BBC Neuromancer Radio Play

I read William Gibson's sprawl series, in which Neuromancer is the first of a three part series. Gibson, although the first is credited for creating the word cyberspace. I remember reading this series for the first time while at the university. Being a IT major I remember this series changing the way I looked the world and the world of technology.

"So I went out into the night and the neon and let the crowd pull me along, walking blind, willing myself to be just a segment of that mass organism, just one more drifting chip of consciousness under the geodesics."

Automatic Jack

William Gibson, Neuromancer

There are two one hours segments to this radio play.

1. Part 1
2. Part 2

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More BBC Sci-Fi Radio Plays

Two Interesting Science Fiction Novels

Recently, while browsing the Feedbooks site I came across two interesting science fiction titles. Although I have read a lot of this genre, it has been while since I had done so and I was searching for something different and found these two titles:

The Defenders, Philip K. Dick (epub)
The Defenders, Philip K. Dick (LibriVox)

The Defenders is short story by Philip K. Dick. “No weapon has ever been frightful enough to put a stop to war--perhaps because we never before had any that thought for themselves

Starfish, Peter Watts (epub)

“A huge international corporation has developed a facility along the Juan de Fuca Ridge at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean to exploit geothermal power. They send a bio-engineered crew--people who have been altered to withstand the pressure and breathe the seawater--down to live and work in this weird, fertile undersea darkness.”

Feedbooks

Three LibriVox audio books by Jules Verne

There have been some books that I haven’t been able to get through while reading them. Sometimes having them read to you seems to gets you through those tough spots. I addition sometimes listing to a story can be very relaxing. You can be sitting in your study or out in nature listing to the story unfold with nature all around you.

Although I haven’t ever had a hard time getting through any works of Jules Verne’s, here are three audio books by Verne that I recently came across:

• Dick Sands the Boy Captain
• Five Weeks in a Balloon
• The Fur Country

Captain Nemo

The Captain Nemo character is a creation of Jules Vern and was first mentioned in Verne’s “Twenty Thousands Leagues under the Sea” and then again in Verne’s “Mysterious Island”. Since these appearances the character of Capt. Nemo has been portrayed in many different forms and characterized in the popular culture. The character of Captain Nemo has appeared in 67 different comics, in several books, as a miniature, and in a few movies.

The many different characterizations of Captain Nemo I have encountered already have me wanting to explore and expound on this character further in upcoming blog posts.

Professor Plum

Professor Plum is another miniature found on the Game Crafter. Professor Plum is 43mm in size and is game token from the board game Clue.

From the Characters of the Board Game Clue page “Professor Plum would have been said to be the smartest man on the planet if he wasn't so scatterbrained”.

Collingwood verses Verne

After reading Harry Collingwood’s “The Pirate Island, a Story of the South Pacific”, I was tempted to continue reading from Collingwood’s collection of novels. The Project Guntenberg offers a large list of Collingwood’s literature. I was especially interested in the mention of Collingwood’s “A Story of the Russo-Japanese War”, one of the few stories written about this era and his “With Airship and Submarine”, which seems to me like a pre-steampunk genre.

Although Collingwood’s novels are begging to be read they will have to wait until I read another of Jules Verne’s. I have wanted to get through as many of his texts from his Voyages Extraordinaires, so I am now reading Verne’s Master of the World. The text can be found here as an epub, or as a LibriVox recording. Enjoy!

Short Science Fiction Collection Volume 001

I started to listen to the Short Science Fiction Collection Volume 001 that I had downloaded from Librivox, over the weekend. The collection of audio books includes a collection of ten science fiction short stories. The stories range in time from 12 to 44 minutes and give you about five hours of running time. I have listened to seven so far and have enjoyed all the stories so far. I have noted those that I especially liked with a (*). Listening to an audio book is very rewarding and allows you to digest literature while out for a walk which I enjoy to do.

The stories can be downloaded separately or as the collection. Here is the list of the stories, with their authors and running times.

1. *The 4D Doodler by Graph Waldeyer – 00:34:01
2. *Bread Overhead by Fritz Leiber – 00:38:18
3. *Image of the Gods by Alan Edward Nourse – 00:36:07
4. Martian V. F. W. by G L Vandenburg – 00:13:44
5. *One Shot by James Blish – 00:33:08
6. Out Around Rigel by Robert H. Wilson – 00:43:28
7. *Pygmalion’s Spectacles by Stanley Grauman Weinbaum – 00:44:42
8. *The Repairman by Harry Harrison – 00:28:41
9. Toy Shop by Harry Harrison – 00:12:04
10. Warning From The Stars by Ron Cocking – 00:41:55

My spring 2013 Reading List

Here is a list of epubs that I have downloaded and intend to read in the spring of 2013:

• Tender is the Night, 1934, F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Anthem, 1937, Ayn Rand
• Barnaby Rudge, 1841, Charles Dickens
• The Pathfinder, 1840, James Fenimore Cooper
• Utopia, 1516, Thomas More (audio book)
• Around the World in Eighty Days, 1873, Jules Verne
• The Count of Monte Christo, 1844, Alexander Dumas
• The Most Dangerous Game, 1924, Richard Cornell

“So many books, so little time”, Frank Zappa