Stories of Futures Past

After Some Tomorrow by Mack Reynolds (1956)

Tom Trussel — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 22:01:45 GMT

A few generations after the nuclear apocalypse, the remnants of humanity has banded together in scattered clans named after animals; wolf clan, turtle clan, fox clan and so on. The clans raid and pillage each other, trying to capture the one thing every clan needs to survive: a fertile husband.

Oh, it’s so much worse than it what it might sound like... and yes, this rather dark story is steeped in satire.

Enjoy!

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

1:23 After Some Tomorrow

38:34 About the author

40:19 Stories of Futures Past

This story is available as a free ebook at www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59514

About the author:

Dallas McCord “Mack” Reynolds (1917-1983) was a prolific writer that published a large amount of short stories and several novels, many under a host of pseudonyms, including a couple of romances as by Maxine Reynolds.

Many of his stories are satires with social criticism, meant to make the reader think about how the world works. Reynolds was raised in an American Socialist family, his parents being card-carrying members of the Socialist Labor Party, and apparently fervent Marxist believers. He himself became an active proponent of the party during the interwar period, this lasting up until he got accused of being a capitalist in the late 1950s, whereupon he renounced the lot of them. I assume his upbringing gave him a certain critical eye towards the accepted truths of the time.

In the 1960’s he was awarded Honorable Mentions at the Hugo several times, and was a finalist once. He also was nominated for the Nebula twice. He never won, though.

Fun fact! One of the things he predicted in his Science Fiction was a worldwide computer network with information easy to access for everyone... sound familiar?

This narration was recorded in 2026.

Stories of Futures Past presents a vintage Science Fiction short story, narrated by myself, Tom Trussel. An actual, real living human being, warts and all.
Any and all voices and effects are produced live during reading with my actual voice. No obnoxious after effects, synthetic voices or filters used.

English is not my first language, inaccurate accents and the occasional strange pronunciation will happen. No mockery is intended.
These stories are good for English learners / ESL. The full text is right there on the screen in a big and easy to read font. Read along with me. It’s great practice!

Copyright notice:
The written text of this story is in the public domain, as determined by the dilligent researchers at gutenberg.org. The story is and should be free for anyone to enjoy. Use of the audio is subject to license.

Boilerplate license wording off the Gutenberg website:
“This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.”

Satan on Holiday by Ralph Bennit (1956)

Tom Trussel — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 22:03:09 GMT

“Gosh, Boss,” put in the frightened Azazel, “The BBU will never let you finish a year at this college. You’ll stand out, and Rafe and Mike and their scouts will spot you. The Big Fellow will boot you clean back to Hell, and lock the gates but good.”

The following humorous Fantasy story stands in the same general literary tradition as Terry Pratchett and…

5 Stories featuring Dreams #1. vintage science fiction

Tom Trussel — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 22:01:36 GMT

The first collection of five vintage Science Fiction short stories featuring Dreams, aka the world beyond the wall of sleep.

Each story with its own take.

The stories presented here are:

0:00 Introduction

0:52 The Drug by C.C. MacApp

33:46 Dream World by R. A. Lafferty

49:04 Traumerei by Charles Beaumont

1:03:38 Dream Town by Henry Slesar

1:31:07 The Highest Mountain by Bryce Walton

Selected and read by myself, Tom Trussel.

Which of these stories is your favorite? Share your thoughts below!

Stories of Futures Past presents a set of vintage Science Fiction short stories, narrated by myself, Tom Trussel. An actual, real living human being, warts and all.
Any and all voices and effects are produced live during reading with my actual voice. No obnoxious after effects, synthetic voices or filters used.

English is not my first language, inaccurate accents and the occasional strange pronunciation will happen. No mockery is intended.
These stories are good for English learners / ESL. The full text is right there on the screen in a big and easy to read font. Read along with me. It’s great practice!

Copyright notice:
The written text of these stories are in the public domain, as determined by the researchers and transcribers at Project Gutenberg, or they have passed the 95-years-since-publication mark. The stories are and should be free for anyone to enjoy. Use of the audio is subject to license.

