- Public Enemy, by Kendell Foster Crossen
At long last, Public Police Officer Brad Raynor was going to see some action--perhaps he’d have some of the excitement that policemen in the past experienced every day!
This short story appeared in the December 1952 issue of Dynamic Science Fiction.
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Kendell Foster Crossen (July 25, 1910 – November 29, 1981) was an American pulp fiction and science fiction writer. He was the creator and writer of stories about the Green Lama (a crime-fighting Buddhist superhero whose powers emerged upon the recitation of the Tibetan mantra "Om mani padme hum") and the Milo March detective and spy novels.
His pen names included Richard Foster, Bennett Barlay, Kent Richards and Clay Richards, Christopher Monig (the name of the ghost of the town of Crossen on the Oder), and M.E. Chaber (from the Hebrew word ‘mechaber’, meaning author).
He wrote hundreds of radio scripts for The Green Lama, Suspense, The Saint, Mystery Theater, and others. His later television credits include 77 Sunset Strip, The Man from Blackhawk, Man and the Challenge, and Perry Mason.
Crossen was one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America and the uncredited editor of its first anthology, Murder Cavalcade (1946).
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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
22m - Sep 13, 2026 - Youth, by Isaac Asimov
Red and Slim found the two strange little animals the morning after they heard the thunder sounds. They knew that they could never show their new pets to their parents.
This novelette appeared in the May 1952 issue of "Space Science Fiction".
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Isaac Asimov (c. January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books. He also wrote an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. Best known for his hard science fiction, Asimov also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as popular science and other non-fiction.
Asimov's most famous work is the "Foundation" series, the first three books of which won the one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966. His other major series are the "Galactic Empire" series and the "Robot" series. He also wrote more than 380 short stories, including the social science fiction novelette "Nightfall", which in 1964 was voted the best short science fiction story of all time by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
1h 15m - Sep 6, 2026 - The Voices, by Edward Wellen
Nicholas Kane was sitting at his desk when he heard the voices. This was a departure from the usual, and he heard them only once—but that one time turned out to be once too often for Kane.
This short story appeared in the March 1954 issue of Universe Science Fiction.
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Edward Wellen (born Edward Paul Levy, October 2, 1919 – January 15, 2011 was an American mystery and science fiction writer.
As of 1993, it was estimated that, in addition to two novels, Wellen had published 250 mysteries in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and assorted anthologies.
In his 1995 collection, Tales of the Batman, Wellen's novella was optioned by Tri-Star Pictures as a vehicle for Robin Williams. That project never came to fruition, but an audiobook featuring actor René Auberjonois was released in the same year.
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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
7m - Sep 4, 2026 - The Graveyard Rats, by Henry Kuttner
A gruesome fate befell the old caretaker of the cemetery in the horrible burrows beneath the graves.
This short story appeared in the March 1936 issue of Weird Tales.
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Henry Kuttner (April 7, 1915, Los Angeles, California – February 3, 1958, Los Angeles, California) was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror. He contributed several stories to Lovecraft’s Cthulu Mythos, adding a few lesser-known deities to the Mythos pantheon.
Kuttner wrote under a plethora of pseudonyms which many believe prevented him from garnering the fame that he should have had.
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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
19m - Aug 31, 2026 - Song in a Minor Key, by C L Moore
He had been promising himself this moment for how many lonely months and years on alien worlds?
Today's story is "Song in a Minor Key" by C L Moore. It appeared in the January 1957 issue of "Fantastic Universe" on pages 79 to 81.
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Catherine Lucille Moore (January 24, 1911, Indianapolis, Indiana, US – April 4, 1987, Hollywood, California, US) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. She was among the first women to write in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Moore's work paved the way for many other female speculative fiction writers.
Her early work included two significant series in Weird Tales. One features the rogue and adventurer Northwest Smith wandering through the Solar System; the other features the swordswoman/warrior Jirel of Joiry, one of the first female protagonists in sword-and-sorcery fiction.
