Two more recommendations -- and pretty big ones, at that. I'd probably adopt one of them as a group project right now, if not for the fact that I'm already putting together several group projects and don't want to overburden our MCs.
Both are written by New Zealand novelist Godfrey Sweven and follow each other sequentially. Taken together, the two books are like a monster-length utopian epic with a Swiftian sense of political satire. The series documents the fantastical journeys of an unnamed protagonist, who roams around on his flying machine seeking out the mystical, super-scientific utopia of Limanora. Obviously, he encounters many interesting characters along his journey... and the whole thing is apparently quite lively and imaginative. The second book is particularly noteworthy. According to Everett F. Bleiler:
Limanora is one of the great masterworks of science-fiction. It is not easy reading and is very long, but in imagination and profundity (whether one agrees with it or not) it overshadows similar works and is probably the greatest of all early utopian novels.
PROJECTS
Current Solo:Septimius Felton (Hawthorne's final novel)
Help Needed: Strange Interlude (O'Neill's Freudian melodrama - roles available!)
Gloriana, or The Revolution of 1900 (Lady Florence Dixie) - Feminist utopian fiction that features cross-dressing, kidnapping, and a matriarchal political revolution.
Just adopted Gloriana and it's on the launch pad. Thanks, Chuck, for finding this!
Gloriana, or The Revolution of 1900 (Lady Florence Dixie) - Feminist utopian fiction that features cross-dressing, kidnapping, and a matriarchal political revolution.
Just adopted Gloriana and it's on the launch pad. Thanks, Chuck, for finding this!
That's great! I can't wait to listen to this!
PROJECTS
Current Solo:Septimius Felton (Hawthorne's final novel)
Help Needed: Strange Interlude (O'Neill's Freudian melodrama - roles available!)
I think I saw a suggestion posted somewhere for "The Man Who Ended War" by Hollis Godfrey (sort of like Jules Verne's 20,000 leagues under the sea). I've started it as a group if anyone's interested! viewtopic.php?f=2&t=64261
Adele
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Finally done grad school and maybe actually able to record again
Hi Dale! Both of these suggestions are short stories, so you can record them and submit them to one of the short story collections currently open. If there's a SCI-FI collection currently open that would be best (check in the Short Works Forum) but you can submit to the general ones as well. Your story will be individually searchable, and it makes the catalogue neater to group short projects together.
EDIT: I see the current SF collection has just completed, but don't let that stop you! Go ahead and record, and there will be another SF collection opening up as soon as that one is catalogued. SF is very popular around here!
I'd like to suggest Robert Cromie (1855-1907), a Belfast author who hasn't been recorded yet. His 1895 novel The Crack of Doom is on PG: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26563
It's great fun. It begins with the sentence "The Universe is a mistake!" and goes on from there. It features a homicidal secret society, communication after death and the possible destruction of the planet. There are twenty chapters and it's short, so it might make a good project for someone looking for the satisfaction of a solo but not necessarily a really long commitment.
The Internet Archive and the British Library have a couple more of his novels, if anyone is interested.
Jackson, Edward Payson (1839-1905) Turkish-born US educator and author, of missionary parents, in America from 1845; of sf interest is A Demigod: A Novel (1886), published anonymously, in which a Eugenics programme, begun in Greece in the seventeenth century, generates in the late nineteenth century a Superman who boasts extraordinary strength and agility, plus a massive intellect, out of which pours Inventions galore, including a process by which artificial diamonds are created, and a superior hand-gun. (from http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/jackson_edward_payson)
Captured by Apes: The Wonderful Adventures of a Young Animal Trainer. By Harry Prentice. 12mo, cloth, $1.00.
The scene of this tale is laid on an island in the Malay Archipelago. Philip Garland, a young animal collector and trainer, of New York, sets sail for Eastern seas in quest of a new stock of living curiosities. The vessel is wrecked off the coast of Borneo and young Garland, the sole survivor of the disaster, is cast ashore on a small island, and captured by the apes that overrun the place. The lad discovers that the ruling spirit of the monkey tribe is a gigantic and vicious baboon, whom he identifies as Goliah, an animal at one time in his possession and with whose instruction he had been especially diligent. The brute recognizes him, and with a kind of malignant satisfaction puts his former master through the same course of training he had himself experienced with a faithfulness of detail which shows how astonishing is monkey recollection. Very novel indeed is the way by which the young man escapes death. Mr. Prentice has certainly worked a new vein on juvenile fiction, and the ability with which he handles a difficult subject stamps him as a writer of undoubted skill.
The truth is that there are extremes of circumstance which could force almost any man to abandon that which he has always held to be right and good, and only the very giants could stand up and prove themselves unmoved.
If anyone wants to continue updating the first post here , let me know and I can get you access it seems , and I could clear the posts a bit - makes it a bit more useful