Travelogue by Roger Dee (1956)

Tom Trussel — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 22:01:35 GMT

Wesley Filburn, introverted and disinterested bachelor, part time author of lackluster science fiction stories, and reluctant innkeeper, is trapped in a situation at the inn he owns together with his overbearing aunt. She wishes to retire in comfort (still getting her means from the inn, of course), and Miriam the schoolmarm wants Wesley to marry her so she can take over as manager of said inn. Nobody wants him to keep writing his poorly paying “wild stories”...but when he gets hold of actual alien travel brochures...

Enjoy!

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

1:35 Travelogue

42:52 About the author

44:22 Project Gutenberg

This story is available as a free ebook at https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/72174

Please choose a paid subscription on substack help save more stories: Go to StoriesOfFuturesPast.substack.com/about

-

About the author:

Roger Dee Aycock (1914-2004) was an American author born in Georgia. The state, not the country. He wrote mainly under the pseudonyms Roger Dee and John Starr. He had a massively prolific decade or so of writing in the fifties, mainly science fiction, western, and detective or mystery short stories. One of his two published novels was science fiction. He published around eighty short stories, fifty of which were science fiction. He was active publishing stories from 1949 to 1962, with a single late-comer story published almost like an appropos in 1971. I do not know if that last story was written long before it was published or not.

He has not won any awards. I think he is one of the underrated authors of the era. Many of his stories are set in his contemporary America but with fantastical or science fictional elements, such as Travelogue is an example of.

This narration was recorded in 2026.

English is not my first language, inaccurate accents and the occasional strange pronunciation will happen. No mockery is intended.
These stories are good for English learners / ESL. The full text is right there on the screen in a big and easy to read font. Read along with me. It’s great practice!

Copyright notice:
The written text of this story is in the public domain, as determined by my research. The story is and should be free for anyone to enjoy. Use of the audio is subject to license.

Technical Difficulty by Kirby Brooks (1953)

Tom Trussel — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 22:01:34 GMT

humorous short story about first contact between aliens and earthlings, happening in space when a large alien ship intercepts and takes aboard a smaller spaceship to investigate it and greet its inhabitants.

Only things don’t go too well...

Enjoy!

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

1:06 Technical Diffuculty

14:45 About the author

15:50 Stories of Futures Past

This…

The Success Machine by Henry Slesar (1957)

Tom Trussel — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 22:02:01 GMT

A humorous short story about what might happen when the corporations leave HR decisions to the machine brains.

Seriously though, this story is really frighteningly relevant for today’s world of employment.

Even though the technology depicted in the story is laughably outdated, what with the hole-card interface of the old computers and all, the central idea is spot on.

One example is Amazon, who has been accused of letting AI’s make decisions on both hiring and firing by algorithm. I’m sure there are many, many more examples to be had. I mean, who has not been affected one way or another by the rampant and in many cases utterly blinkered use of AI in businesses yet?

Enjoy!

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

2:06 The Success Machine

35:38 About the author

37:21 Project Gutenberg

This story is available to the world as a free ebook for all to enjoy:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/26168

About the author:

Henry Slesar (1927-2002) was a New York author, scriptwriter and advertising executive . He published several hundred short stories, most of them under a whole host of pseudonyms. About a hundred of them are science fiction, the rest mostly Mystery and Thriller. Some of his stories were adapted for The Twilight Zone, and he worked as scriptwriter for Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Edge of Night, in addition to a hundred or so scripts for an assortment of other TV-shows and soap operas. He was at one point called “the writer with the largest audience in America.” by TV Guide.

He won the Edgar award in 1960 for best first novel, and a Daytime Emmy in 1974 for Best Writing for a Drama Series with The Edge of Night. No science fiction awards though.

He apparently changed his legal name from Schlosser to Slesar. I would guess because he was sick of having to spell it out to everybody and their grandma. I can sympathise with that!