Moore married her first husband Henry Kuttner in 1940, and most of her work from 1940 to 1958 (Kuttner's death) was written by the couple collaboratively. They were prolific co-authors under their own names, although more often under any one of several pseudonyms.
As "Catherine Kuttner", she had a brief career as a television scriptwriter from 1958 to 1962. She retired from writing in 1963.
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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
6m - Aug 27, 2026 - Idol's Eye, by Carol Emshwiller
Who’d have dreamed the destiny awaiting Philippa?
This short story appeared in the February 1958 issue of Future Science Fiction.
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Carol Emshwiller (born Agnes Carolyn Fries in Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 12, 1921 – February 2, 2019) was an American writer of avant-garde short stories and science fiction who won prizes for her work including the Nebula Award to the Philip K. Dick Award.
Ursula K. Le Guin has called her "a major fabulist, a marvelous magical realist, one of the strongest, most complex, most consistently feminist voices in fiction." Among her novels are Carmen Dog and The Mount. Her last novel, The Secret City, was published in April 2007.
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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
16m - Aug 23, 2026 - Farewell to the Master, by Harry Bates
The robot was harmless, in fact couldn't be moved in any way whatever—till a newsman stuck his nose in where it didn't belong!
This novelette appeared in the October 1940 issue of "Astounding Science Fiction".
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Hiram Gilmore "Harry" Bates III (October 9, 1900 – September 1981) was an American science fiction editor and writer.
His short story "Farewell to the Master" (1940) was the basis of the science fiction movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951).
In 1983, “The Day the Earth Stood Still” was inducted into the Science Fiction Film Hall of Fame as part of the Balrog Awards, which were given from 1979 to 1985.
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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
1h 55m - Aug 16, 2026 - The Nothing, by Frank Herbert
The Nothings stemmed from the future’s tragic lack of courage. But one man and woman dared to shape a more audacious tomorrow.
This short story appeared in the January 1956 issue of "Fantastic Universe."
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Franklin Patrick Herbert Jr. (October 8, 1920 – February 11, 1986) was an American science-fiction author, best known for his 1965 novel Dune and five sequels, with Dune winning the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1965 and sharing the Hugo Award in 1966 with ...And Call Me Conrad by Roger Zelazny. He also wrote short stories and worked as a newspaper journalist, photographer, book reviewer, ecological consultant, and lecturer.
In 1942, he served in the U.S. Navy's Seabees for six months as a photographer, but suffered a head injury and was given a medical discharge. He subsequently moved to Portland, Oregon where he reported for The Oregon Journal.
Herbert was the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's education writer from 1969 to 1972 and lecturer in general studies and interdisciplinary studies at the University of Washington (1970–1972). He worked in Vietnam and Pakistan as a social and ecological consultant in 1972, and in 1973 he was director-photographer of the television show The Tillers.
Herbert had retired from newspaper writing by the end of 1972, becoming a full-time fiction writer, and enjoying considerable commercial success during the 1970s and 1980s.
In 1979, Herbert met anthropologist Jim Funaro with whom he conceived the Contact Conference. In June 1981, Herbert was a guest of honour at Advention '81 in Adelaide, South Australia.
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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
27m - Aug 9, 2026 - Blood Lands, by Alfred Coppel
“You will never take us away from our land, men from the stars ... and no one who has touched this, our sacred land, shall ever leave it!”
This short story appeared in the December 1952 issue of Dynamic Science Fiction.
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Alfredo Jose de Arana-Marini Coppel (November 9, 1921 – May 30, 2004) was an American author. Born in Oakland, he served as a fighter pilot in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. After his discharge, he started his career as a writer. He became one of the most prolific pulp magazine authors of the 1950s and 1960s, adopting the pseudonyms Robert Cham Gilman and A.C. Marin and writing for a variety of pulp magazines. Though writing in a variety of genres, including action thrillers, he is known for his science fiction novels and short stories.
