Not really audio drama in the strict sense of the definition, this 1970's series out of WHA Radio in Wisconsin featured weekly readings of science fiction stories by some of the genre's best writers. Nevertheless, since many of the readings were enhanced by music, periodic sound cues, and the occasional character voice, I consider them 'semi-dramatized', and therefore meriting inclusion on the site. Besides, the music was so well written, and the performance of Michael Hansen, the reader, so evocative of each story's mood, that the result was often better than most fully dramatized productions of the period. Precise episode totals are unclear, though at least 150 were aired between 1976 and 1984. Readings varied in length, but most were in half hour format.
Currently this archive contains 99 plotlines
WEBMASTER RECOMMENDS:
The Liberators; To the Dark Star; The Machine in Shaft Ten; The Great Slow Kings
Absalom
Genre: SF
Available for Listening Booth: N
Do to mutations that occur every generation, children are becoming smarter than their parents before them. What are the implications when a son intellectually surpasses his father at age eight? Story by Henry Kuttner
See also 'Star Bright' (x minus one) & 'A Child is Crying' (Mind Webs)
A Child is Crying
Genre: SF
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A nervous military gets their hands on a freaky 7 year old boy who has an IQ well above Einstein's, an ability to calculate the future, and his own intentions for how that future will play out. Story by John T. McDonald.
See also 'Star Bright' (x minus one) & 'Absalom' (Mind Webs)
Adam and No Eve
Genre: Future Earth
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Do to an energy conversion experiment gone awry, the earth is turned into an ash filled landscape. As the last man on earth, the person responsible starts a dogged journey to the sea, to set things right. Story by Alfred Bester
A Drean at Noonday
Genre: SF
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A man drifts between recollections of his childhood and observations of his present situation. The prose is dream-like, almost hypnotic in its effect, with an overall impact that may well stay with you for a lifetime... or not. Story by Gardner Dozois.
After the Myths Went Home
Genre: Future Earth
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Millennia from now, the bored human race amuse themselves by 'resurrecting' the great heroes and myths out of history and imagination. Story by Robert Silverberg.
Allegory
Genre: Super Science
Available for Listening Booth: Y
An inventor seeking to patent his anti-gravity device comes up against a bureaucracy convinced that such a device is scientifically impossible.
A Night in Elf Hill
Genre: Space Exploration
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A spacer writes his Earth bound psychiatrist brother to ask for help. He wants to be convinced not to return to one of the planets he’s visited, because forever can be a very short time. Story by Norman Spinrad.
Apartment Hunting
Genre: Future Earth/Dystopia
Available for Listening Booth: Y
In an overcrowded future, a young couple achieve the right to their own apartment - if they can carve through the red tape in time to kill its present occupant before the deadline.
A Walk in the Dark
Genre: SF/Horror
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A hard-bitten engineer finishing up a contract on a remote colony planet has his pragmatism put to the test when he must face a long walk through a wilderness reported to be the domain of a nameless horror. Story by Arthur C. Clarke.
Reviews:
A well written and told story that is great for a creepy late night listening. The mood
is nearly perfect with the only flaw being a slight rushing by the narrator, necessary
to fit the story in its time limits. --Dave Tackett
Available Data on the Worp Reaction
Genre: Super Science
Available for Listening Booth: Y
At six years old, the mentally challenged Aldus Worp begins collecting parts from the city dump. Nearly twenty years later, something miraculous happens. Story by Lion Miller
Born of Man and Woman
Genre: Horror
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Richard Matheson's classic story of a malformed youth kept locked up in the cellar by his own horrified parents.
The Brink of Infinity
Genre: undefinable
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A mathematician is held captive by a madman who demands he solve an impossible equation or be killed. Story by Stanley Weinbaum.
Carcinoma Angels
Genre: undefinable
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A wealthy entrepreneur who has conquered every challenge life has to offer takes on his own mortality when he discovers he has cancer. Story by Norman Spinrad.
