his books), I wish you lots of fun with his science fiction. Foundation is one of the greatest stories ever, and I would love to have a chance to read it for the first time again (which, obviously, is not possible).
Anyway… one book that I have never read is ‘Just a geek’, but I ordered it from amazon today. I am pretty sure you know that one 😉
hey Wil, it’s cool to see you plugging Pulp revival stuff. I am just finishing up the first three chapter instalment of a three part serielized tale to be published some time early next year. (first published work, woohoo!) it will than be collected together and reissued as a stand alone novel.
also, if you, or anyone else is interested, there’s a great database of downloadable PDFs of original pulp stories with all the spot illustrations, etc. at: Online Pulps
Wil (and others):
You want to get the audiobook “The Witches of Chiswick”, read by the author, Robert Rankin.
Trust me.
“On Writing” is an awesome book. Very, very informative for writers.