Golden Age Fiction

The Thrid were the most intelligent creatures in the universe—they said so themselves. So intelligent that they had the perfect government that could never be wrong! The Grand Panjandrum—the leader of the government—could never be mistaken! Provincial Governors' words were truth—none could be contradicted. If you did, you were a criminal, or insane...

"Manners and Customs of the Thrid" appeared in "Worlds of If Science Fiction," September 1963, pages 40 to 55.

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Murray Leinster (June 16, 1896 – June 8, 1975) was a pen name of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an American writer of genre fiction, particularly of science fiction. He wrote and published more than 1,500 short stories and articles, 14 movie scripts, and hundreds of radio scripts and television plays.

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man, of course, is king. But how about a live wire, a smart businessman, in a civilization of 100% pure chumps?

"The Marching Morons" appeared in "Galaxy Science Fiction", April 1951, on pages 128 to 158.

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Cyril M Kornbluth (July 2, 1923 – March 21, 1958) was an American science fiction author and a member of the Futurians. He used a variety of pen-names, including Cecil Corwin, S D Gottesman, Edward J Bellin, Kenneth Falconer, Walter C Davies, Simon Eisner, Jordan Park, Arthur Cooke, Paul Dennis Lavond, and Scott Mariner.

As a teenager, he became a member of the Futurians, an influential group of science fiction fans and writers. While a member of the Futurians, he met and became friends with Frederik Pohl, Donald A Wollheim, Robert A W Lowndes, and his future wife Mary Byers. He also participated in the Fantasy Amateur Press Association.

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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, or a genre you'd like me to include more of, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Enid Twilley's life was lived vicariously through shows on the TV. So, when a malfunction caused her television to stop working, she thought her life had come to an end. However, the unique nature of the malfunction provided an opportunity for her life to take a completely new turn...

"For Service Rendered" appeared in "Amazing Stories," April 1963, pages 99 to 113.

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Jesse Franklin Bone (1916-2006) was an American author and veterinarian whose writing gained prominence during the 'Golden Age of Science-Fiction' in the 1950's. His first story, "Survival Type" was published in "Galaxy," March 1957. His short-story "Triggerman" was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1959.

In addition to his science fiction books and short stories, he also authored the textbook "Animal Anatomy and Physiology," which was used widely in universities throughout the United States and internationally.

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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, or a genre you'd like me to include more of, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Morgue Ship

This was going to be Sam Burnett's last trip collecting bodies from the debris of space battles in this war. Once all one hundred shelves were filled, they would return to Earth, and he would be back among the living again. The ninety-eighth body, however, was different, unexpected, one of the enemy, important. But more than that, they weren't dead...

"Morgue Ship" appeared in "Planet Stories," Summer 1944, pages 51 to 57.

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Lazarus Come Forth

The crew of the Morgue Ship had found something in space that would end the three hundred year war between Earth and Mars. The only problem was getting it back to Earth.

"Lazarus Come Forth" appeared in "Planet Stories," Winter 1944, pages 107 to 111.

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Ray Douglas Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction.

Bradbury is widely known by the general public for his novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and his short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950) and The Illustrated Man (1951). Most of his best known work is speculative fiction, but he also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted into television and film productions as well as comic books.

The New York Times called Bradbury "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream."

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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, or a genre you'd like me to include more of, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

The Minstrel's Curse had plagued the Chilton women for almost two centuries, and Edith Chilton, namesake of the one who had been the cause of the curse all those years ago, knew that it would not be lifted this time, for she loved the wrong man...

"The Minstrel's Curse" appeared serialized in Norman L Munro's "New York Family Story Paper (volume XIX, numbers 952-955)" from January 2nd to 23rd, 1892.

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Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller (April 30, 1850 – December 26, 1937) was the pen name of Mittie Frances Clarke Point, an American novelist. She wrote 80 dime novels during a 50-year career. Her first novel was Rosamond, but her success began with the 1883 romance, The Bride of the Tomb. She died in 1937. In 1978, her home, "The Cedars", was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, or a genre you'd like me to include more of, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Flying through a clinging, blinding fog, Lieutenant Adams flew straight into a death trap of flashing enemy planes and flaming, stuttering machine guns.