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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
25m - Aug 2, 2026 - Skulls in the Stars, by Robert E Howard
He told how murderers walk the earth
Beneath the curse of Cain,
With crimson clouds before their eyes
And flames about their brain:
For blood has left upon their souls
Its everlasting stain. — Hood
This short story appeared in the January 1929 issue of "Weird Tales".
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Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936) was an American writer who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He created the character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre.
From the age of nine, Howard wanted to become an adventure fiction writer but did not have real success until he was 23. Thereafter Howard's writings were published in a wide selection of magazines—mainly Weird Tales—journals, and newspapers, and he became proficient in several subgenres.
Howard was a fan of boxing, eventually taking up amateur boxing; he also spent some time in his late teens bodybuilding.
Howard remains a highly read author, with his best works still reprinted.
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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
28m - Jul 26, 2026 - Translator's Error, by Charles Dye
It was a perfectly natural mistake for men to make...
This short story appeared in the December 1952 issue of Dynamic Science Fiction.
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Charles Dudley Dye (October 1925 - December 1960) was a US author who was active for less than half a decade. His first science fiction story, "The Last Orbit" was published in Amazing in February 1950. In 1952, he publishws his only science fiction novel, “Prisoner in the Skull”, in which ordinary Homo sapiens and a form of Superman engage in thriller-like confrontations. After publication this novel was also serialized in New Worlds from December 1954 to February 1955.
He was married briefly (1950-1953) to Katherine MacLean, who wrote “The Man Who Staked the Stars” (Planet Stories, July 1952) and "Syndrome Johnny" (Galaxy, July 1951) under his name. The latter story containing an amazingly early account of a Genetic Engineering technique (gene splicing), in which a "piggyback" virus transports genetic material (a silicon-using gene) into human cells.
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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
20m - Jul 19, 2026 - Silly Asses, by Isaac Asimov
A new planet had qualified for entry into the Galactic Federation, but...
This short story vignette appeared in the February 1958 issue of Future Science Fiction.
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Isaac Asimov (c. January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books. He also wrote an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. Best known for his hard science fiction, Asimov also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as popular science and other non-fiction.
Asimov's most famous work is the "Foundation" series, the first three books of which won the one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966. His other major series are the "Galactic Empire" series and the "Robot" series. He also wrote more than 380 short stories, including the social science fiction novelette "Nightfall", which in 1964 was voted the best short science fiction story of all time by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
4m - Jul 19, 2026 - Underground Movement, by Allen K Lang
A mangled corpse held them captive in that dark tunnel beneath the Earth's surface—and taught them a lesson about what freedom really means!
This short story appeared in the December 1956 issue of Infinity Science Fiction.
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Allen Kim Lang (b. 31 July 1928) is an American Science Fiction author who began publishing for Planet Stories in November 1950 and published a good number of action stories in the following decade: twenty titles are recorded, including the the comic novella "Cinderella Story" (May, 1961, "If"), and "Blind Man's Lantern" (December, 1962, "Analog").
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If there's a particular story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
23m - Jul 12, 2026 - Red Shadows, by Robert E Howard
How far would you go to visit vengeance on the killer of someone you'd only just met, someone you didn't know.
This novelette appeared in the August 1928 issue of Weird Tales.
This was Howard's first published Soloman Kane story.
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Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936) was an American writer who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He created the character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre.
From the age of nine, Howard wanted to become an adventure fiction writer but did not have real success until he was 23. Thereafter Howard's writings were published in a wide selection of magazines—mainly Weird Tales—journals, and newspapers, and he became proficient in several subgenres.
Howard was a fan of boxing, eventually taking up amateur boxing; he also spent some time in his late teens bodybuilding.
Howard remains a highly read author, with his best works still reprinted.
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If there's a particular story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
1h 20m - Jul 5, 2026 - The Best Policy, by Randall Garrett
How do you lie by telling the truth? Well, when your life, and the life of the human race is on the line, you find a way.
