For the first time in print, Spencer's radio plays Amazing Struggles, Astonishing Failures, and Disappointing Success, together with the follow-up four-part audio drama CULT STORIES, tell the tales of disillusioned science fiction writers over the course of the mid-20th century.
AMAZING STRUGGLES!
In the Golden Age of science fiction, a group of aspiring young authors, the Fabulists, is ready to wow the world with tales of interplanetary heroism and technological supremacy.
ASTONISHING FAILURES!
Unfortunately, their dreams of fame and fortune are consistently dashed by the dastardly rejections of the compulsively conservative and out-of-touch editor of Tremendous Stories of Super Science.
DISAPPOINTING SUCCESS (PARTS I & II)!
While some of the Fabulists see middling success as teachers and television writers, another becomes a science fiction mega-star whose writing (and the author's own pathology) spawns a cult religion with wild ideas that may be a bit less bogus than his short stories.
CULT STORIES!
And like an artistic pandemic, some forms of science fiction can get very ugly. Only extreme measures will save us.
Foreword by Dr. Allan Weiss, York University professor and author of Making the Rounds
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Sprache
Produkt-Hinweis
Dateigröße
ISBN-13
978-1-998795-06-2 (9781998795062)
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Hugh A. D. Spencer's short fiction has been published in magazines and anthologies such as Descant, Interzone, On Spec and the Tesseracts series. Most of these stories are now avail able in Why I Hunt Flying Saucers and The Progressive Apparatus from Brain Lag Pub lishing. His novel Extreme Dentistry, also from Brain Lag, was released in 2014. Hugh developed a passion for aural performance by listening to the 1938 War of the Worlds "panic broadcast", the BBC Radio serial of The Day of the Triffids, as well as every Firesign Theatre LP he could get his hands on. He went on to adapt much of his own work into audio dramas which have been performed by Shoestring Radio Theatre for the Public Radio Satellite Network.Hugh was twice nominated for the Aurora Award in Canada for best short story (English) in 1992 and as media curator and writer for the National Library of Canada's exhibition on science fiction and fantasy (1996). His story "(Coping with) Norm Deviation" received an honourable mention in The Year's Best Science Fiction (2007). In May 2019, his play "The Triage Conference" was performed at the Scripted Toronto Theatre Festival. His second novel, The Hard Side of the Moon, was released in hardback in 2021 and in paperback in 2023. All of the plays in this volume were performed by Shoestring Radio Theatre from 2004 to 2016.Hugh's research into the origins of contemporary religious movements in science fiction fandom was funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council and is available online from McMaster University or through the reference collections of the Toronto Public Library. He is also the president of The Museum Planners Group, an international cultural consulting firm, and lives in walking distance of Lake Ontario in Toronto, Canada-which is very convenient for walking dogs and admiring ducks.