Fun fact! Next time you go on a coffee break, you are using a phrase invented by Henry Slesar, used in one of the ad campaigns he designed!

This narration was recorded in 2026.

English is not my first language, inaccurate accents and the occasional strange pronunciation will happen. No mockery is intended.
These stories are good for English learners / ESL. The full text is right there on the screen in a big and easy to read font. Read along with me. It’s great practice!

Copyright notice:
The written text of this story is in the public domain, as determined by my research. The story is and should be free for anyone to enjoy. Use of the audio is subject to license.

Alias Napoleon by John Jakes (1957)

Tom Trussel — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 22:02:10 GMT

Jack Morris is a carny, making a good living off running an historical wax figure tent at the carnival. This week they have pitched at Peelsville, Illinois, and on Friday night a kid comes out of the display tent claiming something is alive in there...

Enjoy!

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

1:10 Alias Napoleon

29:12 About the author

30:22 Stories of Futures Pa…

The Neurotic Rose by H. Nearing, Jr. (1956)

Tom Trussel — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 22:02:04 GMT

This humorous farce-like short story tells what might go wrong when a nutty professor is out to prove the supremacy of science to Mrs Underdouble, the anti-scientist chairwoman of the flower show ladies’ club, by winning the flower show….

And to do that, he has in secret crossed a rose with Mrs. Underdouble’s own prize stud spaniel.

Now then ... how to bo…

10 Short-Short Stories aka Flash Fiction Vol #8. vintage science fiction

Tom Trussel — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 22:01:36 GMT

The eighth collection of ten vintage Science Fiction short-short stories, aka Flash Fiction. Each is typically less than 1500 words long. Selected and read by myself, Tom Trussel.

The stories presented here are:

0:00 Introduction

1:24 The Loneliest Town by Peter Grainger

13:00 Time Fuze by Randall Garrett

23:40 Earthbound by Lester del Rey

29:10 Song in a Minor Key by C. L. Moore

35:20 Floor of Heaven by T. D. Hamm

44:50 Forbidden Flight by Chester B. Conant

56:59 Revolt of the Brains by Stephen Marlowe

1:08:00 Say “Hello” For Me by Frank W. Coggins

1:16:05 Test Problem by Alan J. Ramm

1:23:50 Reaching for the Moon by S. A. Lombino

Which of these stories is your favorite? Share your thoughts below!
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Stories of Futures Past presents a set of vintage Science Fiction short stories, narrated by myself, Tom Trussel. An actual, real living human being, warts and all.

Any and all voices and effects are produced live during reading with my actual voice. No obnoxious after effects, synthetic voices or filters used.

English is not my first language, inaccurate accents and the occasional strange pronunciation will happen. No mockery is intended.

These stories are good for English learners / ESL. The full text is right there on the screen in a big and easy to read font. Read along with me. It’s great practice!

Copyright notice:

The written text of this story is in the public domain, as determined by the researchers and transcribers at Project Gutenberg, or it has passed the 95-years-since-publication mark. The story is and should be free for anyone to enjoy. Use of the audio is subject to license.

Boilerplate license wording off the Gutenberg website:

“This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.”

The Graveyard Rats by Henry Kuttner (1936)

Tom Trussel — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 22:01:41 GMT

This is a horror story involving rats at a graveyard (but of course, what do you expect, with a title like The Graveyard Rats?), and is also Kuttner’s first published story.

Masson is the caretaker at Salem’s oldest graveyard, tending the grounds, digging the graves and, above all, keeping quiet about the rat infestation, to make sure there is no investigation into the cemetary so his clandestine extracurricular activities robbing the fresh graves are not discovered. But the rodents of unusual size burrow and gnaw...

Enjoy!

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

1:36 The Graveyard Rats

22:37 About the author

25:44 Project Gutenberg

This story is available to the world as a free ebook for all to enjoy at
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/79279

Please choose a paid subscription on substack to help save more stories: Go to StoriesOfFuturesPast.substack.com/about for info.