This short story appeared in the July 1957 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, under the pen name of David Gordon.
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Gordon Randall Phillip David Garrett (December 16, 1927 – December 31, 1987) was an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was a contributor to Astounding and other science fiction magazines of the 1950s and 1960s. He is best known for the Lord Darcy books set in an alternate world where a joint Anglo-French empire still led by a Plantagenet dynasty has survived into the twentieth century and where magic works and has been scientifically codified. The Darcy books are rich in jokes, puns, and references, particularly of detective and spy fiction; Lord Darcy is modeled on Sherlock Holmes.
Garrett wrote under a variety of pseudonyms including: David Gordon, John Gordon, Darrel T. Langart (an anagram of his name), Alexander Blade, Richard Greer, Ivar Jorgensen, Clyde Mitchell, Leonard G. Spencer, S. M. Tenneshaw, Gerald Vance. He was also a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, as "Randall of Hightower" (a pun on "garret.") The short novel Brain Twister, written by Garrett with author Laurence Janifer (using the joint pseudonym Mark Phillips), was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1960.
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If there's a particular story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
48m - Jun 28, 2026 - Corsairs of the Cosmos, by Edmond Hamilton
How do you fight those who have the power to steal suns? Captain Dur Nal and his crew of the Interstellar Patrol are about to find out.
This novelette appeared in the April 1934 issue of "Weird Tales".
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Edmond Moore Hamilton (October 21, 1904 – February 1, 1977) was an American writer of science fiction during the mid-twentieth century. He is known for writing most of the Captain Future stories.
Hamilton was a central member of the remarkable group of Weird Tales writers assembled by editor Farnsworth Wright, that included H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. Through the late 1920s and early 1930s Hamilton wrote for all of the science fiction pulp magazines then publishing, and contributed horror and thriller stories to various other magazines as well. He was popular as an author of space opera, a subgenre he created along with E. E. Smith. His story "The Island of Unreason" (Wonder Stories, May 1933) won the first Jules Verne Prize as the best science fiction story of the year (this was the first science fiction prize awarded by the votes of fans, a precursor of the later Hugo Awards).
In 1942 Hamilton began writing for DC Comics, specializing in stories for their characters Superman and Batman. He and artist Sheldon Moldoff created Batwoman in Detective Comics #233 (July 1956).
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If there's a particular story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
1h 6m - Jun 21, 2026 - The Price of Eggs, by Randall Garrett
Royal babies were pretty important on Dynak, even if they did hatch out of eggs. So when Boccaccio di Vino mated with the Shannil, everyone held their breath. Especially di Vino. He might not have much more of it.
"The Price of Eggs", by Randall Garrett appeared in the December 1959 issue of "Fantastic Science Fiction Stories" on pages 96 to 119.
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Gordon Randall Phillip David Garrett (December 16, 1927 – December 31, 1987) was an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was a contributor to Astounding and other science fiction magazines of the 1950s and 1960s. He is best known for the Lord Darcy books set in an alternate world where a joint Anglo-French empire still led by a Plantagenet dynasty has survived into the twentieth century and where magic works and has been scientifically codified. The Darcy books are rich in jokes, puns, and references, particularly of detective and spy fiction; Lord Darcy is modeled on Sherlock Holmes.
Garrett wrote under a variety of pseudonyms including: David Gordon, John Gordon, Darrel T. Langart (an anagram of his name), Alexander Blade, Richard Greer, Ivar Jorgensen, Clyde Mitchell, Leonard G. Spencer, S. M. Tenneshaw, Gerald Vance. He was also a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, as "Randall of Hightower" (a pun on "garret.") The short novel Brain Twister, written by Garrett with author Laurence Janifer (using the joint pseudonym Mark Phillips), was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1960.
