12/2/2012 Sound Affects: A Radio Playground

Feature Presentation - From the series Sci-Fi Radio series come two stories of things not being what they are expected to be.  First is The Twonky, in which a man gets a new stereo console, but finds it can do lots of things that other stereos can't do.  It lights his cigarettes, and washes his dishes, and waaay more than that. Original story was published in 1942 by Lewis Padgett, who was actually the husband and wife team of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore.

Second feature - The other story is Shape, by Robert Sheckley.  In this story the Glom, invading aliens take on a shape appropriate to the function they intend to perform.  They are admonished to keep their proper shape to maintain focus on their mission.  But they wonder at the humans they are going to invade, as they seem to always have the same shape no matter what they are doing. Original story published in 1953, and is available as a free eBook at the Gutenberg Project.

The Sci-Fi Radio series was produced by Kevin Singer and Ron DiUllio with a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.