Journey #61 - The Boy Who Could Bend and Fall by Ken Scholes

Focus Jones, a.k.a Slinky Boy, has an interesting way of escaping his reality.

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Ken Scholes grew up in a trailer outside a smallish logging town not far from the base of Mount Rainier in the Pacific Northwest.  Baptized into Story at a young age, he fed himself on Speed Racer, Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants and Marine Boy sprinkled with a generous dose of dinosaur picture books.  When he was thirteen, he read Bradbury's essay "How to Keep and Feed a Muse" and knew he had to be a writer. When he was fourteen, he started writing stories of his own and by fifteen, he had started his own Rejection Slip Collection. 

After a long break away from writing, Ken returned to it after logging time as a sailor, soldier, preacher, musician, label gun repairman, retail manager and nonprofit director. He sold his first story to Talebones Magazine in 2000 and won the Writers of the Future contest in 2004. His quirky, offbeat fiction continues to show up in various magazines and anthologies like Polyphony 6, Weird Tales and Clarkesworld Magazine.

In 2006, his short story "Of Metal Men and Scarlet Thread and Dancing with the Sunrise" appeared in the August issue of Realms of Fantasy. Later that year, inspired and taunted by his friends and family to finally write a novel, Ken extended that story aand Lamentation was born. Lamentation is the first in a five book series from Tor Books called The Psalms of Isaak.  He has since also written Canticle, Antiphon, and Requiem in that series.

Ken lives near Portland, Oregon, with his amazing wonder-wife Jen West Scholes and their twin daughters: Elizabeth and Rachel.  If you'd like to know more about Ken, you can  contact him through his website or through his blog. 

Special Thanks to Christopher Munroe for producing this story.

Christopher Munroe is a author/actor/comedian from Calgary, Alberta whose fiction has appeared in the Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, the Way of the Buffalo and Journey Into… podcasts, and numerous other places around the web, and whose debut novel, Broken Escalator, is available now in eBook and as a podcast at Podiobooks. He likes words and ideas, and occasionally has trouble seeing the difference between horror and comedy, which has led to unexpectedly amusing stories and absolutely terrifying standup sets…

Cast of characters:

Christopher Munroe as the Narrator, and Focus Jones
Brad Duffy as Someone
Alex McDonald as Another
Cliff Lowe as Ninja Bob
Kat Fullerton as Angela and/or Focus' wife
Laurence Simon as Uncle Joe
Michelle Ristuccia as Aunt Margaret
Alex Mackie as the Guidance Counselor
Becky Shrimpton as the Real Counselor

Realated Links:

"Edward Bear and the Very Long Walk" by Ken Scholes on Escape Pod
Salvdore Dali

Spellbound (1945)
2001: A Space Odyssey
Solaris (2002)
Sphere
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll


Music used in this production:
"Trippy" by Voice


Several sound effects were found at freesound.org.


Theme music: Liberator by Man In Space

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Journey #60 - Space Patrol: Commander Corry

This is how Commander Buzz Corry received his position.

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The success of the Space Patrol TV show on ABC spawned an almost instant radio version, which ran from 4 October 1952 to 19 March 1955 producing approximately 129 episodes. The same cast of actors performed on both shows. The writers, scripts, adventures and director had some crossover between the radio and TV incarnations however; the radio broadcasts were not limited by the studio sets and became more expansive in scope and story than the television version.  Although there was seldom any deliberate crossing-over of storylines, some of the television villains regularly appeared on the radio (notably Prince Bacarratti).

Theme music: Liberator by Man In Space


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Journey #59 - The Masque of the Red Death by Lee Lackey

Esther, a black nurse working in white hospital in 1920 during the Spanish Flu epidemic, wonders why some of the less affected patients are dying.

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Lee Lackey is an editor for AetherBound Press, as well as a frequent short story writer. The story “Hotel of the Damned, Gazing on the Beach” was co-written by Lee and Tom Ribas, and subsequently published by Schlock Magazine. Lee’s first full-length novel, Curse of the Twisted Rose, is available now from Grey Gecko Press.