About the author:

Henry Kuttner (1915-1958) was a prolific Los Angeles-based author of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror stories. He came into the so-called Lovecraft Circle (a loose literary group of writers, fans, and would be authors who corresponded with H. P. Lovecraft) early in his writing career. There he met his future wife C. L. Moore. Later he would also find himself writing Mythos stories, adding several notable dieties and entities to the pantheon.

He wrote many stories in collaboration with his wife and independently notable Science Fiction author C. L. Moore. Their collaboration was so seamless and involved that they could not say who wrote what in any given story of theirs, literally having completed each other’s sentences and paragraphs.

In the mid-1930’s, Kuttner worked briefly at his uncle’s literary agency where he discovered Leigh Brackett and helped her get her first story published. Indeed, many well known Science Fiction authors cite Kuttner as an important influence, and have dedicated works to him. However, his extensive use of pseudonyms might be one reason he himself did not get more recognition back in the day. These days he seems to be more well known. I assume the internet with its many listings that attribute authorship in spite of pseudonyms might be instrumental in this.

He was a finalist for the Hugo award in 1956 for best novelette, and after receiving the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award in 2004, there has been a slew of nominations and a couple of first places at the Retro Hugo Awards.

In addition to using his own name, he is known to have published under the pseudonyms: E. J. Bellin, Edward J. Bellin, Paul Edmonds, Noel Gardner, Will Garth, Raynor the Great, Walton Grey, James Hall, Keith Hammond, Hudson Hastings, Peter Horn, Kelvin Kent, Robert O. Kenyon, C. H. Liddell, K. H. Maepenn, Scott Morgan, Lawrence O’Donnell, Lewis Padgett, Woodrow Wilson Smith, Charles Stoddard, Robert Wallace, and Bertram W. Williams.

He died of a heart attack at the young age of 42.

The Graveyard Rats is his first published story. We can detect a certain Lovecraftian influence, especially in the setting of Salem.

This narration was recorded in 2026.

English is not my first language, inaccurate accents and the occasional strange pronunciation will happen. No mockery is intended.
These stories are good for English learners / ESL. The full text is right there on the screen in a big and easy to read font. Read along with me. It’s great practice!

Copyright notice:
The written text of this story is in the public domain, as determined by my research. The story is and should be free for anyone to enjoy. Use of the audio is subject to license.

Revenge by Arthur Porges (1961)

Tom Trussel — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 22:01:56 GMT

The professor of biochemistry has made it his mission to end the scourge of narcotics, going to the root of the matter so to speak.

Note that this story was written in the early 1960s, and the comments he makes on how poorly the government understands, and the methods of dealing with, the problems of drug addiction are scarily relevant to this day!

So is this story the soliloquy of a warm-hearted scientific genius philantropist who is unsuccessful in gaining the authorities’ ear, or is it the ranting monologue of a mad scientist villain derided by officials and the public both? You decide!

Whatever the case might be, this story does have the distinct flavour of a certain German medieval folk tale regarding a piper of the pied variety.

Enjoy!

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

1:47 Revenge

26:11 About the author

27:35 Project Gutenberg

This story is available as a free ebook download at
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/27756

Please choose a paid subscription on substack to help save more stories: Go to StoriesOfFuturesPast.substack.com/about for info.

About the author:

Arthur Porges (1915-2006), born in Chicago from Russian immigrant stock, was a college maths professor who went full time as an author in 1957. He published two hundred and twenty short stories across several genres, mainly mystery, science fiction and fantasy. He also wrote a large number of articles, poems and other things. No novels, though.

His perhaps most famous short story, The Ruum (1963), has often been found on the English curriculum for Middle school and above close reading and comprehension training.

He did not receive any awards for his writing, but was mentioned positively many times in the letter columns of the pulps he published in back in the day.

In addition to using his own name, he is known to have published under the pseudonyms Peter Arthur, Pat Rogers, Maxwell Trent, Abel Jacobi, and Derek Page.

-

This narration was recorded in 2026.

