For the first time in print, Spencer’s radio plays AMAZING STRUGGLES, ASTONISHING FAILURES, and DISAPPOINTING SUCCESS, together with the follow-up four-part radio 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.
ISBN: 978-1-928011-54-5
Genre: Science fiction/Radio play/Satire
Age: 17+
Pages: 388
Formats: Trade paperback, ebook
Released: January 2024
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For Spencer, SF isn’t just a genre or a tradition but also his subject matter: what his books are about. “The Fabulist Play Cycle” is a brilliant example.
Toronto Star
Virtually every line is written to amuse and amaze, yet it’s bang on accurate in its overall account of the actuality of the decade. A lot of thought went into noting the humour inherent in the activities and pretensions of First Fandom.
Amazing Stories
A delightfully cracked and deeply savvy romp through the history of science fiction, and perforce our world, all told through two quartets of scripts for radio plays! You’ll meet real people, thinly veiled characters, and even fully dressed folk you never heard of in this mind’s ear theater that could have appeared in Mad Magazine. What, me worry? No, but I’d love to hear these scripts enacted in a podcast.
Paul Levinson, author of It’s Real Life, award-winning alternate history radio play