I thought some loyal listeners to the Escape Pod trio might be interested in this college radio show from the late 1970s. It was done on WHA from the University of Madison, WI and features Michael Hansen (usually, but not always) doing readings of "speculative fiction" by which is mostly meant sci-fi but also includes some Fantasy (Ursula Le Guin) and even occasional horror (Robert Bloch and Richard Matheson, for example). There are a number of precursors in radio to the approach adopted here (not radio drama, but dramatic readings) but this is a stellar example and I'm sorry that my general disinterest in sci-fi kept me from listening to this show sooner.
I thought podcast fans might be interested to hear what is essentially a 30-odd year old forerunner of Escape Artists' and like shows. The stories range from the 1940s to the 1970s, are usually 30 minutes long (sometimes, two "flash" length pieces are read) and display a wide and interesting range of subgenres, Hansen is a good reader and his production crew do some nice work with music beds and co-reader/performers.
http://www.archive.org/details/Mindweb_53The file to download is the zipped 909.4 mb file - the sound quality is generally good but I've noticed that the low sampling rate sometimes causes an I-Pod to kick out of playback unexpectedly. There's so many authors and story types found here that it might be better to pick some favorites authors or famous ones, but I'd definitely listen to a good handful to see the variety present. A pretty thorough guide to the authors/stories can be found here:
http://www.hardsf.org/HSF0Mind.htmEnjoy!