Special Thanks to Laurice White for narrating this story.

Cast of characters:

Laurice White (of itsthavoice! Productions) as the Narrator, and Esther
Jimmy Rogers (of Synthetic Voices) as Dr. Coleman
Julie Hoverson (of 19 Nocturne Boulevard) as the night nurse
Robbie Latham as Jimmy
Marshal Latham as Mr. Brooks

Realated Links:
The 1918-1920 Spanish Flu Epidemic
African Americans, Public Health, and the 1918 Influenza Epidemic
The Following TV series on Fox
The Raven (2011)
List of Roger Corman - Poe films


Music used in this production:
"Long Note One" and "Chase" by Kevin MacLeod
"Black and Tan Fantasy" by Duke Ellington

Several sound effects were found at freesound.org.


Theme music: Liberator by Man In Space

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Journey #58 - Maunscript Found in a Bottle by Edgar Allan Poe

A tale of one man's journey aboard a peculiar ship with a more peculiar crew hurling toward an unknown fate.

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Special Thanks to Dave Robison for narrating this story.

Episode art was made using the work of Entangled-Minds from DeviantART.com

Realated Links:
Protecting Project Pulp
The Round Table Podcast
Atys, a French opera by Jean-Baptiste Lully and Philippe Quinault
The Hollow Earth Theory
H. P. Lovecraft's quotes about Poe
The Strange Tale of Edgar Allan Poe and Jules Verne

Music used in this production:
PS1 (Dungeon) and Tempest by SUR



Theme music: Liberator by Man In Space

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Side Trip #5 - New Media Expo Panel - Tone and Emotion: The Keys to Compelling Podcast Fiction Narration

A panel featuring Renee Chambliss, Bryan Lincoln, and myself.

 
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Theme music: Surfs Down by Man In Space.

 

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Journey #57 - The Fall of the House of Usher by Shaun Graham

Sam Usher lives a lonely life in his office building, not even realizing thevalue he has in his daughter, Hope.

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Shaun Graham is a 23 year old student of American Literature and Culture at the University of Hamburg in Germany. His Edgar Allan Poe pastiche "The Fall of the House of Usher" is his first published short story. Having an ever-growing appetite for creativity he loves to write short pieces and has also dipped his toes into photography, writing music and board game design. Currently he is passionate about the stories from his childhood, such as Winnie-the-Pooh, Grimms Fairytales and The Stories of Uncle Remus. You can keep up with Shaun on GoogePlus or by taking a left turn right behind Brer Rabbits house, somewhere beyond the Hundred-Acre Wood.


Related Links:
The Ghosts of New York by Jennifer Pelland on Podcastle
Usher's Passing by Robert McCammon

Music used in this production:
Heartbreaking by Kevin MacLeod


Theme music: Liberator by Man In Space

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Journey #56 - Edgar Allan Poe-etry: Annabel Lee, The City in the Sea, and The Bells

Here are some poems of wonder and woe, written by a man named Edgar Allan Poe.

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Special thanks to B.J. Harrison of the Classic Tales Podcast, and John Robinson of NeedCoffee.com for allowing me to use their narations.

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 and became an American author, poet, editor and literary critic. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre, as well as the genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career. Poe died in 1849, in Baltimore, under mysterious circumstances, but he left us with a legacy of tales of wonder and woe, the marvelous and the macabre.

In the preface to The Raven and Other Poems , Poe commented, “Events not to be controlled have prevented me from making, at any time, any serious effort in what, under happier circumstances, would have been the field of my choice. With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence; they must not — they cannot at will be excited with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind.”

Related links:

Stan Lee reading Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven"

Some pictures of the panel at New Media Expo

Music and sound effects were found on Freesound.org

Theme music by Man In Space

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