I've been in the car a lot more than usual lately, so I've been listening to The Minority Report and other Stories by Phillip K. Dick, read by Keir Dullea (best known as Dave Bowman in 2001.) It's a fantastic collection of unabridged stories, and Mr. Dullea does PKD's stories more justice than any of their adapted film counterparts.[1]
It's been captivating and entertaining to hear him bring stories like We Can Remember it for You Wholesale and Paycheck to life, but it's also been terrifically inspiring to me. One night about three weeks ago, while driving home and listening, one phrase he spoke came out of my speakers, hit me in that part of my brain that makes me want to be a writer, and knocked out a story idea that has refused to let me do anything else until I bring it into the world and make it real.[2]
Stephen King advises writers to read a lot. If you're not going to make time to read, he says, you're never going to make time to write.[3] Harlan Ellison once said that writers shouldn't write what they know as much as they should write what they love and wish there was more of in the world.[4] It's good advice that's kept me focused and given me a justification to read as much as I can without feeling as guilty about it as . . . well, as I do.[5]
Since I don't have as much time as I'd like to actually read a book, I listen to them when I'm driving, when I'm on the train, and occasionally when I'm at home. There's also something special about listening to a great actor -- like Keir Dullea, for example -- performing a great work of literature that speaks to me (ha. ha. ha.) on a different level than reading alone.
So now that I'm nearly done with this audiobook, I went looking for something else. I've enjoyed PKD so much, I thought I'd stick with the masters and maybe pick up something from Bradbury or Asimov that my friends would be horrified to learn I hadn't already read.[6]
While I was browsing, I came across a couple of stories from Asimov that were dramatized on something called Dimension X. A bit of research revealed that Dimension X was a Sci-Fi radio program in the 50s. It was a collaboration between Astounding and NBC, featuring dramatized works from some of the greatest SF writers of the 20th century, like Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Kurt Vonnegut, and Jack Williamson.[7]
A bit of further research revealed that Dimension X is in the public domain, and nearly all of its episodes are available at Archive.org. I listened to The Outer Limit and Nightfall today, and plan to work my way through the remaining episodes over the next several weeks while I finish this SF story that desperately wants to enter our world, if I'd just stop talking about it, and actually hold open the goddamn door.
[1] Don't buy it from Audible, though. The transfer sound quality is terrible and there are no tracks within each disc when you burn it to CD. Lame.
[2] Delusions of grandeur FTW!
[3] He says this and much more in On Writing . . ., which every writer should read at least once a year.
[4] He then ate a baby for breakfast. Allegedly. Score 100 points if you get this reference without using the Internet. Hell, score yourself 1000 points, actually.
[5]I have this "I should be working now" complex that's taken over my life
lately, and it seriously cockblocks me a lot of the time.
[6] My best friend Darin, it turns out, still hasn't seen The Godfather. See how horrified you are? It would so much worse if you knew that, for example, I haven't read -- Ha. Like I'm actually going to tell you. But trust me. You'd think so much less of me, it's probably best that we pretend this note doesn't exist beyond the point where I point out that Darin hasn't seen The Godfather. I mean, WTF? He's seen Lion King a hundred times, but not The Godfather?
[7] If you enjoy pulp science fiction like the stories from Astounding, you will love this collection called Retro Pulp Tales, from Subterranean Press. I sprung for the lettered edition, because I'm becoming that guy with all those books in my old age.