The Castaway
Genre: Space Exploration
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A futuristic Robinson Crusoe crash lands on a planet of eternal daylight, which makes the passage of time hard to quantify. He begins to measure his stay in a different manner. Story by Charles E. Fritch
Cephes 5
Genre: SF
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A green space officer seeks out a venerable old counselor to help dispel his feelings that something is wrong on board their starship. Instead of solace, however, the counselor can only offer a disturbing revelation. Story by Spartacus author Howard Fast.
Computers Don't Argue
Genre: SF
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A disagreement with his book club over an undue charge ignites a series of tragi-comical events that eventually land him on death row. Story by Gordon Dickson.
Corita
Genre: Horror
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A story of a man tormented by a 'thing'. Story by Roger Zelazny.
The Day of the Butterflies
Genre: Fantasy
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A farm girl working in Manhattan starts to imagine the city is being 'invaded' by the country. Story by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
Descending
Genre: undefinable
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A man finds himself on a series of escalators that only go down and seemingly don't lead anywhere. Story by Thomas Disch.
The Devil Car
Genre: Horror
Available for Listening Booth: Y
To avenge the death of his brother, Sam Murdock and his death car Jenny seek out the evil Black Caddy and its pack of wild cars. Story by
Robert Zelazny
Reviews:
Murdock and his sentient car, Jenny, have to track down the leader of a herd of wild cars gone bad. How bad? These sentient cars have been killing off their drivers with carbon monoxide so they are free to roam the canyons of the West, killing off pedestrians and stealing fuel. The devil car of the title, a black caddy, has eluded all attempts at capture so far -- he's tricky, keeping a corpse in his driver's seat so he looks tame.
There's plenty of car-vs.-car action (Jenny is not only sentient, but well-armed), a tongue-in-cheek post-apocalyptic Old West feel, and some poignant moments as Jenny vacillates between her admiration for the Devil Car and her duty to serve her driver, Murdock. This story was probably one of the main inspirations for Steve Jackson's game Car Wars, which introduced the notion that "the right of way goes to the biggest guns." "Devil Car" is a fine example of the fun sub-genre of science fiction I call the post-apocalyptic car-centered road warrior stories. If you like it, check out similar stories by other authors, such as "Why Johnny Can't Speed" and "Along the Scenic Route" (I think one of these is Harlan
Ellison's). - Anonymous
All in all, an interesting take on
what would happen if automobiles were granted the ability to think, and act on
their own. A well written story, but I didn't think very highly of the
main, come to that, the only featured human character. He reminded me a
little too much of the crazy captain looking for the infamous white whale.
I half expected him to start screaming, "From the heart of Hell, I stab at
thee! For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee!" And the
way he treated his car, come on. I was hoping something would happen to
him from the half way point in the story, on up. - 'Fallen Angel'
Don't Look Now
Genre: Mars/ Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A drunk in a bar harasses a fellow patron with warnings about the Martians who are secretly controlling the world.
Earthmen Bearing Gifts
Genre: Mars/ Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y
The last few of the dying Martians anticipate the arrival of the first explorers from Earth. Story by Fredric Brown.
The Eel
Genre: SF
Available for Listening Booth: Y
The "Eel" is a super-thief whose eventual capture has been an eagerly anticipated event on a dozen worlds across half the galaxy, all drooling over the opportunity to exact a lengthy and unpleasant vengeance - but will any of them manage to bring him to conviction and punishment? He did not earn his name for nothing...
Reviews:
Michael Hanson seemed to have perfected the art of picking excellent stories. Such is the case here, where an interstellar
criminal, who might as well have been a contemporary of Jabba The Hutt, is put on trial until he final figures out how to work his final
angle... - Anonymous
The Enormous Radio
Genre: undefinable
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A couple's broken radio starts picking up conversations from elsewhere in their apartment block , and they can hardly resist becoming voyeurs into the sordid privacies of their neighbours. Story by John Cheever.
The Eternal Machines
Genre: SF
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A hermit with a poetic soul takes sole custodianship of a junk planet, the garbage dump of the galaxy, in order to build an eternal monument to his creative urges. Story by William Spencer.
The Ever-Branching Tree
Genre: Time Travel
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A teacher takes his class on a field trip through time to explore the origins of life. Story by Harry Harrison.
