Ron's Amazing Stories

On this program we have three great stories!  One comes from you, another from Arthur C. Clarke and a third from LibriVox.org. Sounds like a good show to me!

In a universe consisting of one star and one planet, there is a mysterious impenetrable wall surrounding it. Two men: one with money, the other with building skills. Together they construct a ramp that will allow them to at last, scale the wall. The answer they find is as baffling as the question.

That is how I best describe our main story from Arthur C. Clarke. The tale is called Wall of Darkness and first appeared in Super Science Stories magazine in July of 1949. What we will hear is from a show done by Sci-Fi radio sometime in late 1989.

 

You can listen to it right here!

Well, I am back after a week of memorable fun. Having such a great time it became clear to me that I had to come back with a ghostly comedy. That’s right for only the second time in Ron’s Amazing Stories history our story for this episode is meant to be funny.

 

Our story comes from the NBC series Screen Directors’ Playhouse.  It is a radio adaptation of the 1940 film The Ghost Breakers, which is a comedy directed by George Marshall. Its cast includes Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard. On a side note the film was adapted from the play The Ghost Breaker by Paul Dickey and Charles W. Goddard. Along with great films like, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and The Cat and the Canary, Ghost Breakers is cited as a prime example of the classic Hollywood horror-comedy.  It first aired on the radio on April 3, 1949.

Also, Included in this episode is a special second story called The Stone Coffin. You can listen to the entire show right here.

On today’s program we are going hear all about how a land baron ruled his world in the old west and how that ties in to a poem written in the 1800s.  Mat Dillon is here to take us to Dodge City and clue us in.

Our story for this episode involves a famous poem by Percy Shelley written in 1817. It is called Ozymandias. John Meston, one of the writers and creator of Gunsmoke, liked thought of fallen empires and ancient history and created an episode to embody Shellie’s work. The end result is a western version of Ozimandias, which first aired on January 15, 1957.

Ozymandias By Percy Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away".

On this episode of Ron’s Amazing Stories we have a first. I have been asking for your stories for years and you have provided them. I am thankful and appreciate you sharing them. However, until now none of you have wanted to come on the program and tell us all about it. That changes with this chapter of the program.

 

Mr. Ray Peyton of Louisiana breaks though the line and not only talks about his story, but tells us what it is like to be a contractor in Iraq. In 2011 while listening to helicopters and jets pass over his head he wrote a tale called, Toy Soldiers. On this episode he shares that story and its origins with us.

This is a special episode of the show. Today we celebrate the 200th episode of Ron's Amazing stories. We have two creepy tales from the pen of Edgar Allan Poe. If that was not enough we get a wonderful visit from the Podcast Guru and friend to the program Mr. Jim Harold. You are going to love this one!    Our first tale, The Cask of Amontillado is by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in the November 1846 issue of Godey's Lady's Book. The story is set in an Italian city at carnival time and is about a man taking fatal revenge on a friend who, he believes, has insulted him. Like several of Poe's stories, and in keeping with the 19th-century fascination with the subject, the narrative revolves around a person being buried alive—in this case, by immurement. As in The Black Cat and The Tell-Tale Heart, Poe conveys the story from the murderer's perspective.    The second story also comes from the pen of Poe and is the Inner Sanctum's version of the Tell-Tale heart. This one aired in August of 1941 on CBS radio.     You can listen to this story right here.

As promised from last week on this episode we will have a visit from Sherlock Holmes and two stories from you.  A word of warning: At first glance today’s mystery may seem a bit on the polite side, but I urge you to hold on, because before it is through, skulls will be crushed. Don’t say I didn’t give you fair notice.  Our story today comes from Basil Rathbone and Sir Nigel Bruce. In my humble opinion they were the best to have played Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. They did this on both radio and the movies screen. In fact they stared in over 220 episodes in radio alone. The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes aired in the USA from 1939 to 1947. The radio stories were action packed, filled with atmosphere, and featured the great music of, Lou Kosloff. The story is called Murder By Moonlight and it first aired in the autumn of 1945.

On the show today we revisit a classic, reveal some good news for iOS users and we have birthday celebration for a very good friend of the show.  

Our story for this episode of Ron’s Amazing Stories was picked by my friend Darrel. I told him for his birthday I would play any story he wanted. He didn’t have any specific ideas, but wanted a science fiction tale. I know that Darrel likes Ray Bradbury’s work and I was able to find one of his on the series Dimension X. It is part of the Martian Chronicles and unlike other shows that portrayed stories from that book.  This one was well scripted and has voice acting that is off the charts. It is called, And the Moon Be Still as Bright. It first aired on September 29, 1950.

You can find out more about the iOS 8.x news talked about in the program by following this link.

Well, I am refreshed after my spring break and I hope you are as well. On this episode we have a story from a listener and classic radio drama about Geronimo. Some of it is even true. So sit back and relax and be entertained by Ron’s Amazing Stories.

We do have a story about Geronimo. The account itself is a complete work of fiction. However, there are some elements of truth and we talk about that on the program. It comes from the OTR series Cavalcade of America. This show was initially broadcast on radio from 1935 to 1953. Its goal was to document historical events with feel-good dramatizations. 

Our story first aired on September 8, 1941 and tells about the end of the apache wars and Geronimo’s capture.

On last week’s show I told you that we would have a story that would curl your toes. What we have is an episode of Suspense. As I listen to more of these classic old programs my respect grows with how they were able to create such rich atmosphere with just dialogue. Our radio play uses does this in spades. We are taken to the vast ocean floor on a deep-sea diving adventure that you will have to hear to believe.

Here is a challenge for you. While you enjoy it, take a monument and think about what you are hearing. Then remind yourself that you are listening to a program that was recorded more than 60 years ago.  Amazing!  The name of our story is Gold on the Adomar and it first aired on January 19, 1953.

NOTE: In this program I talk about a problem that has come up for the IPhone, IPad and IPod listeners. The RSS feed link that you need to manually enter to your device to solve the problem is: http://ronsamazingstories.libsyn.com/rss

We have a treat this week on Ron’s Amazing Stories. MJ Preston is here to talk about his newest book, ACADIA EVENT. The book was inspired while he personally was trucking the world’s longest ice road. We also give a tribute to Richard Warren Field’s book The Sultan and the Khan. Which is now available at Amazon.

So what Acadia Event about? Marty Croft has it all. A beautiful wife and a successful career as a commercial artist. However, he has a secret and it has come back to haunt him. Enter Gordon Shamus. Gordon is a psychopath with a short fuse who won’t take "no" for an answer. Forced back into a world he thought he had left behind Marty heads to the ice roads of Canada to do one last heist. In a twist of fate, that becomes least of his worries.  At the Acadia Diamond Mine they have made a major discovery. Something buried in the ice, not of this world and it is about to be unleashed.

MJ Preston hails from Canada, where he is an Ice Road Trucking. When mark is not on the road he purses writing fiction, creating digital art and dabbling in photography. He currently is hard at work on third novel a crime drama.

You can view the photo that Mark spoke of, during the interview, of his truck and the Northern Lights here.

You can contact MJ Preston on:  His website, Facebook Page and Twitter. You can view his photography here.