English is not my first language, inaccurate accents and the occasional strange pronunciation will happen. No mockery is intended.
These stories are good for English learners / ESL. The full text is right there on the screen in a big and easy to read font. Read along with me. It’s great practice!

Copyright notice:
The written text of this story is in the public domain, as determined by my research. The story is and should be free for anyone to enjoy. Use of the audio is subject to license.

Ganymede House by Donald A. Wollheim (1953)

Tom Trussel — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 22:02:52 GMT

A short-short story where a man whiles away thirty minutes by visiting one of the new swanky expo-shops-cum-museums that just opened in New York. After earlier having visited Sweden House and France House, it is time for Ganymede House. Nothing special about that, it’s just another country showing off it’s products and native crafts. Geography never was…

5 Stories featuring The Post Apocalypse #2. vintage science fiction

Tom Trussel — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 22:01:29 GMT

The second collection of five vintage Science Fiction short stories featuring The Post Apocalypse, aka after the end of the-world-as-we-know-it, or, in most cases, after the Great Reset Button was pushed and the bombs fell all around. Not all postapocalyptic stories are set in Mad Max or Fallout-like wastelands, though.

Each story with its own take.

The stories presented here are:

0:00 Introduction

0:53 The Sons of Japheth by Richard Wilson

17:00 A Long Way Back by Ben Bova

1:02:31 Homecoming by Miguel Hidalgo

1:24:43 The Valley of the Masters by Charles Minor Blackford

2:14:48 Small World by William F. Nolan

Selected and read by myself, Tom Trussel.

Which of these stories is your favorite? Share your thoughts below!

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English is not my first language, inaccurate accents and the occasional strange pronunciation will happen. No mockery is intended.
These stories are good for English learners / ESL. The full text is right there on the screen in a big and easy to read font. Read along with me. It’s great practice!

Copyright notice:
The written text of these stories are in the public domain, as determined by the researchers and transcribers at Project Gutenberg, or they have passed the 95-years-since-publication mark. The stories are and should be free for anyone to enjoy. Use of the audio is subject to license.

Witness by George H. Smith (1955)

Tom Trussel — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 22:01:45 GMT

This short story is about the first sentient computer, or AI if you will, and how humans react to it.

Ballard the hated boss of the secret computer lab is very dead. Lying on the floor showing blunt force trauma to the head. Murder! Only, this is in the inner sanctum, highest security in the building, locks, guards and all. Which means it has to be an inside job.

Everyone there has some sort of motive, Ballard was a piece of work. But there are no witnesses...apart from Edith the supercomputer that is in this room. But a computer cannot be a witness, can it?

Enjoy!

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

1:42 Witness

19:29 About the author

21:52 Project Gutenberg

This story is available to the world as a free ebook for all to enjoy:

https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/59242

Choose a paid subscription on substack help save more stories: Go to StoriesOfFuturesPast.substack.com/about

About the author:

George Henry Smith (1922-1996) was an American author who wrote a large amount of science fiction and also quite a bit of sleaze/ softcore erotica, many with fantastical elements, under a whole slew of pseudonyms. Here are a few of them:

M J Deer (with his wife, Jane Deer Smith); Jeremy August, Jerry August, Don Bellmore, Ross Camra, George Devlin, Robert Hadley, Jerry Jason, Clancy O’Brien, Alan Robinson, Jan Smith, G. H. Smith, George Hudson Smith, Holt Standish, Diana Summers, Hal Stryker, Hank Stryker, Morgan Trehune, Roy Warren, and he is also known to have published under shared house pseudonyms such as J. X.Williams, Jan Hudson and John Dexter. He is believed to have published more than a hundred novels, in addition to a long list of shorter stories. A I have not been able to locate a complete bibliography, just ones with a few from a certain genre here and there. I expect there is no such bibliography in existence.