Reviews:
A very disappointing story that fails to evoke a strong enough sense-of-wonder or emotional
connection to compensate for its lack of action and suspense. --
Dave Tackett.
The Fog Horn
Genre: Creatures
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A lighthouse's lonely fog horn calls up a primeval horror out of the depths. Story by Ray Bradbury.
A version of this story was produced by the BBC. Also served as the inspiration for the film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
The Food Farm
Genre:
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Nelly is a very big girl, and that’s just how Tommy Fango likes them. Story by Kit Reed
The Funny Farm
Genre:
Available for Listening Booth: Y
When attempting to rob an eccentric comic book collector, a thief encounters some unexpected complications. Story by Robert Bloch.
The Gift
Genre: Mars
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Parents plan a special Christmas gift for their son on a trip to Mars. Story by Ray Bradbury.
The Great Slow Kings
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Twin reptilian monarchs who have lost their kingdom and all their subjects save for a robot servant ponder searching out the galaxy for new subjects, but their painfully slow metabolisms make the effort difficult, to say the least. Story by Roger Zelazny.
Hall of the Machines
Genre: SF
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A lengthy narrative describing the mechanical wonders of a repository of ancient machines whose purpose has long been forgotten.
Reviews:
Intolerably dull. - Webmaster
Happily Ever After
Genre:
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A newly married couple settle on their own asteroid. Story by William F. Nolan.
Harrison Bergeron
Genre: Future Earth/ Dystopia
Available for Listening Booth: &
Classic story of a rebel in an age whose political correctness has lead to a fanatical devotion to the lowest common denominator. Story by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The Haunted Spacesuit
Genre: Space Exploration
Available for Listening Booth: Y
An astronaut on a spacewalk is convinced that something is trying to get into his spacesuit. Story by Arthur C. Clarke
The Icebox Blonde
Genre: Robots
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A stodgy husband is forced to confront his conservative mores when his wife has an affair and the local supermarket is selling 'female' androids in its freezer section.
Impostor
Genre: Future Earth/ Aliens/ War
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Philip K. Dick's story of a future weapons scientist working to save Earth from an alien invasion who finds himself accused of being an alien changeling, a clone with a ticking time bomb in his body.
A version of this story was produced by Sci-Fi Radio. Also provided the basis for a movie of the same name.
I Kill Myself
Genre: Super Science
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A scientist involved in the creation of an ulitmate weapon begins to suffer pangs of concience.
I See You
Genre: Super Science
Available for Listening Booth:
A research engineer developers a distant viewer; after production, some units fall into the hands of political dissidents ......
In the Abyss
Genre:
Available for Listening Booth: Y
An undersea explorer uses a modified diving bell to descend to the bottom of the
ocean where he makes an extraordinary discover. Story by H. G. Wells.
Reviews:
An adequate but forgettable story, helped by better than average reading/voice acting.
It does interestingly, in some ways, anticipate the undersea horrors that H. P. Lovecraft
would later describe. -- Dave Tackett.
In the Imagicon
Genre: Super Science
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Isolated on a cold and desolate colony world and nagged by a shrewish wife, a husband's only escape is through a virtual reality machine.
Kaleidoscope
Genre: Space Exploration
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A spaceship crew is condemned to float forever in space when their ship is destroyed by a passing meteor. Story by Ray Bradbury.
Versions of this story were done on Dimension X, Bradbury 13, Suspense, and the BBC
Kellerman's Eyepiece
Genre: undefinable
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Cyrus Kellerman orders a telescope eyepiece through the mail, only to find it discontinued. The newer model sent to him by the telescope company, however, seems to pick up more than just stars and moon craters. Like
Allegory and Computers Don't Argue, this story was written in the brilliant form of back and forth correspondence.
The King of Beasts
Genre:
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A biologist of the future recreates extinct animals for a zoo/laboratory... including the most dangerous animal of them all. Story by Philip Jose Farmer.
Knackles
Genre: Fantasy
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A car salesman finds out about the " Anti-Claus ".
