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Spaceways, v. 4, issue 4, whole no. 27, April 1942
Page 12
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12 SPACEWAYS [centered] ABC--STF by ERIC F. RUSSELL What the NBC, CBS, and MBS are to USA, and the BBC is to England, the Aus-trailian Broadcasting Commission is to Australia. In the past few years the ABC has broadcast a great many science fiction, weird, and fantasy plays, and it is these that I propose to review. First on the list is "An Experiment in Acousitics", by Max Afford. This play concerns a professor who has invented a machine which will pick up sound waves. His theory is that when we speak, the sound waves created by the voice do not die away, but continue on in a lower pitch in the sonic scale inaudible to our ears. Recently the inventor's wife had died during a storm. He invites a friend to see the machine, then brings from his pocket a shell he picked up on the beach near where this wife was found and says he will re-broadcast the sound waves in it. But before switching on the machine, which will operate only in darkness, he warns his friend not to touch it, because of the high voltage being used. The experiment starts--at first nothing but a storm is heard; then a wom-an's voice, the inventor's wife with a servant--footsteps and a man's voice--the inventor's friend. The wife, who is going to elope with him because life with her husband is intolerable, in this lonely spot asks the man why he has not brought the things. In reply, he says he is not going. She protests, and pleads with him that she has waited months for this night; and now.... Finally convinced, she turns away, making for the cliff edge. A scream sounds in the night and the storm grows louder...The friend blusters that it is not true, and asks to keep it a secret. But the inventor, mad with revenge, re-plies that all London shall hear and know what kind of a man he is. Desperate, he jumps to his feet, and rushes to destroy the machine. The Professor whips out a revolver, but the Friend, upon touching the machine, is immediately electrocuted. Produced by Canadian Frank Willis, "RUR" ("Rossum's Universal Robots") by Karel Capek was a spectacular success on 2FC. The story deals, it will be remembered, with the invention of Rossum's Universal Robots, mechanical men who became so perfect that they rebelled against their human masters and wiped them off the earth. One secret they could not master was reproduction of their species and as time passes, the robot population begins to die off, and the cry goes up to the last remaining man on earth, "Teach us how to make robots!" That man, once a scientist in the great Rossum works, makes two robots with emotions. They fall in love and bear children. Broadcast not long after "RUR" was "The Time Factor", a fantasy play by a New Zealander, W. Graeme-Holder. This had a very similar plot to Stanley G. Weinbaum's "The Worlds of If", only as Veney put it, "A much more conservative plot". But unlike Dixon Wells, the hero of "The Time Factor" was killed in the end, whichever course he took. A weird tale, par excellence, was "The House of a Thousand Whispers". Un-fortunately, the author's name has slipped my memory--but it was one of the most creepy, sendashiverdownyourspine plays, that I have heard. But since I have read only two issues of [underlined] Weird Tales, perhaps you had better read the summary: A young man andhis fiancee are driving across the moors on a wintry night when their car breaks down. After several ineffectual attempts to locate the trouble, the pair decide to make for the nearest house, the lights of which can be seen through the trees. The door is opened to their knock by a withered old hag, who in answer to their request invites them in, and takes them into the dining room. The girl has a premonition of danger, but her fiance dismisses it as "just nerves". Then the whispers start--soft at first, and gradually in-creasing in volume. "You're going to die!" "You can't escape!" "Doomed!", the voices chant in un-earthly glee. Finally the girl and man try to open the door and find it locked. The door opens and the old woman enters. They tell her of the whispers and in reply she says that they are just nervy and are imagining
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12 SPACEWAYS [centered] ABC--STF by ERIC F. RUSSELL What the NBC, CBS, and MBS are to USA, and the BBC is to England, the Aus-trailian Broadcasting Commission is to Australia. In the past few years the ABC has broadcast a great many science fiction, weird, and fantasy plays, and it is these that I propose to review. First on the list is "An Experiment in Acousitics", by Max Afford. This play concerns a professor who has invented a machine which will pick up sound waves. His theory is that when we speak, the sound waves created by the voice do not die away, but continue on in a lower pitch in the sonic scale inaudible to our ears. Recently the inventor's wife had died during a storm. He invites a friend to see the machine, then brings from his pocket a shell he picked up on the beach near where this wife was found and says he will re-broadcast the sound waves in it. But before switching on the machine, which will operate only in darkness, he warns his friend not to touch it, because of the high voltage being used. The experiment starts--at first nothing but a storm is heard; then a wom-an's voice, the inventor's wife with a servant--footsteps and a man's voice--the inventor's friend. The wife, who is going to elope with him because life with her husband is intolerable, in this lonely spot asks the man why he has not brought the things. In reply, he says he is not going. She protests, and pleads with him that she has waited months for this night; and now.... Finally convinced, she turns away, making for the cliff edge. A scream sounds in the night and the storm grows louder...The friend blusters that it is not true, and asks to keep it a secret. But the inventor, mad with revenge, re-plies that all London shall hear and know what kind of a man he is. Desperate, he jumps to his feet, and rushes to destroy the machine. The Professor whips out a revolver, but the Friend, upon touching the machine, is immediately electrocuted. Produced by Canadian Frank Willis, "RUR" ("Rossum's Universal Robots") by Karel Capek was a spectacular success on 2FC. The story deals, it will be remembered, with the invention of Rossum's Universal Robots, mechanical men who became so perfect that they rebelled against their human masters and wiped them off the earth. One secret they could not master was reproduction of their species and as time passes, the robot population begins to die off, and the cry goes up to the last remaining man on earth, "Teach us how to make robots!" That man, once a scientist in the great Rossum works, makes two robots with emotions. They fall in love and bear children. Broadcast not long after "RUR" was "The Time Factor", a fantasy play by a New Zealander, W. Graeme-Holder. This had a very similar plot to Stanley G. Weinbaum's "The Worlds of If", only as Veney put it, "A much more conservative plot". But unlike Dixon Wells, the hero of "The Time Factor" was killed in the end, whichever course he took. A weird tale, par excellence, was "The House of a Thousand Whispers". Un-fortunately, the author's name has slipped my memory--but it was one of the most creepy, sendashiverdownyourspine plays, that I have heard. But since I have read only two issues of [underlined] Weird Tales, perhaps you had better read the summary: A young man andhis fiancee are driving across the moors on a wintry night when their car breaks down. After several ineffectual attempts to locate the trouble, the pair decide to make for the nearest house, the lights of which can be seen through the trees. The door is opened to their knock by a withered old hag, who in answer to their request invites them in, and takes them into the dining room. The girl has a premonition of danger, but her fiance dismisses it as "just nerves". Then the whispers start--soft at first, and gradually in-creasing in volume. "You're going to die!" "You can't escape!" "Doomed!", the voices chant in un-earthly glee. Finally the girl and man try to open the door and find it locked. The door opens and the old woman enters. They tell her of the whispers and in reply she says that they are just nervy and are imagining
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