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If there's a particular story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
1h 1m - Jun 14, 2026 - Helen O’Loy, by Lester del Rey
Can a robot be a person? Can a robot have feelings? Can a robot fall in love? Can one fall in love with a robot? With the latest technology and the right programming, the answer appears to be ... yes.
"Helen O'Loy" appeared in the December 1938 issue of "Astounding Science Fiction" on pages 118 to 125.
It was one of the stories selected in 1970 by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the best science fiction short stories published before the creation of the Nebula Awards. Consequently, it was published in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929–1964.
It was also a nominee for the 1939 Retro Hugo award for best short story.
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Lester del Rey (real name Leonard Knapp) (June 2, 1915, Saratoga Township, Minnesota, – May 10, 1993, New York City, New York), was an American science fiction author and editor. He was the author of many books in the juvenile Winston Science Fiction series, and the fantasy editor at Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction imprint of Ballantine Books (subsequently Random House.)
Del Rey first started publishing stories in pulp magazines in the late 1930s, at the dawn of the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction.
He was a member of a literary banqueting club, the Trap Door Spiders, which served as the basis of Isaac Asimov's fictional group of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers. Del Rey was the model for "Emmanuel Rubin."
He was awarded the 1972 E. E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction (the "Skylark") by the New England Science Fiction Association. He won a special 1985 Balrog Award for his contributions to fantasy, voted for by fans and organized by Locus magazine. The Science Fiction Writers of America named him its 11th SFWA Grand Master in 1990, presented 1991.
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If there's a particular story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
31m - Jun 7, 2026 - Runaround, by Isaac Asimov
A robot must obey orders, but must also, on the other hand, have sense enough to disobey if the order would destroy it. But that can lead to a most embarrassing sort of situation, when a robot gives its owners a handsome runaround!
Today's story is "Runaround", by Isaac Asimov. It appeared in the March 1942 issue of "Astounding Science Fiction" on pages 94 to 103.
"Runaround" is the first story to feature explicitly the Three Laws of Robotics. It appears in the collections "I, Robot" (1950), "The Complete Robot" (1982), and "Robot Visions" (1990). In 2018, "Runaround" was nominated for a retrospective 1943 Hugo Award for best short story.
The story also features engineers Gregory Powell and Mike Donovan, recurring characters in several of Asimov's robot stories.
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Isaac Asimov (c. January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books. He also wrote an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. Best known for his hard science fiction, Asimov also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as popular science and other non-fiction.
Asimov's most famous work is the "Foundation" series, the first three books of which won the one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966. His other major series are the "Galactic Empire" series and the "Robot" series. He also wrote more than 380 short stories, including the social science fiction novelette "Nightfall", which in 1964 was voted the best short science fiction story of all time by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, or a genre you'd like me to include more of, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
47m - May 31, 2026 - The Story of the Late Mr Elvesham, by H G Wells
When an offer seems too good to be true, it usually is.
Today's story is "The Story of the Late Mr Elvesham", by H G Wells. It appeared in the June 1927 issue of "Amazing Stories" on pages 253 to 259.
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Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, history, popular science, satire, biography, and autobiography. Wells' science fiction novels are so well regarded that he has been called the "father of science fiction".
As a futurist, he wrote a number of utopian works and foresaw the advent of aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television and something resembling the World Wide Web. His science fiction imagined time travel, alien invasion, invisibility and biological engineering before these subjects were common in the genre. Brian Aldiss referred to Wells as the "Shakespeare of science fiction."
Wells rendered his works convincing by instilling commonplace detail alongside a single extraordinary assumption per work – dubbed "Wells's law." His most notable science fiction works include The Time Machine (1895), which was his first novel, The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898), the military science fiction The War in the Air (1907), and the dystopian When the Sleeper Wakes (1910).
Wells was a diabetic and co-founded the charity The Diabetic Association (Diabetes UK) in 1934.
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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, or a genre you'd like me to include more of, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
49m - May 24, 2026