The Liberators
Genre: Future Earth/ Dystopia
Available for Listening Booth: Y
In the far distant future, a group of people awoken from the dream tanks flee the City, whose A.I. brain needs them to provide it with a human soul. Story by Lee Harding
Reviews:
Excellent story, with an ethereal, melancholy score by Tangerine Dream that
is perfectly suited to the mood of the tale. One of the best of the series.
- Webmaster.
Look Homeward, Spaceman
Genre:
Available for Listening Booth: Y
The Machine in Shaft 10
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y
The discovery of a vast underground machine complex sends civilization into a frenzy of hysteria, despair, social upheaval and religious chaos. Apparently the Machine has been recording human emotions throughout history and transmitting their energy to some distant point in space. The scientist responsible for the discovery resolves to shut the complex down, regardless of what consequence might come of it when the Makers stop receiving... Story by John Harrison (as Joyce Churchill).
See also 'The Sky was Full of Ships' (Mind Webs)
The Man from Earth
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Story by Gordon Dickson
When the first Earthman to arrive on the capital world of galactic civilization, he unwittingly commits an offence that could cost him his life.
The Man who Returned
Genre: Horror
Available for Listening Booth: Y
An invalid awakens to discover he has been buried alive. Story by Edmond Hamilton.
The Martian El Dorado of Parker Whintley
Genre: Mars/ Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Parker Whintley is out of money, but not of luck or charm . He has secured a claim on a remote area of Mars where a cache of diamonds is ripe for the taking - if he can con them from the natives. Story by Lin Carter.
The Maze
Genre:
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A tale about the coming " Ice Age ".
Midnight Express
Genre: Fantasy
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Fantasy and reality become blurred in a 'dream' about a stranger at a dark train station.
Moth Race
Genre: Future Earth/ Dystopia
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A future society of drug-induced pacifists finds emotional release through the minds and feelings of champions willing to risk their lives in a deadly game of car vs. computer.
My Objective, All Sublime
Genre: Time Travel
Available for Listening Booth: Y
An evening's musings between friends on time travel takes an unpleasant turn. Story by Poul Anderson.
The Night of the Nickel Beer
Genre: Fantasy
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Upon turning 40 and finding himself unable to sleep, a man takes a late-night walk through the mist and finds a bar which serves up nickel beer and tantalizes him with the promise of youth. A remembered past? A new begining? Or a return to his wife, sleeping at home?
The Night that All Time Broke Loose
Genre: Time Travel
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A couple purchases a home time converter, only to have the central timeworks plant go awry, turning a pleasant evening of decade jaunting into an annoying rewrite of history.
The Nine Billion Names of God
Genre: Fantasy
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A cloister of Himalayan monks hire a computer programmer to design a mainframe capable of cataloguing every possible name of the Supreme Deity. Story by Arthur C. Clarke.
Over the Line
Genre: Space Exploration
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Another 'generational starship lost in space' story - as a rite of passage a young man asks the ship's computer the meaning of existence. Story by Barry Malzberg
Reviews:
A real downer of a tale, though not surprising considering who wrote it. The
computer is an analogy of God, and the space travelers condemned to purposeless
wandering through eternity analogous to our own lives. The metaphor is so
obvious that it is tiresome and predictable, and ultimately can offer no better
conclusion other that that there is no conclusion. - Webmaster
Pain God
Genre: Fantasy
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Reluctantly appointed the universal dispenser of suffering, the 'pain god' has a revelation when he decides upon a case study of a few paltry mortals on a remote dust speck called Earth. Story by Harlan Ellison.
Paradise Regained
Genre: SF
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A group of escapees on a prison world aptly named Hell determine to make a home in the only livable valley on the planet.
Paxton's World
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y
When a spacer gets marooned on a distant planet, he sets himself up as a god to the simplistic natives.
The Petrified World
Genre: Fantasy
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A man's dreams intrude upon his experience of 'reality'. Story by Robert Sheckley.
The Place of the Gods
Genre: Future Earth
Available for Listening Booth: Y
An post-holocaust tale of a shaman's son whose rite of passage is to venture to the forbidden ruins left by the long-departed gods.
The Plot's the Thing
Genre: Fantasy
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Having withdrawn into a fantasy world of old horror movies, a woman undergoes a severe form of rehab that challenges the borders of reality.
