Read by Graeme Dunlop and Dave Thompson
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Show Notes
Today we present Barsoom in June by Brian L. Hurrel. Brian is an American who narrowly missed being born in Glasgow. A lifelong science fiction fan, he is especially fond of Golden Age stories from the forties and fifties. His fiction has appeared in the science journal Nature and magazines such as Daily Science Fiction and Bete Noir. His many previous occupations include high school English teacher, carpet installer, cab driver, and US Marine. He now develops software for the financial industry and lives in New Jersey with his wife and son.
We asked Brian if he’d like to share anything about this story in particular. He says, “By the time I got around to reading Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter books, along with Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles and his wonderful short story The Long Rain, our knowledge of the solar system had long ago made it clear that Martian canals and Venusian jungles were completely out of the realm of possibility. This did not in any way reduce my enjoyment of these stories, of course. And there was always a small corner of my mind that wondered – perhaps even hoped? – whether such places did indeed exist. After all, I only ‘know’ that Mars and Venus are uninhabited because I take the word of scientists who seem to know what they’re talking about. But what if those early writers had hit a little too close to home?”
Your narrators today are myself and my good friend Dave Thompson. By day, Dave battles through reams of red tape writing corporate documentation. But his real job is co-editing and hosting the fantasy podcast PodCastle where you’ll find fantasy stories of all stripes. He is a published author and also a respected and frequent narrator for many venues. You can find two of his audio book narrations on Amazon: Norse Code by Greg Van Eekhout and Briarpatch by Tim Pratt.
This production of “Barsoom In June” uses sounds from Freesound.
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