|
 No,
he isn't telling stories from the Beyond. But you can still have
the extraordinary experience of hearing him. This is the only recording
of his voice that we know of.
The 2-CD set
is made from old tapes where Cordwainer Smith was preparing "On
the Sand Planet" for a typist. At first, he just sounds like
he's dictating, but even so many fans have enjoyed hearing his voice.
But then, very soon, the natural storytelling flair that I remember
so well from my childhood takes over.
"I find
your father's voice very interesting — and not at all what
I expected (I had guessed it might have been a little higher pitched),
although I think I had anticipated the lilt about right (from the
way he shaped his sentences)." — John Foyster, Australia
As Cordwainer
Smith tells the story of Casher O'Neill's return to Mizzer, the
sand planet of his childhood, and of the meeting with its ruler
Wedder, the drama increases.
Casher O'Neill
had long dreamed of revenge against the despot Wedder, but Casher's
hard-earned skills lead to a surprising encounter with Wedder and
ultimately to an exploration of many paradises. The tale is an hour
and 45 minutes in the telling.
I love how
the power of kindness comes out in this story. On a personal note,
when Casher meets his mother for the first time in many years,
the tones in my father's voice as he reads remind me of how he
spoke to his own mother.
Even if you
know the story already, it's fascinating to hear the cadences of
Smith's voice, to experience the intimacy of listening to him reading
in his home near the end of his life.
"I was
strangely moved by the sound of your dad's voice. It has such a
handsome, resonant timber. I don't know what I expected, but I didn't
expect such a movie star's voice. And the elan with which he dictated!
Marvelous, what a treasure you found! "
— Ralph Benko, Washington, D.C.
This program
is only available from us. Its price is $24.95, and it comes with
a full 90-day money-back guarantee. And despite the sound quality
(described more fully below), people tell us they greatly enjoy
it.
"The
CD is as advertised: Sometimes difficult to hear distinctly (specially
for someone for whom English isn't an everyday language) but,
overall, a surprisingly vibrant reading of the work." —
a fan from South America
How the CDs
were made
When my husband
and I moved into our new house, my old files sat in boxes on my
office floor for months. When I finally organized them, I found
a couple of old cassette tapes labeled CS dictating 'On the Sand
Planet.'(1965). With considerable curiosity, I popped a tape
into my player.
It sounded
terrible, with a lot of background noise. But it was all there,
though in a slightly different form than in The Rediscovery of
Man. The tapes had been made as dictation for a typist, and
at first, my father was saying "comma" or "new paragraph" constantly,
but as the story went along, his natural dramatic flair took over.
A local sound
engineer, Grant Freeman, assured me he could improve the sound,
and so I went over with the tapes. He put them on his system and
started pushing buttons... and my father's voice came out clearly!
Grant thought
he could improve things even more, so I left the tapes with him.
A few days later, I ran into him at a party. "I'm taking out that
punctuation," he said, "and it's really cleaning up nicely."
When I listened
to his final results, I was amazed.
First, I burst
into tears at hearing my father's voice.
Then I listened
to the story, all the way through. Every now and then I missed some
words, but you can follow the story just fine.
So I decided
to offer it for sale. It runs an hour and 45 minutes, and we've
produced it as a two-CD set. It's far from the quality of something
made today — with a strong background hum still present, I
don't know if it would be legible in a car CD player, where the
sounds of traffic and the car's engine might be too much for it.
But if you are listening in a reasonably quiet environment, the
rhythm of the story catches you up.
And if
you would like to hear Cordwainer Smith reading one of his own stories,
now you can!
|