Pond Water
Genre: Robots
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Scientists create an immortal super-robot named Alexander to rule the human race and who, like his namesake, possesses an insatiable thirst for conquest that extends across the stars. Story by John Brunner.
Power of the Sentence
Genre: Fantasy
Available for Listening Booth: Y
An English professor lecturing about the use of sentences finds his examples are taking on a life of their own.
Promises to Keep
Genre: Space Exploration
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A dying spaceman whose last wish is to return to Earth to see his parents once more concocts a unique means of cheating death. Story by William F. Nolan
Public Hating
Genre: Future Earth
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A criminal is sentenced to be telepathically hated in a public stadium by fifty thousand of his peers.
Pure Gold
Genre: undefinable
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Bizarre story about a couple whose homebuilt sailboat spins gold off its mast on the open water.
The Racer
Genre: Future Earth/ Dystopia
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Auto racing in the future has turned into a bloodsport, complete with gates which rise out of the track to kill drivers. Story by Ib Melchior
Inspiration for the movie Death Race 2000.
Repent, Harlequin! said the Tick-Tock Man
Genre: Future Earth/ Dystopia
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A future society enslaved to the tyranny of the 'schedule' looks for a savior in the form of a clownish prankster who refuses to punch the state time clock. Award-winning story by Harlan Ellison.
A version of this story was produced for the NPR series 2000 X
Restricted Area
Genre: Space Exploration
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Scientists exploring a new world are unable to account for what they find: animals, plants, and mineral structures that simply shouldn't exist! Story by Robert Sheckley.
The Rollerball Murder
Genre: Future Earth/ Dystopia
Available for Listening Booth: Y
The murderous sport of Rollerball has become the world's most popular sport, and Johnathan E. it's most popular champion - but though he can survive the blood-soaked brutality of the game, can he survive its corporate exploitation? Story by William Harrison.
Basis for two Hollywood films, both entitled Rollerball.
The Rules of the Road
Genre:
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A great silver dome sits in the desert at Yucca Flats, featureless, except for an innocent-looking open entranceway. Ten military men have entered - none have returned. A civilian prepares to enter and discover if the dome is the key to the stars... or just a better mouse-trap. Story by Norman Spinrad.
The Run
Genre: SF
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A senator responsible for the nation's missile silos confronts his humanity when malcontents challenge his passage on the road. Story by Christopher Priest.
Running Around
Genre: Time Travel
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Dissatisfied with his life, the inventor of a time machine returns to the past to murder his father and thus pre-empt his own existence. Story by
Barry Malzberg.
The Sentinel
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Mission on the moon to discover mineral deposits and any exploitable materials. High on a precipice a discovery is made. Story by Sir Arthur C. Clarke
This story was the basis for the film 2001: A Space Odyssey
Singularities Make Me Nervous
Genre: Time Travel
Available for Listening Booth: Y
After traveling back in time via a black hole, an astronaut and his future self plan their financial freedom. Story by Larry Niven
The Sky was Full of Ships
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y
On trial for the murder of an eminent scientist, the accused tells the jury an impossible tale of the discovery of a cave housing alien machinery. Story by Theodore Sturgeon.
A version of this story appeared on Beyond Tomorrow as 'Incident at Switchpath'. Yet another version was produced for television on the program Tales of Tomorrow, under the title 'Verdict From Space'.
See also 'The Machine in Shaft Ten' (Mind Webs)
The Squirrel Cage
Genre: undefinable
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A prisoner in a whitewalled cube has no idea who his jailers are, what crime he has committed, or how long his incarceration will last. Story by Thomas Disch.
Stair Trick
Genre: undefinable
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A bartender, when asked, descends the stairs behind his bar to fetch an obscure vintage of wine from his cellar. Newcomers to the bar are amazed when they discover that there are no stairs and no cellar. Nobody ever really notices a bartender.
The Star
Genre: Space Exploration
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A cleric on a deep space survey has his faith in God sorely tested when the expedition happens upon the ruins of a civilization destroyed when its parent star went nova. Story by Arthur C. Clarke.
A severely bastardized version of this story was produced for Family Theater.