To really muddle the waters, add the fact that there were at least three active authors at the time with the name George H. Smith, and some books have been (and probably still are) attributed in error to one or the other. I can tell you as much as that the google search engine AI does not know to differentiate between the authors, and serves up a right bird’s nest of conflicting bollocks when I search. In addition there is also his fellow Science Fiction author George O. Smith active in the same era. The confusion is real.

This narration was recorded in 2026.

English is not my first language, inaccurate accents and the occasional strange pronunciation will happen. No mockery is intended.
These stories are good for English learners / ESL. The full text is right there on the screen in a big and easy to read font. Read along with me. It’s great practice!

Copyright notice:
The written text of this story is in the public domain, as determined by my research. The story is and should be free for anyone to enjoy. Use of the audio is subject to license.

Underestimation by Algis Budrys & Jerome Bixby (1953)

Tom Trussel — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 22:57:55 GMT

“Listen, Marilyn, you don’t seem to understand what you’ve gotten into.”

“Look, Handsome, I don’t care what I’ve gotten into. What counts is what I’m out of, and that I’m getting farther away from Earth every minute.”

Marilyn, the sassy stowaway presents herself after take off, the ship is headed to Mars on a course that cannot be changed. Gerris the pil…

The Invisible Enemy by Jerry Sohl (1955)

Tom Trussel — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 22:01:49 GMT

The Earth military starship Nesbitt arrives at the fourth planet of the Hyades star system, where they are to investigate the disappearance of some exploration ships. Aboard is a civilian computer operator handling the newfangled computer, which the military Commander Warrick will have no truck with. Fifty men strong, the expedition soon locates one of …

5 Stories featuring The Final Frontier #1. vintage science fiction

Tom Trussel — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 22:01:42 GMT

The first collection of five vintage Science Fiction short stories featuring The Final Frontier (you know... Space!) only that, to quote Terry Pratchett from the novel Moving Pictures:

“This is space. It’s sometimes called the final frontier.
(Except that of course you can’t have a final frontier, because there’d be nothing for it to be a frontier to, but as frontiers go, it’s pretty penultimate . . .)”

Each story with its own take.

The stories presented here are:

0:00 Introduction

1:02 No Star’s Land by William Morrison

41:11 Mind Worms by Moses Schere

1:14:46 The Beasts in the Void by Paul W. Fairman

2:06:26 The Planet of Illusion by Donald A. Wollheim

2:21:57 Cogito, Ergo Sum by John Foster West

Selected and read by myself, Tom Trussel.

Which of these stories is your favorite? Share your thoughts below!

English is not my first language, inaccurate accents and the occasional strange pronunciation will happen. No mockery is intended.
These stories are good for English learners / ESL. The full text is right there on the screen in a big and easy to read font. Read along with me. It’s great practice!

Copyright notice:
The written text of these stories are in the public domain, as determined by the researchers and transcribers at Project Gutenberg, or they have passed the 95-years-since-publication mark. The stories are and should be free for anyone to enjoy. Use of the audio is subject to license.

Squee by Margaret St. Clair (1958)

Tom Trussel — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 22:02:25 GMT

One might think a story entitled “Squee” would be light and fluffy, a whimsical fantasy of some sort. One would be wrong. Very wrong. This one is rather dark, as Last-Men-on-Earth stories go. It also goes into some detail about cytology, gametes and zygotes when it comes to fertilization.

We join the irritable crew of the cramped space ship carrying a re…

Blunder Enlightening by Dave Dryfoos (1952)

Tom Trussel — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 22:01:38 GMT

In this story, Sam and Sally Sarno, a young couple from Earth are marooned for six months on the planet Altair 3. Their mission is to make an anthropological study of the local aliens’ culture before the announcement of the planet’s discovery back home leads to an “influx of traders who’ll bring in new products and methods, missionaries who’ll bring new ideas”.

Because this sort of behaviour is, of course, inevitable in the 1950s way of doing things.

Anyway, the Sarnos have been well trained and prepared, and the mission should be easy-peasy...

Only, the native aliens won’t engage with the humans. Won’t even acknowledge their presence. The humans know little about the local flora or fauna, or even if any of it is poisonous or edible. And Sally is pregnant and becoming anxious and irrational. Sam is staring failure in the eye...