"Rivals of the Clouds" appeared in "Triple-X Magazine," January 1929, pages 53 - 62.

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Raoul Whitfield (November 22, 1896 – January 24, 1945) was an American writer of adventure, aviation, and hardboiled crime fiction. During his writing career, from the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s, Whitfield published over 300 short stories and serials in pulp magazines, as well as nine books, including Green Ice (1930) and Death in a Bowl (1931). For his novels and contributions to the Black Mask, Whitfield is considered one of the original members of the hard-boiled school of American detective fiction and has been referred as "the Black Mask's forgotten man".

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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, or a genre you'd like me to include more of, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Your name is Merton and you find that all you have to do is reach into your safe to get money. The more you take, the more you find. And just when Quiggs has cut your future down to nothing. A wonderful discovery! Or is it? Of course it is. You'll be the richest man in the world. But will you?

"Peter Merton's Private Mint" appeared in "Fantastic", October 1956, pages 74 to 87.

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Harlan Jay Ellison (May 27, 1934 – June 28, 2018) was an American writer, known for his prolific and influential work in New Wave speculative fiction and for his outspoken, combative personality. His published works include more than 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, comic book scripts, teleplays, essays, and a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media.

Some of his best-known works include the 1967 Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever", considered by some to be the single greatest episode of the Star Trek franchise (he subsequently wrote a book about the experience that includes his original teleplay), his "A Boy and His Dog" cycle (which was made into a film), and his short stories "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" and "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman". He was also editor and anthologist for Dangerous Visions (1967) and Again, Dangerous Visions (1972). Ellison won numerous awards, including multiple Hugos, Nebulas, and Edgars.

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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, or a genre you'd like me to include more of, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Gibberne's nerve stimulant, The New Accelerator, which could speed a man up to two or three times normal, was going to revolutionise human life.

"The New Accelerator" appeared in "Amazing Stories," April 1926, pages 57 to 61 and 96.

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Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, history, popular science, satire, biography, and autobiography. Wells' science fiction novels are so well regarded that he has been called the "father of science fiction".

As a futurist, he wrote a number of utopian works and foresaw the advent of aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television and something resembling the World Wide Web. His science fiction imagined time travel, alien invasion, invisibility and biological engineering before these subjects were common in the genre. Brian Aldiss referred to Wells as the "Shakespeare of science fiction."

Wells rendered his works convincing by instilling commonplace detail alongside a single extraordinary assumption per work – dubbed "Wells' Law." His most notable science fiction works include The Time Machine (1895), which was his first novel, The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898), the military science fiction The War in the Air (1907), and the dystopian When the Sleeper Wakes (1910).

Wells was a diabetic and co-founded the charity The Diabetic Association (Diabetes UK) in 1934.

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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, or a genre you'd like me to include more of, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

A week of rain had undermined the tracks, causing the train to derail. But the nearest place to land was twelve miles away! How was Nick Wentworth, chief pilot of the U. S. Air Patrol, going to land an Army transport hastily converted into an air ambulance in such awful conditions? And how was he going to get to the injured survivors of the train wreck? 

"Flood Waters" appeared in "The Blue Book Magazine", June 1929, pages 39 to 48.

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Leland Jamieson (1904-1941) was a writer of aviation adventure fiction.

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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, or a genre you'd like me to include more of, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

The Square Pegs

Lisabeth was not insane, not according to her, and not according to Asteroid Thirty-Six, where she was being taken by her brother and sisters, where the old Catherine the Great had died, and where they were waiting for the new one to arrive. Her!

"The Square Pegs" appeared in "Thrilling Wonder Stories," October 1948, pages 101 to 108.

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Defense Mech

Halloway stared down at Earth, and his brain tore loose and screamed, Man, man, how'd you get in a mess like this, in a rocket a million miles past the moon, shooting for Mars and danger and terror and maybe death.

"Defense Mech" appeared in "Planet Stories," Spring 1946, pages 42 - 49.

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Ray Douglas Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction.

Bradbury is widely known by the general public for his novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and his short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950) and The Illustrated Man (1951). Most of his best known work is speculative fiction, but he also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted into television and film productions as well as comic books.

The New York Times called Bradbury "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream".

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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, or a genre you'd like me to include more of, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.