Reviews:
Poignantly enhanced with a melancholy piece of classical music, which
elegantly conveyed the pathos of the story. One can sense Clarke's almost angry
brand of atheism in the premise. He seems to be saying that a God -
assuming he/she/it exists - must by nature be cruel. - Ed Corbeil
Subjectivity
Genre: Space Exploration
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Repeated attempts at manned interstellar flight have only succeeded in the crews going mad, until the planners program the latest ship with a holo-projector capable of rendering images from the minds of the crew. Bad idea..... Story by Norman Spinrad.
Summertime on Icarus
Genre: Space Exploration
Available for Listening Booth: Y
An astronaut crashed onto the night side of an asteroid in tight orbit of the sun faces a desperate flight of terror away from the rise of the sun. Story by Arthur C. Clarke.
Swords of Ifthan
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A very short story about a man recruited into helping out a distant civilization still moldering in medievalism.
That Only a Mother
Genre: Future Earth/ Dystopia
Available for Listening Booth: Y
In a future plagued by radiation-induced mutations, one mother revels in her perfect and 'gifted' child. Story by Judith Merrill.
They
Genre: undefined
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A paranoiac in a mental hospital is convinced that the world around him is a construct provided solely to prevent him from realizing the ultimate truth behind existence. Story by Robert Heinlein
To See the Invisible Man
Genre: Future Earth/ Dystopia
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Convicted of the crime of coldness, a man is sentenced to a year of 'invisibility', during which time no one will acknowledge his existence. Story by Robert Silverberg
To the Dark Star
Genre: Space Exploration/ Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y
The mutual distrust and enmity among a trio of ill-matched astrophysicists sent on an expedition to observe the collapse of a dying star turn deadly when it becomes obvious one must sacrifice their life to complete the mission. Story by Robert Silverberg.
Story by Robert Silverberg
Unfinished
Genre: Space Exploration/ Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Two space explorers land on a remote jungle planet where they confront hostile natives. Story by
Frank Belknap Long
The Unremembered
Genre: Future Earth
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A citizen in a society of the artificially rejuvenated experiences discontent. Story by Edward Mackin.
The Veldt
Genre: Super Science
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A couple purchase a holo-theater to keep their son and daughter amused, but the recreation of the sweltering African savannah the children concoct is anything but amusing....Story by Ray Bradbury.
See also 'The House on Chimney Pot Lane' (CBS Radio Mystery Theater)
One of Bradbury's most popular stories, versions appeared on Dimension X, Bradbury 13, CBC Playhouse, X Minus One, and the BBC .
The Weapon
Genre: SF
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A scientist working on WMD is confronted with an unusual form of protest from a concerned citizen. Story by Frederic Brown.
Webster
Genre: Fantasy
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A lonely spinster conjures up a lover out of the dictionary, but he doesn't quite live up to her expectations. Story by Greg Bear.
What Really Caused the Energy Crisis
Genre: Super Science
Available for Listening Booth: Y
A physics professor at a local university explains to a doubting class of freshmen what caused the energy crisis in the latter half of the Seventies. He presupposes that the formula E=mc2 could be reversed and was extensively used by the military to create super-dense plating... Was he just a crazy old professor waiting to retire?
When We Went to See the End of the World
Genre: Time Travel
Available for Listening Booth: Y
Couples who regularly party with each other while civilization crumbles around them find novelty in traveling through time to see the end of the world. Story by Robert Silverberg.
The Winner
Genre:
Available for Listening Booth: Y
The Guardian is combination radio transmitter/receiver. The receiver is surgically implanted into the body of a prisoner and induces incredible pain if the prisoner moves more than 150 yards from the transmitter. Escape is impossible... but that doesn't stop prisoners from making the attempt. Story by Donald E. Westlake.
Winter Housekeeping
Genre:
Available for Listening Booth: Y
The Word
Genre:Space Exploration
Available for Listening Booth: Y
After their ship is forced to make an emergency landing for repairs and additional food, 3 crew members venture forth to observe the hideous, indigenous population. With every step, they are painfully aware they are violating regulations... but nevertheless feel compelled to push on and examine the locals more closely.