Enjoy!

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

2:07 Blunder Enlightening

59:07 About the author

1:00:48 Stories of Futures Past

This story was extensively researched and transcribed by your humble narrator, and is now available to the world as a free ebook for all to enjoy:

Blunder Enlightening at gutenberg.org

Choose a paid subscription on substack help save more stories: Go to StoriesOfFuturesPast.substack.com/about
-

About the author:

Dave Dryfoos (1915-2003) was a California-born attorney, who passed the bar in 1936. He started writing stories after WWII, where he served in the US Army in the Pacific theatre. He earned the Pacific Campaign ribbon with three stars, among other decorations, and mustered out in 1946 with the rank of staff sergeant. In the years between 1950 and 1955 he published 24 short stories and a single poem, 22 of these were Science Fiction stories. After this he apparently just stopped writing. At least he stopped publishing anything that we know of as his work. Science Fiction stories at the time did not pay well at all, so I assume he chose to pursue his career and family. He and his wife since 1942 had three children in all. He retired in 1980 as an assistant hospital administrator, which hints at what he did after he stopped writing.

It is a great pity that he did, though. Stop writing that is. He has some great stories, several of which are to be found as narrations in the back library videos section on here.

This narration was recorded in 2026.

English is not my first language, inaccurate accents and the occasional strange pronunciation will happen. No mockery is intended.
These stories are good for English learners / ESL. The full text is right there on the screen in a big and easy to read font. Read along with me. It’s great practice!

Copyright notice:
The written text of this story is in the public domain, as determined by my research. The story is and should be free for anyone to enjoy. Use of the audio is subject to license.

Terror Station by Dwight V. Swain (1955)

Tom Trussel — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 22:01:40 GMT

The trouble was, so many things seemed to have changed here in the brief span of his fortnight’s absence.

The attitudes and atmosphere, for instance. And the people.

This most excellent novella is a fast-paced action-adventure story with constantly escalating tension. It is also a showcase of how 1950’s cold war paranoia could be expressed through science fiction. The story features alien plots, mind-control machines, tentacled alien monsters, robot fighting craft, and the obligatory desirable blonde, all at an isolated research base guarded by the military out in the desert.

Our hero, aptly named Stone, is the head of civilian security at the base, coming back from a two week trip to Washington. He happens upon a woman being attacked by something monstrous in the night and intervenes...

...and we’re off to the races, so to speak.

Enjoy!

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

1:58 Terror Station

3:15:24 About the author

3:16:59 Stories of Futures Past

This story was extensively researched and transcribed by your humble narrator, and is now available to the world as a free ebook for all to enjoy:
Terror Station at gutenberg.org

Choose a paid subscription on substack help save more stories: Go to StoriesOfFuturesPast.substack.com/about

About the author:

Dwight Vreeland Swain (1915-1992) was, amongst other things, a screenwriter, author, novelist, and educator.

His first published story was in 1935, and he had a large output of short stories and novellas across several genres including Detective and Western in the 1940s and 1950s, and the occational novel. During his tenure at the University of Oklahoma, he pioneered the use of dramatic techniques when scripting documentaries and educational films. He also published several books on different aspects of writing. He certainly knew how to keep up the tension and the action rolling in a story, as evidenced by this one.

He is attributed with the first print appearance of the phrase “sword and sorcery” to describe a certain type of fantasy story, in the title of a review he wrote in 1953.

He was named Grand Master by the Oklahoma Professional Writers’ Hall of Fame in 1991.

This narration was recorded in 2026.

English is not my first language, inaccurate accents and the occasional strange pronunciation will happen. No mockery is intended.
These stories are good for English learners / ESL. The full text is right there on the screen in a big and easy to read font. Read along with me. It’s great practice!

Copyright notice:
The written text of this story is in the public domain, as determined by my research. The story is and should be free for anyone to enjoy. Use of the audio is subject to license.