Journey #64 - Fire Watch by Connie Willis (presented by Seeing Ear Theatre)

Young Bartholomew is a graduate student in history from a future Oxford who is assigned to travel back in time to join and study the famous Fire Watch Brigade-the volunteer corps whose brave members kept St. Paulâs Cathedral from being burned to the ground by Nazi incendiaries.

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Connie Willis was  born on 31 December 1945 is an American science fiction (SF) writer. She has won eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards. Her first published story, "The Secret of Santa Titicaca," appeared in Worlds of Fantasy in 1971. After receiving an NEA grant in 1982, she left her teaching job and became a full-time writer.

Willis has written several pieces involving time travel by history students at a faculty of the future University of Oxford.   It all started with  short story "Fire Watch" (found in the collection of the same name) and the novels Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, as well as the two-part novel Blackout/All Clear. All of the Oxford Time Travel stories have won the Hugo Award, and all but To Say Nothing of the Dog have won both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award.

She lives in Greeley, Colorado with her husband, Courtney.


SEEING EAR THEATRE was an extension of the SCI-Fi Channel, and produced audio dramas between 1997 and 2001.  Dozens of Science Fiction and Fantasy stories were produced by a dedicated and talented crew of multimedia artists, writers, actors and musicians and delivered “radio” drama via streaming audio. It managed to capture some of the top living SF writers of today, like Harlan Ellision, J. Michael Straczynski, Connie Willis, Neil Gaiman, and Kim Stanley Robinson. It also produced some classic stories, from the likes of Fredric Brown, Poul Anderson, and William Tenn.

Cast and crew:

Sebastian Roché as Bartholomew
Rika Daniel as Frieda
Ian Reed as Langby
George Holmes as Professor Dunworthy
Nicky as the cat
also Rita Ben-Or, Anthony Ferguson, Nicholas Haylett, Gideon Juvenal, Ron Keith, Giovanni Pucci, John Rainer, Dieter Riesele, Vicki Stuart, and Felix Van Dyke

Produced and Directed by George Zarr
Story adapted for audio by Tony Daniel
Sound Design by John Colucci
Vocalists, Paul Amadeo and Cheri Leone
Guitars, John Colucci and Robert Legault
Original lyrics by Tony Daniel
Original music by George Zarr

Realated Links:
SFF Audio
The London Blitz
Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Blackout, and All Clear by Connie Willis
Doctor Who on Netflix
Dr Who S1E9 - The Empty Child
Barrage Ballons

Music used in this production:
"Largo" by Dvorak
Doctor Who Theme

Theme music: Liberator by Man In Space

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Journey #63 - The Age-Old Question by Christopher Munroe

Never ask a woman her age, yet a young husband feels compelled to do just that.

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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…

Special Thanks to Eric J. Blommel for narrating this story.  Eric is a counseling psychology graduate student. big time nerd. cci-fi and fantasy fan, long time computer geek, and brand new aquaponics gardner.

Realated Links:
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Groundhog Day
Doctor Who on Netflix
Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Blackout, and All Clear by Connie Willis
Back To the Future Trilogy
12 Monkeys
Timeline by Michael Crichton (and its bad movie adaptation)
A Wrinkle in Time by H. G. Wells
The Time Machine by Madeline L'Engle

Music used in this production:
"Frannie" by Josh Woodward

Theme music: Liberator by Man In Space

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Journey #62 - Lieutenant Hornblower: Court of Inquiry by C.S. Forester (presented by BBC)

Upon overtaking the Spanish fort on Haiti, Lieutenant Hornblower and his fellow officers are in a position to negotiate surrender and to bombard any attempted escape.  However, a court of inquiry awaits them when they return to the British shores of Jamaica.

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The radio series "The Hornblower Story" (1968-69) was adapted from four of the Hornblower books by C.S.Forester. Dramatised into 20 half-hour parts by Val Gielgud, it was produced by Trevor Hill, and directed by Trevor Hill and Christopher Hayton Webb. Music by Johnny Pearson, special effects by David Fleming-Williams, Jack Hollinshead in conjunction with the Sea Training Association.


Theme music: Liberator by Man In Space


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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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